Category Archives: Uncategorized

History Won’t Win The War Against Terrorists

Posted on by

President Obama sounded presidential Sunday night in his Oval Office address. [Credit: CNN]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma sound­ed pres­i­den­tial Sun­day night in his Oval Office address.   [Cred­it: CNN]

“We have a pat­tern now of mass shoot­ings in this coun­try that has no par­al­lel any­where else in the world.  And there are some steps we could take … to improve the odds that they don’t hap­pen as fre­quent­ly: com­mon-sense gun safe­ty laws, stronger back­ground checks.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Decem­ber 2, hours after the San Bernardi­no shootings

“It is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of rad­i­cal­iza­tion, embrac­ing a per­vert­ed inter­pre­ta­tion of Islam that calls for war against Amer­i­ca and the West. They had stock­piled assault weapons, ammu­ni­tion, and pipe bombs. So this was an act of ter­ror­ism.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Decem­ber 6, on the San Bernardi­no shootings.

Some­times the coun­try needs a Pres­i­dent, not a par­ti­san. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Congress Should Block Insurer Bailout

Posted on by

This could be a very mer­ry Christ­mas for Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BCBS) of Texas.  The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion wants to stuff its stock­ing with $257,172,917.34 – at your expense – to com­pen­sate the com­pa­ny for los­ing scads of mon­ey last year sell­ing Oba­macare poli­cies in the Lone Star State.

That would bring that sin­gle company’s total cor­po­rate wel­fare haul for the 2014 plan year to $843.3 million.

That is, unless Con­gress decides this week to play the Grinch that stole the cor­po­rate wel­fare Christ­mas.  Read more on RealClearHealth.

No, Zeke, You’re Not Paying For My Medicine

Posted on by

Zeke Emanuel is tired of paying for your medicine. [Credit: Maryland Public Radio]

Zeke Emanuel is tired of pay­ing for your med­i­cine. [Cred­it: Mary­land Pub­lic Radio]

Zeke Emanuel is tired of pay­ing for your expen­sive medicine.

Dr. Emanuel, who served in a senior posi­tion at the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get where he con­tributed to the recur­ring night­mare known as Oba­macare, recent­ly com­plained in the New York Times [“I Am Pay­ing For Your Expen­sive Med­i­cine”] that his insur­ance rates are high because the med­i­cines you’re tak­ing cost too much. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Approaching Obamacare With Humility

Posted on by

Washington can’t get out of its own way on health care.  Give states a chance.

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma spoke fre­quent­ly of humil­i­ty dur­ing last week’s prayer break­fast. Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans could use a healthy mea­sure of that virtue should the Supreme Court rule that Oba­maCare sub­si­dies are not avail­able in the 37 states with fed­er­al­ly facil­i­tat­ed exchanges.  Read more.

 

Obama’s Misguided “Middle Class Economics”

Posted on by

The U.S. is sec­ond among devel­oped coun­tries in social spend­ing. But you would­n’t know that from read­ing the bud­get the pres­i­dent sub­mit­ted on Monday.

His bud­get assumes that social spend­ing is too low and that “mid­dle-class eco­nom­ics” requires gov­ern­ment to spend, tax, reg­u­late and bor­row more, plung­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment more deeply into debt.  Read more.

Putin And Islamists Aren’t Living In Another World

Posted on by

Weeks after Rus­sia seized Crimea, Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin con­tin­ued to insist that Rus­sia had­n’t seized Crimea.

Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel, with whom Putin had enjoyed a rea­son­ably good rela­tion­ship, final­ly despaired of con­vinc­ing him to back down.  “He’s in anoth­er world,” Merkel report­ed­ly told Pres­i­dent Obama.

Merkel was wrong. Putin is very much in this world and doing quite well. So are rad­i­cal Islamists, as they remind­ed us again with the Char­lie Heb­do atroc­i­ties. It is West­ern lead­ers who seem to be liv­ing in anoth­er world.  Read more.

The President, His Critics And the Politics of Impatience

Posted on by

What do these two men have in common? More than you might think. [Credit: Politico]

What do these two men have in com­mon? More than you might think. [Cred­it: Politico]

“But what I’m not going to do is just wait.  I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience…But what we can’t do is just keep on wait­ing.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Novem­ber 5, 2014

The Con­sti­tu­tion offers no rem­e­dy for pres­i­den­tial impa­tience. Pres­i­dents, Mem­bers of Con­gress and judges are some­times con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required to “just keep on wait­ing.”  And that is some­thing office­hold­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties seem increas­ing­ly unwill­ing to do.  When it comes to cir­cum­vent­ing the rules to achieve the polit­i­cal objec­tives of the moment, the Pres­i­dent and some of his most stri­dent con­ser­v­a­tive foes are soulmates.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Time For A Course Correction In Ukraine

Posted on by

The ser­i­al provo­ca­tions and diplo­mat­ic blun­ders that have has­tened Ukraine’s slide into chaos and mis­ery took a still more trag­ic turn last week when a com­mer­cial air­lin­er car­ry­ing 298 pas­sen­gers and crew was downed over east­ern Ukraine.

The car­nage should serve as a chill­ing mes­sage to Rus­sia and its West­ern antag­o­nists that the time has come to change course.  If so, the inci­dent could mark the point at which Ukraine’s bleed­ing stops and its heal­ing begins.  Read more.

Bubble? What Bubble?

Posted on by

Mat­teo Ren­zi is the 39-year-old John Edwards look-alike who serves as Italy’s third con­sec­u­tive unelect­ed prime min­is­ter. He pre­sides over a frac­tious gov­ern­ment whose cred­it rat­ing is, well, sub­prime. Read more.