Antonin Scalia, R.I.P.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday, practiced a constitutional conservatism that is out-of-step with today's Right. [Credit: lifenews.com]

Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, who died on Sat­ur­day, prac­ticed a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­vatism that is out-of-step with today’s Right. [Cred­it: lifenews.com]

The arc of con­ser­vatism’s decline was traced in the course of a few hours last Sat­ur­day. That after­noon we learned of the pass­ing of a gen­uine con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive, Antonin Scalia. Hours lat­er, we endured anoth­er GOP debate dur­ing which pro­fessed con­ser­v­a­tives trad­ed barbs and insults, now con­sid­ered a suit­able sub­sti­tute for char­ac­ter and sub­stance by a large swath of Repub­li­can vot­ers. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Cruz Missiles

Ted Cruz, like every other presidential hopeful, vows to destroy the Islamic State. Should we believe him? [Credit: ABC News]

Ted Cruz, like every oth­er pres­i­den­tial hope­ful, vows to destroy the Islam­ic State. Should we believe him? [Cred­it: ABC News]

Ted Cruz says we don’t have a dog in the Syr­i­an civ­il war.  He nev­er­the­less wants to car­pet bomb the civ­il war’s lead­ing bel­liger­ent, the Islam­ic State (IS).  Which just might kill some dogs. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

GOP Debate: Bring Back The CNBC Moderators

GOP Presidential contenders struggled with substantive questions during last week's debate. [Credit: ibtimes.com

GOP Pres­i­den­tial con­tenders fum­bled sub­stan­tive ques­tions dur­ing last week’s debate. [Cred­it: ibtimes.com]

Don­ald Trump wants a piece of the Key­stone Pipeline.

The issue didn’t come up dur­ing last week’s GOP debate, so Trump didn’t have the chance to elab­o­rate on his dec­la­ra­tion that he would have approved the project only if the Cana­di­an com­pa­ny forked over 25 per­cent of its profits.

“I want a piece of the deal,” Trump told Bret Baier of Fox News.  “When I say I want a piece, I’m now rep­re­sent­ing our coun­try the way I would rep­re­sent myself.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Republicans Should Join Democrats in Impeding Obamacare Implementation

Media reports indicate that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are nearing an agreement on temporarily funding the government and increasing its borrowing authority.  [Credit: Huffington Post]

Media reports indi­cate that Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid (D‑NV) and Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑KY) are near­ing an agree­ment on tem­porar­i­ly fund­ing the gov­ern­ment and increas­ing its bor­row­ing author­i­ty. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Octo­ber 14, 2013, 7:15 am

Sen­ate lead­ers are report­ed­ly clos­ing in on a deal that would both fund the gov­ern­ment and restore its bor­row­ing author­i­ty for a few months. The deal report­ed­ly con­tains two changes to the health care law, one pro­posed by Repub­li­cans, the oth­er by Democ­rats. The pro­vi­sion backed by Repub­li­cans is polit­i­cal­ly mis­guid­ed, unwork­able and would do lit­tle to impede the law’s imple­men­ta­tion; the pro­vi­sion backed by Democ­rats, by con­trast, appears to com­pli­cate imple­men­ta­tion of a law whose launch has so far not gone smooth­ly. Repub­li­cans who oppose Oba­macare should join Democ­rats in seek­ing changes that would dam­age its imple­men­ta­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →