National Review Podcasts - Read by OutloudOpinion

An Announcement From OutloudOpinion 8.10.12

Joel Beckett — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 10:40:48 -0400

An Announcement From OutloudOpinion

The President’s Internet Blunder The Net began as a national-security project. 7.18.12

Nick Schulz — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:50:49 -0400

Advocates of increasing taxes and government spending frequently point to the existence of the Internet to make their case. “The Internet didn’t get invented on its own,” President Obama said in a recent speech arguing that entrepreneurs aren’t entitled to all the riches they generate. After all, “government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.” The implication is that government deserves a bigger slice of the wealth created in the private sector because that wealth was impossible without the initial taxing and spending — and because future taxing and spending will facilitate even more wealth. This argument is not just wrong but revealing in several interesting ways. The real history of the creation of the Internet is far more complicated than the president seems to appreciate — and, as Andrew Morriss points out, that history suggests “today’s Net occurred as much despite government funding as because of it.” Nonetheless, let’s stipulate that it’s true that “government research created the Internet.” It’s not true that it created the Internet “so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Gay-Parenting Witch Hunt An activist files a frivolous ethics complaint. 7.18.12

Robert Verbruggen — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 10:48:36 -0400

As social science, Mark Regnerus’s study of gay parenting is debatable. As Charles C. W. Cooke detailed here at NRO, Regnerus wasn’t able to find many stable homes run by gay parents — a fact that conservatives might attribute to the nature of gay relationships and liberals might attribute to the lack of legal recognition for gay marriage and the stigma against gay adoption. Undeterred, Regnerus simply lumped together all homes in which at least one parent had had a “romantic relationship” with a same-sex partner at some point and compared them with stable homes run by straight biological parents. Unsurprisingly, the children from the stable homes run by heterosexuals did better on a number of measures. But there’s lots of bad science out there, especially regarding this topic. As researcher Douglas W. Allen has explained, the social-science “consensus” that there’s no difference between gay and straight parenting stands atop a house of cards: Left-leaning scientists often employ tricks to skew their results, such as using self-selected samples of wealthy, highly educated lesbian parents. And as Ramesh Ponnuru has pointed out, Regnerus’s study broke new ground in several ways, especially by relying on a large, random sample of families that vary in their parenting configurations and outcomes. Even some commentators and scholars who support gay marriage, such as Slate’s William Saletan and Penn State sociologist Paul Amato, have praised elements of Regnerus’s work. And in the study, Regnerus doesn’t actually claim to have proven that gay parents, in and of themselves, cause bad outcomes. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

DISCLOSE Is a SHAM: A proposed campaign-finance law attempts to scare and regulate opponents into silence. 7.13.12

Bradley Smith — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:55:23 -0400

It’s an election year, and incumbents are nervous. And so, in a classic sign of political weakness, Senate Democrats have scheduled a vote on legislation that would manipulate campaign-finance laws to silence their opponents. Their weapon is the “DISCLOSE Act,” a gimmicky acronym for “Democracy Is Served by Casting Light on Spending in Elections.” Democrats in Congress have been trying to pass various versions of the bill since the winter of 2010, when Republican Scott Brown’s stunning victory in the special election to succeed the late Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts revealed the unpopularity of Obamacare and the Democratic agenda. Despite claims that the bill would merely inform the public about campaign spending, DISCLOSE originally would have prohibited large amounts of speech, and not just about candidates. Senate Democrats failed to break a Republican filibuster on this first version by one vote in 2010, and their majority has shrunk since then. But they haven’t given up, and while they haven’t passed a budget in over three years, they have scheduled a cloture vote (i.e., the vote needed to break a filibuster) on a new version of DISCLOSE for Monday. In an implicit admission of the true scope of the original DISCLOSE bill, we are assured that the new bill has been stripped of all the 2010 bill’s provisions that had nothing to do with disclosure. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Case Against Condi 7.13.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 11:54:19 -0400

I doubt Romney is seriously considering Rice, because it seems so obvious that she would be a disastrous pick. Just in case there are people who do not see this, let me run through some of the reasons. 1) Her selection would seriously offend many social conservatives — possibly enough to depress their turnout. In general, I think claims that conservatives will stay home in this election are overblown: Opposition to President Obama is running pretty hot. A vice-presidential nominee who is “mildly” in favor of letting a million unborn children be killed every year, though, would be one of the few things that would make this scenario plausible. Keep in mind, she would be the first pro-choicer on a Republican ticket since Roe v. Wade — unless she flipped and made herself look like a political hack just as the country was being introduced to her as a candidate. 2) Related: Her selection would require Romney to go back on his word. During the primaries, he committed to picking a pro-life vice president. (See the South Carolina forum held on September 5, 2011.) 3) Further related: Her selection would reinforce doubts conservatives already have about him. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Positive Steps, Silver Linings 7.12.12

Jonathan Adler — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:47:29 -0400

The Supreme Court’s ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius was disheartening, especially after overturning the mandate seemed within reach. But despair is unwarranted. The negative consequences of the ruling for constitutional law are actually quite limited, and there is much in it upon which to build. The constitutional battle was largely a defensive one. The primary challenge to the individual mandate was an effort to prevent further expansion of Congress’s already-inflated authority under the Commerce Clause. From the New Deal to 1995, Congress exercised its commerce power without meaningful restraint. Only during the later years of the Rehnquist Court did the justices finally say “Enough,” in United States v. Lopez (1995) and Morrison v. United States (2000). Yet even these decisions did not prevent the Court from upholding the federal government’s authority to prohibit simple possession of medical marijuana apart from commercial activity, in Gonzales v. Raich (2005). With the individual mandate, Congress tried to stretch beyond its well-established authority to regulate “commerce,” or even commercial “activity,” and control an individual’s decision to abstain from commerce or commercial activity. Prior Commerce Clause cases had hinged on whether Congress had the authority to regulate a given “class of activity,” such as growing wheat (yes) or possessing a gun near a school (no). But regulating inactivity was something Congress had never done before. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

How to Talk to Iran The president should reach out to the Iranian people — not their oppressors. 7.12.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:46:36 -0400

President Obama has long wanted to engage Iran. In his inaugural address, he said he was willing to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” Over and over, Iran’s rulers have demonstrated that they are not willing. He should reach out again — but this time to the Iranian people, not those who oppress them. Iran’s economy is crumbling. The energy-rich nation today produces only half as much oil as it did before the 1979 revolution. Mismanagement is the main reason. But because of American and European sanctions, exports of the oil the regime does manage to produce — Iran’s only significant product — are down by 40 percent compared with a year ago. That’s costing the regime an estimated $4.5 billion per month. On July 1, a European oil embargo went into effect. Tens of millions of barrels of unsold Iranian oil are already being stored in tankers offshore. When Iran’s rulers run out of storage space, they will face a choice: discount their oil even more steeply in an attempt to sell to anyone still willing to buy from them, or cut production further. Iran’s currency, the rial, is now worth about half what it was before sanctions were imposed. Consumer prices have risen by an estimated 40 percent. Unemployment is rising, too, especially among the young. The American president needs to explain to ordinary Iranians why this is happening to them, why it will get worse, and who is to blame. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The 2012 Contest Obama lacks accomplishments; Romney lacks convictions. 7.12.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:45:46 -0400

As we plod into the final two months before the presidential election campaign officially begins (although they in fact begin about two years before the election that precedes the one for which the campaign is intended), there is still time to review what the purpose and principal issues are, before the fog of myth-making, sound-back-biting, wedge issues from imaginary wars on women to the ethics of private equity, and more traditional polemical and fabulist nostrums reduce the electorate to prostrations of boredom and insensibility. This is, in straight sociological terms, an interesting, and even perhaps unprecedented election, as it is not clear what either party or candidate is advocating, apart from the avoidance of the purgatorial misery his opponent would inflict on the nation. President Obama cannot run on his record and makes no effort to do so. The economic recovery that was coming and coming and coming, is allegedly still coming, but isn’t here. That is the same recovery that he could not produce overnight, and now cannot produce because of the shambles in Europe, which falls on America because Europe is “our greatest trading partner.” This is more diaphanous rubbish than most such apologia: Foreign trade takes less than 15 percent of American production; Europe, even when taken as a whole, is only the fifth trading partner (after Canada, China, Mexico, and Japan); Europe generally is not in worse condition than the U.S. (Germany especially is functioning much better); and concerns about the 17-nation euro have largely driven the investment of $900 billion by Europeans in the United States since 2008, almost twice the previous traditional rate. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama: Tax ‘the Rich’: His new taxes would harm the middle class without touching the national debt. 7.11.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:09:18 -0400

Here’s a big surprise: President Obama wants to raise taxes on “the wealthy.” By some counts, this represents the 25th time the president has rolled out this proposal — something to keep in mind the next time he warns against “refighting the battles of the past” over something like repealing Obamacare. Regardless, repetition hasn’t done anything to improve either the policy or the president’s truthfulness in describing it. First, the president’s definition of wealthy is a little shaky. It turns out that the “millionaires” he refers to in his speeches are actually individuals earning $200,000 per year and couples earning $250,000 — about 2.5 million Americans. While $250,000 is a lot of money in many areas of the country, in high-cost regions such as New York City that earning category would include a teacher with 22 years of service married to a police captain. The president’s definition of “rich” would also include some 750,000 independent and small businesses that do not pay income taxes as businesses; instead, their taxes are paid through the owners’ individual tax returns. We are not exactly talking Warren Buffett here Moreover, many Americans earning less than $200,000 are likely to suffer collateral damage from this tax increase. For example, the president’s proposed tax hike on capital gains is likely to reduce the value of 401(k) funds that millions of middle-income Americans rely on for retirement. And the business taxes will drive up the prices of goods and services, not to mention costing jobs. Given current unemployment rates, it seems especially hard to think of any reason why raising taxes on small businesses would be a good policy. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Egypt’s Real Ruler: Tantawi, not President Morsi, is effective head of all three branches of government. 7.11.12

Daniel Pipes — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:08:00 -0400

What does it mean that Mohamed Morsi is now the president of Egypt? Speaking for the American consensus, Bret Stephens argued in the Wall Street Journal against the consolation that the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory “is merely symbolic, since the army still has the guns,” and went on to conclude that “Egypt is lost.” We shall argue to the contrary: Not only was the election symbolic, but it was also illusory, in that the military leadership scripted it. Morsi is not the most powerful politician in Egypt or the commander-in-chief. Arguably, he does not even run the Muslim Brotherhood. His job is undefined. A military coup could brush him aside. For the first time since 1956, Egypt’s president is a secondary figure, fulfilling the secondary, functionary role long familiar to its prime ministers. A picture of Morsi and Tantawi reveals the terms of their relationship: Not only is Tantawi sitting on the left side, where prior Egyptian presidents (Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak) ritualistically sat when hosting a visitor, but their meeting took place in the Ministry of Defense, not in the presidential palace, which protocol would normally require. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obamatax’s ‘HIT’ on Small Businesses and Families: Higher taxes on insurance companies mean higher premiums for all. 7.10.12

Richard Burr — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 10:58:02 -0400

President Clinton recently created quite a stir when he suggested Congress should act to prevent massive tax hikes that will automatically occur at the end of the year. Even President Obama once admitted that “you don’t raise taxes in a recession.” Unfortunately, the tax policies in the president’s signature health-care law ignore this advice. The Supreme Court’s decision last week does not change the fact that the scandalous new tax on life-saving medical devices (of all of the new taxes tucked into the law) had received the most prominent attention prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, most notably when the House recently voted to repeal it. As we continue to review last week’s sweeping decision and its consequences for the American people, it is worth taking stock of Obamacare, perhaps now better named “Obamatax,” starting with a less-well-known $87 billion tax buried in the law that could force families to pay an extra $500 a year in premiums. The tax is described in the law as an “annual fee” levied on insurance companies. Actually, the fee is really just a tax by another name — the health-insurance tax, or HIT, in this case. Tax economists — inside and outside government — agree that the bulk of new fees and taxes are simply passed by businesses on to their customers, which, as we’ll see, in this case are small employers and families. Unless this tax is repealed, it will soon force families and small businesses to pay even more for their coverage. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Maddow, Heroine, Tilts at Windmills In championing the Paycheck Fairness Act, she rides roughshod over the truth. 7.10.12

Betsy Woodruff — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 10:57:02 -0400

Oh, Rachel Maddow. Where to begin? On June 5, the Senate struck down the Paycheck Fairness Act, a proposed law designed to help women sue businesses for gender-based wage discrimination. The legislation drew criticism from corporate interests across the country for its potential to encourage frivolous lawsuits and hurt small businesses. Even the Washington Post thought it was a bad bill. But not Rachel Maddow. Since the bill’s nascence, she has championed its quixotic goal of making a nation where gender wage gaps will be forever banished. In several blog posts and segments on her MSNBC show, she has argued that the only people who could possibly oppose the Paycheck Fairness Act are delusional conservatives who care more about the Chamber of Commerce than about women. She has based most of her arguments on an oft-repeated statistic: For every dollar men make, women make $0.77. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obamacare: Storm Coming Amid the debate over mandates, more fundamental medical problems are overlooked. 7.10.12

Marc Siegel — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 10:55:53 -0400

There may be a debate over whether Obamacare’s individual mandate is a penalty or a tax, but there is no debate among doctors and their patients about the fact that Obamacare will be bad for America’s health. The climate in my medical office is changing; my patients sense that a storm is coming. They are worried, and there is little I can do to reassure them. They are used to my office manager getting approvals for the CT scans, mammograms, PSAs, and MRIs I order, and they realize that many of these tests will no longer be covered by insurance once Obamacare’s committees — which look at so-called comparative-effectiveness research and review current guidelines — are through with them. Last week, with the Fourth of July looming, I was able to get a quick CT scan to rule out appendicitis for one patient, and an ultrasound of the legs to quickly diagnose a blood clot for another. Tests like these — ordered solely on the basis of my medical intuition – may not be possible in a few years. Since in both cases the symptoms weren’t “textbook,” I would probably have had to appeal to some Kafkaesque committee, wasting precious time; in an extreme instance, this could even cost a patient his or her life. My patients know that their premiums will be going up and that, paradoxically, they will be receiving less service for their money. This is what happens when more people enter the system and are covered with easy-to-overuse insurance. Patients who overuse services will ultimately crowd out legitimate use for the group, as more regulations are imposed by both public and private insurers to preserve their bottom lines. Unfortunately, this process jeopardizes the art of medicine and real medical treatments, as doctors are pressured to conform to guidelines and insurers refuse to cover creative solutions. Obamacare caters to the worried well by allowing anyone to use the insurance, whether he or she is sick or not, with lower co-pays and deductibles and therefore no incentive against overuse. My patients also realize that I will be paid less for seeing them — first by Medicare and Medicaid, and then the private insurers will follow suit. Patients anticipate longer waits in my office and less time to spend with me. No one is asking me any more when I will change my office carpet or paint the peeling walls. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Will It Be Portman? The Ohio senator’s presser feeds the buzz. 7.9.12

Robert Costa — Mon, 9 Jul 2012 14:19:36 -0400

It took Rob Portman five years to graduate from Dartmouth College. He switched majors twice, and he was rarely a habitué of Baker Memorial Library. Instead, Portman was a devoted outdoorsman. He spent hours on the slopes and even more on the water. For the skinny, long-haired teenager from Cincinnati, the Connecticut River’s strong currents were a refreshing diversion from Ivy League academia. The river’s rapids were also a training course. By 1977, Portman’s third year, he and some friends won a grant to kayak the entire length of the Rio Grande, from its source in southern Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. They packed their bags, left Hanover, N.H., and headed west. For the next six months, Portman paddled, huddled with locals in off-the-grid Texas towns, and generally lived the life of a frugal nomad. He also perfected his Spanish, which he still speaks fluently. Portman eventually graduated in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, but as he told me earlier this year, his best times were on a boat. Portman, now a freshman Republican senator from Ohio, returned to the Connecticut River this past Saturday. He spent much of the day in a canoe, gliding past his old haunts. The official reason for the summer visit to his alma mater was familial: His 17-year-old daughter, Sally, was taking a tour of the school, one of four colleges she visited over the weekend. Yet this afternoon on the river was more than a jaunt down memory lane. It was, as ever, a fresh-air escape, this time from another sort of stuffiness: the vice-presidential sweepstakes. Portman has been at the top of nearly of every Beltway insider’s shortlist for months. As a respected and wonky lawmaker from a swing state, he is seen in many quarters as the default favorite for the pick, even though there is scant evidence about his actual standing or the selection process. His Granite State trip, family-related as it may be, only increased the chatter because Mitt Romney was on vacation a few miles to the east, in Wolfeboro, N.H. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Chief Justice Roberts and the Morality of Law: In his analysis of the penalty/tax debate, he ignores law’s normative dimension. 7.9.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Mon, 9 Jul 2012 14:18:42 -0400

It seems to me that many commentators are missing the distinction between a penalty and a tax in the same way that Chief Justice Roberts did. The error, grandiloquent as this sounds as I write it, derives from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of law. Law has an inescapable moral component. Laws almost always have normative force. Let us leave aside the cases of laws that purport to command us to do something that is immoral, or to forbid us to do something morally obligatory. Those are unjust laws that are “no laws at all” in the sense of binding the conscience. Far more often, laws make that which was morally optional either morally mandatory or morally forbidden. There is no intrinsic moral reason that driving on the left side of the street should be impermissible. Lawmakers can nonetheless have good reasons for forbidding it, and once they have done so, their having done so becomes a good reason for us not to do it. To my mind, what made the individual mandate so obnoxious was that it carried the law’s moral authority to a field where it was unnecessary and inappropriate. The government was purporting to bind our conscience in a new way: We were to be obligated to purchase a product, health insurance, as part of our general obligation to obey the law. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Train to Nowhere: Full Speed Ahead Vote for high-speed rail pushes California over a fiscal cliff. 7.9.12

John Fund — Mon, 9 Jul 2012 14:13:20 -0400

It’s hard to express how sad it was for me to watch, in person, as the state I grew up in committed fiscal suicide. I went down to the state capitol here on Friday afternoon to watch the state senate approve, by a single vote, a $4.7 billion bond package to build a high-speed-rail system from nowhere to nowhere. If the whole system is ever built — highly doubtful — it will cost at least $68 billion and run between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But this first 130-mile segment will run from Madera to Bakersfield, a stretch that less than 3 percent of the line’s potential ridership can use. “Where [Governor Brown], with the state going bankrupt, is even thinking about an expenditure like this is beyond comprehension,” leading California demographer Joel Kotkin told the Wall Street Journal. “When the schools are falling apart, when the roads are falling apart, the bridges are unsafe, the state economy is in free fall. We’re still doing much worse than the rest of the country, we’ve got this growing permanent welfare class, and high-speed rail is going to solve this?” The whole operation began in 2008, when voters narrowly approved $9.9 billion in bonds. It was a time when the estimated total cost was $33 billion and projections showed the project would be finished by 2020. The bond measure stipulated that the system must deliver passengers from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 160 minutes or less. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Super-PAC Advantage: So far, Obama’s super PAC is outspending all super-PAC efforts opposing him combined. 7.5.12

Jim Geraghty — Thu, 5 Jul 2012 11:28:00 -0400

Most of the media coverage of the 2012 campaign treats a Republican advantage in super-PAC spending as a given. This assumption is echoed by increasingly dire comments from President Obama, his advisers, and other Democrats. At a New York City fundraiser last month, President Obama lamented that opposition to his reelection bid will be fueled by “$500 million in super-PAC negative ads that are going to be run over the course of the next five months that will try to feed on those fears and those anxieties and that frustration.” “We put out a fund-raising letter because we’re facing about a billion dollars of super-PAC spending,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, told CNN. He has also referred to “the Rove and Koch brothers contract killers over there in super-PAC land.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

New York Times v. Adelson: They have different agendas. But surely they have an equal right to promote their agendas. 7.5.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 5 Jul 2012 11:27:06 -0400

The New York Times’ editorial writers — who reflect the opinions of the newspaper’s publisher and principal owner, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., who hires and fires them — have their knickers in a knot over Sheldon Adelson. What has the Las Vegas hotel-and-casino tycoon done? The Times asserts that he is spending his money “to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.” Readers of the Times are expected to take it on faith that Mr. Sulzberger, who came by his status through inheritance, accurately perceives the nation’s needs, and that Mr. Adelson, who over the course of his 77 years rose from dire poverty to fabulous wealth by building businesses, has not a clue. Full disclosure No. 1: I spent some of the best years of my life working for the Times, as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor. Then, as now, some of the world’s finest journalists were employed by the Grey Lady. One thing they have had in common: They do not draw conclusions and level charges except on the basis of solid evidence. By contrast, the Times’ editorial writers no longer burden themselves with serious argumentation. They assert, they preach, they allege. I have heard Times reporters grumble about this — though not on the record. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Ethanol Promotion Agency 7.5.12

Nash Keune — Thu, 5 Jul 2012 11:24:45 -0400

Following the overwhelming success of the federal government’s previous ethanol programs, the EPA is pushing through another new part-ethanol fuel. On June 19, the EPA approved for sale E15, so named because it contains 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline (up from the current maximum of 10 percent ethanol). The mixture has been in development for at least five years. Last year, NASCAR (which has a very public partnership with American Ethanol, an industry group) started requiring E15 fuel in its race cars, and in September it celebrated reaching 1 million competition miles of driving using the blend. Drivers estimate that the switch has increased their horsepower by 6 to 8 percent. The EPA has been preparing for introduction of the fuel since 2008, when the agency established its first set of guidelines for testing E15’s market-readiness. But the Auto Alliance and Global Automakers, two trade groups representing the car industry, have accused the EPA of skirting its own instructions by approving E15 before the full testing regimen is completed. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Pfizer’s Political CEO: The pharma heavyweight who helped pass Obamacare 7.3.12

Fred Thomson — Tue, 3 Jul 2012 11:12:52 -0400

It was a classic success story: The son of a doctor graduated with honors from a top university, attended one of the country’s best law schools, and landed a job clerking for the Supreme Court. He switched to the private sector and rose gracefully to the top of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company. He then helped to broker a deal between a powerful industry group and an unassailably popular president to enact legislation that would touch the life of every American. And then everything went wrong. Jeff Kindler, former CEO of Pfizer, resigned suddenly in December 2010 under pressure from his board. Subsequently, details about his backroom negotiations with the Obama administration came to light, raising questions about whether he was pursuing his industry’s interests or his own political ambitions. Without Kindler’s clout in the pharmaceutical world, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act might never have passed. But the deal he cut ended up hurting his industry. Kindler clerked for Justice William J. Brennan after graduating from Harvard Law School. From there, he took an unorthodox path to corporate leadership, becoming the general counsel of McDonald’s before rising to the presidency of McDonald’s Partner Brands. Eventually, Pfizer spotted Kindler and wooed him with an offer to supervise more than 300 lawyers as general counsel — and the possibility of rising higher still. Within five years, Kindler was CEO of Pfizer and the most influential board member of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s powerful trade association. He was also a committed Democrat, which made him an invaluable resource for the Obama administration as it began the now-infamous negotiations that led up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Roberts Opinion Pessimistic liberals and optimistic conservatives both get it wrong. 7.3.12

Fred Thomson — Tue, 3 Jul 2012 11:11:59 -0400

In 2005 I was asked by the Bush administration to assist Judge John Roberts during the Senate confirmation process for his nomination as chief justice of the United States. Over several pressure-packed days, and throughout the confirmation process, I felt I got to know him fairly well. I found him to be one of the most brilliant, thoughtful, and humorous people I’d ever met. Those qualities don’t always go together. It was clear he was going to be a major right-of-center voice on the Supreme Court for decades to come. So it is with a great deal of personal interest that I have considered his opinion in Sebelius and the commentary that has followed. The chief justice is a good man, whose record over the whole of his career will probably be a good one, perhaps even a great one. However, I do not agree with this opinion. I believe the dissent got it right. I am well aware of the fact that a conscientious judge must sometimes rule in a manner that he personally disagrees with. But the majority opinion appears to be a result looking for a rationale, which is the antithesis of what I ever thought would be the approach of John Roberts. One of his new admirers described his opinion as “incoherent but brilliant.” That’s the most depressing thing I have read in a long time. There is rampant speculation as to why Justice Roberts rendered the opinion he did. To many on the left it is believed that he was looking out for the Supreme Court as an institution. Liberals made it clear well in advance that if the Court struck Obamacare down they would attack the Court as politicized and illegitimate. They now say that the chief justice “put the country first” by the “clever” means of rejecting the government’s central Commerce Clause argument and instead achieving the same result by relying upon the federal government’s power to tax, an argument that was seen as peripheral at best by all the lower courts that had considered the issue of constitutionality. The same is true with regard to the litigants. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Doing Double Duty at Justice: Political donors among current U.S. Attorneys: Democrats 46, Republicans 0. 7.2.12

Jim Geraghty — Mon, 2 Jul 2012 12:48:52 -0400

On June 8, Attorney General Eric Holder assigned the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen Jr., and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Rod J. Rosenstein, to lead criminal investigations into recent instances of possible unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the New York Times. Conservative blogger Duane Lester noticed that Machen is an Obama donor and in fact an early one: “Machen donated $4,350 to Obama’s campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation’s political radar, according to campaign finance records.” As every U.S. Attorney serves at the pleasure of the president, the attorneys are already in the odd position of investigating the staff of the man who appointed them — and who can fire them. Any indictment would likely become a major issue in this year’s closely fought presidential race. The Department of Justice describes the 93 U.S. Attorneys as “the nation’s principal litigators under the direction of the Attorney General.” Each one manages investigations and prosecutions in a given state or a portion of a state. Forty-seven of these attorneys have not donated any money to any candidates for office in the past six years, according to records available from the Center for Responsive Politics. Collectively, the remaining 46 have donated $235,651 to President Obama, the DNC, and Democratic candidates since January 1, 2007. Not one has donated to any Republican candidate. Of the 46 who donated, 36 donated to President Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, or his reelection campaign this year, or both, for a total of $77,782. If Holder was determined to have two U.S. Attorneys handle this investigation of the White House, he could have chosen any one of 46 others to partner with Rosenstein. Instead, he selected the seventh-biggest Obama donor among them. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obamacare: The Final Battle Republicans have to explain why it’s bad — and explain it soon. 7.2.12

Avik Roy — Mon, 2 Jul 2012 12:47:53 -0400

In 1969, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross proposed that there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the wake of John Roberts’s incoherent Supreme Court flip-floppery, most conservatives appear to find themselves in stage 1 (“Hey, we held the line on the Commerce Clause!”) or stage 2 (“Roberts is a traitor!”). There are some in stage 3 (“If we lay off Roberts, maybe he’ll help us out in the future?”) and a few in stage 4. But the reality is this: Republicans must run the table in November or we will all have to accept the permanence of Obamacare. Mitt Romney said it best on Thursday. “If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we’re going to have to replace President Obama.” Those who have been sitting on the sidelines, out of complacency or loyalty to someone else from the primaries, must get out of their chairs and get to work. But while that work must end with Mitt Romney in the White House, it must begin with a Republican majority in the Senate. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Flip That Will Flop? The decision was apparently more political than legal. 7.2.12

John Fund — Mon, 2 Jul 2012 12:38:31 -0400

When asked last month how the Obamacare case would be decided, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg repeated an old line: “At the Supreme Court, those who know don’t talk. And those who talk don’t know.” Well, that line doesn’t seem so apt in the era of news that’s instantly and constantly updated, 24/7. The week before the Supreme Court announced its decision, the White House was clearly hinting to many in the media and on Capitol Hill that they expected a 5–4 opinion that would hinge on the taxing-power issue. Did someone leak? Sunday on Face the Nation, Jan Crawford of CBS News said that two reliable sources told her that Roberts originally voted, in late March, with the four conservative justices to invalidate the individual mandate. According to Crawford, Roberts suddenly changed sides some six weeks later and then resisted “a month-long desperate campaign by the conservative justices to bring him back to the fold.” I’ve learned from my own sources that after voting to invalidate the mandate, the chief did express some skepticism about joining the four conservatives in throwing out the whole law. At the justices’ conference, there was discussion about accepting the Obama administration’s argument, which was that, if the individual mandate was removed, the provisions governing community rating and guaranteed issue of insurance would have to go too but that the rest of the law might stand. The chief justice was equivocal, though, in his views on that point. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Sovereignty, Preempted Even the conservative justices don't understand states’ rights. 7.2.12

Andy McCarthy — Mon, 2 Jul 2012 12:37:21 -0400

Justice Antonin Scalia, in a characteristically electrifying dissent, seized on the cataclysm at the heart of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Arizona immigration case. It came in the form of a question: “Would the States conceivably have entered the Union if the Constitution itself contained the Court’s holding?” Fittingly, Scalia summarized this holding, in Monday’s Arizona v. United States case, as a hypothetical provision proposed by the Framers when adoption of the Constitution was being debated: Imagine if Article I had granted Congress the power “to establish Limitations upon Immigration that will be exclusive and that will be enforced only to the extent the President deems appropriate.” In short, the Court ruled that the states can be precluded from their natural right of self-defense against alien outlaws if Congress, in its discretion, decides to enact national immigration standards — even if the president refuses to enforce what Congress has prescribed. Hence, at the whim of Leviathan’s central planners and passively aggressive (non-)police, the states are defenseless. Being defenseless in this context is not merely a practical problem — namely, the problem that states and their citizens are certain to suffer physical and financial harm. Being defenseless raises, in addition, two other considerations of epic importance. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

What’s Next for the Opposition? 6.29.12

NRO Symposium — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:08:35 -0400

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on the individual mandate, what’s next for both conservatives and the Republican party on health-care reform? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Victory in Defeat: The Supreme Court’s health-care ruling reaffirmed limits to Congress’s authority. 6.29.12

Ken Cuccinelli — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:06:58 -0400

Many of us are lamenting the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold PPACA. The law will almost certainly lead to increasing medical costs and significant disruptions in the provision of health-care services. Yet what must not go unnoticed is the fact that with parts of its decision today, the Court reaffirmed certain important core principles. The Court reminded the federal government that it has limited and enumerated powers. While the federal government is supreme in its sphere, it is not permitted to operate outside of its constitutionally defined role. The Court expressly rejected the federal government’s assertion that it could use the Commerce Clause to force citizens to engage in commerce for the sole purpose of regulating them. A majority of the Court held that the commerce power reaches only those who are currently engaged in commercial activities. It does not reach those who are not engaged in commerce, even if those very same people are likely to engage in commerce in the future. Thus, the Court explicitly adopted the activity/inactivity distinction that opponents of the law had championed and that liberal commentators had ridiculed. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Waiting on the Supremes: Is Obamacare a historic blunder or merely an election-year albatross? 6.27.12

John Fund — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:56:31 -0400

We’re all waiting to see if Obamacare will be spared, gutted, or tossed into the ash heap of history by the Supreme Court on Thursday. In a new Purple Strategies survey of former Supreme Court clerks and attorneys who have argued before the Court, 57 percent believe the individual mandate, the heart of the law, will die. In April, Obama himself engaged in some gallows humor after the Supreme Court justices roughed up his law in oral argument: “In my first term, we passed health care reform. In my second term, I guess we’ll pass it again.” But if Obamacare vanishes or the individual mandate is eliminated, look for Democrats to panic. There will also be comparisons to Jimmy Carter — the last Democratic president to lose reelection — and his “malaise” period. It’s never good if a president’s central domestic-policy achievement is trashed months before an election, and in this case it could be politically fatal. In a new poll by the GOP-oriented Young Guns Policy Center, independent voters agree by 55 to 37 percent on this point: “President Obama did the wrong thing by focusing on passing health care reform his first year in office. He should have worked harder to get the economy going and creating jobs before moving on to other issues.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Too Fast, Too Furious: Darrell Issa has dabbled in a conspiracy theory. 6.27.12

Robert Verbruggen — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:55:42 -0400

Since details about the Fast and Furious scandal first started to emerge, the biggest question has been: Who in their right mind would think that letting criminals walk away with guns would be a good way to fight crime? Thus far, the only explanation seems to be this: The Justice Department thought that tying American guns to Mexican crime scenes would be useful in its attempts to round up cartel kingpins — useful enough that it was worth giving guns to criminals without bothering to track the weapons as they changed hands. That’s not very satisfying, of course. So, some Fast and Furious critics have searched for a better one — not by analyzing the evidence, but by concocting a conspiracy theory: specifically, that the Obama administration allowed the guns to go to Mexico deliberately in order to increase gun crime there, so it could cite that crime as a reason for more gun control here. And unfortunately, Fast and Furious’s lead critic, House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, has joined them. Here’s what Issa told a National Rifle Association conference in April: Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Economists Without Calculators 6.27.12

Robert Bryce — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:54:46 -0400

Last week, just before the opening of the U.N.’s Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro, the New York Times ran an op-ed that decried the rapid rise in carbon dioxide emissions during the two decades since a similar meeting was held in Rio. The authors of the article — Christian Azar, a professor at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, and two economists from the Environmental Defense Fund, Thomas Sterner and Gernot Wagner — claimed that the world needs to “kick its addiction to fossil fuels” and that renewable energy provides the road to salvation because “the seeds of an environmental revolution are being sown.” The authors’ solution was a familiar one: a carbon tax and/or a cap on carbon dioxide emissions. Never mind that the failure of the meeting at Rio shows, yet again, that a global carbon tax or emissions cap stands absolutely no chance of being implemented. Further, let’s ignore the claim that we have an “addiction” to hydrocarbons, which remain the cheapest, most abundant, most reliable source of energy for billions of people all over the world. Instead, let’s consider the issue that Azar, Sterner, and Wagner — along with nearly every other proponent of “green” energy — refuse to consider: scale. A simple bit of math shows that even with the rapid expansion that solar-energy and wind-energy capacity have had in the past few years, those two sources cannot even meet incremental global demand for electricity, much less make a dent in the world’s overall demand for hydrocarbons. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

S.B. 1070’s Day in Court 6.26.12

Heather Mac Donald — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:03:31 -0400

The Supreme Court has upheld the provision of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 that the Obama administration and the illegal-alien lobby most feared: Section 2, which reaffirmed the existing power of Arizona’s local police to inquire into someone’s immigration status if the officer has reason to believe that the person is in the country illegally. In upholding Section 2, the Court has vindicated the power of judicial review and of reason itself. The lower courts’ efforts to invalidate the patently constitutional provision became progressively more laughable as the case rode up the appeal circuit, culminating in the administration’s own tortured verbiage before the Supreme Court. Even the most liberal justices could not accept the contortions of plain meaning that the solicitor general and two Ninth Circuit judges (opposed by a powerful dissent from Ninth Circuit judge Carlos Bea) inflicted on congressional law in their desperate attempt to overturn the Arizona provision. The administration hated Section 2 because it would throw into sharp relief its de facto amnesty for illegal aliens. Section 2 raised the specter of Arizona traffic cops, say, regularly being told that federal immigration authorities have no interest in detaining an unlicensed illegal alien who has just run a red light or is driving under the influence. However, now that President Obama has issued his own executive amnesty for over 1 million illegals, the administration should not be troubled at the prospect of being shown in yet another forum to be indifferent to immigration enforcement. But it continues to fiercely oppose Section 2 because it turns out that merely asking an illegal alien about his status has a deterrent effect that interferes with the open-borders agenda. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

After an Israeli Strike on Iran 6.26.12

Daniel Pipes — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:02:42 -0400

How would Iranians respond to an Israeli strike against their nuclear infrastructure? The answers given to this question matter greatly, as predictions about Iran’s response will affect not only Jerusalem’s decision, but also how much other states will work to impede an Israeli strike. Analysts generally offer best-case predictions for policies of deterrence and containment (some commentators even go so far as to welcome an Iranian nuclear capability) while forecasting worst-case results from a strike. They foresee Tehran doing everything possible to retaliate, such as kidnapping, terrorism, missile attacks, naval combat, and closing the Strait of Hormuz. These predictions ignore two facts: Neither of Israel’s prior strikes against enemy states building nuclear weapons — Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007 — prompted retaliation; and a review of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s history since 1979 points to, in the words of Michael Eisenstadt and Michael Knights, “a more measured and less apocalyptic — if still sobering — assessment of the likely aftermath of a preventive strike.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Is ‘Illegal Immigrant’ a Racial Slur? 6.26.12

Ian Tuttle — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 10:55:48 -0400

Charles Garcia — the CEO of Garcia Trujillo, a strategy firm that works with Hispanic-owned companies — does not like the term illegal immigrant. He prefers economic refugee. He is not alone. Media Matters for America, the liberal website “dedicated to . . . correcting conservative misinformation,” claimed that Fox News used President Obama’s June 15 immigration announcement as an “opportunity to dehumanize undocumented immigrants.” MMFA reported that Fox News used the term illegals 17 times during its June 15 broadcast, illegal aliens twice, and aliens once, not including uses of these terms in on-screen text. These “racial slurs” are further proof, the site contended, of Fox’s “long, documented history of anti-immigrant bias.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Twilight of the Unions 6.25.12

John Fund — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:33:33 -0400

Since 2008, we’ve seen the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Unlike 75 years ago, however, unions and the Left have this time largely failed to build a rigorous movement of economic populism to further their goals: Witness the now largely disbanded Occupy movement. Indeed, as members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees gathered here last week, the mood was pessimistic. “Our success or failure will mark a turning point not only for our union but for the entire labor movement,” Lee Saunders, the new AFSCME president, told his members. Attendees noted how few changes in labor law they had been able to get through Congress since President Obama’s election. Union members in San Diego and San Jose, two cities that voted heavily for Obama in 2008, mourned the overwhelming passage this month of ballot measures in those cities curbing public-sector pension benefits: In both, two-thirds of voters approved the measures. Hanging over the crowd was the crushing loss unions experienced in Wisconsin three weeks ago, when GOP governor Scott Walker won 38 percent of the votes of union members and apparently carried a majority of private-sector-union members. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

It’s Not Just the Mandate: Why Obamacare even without the individual mandate is a time bomb 6.25.12

Avik Roy — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:32:31 -0400

Much of the press coverage surrounding the looming Supreme Court decision on Obamacare has implied that there will be a binary outcome: Either the entire law is upheld, or the entire law is overturned. But it’s just as probable that the Court will take a middle route, overturning parts of the Affordable Care Act but keeping others. What legal scholars call “severability” will have dramatic — and unexpected — repercussions for the nation’s health-care system. On the third day of last March’s oral argument in HHS v. Florida, the Supreme Court justices explored the question: If Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, how much of the rest of the law must go down with it? The widely cited precedent comes from a 1987 case called Alaska Airlines v. Brock, in which the Supreme Court ruled that “unless it is evident that Congress would not have enacted those provisions which are within its power independently of that which is not, the invalid part may be dropped if what is left is fully operative as law.” In other words, the Court must consider whether Congress’s intent, as to whether the remainder of the law would have passed on its own, and also whether the rump law is workable. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

On Deterring Iran 6.25.12

David Paul Deavel — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:30:50 -0400

As a determined Tehran pursues a nuclear-weapons capability, and develops and deploys increasingly long-range ballistic missiles, a debate on the prospective role of deterrence begins to take shape. On one side is the assertion that Iranian leaders are “rational”; on the other, the fear that, when it comes to the use of nuclear weapons, they may not be. Their frequent calls for the destruction of Israel raise particular concerns in this regard. In both policy and academic debates about deterrence, to label leaderships rational is often tantamount to declaring them deterrable. And if a leadership is deemed irrational, this is a coded way of saying that it likely cannot be deterred. But while equating “rational” with “deterrable” may make for a convenient shorthand, it is not particularly helpful in determining whether the Iranian leadership, or any other regime, is deterrable in fact. It is a common assumption that a nuclear-armed Iran would not be a nightmare scenario because, while Iranian leaders may be eccentric, they are not suicidal. In this narrative, their fear of the consequences would deter them from using nuclear weapons or engaging in other severe provocations likely to incite Western retaliation. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Capitalism Is Good and Good for You. 6.22.12

David Paul Deavel — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:58:11 -0400

‘Greed is not good.” Thank God somebody is finally challenging the right-wing defenders of capitalism. Except that this line comes from Father Robert Sirico, an arch-defender of free-market economics. One of the more tedious but necessary duties of Christians and Jews today is to repeatedly explain to atheists that we do not believe in the same God they do not believe in. No, we say, an inflated oriental despot in the sky is not at all what we mean by God. That would not be a God worth worshiping or defending. Similarly tedious but necessary is the duty of defenders of free-market capitalism to point out to friends on the left that, no, we do not believe in the Gospel of Gordon Gekko, either. The case for a free economy must be made, as Arthur Brooks has recently written in National Review, on the basis of its moral foundations and not simply on its more efficient resource allocation. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Everyone’s a Racist. 6.22.12

Ian Tuttle — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:56:24 -0400

Here’s a little secret,” Keith Olbermann told viewers in 2010. “When racist white guys get together and they don’t want to be caught using any of the popular epithets that are in use every day in this country about black people . . . the racist white guys resort to euphemisms and code words.” At least Olbermann acknowledged that not all white people are racist; but three and a half years into the first “post-racial” presidency, one might get that impression. Take the list Olbermann enumerated on air: “Cocky, flippant, punk, and especially, arrogant.” Last week, Congressional Black Caucus executive director Angela Rye added cool to the list: “Even cool, the term cool, could in some ways be deemed racial.” Liberals have spent the past four years tearing out page after page of Merriam-Webster. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Inequality Fetish. 6.22.12

Patrick Brennan — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:52:09 -0400

There must be something in the water in Stockholm: Nobel laureates, from our president to Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, all agree that high levels of inequality are a serious problem, if not the problem, facing our weak economy. According to this liberal thesis, either the 2008 financial crisis and its attendant recession, or the sluggish recovery — and maybe both — can be attributed in large part to the high level of economic inequality in the United States. Further, in this view, inequality is an economic malady on its own, even in times of prosperity. Liberal commentators, of course, assert this as if it were a truism, but worse, economists of real distinction trumpet it like scientific fact. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Hiding Behind Executive Privilege. 6.21.12

The Editors — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:16:17 -0400

President Barack Obama has long tried to distance himself from the “Fast and Furious” scandal at the Justice Department, which stems from a program under which Mexican drug cartels were allowed to acquire U.S. firearms that were later used against U.S. law-enforcement personnel. By invoking executive privilege to stymie congressional investigation of the case, the president has placed himself squarely in the center of it. President Obama, who had been a bitter critic of the Bush administration’s use of executive privilege, today through his representatives protested that he is only doing what the Bush administration did before him. The same man who once accused President Bush of “hiding behind executive privilege” is now hiding behind George W. Bush. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Grand Solutions Party. 6.21.12

Jeb Bush — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:13:56 -0400

The coming election is a debate defined not only by competing ideologies and policies, but competing ways of governing. There is little doubt that President Obama favors one form of governing, and that is what I call the government of One. One Ideology, One Party, and One Man. In his first two years in office, with the benefit of supermajorities in Congress, he was able to enact legislation of his choosing and his design. He decided what went in and what didn’t. He delegated to a handful of members of Congress the responsibility to write specific laws — and left other members out. Now things are different. He no longer enjoys a compliant Congress. Not surprisingly, he has spoken longingly of leading a centralized, planned, command-and-control government. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Trouble with Multiculturalism. 6.21.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:09:12 -0400

Back in the day, when I was a newspaper columnist in Denver, representatives of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League paid a visit. Over coffee, they told the opinion editor and me that they had a program, “A World of Difference,” that “celebrates America’s diversity.” They asked for our editorial support. The editor and I had the same reaction: Would it not be better to celebrate all the things we have in common, all the things that unite Americans of whatever ethnic or religious backgrounds? Our friends left the meeting mightily miffed. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Intervene in Syria. 6.21.12

Robert Costa — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 12:06:21 -0400

It pains me to take issue in any degree with my very esteemed friend Henry Kissinger, with whose foreign-policy views I have almost always agreed, but I think some degree of intervention in Syria is justified. Dr. Kissinger wrote otherwise in the Washington Post recently and invoked the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. I have had the opportunity to discuss his column briefly with him. As he wrote, that war may have killed as many as a third of the people of Central Europe, and “competing dynasties” did send “armies across political borders to impose religious norms.” But as he well knows, there was a good deal more to it than that, and the central event was that the French leader, Cardinal Richelieu — generally reckoned the most astute statesman, with Bismarck, in the modern history of continental Europe — recruited the Lutheran Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, to carry havoc into Catholic Central Europe and specifically to atomize Germany and confound the Habsburg (Holy Roman) Empire in Vienna. Richelieu was chiefly interested in sundering Germany into as many pieces as possible, and confounding the Holy Roman Empire, in order to assure the preeminence of France in Western Europe. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Gang War. 6.20.12

Robert Costa — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:54:03 -0400

On the third floor of the Capitol, in a cramped, dusty hallway, Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) pulls a key out of his pocket and opens the door to his hideaway office — a windowless, low-ceilinged room that’s decorated with a burgundy couch, an old computer, and a couple of chairs. These days, Coburn tells me, he spends many late evenings in similarly hidden spots, huddling with more than a dozen senators, both Democratic and Republican. But these private talks aren’t bull sessions: They’re part of a renewed push for a “grand bargain” — a debt-reduction deal. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Austerity Works. 6.20.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:50:23 -0400

As Greece, and now Spain and Italy, struggle with the crushing burden of debt brought on by the modern welfare state, perhaps we should shift our gaze some 1,200 miles north to see how austerity can actually work. Exhibit #1 is Estonia. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s DREAM Non-Act. 6.20.12

Fred Thompson — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 10:45:22 -0400

For a long time, Friday afternoon has been a favorite time for presidents to release embarrassing or politically harmful information. That way, fewer people hear about it at the time, and by Monday morning other news often drowns it out. Now we can add the abrogation of immigration laws to the list of Friday releases. (Tune in next Friday to see whether the IRS has decided not to require you to pay your taxes. This “never mind” attitude toward the law could become quite popular.) However, in last Friday’s case, there was no danger that Obama’s target audience would miss the story. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Mitch McConnell and Free Speech. 6.19.12

Robert Costa — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 10:42:33 -0400

In the early Seventies, before he entered politics, Mitch McConnell was a young and unknown Kentucky lawyer. To help pay the bills, he taught night courses at the University of Louisville. In 1974, Watergate was not officially part of his civics curriculum, he recalls, but the congressional response to the Nixon scandal featured heavily in class discussions. From afar, McConnell’s students debated the passage of amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act, which established new disclosure rules and spending limits. Many of the undergraduates were initially supportive of the measures, because of their anger toward Nixon, but after McConnell brought the First Amendment implications to their attention, a few of them switched their position. Ever since, McConnell has continued to make a professorial case about the importance of deregulating political spending. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Food-Stamp Folly. 6.19.12

Nash Keune — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 10:37:52 -0400

To hear critics such as Paul Krugman, the New York Times editorial board, Ezra Klein, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the president, etc., you’d think congressional Republicans want to slash food-stamp funding to finance handouts to defense contractors. But, in relation to the scope of the structural dysfunction of the food-stamp program, the reforms proposed by congressional Republicans are actually very modest. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Doublethink on Drones. 6.18.12

Charles C. W. Cooke — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:51:44 -0400

Something peculiar happens to people who cherish their liberty when machines effect its abridgement: They cease caring. In London, where almost 8,000 closed-circuit television cameras spy on the population without rest or interruption, the people appear to be wholly unperturbed. Even an advertising campaign for the surveillance campaign with the tagline “Secure beneath the watchful eyes” elicited little complaint in the land of Orwell, outside of advocates professionally obliged to be vexed by such things. But it did not escape everyone. In recent years, “One Nation Under CCTV” has become a popular piece of British protest graffiti. It might be in America soon, too. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Revisionism. 6.18.12

John R. Lott Jr. — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 09:48:07 -0400

Americans’ patience is running thin. Unemployment has been above 8 percent for 40 months. Since the recovery started, over 7.2 million Americans have given up looking for work and left the labor force. It is during recessions, not recoveries, that people are supposed to give up looking for work. But it is obviously all Bush’s fault. At least, that is President Obama’s new take. During his big economic address on Thursday, Obama repeatedly said that the economic problems we face today were “a decade in the making.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

IPAB, Obamacare’s Super-Legislature: It’s even worse than you thought. 6.15.12

The Editors of NRO — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:05:54 -0400

The individual mandate isn’t Obamacare’s only unconstitutional provision, or even its most unconstitutional provision. That distinction belongs to the Independent Payment Advisory Board. A heretofore unreported feature of this super-legislature makes it even more authoritarian and dangerous than anyone knew. IPAB consists of up to 15 unelected government “experts.” Its stated purpose is to restrain Medicare spending. If projected spending exceeds certain targets, Obamacare requires IPAB to issue “legislative proposals” to reduce future spending. Those proposals could include drastic cuts that jeopardize seniors’ access to care, leading some critics to label IPAB a “death panel.” But the really dangerous part is that these are not mere “proposals.” Obamacare requires the secretary of Health and Human Services to implement them — which means they become law automatically — unless Congress takes certain steps to head them off. Congress may replace the Board’s proposal with its own cuts, at least initially. But Obamacare requires a three-fifths vote in the Senate to pass any replacement that spends more than the Board’s proposal. In other words, to override IPAB’s proposal completely, opponents must assemble a simple majority in the House and a three-fifths majority in the Senate and the president’s signature. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Sheldon Adelson vs. the Left 6.15.12

The Editors of NRO — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:04:45 -0400

The surest evidence that Sheldon Adelson is doing something good with his life is the fact that he is driving the Left bonkers. The billionaire casino operator is at the moment the largest private donor in U.S. politics, and has pledged to invest as much as $100 million of his own money in independent groups dedicated to ensuring the defeat of President Barack Obama this November. The New York Times undertook an act of characteristic journalistic misdirection when it wrote that President Obama’s partisans, unlike this year’s Republicans, are having trouble raising that kind of independent-group money “because many of them object to the existence of super PACs in the first place.” Those are the Democrats we know and love: too good, too pure, too upstanding to grub for money with the riff-raff. Apparently George Soros and the unions did not receive sufficient instruction in the Reverend Obama’s Sunday school. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Jobs Are Also an Endangered Species. 6.15.12

John Fund — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 10:03:51 -0400

The phrase “You can’t fight city hall” expresses the futility of opposing an entrenched bureaucracy. For hard-pressed ranchers, miners, oil and gas drillers and developers, and even solar-energy entrepreneurs, the refrain has instead been, “You can’t fight the Endangered Species Act” (ESA). Until now. This week, the Obama administration announced that it would not declare the dunes sagebrush lizard an endangered species, as it had seemed likely to do, because voluntary conservation agreements in Texas and New Mexico offer promise that the lizard can be protected without halting economic development in the two states where the lizard is found. “Today’s decision is unprecedented in the history of the ESA,” said Democratic senator Tom Udall (N.M.). It “represents a potential breakthrough in maximizing ecosystem preservation and minimizing conflict.” Certainly, the ESA has led to nothing but conflict since Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1973. More than 1,200 species have been listed as endangered or threatened, three-quarters of which are found primarily on private land. This has led to severe restrictions on that land, often without compensation for owners. When a federal judge ordered in 2007 that water be redirected towards the habitat of the California delta smelt, an endangered species, the resulting drought in parts of the San Joaquin Valley caused unemployment to rise to 40 percent in certain areas — until two local Democratic congressmen voted for Obamacare in 2010, and the spigots delivering water to ranchers and growers in the valley were suddenly turned back on. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Only the Public Sector Is ‘Doing Fine’: Sorry, Mr. President: There’s no need to bail out the state and local governments. 6.14.12

Jason Richwine — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:50:44 -0400

President Obama’s puzzling claim that “the private sector is doing fine” has been met with much skepticism, and even ridicule. To many observers, it is self-evidently wrong. While many in the media are content to label the incident a “gaffe” and move on, some of the president’s supporters insist that he actually voiced a fundamental truth, albeit inelegantly. Are they right? In the eyes of his defenders, Obama simply was pointing out that the private sector has been adding jobs in recent months while the public sector has been losing them. “Doing fine” was apparently just an imprecise and awkward way of saying the private sector is gaining. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Why We Should Use JLENS: The West shouldn’t be afraid to use its technological advantages. 6.14.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:49:41 -0400

Wars of the future will be very different from wars of the past. Everyone gets that. What many do not grasp: The present war also is very different from wars of the past. Among the ways: Those defending the West try hard to abide by the laws of war. Those attacking the West say clearly that they will not be bound by any “infidel” rules. They are committed to what they call a “Koranic concept of war.” That provides them with an advantage. The West’s advantages include sophisticated and continually advancing technologies. We can now track and kill enemy combatants without boots on the ground or pilots in the skies. Such missions can be accomplished using unmanned aerial vehicles: drones, of course, but there’s also a kind of blimp that can achieve dominance on a battlefield — if we’d only deploy it. (More on that in a moment.) Meanwhile, the “age of cyberwar” is not ahead of us — it is “upon us,” as former foreign correspondent and Pentagon official David Jackson recently wrote. Curiously, these historic changes are causing confusion, not least among those tasked with understanding them. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Regnerus Debate: Most gay-parenting studies are long on bias and short on hard data. 6.14.12

Douglas Allen — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:47:00 -0400

I am a Canadian economist who has worked on family issues in Canada and the U.S. for the past 26 years. Although I’ve mostly studied matters of divorce, custody, child support, and the general institution of marriage, for the past few years I’ve been working on series of empirical projects related to same-sex marriage. I’ve been using a special data set in Canada that is large (over 300,000 individuals) and random (with weights), that directly identifies sexual orientation, and that was designed by Statistics Canada. In the process of working on same-sex marriage I have read almost every study conducted on same-sex parenting. I say all of this because, unlike most people who have commented on the recent Regnerus study, I’m a qualified outsider to the U.S. debate and perhaps can provide some (relatively) neutral assessment. The study published by Professor Mark Regnerus this week certainly has some flaws, and many of the comments made about it have some merit. However, as a matter of intellectual honesty, it needs to be recognized that virtually all the studies of same-sex parenting that have been conducted thus far fall far short of any standard of scientific testing. Of the 50-plus such studies done in the past 15 years, the vast majority come to the same conclusion: Children of gay parents perform at least as well as children from heterosexual families; there is no difference in child outcomes based on family structure. For several reasons, this literature is unlike anything else within social science. First, it partly arose from, and was strongly influenced by, legal cases in which lesbian mothers were denied custody of their children on the basis of their sexual orientation. Second, for the most part it has been written by individuals with strong personal worldviews who sympathize with those studied. Third, the focus of the literature is often on “soft” measures of child and family performance that are not easily verifiable by third-party replication, and that differ substantially from measures used in other family studies. One of the odd characteristics of this literature is the lack of consistency of measures across time. Subsequent studies seldom test for measures that were used in previous studies. Fourth, the data and procedures used in the studies are never made available online in order for other scholars to replicate findings. And finally, almost all the literature on gay parenting is based on weak designs, biased samples, and low-powered tests. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The War on Nixon Woodward and Bernstein can’t give it up. 6.14.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:45:34 -0400

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (Woodstein for our purposes) now claim, in a Washington Post piece, that Nixon was “far worse than we thought,” and accuse him of conducting five “wars”: against the anti-war movement, on the media, against the Democrats, on justice, and on history. In evaluating such a volcanic farrago of pent-up charges, the facts must be arrayed in three tiers: the facts of Woodstein’s activities and revelations; the facts of the Watergate case and related controversies; and the importance of Watergate in an appreciation of the Nixon record. Woodstein were showered with the prizes and awards the media narcissistically pour on one another to deafening collective self-laudations, and became the pin-up idols of two whole generations of aggressively investigative journalists. Other media outlets were hotly pursuing and uncovering disturbing stories of campaign skulduggery, but the Washington Post, led by Woodstein, under the inspiration of editor Ben Bradlee, confected the Brobdingnagian fraud that Nixon was trying to perpetrate a virtual coup d’état by imposing an “imperial presidency” on the prostrate democracy of America. Woodstein showed no great enterprise; they stumbled upon a senior official of the FBI angry that he had been passed over as successor to the deceased J. Edgar Hoover. Mark Felt — Deep Throat, as he became known to history — provided almost all of the Post’s investigative initiative in a squalid and envious attack on the nominated heir to Hoover, L. Patrick Gray. The reporters, who were effectively note-takers, and their editor parlayed it into an impeachment controversy, assisted by the uncharacteristic ineptitude of Nixon in dealing with what he would normally have recognized as a potentially serious problem. (Here’s an indication of the bigotry of the Woodstein school: When Felt was charged by the Carter administration with criminal violation of the privacy of the Weather Underground, Nixon insisted on speaking in his defense at the trial even though he suspected Felt was Deep Throat, and persuaded incoming President Reagan to pardon Felt after he had been convicted — and yet neither Felt in his memoirs, nor Woodstein ever, nor the Left generally, even recognized Nixon’s generous actions. That would have been inconvenient to the demonizing narrative.) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Botching Fast and Furious 6.12.12

The Editors of NRO — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:56:06 -0400

Texas senator John Cornyn recently joined the growing number of Republicans who’ve called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign. And a week from today, the House Oversight Committee will convene to consider pursuing a contempt-of-Congress citation against Holder. If the committee decides to proceed, the entire House will vote on the matter. Holder has no intention of resigning, especially on the say-so of Republicans — but the attorney general has much to answer for, and Republicans should continue to make the case that he is wholly inadequate to his position and operating in bad faith. Holder oversaw the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives during a time in which it ran Operation Fast and Furious — a program in which ATF agents deliberately allowed drug cartels to traffic more than 1,000 guns into Mexico and made no attempt to track the weapons as they changed hands. Two of the guns were found at the scene of a Border Patrol agent’s murder. Many more have turned up at other crime scenes, and as even Holder has admitted, the fallout from Fast and Furious will continue for “years to come.” Documents that were obtained by the Oversight Committee via leaks — in particular, wiretap applications — suggest that several high-ranking officials within the Justice Department knew that guns were being allowed to “walk.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Moving On from MoveOn.org: The liberal group’s PAC is on pace to have its worst cycle since its founding. 6.12.12

Jim Geraghty — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:55:09 -0400

The fundraising messages from MoveOn.org’s political-action fund are taking an increasingly pessimistic and frantic tone. A recent message declared, “If we can’t increase our budget, we’re going to have to pull the plug now on some absolutely crucial campaigns.” Oftentimes, fundraising specialists encourage messages with a dire tone to promote a sense of urgency, to spur donors who might otherwise shrug off yet another request for money. But in MoveOn.org’s case, it isn’t likely that the warning is a pose, as the organization’s political-action fund is on pace to have its worst year since it was formed during the 2004 election cycle. According to documents filed with the FEC, MoveOn.org Political Action raised $9.1 million in contributions from January 2011 to March 31, 2012. In that same period, the group spent $10.5 million, and it has $2.75 million left in cash on hand. With just under five months until Election Day, and additional fundraising efforts ongoing, those totals are certain to increase. Still, it is a dramatic drop from last cycle and all the preceding cycles except one. By March 31 in the 2010 cycle, MoveOn.org Political Action had raised $18.5 million; by that date in the 2008 cycle, $14 million; in the 2006 cycle, $11.8 million; and in the 2004 cycle, $2.79 million — but that was in the first 15 months of the PAC’s existence. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Catholic Vote Swings: The defense of religious liberty will be a huge issue for Catholics this year. 6.12.12

Michael Novak — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:54:16 -0400

The new wisdom is that Catholics vote just like everybody else. That purported wisdom isn’t wise. The Catholic vote differs in four decisive ways from the Protestant, Jewish, and secular votes. (1) The Catholic vote is concentrated mainly in the largest states in the Electoral College: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey. (2) A larger proportion of Catholics than of any other religious group except Jews votes regularly, every election. In some jurisdictions (Chicago, Boston) Catholic voters have been known to vote at a rate of 104 percent or more when necessary, some of them after their natural deaths. (3) In some key states, the Catholic vote, although tending more Democratic, is fairly evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans. Keeping the Catholic vote for the Democrat down even to 52 percent may be enough to get a Republican elected. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Romney’s Fiscal Successes: His record as governor stands up to close scrutiny. 6.12.12

Patrick Brennan — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:11:36 -0400

The Obama campaign has recently resorted to a peculiar tactic: putting forth the current president as a paragon of fiscal conservatism and deriding Mitt Romney as a profligate executive. The source of this criticism suffices to discredit it, but the details of Romney’s fiscal record add to the evidence in Romney’s favor. They stand in stark contrast to President Obama’s meager accomplishments these last three and half years. When Mitt Romney took office as governor of Massachusetts in 2003, the recent recession had hit Massachusetts particularly hard, leaving the state’s budget in tatters. But the governor faced a deep-blue wastrel of a legislature that expected more government whenever it pleased. His predecessor had left him, even after huge tax hikes, a $450–$600 million budget deficit remaining in the fiscal year. Knowing that the legislature would push for tax increases instead of spending cuts, Romney won more expansive “9C” budgetary powers from the legislature, enabling him to make midyear reductions in areas that previous governors couldn’t touch, such as Massachusetts’s $5.5 billion in local-government aid. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Little American Love for the U.N.: Contra some enthusiasts, Americans don’t broadly support the U.N. 6.12.12

Brett D. Schaefer — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:10:27 -0400

Devotees of the United Nations are upset. The House Appropriations Committee recently approved spending “only” $3.5 billion on the U.N. and other international organizations — substantially less than the nearly $4 billion the White House had requested for FY 2013. Among the arguments raised against the committee’s decision, perhaps the least plausible is that the spending cut is “at odds with voters’ wishes.” That’s the claim advanced by the United Nations Foundation, an independent U.N. “partner” that lobbies Congress and the president to support U.N.-backed positions and to maintain or increase U.S. funding for the U.N. American voters want Congress to fully fund the administration’s budget request for the U.N., the foundation insists. Its evidence? A poll in which more than eight in ten voters said the United States should maintain an “active role within the United Nations.” It is hardly shocking that the U.N. Foundation would spin, to the U.N.’s advantage, a poll they commissioned to benefit the U.N. But why should U.S. policymakers pay attention to that poll rather than other, more impartial polls that show quite different results? Gallup, for instance, which has tracked American opinion on the U.N. since 1953, notes that “Americans have never held the United Nations in particularly high esteem, with a historical average of 40% saying it is doing a good job.” In 2012 Gallup asked its standard question, “Do you think the United Nations is doing a good job or a poor job in trying to solve the problems it has to face?” Only 32 percent of Americans answered that the U.N. is doing a “good job,” compared with 61 percent who said it’s doing a “poor job.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Netroots Nation under a Cloud: The Base to Obama: You should be worried. 6.11.12

John Fund — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:36:51 -0400

If elections are won partly on the enthusiasm of a candidate’s base, Barack Obama is in trouble. Netroots Nation, the annual left-wing conference for bloggers and activists, held its seventh annual rally here this weekend. The skies were sunny outside, but there was clearly a cloud hanging over attendees inside the cavernous Rhode Island Convention Center. It wasn’t only last Tuesday’s jarring defeat of public-sector unions in Wisconsin, or President Obama’s refusal to campaign in person against Governor Scott Walker — or unease that the Supreme Court may be only weeks away from sweeping much or all of Obamacare onto the ash heap of history. On Friday, in the middle of the conference, President Obama famously declared that “the private sector is doing fine,” calling into question his campaign’s basic competence in getting out a coherent message. Indeed, enthusiasm for Obama was decidedly absent from this year’s gathering. Administration officials weren’t invited to attend (Valerie Jarrett and others have appeared in the past), and President Obama limited his role to an unpublicized surprise video shown to delegates late on Saturday, when many people had already left. “Change is hard, but we’ve seen that it’s possible, as long as you’re willing to keep up that fight, I’ll be right there with you,” Obama offered. Not exactly a stirring call to arms, and the tepid applause his video garnered can’t have pleased Team Obama. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

What to Do about Syria? 6.11.12

John Bolton — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:36:01 -0400

As hostilities in Syria roll on unabated, the civilian casualties rise because of combat operations in urban areas and execution-style killings. In response, calls for U.S. military intervention of one sort or another to aid the opposition increase, while the Obama administration dithers over whether to continue relying on the United Nations Security Council and former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan. But what are the American interests at stake, and what is the best way to protect them? Although it is easy to concentrate on the stomach-churning television images, we should operate on the basis of strategy, not emotion. That does not mean doing nothing. But neither does it mean knee-jerk reactions instead of careful analysis. Syria’s Assad family–Baath party dictatorship had nothing to recommend it before the current conflict, other than its being the devil we knew. Now, it is increasingly an Iranian satellite under Tehran’s growing regional influence. Syria remains a threat to Israel; has continuing aspirations to control Lebanon while serving as a conduit to supply and support the terrorist group Hezbollah; provides a base of operations for Russian military activity in the Middle East; and is quite possibly the site of ongoing, illicit nuclear-weapons activity by Iran and North Korea, despite Israel’s destruction of a Syrian nuclear reactor in September 2007. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Jesuits Rebuke Ryan: Georgetown Catholics, seeking to help the poor, promote welfare dependency. 6.11.12

Michael Novak — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:34:42 -0400

“Left flank to base. Left flank to base. We have lost radio contact with the right flank. Please come in. We have lost contact with the right. Please come in. Give us your bearings. Over.” In six succinct paragraphs, some leading Jesuits and other professors and staff members at Georgetown University upbraided Congressman Paul Ryan, one of the more serious Catholics in the Congress, for “misrepresenting Catholic social thought.” That is, they simply made no contact with his arguments, couldn’t understand his basic Catholic principles, and did not recognize that he was fighting on their side, only that he was advancing from the opposite flank. The letter begins kindly enough: “Welcome to Georgetown. We appreciate your willingness to talk about how Catholic social teaching can help inform effective policy in dealing with the urgent challenges facing our country.” This is a refreshing break from those institutions that ban, hoot down, and refuse to listen to anyone who has a different starting point. Thomas Reese, S.J., the Jesuit author of the letter, is to be commended for this approach. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Is Gay Parenting Bad for the Kids? Children of gay couples are disadvantaged — because of family instability. 6.11.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:33:47 -0400

In his new Social Science Journal study, Mark Regnerus poses a question: “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships?” The answer to this — in both the academic literature and the imagination of the American public — has changed dramatically in less than a generation. “Fifteen years ago,” Regnerus explained at an event at the nonpartisan Institute for American Values, biological, heterosexual families were “reflexively regarded as the best environment for children.” This subsequently gave way to the notion that there were “no meaningful differences” in outcomes for children raised in non-traditional arrangements. Finally it was suggested that children “might actually be better off being raised by a gay couple.” Although there is little hard evidence to support such a conclusion, advocates of same-sex marriage and gay adoption have declared the science to be settled. Most famous, perhaps, of such declarations is the 2010 paper by social scientists Judith Stacey and Timothy Biblarz, who contended that “based strictly on the published science, one could argue that two women parent better on average than a woman and a man, or at least than a woman and man with a traditional division of family labor.” This contention — that homosexual parenting is either neutral or better than traditional family structures — has found its way into our academic, legal, and cultural conversation and is rarely questioned. Hence the Ninth Circuit’s declaration: “Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful, and well-adjusted. The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Ban Natural Gas! No, Ban Coal! Market forces, not government meddling, lead to efficiency. 6.11.12

Robert Bryce — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:32:36 -0400

Mark Twain once said that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Twain wasn’t talking about energy, but his line applies to the EPA’s proposed prohibition on the construction of coal-fired electricity generators. Indeed, we need only look back a few decades to see how the EPA’s misbegotten rule rhymes with what Congress did back in 1978 when it banned the use of natural gas for electricity production. Yes, you read that right. In 1978, Congress passed the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act, which prohibited the use of natural gas for electricity generation. Given the surfeit of natural gas now available to American consumers, it’s hard to imagine a time when natural-gas shortages were common. But during the mid- and late-1970s, shortages were a frequent occurrence. Those shortages weren’t caused by a lack of gas resources. As we now know, America sits atop galaxies of the fuel. Instead, the shortages were caused by a briar patch of federal regulations that hampered the development of interstate markets for natural gas. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Third-Party History: New documents shed new light on his ties to a leftist party in the 1990s. 6.7.12

Stanley Kurtz — Thu, 7 Jun 2012 11:00:21 -0400

On the evening of January 11, 1996, while Mitt Romney was in the final years of his run as the head of Bain Capital, Barack Obama formally joined the New Party, which was deeply hostile to the mainstream of the Democratic party and even to American capitalism. In 2008, candidate Obama deceived the American public about his potentially damaging tie to this third party. The issue remains as fresh as today’s headlines, as Romney argues that Obama is trying to move the United States toward European-style social democracy, which was precisely the New Party’s goal. In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a “crackpot smear.” Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that “Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party.” I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press. Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Free Speech Wins in Wisconsin 6.7.12

The Editors of NRO — Thu, 7 Jun 2012 10:59:30 -0400

It is difficult to predict how an election will go, but there is one outcome that is almost always the same: When the Left loses a contest, its response will be to try to change the rules of the game, which is precisely what is happening in the wake of Governor Scott Walker’s victory in Wisconsin. The Capital Times, a left-wing newspaper in Madison, is calling for a special session of the legislature to enact new limitations on political participation by individuals, businesses, and nonprofit groups. Such reliable liberal cartoons as Michael Moore and Paul Begala have suggested that the defeat of the campaign to recall Governor Walker was simply a matter of special interests’ purchasing an electoral outcome. Even as the Wisconsin ballots were being tabulated, an Occupy-affiliated group in Illinois was demonstrating in favor of curtailing the free-speech rights of certain individuals and organizations. Not to be outdone, Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats have proposed an initiative that would in effect repeal the First Amendment and empower them to enact wide-ranging restrictions on Americans’ ability to participate in the political process. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Paying for Obamacare 6.7.12

Patrick Brennan — Thu, 7 Jun 2012 10:57:50 -0400

In order to defeat or repeal certain taxes, conservatives often like to label them “job killing,” and it turns out one of Obamacare’s tax increases might be just that — for American workers, and some Democratic congressmen. Those politicians are now joining Republicans in attempting to repeal the execrable measure, an excise tax on medical-device sales. In a January Bloomberg View column, Ramesh Ponnuru ably covered the detrimental effects of the tax: An industry with a 4 percent profit margin (leading ThinkProgress to call it “ever-profitable”) will now face a 2.3 percent excise tax, and various medical-device companies have either halted hiring or are planning layoffs. A trade-group study suggests that it will cost the industry 45,000 high-paying jobs. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Walker, Unbowed. 6.6.12

The Editors — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 08:50:30 -0400

The year-long saga of the Wisconsin recall is, at long last, over, and Scott Walker is still standing. The low-key Republican governor has withstood a sustained (and expensive) onslaught from the forces of Big Labor and its allies on the Left that featured everything from the coordinated cross-border retreat of intransigent Democratic lawmakers, to the occupation of the state house by a band of radicals, bongo drummers, and high school truants, to ill-fated attempts to nullify Republican legislative majorities and pick off uncooperative judges. Walker’s enemies did everything but release the kraken. And yet, he won. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Romney: Man of Pastel. 6.6.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 08:47:12 -0400

Now that Mitt Romney has officially clinched the Republican nomination, most of the political Right has rallied around him, out of antipathy for President Obama if for no other reason. Recent polls show that if the election were held today Romney would receive 90 percent of the Republican vote, and three-quarters of the vote from self-described conservatives. One can expect even more conservatives and Republicans to “come home,” as the bitterness of the primary season fades, and the contrast with Obama becomes clearer.

Yet, for anyone concerned with the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government, dark clouds continue to hang over the Romney campaign. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

It’s Obama’s Economy. And there’s no escaping that fact. 6.6.12

James C. Capretta — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 08:43:54 -0400

Last week’s dismal jobs report struck like a thunderbolt, shaking the confidence of those who assumed an Obama second term was all but a sure thing. It’s finally dawning on the political class that, yes, President Obama could lose the presidential election this November. This might help explain Paul Krugman’s latest column in the New York Times. In it, Krugman attempts to answer the “political lifeline” question that is now on the minds of many Democrats: What could possibly save the president, flailing in the ocean of his own failed record in office, from defeat? Krugman’s advice, though not particularly creative, is certainly easy to remember: Blame the Republicans! Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Big-Spending Obamas: Maybe it’s time for Debtors Anonymous -- for the First Family and the nation. 6.5.12

Jim Geraghty — Tue, 5 Jun 2012 12:48:38 -0400

Does President Barack Obama know how much he is spending? Critics of the president asked that question after he asserted, “Since I’ve been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years.” (This figure comes from an online article that has been widely debunked because, among other sleights of hand, it interprets modest rates of increase in annual spending as a reduction in the spending, even though the total actual spending under Obama’s watch has been gargantuan.) But the same question could apply to the president’s personal finances as well, given that the president and Mrs. Obama have spent enough money during their time in the White House to reportedly express anxiety about their personal finances — even as the president earns several million dollars from his book sales and even though the taxpayers cover a portion of the Obamas’ living expenses. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Battle of the Bulge The mayor’s war on soda crosses a line. 6.5.12

Alexander Kazam — Tue, 5 Jun 2012 12:47:40 -0400

First they came for the trans fat. Now New York City is going after Big Soda — bureaucratic guns blazing. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to ban the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces at restaurants, delis, sports stadiums, movie theaters, and food carts would fine businesses as much as $200 for each plus-size drink they sell. Gulp. Big gulp. Speaking of which, since the rule won’t apply to supermarkets and convenience stores, you should still be able to buy 7/11’s enormous 32-ounce Big Gulp, a giant container of sugary fizz dwarfed only by the 44-ounce Super Gulp and the 64-ounce Double Big Gulp, which is twice the size of the average human stomach. Nor will the ban extend to fruit juice, dairy-based beverages such as the 580-calorie Chocolate Frosty from Wendy’s, or alcoholic drinks. A ten-ounce margarita packs about 600 calories, around 10 percent more than a McDonald’s Big Mac. All of that will be permitted, and yet you will no longer be able to grab a standard 20-ounce Coke bottle from a street cart in Central Park. Ditto for the 20-ounce Snapple and Gatorade bottles at your local sandwich shop. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

God Save the Queen: Royals, not revolution, say the 99 percent. 6.5.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Tue, 5 Jun 2012 12:46:41 -0400

The British national anthem, whose musical tune most Americans know best as “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” opens with a request of the heavens: “God save our gracious Queen / Long live our noble Queen.” On this petition God appears to have smiled, for Queen Elizabeth II has been on the British throne for 60 years and counting, and looks set in three years’ time to pass Victoria as the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Judging by the considerable public enthusiasm for this week’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations — and the attendant opinion polling — the majority of Britons regard the queen’s longevity as being worthy of recognition. But among the revelers is a small clique that has instead elected to protest the festivities. They are the advocates of a British republic, and they are having none of it. Britain, they aver, should be based on “democratic values — not medieval ones.” In a nation that likes to cast itself as “modern,” why has their message not caught on? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

If Walker Wins, What Are the Lessons? Wisconsin may be in play, labor is split, and voters are worked up. 6.4.12

John Fund — Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:16:27 -0400

It looks as if Governor Scott Walker will survive Tuesday’s recall vote. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has him leading Milwaukee’s Democratic mayor Tom Barrett by 6.6 points. As of late Sunday, the betting site Intrade was predicting that Walker has a 94.5 percent chance of becoming the victor. Even Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is now saying the recall wasn’t smart. “Don’t get an election that’s divisive, that may have an influence on the presidential election,” he told MSNBC last week. “We made a mistake doing that.” If the recall fails, what will be the takeaways from the 17 months of pitched war that Wisconsin has endured since Governor Walker proposed his dramatic reforms of pensions and privileges in the state’s public-sector unions? Expect the Left to Blame Obama Maureen Dowd of the New York Times dismissed Obama on Sunday as someone who “prefers to float above, at a reserve, in grandiose mists.” When the likes of Dowd are no longer feeling the love, we shouldn’t be surprised that other Democrats are dumping on Obama for not showing up to help Barrett in Wisconsin. “Progressive Pundits Lay Groundwork to Blame Obama if Wisconsin Recall Fails” was the headline of a searing critique by Noah Rothman at Mediaite. He quoted Ed Schultz of MSNBC sarcastically noting that the president was in neighboring Iowa and Minnesota last week and that his campaign office is in nearby Chicago. “It’s all around, but is it in?” Schultz asked of the Obama campaign. “[Union members] want him on that line because he talked about being on that line with them back in 2007.” Schultz closed his plea for an Obama visit by saying it is the “job of a leader” to motivate his followers. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

‘Death with Dignity’ in Massachusetts: Elevating doctor-prescribed suicide to “treatment” puts patients at risk. 6.4.12

Greg Pfundstein — Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:15:33 -0400

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, died of prostate cancer on May 20. Nearly three years earlier, on August 20, 2009, Scottish authorities had released him on compassionate grounds so that he could return home to die. At the time, he was thought to have three months to live. Some think that al-Megrahi’s survival of his prognosis undermined whatever grounds there were for his early release. But if we set aside his crimes and consider him as a patient with medical needs, his case sheds light on the current proposal for doctor-prescribed suicide in Massachusetts. Three days before al-Megrahi died last month, the disability-rights group Second Thoughts submitted a challenge to contest a measure on the November ballot in Massachusetts, arguing that the initiative’s language for legalizing doctor-prescribed suicide is “clearly misleading.” Second Thoughts objects in particular to the use of the term “terminally ill.” According to director John Kelly, “People will be encouraged to assume that being ‘terminally ill’ is a biological fact, rather than a human guess.” In the case of al-Megrahi, a human guess resulted in the transfer of a convicted terrorist to his home country of Libya, where, remarkably, he found care superior to what he was receiving in Scotland. The “human guess” that allowed for his release was off by over 1,000 percent. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Church Pushes Back: Its twelve lawsuits will be decided in courtrooms, not newspaper editorials. 6.4.12

Mark L. Rienzi — Mon, 4 Jun 2012 11:14:31 -0400

It was all too predictable that the filing of twelve different lawsuits by 43 different Catholic entities was almost completely ignored by traditional news outlets. One would think that this type of strong, coordinated legal attack in federal court, filed by one of the nation’s leading law firms (Jones Day) on behalf of the nation’s largest single religious denomination, would be deemed a top news story. The networks apparently disagreed — as did the New York Times, which ran the story on page A17. But then the editorial writers at the Times eventually did grant the lawsuits prominent coverage — to criticize the Catholic Church for defending its rights. Their lead editorial on May 27 concludes that the mandate doesn’t present any actual threat to religious liberty. In their view, the “real threat to religious liberty” instead “comes from the effort to impose one church’s doctrine on everyone.” The Times is wrong in every conceivable way about the mandate, religious-liberty law, and the lawsuits. First, of course the Church’s lawsuits do not seek to “impose one church’s doctrine” on anyone, much less “everyone.” The question is not whether contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs will remain legal and available — it is whether religious organizations can be forced to provide free access to them. No one is forced to work for a Catholic institution. And those who do are perfectly free to get these drugs on their own, for free from the government, or from the many sources that willingly distribute them. Indeed, in no other context has anyone ever suggested that an employer’s failure to distribute an item for free is “imposing doctrine” on anyone. Catholic institutions also do not give out pornography, Big Macs, or trips to Disneyland. Failure to provide these things for free does not impose anything on anyone or restrict anyone’s freedom in any way. Overheated claims to the contrary cannot be taken seriously. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

President Obama Shuns Lech Walesa 6.1.12

Rory Cooper — Fri, 1 Jun 2012 12:22:42 -0400

Lech Walesa was once a trade-union activist. He was often arrested for speaking his mind against Communist oppression behind the Iron Curtain in Poland and for defying the Soviet Union. He was an electrician who, with no higher education, led one of the most profound freedom movements of the 20th century — Solidarity. He became president of Poland and swept in reforms, pushing the Soviet Union out of his homeland and moving the country toward a free-market economy and individual liberty. And President Obama doesn’t want him to set foot in the White House. According to the Wall Street Journal, Polish officials requested that Walesa accept the Medal of Freedom on behalf of Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was being honored posthumously this week. The request makes sense. Walesa and Karski shared a burning desire to rid Poland of tyrannical subjugation. But President Obama said no. Administration officials told the Journal that Walesa is too “political.” A man who was arrested by Soviet officials for dissenting against the government for being “political” is being shunned by the United States of America for the same reason 30 years later. Meanwhile, one of the recipients of the Medal was Dolores Huerta, the honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. So socialist politics are acceptable, but not the politics of a man who stood up and fought socialism. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Wisconsin Unions in Decline 6.1.12

Robert Costa — Fri, 1 Jun 2012 12:21:40 -0400

Regardless of whether Governor Scott Walker survives Tuesday’s recall election, Wisconsin’s public-employee unions are likely to see their power continue to decline. According to the Wall Street Journal, government unions in the Badger State have “experienced a dramatic drop in membership” since Walker and GOP lawmakers passed a package of reforms last year, including ones curbing collective-bargaining rights and ending mandatory union membership. Labor unions are being crippled by the elimination of automatic dues withholding, a practice that had enriched the unions’ coffers. Thousands of state workers are simply refusing to contribute; others are leaving public-sector jobs. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Egypt’s Options 5.31.12

The Editors of NRO — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:24:24 -0400

Optimists have promoted the notion that Egypt will show how to make the necessary transition from military rule to democracy. Pessimists, on the contrary, have been warning that the Muslim Brothers have enough popular appeal to set up an Islamic dictatorship. Parliamentary elections have already given the Muslim Brothers and other Islamic extremists a majority. The hope was that presidential elections would provide checks and balances, however imperfect. Some of the candidates occupied the middle ground; either they had supported the military but not too much, or they were Islamists but not too extreme. All failed. Mohammed Morsi, the Muslim Brothers candidate, and Ahmed Shafiq, a former general from the inner ruling circle, were virtually equal with a quarter of the vote each. The runoff between them in mid-June will decide what kind of a country Egypt is going to be. The ideological incompatibility between the two final candidates is not open to compromise. For 30 years Hosni Mubarak was an arbitrary ruler imposing a stultifying hand on his country, but under him, politics were at least stable and predictable. The revolution his misrule did so much to foster has wrecked the economy, blighted tourism, and led to such widespread crime that the police no longer try to contain it. There are frightening uncertainties of the kind that carry seeds of violence. The electoral process offers flimsy protection. For the moment, both Morsi and Shafiq are trying to win the support of those who voted for candidates occupying the middle ground. The military can call out the tanks; the Muslim Brothers can call out the street. The latter have also been able to dominate a parliamentary committee set up to draft the new constitution. This committee has so far postponed its report. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

A Sobering Farce: After the Iron Curtain fell, history kept on going. 5.31.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:19:16 -0400

The world is now somnambulating toward bone-cracking economic and strategic crises, sporadically and intermittently aware that grave outcomes impend, and generally aware that it is all very unsatisfactory, but afflicted by various versions of prevarication. In the United States, it is an uncharacteristic version of mañana; the system of government to which ten generations of Americans have pledged allegiance with such fervor that omissions of the Pledge of Allegiance at anodyne public occasions have at times, as in the 1988 presidential election, been a viable political issue, has broken down. The two groups of party leaders, each controlling a branch of the federal government, are incapable of agreeing on anything, including, critically, the individual composition of the chief organ of the third branch, the Supreme Court. Republicans are so preoccupied with defining the Constitution in terms that give effect to the Tenth Amendment allocation of unspecified powers to the states and the people that they nominate justices who have acquiesced in the evisceration of the individual-liberties sections of the Bill of Rights. The notion of the grand jury as insurance against capricious prosecution, due process, the guarantee against seizure of property without just compensation, and the promises of access to counsel, an impartial jury, prompt justice, and reasonable bail have all gone over the side as prosecutors terrorize the whole country with an absolute immunity through the hideously deformed plea-bargain system. And the Democrats put up candidates who have some regard for civil liberties but appear to regard the constitutional prerogatives of the federal government as ramifying to almost any activity. Election campaigns are crushingly expensive and begin as soon as the preceding election is concluded. Lobbyists exercise a baleful and ineradicable influence; the money of interested parties lubricates the system at all levels, and attempts at campaign-finance reform make the system worse. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Chicago Way: Obama’s coterie of insiders is worth a closer look this time around. 5.30.12

John Fund — Wed, 30 May 2012 11:52:07 -0400

Every president comes to Washington with a coterie of outside advisers, friends, and fixers they’ve picked up during the course of a career. Eventually one or more of them becomes controversial. Richard Nixon had Bebe Rebozo. Jimmy Carter had his brother Billy and Bert Lance. Ronald Reagan had Mike Deaver. Bill Clinton had many trailing after him — they became the menagerie implicated in Whitewater and Monicagate. But Barack Obama’s inner circle has almost completely escaped close scrutiny since he became president. That may be about to change, and the rich cast of characters making up Team Obama merits further attention. A new biography of Obama by Edward Klein called The Amateur has rocketed to the No. 1 slot on the New York Times bestseller list. Among its explosive allegations is that after videos of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s anti-American sermons surfaced in the 2008 campaign, a close friend of Obama’s and a fellow member of Wright’s church named Eric Whitaker approached the reverend. In a taped interview with Klein, Wright said Whitaker offered him — via e-mail, through an intermediary — $150,000 to stop preaching and appearing in the media until after the election. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Egypt: Europe’s Economic Cousin: The unstable nation suffers from the same problems, and lacks leadership. 5.30.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 30 May 2012 11:51:05 -0400

The first fair presidential election in Egypt’s history has ended disappointingly, with the top two finishers being Ahmed Shafiq, a former Mubarak prime minister who represents the old elites, and Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate. Not surprisingly, therefore, much of the attention, both within Egypt and in the outside world, is being focused on issues such as the role of political Islam, crime, political openness, and the rivalry between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet there has been relatively little discussion of the issue that may ultimately have the most long-lasting impact on Egypt’s future — the need for economic reform. There is no doubt that Egypt’s economy is in tatters. Real GDP growth was just 1.8 percent in 2011, and is projected to be lower still this year. Unemployment is 10.4 percent and rising. Youth unemployment tops 25 percent. Inflation runs well above 10 percent per year. As is true of the welfare states of Europe, Egypt’s economy is being crushed by the burden of big government, taxes, and debt. The budget deficit is expected to reach 10 percent of GDP this year, a greater burden than Greece’s, while the official debt is roughly 80 percent of GDP. That is a lower percentage than, say, the U.S.’s, but it is still approaching the level that scholars warn seriously impedes economic growth. And, no doubt, the debt would be far higher without the $3 billion in foreign aid that Egypt receives every year — $1.5 billion of which comes from the United States. The country’s credit rating has been downgraded three times in the past year. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Counting Palestine Refugees The Senate nudges us toward a proper understanding of the issue. 5.25.12

Daniel Pipes — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:18:35 -0400

The fetid, dark heart of the Arab war on Israel, I have long argued, lies not in disputes over Jerusalem, checkpoints, or “settlements.” Rather, it concerns the so-called Palestine refugees. So called because of the nearly 5 million official refugees served by UNRWA (short for the “United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East”) only about 1 percent are real refugees who fit the agency’s definition of “people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.” The other 99 percent are descendants of those refugees, or what I call fake refugees. Worse: Those alive in 1948 are dying off and in about 50 years not a single real refugee will remain alive, whereas (extrapolating from an authoritative estimate in Refugee Survey Quarterly by Mike Dumper) their fake-refugee descendants will number about 20 million. Unchecked, that population will grow like Topsy until the end of time. This matters because the refugee status has harmful effects: It blights the lives of these millions of non-refugees by disenfranchising them while imposing an ugly, unrealistic irredentist dream on them; worse, the refugee status preserves them as a permanent dagger aimed at Israel’s heart, threatening the Jewish state and disrupting the Middle East. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Empty Playground and the Welfare State 5.25.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:17:06 -0400

A debate broke out recently in the blogs about the ethics of having children. The occasion was the publication of a remarkably silly book arguing that reproduction is immoral. One blogger argued in response that people have an obligation to create new life as an expression of gratitude for the life they have been given. Another denied the existence of any such obligation but argued that having children is an important source of happiness for most people. In this fact he finds sufficient justification for having children, and for governments to help people afford to have them. The discussion, while interesting, would have been unintelligible throughout most of human history. The absence of reliable means of contraception meant that having children was a less discrete decision than it is today. And while many people felt an obligation to bear children or wanted the emotional satisfactions they can bring, they also had an overwhelming practical reason for wanting them: They needed the help. They needed their offspring’s labor. They needed children, especially, to avoid hunger and privation in old age. The bargain was simple: Parents take care of their children until they are able-bodied, and in return get taken care of by their children when they no longer are. We still need to have children so that we can enjoy a secure old age. Modern societies have disguised the old bargain by socializing it. They maintain expensive government programs to assist the elderly, financed by successive generations. The children still take care of the elderly when they grow up, but now it’s all the children providing for all the elderly, collectively. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Coexisting with Sharia A trial involving child sex abuse in England sends a warning. 5.25.12

Karen Lugo — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:07:39 -0400

You have probably seen the “coexist” bumper sticker. It implies that we should all just try harder to get along. Wherever we turn, it seems, we are assured that efforts to embrace differences will result only in harmony, although the bargain often entails that we abandon our core cultural principles and our Western soul. For too long we have failed to comprehend that the cost of coexistence can be high. Finally, though, the pursuit of tolerance at any price is being assessed realistically. The British have now been forced to confront — and finally judge — the actions of some minority Muslims who have embedded themselves in a counterculture hostile to British society. Forty-nine men, predominantly from Pakistan, were convicted (or are still wanted) for luring 47 underage British girls to lairs for serial rape. At least one victim was forced to have sex with 20 men in one night, according to the police. Two girls became pregnant and a 13-year-old reported aborting a baby conceived by rape. Nine of the Muslim men were found guilty last week. Authorities expect to charge four more, and up to 40 additional suspects remain at large. Judge Gerald Clinton accused the predators of targeting white girls because they were not part of the Islamist “community or religion.” The ringleader was removed from the courtroom for being disrespectful of the judge and the legal process. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

‘Clean Coal’ Means No Coal: Obama the candidate tries to appear friendly to all energy sources. 5.25.12

Nash Keune — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:06:38 -0400

Two weeks ago, the Obama campaign quietly edited its website to highlight the president’s support for “clean coal.” In place of a section for “energy efficiency” with no mention of coal, BarackObama.com now boasts that the stimulus package “invested substantially in carbon capture and sequestration research.” The administration’s position on coal has, shall we say, evolved. In 2001, the EPA released an endangerment finding stating that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide threaten public health and the environment by contributing to climate change and that therefore they could be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Since then, as Bryan Walsh noted in Time magazine, the EPA has “embark[ed] on what could be the most far-reaching environmental regulatory scheme in American history.” Already, 57 coal-fired plants have closed owing to the EPA’s regulations, according to the National Mining Association. Supporters insist that policies favoring renewable energy sources will lead to lower costs. However, the burden of these coal regulations has contributed to a $300 increase in the average household’s electricity bill over the last five years, despite the substantial stimulus investment “in carbon capture and sequestration research.” Some of this increased cost can be attributed to more demand for electricity. But USA Today reports that the rise in cost is due in part to “the expense of replacing old power plants, including heavily polluting — but cheap to operate — coal plants that don’t meet federal clean air requirements.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Is the Constitution a Republican Plot? Harry Reid’s Senate seems to think so. 5.25.12

Michael G. Franc — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:05:56 -0400

It’s one of the clearest, easiest-to-understand provisions in the Constitution. And Harry Reid’s Senate flouts it routinely. The Origination Clause in Article I, Section 7 states: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” In addition to clarity, this provision has an even greater virtue: It serves a very good purpose. The Founding Fathers required revenue measures to originate in the House because they wanted this authority to belong to the legislative body closest to the people. Plus, the Framers wanted the larger states to enjoy the most influence on matters of taxing and spending, which is the case in the House (whose seats are allocated according to population) but not the Senate (where each state gets two seats regardless of population and smaller states have outsized influence). “This power over the purse,” James Madison explained in Federalist No. 58, “may, in fact be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

What Iran’s Rulers Want War, genocide, and nuclear weapons. 5.24.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:55:08 -0400

It’s no longer possible to pretend we don’t know the intentions of Iran’s rulers. They are telling us — candidly, clearly, and repeatedly. Most recently last Sunday: Addressing a gathering in Tehran, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, vowed the “full annihilation of the Zionist regime of Israel to the end.” A few days earlier, José Maria Aznar, former prime minister of Spain, during a presentation at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a respected Israeli think tank, recalled a “private discussion” in Tehran in October of 2000 with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who told him: “Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth.” Dore Gold, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.N. who now heads the JCPA, wanted to be certain there was no misunderstanding. He asked Aznar: Was Khamenei suggesting “a gradual historical process involving the collapse of the Zionist state, or rather its physical-military termination?” “He meant physical termination through military force,” Aznar replied. Khamenei called Israel “an historical cancer” — an echo of Nazi rhetoric he has employed on numerous occasions, the last time in public on February 3. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Climategate Continues Will a penalty be called for Keith Briffa’s excessively curved hockey stick? 5.24.12

The Editors of NRO — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:54:30 -0400

Climategate, the 2009 exposure of misconduct at the University of East Anglia, was a terrible blow to the reputation of climatology, and indeed to that of British and American science. Although that story hasn’t been in the news in recent months, new evidence of similar scientific wrongdoing continues to emerge, with a new scandal hitting the climate blogosphere just a few days ago. And central to the newest story is one of the Climategate scientists: Keith Briffa, an expert in reconstructing historical temperature records from tree rings. More particularly, the recent scandal involves a tree-ring record Briffa prepared for a remote area of northern Russia called Yamal. For many years, scientists have used tree-ring data to try to measure temperatures from the distant past, but the idea is problematic in and of itself. Why? Because tree-ring data reflect many variables besides temperature. Russian tree growth, like that of trees around the world, also reflects changes in humidity, precipitation, soil nutrients, competition for resources from other trees and plants, animal behavior, erosion, cloudiness, and on and on. But let’s pretend, if only for the sake of argument, that we can reliably determine the mean temperature 1,000 years ago or more using tree cores from a remote part of Russia. The central issue that emerges is: How do you choose the trees? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Pressuring the Chief 5.24.12

The Editors of NRO — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:45:04 -0400

We have argued before that the Supreme Court should strike down Obamacare. While the Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states, and to make all laws necessary and proper to execute that power, Obamacare’s command that all Americans purchase health insurance cannot be justified under either grant. Perhaps we are wrong. Perhaps there are better arguments for the law’s constitutionality than those we have so far seen from its defenders. But some of those defenders now seem to be dispensing with such arguments altogether. Instead they are threatening dire consequences for the reputation of the Supreme Court and especially for Chief Justice John Roberts if he joins a majority of the justices to strike down the individual mandate. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Baby Budget Hawks of the GOP: Being better than Dems is not good enough. 5.23.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:12:21 -0400

The conventional wisdom, pushed for very different reasons by both Republicans and Democrats, is that Republicans in Congress, controlled by radical tea-partiers, have been slashing government spending. Thus it becomes a little hard to understand how, in the few short months since last year’s debt-ceiling deal, the federal debt has increased by more than $1.5 trillion, roughly $13,000 per household. If Republicans are such great budget cutters, how come we continue to spend more, run more deficits, and accumulate more debt? The latest evidence suggests that it is because, contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans still aren’t such radical budget hawks after all. For example, the latest Club for Growth scorecard suggests that, on the whole, Republicans in this congress have actually been less fiscally responsible than those in past congresses. For 2011, the average Republican received a weighted score of 69.5 out of 100. That’s far short of the 86.3 average score in 2010, and it hardly suggests a tea-party-led wave of austerity. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Christie Is One of Us 5.23.12

Noah Glyn — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:11:12 -0400

New Jersey governor Chris Christie has certainly earned his fair share of enemies over the years — corrupt politicians whom he indicted as U.S. attorney, Democrats in the state legislature, teachers unions, and liberal activists across the country. Among conservatives, though, Christie has become a rock star. Well, among some conservatives. He’s taken a beating on NRO lately. Andrew McCarthy argues on the Corner that Mitt Romney should not choose Chris Christie as his vice-presidential candidate. He is probably correct that Romney would be best served by selecting someone other than Christie, but his characterization of Christie as a “tough-talking moderate” is unfair to the governor. Christie has proved himself a tough-talking conservative. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Who Is Barack Obama? 5.22.12

Michael Gledhill — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:21:08 -0400

Who is Barack Obama? Obama the presidential candidate presents himself as a man who has loved America from his earliest childhood, a man proud of his mixed-race roots who comfortably transcends polarized racial politics, a man who eschews the ideologies of Left and Right, an optimistic healer. But in his critically acclaimed autobiography, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Obama is something else entirely. Obama published his autobiography in 1995, when he was in his mid-thirties. Unlike most books by politicians, which are concoctions of clichés penned by ghostwriters, Dreams was clearly written by Obama himself. Unlike most politicians, Obama can write and loves language. (He was contemplating a career as a novelist at the time he wrote Dreams.) Most important, Obama wrote his autobiography after he had become a political activist but before he was a politician; the book is therefore candid in a way a conventional politician’s memoir would never be. Dreams is a complex, introspective book. Its theme is how Obama, born in Hawaii to a white student mother and Kenyan student father, grows to view himself and the white society around him. The Obama of Dreams abandons his multiracial roots to forge an alienated black identity — that of a man steeped in radical ideology who views history in terms of a huge chasm separating oppressor from oppressed, white from black, and rich from poor; a man who is never more emotionally at home than when sitting in the church pew listening to Rev. Jeremiah Wright rant about white racism. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Democrats’ Budget Blame Game: Higher taxes is not fiscal conservatism. 5.22.12

James C. Capretta — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:20:22 -0400

Over many decades, the Democratic party earned a reputation among voters for backing higher government spending and government programs over private-sector initiatives. Americans thus came to see the party as largely uninterested in fiscal restraint, especially the kind of restraint that would help keep taxes from rising. In contrast, Republicans have built their brand around fiscal conservatism — holding the line on taxes, spending, deficits, and debt. But in recent years, Democratic politicians and their apologists have tried to peddle the notion that historical perceptions about the parties regarding fiscal matters are erroneous. According to the narrative now promoted by most party activists and often repeated in the mainstream press, despite perceptions, it’s actually the Democrats who are now the party of fiscal conservatism, because they’re willing to raise taxes. Republicans, it is contended, are now fiscally reckless on account of their taxophobia. All of this depends on a definition of fiscal conservatism not shared by voters. To Democratic apologists, it is fiscally conservative to expand government, so long it’s paid for by tax increases. Unfortunately for them, the electorate does not see it that way. They want their elected leaders to be conservative in using their tax dollars, and conservative in asking for them too. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Call for a Global Tax: The U.N. promotes leftist economics under the banner of “human rights.” 5.22.12

Jacob Mchangama — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:19:12 -0400

Targeting the G-8, United Nations human-rights officials (“independent experts”) have issued a call for a global financial-transaction tax “to offset the costs of the enduring economic, financial, fuel, climate and food crises, and to protect basic human rights.” The May 14, 2012, statement is among the most blatant examples of how far the international human-rights community has strayed from human-rights principles by blundering into complex and highly partisan political debates on economics. Olivier De Schutter, U.N. special human-rights rapporteur on the right to food, proclaimed: “Where the world financial crisis has brought about the loss of millions of jobs, socialized private debt burdens, and now risks causing significant human rights regressions through wide-ranging austerity packages, a financial transaction tax (FTT) is a pragmatic tool for providing the means for governments to protect and fulfill the human rights of their people.” Magdalena Sepúlveda, another U.N. special rapporteur (her bailiwick is poverty and human rights), expressed confidence that the presumably massive revenue stream from such a tax “would fill government deficit holes, but should be channelled to fighting poverty, reversing growing inequality and compensating those whose lives have been devastated by the enduring global economic crisis.” Neither expert made any mention of possible social, economic, or political costs. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

G, What a Waste Leaders of ailing nations meet at Camp David. 5.22.12

Conrad Black — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:17:23 -0400

The spectacle of the G-8 leaders in the bucolic verdure of Camp David, as they were strutting in their leisure attire capped by prudent sweaters against any non-fiscal Catoctin chill for photo-ops for those at home, could momentarily disguise what an appalling mess all the G-8 countries except Germany and Canada have made of the art of government. Not all the leaders who attended are equally blameworthy, of course. The French and Japanese leaders are new. Some — Mario Monti (of Italy) and David Cameron (of the U.K.) — have lightly ameliorated the desperate conditions they inherited; and some — Angela Merkel (of Germany), and Stephen Harper (of Canada) — inherited advantageous conditions and have steadfastly reinforced them, have been reelected and probably will be again. As a group, they are an interesting kaleidoscope of leaders of great nations toiling for their own political well-being and for the welfare of their 900 million people, in eight of the twelve largest national economies (Brazil, China, India, and Spain are missing, and would bring the population represented to over 3.5 billion — a majority of the world). They are like a cutaway drawing of Santa’s workshop, with each elf banging away in some purposeful task, yet conveying a slightly comical, portentous busyness. At least this confected casualness is preferable to the former, ostentatious fun of the summiteer: speeding limousines hurtling to a stop as if conveying bank robbers transferring to escape helicopters, as well-upholstered and accoutered men debouch from their cars and bustlingly wrestle bulging briefcases up the conference-building steps for the evident benefit of all mankind. For all history up to the end of the Cold War, summit meetings were historic and dramatic occasions, when leaders who controlled the destiny of much of the world met to change the world. Thus it was with Pope (Saint) Leo and Attila the Hun in 452; Henry VIII and François I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520; Napoleon and Alexander on the raft at Tilsit in 1807; Metternich and the heads of the Great Powers at Vienna in 1814–15; Bismarck and the Powers at Berlin in 1878; Clemenceau, Wilson, and Lloyd George at Versailles in 1918–19; Hitler, Chamberlain, and the others at Munich in 1938; Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in 1945; and the post-war summit meetings from Potsdam through to the dramatic Reagan-Gorbachev meetings in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington, and Moscow. Hugely important decisions, many of them disastrous and some dishonorable, were made at those earlier meetings. The previous meetings at Camp David, between Churchill and Roosevelt in 1943, and between Eisenhower and Khrushchev in 1959, were necessary and at least discussed serious subjects. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Chronicle of Double Standards: In higher ed, civility is for liberals only. 5.22.12

Fredrick M. Hess — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:15:57 -0400

You may recall the kerfuffle a couple of weeks back involving The Chronicle of Higher Education’s decision to fire blogger Naomi Schaefer Riley for her criticism of black-studies programs. Many critics insisted it wasn’t about her point of view but her harsh language. Indeed, Chronicle editor Liz McMillen felt compelled to apologize for Riley, writing, “Several thousand of you spoke out in outrage and disappointment that The Chronicle had published an article that did not conform to the journalistic standards and civil tone that you expect from us.” Well, what does the record suggest? Was Riley targeted for her views, or was her tone really out of bounds? My research assistant Taryn Hochleitner and I went to the record, checking out all Chronicle articles and blog posts that mentioned “gender studies,” “ethnic studies,” or “black studies” between April 1, 2011, and May 1, 2012 (thus not including the Riley-related back-and-forth). Of the 34 articles and blog posts in question, half used these phrases only incidentally. Of the remaining 17, eight were enthusiastic, four critical, and five balanced. When we narrowed the criteria to examine only the Chronicle articles tagged as “reporting” (and not blogs), the results were even more one-sided. There were 24 relevant articles. Of the twelve that focused on these topics, seven were generally positive and none were critical. So, not much evidence of that “journalistic standard” called even-handedness. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Party of Civil Rights 5.21.12

Kevin D. Williamson — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:00:04 -0400

This magazine has long specialized in debunking pernicious political myths, and Jonah Goldberg has now provided an illuminating catalogue of tyrannical clichés, but worse than the myth and the cliché is the outright lie, the utter fabrication with malice aforethought, and my nominee for the worst of them is the popular but indefensible belief that the two major U.S. political parties somehow “switched places” vis-à-vis protecting the rights of black Americans, a development believed to be roughly concurrent with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the rise of Richard Nixon. That Republicans have let Democrats get away with this mountebankery is a symptom of their political fecklessness, and in letting them get away with it the GOP has allowed itself to be cut off rhetorically from a pantheon of Republican political heroes, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to Susan B. Anthony, who represent an expression of conservative ideals as true and relevant today as it was in the 19th century. Perhaps even worse, the Democrats have been allowed to rhetorically bury their Bull Connors, their longstanding affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, and their pitiless opposition to practically every major piece of civil-rights legislation for a century. Republicans may not be able to make significant inroads among black voters in the coming elections, but they would do well to demolish this myth nonetheless. Even if the Republicans’ rise in the South had happened suddenly in the 1960s (it didn’t) and even if there were no competing explanation (there is), racism — or, more precisely, white southern resentment over the political successes of the civil-rights movement — would be an implausible explanation for the dissolution of the Democratic bloc in the old Confederacy and the emergence of a Republican stronghold there. That is because those southerners who defected from the Democratic party in the 1960s and thereafter did so to join a Republican party that was far more enlightened on racial issues than were the Democrats of the era, and had been for a century. There is no radical break in the Republicans’ civil-rights history: From abolition to Reconstruction to the anti-lynching laws, from the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, there exists a line that is by no means perfectly straight or unwavering but that nonetheless connects the politics of Lincoln with those of Dwight D. Eisenhower. And from slavery and secession to remorseless opposition to everything from Reconstruction to the anti-lynching laws, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, there exists a similarly identifiable line connecting John Calhoun and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Supporting civil-rights reform was not a radical turnaround for congressional Republicans in 1964, but it was a radical turnaround for Johnson and the Democrats. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Paleface 5.21.12

The Editors of NRO — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:59:05 -0400

Set aside, for a moment, the mere fact of Elizabeth Warren’s undocumented claims of Cherokee heritage, such sentences as “My pawpaw had high cheekbones, like all the Indians do,” the hokey Pow Wow Chow cookbook with recipes from Le Pavillon (which was located in the famous Cherokee territory of Fifth Avenue, across from the St. Regis Hotel — happy hunting grounds, indeed), and listing herself as a member of a minority group in the Harvard directory. Forget all of that for a moment and consider that Harvard Law School advertised Elizabeth Warren — blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale to the point of translucence — as its “first woman of color” enjoying tenure. It would later cite her presence on the faculty as evidence of its commitment to “diversity.” And she allowed it. One would think that Harvard’s law school and one of its most prominent professors might have some interest in the question of evidence. (They still teach the rules of evidence at Harvard Law.) Like most Indian tribes, the Cherokee are fairly picky about who gets to call himself a Cherokee, and, unlike Harvard, they demand documentation. Indeed, it is a commentary on our times that “Cherokee genealogist” describes an occupational specialization, and a prominent Cherokee genealogist has reiterated that Ms. Warren has no documentable claim to Cherokee ancestry. This is not unusual: So common are false claims of Cherokee ancestry that among genealogists “My grandmother was a Cherokee princess” is a punch line. But the typical third-grader uttering this sentence is not running for the U.S. Senate nor contributing to the alleged “diversity” of Harvard Law. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

How to Combat Bias at the BBC? Simply stop paying the licensing fee, Beeb refuseniks say. 5.21.12

John Fund — Wed, 6 Jun 2012 08:39:04 -0400

London – At last someone has said it. Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London who just won reelection over his left-wing nemesis, “Red Ken” Livingstone, thinks the BBC — the nation’s biggest news outlet — is biased and must change in fundamental ways. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Johnson makes plain just how pernicious he thinks the British Broadcasting Corporation has become. He notes that it is “unlike any other media organisation in the free world, in that it levies billions from British households whether they want to watch it or not.” The annual $230 license fee is required of every British television owner and provides some 75 percent of the BBC’s $7 billion budget. And Big Beeb claims it vigorously prosecutes people for not ponying up. Given the slush fund it has access to, it’s no surprise the BBC is big, bloated, and hopelessly biased. Even the network’s own internal studies have exposed the bias. In 2007 an official BBC report found that the network was institutionally biased, especially in its treatment of climate change, poverty, race, and religion. In 2003, a BBC reporter falsely accused the Tony Blair government of “sexing up” an intelligence report before the Iraq War. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Time-Wasting Network 5.18.12

Rich Lowry — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:14:51 -0400

‘If time be of all things the most precious,” Benjamin Franklin said, “wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.” But he had never heard of a status update. Facebook is the world’s foremost purveyor of information you shouldn’t care about. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is to uselessness what Henry Ford was to the automobile. He has mastered it on an industrial scale and is riding it to a vast fortune. At more than $100 billion, the valuation of Facebook equals the annual GDP of Morocco or Vietnam, countries that don’t top anyone’s list of economic powerhouses, but do actually produce some things of value. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Oprah Problem 5.18.12

Lee Habeeb — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:11:03 -0400

She didn’t see it coming. One day, Oprah Winfrey turned around, and her nationally syndicated show was sliding in the ratings, and her audience was fleeing en masse. And it happened soon after a day she thought was one of the best in her life. Isn’t that how all the giants fall? When they least expect it? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Health Care, Chicago Style A questionable grant to a questionable Obama associate’s group. 5.17.12

Patrick Brennan — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:42:53 -0400

This week the Department of Health and Human Services allocated a $5.9 million grant to Chicago’s Urban Health Initiative. This is the not-for-profit program, run by the University of Chicago Medical Center, at which Michelle Obama was once an executive, and which is now run by one of President Obama’s closest confidants, Eric Whitaker. The grant comes from money allocated by the president’s health-care-reform initiative to fund innovative and cost-cutting solutions, part of the “We Can’t Wait” executive-branch stimulus initiative. Whitaker has a checkered past, with a variety of controversies surrounding his work at the University of Chicago’s hospitals and Illinois’s health department, and it’s only gotten worse recently: Edward Klein, author of The Amateur, claims that Reverend Jeremiah Wright fingered Whitaker as an Obama surrogate who offered $150,000 for the pastor to lie low during the 2008 campaign. If we’re to believe Klein’s claims that he has tapes of Reverend Wright saying that Whitaker offered him hush money, then the only question is whether Wright’s account can be trusted. He might appear unreliable, except that he seems to have little reason otherwise to slander Whitaker, another prominent member of Chicago’s black community. (Wright has invited Whitaker to speak at his church’s events.) Klein’s book explains that Obama chose Whitaker as his fixer for the Wright problem; he was tasked with trying to restrain Wright and on one occasion with finding a replacement preacher for an Obama campaign event. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Ambivalent Theocrat Obama uses the Bible to “exploit what divides us.” 5.17.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:41:55 -0400

There are legitimate theological arguments on both sides of our political divide, but they are not equally well received. In America, it seems, one man’s moral teacher is another’s Torquemada — the difference is usually determined by party registration — and the returns on overt religiosity are mixed at best. As president, George W. Bush was repeatedly and pejoratively labeled “theocrat” for acknowledging his faith, and even the slightest intimation that his religious belief informed his political vantage point was perceived by the Left as symptomatic of an almost treasonous disrespect for the separation of church and state. Throughout his political career, Barack Obama, too, has marshaled religious argument and imagery to his cause when politically expedient, but nary a whisper has followed his proclamations — even when his pastor of 20 years was exposed as an unreconstructed bigot. Obama’s appeals to religion and his claim to be “doing the Lord’s work” are cynical and mercurial enough to have pushed Michael Gerson amusingly to quip that, “even when Obama changes his views, Jesus somehow comes around to agreeing with him.” His varying use of Scripture has been nowhere more striking than with his gay-marriage “evolution.” Announcing his changed position on the issue to ABC News in May, Obama confirmed that he and Michelle are Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Gay-Marriage Gift to Romney? 5.16.12

Katrina Trinko — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:17:07 -0400

No doubt Barack Obama did not intend to do Mitt Romney a favor when he announced his support for same-sex marriage last week. But for Romney, the announcement provided a critical opportunity, both to energize the social conservatives in his base and to drive a wedge between Obama and certain key demographics. “There is a greater opening now [for Romney] with Hispanic voters and African Americans,” a GOP strategist says. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama and GM Cook the Books 5.16.12

John Lott — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:09:55 -0400

Would you hire President Obama as your financial adviser? Three years ago his administration invested more than $100 billion in taxpayer money to bail out General Motors. On Tuesday, the entire company, not just what the government owns, was worth less than $34 billion. By anyone’s definition, that investment is a glaring failure. Yet over the last few days the Obama campaign, in a $25 million marketing blitz, has flooded the airwaves with ads in battleground states, claiming the bailout should be counted a rousing success. Unfortunately, assertions that “all loans have been repaid to the federal government,” that the bailout “saved more than one million American jobs,” that “U.S. automakers are hiring hundreds of thousands of new workers,” that GM is again the “number-one automaker” — all are based on creative accounting. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Where’s the Accountability? 5.16.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:04:59 -0400

Late last week JPMorgan Chase announced that it had lost some $2.3 billion, and possibly more, as a result of bad investment decisions made by its risk-hedging operation. Predictably, some have seized on this misstep to call for greater regulation of the banking industry. White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “The president fought very hard against Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists to get Wall Street reform passed . . . I think that this event merely reinforces why the President was right to take on this fight and why we still need to make sure it’s implemented.” Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren released a new radio ad warning, “Wall Street isn’t going to change its ways until Washington gets serious about strong oversight and real accountability.” Paul Krugman called JPMorgan Chase “an object demonstration of why Wall Street does, in fact, need to be regulated.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

What Happened in Greece? 5.16.12

Napoleon Linardatos — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:53:09 -0400

In Jonah Goldberg’s The Tyranny of Clichés, liberals in the United States try to conceal their ideological bias by pretending to be objective, pragmatic, and moderate. The Greek Left, on the other hand, operating in a center-left country, has no such preoccupations. In the May 6 parliamentary elections, for the first time in recent history, a party of the far Left came in second. It is composed of various subgroups such as the eco-socialists, the Anti-Capitalist Group, the Communist Organization of Greece, and the Trotskyist Communists of the group known as Red. Just in case you found all those names too pragmatic or moderate, the party itself is called the Coalition of the Radical Left. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Gay Divorcees 5.15.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:47:56 -0400

Announcing the results of his long-term “evolution” on the subject last week, President Obama revived the debate over gay marriage. In the widespread discussion, however, there is one question that’s rarely asked: How interested are gay couples in getting married? Heretofore at least, the answer seems to be “not really.” Since 1997, when Hawaii became the first state in the union to allow reciprocal-beneficiary registration for same-sex couples, 19 states and the District of Columbia have granted some form of legal recognition to the relationships of same-sex couples. These variants include marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships, and reciprocal-beneficiary relationships; and the most recent U.S. Census data reveal that, in the last 15 years, only 150,000 same-sex couples have elected to take advantage of them — equivalent to around one in five of the self-identified same-sex couples in the United States. This number does not appear to be low because of the fact that only a few states have allowed full “marriage”; indeed, in the first four years when gay marriage was an option in trailblazing Massachusetts, there were an average of only about 3,000 per year, and that number included many who came from out of state. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Sink with California 5.15.12

Editors of NRO — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:46:56 -0400

California is in desperate fiscal straits, facing a nearly unbridgeable deficit of $16 billion, the result of spending that continues to exceed estimates and tax revenue that fails to meet them. Those in better-governed states who are tempted to sniff at the Golden State’s comeuppance, however, should bear in mind that California’s position as a national trendsetter is still quite secure: What is happening in California is very likely to happen in other states — and possibly at the federal level — if action is not taken. There are lessons here for both the Left and the Right, and those who would not sink with California as it falls into a sea of red ink would do well to study them. California’s present condition is the direct result of welfare-state governance in its full maturity. Intransigent public-employee unions use the collective-bargaining process to maintain their inflated compensation packages, while poorly administered programs for the elderly and indigent have produced a permanent dependent class with attendant expenses that are difficult or impossible to reduce: When Governor Jerry Brown attempted to impose co-pays on some recipients of medical benefits, the Obama administration blocked him. Governor Brown’s attempts to cut spending on health care by lowering some physicians’ reimbursements and subsidies for low-income Californians were blocked by the federal courts. Governor Brown has demonstrated very little that might be called fiscal responsibility, but such attempts as he has made at spending discipline have been blocked by federal authorities when they have not been blocked by Democrats in the state legislature. Those who suspect that Obamacare may turn out to be more expensive and less effective at controlling costs than its admirers have claimed should take a good long look at California to appreciate the difficulty of rationalizing out-of-control health-care spending in a single state. (And multiply by 50.) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

GASBombed: The accounting-standards board is about to nuke state and local budgets — and it’s about time. 5.15.12

Kevin D. Williamson — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:45:49 -0400

It would be tempting to write that the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) is poised to blow a $3 trillion hole in the budgets of state and local governments. But in fact, if you want to be precise, GASB is getting ready to blow the lid off of the $3 trillion hole that is already there. The problem is this: State and local governments have, for the most part, woefully underfunded their employee-pension systems. As a result, they have massive unfunded liabilities for future pension payments — liabilities that total as high as $3 trillion, by some estimates. They can’t forgo writing those pension checks, they don’t have money set aside to cover those pension checks, and they are promising ever more generous pension checks in the future. What does that mean, exactly? GASB, which has a refreshingly reliable habit of producing English-major-approved prose, explains: Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Once Again, Break Up the Banks: J. P. Morgan’s loss reminds us that we shouldn’t have to worry about such a big bank. 5.15.12

Arnold Kling — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:44:52 -0400

Et tu, Jamie Dimon? The embarrassing announcement of a large trading loss at J. P. Morgan has brought the issue of bank regulation back to the fore. J. P. Morgan’s announcement was particularly shocking because Morgan was one of the few banks to emerge from the financial crisis with its reputation intact, or even enhanced. In Fool’s Gold, Gillian Tett’s narrative of the financial crisis, she singled out J. P. Morgan and its CEO for praise. Supposedly, although Morgan traders had invented some of the synthetic credit instruments that were at the center of the financial crisis, the bank had behaved more conservatively than its competitors, and Dimon appreciated risk better. Last Thursday, however, it was Dimon who had to announce one of Wall Street’s biggest losses in years, a $2 billion trading write-down. Based on the public record, I can’t exactly piece together how the loss took place. The losses reportedly were incurred on credit-default swaps owned by J. P. Morgan’s chief investment office, which undertakes hedging. I remember in 1986 Freddie Mac suffered an embarrassing loss incurred by the unit that was hedging its multifamily-mortgage commitments. It turned out that the trader was using his judgment about when to hedge: When he thought interest rates were going up, he hedged; and when he didn’t, he didn’t. What this strategy amounted to was speculation, that is, making bets on positions to which the bank didn’t already have exposure — the opposite of hedging. I assume that something similar took place at Morgan: If they were truly hedging, then the loss on their trades would have been offset by a gain somewhere else in their portfolio. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Sunny Predictions. 5.14.12

Nash Keune — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:42 -0400

Most of my economics professors opened class with some variation of the old in-house joke: “Economists have correctly predicted nine out of the last five recessions.” Their scholarly modesty apparently exhausted, however, they proceeded to spend the next four months teaching precisely how to model and forecast the national economy. In a world where describing the current state of the economy proves difficult — the Bureau of Labor Statistics always has to revise its estimates of current unemployment — it’s understandable that predictions are unreliable. Even so, the manner and degree to which economists are wrong in their forecasts is illuminating. For example, the Obama White House’s predictions often stem from methodological overconfidence. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Union Bosses’ Hypocrisy. 5.14.12

Nathaniel Botwinick — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:20:20 -0400

The leaders of America’s unions have been very vocal lately in their criticism of Republicans and of business. According to them, Republicans care only about the wealthy and are unfairly targeting the workers of America with their reforms. These union leaders insist that only they can speak for regular Americans. In fact, their own salaries suggest that they have nothing in common with the average citizen. Here is a short list of some of the highest-earning, and most hypocritical, union presidents. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Preventing a Nuclear Iran. 5.14.12

Henry Sokolski — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:08:57 -0400

It was reported last week that, in anticipation of the May 23 multilateral nuclear talks with Iran in Baghdad, President Obama had already conceded that Iran can continue to enrich uranium so long as it does so at levels no higher than 5 percent — i.e., not weapons grade. This concession, leaked to the major news outlets but analyzed by none, gives self-defeating a bad name. It would not only make it easier for Tehran to break out and make nuclear weapons whenever it wants, but it would give Iran’s neighbors every reason to demand similar nuclear-fuel-making “rights.” With any luck, Iran will reject this offer. Meanwhile, Congress, which is already toying with legislation to tighten our nuclear-nonproliferation policies, should get busy. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Gay Marriage: Not Inevitable. 5.11.12

Rich Lowry — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:28:14 -0400

President Barack Obama insists that he didn’t announce his support for gay marriage out of political considerations. He’s right. He did it out of self-regard. How it must have eaten away at him to be the first African-American president, yet not associate himself with what has been deemed the foremost civil-rights issue of the age. To be a progressive in favor of all things “forward,” but retrograde on marriage. To know that his stance was a transparent charade and see it treated as such by the lefty opinion makers he respects most. To watch his sloppy, unserious second-in-command get all the credit for moral courage by forthrightly endorsing gay marriage on Meet the Press while he clung to his artful dodge. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Astronauts: Cool It on Warming. 5.11.12

Deroy Murdock — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:30:10 -0400

To the long list of right-wing, knuckle-dragging know-nothings who dare question so-called “global warming,” environmentalists now can add six Apollo astronauts, two rocket men who flew aboard Skylab, and a pair of former directors of the Johnson Space Center (JSC). These veterans of America’s space program are among the 49 retired NASA employees who recently asked the agency to halt what they consider its unscientific advocacy of climate alarmism. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama, Carter, and the Missing Words on Iran. 5.11.12

Elliot Abrams — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:15:25 -0400

American interests and allies in the Persian Gulf are threatened. What’s needed is a clear and tough statement right from the top, so the president starts making speeches. What does he say? That depends on whether it’s Jimmy Carter in 1980 or Barack Obama in 2012. Jimmy Carter in 1980 was a lot tougher. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

‘Young Guns’ Under Fire. 5.10.12

Robert Costa — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:42:49 -0400

A non-profit political organization using the moniker of House leaders Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan is coming under fire for its support of defeated Indiana senator Dick Lugar. The Young Guns Network, often referred to as the YG Network, spent over $100,000 trying to prop up Lugar in his bid to fend off conservative upstart Richard Mourdock. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s College Promises. 5.10.12

Katrina Trinko — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:38:40 -0400

The Obama campaign has a message for young-adult voters: When it comes to higher education, the president will dole out taxpayer dollars and “free stuff” at the rate Joe Biden makes gaffes. When Mitt Romney was campaigning in Ohio on Monday, he offered a different approach. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Devolution of Marriage. 5.10.12

The Editors — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:34:09 -0400

President Obama is getting credit, even from some critics, for finally being honest and consistent in his position on same-sex marriage now that he has announced his support for it. But he is still being neither honest nor consistent. And his dishonesty is not merely a matter of pretending that he has truly changed his mind about marriage, rather than about the politics of marriage. His claim that he believes that states should decide marriage policy is also impossible to credit. One of the purposes of the federal Defense of Marriage Act was to block this scenario: A same-sex couple that resides in a state that does not recognize same-sex unions as marriages goes to a state that does so recognize them, gets married there, returns home, sues in federal court to make the home state recognize the “marriage,” and prevails. Obama has long favored the repeal of the act. He does not truly want states to be able to continue to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Too Much Wavering on Budgets. It undermines market confidence. 5.9.12

Jagadeesh Gokhale — Wed, 9 May 2012 10:00:39 -0400

Notwithstanding the recently enacted EU fiscal pact, Europe is again facing a sovereign-debt crisis. Standard & Poor’s has downgraded a number of Spanish banks and Spain’s sovereign debt. For two years, Spain and other European countries, including those not facing an immediate crisis, such as France and Italy, have struggled to establish appropriate austerity policies to reduce fiscal deficits. Besides being unpopular, such measures produce an immediate negative result — a reduction in economic output. Will that effect continue to overshadow the expected positive result from improved market confidence among households and investors? It depends on how plans for reducing budget deficits are implemented. The fortitude of Europe’s political leaders in the face of setbacks will be critical. Indications are that, although the thrust of budget consolidations that have been initiated by European governments is appropriate, policymakers lack the necessary conviction to stay the course. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Guilt by Association. 5.9.12

Patrick J. Michaels — Wed, 9 May 2012 09:57:52 -0400

My friends on the left make much of the apparent correlation between creationism and skepticism about assured climate disaster. It is the “some–all fallacy” writ large. “Some” climate scientists who happen to believe in intelligent design, a variant of creationism, also question the high-sensitivity climate model. Therefore “all” who hypothesize that warming has been overblown must also question evolution; i.e., they are ignorant dolts. Note to the Left on this one: No one — scientist or otherwise — has yet come up with the definitive explanation of the first life forms on earth. There is no conclusive bridge between self-replicating molecules capable of mutation (a definition of life) and the primordial, lifeless, dimly-lit planet Earth of some 3 billion years ago. So even the most erudite thinkers must resort to aliens, life-bearing comets, God — or, in my case, beats-the-heck-out-of-me. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Rigorously Modest. Remember the social sciences’ limitations. 5.9.12

Jim Manzi — Wed, 9 May 2012 09:51:56 -0400

Imagine that a U.S. president is considering his options vis-à-vis a rapidly developing Iranian nuclear-weapons program. First, a science adviser comes into the room and predicts that if the Iranians take the following quantity of fissile material and compress it into a sphere of the following size under the following conditions, then it will cause an explosion large enough to destroy a major city. Next, a historian comes into the room and predicts that if external attempts are made to thwart Iranian nuclear ambitions, then a popular uprising will sooner or later ensue and force changes in government until Iran has achieved nuclear capability The president would be unwise to begin debating the findings of nuclear physics with his science adviser. Conversely, the president would be unwise not to begin a debate with the historian. This would likely include having several historians present different perspectives, querying them on their logic and evidence, consulting with non-historians who might have useful perspectives, engaging in introspection about human motivations, considering prior life experience, and so on. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

A Stealth Expansion of the Welfare State. The Obama administration encourages states to spend more federal money. 5.8.12

Michael G. Franc — Tue, 8 May 2012 10:39:56 -0400

Our national-security capabilities are set to implode next January. That’s when tens of billions of dollars in across-the-board cuts will take effect, hitting every Pentagon account with an immediate 10 percent cut. In the words of the Obama White House, these cuts will be “devastating” and “undermine our national security.” The nation’s top military leaders agree. They have told Congress that over the course of the next decade, military spending would fall $1 trillion below what’s needed to keep us safe. The resultant reductions in operations, maintenance, and training would produce an “unacceptable level of strategic and operational risk.” The Navy will suffer a “severe and irreversible impact” (emphasis added). The Marine Corps will struggle to carry out even one major contingency operation. America will, once again, have a “hollow” military force, just as it did during the Carter era. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Beyond Boston. The Romney campaign reaches out. 5.8.12

Robert Costa — Tue, 8 May 2012 10:32:35 -0400

Among politicos, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign is frequently referenced as “Boston.” Romney’s headquarters is housed there, and for much of the campaign season, the phrase has been used to describe the former governor’s tight-knit group of senior advisers, such as Stuart Stevens and Matt Rhoades, who have long helmed the ship. These days, that cadre of Romney loyalists and strategists continues to run the operation, but the campaign recently bulked up its management team for the general election. Ed Gillespie, a former GOP chairman, was tapped to serve as a senior adviser; Mike Biundo, Rick Santorum’s former campaign manager, was asked to be a coalitions director. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Dohrn Connection: Eric Holder’s DOJ funds Dohrn-connected organization. 5.7.12

Robert Verbruggen — Tue, 8 May 2012 10:25:24 -0400

Bernardine Dohrn has a history with the Justice Department. More specifically, in the early 1970s, she was one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives because of her actions with the Weather Underground, a violent radical organization. Times have changed. In 2010 and 2011, the Justice Department saw fit to give $400,000 in grants to an organization that lists Dohrn as a member of its board of directors: a $150,000 grant in September of 2010 and a $250,000 grant a year later. The organization that received the grants is the W. Haywood Burns Institute, and the project that brought in the money is the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. JDAI aims to keep juvenile criminals out of “secure confinement” and to reduce racial disparities in the juvenile justice system. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Our Extractive Elites 5.7.12

Patrick Brennan — Tue, 8 May 2012 10:25:33 -0400

Why do nations fail? In their new book, economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that countries collapse when the reigning political coalition extracts wealth rather than promotes innovation and growth. Sounds like a union, doesn’t it? The book, Why Nations Fail, sums up Acemoglu and Robinson’s laudable academic oeuvre, focusing on the pre-industrial and developing world. They trace how nations grow rich thanks to inclusive institutions that provide economic incentives and protect property rights, and how nations suffer when “extractive elites” gather political and economic power for the purpose of rent-seeking. In a review of the book, Buttonwood, a columnist for The Economist, argues that, given the anemic growth across the industrialized world, perhaps the West and the United States face similar problems. He fingers two possible culprits — the extractive elites of the rich world: too-big-to-fail banks, and the public sector, particularly its unionized employees. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Occupying Wells Fargo The Left’s obsession with a bank. 5.3.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Thu, 3 May 2012 11:02:22 -0400

They call it “Western Wall Street” when they’re being polite, and quite the variety of unpleasant names when they are not, and they seem intent on singling it out for special treatment. Its real name is Wells Fargo, and the Occupy movement and its acolytes hurl such vitriol its way that, in 2011, the bank went as far as recording in its annual report that the group had the potential to damage its profits. The charges against Wells Fargo range from the quotidian to the ridiculous: Along with almost all other large corporations in America, it is accused of paying too little in taxes; along with almost all the other big banks in America, it is denounced for offering the subprime loans that contributed to the financial meltdown of 2008. Wells Fargo is also held to be a particular offender when it comes to foreclosures — a trend that was made worse, protesters allege, by its acquisition of Wachovia in October 2008 — and it seems that it rather likes outsourcing too, with a higher than usual number of call centers in India and other foreign countries. But while the details might vary a little, these are pretty standard progressive charges — common to all big banks — and what really appears to vex the Left is the pervasive and effective fiction that Wells Fargo is involved in a vast conspiracy to lock up illegal immigrants and to expand dramatically the prison population for its own pecuniary gain. In and of itself, the United States’ incarceration rate is a popular issue for Occupy Wall Street types: As well as objecting to the privatization of prisons, they consider the number of Americans behind bars and the racial makeup of the prison population to be symptomatic of institutional racism. They see the fact that Wells Fargo–backed mutual funds are used to build detention centers that hold illegal immigrants as, at best, complicity in the “prison-industrial complex,” and, at worst, as profiteering from crime. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Foggiest War We don’t know the enemy. What’s worse: We don’t want to. 5.3.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 3 May 2012 11:01:23 -0400

The “fog of war” is a concept derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz, the great 19th-century Prussian military theorist who recognized that those leading troops into battle often lack data, perspective, and situational awareness. Enveloped within this “fog of uncertainty,” they may not know whether they are winning or losing, and they may take actions that weaken their position and strengthen their enemies. Would Clausewitz not be fascinated by the war dominating the 21st century, a conflict so murky we can’t even agree on its name? Is it the “War on Terrorism” or the “Long War” or the “War Against al-Qaeda” or just “Overseas Contingency Operations”? Over at Foggy Bottom — an apt nickname if ever there was one — an unnamed “senior State Department official” told National Journal’s Michael Hirsh that “the War on Terror is over.” He (or she?) elaborated: “Now that we have killed most of al-Qaeda, . . . people who once might have gone into al-Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.” A White House spokesman later issued a “clarification”: “We absolutely have never said our war against al-Qaeda is over. We are prosecuting that war at an unprecedented pace.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Rubio’s Vet-aches Could Charlie Crist’s old team end up vetting Rubio for Romney? 5.3.12

Jim Geraghty — Thu, 3 May 2012 10:59:31 -0400

Have some sympathy for the men and women who will receive serious consideration as a potential running mate and vice president to Mitt Romney. In the coming weeks and months, they will be asked to turn over every detail of their political, financial, and personal lives to a group of strangers. And — in the case of one potential running mate — some of those strangers spent the 2010 cycle attempting to beat him in a tense primary and general election. From all appearances, Florida senator Marco Rubio and Romney hit it off well. Rubio’s endorsement of Romney effectively ended the Republican primary campaign; the senator is often deployed as a Romney surrogate on television and radio and Rubio appeared with Romney at a rally in Philadelphia on April 23. (The Romney campaign refused to say whether their staff has yet contacted any possible running mates about the selection process.) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Reality of Voter Fraud 5.2.12

John Fund — Wed, 2 May 2012 11:42:43 -0400

The 2012 elections will feature many close races, likely including the presidential contest. That makes concern about voter fraud and ballot integrity all the more meaningful, and a conference held here last weekend by the watchdog group True the Vote made clear just how high the stakes are. “Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of voter fraud that has been documented by historians and journalists,” Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 2008, upholding a strict Indiana voter-ID law designed to combat fraud. Justice Stevens, who personally encountered voter fraud while serving on various reform commissions in his native Chicago, spoke for a six-member majority. In a decision two years earlier clearing the way for an Arizona ID law, the Court had declared in a unanimous opinion that “confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy. Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised.” Indeed, a brand-new Rasmussen Reports poll finds that 64 percent of Americans believe voter fraud is a serious problem, with whites registering 63 percent agreement and African-Americans 64 percent. A Fox News poll taken last month found that 70 percent of Americans support requiring voters to show “state or federally issued photo identification” to prove their identity and citizenship before casting a ballot. Majorities of all demographic groups agreed on the need for photo ID, including 58 percent of non-white voters, 52 percent of liberals, and 52 percent of Democrats. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Occupy’s Totalitarian Temptation 5.2.12

Charles C. W. Cooke — Wed, 2 May 2012 11:42:01 -0400

Yesterday morning, I sauntered into Madison Square Park before many others had arrived. The “Free University” was still setting itself up, and it was a forlorn sight. Lonely red balloons flew at various points around the fountains, and bored policemen sat on benches looking bemused and coordinating their patrols with the Park Service. Dotted around the place were “professors” without students, waiting expectantly under signs that read “Open-Access Teach-In” and “Free Yoga,” and trying to catch the eyes of unimpressed commuters in the hope that they might stop and engage. (Students, it appears, will be no earlier to the revolution than they are to their classes.) One man with some sports equipment — presumably the “(Meta-)Physical Education” teacher — stood in the rain waiting in vain for takers. But on the north side of the park, next to the statue of David Glasgow Farragut, a circle had formed — what seemed to be a roundtable on climate change. I wandered over and stood quietly on its edge. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

China’s War on Baby Girls 5.2.12

Jing Zhang — Wed, 2 May 2012 11:40:54 -0400

The blind Chinese human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who escaped from house arrest on April 22 and may be under the protection of the U.S. Embassy, was initially detained for exposing the massive abuse of Chinese women under China’s one-child policy. His documentation of forced sterilizations and abortions landed him in jail for four years, followed by a year and a half of house arrest. His daring escape has now triggered renewed attacks on organizations engaged in helping Chinese women keep and feed their infants. Since April 28, the Family Planning Commission of Susong County in China’s Anhui province has been harassing families of pregnant women and infants who have received aid from a charity that helps rural families raise infant girls. Often the girl is a second child, in violation of China’s one-child policy. PRC government agents have issued heavy fines to families for over-quota births and have threatened forced abortion for mothers with “illegal” pregnancies. Li Bin, the former governor of Anhui province, is the current chairman of the National Population and Family Planning Commission. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Chris Christie’s Islam Problem 5.1.12

Daniel Pipes — Tue, 1 May 2012 13:15:22 -0400

A Quinnipiac poll in April showed Chris Christie as the most popular potential Republican vice-presidential candidate, thanks to his budget cuts and standing up to government employees’ unions. But the governor of New Jersey has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, that can and should get in the way of his possible ascent to higher office. Time and again he has sided with Islamist forces against those who worry about safeguarding American security and civilization. Some examples: 2008: When serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie embraced and kissed Mohammed Qatanani, imam of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, and praised him as “a man of great goodwill.” He did this after Qatanani had publicly ranted against Jews and in support of funding Hamas, a U.S. government–designated terror organization, and on the eve of his deportation hearing for not hiding an Israeli conviction for membership in Hamas. In addition, Christie designated a top aide, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna, to testify as a character witness for Qatanani. 2010: After Derek Fenton burned three pages of a Koran at a 9/11 memorial ceremony, his employer, New Jersey Transit, got Christie’s approval to fire him. Protecting Islam at the expense of the constitutional right to free speech, Christie endorsed Fenton’s termination: “That kind of intolerance is something I think is unacceptable. So I don’t have any problem with him being fired.” The American Civil Liberties Union successfully represented Fenton to get his job back. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Founders Loved Mandates? 5.1.12

Matthew J. Franck — Tue, 1 May 2012 13:14:36 -0400

As a legal argument against an act of Congress, “it’s unprecedented” does not carry all that much weight. After all, every first use of a legitimate congressional power was obviously without precedent. And there is, in the nature of things, no reason that such a first instance could not occur many years after the power itself was called into being by the Constitution. So when the individual mandate to purchase health insurance, now at issue in the Obamacare case before the Supreme Court, is denounced as unprecedented, that’s hardly a slam-dunk argument. It’s just the beginning of one. What one must show is that the unprecedented mandate is also improper — an illegitimate claim of authority under the Constitution. “It’s unprecedented” can add some rhetorical oomph to the more important claim of illegitimacy, since a plausible reason why no earlier Congress attempted such a mandate is that it would have been understood to reach too far. By the same token, the ability to say “but there is a precedent!” is a kind of Holy Grail for Obamacare’s defenders. Historic enactments that can be analogized to the individual mandate are valuable currency in a legal system that is based on precedent. Better still if these historic acts went unchallenged in their day. And best of all if they date from the generation of the Founders themselves — when the earliest Congresses and presidencies were filled by men who had participated in writing, ratifying, or otherwise arguing about the creation and meaning of the brand-new Constitution. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

In Syria, America Allies with the Muslim Brotherhood 5.1.12

John Rosenthal — Tue, 1 May 2012 13:13:08 -0400

While the Obama administration’s burgeoning contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt continue to cause controversy, the administration’s policy of growing cooperation with the Syrian opposition continues to enjoy almost unanimous support. This is remarkable, since by virtue of that policy the administration is openly allied with none other than the Muslim Brotherhood: that is, openly, but with perhaps just enough misdirection for the alliance to escape the notice of the broader public. The Syrian opposition organization that the United States and other Western powers have been officially supporting is, of course, the Syrian National Council (SNC). At a meeting in Istanbul on April 1, the so-called Friends of Syria, including the United States, recognized the SNC as “a legitimate representative of all Syrians.” Although the use of the indefinite article suggests there were reservations on the part of some participants, U.S. State Department statements both before and after the Istanbul meeting leave no doubt that the Obama administration treats the SNC as its principal Syrian interlocutor. The SNC is also the presumptive recipient or at least conduit of the aid that the Obama administration has pledged to the Syrian opposition. While in Istanbul, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with representatives of the SNC, and she afterwards promised that “there will be more assistance of all kinds for the Syrian National Council.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Lessons from Byzantium 4.30.12

Michael Auslin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:25:25 -0400

The Byzantine Empire’s long run — 1,100 years — may seem remote from the 21st century, but a reading of its history offers at least three timeless lessons. Understanding some of the fatal weaknesses in the Eastern Roman Empire may help clarify the political and economic problems that America faces today and the choices we have in responding to them. Founded in 330 by the emperor Constantine, the eastern half of the Roman Empire was centered in Constantinople, the New Rome. By the fourth century, the empire had endured more than a century of instability, internecine warfare, and economic decline. In that context Rome’s eastern lands, arcing around Asia Minor, the Levant, and northern Africa, were especially attractive, being richer and more settled than the comparatively backward parts of western Europe. It was in part to assure continued access to these sources of wealth that Constantine relocated his capital. By ad 476, Rome had been overrun by barbarian tribes, and before long only Constantinople in the East had a seat for the emperors. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

A Child of the North Korean Gulag 4.30.12

Joseph Rehyansky — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:24:14 -0400

‘Because I am surrounded by good people, I try to do what good people do. But it is very difficult. It does not flow from me naturally. . . . I am evolving from being an animal. But it is going very, very slowly.” Shin Dong-hyuk was speaking to Blaine Harden, a reporter for Frontline and a contributor to The Economist who has served as the Washington Post’s bureau chief in East Asia. Harden has recently authored the gripping memoir Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West. As Harden recounts, Shin was born in 1982 in Camp 14 in North Korea, a “no exit” political camp largely populated by entire families. It is one of six camps that may hold a total of 200,000 prisoners, the biggest of which occupies an area larger than Los Angeles. These camps are clearly visible in satellite reconnaissance photos, but North Korea denies that they exist. Shin is believed to be the first person born in such a camp ever to escape. His family was there because his father’s two brothers fled south during the Korean War. Until his escape, Shin was always infested with lice. There was never any water for bathing or even a way to brush one’s teeth. Everyone smelled like a farm animal, so no one else was bothered by the odor. The camp diet was corn, cabbage, and salt. Pellagra was a common cause of death. To this day, the only fertilizer generally available in the camps and in the country as a whole is human excrement. In 2008, South Korea halted donations of chemical fertilizer in response to provocations from the North. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Death of Free Speech, Continued: An alarming trial in Denmark 4.30.12

Karen Lugo — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:23:22 -0400

When an opinion on sociological trends or a critique of a group ideology results in criminal charges of hate speech, liberal democracy is in danger. The Danish supreme court has just highlighted that danger. While deciding to acquit Lars Hedegaard, president of the Danish Free Press Society, of intending to speak hatefully for public dissemination, the court emphatically affirmed a statute according to which anyone who “publicly or with the intent of public dissemination issues a pronouncement or other communication by which a group of persons are threatened, insulted or denigrated due to their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation is liable to a fine or incarceration for up to two years.” The prosecution of Hedegaard resulted from remarks that he made during an interview and contends were electronically distributed without his permission. Although Hedegaard explained that he did not intend to accuse the majority of Muslim men of abusive behavior, Denmark’s Office of Public Prosecutions deemed his reflections on the incidence of family rape and the commonness of misogyny in Muslim-dominated areas to be criminally insulting. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Sorry Stafford Panderfest A shameless cave-in by House Republicans 4.30.12

Fredrick M. Hess — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:22:17 -0400

Inspired by President Obama’s cheap election-year politicking, Congress has launched into a frenzied, bipartisan panderfest over the Stafford loan program. Late last week, an emotional House speaker John Boehner led House Republicans to vote for an Obama-proposed giveaway he’d denounced just a few days previously. For those who don’t eagerly track the ins and outs of federally subsidized student loans, here’s the deal: Five years ago, in a piece of cheap political theater, Democrats in Congress wrote an additional sweetener for federally subsidized Stafford loans into the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. Beyond offering college loans at a guaranteed rate of 6.8 percent, Congress temporarily dropped the undergraduate rate as low as 3.4 percent. The fixed rate was demanded by student-loan advocates who disliked the fact that interest rates fluctuate and wanted the feds to offer certainty (and understood that the rates would have to be high enough that they wouldn’t drain the U.S. Treasury). The Bush administration, which never worried about spending a couple billion more, cheerfully went along for the ride. Now, the temporary 3.4 percent is set to naturally expire, with undergraduate Stafford loans reverting to the standard 6.8 percent rate. The impact? Not so much. U.S. PIRG, the big “student advocacy” lobbying outfit, calculates that the change would cost the average new borrower $2,800 over a ten-year repayment term. That’s about $25 a month. Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin has pegged the impact at $7 a month. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s No FDR: FDR’s policies revitalized America. 4.26.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:33:44 -0400

Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal is a brilliant columnist, I almost always agree with him, and regret that I could not have written the same opinions as well as he. But I am stirred to respectful dissent by his column of April 19, which effectively announced his adherence to the heresy that Franklin D. Roosevelt did not really alleviate the Great Depression in his first presidential term, but used his vast public charm and buoyant optimism to put it over on the voters that he had. The unspeakable rubbish that Roosevelt had given Eastern Europe to Stalin at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences had just been laid to rest when a new hobgoblin arose and was introduced about in respectable company by my esteemed friend Amity Shlaes and others: that Roosevelt didn’t really make much progress against the Depression until the onset of World War II. Mr. Henninger wrote that FDR’s 1936 reelection campaign took place as the country “was mired in the Great Depression,” and that he “kicked off” his campaign on October 30 of that year at Madison Square Garden in New York with a speech that presaged President Obama’s address on April 3 to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, in which he reviled “social Darwinism.” The columnist concluded that “the Obama campaign can borrow Roosevelt’s content,” but “can’t teach Obama . . . a pretty grim guy . . . how to be FDR.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Real War on Women: Honor killing, forced marriage, genital mutilation — that is a war on women. 4.26.12

Lee Habeeb — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:32:28 -0400

Her name was Derya. She lived in Batman, Turkey, she was 17 years old, and she had a problem that few American women know about, let alone have ever experienced: The men in her family were doing everything they could to get her to kill herself. It started with text messages like this one from her uncle: “You have blackened our name. Kill yourself and clean our shame, or we will kill you first.” What was Derya’s crime? What had she done to deserve a message like that from a relative? She had fallen in love with a boy she had met in school the previous spring. When news of this outrage reached Derya’s family, her mother warned her that her father — her own father — might kill her. She didn’t listen. And then the orchestrated campaign of terror began. Threatening text message after threatening text message, sent by her brothers and uncles, sometimes as many as 15 a day. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Medicare’s Dirty Little Secret 4.25.12

Douglas Holtz Eakin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:02:12 -0400

It’s something everyone knows, but no one wants to talk about: Medicare’s cash position makes Enron’s business model look downright reputable. Medicare is bleeding cash — a fact disguised by creative accounting. According to Monday’s release of the 2012 Trustees Report, in 2011 Medicare took in $260.8 billion in payroll taxes and beneficiary premiums, but spent $549.1 billion in medical services. That means last year Medicare ran a $288.3 billion cash shortfall. And 2011 wasn’t the exception; it was the norm. Since President Lyndon Baines Johnson secured passage of Medicare legislation in 1965, the program has run cash deficits every year except 1966 and 1974. Advocates of the status quo argue that Medicare receives “general revenue transfers,” but that’s government-speak for raiding the Treasury to spend other tax revenues. It’s the dramatic use of general-revenue transfers that has hidden Medicare’s true insolvency from the public and masked Medicare’s contribution to the national debt. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

So, Is Mexican Immigration Over? 4.25.12

Mark Kirkorian — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:01:18 -0400

A new report finds that the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States has declined for the first time since the Great Depression. As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments today in Eric Holder’s lawsuit against Arizona, it’s worth considering what these findings might mean for immigration policy. The report, from the Pew Hispanic Center, found that the total number of Mexican-born people living in the United States has dropped somewhat, from 12.6 million in 2007 to 12 million last year. This comes after 40 years of very rapid growth, rising from just 750,000 in 1970. More important than the slight decline is the dynamic behind it: The number of Mexicans moving back doubled in the period from 2005 to 2010 compared with ten years earlier, while the number of new arrivals fell by more than half. (My colleague Steve Camarota noted both these developments several years ago; Pew had disputed the increase in return migration but seems to have come around.) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Rapid-Response Romney: The 2012 Romney campaign hits back much quicker than the 2008 McCain campaign. 4.23.12

Jim Geraghty — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:36:00 -0400

Veterans of John McCain’s presidential campaign of 2008 lamented a maddening process that only worsened as that election season progressed. A liberal blog would make a stunning allegation about McCain or, later, Sarah Palin that was not easily verified or disproved. Within an hour or two, a major newspaper reporter or television news producer would call the campaign and demand a comment or denial; the clock was ticking to avoid the dreaded “the McCain campaign had no comment,” which suggested evasiveness or a de facto confirmation of the often bogus or wildly exaggerated claim. Patrick Hynes, who was an online-communications consultant for McCain, recalls Sam Stein of the Huffington Post calling about a rumor that McCain had been involved in a car accident that killed someone shortly after returning from Vietnam, and that military authorities had somehow covered up the entire incident. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Courting Marco: The junior senator from Florida stays mum on his VP prospects. 4.23.12

Robert Costa — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:35:02 -0400

Over the weekend, Marco Rubio went mum. To the disappointment of political junkies, the freshman Florida senator once again declined a chance to play Washington’s favorite parlor game: speculating on the vice-presidential sweepstakes. “The last thing [Mitt Romney] needs is those of us in the peanut gallery to be saying what we would or would not do,” Rubio said on CNN’s State of the Union. “I’m not going to even discuss the process anymore.” Rubio’s comments are hardly a surprise. He has been swatting away the chatter about his likely contention for the GOP’s number-two slot since his ascension to the upper chamber. During nearly every editorial-board meeting, radio interview, and television appearance, he has been asked the same question. And every answer he gives, like the one he gave Sunday, has been the same: He’s flattered but not interested. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Hatch Heading for a Fall? 4.23.12

John Fund — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:32:36 -0400

All the senator’s horses and all the senator’s men couldn’t quite wrap up the Utah Republican nomination for Orrin Hatch on Saturday. At the GOP convention, the seven-term senator narrowly missed winning the 60 percent of delegates he needed to avoid a primary against former state senator Dan Liljenquist. Polls still show him favored in the June 26 primary, but Hatch now faces his first serious challenger since he won his seat in 1976. And, as Richard Lugar can testify — the 80-year-old Indiana colleague of Hatch’s is now suddenly neck and neck with a challenger in his own May 8 primary — a lot can happen in the few weeks of an intense campaign. Hatch knew he would face opposition this year after Tea-party delegates, who dominated the Republican party’s 2010 state convention, unceremoniously dumped his Senate colleague Robert Bennett in favor of Mike Lee, the constitutional scholar who is now Utah’s junior senator. Bennett didn’t even receive enough delegate votes to force a primary. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Keep the First Amendment 4.23.12

The Editors — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:31:59 -0400

The phrase “stunning development” is used far too often in our politics, but here is an item that can be described in no other way: Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats, frustrated by the fact that the Bill of Rights interferes with their desire to muzzle their political opponents, have proposed to repeal the First Amendment. That is precisely what the so-called People’s Rights Amendment would do. If this amendment were to be enacted, the cardinal rights protected by the First Amendment — free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances — would be redefined and reduced to the point of unrecognizability. The amendment would hold that the rights protected by the Constitution are enjoyed only by individuals acting individually; individuals acting in collaboration with others would be stripped of those rights. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The President’s Incoherent Economic ‘Philosophy’ 4.23.12

James C. Capretta — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:31:17 -0400

Once upon a time, President Obama was a traditional Keynesian. When he came into office, he favored a massive injection of new government spending into the economy in the name of “stimulus” — counter-cyclical federal activity aimed at offsetting depressed consumer demand emanating from a recession-battered private sector. Unfortunately for the president, that approach to economic revival has now been thoroughly discredited in the public’s mind. The problem with Keynesianism isn’t the theory; it’s the practice. What happens in the real world — that is, the world in which Congress drafts and passes legislation — isn’t a series of tidy, one-time, highly valuable public investments that would not have occurred were it not for the legislation. No, when Congress writes stimulus spending bills, what we get are narrow-purpose pet projects, large federal bureaucracies, ideological hobbyhorses, and spending that simply displaces what otherwise would have occurred anyway, especially at the state level. The net result provides little if any boost to aggregate demand because the states — and to some extent private citizens — simply pocket the federal money and reduce their deficits and debts. Meanwhile, what federal taxpayers get is a permanent increase in the size of government — because almost nothing in politics is ever “one-time” — as well as a massive increase in the national debt. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Wonders of Deregulation: It has benefited many Americans and harmed very few. 4.23.12

Patrick Brennan — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:30:19 -0400

Decades of deregulation and economic liberty, President Obama argues, have endangered and impoverished Americans. He has told voters in recent weeks that “we tried [the] theory” of deregulation, and it “hasn’t worked.” Further, today conservatives “keep telling us that if we’d just strip away more regulations, and let businesses pollute more and treat workers and consumers with impunity, that somehow we’d all be better off.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Funny Money: In 2008, the president’s campaign-finance operation was highly suspect. 4.20.12

John Fund — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:28:37 -0400

The media lionized Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign for running as smoothly (and stylishly) as a Swiss watch. “We love things that are smart,” explained Time’s Mark Halperin, later the co-author of a best-selling book about the 2008 race, Game Change. At least Halperin had the courage also to deplore the pro-Obama tilt of the media during the campaign. At a post-election Politico/University of Southern California conference in 2008, he called it “the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq War. It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama bias.” Well, only now are we learning that things weren’t quite as “smart” as we were led to believe. Yesterday, it was reported the Federal Election Commission unanimously found that the 2008 Obama campaign had failed to properly report some $2 million in last-minute contributions. The campaign could still have to pay fines or face other penalties. (The audit for the 2008 John McCain campaign hasn’t yet been completed.) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Flushing Out the Extremes on Immigration: The DREAM Act was supposed to, but didn’t. Secure Communities can. 4.20.12

Mark Kirkorian — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:27:45 -0400

Congress passed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act ten years ago this summer, making it illegal to kill a baby who had been born despite an abortion attempt. The bill had very little practical purpose, as few babies survive attempted abortions. Rather, the goal was to expose and isolate the radicals on the pro-choice side who would oppose such a measure, thus helping move public opinion in a more pro-life direction. As Hadley Arkes wrote on NRO at the time, “no one except a crazed zealot would profess any doubt about the ‘human’ standing of the child at the point of birth.” Each side on the immigration-control debate thinks it has a similar issue. For the pro-amnesty crowd, it’s the DREAM Act; for immigration hawks, it’s the Secure Communities program. The problem for the open-borders folks is that they’re the only ones who think the DREAM Act is an unopposable bill — in fact, it’s been voted down in Congress more than once and no one’s suffered any consequences. The problem for the immigration hawks is that too much of the ostensibly pro-enforcement Republican leadership is too timid to see the power of Secure Communities as a political tool. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Paul Ryan’s Grand Compromise 4.20.12

Nash Keune — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:25:41 -0400

Paul Krugman has called Representative Paul Ryan’s (R., Wis.) budget “the most fraudulent in American history.” He and fellow critics take issue with the fact that Ryan promotes balancing tax cuts with the elimination of tax credits and deductions, but doesn’t specify which he would remove. Ryan and his staff contend that since a budget is an appropriations request — not a revenue plan — he can only suggest reforms to the Ways and Means Committee, which deals with tax policy. Unfortunately, this back-and-forth has overshadowed the fact that getting rid of tax preferences is sound policy. Indeed, both the Bowles-Simpson Commission and the Domenici-Rivlin Task Force supported eliminating tax preferences in order to “broaden the base” of taxable income. Tax deductions are regressive, because you have to have money to hide money. A Tax Policy Center study found that the top 0.1 percent of earners — those who make about $9.5 million and above annually — would lose 23 percent of their income if all tax deductions, credits, and exclusions were suddenly removed. As Alice Rivlin, a former CBO, OMB, and Fed official, told James B. Stewart of the New York Times: “There’s no question that” tax deductions “heavily favor the upper 1 percent, and certainly the upper 2 or 3 percent. If you’re going to have tax reform, then you’re going to have to increase the effective tax rate on the ultra wealthy.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Buffett Rule’s Chump Change 4.19.12

Patrick Brennan — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:57:35 -0400

President Obama has admitted that his so-called Buffett Rule isn’t really about reducing the deficit, but about tax fairness. Yet he and his supporters have still clung to the idea that the proceeds, about $4.5 billion per year, while they wouldn’t close the deficit, are nothing to sneeze at. As I pointed out the other day, though, while liberals have derided Romney’s plan to eliminate high-income taxpayers’ deduction for mortgage interest on second homes as meaningless, it would actually raise a non-negligible amount of revenue, and quite possibly more than the president’s proposal. In fact, there are a variety of measures — including spending cuts and simplifications of the tax code — that could easily reduce the federal deficit by about $4.5 billion: Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Afghan and Iraqi Woes U.S. foreign policy mustn’t waste another decade.. 4.19.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:56:36 -0400

It must be said that the War on Terror has substantially been a success. After the 9/11 atrocities, the conventional wisdom — which was reflected in the claims of bin Laden and others in their bloodcurdling videos — was that terrorism would be routine and devastating against any countries that displeased militant Islam. There was the fear and the promise of unlimited numbers of suicide attackers. But despite close calls over Detroit (the panty-bomber) and in Times Square, and doubtless many quietly foiled efforts, there has been no return to terrorism in North America, and very little in Latin America. Even in Europe and Australasia, prime targets, there has not been much beyond the London buses, Madrid commuter trains, and the Australian-frequented bar in Bali. The Israelis stopped the suicide bombing in their country by killing the outstanding surviving Hamas leader after each outrage; lo and behold, the eagerness for heroic violent death did not extend to those commissioning the suicide attacks, as bin Laden and the rest cowered and skulked in caves or anonymously behind high walls. Thus, the principal raison d’être of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been achieved, though it is not clear that the nearly $2 trillion and about 7,000 American and Western Allied lives expended in those wars were essential to the accomplishment of that objective. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Liberate ‘Zones of Electronic Repression’! Islamists shouldn’t be allowed to use Western technology to crush dissent. 4.19.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:55:48 -0400

‘The fax shall make you free.” Albert Wohlstetter, the great Cold War strategist, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said that back in 1990. He was right: The advent of fax machines, photocopiers, and other then-cutting-edge communications technologies was an enormous boon to the free flow of information. In Communist countries, the Samizdat was transformed: Dissident self-publishers, who previously would sit at typewriters copying banned books page by page, could now, with the push of a button, create dozens of copies and transmit them almost anywhere. Ever since, there has been not just the hope but the expectation that advancing communications technologies — personal commuters, the Internet, e-mail, smart phones, satellites, and the like — would inevitably spread freedom while constraining the power of the despots. This just in: It’s not turning out that way. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Egypt: Pity the Winner A frightful mess of an election. 4.19.12

Elliot Abrams — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:54:47 -0400

Egypt’s presidential race is now down from 23 declared candidates to just a handful of real competitors. On April 14, the Supreme Presidential Electoral Commission disqualified ten candidates, including Omar Suleiman, who had been President Hosni Mubarak’s intelligence-service chief; Khairat El-Shater, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, the Salafi leader; and Ayman Nour, the man who had run against Mubarak in 2005. This leaves Amre Moussa, the former Mubarak foreign minister and head of the Arab League; the Brotherhood’s substitute candidate, Mohammed Mursi; and Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, the former Brotherhood leader now running as a sort of “centrist Islamist.” The field may change again, for a newly adopted statute would also bar Ahmed Shafik, former head of the air force and briefly prime minister as Mubarak was collapsing, but the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces has yet to approve this new statute. The election will be held on April 23 and 24, with a run-off in June if no one gets 50 percent. The rules governing this contest might strike a foreigner as bizarre. Shafik, for example, left the Air Force in 2002 and served as prime minister for only four weeks. He was Mubarak’s minister of civil aviation for nine years — but Amre Moussa served as Mubarak’s foreign minister for ten years (not to mention that, as head of the Arab League for ten years, selected by Egypt, he was not exactly in rebellion against Mubarak). A law that says Shafik is irreparably tarred by association with Mubarak while Moussa is a model of democratic probity is ridiculous. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Christie the Prophet: The New Jersey governor sees how the welfare state rots society. 4.18.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:55:34 -0400

New Jersey governor Chris Christie recently warned that America is in danger of becoming a country of “people sitting on the couch waiting for their next government check.” Predictably, the Left was outraged, but Governor Christie wasn’t far off the mark. During the 2011 debate over raising the debt ceiling, President Obama reminded Americans that the federal government sends out 70 million checks every month. That is probably an underestimate. According to the Washington Post, the president’s number included Social Security, veterans’ benefits, and spending on non-defense contractors and vendors, but not reimbursements to Medicare providers and vendors or electronic transfers to the 21 million households receiving food stamps. (Nor did he include most spending by the Defense Department, which has a payroll of 6.4 million active and retired employees and, on average, cuts checks for nearly 1 million invoices and 660,000 travel-expense claims per month.) The actual number might be closer to 200 million checks every month. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Assad: An Arab Problem: The U.S. doesn’t have a big role to play in Syria. 4.18.12

Buck Sexton — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:54:29 -0400

As Bashar Assad toys with the ill-fated United Nations peace plan for Syria, some have called for a U.S.-led intervention in yet another Arab conflict. Some support American action as a strategic opportunity to deal a deathblow to Iran’s favorite proxy; others push on purely humanitarian grounds. But all of them ignore a fundamental reality: Assad is an Arab problem. This is their fight, not ours. While the hawks here in the U.S. may respond that no country in the region could match the hard-power options at America’s disposal, that doesn’t mean the intervention should fall upon our shoulders. And those who believe America has a moral obligation to act largely assume that an effort intended to be a replay of NATO in Kosovo, 1999, won’t turn into America in Beirut, 1982. By getting too involved, we could very make well make things worse — in a country with chemical weapons, no less. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Hot Tea: Mere days after the primary’s fizzle, Mitt Romney is embraced by conservative activists. 4.18.12

Robert Costa — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:53:37 -0400

On Monday night, standing beside a 20-foot white marble statue of Benjamin Franklin, Mitt Romney met the Tea Party. Or, rather, the Tea Party met Mitt Romney, embraced him, and made him an honorary member. Even in the City of Brotherly Love, the hearty reception was a tad surprising. Romney, for his part, seemed pleasantly startled by the fist-pumping standing ovation and raucous cheers that greeted his entry, to the strains of Kid Rock’s anthem, “Born Free.” “What a welcome from the Tea Party,” Romney said, grinning, at the top of his remarks. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Islam’s Cartoon Missionaries 4.17.12

Daniel Pipes — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:31:33 -0400

Comic books as a method of missionizing for Islam (da’wa)? Yes. One year ago, Harvard University hosted a workshop to teach comic-book artists how to address Americans’ “unease with Islam and the Middle East.” And later this week, Georgetown University will air a PBS documentary, Wham! Bam! Islam!, celebrating a comic book called The 99. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Romney, Unplugged 4.17.12

The Editors of NRO — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:30:50 -0400

The good news for wary conservatives is that Mitt Romney has finally gotten specific about his plans for reforming the tax code and shrinking the federal government. The bad news is that he did so at a private gathering of donors, and for purposes of analysis we have only what reporters lurking outside the event overheard. But with that caveat, we can report that much of what Romney proposes is constructive. Romney has long promised a revenue-neutral simplification of the tax code that would couple a 20 percent across-the-board rate cut with the elimination of certain deductions. In his off-mic comments he named names, singling out federal deductions for state and local taxes, and for mortgage interest on second homes, as potential offsets. Both changes would be welcome. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Jindal’s Tough Education Reforms 4.17.12

Patrick Brennan — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:28:56 -0400

Earlier this month, after a bipartisan majority passed two new education bills in the Louisiana state house, teachers took the day off from work to protest in concert with activists, including the rather obscure Occupy Baton Rouge. In Cajun tradition, they held a raucous “funeral for education reform.” But on the contrary, Louisiana’s school reforms represent a new national birth of freedom for education. This is a huge step forward for conservative policy, especially with the establishment of unprecedented access to school choice. As Jim Geraghty wrote in National Review last fall, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal has enjoyed a spectacular run of success at governing his state, overhauling Louisiana, once derided as America’s “banana republic,” by cutting down corruption, improving business-friendliness, and reforming the health-care system. In fact, Jindal’s efforts were so successful that the Democratic party essentially didn’t bother putting forth a challenger in 2010; Louisiana had gotten so bad that dramatically reducing spending and cracking down on ethics violations didn’t anger the body politic at all. But then, of course, there were still public schools: With sacrosanct spending levels, lifetime tenure, and no accountability measures, they are the Louisiana-like rump in every state, holding back student achievement. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama v. the Court 4.16.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:07:52 -0400

President Obama was once a lecturer on constitutional law, but he appears to be a little rusty. Most of what he has said recently about the Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of the health-care law he signed has been ill-informed. Asked about the matter at a press conference on April 2, he responded that he was confident the Court would uphold the law: “And the reason is because, in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional.” Actually, there isn’t any precedent for the Court to examine on the question of whether the federal government can order Americans to buy health insurance. There are plenty of cases, from the New Deal onward, in which the Court has said the federal government has broad leeway in regulating commerce among the states. Wickard v. Filburn, for example, is a canonical 1942 case in which the Court held that Congress may regulate even intrastate economic activity because of its interstate effects. But the oral argument did not dwell much on such cases, because they do not offer much guidance for the Court in the Obamacare case. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

How Obama Got the Individual Mandate So Wrong 4.16.12

John Fund — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:07:07 -0400

President Obama insists that the public would rise up in anger should the Supreme Court strike down all or part of his health-care law. James Carville, a former strategist for Bill and Hillary Clinton, claims a death sentence for Obamacare would benefit Democrats. Such arguments border on fantasy. The reaction to the closely watched Supreme Court oral arguments on Obamacare shows that the law lost ground with the public the more the public followed the issue. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll pegs support for the overall law at 39 percent, the lowest level of backing since this poll first began tracking the issue in 2009. Only about half of Democrats want the entire law upheld. In contrast, approval of the Supreme Court has increased following the roughing up it gave Obamacare. A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that the percentage of likely voters who rate the court as good or excellent went up 13 points in a month, to 41 percent. A full 42 percent of independents and unaffiliated voters rank the court highly, up from 26 percent only a month ago. Even some liberals acknowledge that when it comes to public opinion, the law resembles the dead parrot in that old Monty Python skit. When the Daily Beast asked media and policy experts how the law could be better marketed, the general sense was that it was too late. “Medicare was marketable because it was understandable,” says Lawrence O’Donnell, the liberal MSNBC host who was staff director of the Senate Finance Committee when it debated Hillarycare in the 1990s. “I have never met anyone, outside of the government, who can describe what the new health-care law is. You cannot market something that is indescribable.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Framing the Religious-Liberty Issue 4.16.12

George Weigel — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:05:56 -0400

‘Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” the Easter Week statement by the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is the most developed statement on current religious-freedom controversies to emerge from the bishops’ deliberations. It also, and just as urgently, defines with considerable precision a major issue in American public life: Will the robust networks of free and voluntary associations that Alexis de Tocqueville admired as the sinews and musculature of American democracy continue to flourish? Or will the United States increasingly resemble Western Europe, where the associational instinct (and, with it, civil society) has atrophied under the heavy weight of the European nanny state? The bishops, in other words, helpfully frame the religious-freedom issue in its broader context. To be sure, the bishops are very, very concerned about increasing governmental encroachments on religious freedom of recent years. Those encroachments include the HHS “contraceptive mandate” in the implementation of Obamacare, which brought the entire issue to the surface of public life; they also involve state laws that impede the Church’s service to immigrants, attempts by state legislatures to turn religious communities into bureaus of state government, discrimination against Christian students on university campuses, and restrictions on the Church’s capacity to draw on public funds in its service to orphans and victims of human trafficking. This shrinkage in the sphere of religious freedom is bad enough in itself, and deserves to be fought. But as the Ad Hoc Committee points out (in explaining that religious freedom “is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home”), the issue beneath these issues is the advance of Leviathan, often in the name of imposing a beneficent relativism — that turns dictatorial: Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The New Black Panthers’ Unpunished Threats: The Department of Justice appears uninterested in pursuing the group. 4.13.12

John Fund — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:25:46 -0400

George Zimmerman is facing charges of second-degree murder. A jury will decide his guilt or innocence. Here’s hoping the criminal-justice system cools rather than exacerbates the passions the killing of Trayvon Martin has raised. But Attorney General Eric Holder isn’t helping. Wednesday, he appeared before the Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network to praise Sharpton “for your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill.” This is the same Al Sharpton who has led several rallies against Zimmerman, in which he called for civil disobedience and an “occupation” of Sanford, Fla., where the shooting occurred, if an arrest wasn’t made. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Nanny Tax You shouldn’t have to be an accountant and a lawyer to hire a nanny. 4.13.12

Melissa Langsram Braunstein — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:24:50 -0400

There are certain laws everybody breaks. Everybody jaywalks, nobody respects the speed limit, and nobody pays taxes for the children’s nanny. But would more parents follow nanny-related laws if the system were more straightforward? As a new mother, I wonder. I had spent several years as a full-time speechwriter. Last spring, I became a full-time mother and part-time writer. I scribbled freelance pieces in the snippets of time I could snatch; and there weren’t many. In the fall, my husband and I decided to hire part-time help, liberating me to write more regularly. That decision was fairly easy. Finding someone we liked and trusted to watch our baby was harder. But the most head-breaking of all has been the legal and accounting nonsense associated with our new position. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

It’s Not the Arab Spring, It’s the Nahda 4.12.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:57:04 -0400

The term “Arab Spring” was born of optimism, not analysis. When a downtrodden fruit monger in Tunisia self-immolated, setting off a series of regional upheavals, many journalists, diplomats, and academics thought they heard an echo of the Prague Spring of 1968. That was when Czechoslovakia boldly initiated democratic reforms — an experiment quickly extinguished by a Soviet invasion. Americans do not like to see people living under the jackboots of dictators. We instinctively root for the revolutionaries hoping there are George Washingtons and Thomas Jeffersons among them. But the American Revolution was an historical anomaly. The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Iranian Revolution — in these and other instances, one form of despotism simply replaced another. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Threats to Life: New challenges to ethics, and to civilization 4.12.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:55:55 -0400

Last week, I broached the question of an attempted shift in the long-standing cultural balance in America between the paramountcy of the Judeo-Christian values of the sanctity of life and primacy of the individual will in pursuit of conventional moral standards, and the moral relativism of an evolving rationalist Enlightenment. It is, very broadly, the abrasion between positive faith and humanist reason, and although I saw no evidence that Senator Santorum saw the issues in exactly this historic context, I think he deserves credit for raising these different perspectives in what has otherwise seemed to me the most intellectually vapid U.S. presidential campaign I have observed. (And I have observed all of them starting with the relatively distinguished rematch in 1956 between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai E. Stevenson, very different men but both of undoubted stature.) These questions are regularly played out as what are called the life issues, and are not usually argued along partisan lines. The great majority of people of all political shadings will agree that personal and national self-defense justify recourse to force in the absence of other effective measures. The death penalty for heinous crimes is more hotly contested, especially as there are now constant revelations of deliberate prosecution suppression of exculpatory evidence all over the country, and all execution techniques, including lethal injection, have been shown to be potentially cruelly painful. Abortion is a proverbially divisive subject, and the depredations of the pro-abortionists are becoming steadily more aggressive: now partial-birth abortions, and even the first stirrings of the scandalous enormity of post-birth abortion. Assisted suicide and euthanasia are heating up, fueled by the burgeoning organ-transplant industry. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Working-Class Wonk 4.12.12

Robert Costa — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:55:07 -0400

Mitt Romney has left the building and the town-hall meeting has ended, but Rob Portman, Ohio’s rail-thin freshman senator, paces across the factory floor to shake hands with the lingering crowd. He spends 20 minutes with the metalworkers, listening to their stories. He lightly grips his hands at his waist; his salt-and-pepper hair is slightly mussed. His responses are crisp, calm, and full of numbers. In that respect, he echoes Romney, the potential Republican presidential nominee. But behind the mannerly persona, Portman, like Romney, is a shrewd operator. Unlike Romney, he is a seasoned Washington player — and an influential lawmaker who has worked for two presidents. The pair’s stylistic similarities, midwestern roots, and contrasting career paths have spurred Republican strategists to tout Portman as a leading vice-presidential contender. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Cheney’s Energy Success 4.12.12

Nash Keune — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:54:12 -0400

It’s hard to remember — after Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Blackwater, etc., took turns dominating our collective consciousness — but the Cheney Energy Task Force was once among the gravest of the Bush administration’s sins. Created in the second week of Bush’s first term, it was seen as the birth of the Bush-Cheney hyper-secretive neo-conservative crypto-fascist military-industrial crime syndicate. Now, Obama frequently brags that under his administration, domestic oil production has hit an eight-year high. As he also points out, however, the president can’t have a significant, instantaneous effect on the energy supply. Indeed, we are currently enjoying this surge of oil production largely because of improvements to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has increased the oil produced on state and private land. Much of the credit should go to technological innovators and the oilmen who’ve adopted their techniques. But some credit should be reserved for the Cheney Energy Task Force, which established the guidelines for the Bush administration’s response to these developments. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Buffetted by Tax Hikes 4.11.12

The Editors of NRO — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:53:23 -0400

Speaking in Florida (unemployment rate 9.6 percent, No. 1 in the nation for foreclosures), President Barack Obama reiterated his demand for a tax increase based on the so-called Buffett Rule, a non-solution to a non-problem intended mainly to distract from the administration’s non-solutions to real problems. The Buffett Rule would function as a secondary alternative-minimum tax, putatively to accomplish what the primary alternative-minimum tax has failed to do: sock it to billionaires (“billionaires” here being defined in some instances as “individuals making $250,000 a year,” which is mathematically suspect). The case for the Buffett Rule is built upon a myth cultivated by President Obama, by Warren Buffett, and by many of their supporters and admirers: that high-income Americans pay lower tax rates than middle-class Americans. This is a falsehood, one that has been amply documented with data from the tax experts at the IRS and by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

President of the Twilight Zone 4.11.12

Michael Tanner — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:52:10 -0400

Deconstructing one of President Obama’s speeches can be a bit like taking a trip to an alternate universe. Take his remarks last week to the Associated Press, contrasting his budget vision with that of Paul Ryan and Republicans. All that was missing was a Rod Serling voice-over announcing, “You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.” For instance, the president denounces the Ryan budget as “thinly veiled Social Darwinism.” One would think that Social Darwinism would mean actually cutting the budget. But in reality, Ryan’s budget increases federal spending by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Millennials Turn Rightward? 4.10.12

Nathaniel Botwinick — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:44:40 -0400

The “luster of Obama’s promises has worn off” and “hope” and “change” no longer drive young voters. In 2008, the “millennial” generation, comprising those between the ages of 18 to 29, voted for President Obama by a margin of 2–1. In 2004, President Bush lost this demographic by nine points to John Kerry. But, for the first time in over a decade, it appears the trend has reversed — young Americans are now reconsidering their allegiances to the Democratic party. Why have the millennials, the group that Obama has described as “the foundation of [his] campaign,” abandoned him? To quote another Democratic campaign, “it’s the economy, stupid.” According to research conducted for Resurgent Republic, a conservative policy organization, young voters are no longer enamored with the president because of the current state of the economy. The millennials chosen for the focus groups were all self-identified independents who had voted for Obama in 2008 but were now undecided on the generic ballot. The dramatic effects of the “Great Recession” had shifted the mindsets of these younger Americans — unemployment amongst this crucial Obama demographic is currently at its highest point since the end of World War II. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

There Is No War on Women in Wisconsin 4.10.12

The Editors of NRO — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:43:19 -0400

In 2009, Wisconsin enacted a law that would help victims of sex discrimination win bigger awards. Such victims already could file their cases with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in federal court, or with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. But lawmakers thought that once an accuser had won before an administrative-law judge — the final step of the process that starts with the Department of Workforce Development — she should then be allowed to file her case in a Wisconsin circuit court. Circuit courts were directed to award compensatory and punitive damages of up to $300,000 for large employers, whereas administrative-law judges may only make the accuser “whole” by awarding back pay, attorney’s fees, etc. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

An American Gospel 4.9.12

Kevin D. Williamson — Mon, 9 Apr 2012 12:53:21 -0400

Americans are an enterprising people, and we start churches like we start businesses. (It is not always possible to tell the two apart.) There are more than twice as many distinct religious communities as McDonald’s restaurants in the United States, and eight times as many religious congregations as ZIP codes. The diversity of American creeds and the comity among their adherents is remarkable: The West Texas city in which I was raised was dominated by white Baptists and brown Catholics, but we had everything from staid Methodist congregations to foot-washing Primitive Baptists, holy-rolling Foursquare and Full Gospel churches, a tiny congregation of Latin-loving sedevacantists led by a discalced Franciscan (try that on a sidewalk in Texas in July), neo-Marcionite churches full of people who did not know what a Marcionite is, various expressions of the Seventh-Day Adventist tendency, even a few Mennonites out in the countryside. Everybody thought everybody else was going to perdition, though to the best of my recollection Janet Reno was the only one willing to dispatch anybody to hell from Texas over religious peculiarities. But the Mormons are a tribe apart. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Why We Need Voter-ID Laws Now: Voter fraud is a scandal, and the attorney general can’t look away anymore. 4.9.12

John Fund — Mon, 9 Apr 2012 12:45:47 -0400

Attorney General Eric Holder is a staunch opponent of laws requiring voters to show photo ID at the polls to improve ballot security. He calls them “unnecessary” and has blocked their implementation in Texas and South Carolina, citing the fear they would discriminate against minorities. I wonder what Holder will think when he learns just how easy it was for someone to be offered his ballot just by mentioning his name in a Washington, D.C., polling place in Tuesday’s primaries. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Waiting to Lose in Afghanistan 4.9.12

Leif Babin — Mon, 9 Apr 2012 12:44:06 -0400

After a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, at tremendous cost in American blood and treasure, many Americans are now asking: Why are we there? What do we have to show for our efforts? The answers are troubling: A government, under President Hamid Karzai, that is corrupt, largely incompetent, and of questionable loyalty; inept Afghan security forces that regularly turn their weapons on their American and NATO advisers; and a resurgent Taliban poised to regain control of the country after U.S. forces withdraw. Many look at these facts and conclude that the U.S. can’t win in Afghanistan and should therefore get out. But few have examined the dire consequences of losing. What would it mean to lose in Afghanistan? The U.S. invaded the country in 2001 with the stated objective of vanquishing al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime that harbored it. When we finally withdraw all forces in 2014, the Taliban influence in Afghanistan is likely to be substantial, if not paramount. Should the Taliban retake much of Afghanistan, whether we label our withdrawal a defeat or call it something more appetizing (a draw, for example) is immaterial: Our enemies will view this as an American defeat, and learn lessons that will bode ill for our future. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

It’s Not ‘All of the Above’ After All: Obama’s pointless war on coal 4.5.12

Robert Bryce — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 16:46:40 -0400

So now we know that when President Obama says he wants an “all of the above” strategy for energy, “the above” doesn’t include the energy source in which America has the biggest advantage over the rest of the world: coal. Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced a new regulation that, if enacted, will effectively outlaw the building of new coal-fired electricity-generation plants. In its proposed rule — which, by the way, is 257 pages long – the agency says it is using a “common-sense approach to reducing CO2 and other [greenhouse-gas] emissions, which by causing climate change, pose a serious threat to public health and welfare.” The EPA’s proposal defies common sense in several ways. I will focus on two of them: the essentiality of coal both here in the U.S. and around the world, and the negligible effect that this move will have on global carbon-dioxide emissions. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

A Breather from Regulations 4.5.12

John Berlau — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 16:45:53 -0400

‘It’s so meager,” proclaimed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on March 9, the day after the House passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, a bill to reduce regulations on businesses that raise capital. Though Pelosi had voted for the bill, as had 157 other Democrats and all the Republicans who were present, she belittled the accomplishment as a “little king” and at most a “jobs bill lite.” A few days later, the bill — which also garnered the support of such staunch liberals as Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), and was supported by the Obama administration — suddenly became “radical.” “Democrats have belatedly woken up to the act’s radicalism,” stated The Economist. The usual suspects who treat regulation as religion — the AFL-CIO, the New York Times editorial page, etc. — came out in full force against the bill. When the bill came before the Senate, Jack Reed (D., R.I.), Carl Levin (D., Mich.), and Mary Landrieu (D., La.) spearheaded an amendment that would have weakened or gutted every measure of regulatory relief in the House bill. The amendment got the vote of every Senate Democrat and Senator Scott Brown (R., Mass.), but fell short of the 60 votes it needed to move forward. Eventually, 25 Democrats — nearly half of the party’s Senate caucus — joined the unanimous Republicans to pass a bill that contained almost all the provisions of the House version. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Messages of Toulouse: Lone-wolf terrorists are a growing threat moderate Muslims shouldn’t ignore. 4.5.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 5 Apr 2012 16:44:57 -0400

To those who proclaim themselves jihadis, Mohamed Merah is a hero and a martyr. He became a hero last month when he attacked a Jewish school in Toulouse, murdering Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two young sons, Gabriel and Arieh, and a seven-year-old girl, Myriam Monsonego, whom he pulled by the hair and then shot in the head. He became a martyr when, after a 33-hour standoff, he was killed by French commandos. This part of the story has received too little attention: Merah, the 23-year-old son of Algerian immigrants, began his killing spree by gunning down French paratrooper Sergeant Imad Ibn Ziaten and, four days later, two more uniformed paratroopers, Corporal Abel Chennouf and Private Mohamed Legouad. All three were Muslims. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The EPA Abuses First, Apologizes Later 4.4.12

Mario Loyola — Wed, 4 Apr 2012 11:14:53 -0400

Last summer, I wrote about the Environmental Protection Agency’s shameful persecution of a Texas natural-gas company, Range Resources Corp. The year before, EPA had slapped the company with an “emergency order” under the Safe Drinking Water Act, alleging that it “caused or contributed to” the contamination of two water wells west of Fort Worth. Almost immediately, however, EPA was forced to admit that Range had no connection whatsoever to the contamination in question. It nonetheless insisted on the company’s obedience to the original order. I argued then that this was all a shameful abuse of power. Well, just last week, after a nearly two-year odyssey in which the company has spent $4.2 million defending itself, EPA agreed to drop the whole thing. The withdrawal of the emergency order was officially announced at the end of last week, where the government usually tries to bury its embarrassments. But the question remains: Why now? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

President Petulant 4.4.12

John Fund — Wed, 4 Apr 2012 11:14:00 -0400

I spoke last night at a symposium on “The Obama Presidency” at the University of California at Berkeley. In a radical city known sometimes for its liberal anger, it won’t surprise you, many of those in the audience were upset at the prospect of the Supreme Court’s overturning part or all of Obamacare. After all, Berkeley voted 88 percent for Obama in 2008. But almost no one present at the symposium was as petulant as President Obama was yesterday, when he incorrectly claimed that if the Court rules against his landmark legislation it would be taking “an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” The implication of his statement was that he hasn’t heard of Marbury v. Madison, in which the Supreme Court laid down the doctrine of judicial review in 1803, and by which the Court can strike down unconstitutional laws. Indeed, since 1981, the Court has struck down 57 specific legislative acts of Congress, an average of two per year. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Conservatives and the Courts 4.4.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 4 Apr 2012 11:13:12 -0400

Who says bipartisanship is dead? Left and Right have finally found something that they agree on. They are both unalterably opposed to judicial activism — except, of course, when they aren’t. The latest meme from the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, and much of the media is that if the Supreme Court were to strike down all or part of Obamacare, it would place the Court’s legitimacy itself at risk. After all, since only 28 state attorneys general, at least two District Court Judges and five Circuit Court Judges (including a Clinton appointee), numerous law professors, the 52 organizations and hundreds of state legislators who filed briefs in support of the plaintiffs, and 72 percent of the American public believe that Obamacare’s attempt to force every American to buy a specific commercial product is unconstitutional, it would obviously be an unprecedented act of judicial activism for the Court to agree. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Impropriety of Obamacare 4.4.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Wed, 4 Apr 2012 11:12:16 -0400

Liberals claim that to strike down Obamacare would run counter to decades of Supreme Court precedent about the scope of the congressional power to regulate commerce among the states. Conservatives, while unenthusiastic at best about the precedents, argue that to affirm Obamacare would go beyond them. So how should this case be distinguished from those precedents? Michael Greve’s new book The Upside-Down Constitution, which I recently reviewed for NR, provides a compelling answer: Unlike the governmental actions at issue in those previous cases, this one involves a commandeering of individuals that cannot be considered “proper” under the Constitution. His argument is that most of the cases we file under the heading of the “commerce clause” would better be analyzed as “necessary and proper clause” cases. He begins with Gonzales v. Raich, a 2005 case affirming the power of Congress to prohibit the cultivation and possession of marijuana even for non-commercial distribution within a state. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Saving Sovereignty 4.3.12

John Fonte — Tue, 3 Apr 2012 13:48:27 -0400

American progressives from Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey to Barack Obama and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have long expressed dissatisfaction with what they see as the constraints of an outmoded 18th-century Constitution. For more than a hundred years, progressives have sought to “transform” America, to make the political, economic, cultural, and legal foundation of our constitutional republic (our “regime,” in the Aristotelian-Tocquevillian sense) more statist, more centralized, more regulatory, more “European,” more secular, and less capitalist, less entrepreneurial, less “provincial,” less religious, less “exceptional.” In the past, progressives lauded the American “common man” and presented their agenda within the framework of the American story. Progressive politicians were dissatisfied with the American Constitution because, in their view, it limited popular sovereignty and thus the will of the American people. They called for more direct democracy, with popular referendums and recalls. Meanwhile, historians of the Progressives put forward populist patriotic narratives. States’-rights and limited-government advocates such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were magically transformed by such academics as Arthur Schlesinger Jr. into proto– New Dealers and proto-Progressives battling “aristocratic” moneyed interests. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Too Young to Die: Why do we ignore murders of blacks by other blacks? 4.3.12

Lee Habeeb — Tue, 3 Apr 2012 13:47:42 -0400

His name was Albert Vaughn. He was by all accounts a very good kid living in a very tough neighborhood. He was attending a party at a home that was supposed to be a haven for young inner-city Chicago teens back in April of 2008. The kids were there to enjoy some fun, drink some Kool-Aid, and listen to their favorite music, free from the fear of violence that too often inhabited the streets outside. But violence found a way in. At about 10:30 p.m., a scuffle broke out in the basement between two of the guests, and the fight ignited a chain of events that led to the death of the innocent young man. He was fatally struck in the head with a baseball bat as he tried to help the party chaperones usher the kids home. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Carbon Emissions Are Good 4.3.12

Robert Zubrin — Tue, 3 Apr 2012 13:46:56 -0400

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intention to enforce regulations that would effectively ban new coal-fired power plants in the United States. As coal is by far America’s cheapest and most plentiful fossil fuel, and coal-fired power stations account for 45 percent of all electricity generated in the U.S., the destructive economic effects of this edict can hardly be overstated. It is therefore imperative to subject the EPA’s logic to a searching examination. According to the EPA, despite their disastrous economic effects, regulations to prevent the U.S. from making use of its coal resources are necessary, because coal combustion produces carbon dioxide, which allegedly will cause global warming, which would allegedly be harmful to the Earth’s biosphere and human society. Others, wishing to avoid an environmentalist-created economic catastrophe, have challenged this argument’s first premise, to wit, that global warming is really occurring. Since there is no actual global temperature, but only an average of many different constantly changing local temperatures, this approach has led to convoluted debates revolving around data sets that can easily be based upon an unrepresentative mix of measurements. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

It’s Not Road Rage, It’s Terrorism 4.3.12

Daniel Pipes — Tue, 3 Apr 2012 13:45:37 -0400

On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli doctor of American origins, went to the mosque at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and murdered 29 Muslims with an automatic weapon before being overwhelmed and himself killed. This massacre prompted conspiracy theories and riots in Muslim circles, including accusations that the government of Israel stood behind Goldstein, an allegation that strenuous denunciations of his attack by the Israeli government did not fully deflect. On March 1, four days later, Rashid Baz, a New York livery driver of Lebanese origins, fired two guns at a van carrying Hasidic Jewish boys on a ramp leading to the Brooklyn Bridge, killing Ari Halberstam, 16, a yeshiva student. Baz was quickly apprehended, convicted, and sentenced to 141 years in prison. Circumstantial evidence pointed to a link between the two events, for Baz was immersed in the Arabic-language media coverage of Goldstein’s attack, he attended the incendiary Islamic Center of Bay Ridge, and he was surrounded by Muslims who condoned terrorism against Jews. More than that, friends indicated that Baz was obsessively angered by the attack in Hebron and the psychiatrist for his legal defense, Douglas Anderson, testified that Baz “was enraged” by it. “He was absolutely furious. . . . Were it not for Hebron this whole tragedy [in New York] wouldn’t have occurred.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Dastardly Supreme Court 3.30.12

Brian Bolduc — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:13:58 -0400

After telling themselves that Obamacare’s individual mandate was patently constitutional, liberals are now aghast at the possibility — seemingly more likely after this week’s oral arguments — that it will be overturned. In a panic, the Left has leveled all sorts of ridiculous charges against the Supreme Court. Here are the three worst offenses. 1. The justices are hypocrites. New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait growls that Justice Antonin Scalia — before he has even cast a vote, mind you — “is gleefully reversing his previous interpretation of the Commerce Clause.” For evidence, Chait links to a post by blogger NYCSouthPaw, who contends that one of Scalia’s comments during oral arguments “completely contradicts something [he] wrote in one of his most famous opinions.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Alabama’s Stand for Religious Liberty 3.30.12

Luther Strange — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:12:41 -0400

Thomas Jefferson predicted that future generations would be happy as long as they could “prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them.” Earlier this week, I attended arguments at the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Obamacare, and I am hopeful that the Court will save us from such wasted labors by striking the Affordable Care Act down in its entirety. For now, though, we are stuck with the myriad regulations and mandates that the Affordable Care Act has spawned. That is why, on March 22, the State of Alabama joined a lawsuit against the recent mandate requiring the insurance plans of all employers, with the exception of some houses of worship, to cover contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization procedures. The lawsuit was originally filed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, on behalf of the world’s largest Catholic media network, Eternal World Television Network, Inc. (EWTN), which happens to be headquartered near Birmingham. EWTN has taken great pains to provide insurance to its employees without also subsidizing services that violate its religious mission and contravene the teachings of the Catholic Church. But now, the contraception mandate would require EWTN and other religious employers and individuals to choose between paying fines and subsidizing practices that contradict their beliefs. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Rubio on the Race: He backs Romney, but seeks to quell veep rumors. 3.30.12

Jim Geraghty — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:10:33 -0400

Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) spoke with NRO this morning about his endorsement of Mitt Romney, the signal he’s sending on the oral arguments at the Supreme Court about Obamacare, and his idea for a revised version of the DREAM Act. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Vigilantes for Trayvon? 3.29.12

Robert Verbruggen — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:54:29 -0400

The angry public reaction to the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin had a solid basis in fact. The teen was found dead and unarmed. A call placed to police by the shooter, George Zimmerman, proves beyond any doubt that — at least in the early stages of the encounter — Zimmerman was the aggressor. Further, Zimmerman’s story — that after running away in apparent fear, Martin suddenly attacked when Zimmerman gave up on the pursuit — sounds implausible. There should be a trial to determine whether Zimmerman can be proven guilty of a crime, and at first it appeared there would not be. But that has changed. Despite the police’s reluctance to arrest Zimmerman, a special prosecutor is looking at the incident and may bring charges. The race-obsessed Obama Justice Department is also on the case. Even assuming Zimmerman acted illegally, a fair trial does not guarantee justice for Martin — there may not be enough evidence to prove the shooter guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. But to the extent it is possible and consistent with the rule of law, the justice system will address this case. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obamacare Arguments Lean Against Severability 3.29.12

Carrie Severino — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:53:19 -0400

After yesterday’s heartening arguments, today’s arguments carry even more importance, because it seems likely the Court will actually reach the severability question. If there are political consequences for the Court’s decision on the mandate argued yesterday, there could be even more consequences to today’s arguments. If the law is struck down in its entirety, expect the president to dust off his 2010 State of the Union talking points, which charge the Court with what he calls “judicial activism,” but in reality seem to criticize any court decision that finds a law of his unconstitutional. The justices on both sides seemed skeptical of Paul Clement’s opening arguments for the plaintiffs, asking them to strike down the entire law along with the mandate. When he was prompted by Justice Alito to start arguing his fallback position, he made a solid case that far more than the administration’s set of central provisions actually are tied inextricably to the mandate. Not just community-rating and guaranteed-issue, but also Medicaid, employer mandates, and tax credits, among many other provisions, will be undetermined if left to stand without the mandate. The justices at first seemed unreceptive to his argument that the “shell of the law” left after removing these provisions should fall, with Justices Kennedy and Scalia particularly concerned about how to articulate such a rule. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

‘Can We Come In Now?’ Good news and bad news from the Arizona border. 3.29.12

Mark Kirkorian — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:52:18 -0400

Perceptions matter in politics. This is a banal observation, to be sure, but one that hit home for me on a recent tour of the Arizona border. Last month, I went along on a safari for friends and supporters of the Center for Immigration Studies, starting in Yuma and heading east almost to Nogales. A straight line between the two points would measure about 300 miles, though we covered close to 1,000 miles in our various wanderings. A Border Patrol agent related that, the day after Obama won the presidential election in 2008, two Mexicans came up to the fence and asked the agent, “Can we come in now?” They couldn’t, of course, despite all they’d heard about Obama’s views on immigration, and his subsequent lack of interest in pushing for amnesty changed his fans’ perception of him. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Injustice System Too many prisoners, too little justice. 3.29.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:51:18 -0400

Every resident of or frequent visitor to the United States should rejoice at the Supreme Court’s decision last week expanding the rights of defendants to effective counsel in plea-bargain negotiations. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, the country no longer has a “trial system,” but rather a system in which “the negotiation of a plea bargain, [instead of] the unfolding of a trial, is almost always the critical point for a defendant.” In federal cases, 97 percent of convictions — and in state cases, 94 percent of convictions — are the result of plea bargains. Justice Kennedy, perhaps without realizing it, turned over the rock that hides the ghastly infirmity of the whole American criminal-justice system when he emphasized that the plea bargain is “the critical point for a defendant.” He didn’t say, “for a convicted defendant,” or “for a guilty defendant” — and thus implicitly recognized that over 90 percent of those charged are convicted. The sluggishness of the Supreme Court to grasp the implications of this makes the gently downward movement of molasses and even that of fresh cement seem like the rush of the Niagara River toward the falls, but at some point the high court is going to have to come to grips with this degeneration of American justice into virtual Star Chambers. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

It’s Not About Stand Your Ground: We should reserve judgment, but it seems that Zimmerman acted lawfully. 3.28.12

John Lott Jr. — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:29:27 -0400

President Obama, Jesse Jackson, and others have chosen to personalize the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., highlighting the racial issues by expressing concern for people who look like they do or live where “blacks are under attack.” Many conservatives and liberals have also already concluded that the shooter committed a crime. All of these reactions are premature. In response to the shooting, Florida governor Rick Scott has set up a commission to review the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Gun-control organizations, including the Brady Campaign, have gone beyond this and even more drastically called for the end of right-to-carry laws. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Open Microphone: The president shouldn’t be offering concessions to Russia, in private or in public. 3.28.12

David Satter — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:28:24 -0400

The remarks of President Obama to Dmitry Medvedev over an open microphone, in which he promised that in a second term, he will have flexibility on the issue of global missile defense, shows that when it comes to U.S.–Russian relations, Obama is a stunningly slow learner. The relations between a U.S. president and a Russian leader often follow a depressing pattern. The American leader charms (or thinks he charms) his Russian counterpart. The Russian leader begins to engage in criminal behavior, which gets steadily worse. Finally, something big happens — the invasion of Afghanistan, the nuclear poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, the invasion of Georgia — and the realization dawns that the Russian is neither a Christian nor a friend and he has to be approached with realism. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Yes, We Can Wait We can always wait for the Constitution. 3.28.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:26:54 -0400

In pushing through parts of the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt reportedly told one wavering congressman, “I hope you will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation.” As one listens to the Obama administration and others defend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a Obamacare), one gets the impression that Roosevelt’s nostrum has been adopted as the official motto of this administration. Their attitude seems to be that, of course Obamacare is constitutional because, well, because it’s important. The idea that federal government’s power should be limited is dismissed as a quaint relic of a bygone age. There are important national problems to be solved, and we should not be held back by a document from the past. As Representative Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) puts it, “Basically we are not looking at the Constitution. . . . The decision has been made by this Congress that American citizens are entitled to health care.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Still the Alinsky Playbook 3.27.12

John Fund — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:53:39 -0400

Forty years after his death, Saul Alinsky — the father of the community-organizing model that inspired both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — is more politically relevant than ever. Leading conservatives attempt to tie the Obama administration to Alinsky’s radicalism, with Newt Gingrich declaring that Obama draws his “understanding of America” from “Saul Alinsky, radical left-wingers, and people who don’t like the classical America.” For their part, liberals have scrambled to minimize Obama’s affinity for Alinsky and to sand over Alinsky’s sharp edges. A blogger at Britain’s Guardian newspaper claims that Alinsky was merely “what passes for a left-wing radical in American politics, agitating for better living conditions for the poor.” (Liberals have also largely ignored the fact that the subtitle of Hillary Clinton’s honors thesis at Wellesley was “An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.”) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Lawyer Confuses Himself: Is the Mandate a Penalty or a Tax? 3.27.12

Avik Roy — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:53:01 -0400

Is the individual mandate a penalty or a tax? That was today’s question at the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for the Court, both the respondents — the states — and the petitioners — the Obama administration — agreed that the mandate was a penalty. So the Court had to hire an outside lawyer, Robert Long, to argue that the mandate was a tax. He didn’t get very far. “I would not argue that this statute is a perfect model of clarity,” Long conceded. The headline you’ll read in tomorrow’s paper is that the justices seemed nearly unanimous in objecting to the idea that the mandate was a tax. After all, the text of the law itself is clear in describing the mandate as a penalty. And this matters because the Anti-Injunction Act of 1867 prohibits people from suing the government for a tax that hasn’t yet gone into effect. (The individual mandate goes into effect in 2014.) People can sue, however, over a penalty. Robert Long tried to argue that it doesn’t matter what the text of the law actually says; what matters is what the mandate is meant to achieve, and that the mandate is meant to garner revenue for the government. But Justice Ginsburg shot down that argument: “This is not a revenue-raising measure,” she pointed out, “because, if it’s successful, nobody will pay the penalty, and there will be no revenue to raise.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Next Step for the Sacketts An Idaho couple continues to fight the EPA. 3.27.12

Robert Verbruggen — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:51:08 -0400

In 2005, Mike and Chantell Sackett bought a piece of land from a friend. They planned to build a house on it. While the lot was near Idaho’s beautiful Priest Lake, it was part of an existing subdivision, and it already had a sewer hookup. There were other houses nearby — including a row of them between the Sacketts’ lot and the lake. “We went to the county and paid our fees, got a building permit, and went through the checklist,” Mike remembers. “Then the EPA shows up.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Constitution vs. Obamacare 3.26.12

The Editors of NRO — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:01:02 -0400

The Supreme Court this week is hearing arguments about some specific, grave constitutional concerns about Obamacare: most prominently, whether the federal government has the power to order all Americans to purchase health insurance that meets the federal government’s standards. But it is worth taking a few steps back to remind ourselves that while this requirement is an unprecedented infringement on Americans’ liberty, the legislation as a whole — in its conception, not just its details — is an offense against constitutional government. As is much of modern government, and conservatives should not shrink from saying so. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

An Inverted System 3.26.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:00:15 -0400

The Founders of this country, according to lore, created a system in which federal and state power balanced each other. During the New Deal, however, the Supreme Court stopped maintaining that balance. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court allowed the federal government to shove the states aside to regulate purely intrastate activity (specifically, to tell a farmer to stop growing wheat to feed his cattle). Since that time, the federal government has seized more and more power at the expense of the states. In recent years, however, the Court has tried to move back toward the Founders’ view of the rights and dignity of the states. Michael S. Greve, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has written The Upside-Down Constitution to tell you that all of the above is wrong. “Balance” is precisely the wrong way to look at the constitutional allocation of responsibilities, implying as it does that the state usurpation of a federal power could somehow compensate for the federal usurpation of a state power. The Constitution established a division rather than a balance of powers, and it did so not to protect the interests of the states but to safeguard accountability and competition (although the Founders did not use those exact words). Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Don’t Erect a Monument to Che 3.26.12

Carlos Eire — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:59:03 -0400

As a victim of Che Guevara’s atrocities, as a historian, and as a Cuban of Irish descent, I am deeply disturbed by the fact that the city of Galway is planning to erect a monument to Ernesto “Che” Guevara. I don’t mind one bit if those behind this monstrous project want to believe lies — that’s their right in a truly free society — but it would be wrong to allow their abysmal ignorance or willful blindness to stand unchallenged. Those who think highly of Che may be surprised to hear it, but they have way too much in common with Holocaust deniers. Che was my neighbor in Havana, and I actually saw him in the flesh several times. He lived in an opulent mansion just a few blocks from my very small house, and also ran the prison of La Cabaña, where some of my relatives ended up being tortured and murdered. Their crime? Voicing an opinion different from Che’s. Or, in the case of my uncle, simply having a son who voiced an opinion contrary to Che’s. The awful truth about Ernesto “Che” Guevara is that he was a violent thug with despotic tendencies. Che’s admirers prefer to think of him as a righteous warrior, and often cite certain books that portray him as a saint. I hate to break the news to them: Some books are full of lies. Fortunately, others are not, like the memoir Cuba 1959, La Galera de la Muerte, written by Javier Arzuaga, the priest who accompanied all of Che’s victims to the firing squad during the first nine months of the so-called Revolution. Read it and weep, please, all of you who love Che. We Cubans are the only people on earth who knew the real Che — as opposed to the icon stamped on all sorts of merchandise — but there are many in the world who tune us out, discredit our testimony, and would love to gag us. Somehow, the lie is preferable. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

‘No Wi-Fi’: The Real Sign of Our Times 3.23.12

Kevin D. Williamson — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:09:27 -0400

I popped into a coffeeshop the other day to get my brain jump-started, and I saw a sign that stopped me cold: “No Wi-Fi.” That’s the history of the millennial era in two words: The day before yesterday there was no such thing as wireless Internet access. Then it became available, usually for a pretty stiff usage fee. (Remember the dark ages of having to rely on Boingo at the airport? Oh, wait . . . if you fly out of LaGuardia, you’re still in the dark ages. More about that in a minute.) Then wireless got so cheap that it became available as a courtesy in public spaces, and coffeeshops and the like began to offer it as a basic amenity, like restrooms or comfortable chairs. Up went the signs: “Free Wi-Fi.” Pretty soon, you could log on for free at McDonald’s while sucking down all 1,160 calories in your supersized shake. And then a funny thing happened: The “Free Wi-Fi” signs went away. The new sign was the invisible sign: “Of course we have wireless — what do you think this is, Waziristan?” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama Flunks Math With CAFE, you’ll save more than you ever spent. 3.22.12

Nash Keune — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:08:50 -0400

During a speech two weeks ago at the Daimler Truck manufacturing plant in Mount Holly, N.C., President Obama bantered with an audience member over his administration’s proposed Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards: Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Oil Bottleneck: The president could encourage oil production if he tried hard enough. 3.22.12

Nash Keune — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:07:36 -0400

‘When it comes to American energy production, President Obama is like a rooster who crows at the sunrise, then imagines that he conjured up the morning,” jokes Ben Cole of the Institute for Energy Research. The White House has been taking credit for increased oil production, when it actually was taking place on state and private lands while output on federal lands was dropping. Now, the administration is touting the construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, though so far the process has been entirely outside federal jurisdiction. This southern pipeline constitutes about one third of the original proposed Keystone XL route, from Cushing, Okla., to refineries in the Gulf Coast. Cushing, at the junction of several major pipelines from around the country, serves as a sort of switching station for oil on its way to the coast. Currently there’s a glut of oil in Cushing because the pipelines to the coast are too small to carry all of the oil from Oklahoma. On top of fixing a problem with our nation’s oil infrastructure, this route will cost $2.3 billion and is estimated to create 4,000 jobs starting in 2013. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

HHS Messes with Texas Obama’s real agenda is clear: abortion. 3.22.12

Patrick Brennan — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:06:55 -0400

While opposition to the HHS mandate has caused many liberals to accuse Republicans of a “war on women,” the Obama administration itself has just declared the first front in its own war on women’s health care. Its casus belli? The Texas government’s restriction on funding for abortion providers. As of last week, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services has withdrawn $30 million worth of funding from a Texas Medicaid program that provides health-care services for low-income women. This HHS policy begins to confirm what conservatives have suspected all along: While the Obama administration has made it clearer than it would like to claim the mantle of “protecting women’s health,” its real aim is unfettered access to abortion and ubiquitous, free contraception. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Economic Sanity for 2012 Obama and Romney should get serious about the debt. 3.22.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:06:13 -0400

There are some obvious steps available to the administration to incite more credible inferences of economic progress that don’t require legislation, and should not be complicated, even in this very odd election campaign. Longer-term interest rates have just finally started to inch up, and there has been slight progress in the last couple of years to term out federal debt a little. It is a truism, often hammered like a piñata throughout the Obama years, that $1.3 to $1.6 trillion annual federal deficits, in a country that had a conventional money supply of $900 billion when this regime was inaugurated, could not continue indefinitely without disastrous consequences. There is not the least indication of any national or official will to repay the new debt. And there is little likelihood of any timely growth out of the debt back to manageable debt/GDP ratios, as consumer spending won’t revive quickly until family and personal debt have receded further. More acquisitive consumers largely benefit foreign luxury-goods and engineered-products industries anyway. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

‘Destroy All the Churches’ Is it not news when the leading Saudi religious authority says that to terrorists? 3.22.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:03:54 -0400

Imagine if Pat Robertson called for the demolition of all the mosques in America. It would be front-page news. It would be on every network and cable-news program. There would be a demand for Christians to denounce him, and denounce him they would — in the harshest terms. The president of the United States and other world leaders would weigh in, too. Rightly so. So why is it that when Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, the grand mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, declares that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches in the Arabian Peninsula,” the major media do not see this as even worth reporting? And no one, to the best of my knowledge, has noted that he said this to the members of a terrorist group. Here are the facts: Some members of the Kuwaiti parliament have been seeking to demolish churches or at least prohibit the construction of new ones within that country’s borders. So the question arose: What does sharia, Islamic law, have to say about this issue? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obamacare, Two Years Later 3.21.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:41:32 -0400

This week marks two years since of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and if the Obama administration has chosen to all but ignore the second anniversary of Obamacare, the rest of us should pause and reflect on just what a monumental failure of policy the health-care-reform law has been. What’s more, it has been a failure on its own terms. After all, when health-care reform was passed, we were promised that it would do three things: 1) provide health-insurance coverage for all Americans; 2) reduce insurance costs for individuals, businesses, and government; and 3) increase the quality of health care and the value received for each dollar of health-care spending. At the same time, the president and the law’s supporters in Congress promised that the legislation would not increase the federal-budget deficit or unduly burden the economy. And it would do all these things while letting those of us who were happy with our current health insurance keep it unchanged. Two years in, we can see that none of these things is true. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Doctorcare Learning the lessons of health-care reform 3.21.12

Marc Siegel — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:31:54 -0400

I have finally figured out how to apply the lessons of Obamacare to save my own sinking medical office from bankruptcy. Under the president’s health-care law, the stated goal of which is to provide easy-to-use health insurance for everyone, you — the struggling-to-make-ends-meet patient — will see your skyrocketing mandated premiums used to pay not only for contraception, but also for the medical sequelae of a rude and obese McDonald’s customer who chooses to eat one bacon cheeseburger with fries after another. As your physician, I will be paid less and less for treating you even as insurance companies charge you more and more to cover the self-destructive among us. At the same time, Obamacare mandates will shrink your co-pays to the point where I will no longer be able to afford coffee for my nurses. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to appear selfish or unappreciative of your choosing my services; in fact, I am committed to taking care of you regardless of whether doing so still pays my bills. I will keep my office door open as long as I can afford to keep the lights on. As a private practitioner, I am a dying breed, and even as most of my contemporaries join the ranks of hospitals and clinics, I am pledged to continue to provide you with the kind of care you are used to receiving. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Despair and Necessity in Afghanistan 3.20.12

The Editors of NRO — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:35:59 -0400

If recent events on the ground in Afghanistan aren’t enough to sour the American public on the war there, there’s always Hamid Karzai. The Afghan leader, who certainly wouldn’t be in power and probably wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for U.S. forces fighting in his country, says he wants our soldiers out of Afghan villages. If he were to get his way, it would collapse our war effort and, soon enough, his government. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Turbulent Priest Good riddance to Rowan Williams. 3.20.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:34:46 -0400

Once described as the “Conservative party at prayer,” the Church of England has taken a decidedly leftward turn in the last century, prompting the Earl of Onslow’s immortal observation that “one hundred years ago, the Church was in favor of fox hunting and against buggery. Now it is in favor of buggery and against fox hunting.” In the vanguard of its continuing drift was Rowan Williams, a self-described “bearded lefty” and terminal casuist who has also happened to be the Archbishop of Canterbury for the last nine years, and thus effectively second only to Queen Elizabeth II in the spiritual hierarchy. Among other things, Williams became infamous for a steadfast refusal to acknowledge the virtues of his own country — and his own church, for that matter. It is thus no loss to either Britain or the Anglican Church that Williams announced on Friday that he will be resigning his office, effective December 2012, and I must respectfully disagree with John O’Sullivan’s more flattering portrayal of Williams, and set the ball rolling on “great many less flattering things” that O’Sullivan correctly predicted “will be said about him in the next few months.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Cato and the Power of Ideas 3.19.12

Steven F. Hayward — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:23:31 -0400

Reading Richard Cohen’s squalid column last week about Andrew Breitbart (“A Bombthrower Without Ideas”) somehow put me in the frame of mind to think about the . . . Koch-Cato feud. You’ll need to bear with my circuitous route for a moment to work this out. Cohen, who is sometimes worth reading for his occasional departures from the liberal reservation, joined the Left in braying about Breitbart’s supposed shortcomings. Cohen writes that “a good deal of [Breitbart’s career was] revolting and some of it unethical or sloppy,” though the main example he cites of Breitbart’s sloppiness is inaccurate. But more egregious was Cohen’s precious comparison of Breitbart with James Q. Wilson, who died the day after Andrew. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Dr. Science vs. the Market: Steven Chu is a brilliant physicist but a lousy investor of your money. 3.15.12

Nash Keune — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:08:30 -0400

It’s hard to imagine a better candidate for the role of scientific technocrat than Steven Chu. After earning undergraduate degrees in math and physics from Rochester, he got his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1976 and then joined Bell Labs, where he did the work on atomic physics that would earn him a share of the 1997 Nobel Prize. Chu holds ten patents, has published nearly 250 scientific and technical papers, and has taught at Stanford and Berkeley. While on the faculty at Berkeley, Chu became director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a Department of Energy–funded research facility that has increasingly focused on renewable energy (especially during Chu’s tenure). Chu is perhaps the best example of Barack Obama’s stated goal of relying on smart, proven experts to run his cabinet departments. And yet the Department of Energy has floundered under Chu’s administration. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

No Mandate Left Behind: House Democrats want to double down on a flawed education law. 3.15.12

Michael Petrilli — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:07:34 -0400

Two weeks ago, when the House Education and the Workforce Committee marked up two bills to update the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Democrats and their allies screamed bloody murder. Ranking Democratic member (and former chairman) George Miller called the bills “radical” and “highly partisan” and said they would “turn the clock back decades on equity and accountability.” A coalition of civil-rights, education-reform, and business groups said they amounted to a “rollback” of NCLB. Miller put forward his own bills, which most of the same groups quickly endorsed, and which, Miller argues, “eliminat[e] inflexible and outdated provisions of No Child Left Behind and requir[e] states and [school districts] to adopt strong but flexible and achievable standards, assessments, and accountability reforms.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

No Compromise 3.15.12

George Weigel — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:24:12 -0400

In May 1953, the Polish government ordered the implementation of a decree giving the state the authority to appoint and remove Catholic priests and bishops throughout the country: The Catholic Church was to become a subsidiary of the Polish state; its clergy would act as agents of state power; and its educational and charitable activities would be approved (or rejected) by a state intent on bringing the most important institution in Polish civil society to heel. The bishops of Poland, who had tried for years to find a modus vivendi with the Communist regime, now drew the line. Meeting in Kraków under the leadership of the country’s primate, Stefan Cardinal Wyszyński, the Polish episcopate issued a memorandum deploring the government’s attempt to turn the Church “into an instrument of the state” as a violation of the natures of both church and state. The memorandum concluded memorably: “We are not allowed to place the things of God on the altar of Caesar, Non possumus! [We cannot!].” Americans accustomed to religious freedom may, at first blush, find it hard to imagine any possible analogy between our situation today, in the midst of the debate over the HHS “contraceptive mandate,” and that of Poland’s Christians in 1953; of course those brave men and women faced challenges far beyond those facing American believers today. Yet the structure of the moral and political argument, then and now, is eerily similar. In both cases, an overweening and arrogant government tries, through the use of coercive power, to make the Church a subsidiary of the state. In both cases, the state claims the authority to define religious ministries and services on its own narrow and secularist terms. In both cases, the state is attempting to co-opt as much of society as it can, while the Church is defending the prerogatives of civil society. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

An EPA Power Grab 3.15.12

Marlo Lewis — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:23:26 -0400

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) claim that the Obama administration’s model year (MY) 2017 and later fuel-economy standards — which rise to 54.5 mpg in 2025 — will produce net benefits ranging from $262 billion to $358 billion. Skepticism is justified. If the standards are as beneficial as the agencies contend, why wouldn’t consumers demand, and profit-seeking manufacturers produce, vehicles built to the same or similar standards without regulatory compulsion? Fuel-economy regulation assumes that motorists do not want to avoid pain at the pump and automakers don’t want to get rich. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

A Guide for the Perplexed Fareed Zakaria. 3.15.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:22:34 -0400

Fareed Zakaria is wearing his “I’m perplexed” face. On his weekly CNN program, he notes that Saudi Arabia did not go nuclear in response to “Israel’s buildup of a large arsenal of nuclear weapons.” So why, he asks the camera, would the Saudis do so in response to Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons? The camera did not answer, so I will: The Saudis are not fools. They know Israel poses no threat to them. They know, too, that those who rule the Islamic Republic of Iran seek to establish hegemony over the Middle East and lead a global Islamist ascendancy. A nuclear-armed Iran would challenge the Saudi clan’s claim to be the rightful guardian of Mecca and Medina and embolden Arabia’s Shia minority. It would threaten the small states in the region, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain among them. It would dominate Iraq (where its influence has been growing as American forces hav Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Texas vs. California: Why so many people are moving from the Golden State to the Lone Star State. 3.14.12

Chuck Devore — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:25:55 -0400

One in five Americans calls California or Texas home. The two most populous states have a lot in common: a long coast, a sunny climate, a diverse population, plenty of oil in the ground, and Mexico to the south. Where they diverge is in their governance. For six years ending in 2010, I represented almost 500,000 people in California’s legislature. I was vice chairman of the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation and served on the Budget Committee. I was even a lieutenant colonel in the state’s National Guard. Before serving in Sacramento, I worked as an executive in California’s aerospace industry. I moved to Texas late last year, joining the 2 million Californians who have packed up for greener pastures in the past ten years, with Texas the most common destination. In his State-of-the-State address this January, California governor Jerry Brown said, “Contrary to those declinists who sing of Texas and bemoan our woes, California is still the land of dreams. . . . It’s the place where Apple . . . and countless other creative companies all began.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Don’t Retreat, Re-aim: The GOP must refocus on economic issues. 3.14.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:25:02 -0400

Do you remember in the days leading up to the Republican electoral victory in 2010, how the Tea Party marched on Washington with signs saying “Birth Control Is Bad”? Neither do I. Less than a year and a half after Republicans swept to the biggest midterm congressional landslide since Grover Cleveland’s second term, they are struggling against a president presiding over a struggling economy, rising gas prices, and an approval rating in the low 40s. Prospects for a Senate takeover, once a foregone conclusion, are now are tenuous. Even the newly won House majority is in jeopardy. What has changed? Some may blame this on a nasty primary between three of the least inspiring presidential candidates since Bob Dole. But the current GOP seems to have lost any semblance of a coherent message. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Costly United Nations: The U.N. headquarters is getting a facelift — at our expense. 3.13.12

Brett D. Schaefer — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:24:07 -0400

Behind schedule and over budget — and still the U.N.’s Capital Master Plan (CMP) is getting high grades. “The first major renovation of the 60-year-old headquarters has been slowed by extra security measures,” the Associated Press reports, noting that “The final cost will be nearly $2 billion — about 4 percent over the original budget.” Still, the article leaves the general impression that the CMP has done a heckuva job of cost containment. Really? That 4 percent overrun amounts to real money — more than $80 million. But that’s chump change compared to the real stakes in this story. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

What’s Next for Gun Rights? 3.13.12

Robert Verbruggen — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:23:07 -0400

To gun-rights supporters, the Supreme Court’s District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago decisions may have felt like a dream come true — the Court recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms, and applied that right to state and local governments. Going forward, handgun bans are off the table in the U.S. But judging by a conference hosted by the Fordham Urban Law Journal last Friday, the two sides of the gun-control debate have simply regrouped, recalibrated their expectations, and lined up for battle once again. As definitive as Heller and McDonald may seem, they offer little guidance to lawmakers and lower courts as to what kinds of gun control are still permissible. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Keep Fighting Drugs Giving up is not an answer. 3.13.12

Artur Davis — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:22:10 -0400

The drumbeat is starting on the left over what an emboldened, reenergized Barack Obama should focus on in his second term. (There is the inconvenience of an election first, but polling numbers and the job-creation data are inviting enough to make Democrats giddy and eager to drop any veil of centrist intentions.) On the African-American left, the momentum is building for a rollback of the War on Drugs. This is a consistently vague agenda; it shifts from legalizing marijuana, to freeing police resources for more urgent matters, to comprehensive sentencing reform, and all points in between. But at its worst, it is a dangerously misplaced priority, and a sad reminder of the leadership vacuum in the one community that is trapped in a depression. To be sure, critics of the War on Drugs have some indisputable facts on their side: Prisons at the federal and state level are crowded with relatively inconsequential, low-level dealers who are hardened by their stint behind bars, and who are often rendered permanently voteless and jobless when they resurface. A disproportionate number of those men, and ever so occasionally women, are black, a factor that helps give prisons the ugly look of a barricaded ghetto. (See Michelle Alexander’s best-seller The New Jim Crow.) Add to that the disparities in how our laws punish dealing in cocaine as opposed to methamphetamine or marijuana — or even “crack,” the rock-like substance derived from cocaine powder — and we see that the current system is outlandishly complex as well as unfair. Finally, there is the poor “kill” rate for the kingpins who are the intended targets. The war never keeps pace with the almost instantaneous succession rate in the drug trade; the critics even contend that aggressive prosecution only pumps up the illicit-drug market, by running up the value of drugs as a threatened commodity. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Truth about Fracking 3.12.12

Kevin D. Williamson — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:12:19 -0400

In the middle-of-frackin’-nowhere Pennsylvania, Boy Genius is showing off his giant robot: It’s about 150 feet tall, God and the almighty engineers alone know how many hundreds of tons of steel, and four big, flat duck feet on bright orange legs. “Yeah, this is kind of cool,” he says of his supersized Erector Set project. “You can set those feet at 45 degrees, and it will walk around in circles all day,” a colleague adds. But Boy Genius is not letting himself get too excited about all this — it’s pretty clearly not his first giant robot, and he’s a lot more excited about his seismic-imaging system: “It’s kind of like a GPS, but it’s underground and it works with the Earth’s magnetic characteristics.” Nods all around — that is cool. Everybody here has a three-day beard and a hardhat and steel-toed work boots, but there’s a strong whiff of chess club and Science Olympiad in the air, young men who are no strangers to the pocket protector, who in adolescence discovered an unusual facility for fluid dynamics and now are beavering away at mind-clutchingly complex technical problems, one of which is how to get a 150-foot-tall tower of machinery from A to B without taking it apart and trucking it (solution: add feet). That giant robot may walk, but it isn’t too fast: It can take half a day to move 20 feet, because this isn’t a Transformers movie, this is The Play, and Boy Genius is a member of the startlingly youthful and bespectacled tribe of engineers swarming out of the University of Pittsburgh and the Colorado School of Mines and Penn State and into the booming gas fields of Pennsylvania, where the math weenies are running the show in the Marcellus shale, figuring out how to relentlessly suck a Saudi Arabia’s worth of natural gas out of a vein of hot and impermeable rock thousands of feet beneath the green valleys of Penn’s woods. Forget about your wildcatters, your roughnecks, your swaggering Texans in big hats: The nerds have taken over. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Religious Freedom Is Social Justice: The Catholic Lite Brigade goes predictably astray on the contraception mandate. 3.12.12

George Weigel — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:11:23 -0400

In his March 12 column, Washington Post writer E. J. Dionne Jr. attempts some fraternal intimidation of the Catholic bishops of the United States prior to the meeting of the bishops’ conference administrative committee on Tuesday and Wednesday. The argument, such as it is, doubtless reflects certain currents of thought within the Church in the United States — those currents that are deeply uncomfortable with the bishops’ emphasis in recent years on a robust assertion of Catholic identity. But that is about as much as can be said for it; as a matter of theological or political reasoning, its pluperfect nonsense. Dionne warns the bishops that, if they do not back off from their strong defense of religious freedom and find some way to reach agreement with an administration he insists is trying to accommodate their concerns, they risk becoming a church that no longer stands for both life and social justice. Worse, they risk becoming “the Tea Party at prayer.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

America’s Energy Disaster Why we must regain our petroleum dominance. 3.12.12

Robert Zubrin — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:10:12 -0400

President Obama says his energy policy is a great success. In support, Democratic-party stalwart John Podesta trumpets the claim that the United States is now producing more oil than it imports. A recent article in the Bloomberg News goes even further, saying that the U.S. is now a net oil exporter. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman instructs us to rejoice: High oil prices are now good for the United States. Unfortunately, none of this is true. For the record, according to the Department of Energy/Energy Information Agency February 2012 Monthly Energy Review, the United States currently consumes (November 2011 figures, p.52) 12.93 million barrels of oil per day (mpd) in its transportation sector, 4.55 mpd in its industrial sector, 1.159 mpd in its residential and commercial sectors, and 0.096 mpd in electrical-power generation, for a total consumption of 18.735 mpd. In contrast, (page 37) in 2011, the United States averaged a production rate of 5.671 mpd of crude oil, or 30 percent of its total consumption, for a net deficit of 13.064 mpd, or 4.77 billion barrels per year. At today’s oil price of $105 per barrel, the bill for these imports runs to $500 billion per year, a tax on our economy equal to 20 percent of what Americans pay the IRS, and a reduction in the nation’s GDP sufficient to account for a loss of 5 million jobs at an average salary of $100,000 per year each. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Contraception Spin Machine: The administration misreads the Catholic Church yet again. 3.8.12

George Weigel — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 11:36:45 -0500

The Obama White House just doesn’t get the Catholic Church in the United States these days. That blunt fact of public life was demonstrated once again by an anonymous “administration official close to the negotiations” over the Health and Human Services “contraceptive mandate.” The official was speaking off the record to the pliant David Gibson of Religion News Service, whose March 6 story took the administration’s latest prevarications at face value. “The White House has put nearly every issue requested by the bishops on the table for discussion and has sought the views of the bishops on resolving difficult policy questions, only to be rebuffed,” said the official. “Unfortunately, it appears that some bishops and staff are more interested in the politics of this issue than resolving any underlying challenges faced by Catholic social service providers.” The official, Gibson wrote, was “responding” to the March 2 letter to his brother bishops by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Al-Qaeda in Rebel Syria The Islamist inspiration of the Syrian opposition is obvious. 3.8.12

John Rosenthal — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 11:35:31 -0500

On Monday, in calling for airstrikes on Syria, Senator John McCain reprised much the same role he played one year ago at the outset of the Libyan war. Last April, during a highly publicized visit to the cradle of the Libyan rebellion in Benghazi, Senator McCain called for increased American military support for the Libyan rebels. The senator famously described the rebels as his “heroes.” Never mind that these “heroes” had been caught on video committing horrific atrocities, nor that one of their commanders had openly acknowledged his ties to al-Qaeda. At the time, such details were of no greater interest to the mainstream American media than they were to Senator McCain or to the Obama administration. Senator McCain, of course, got his wish. Months of NATO bombing paved the way for the rebels’ conquest of Tripoli in late August. It was only then that the broader American public got some idea of the central role that al-Qaeda had been playing in the rebellion all along. As Tripoli fell, it emerged that the commander of the rebel forces that had taken control of the capital was none other than Abdul Hakim Belhadj, the historical leader of the local al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). In fact, no fewer than three al-Qaeda-linked militants who had at one time or another been in U.S. custody played key roles in the rebellion. The NATO bombing campaign would continue for another two months, until the last bastions of the old regime had fallen and Moammar Qaddafi had been killed. Just days after Qaddafi’s death in Sirte, the distinctive black flag of al-Qaeda would be seen flying above Benghazi and all along the Benghazi waterfront. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Iran Endgame The regime must be stopped from achieving nuclear military capability. 3.8.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 11:34:32 -0500

The visits to Washington of Israeli president Shimon Peres and, a day later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bring the question of the Iranian nuclear program to a head at last. President Obama came into office encumbered with the sophomoric idea that he had only to advise those parts of the world that were not mainly inhabited by white people that the United States was, for the first time, not led by someone who was white and had an entirely Christian background, and, abracadabra, there would be no more problems between the United States and African and Muslim states. As a glance at Stalin’s alliances, first with Hitler and then with Churchill and Roosevelt, or many other precedents, such as Cardinal Richelieu’s alliance with Swedish Lutheran reformationist Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years’ War, would have told him, national interests are influenced by geography, geopolitical power, and ambition, and national interests determine inter-state relations. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Conspiracy, Again 3.7.12

Editors of NRO — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 11:55:02 -0500

As Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio beclowns himself and his wayward admirers, it is worth bearing in mind that the manufactured controversy surrounding President Barack Obama’s birth certificate has its origins in anonymous e-mails sent by Hillary Clinton partisans during the 2008 Democratic primary. Which is to say that all these many years later, Republicans are still getting played by the Clintons. Some things never change. There is very little to add to the discussion of the facts of the case. President Obama’s short-form birth certificate (the “certificate of live birth”), which is authoritative evidence in any U.S. court, has long been available for inspection, and the archival records from Hawaii (the “long-form birth certificate”) also have been released. Public officials of both parties have confirmed that the president was born in Hawaii. Every judicial proceeding on the matter has confirmed this, and contemporaneous birth announcements in the Honolulu newspapers documented the birth of Barack Hussein Obama in Hawaii in 1961. There is not a single piece of credible evidence to support claims to the contrary. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Iran’s Unacceptable Enrichment By the numbers, they will soon have enough enriched uranium to produce a weapon. 3.7.12

Robert Zubrin — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 11:54:15 -0500

There has been much public discussion recently about the Iranian nuclear program, particularly the question of when it might be determined that it had crossed a “red line” defining it conclusively as a nuclear-weapons, rather than a power-reactor, program. An analysis of Iran’s actual production suggests that the line has already been crossed. Some of the discussion has been quite absurd. For example, page 1 of the February 25 New York Times features a story entitled “U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb.” Meanwhile, on page 8 of the very same edition, David Sanger and William Broad report that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have determined that Iran is now producing large quantities of 20-percent–enriched uranium-235 in a facility located under 250 feet of granite protection. Since commercial reactors require only 3-percent–enriched uranium-235, a factory producing 20-percent–enriched fissile material is clearly part of a nuclear-weapons program. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Hitting the Ceiling Will the GOP have credibility in this fall’s budget showdown? 3.7.12

Michael Tanner — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:26:12 -0500

If you liked last year’s battle over raising the debt ceiling, just get ready for the fight to come. Last summer’s agreement, you will recall, raised the federal government’s debt limit from $15.194 trillion to $16.394 trillion in exchange for promised future reductions in spending. Until recently, the consensus has been that federal borrowing will bump up against the new limit sometime between late November of this year and early January 2013. But buried in President Obama’s 2013 budget was the news that the national debt will hit $16.334 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2012, or September 30, 2012. This is just $60 billion below the current debt limit. Since the federal government is continuing to borrow at a rate of over $130 billion a month, we will likely reach the debt ceiling by mid-October — before Election Day. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Putin Rising, Russia Regressing By The Editors 3.6.12

The Editors of NRO — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 10:24:20 -0500

The return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency of Russia is yet another unhappy milestone in that tragic nation’s post-Soviet history. No country inspired more hope than Russia did when the Soviet Union fell 20 years ago in the wake of a peaceful revolution — and nowhere is it more evident that the Soviet Union today is being resurrected in a somewhat revised form. The election of Putin to his third term as president was hardly an exercise in democracy. Candidates capable of challenging Putin were not allowed to run, and the entire state bureaucracy was put to work on behalf of his candidacy. Nonetheless, it does indicate that many Russians still are ready to sacrifice freedom for what they mistakenly think is stability. The irony is that the longer Putin holds on to power, the more tenuous that stability will become. There are three trends in Russia that could push the second nuclear power toward dramatic and dangerous events. The first is the delegitimization of the regime. The younger, urban generation is aware of the farce that Russian democracy has become. That attitude was exemplified by the fact that 370,000 Russians signed up to be poll watchers in the presidential elections, an almost unprecedented display of distrust by a people for its own government. The second trend promoting Russian instability is its utter dependence on oil exports. In 20 years of post-Soviet economic development, Russia has done very little to improve its manufacturing capacity. Its products are not competitive in any major market except that of Iran. It has, however, benefited from the boom in the price of commodities, and, just as in Soviet times, the Russian rulers are behaving as if rising prices will never experience a reversal. A significant decline in oil prices would put tremendous economic pressure on a country in which stability and prosperity are complexly intertwined. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Battle Continues, Beyond Rush: The struggle over the HHS mandate isn’t over. 3.5.12

George Weigel — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:35:40 -0500

Despite the White House’s rather successful efforts to reframe the media and congressional debate over the HHS “contraceptive mandate” as a right-wing jihad against “women’s health” — a cynical ploy aided and abetted by Rush Limbaugh’s one-man circular firing squad — the real battle against the mandate and in defense of religious freedom has continued. A March 2 letter from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to his brother bishops usefully and succinctly outlined the current state of affairs, which amounts to unremitting stonewalling from the Obama administration. The key section of Dolan’s letter read as follows: When the President announced on January 20th that the choking mandates from HHS would remain, not only we bishops and our Catholic faithful, but people of every faith, or none at all, rallied in protest. The worry that we had expressed — that such government control was contrary to our deepest political values — was eloquently articulated by constitutional scholars and leaders of every creed. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

More ‘Conservative’ Foreign Aid? John Kerry defends the international-affairs budget too broadly. 3.5.12

Brett Schaefer — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:34:42 -0500

Senator John Kerry’s recent Wall Street Journal commentary “The Conservative Case for Foreign Aid” fails on two counts: He does not make a solid case, and his argument is not conservative. One can forgive a liberal senator from Massachusetts for being unfamiliar with what it means to be conservative, but his mode of argumentation — cherry-picking statements by President Reagan on foreign aid — is most unfortunate. Invoking the Gipper won’t suffice to convince conservatives of the need to boost foreign aid during economic tough times. Nor should it protect foreign aid from scrutiny as we seek ways to trim the federal budget. Kerry compares the relatively small international-affairs budget to that of the Pentagon and the federal budget as a whole, but such comparisons are meaningless. Government departments have different purposes and requirements and should be funded at different, appropriate levels. The State Department doesn’t have to fight wars and deploy hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers. Building embassies is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as developing, procuring, and maintaining fighter jets, drones, tanks, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and so forth. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Crusade against Hungary The liberal punditocracy looks at Hungary’s traditionalism and sees fascism. 3.5.12

Marion Smith — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 10:33:53 -0500

In stark contrast to the Left’s timidity in the face of actual authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia, the liberal media’s treatment of Hungary has aggressively crossed the line. Paul Krugman of the New York Times sounded the alarm after Hungary’s conservative Fidesz-KDNP alliance won 68 percent of the seats in Parliament in the 2010 elections. He foresaw a post-Soviet “re-establishment of authoritarian rule” in Hungary. The British Guardian fell into line, describing Hungary’s new prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as an “autocratic leader.” The Washington Post, not to be outdone, compared Hungary to Belarus and Putin’s Russia. Not long after, and with great satisfaction, Hungarian émigré professor Charles Gati announced in an op-ed in the Times that Hungary is “no longer a Western-style democracy.” Having been drummed out of the West by left-wing editorialists, Hungary became fair game for the next phase of the liberal crusade: U.S. intervention. Slander has turned into absurd policy prescriptions, intent on destroying one of the most electorally effective center-right parties in Europe.. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Tehran’s Ticking Nuclear Time Bomb: President Obama must be more proactive. 3.2.12

Peter Brookes — Fri, 2 Mar 2012 16:24:00 -0500

With President Obama addressing AIPAC on Sunday and meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, now is the time for him to unveil a more hardline policy on Iran. Until now, Team Obama’s Iran policy has been a hodge-podge of well-intentioned but ineffective diplomatic and economic initiatives aimed at getting Tehran to alter course on its burgeoning nuclear program. While Tehran proposes another set of time-killing talks, and the administration preaches patience in hopes that economic sanctions will make the ayatollah cry uncle, the bad news on Iran’s nuclear program keeps rolling in. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Oil Switch: He was against drilling before he was for it. 3.2.12

Nash Keune — Fri, 2 Mar 2012 16:23:11 -0500

‘We absolutely need safe, responsible oil production here in America,” President Obama said during a speech last week in Miami. “That’s why,” in the midst of increasingly troubling warnings about record-high summer gas prices, the president promised to “make available more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources, from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico” and take “the next steps towards energy exploration in the Arctic.” Even as the president set out his plan to open new, urgently needed drilling sites, he took credit for already opening vast swaths of land to drilling, saying that, “under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years.” America has “a record number of oil rigs operating right now — more working oil and gas rigs than the rest of the world combined.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Five-Alarm Firebell Falls Silent: He never let the bastards get him down. 3.2.12

Jonah Goldberg — Fri, 2 Mar 2012 16:22:22 -0500

Andrew Breitbart’s heart was too big to fail, but it did anyway. If you don’t know who Breitbart was, you haven’t been paying attention. A conservative activist, entrepreneur, author, muckraker, media pioneer, and performance artist of sorts, in his heart he was a radical. His friends saw him as a fearless truth-teller and provocateur. (The word “fearless” will have to be retired from overuse when all of his obituaries have been written.) His enemies, and they are legion even in death, saw him as the most vile creature who ever slithered upon the earth. Within hours of the news, Twitter lit up with repugnant and ghoulish statements from left-wingers celebrating the premature death of a man with four small children. I won’t repeat them because the printable ones aren’t representative, and the representative ones aren’t printable. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Santorum’s Uncertain Path: It’s hard to see him winning on the first ballot. 3.2.12

Brian Bolduc — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:33:52 -0500

It’s almost impossible to imagine Rick Santorum winning the Republican nomination on the first ballot. That’s not to say he shouldn’t press on, but there are huge challenges before him. Santorum’s main problem boils down to one word: proportionality. Many states in which his support is strong allocate delegates according to candidates’ share of the popular vote, so Santorum loses out on some big delegate hauls. Take a look at Super Tuesday. That day, Tennessee and Ohio are big prizes, offering 58 and 66 delegates each. Although Santorum leads in both states, he won’t get all the delegates — as Romney has done in Florida and Arizona — because both are proportional states. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Resigning to Iran The Obama administration has essentially acquiesced to a nuclear Iran. 3.1.12

Robert Joseph — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:33:11 -0500

After more than ten years of diplomacy and duplicity, we are at an endgame with Iran. Only days after the second failed visit by IAEA inspectors in a month, the latest Agency report records substantial progress in Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program. This includes the start of operations at the new, and well-defended, Fordow site, which is producing 20-percent-enriched uranium, allowing a clear path to breakout. Most significant, the alarming questions raised about weaponization in the November report have not been answered. Instead, Tehran has continued to stonewall, denying access to the people, facilities, and documentation necessary to address the inspectors’ concerns. Time is not on our side, no matter how hard we may try to convince ourselves otherwise. Sanctions are taking an increasingly heavy toll on Iran’s government and economy, but there is no evidence that they are having any effect on the nuclear program. In fact, despite the hope that economic penalties will compel the mullahs to slow the program, all evidence is to the contrary. Further, despite the Obama administration’s assessments that Iran has not yet decided to build a nuclear weapon (and that, once they did decide, it would take an additional two years to complete), all evidence is to the contrary. The description of recent weaponization activities presented in the last IAEA report is just that, evidence of weaponization. To conclude that Iran has not decided to build the bomb based on the absence of definitive proof, like a formal decision memorandum signed by the supreme leader, is simply self-deluding. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

War Crimes and Punishment What constitutes due process for terrorists? 3.1.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:32:28 -0500

‘To the justice of the firing squad!” That was the toast proposed by Stalin to Roosevelt and Churchill over dinner in 1943 in Tehran. They were meeting for the first time, and the discussion had turned to the fate of Nazi leaders following Germany’s defeat. Stalin wanted no fewer than 50,000 of them executed. Churchill, much as he despised Nazis, considered mass summary executions dishonorable. Roosevelt, “in an apparent attempt to lighten the conversation, suggested perhaps 49,000 would be adequate.” William Shawcross recounts this exchange early in his new book, Justice and the Enemy: Nuremberg, 9/11, and the Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A distinguished journalist (a phrase I do not employ promiscuously), Shawcross brings a strong dose of common sense to the fevered debate over what constitutes due process and proper treatment for those now waging an unconventional war against the West. He also brings a unique pedigree: His father, Hartley Shawcross, was Britain’s lead prosecutor at the military tribunal that became known as the Nuremberg Trials. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

An Agenda for America: Solving the country’s problems 3.1.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 13:31:28 -0500

After expressing serious reservations about the policy discussions of the current election campaign, it seems to me useful to remember that the country’s principal problems can be addressed fairly straightforwardly. Tax policies are available that would stimulate rational economic growth while reducing the deficit. Income taxes should be lowered on all incomes below $250,000, and taxes should be raised on elective spending, such as gasoline not consumed to earn the taxpayer’s living, as with taxis or delivery vehicles. Restaurant meals, luxury goods, and financial transactions other than simple equity or bond-market buying and selling could be lightly taxed, but very profitably for the Treasury. Taxes on capital-gains and dividend and interest income should all be reduced, and former Senator Santorum’s proposal for an extended and increased family tax credit and a reduced tax rate for manufacturing should be enacted, if not exactly as he proposes. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Infanticide Votes: Newt wasn’t 100 percent right — but he was about 95 percent right. 2.29.12

Patrick Brennan — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:30:30 -0500

In last Wednesday’s debate, when the Republican candidates were asked about their positions on birth control, Newt Gingrich parried with one of his usual tactics, a fusillade against the mainstream media. He told CNN’s John King, “You did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. If we’re going to have a debate about who is the extremist on these issues, it is President Obama, who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion.” Two points of Gingrich’s barrage warrant assessment. First, did Barack Obama, as a state senator, vote “in favor of legalizing infanticide,” by voting “to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion”? And second, has no one in the elite media ever discussed his record on the issue? Yes; and no, but essentially yes. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

My Contraceptive Haul To listen to Obama, you’d think contraception was hard to come by. 2.29.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:29:29 -0500

Were one to have listened uncritically to the more hysterical elements in America’s news media over the past month, one would have concluded that contraception is intractably hard to come by in the United States; but a cursory glance at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s well-appointed website gives quite the opposite impression. There, contrarily, visitors are informed that anyone in need of contraception is somewhat spoiled for choice. If the website’s extensive online search facility does not meet with their approval, habitués can instead call 311 and ask for advice directly. And the more tech savvy — or, perhaps, desperately mobile — can download the free “NYC Condom” app to their Windows, iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android smartphones and have its GPS service direct them to the nearest provider of free contraception with devastating accuracy. Never has a society been so precisely and easily led to safe sex. (One might well ask whether someone who can afford a smartphone and its attendant bills is genuinely in need of an app that locates “free” — i.e., paid for by taxpayers — condoms, but then this is 21st-century America, and New York’s mayor is Michael Bloomberg, so such petite questions are unavoidably consumed by bigger ones.) Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Our Top Five Stalled Energy Projects 2.29.12

Nash Keune — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:28:18 -0500

In 2010, as a direct result of environmental concerns, NIMBY activism, and a sluggish permit-granting process, there were 351 energy projects that were being delayed, postponed, or outright terminated. This is according to a study published by the Chamber of Commerce entitled Project No Project. Together, these projects were estimated to be worth $1.1 trillion and expected to create 1.9 million jobs. The overriding lesson from the report was that, given America’s byzantine permit system, opponents of any project can find a violation somewhere within the mountains of paperwork a firm is required to submit. This lesson is still relevant today. Here are just five examples: Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Piracy Is Not Competition: Responding to Salam and Ruffini’s criticisms of the entertainment industry. 2.28.12

Robert Verbruggen — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:32:02 -0500

In the February 27 issue of National Review, Reihan Salam and Patrick Ruffini argue that Hollywood lobbyists have been more successful than they deserve to be, especially by nearly passing the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA). Most of their article’s main points are unobjectionable: SOPA was problematic; the Internet is a wondrous development that should not be overregulated; Hollywood has received unseemly financial favors from various levels of government; and copyright law has been needlessly expanded at the hands of the entertainment industry. Salam and Ruffini are also correct that the Web has thrown numerous established businesses, from brick-and-mortar retailers to newspapers to the U.S. Postal Service, into turmoil, forcing them to confront highly efficient online competition. They are right, too, that the government should let the market work its magic in these cases. But they are wrong to include the threat Hollywood faces from Internet piracy in this trend. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Michigan Mess: Because of a quirk in the rules, the winning candidate may not get the most delegates. 2.28.12

Brian Bolduc — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:31:10 -0500

The Republican National Convention will be contested. The main fight, however, won’t be among the candidates, but among the delegates. Because Arizona and Michigan are holding their primaries today — two days before March 1, the earliest the Republican National Committee said they could hold the elections — each will lose half of its delegates to the convention, per RNC rules. Unlike other states so penalized (New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida), however, these two are challenging the ruling. The state legislatures set the election dates, state-party officials argue, and holding special elections just for the primaries would have cost their states money. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Romney in Michigan Mitt is fighting like an underdog to win his home state. 2.28.12

Katrina Trinko — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:30:20 -0500

This may be the last state Mitt Romney ever thought he could lose. After all, his father, George Romney, was Michigan’s governor, and Mitt spent his childhood in the state, a fact he weaves into his speeches while campaigning here. But while Rick Santorum’s lead has evaporated over the last couple of weeks — no doubt in part because of the massive blitz on the airwaves from the Romney campaign and Romney’s super PAC, Restore Our Future — he and Romney remain virtually tied. The Great Lakes State is still very much in play and, with rumblings from the GOP establishment about finding a new candidate to enter the race if Romney can’t manage to prevail in his home state, it has become must-win for Romney. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Innovate or Legislate 2.27.12

Reiham Salam — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:22:40 -0500

In 2012, a number of institutions that long defined how Americans communicated are teetering near the brink of collapse. Major newspapers in cities across the country have stopped publishing. Strip-mall anchors from Circuit City to Blockbuster to Borders have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The U.S. Postal Service struggles under the weight of crushing pension obligations, as e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype render it all but obsolete. In politics, traditional modes of wielding power are also being disrupted. One prominent example is the recent battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, in which grassroots activists defeated once-powerful Hollywood lobbyists. What’s toppling these formerly invincible companies and institutions? In almost every case, the proximate cause is the Internet, and the disruption it has wrought on inefficient businesses in every corner of the economy. And so we are now engaged in a war over its future. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Persian Paradoxes: The U.S. must not let Iran’s contradictory actions dissuade us. 2.27.12

Mario Loyola — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:21:34 -0500

The debate over military options on Iran has finally started to focus on the critical issue of deterrence — that is, can the threat of air strikes deter Iran from proceeding in its nuclear-weapons program, and if so, how? Answering that question will not be easy, for it raises a number of difficult questions that nobody is asking. Here are two: First, what would Iran do if it thought that military strikes against its program were imminent? Second, on the heels of two failed visits by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, why are the Iranians still pretending to cooperate with the IAEA? The first question is the simpler one. Under several outstanding U.N. Security Council resolutions, Iran is required to halt uranium enrichment. That’s what the massive diplomatic front now arrayed against Iran — including even Russia and China — agrees on. But on virtually every other issue — the proper sorts of sanctions, the possibility of military strikes — the members of that front disagree. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Education Priorities: He is supposed to favor “what works.” His budget suggests otherwise. 2.27.12

Patrick Brennan — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:20:22 -0500

In contrast to his more partisan and ideological policies, President Obama has been lauded for his bipartisan work on education, in which he has a supposedly unflinching commitment to evidence-based reform — “what works.” But in his 2013 budget, the president proposes to cut one program, close to home, that demonstrably works: the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This program gives poor students vouchers to attend various area private schools, helping them escape what is one of America’s worst big-city public-school systems. As President Obama faces the coming election, his budget limns his true priorities. The bloated Department of Education will grow by 3.5 percent, satisfying teachers’ unions, while the scholarship program will be eliminated, meaning fewer, and worse, opportunities for thousands of talented students. In 2003, as part of President Bush’s wider effort to emphasize school choice as a preferred route to education reform, he signed the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program into law. Since then, the program has been paying tuition at local private schools for, each year, a couple of thousand elementary- and high-school students whose families are below 185 percent of the poverty line. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Class War over Workfare The Left cries, “Jobs, jobs, jobs.” But does it really prefer welfare? 2.27.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:19:21 -0500

In Britain, the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government has introduced a small change into the welfare system, and all hell has broken loose. The reform requires the able-bodied unemployed to work as a condition of their drawing welfare. More specifically, it obligates beneficiaries to put in 30 hours a week for eight weeks at private-sector placements, usually in retail. At the end of the eight weeks, the recipients may be interviewed for a permanent position, thus getting themselves onto the job ladder. If jobseekers drop out after the first week, they have their benefits withdrawn. A version of this system is already in place in Britain, with recipients being required to work for charities or in the public sector. But, now that the government has involved private companies in the scheme, the professional Left has started to scream bloody murder. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Devil and Rick Santorum 2.24.12

The Editors of NRO — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:45:16 -0500

Critics of Senator Santorum’s moral and religious views, especially in the media, have not been wholly scrupulous about identifying what they are before attacking them. He has been described, falsely, as an advocate of banning contraception. A dated joke about birth control made by one of his major supporters has been treated as a campaign scandal. A remark about Obama’s misguided environmental “theology” has been turned into an insinuation that the president is not a Christian. But the press has not had to invent controversial remarks by Santorum, who has supplied them himself. He has said that Satan is undermining America, in part by corrupting mainline Protestantism; that liberal versions of Christianity are distortions of the creed; that as president he would speak out against birth control, and that states should be free to prohibit it; and that John McCain “doesn’t have any” religious views. Some of his comments are indefensible, and even some of Santorum’s defensible assertions would have been better left to someone else — someone not seeking the presidency — to say. Santorum’s remarks about Senator McCain were unwise and uncharitable. Nor do we need political leaders to share their theological judgments about the various denominations that call themselves Christian. There is no good reason for a prospective president to pledge to lecture Americans about contraception. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama’s Failure to Lead: The president has abdicated his real responsibilities abroad. 2.24.12

Douglas Feith — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:43:54 -0500

In recent days, President Barack Obama has been stressing that his national-security record will help him get reelected. In a January interview with Time magazine, in his State of the Union address, and elsewhere, he not only recalls, with justifiable pride, the killing of Osama bin Laden, but also claims credit for “restor[ing] American leadership in the world.” In common parlance, leadership abroad means something along the lines of identifying the U.S. national interest and enlisting foreign partners to join us in achieving it. What Mr. Obama means, however, is more or less the opposite. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Romney: A Conservative on Immigration? 2.24.12

Steve Baldwin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:42:33 -0500

One of the biggest myths of the 2012 presidential campaign, propagated by Team Romney and the mainstream media, is that Willard Mitt Romney is a hard-liner on immigration issues. One easily could reach that conclusion if Romney were judged on his speeches, press releases, and sound bites. However, as all conservatives should know, it is foolish to predict how a politician will govern based on campaign rhetoric. The more reliable way to determine a candidate‘s position is to review his actual record. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Two Cheers for Romney’s Tax Plan 2.23.12

The Editors of NRO — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:02:26 -0500

Mitt Romney is proposing an across-the-board reduction of 20 percent in income-tax rates. The current 35 percent tax rate would become 28 percent, the current 28 percent rate would become 22.4 percent, and so on. These tax cuts would come in addition to his previous proposals to eliminate capital taxes for households making less than $200,000 a year and to eliminate the estate tax. He would also eliminate the alternative minimum tax and reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. It’s a pro-growth plan. It improves incentives to work, save, and invest, and should thus modestly increase the economy’s long-run growth. It modestly improves the tax structure by reducing the tax code’s bias against saving and investment, particularly when that saving and investment is done in corporate form. Romney’s plan should also be expected to simplify the tax code, on balance. Getting rid of the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax are major steps toward simplification. But creating new income limits for various tax breaks and an income-tier structure for capital taxation are steps backward. Those income limits could also reduce the plan’s effect on growth: Depending on how they are structured, they could amount to increases in the effective marginal tax rate even as statutory marginal rates drop. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama: Leviathan 2012 2.23.12

Conrad Black — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:01:39 -0500

The scope of President Obama’s public-policy offensive commands respect. When he spoke admiringly four years ago of Ronald Reagan as “a transformative president,” he must have been sincere, though he clearly disagreed with much of the transformation. And Mr. Obama certainly deserves the same courtesy from those of us who are appalled at what he is trying to do to the country. I commented here several weeks ago on the State of the Union address, which was largely on the cusp between mendacity and delusion, as it flippantly passed over the deficit and claimed that those who doubted that American prestige was rising in the world didn’t “know what they are talking about.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

ANWR: Our Frozen Energy Debate 2.23.12

Nash Keune — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:00:49 -0500

Confronted with an energy shortage, Congress debates opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Senator Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) argues that “oil extracted from the wildlife refuge wouldn’t reach refineries for seven to ten years.” Senator Jeff Bingaman (D., N.M.) is more pessimistic, saying “drilling in ANWR wouldn’t get us any oil for at least ten years.” Leading the successful filibuster of the provision, Senator John Kerry (D., Mass.) echoes Bingaman, saying, “If we opened ANWR today it wouldn’t produce any oil for at least ten years.” This exchange happened in 2001, when President Bush proposed opening ANWR to drilling in his energy plan. But one need only change some of the details to update the story for today. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Environmentalists against the Environment 2.23.12

John Gordon — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:58:02 -0500

Following outrage over its Keystone Pipeline decision, the Obama administration faces another choice pitting green activists against American workers. This time, siding with environmental activists would actively hurt the environment. The case — Georgia-Pacific West v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center — challenges long-established Clean Water Act rules about runoff from logging roads. In May, the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals determined that these roads come under the same section of the law as factories, mines, and chemical plants, not — as had been understood since passage in 1972 and amendment in 1987 — the section governing agriculture. The difference is that industrial facilities must obtain permits, which involve rigid rules and long reviews, and can be challenged in court. Agricultural regulations emphasize results, not lawsuits. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

We’re Already Europe: Our fiscal situation is far worse than we think. 2.22.12

Michael Tanner — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:58:22 -0500

With seemingly every day bringing more bad news from Europe, many are beginning to ask how much longer the United States has before our welfare state follows the European model into bankruptcy. The bad news is: It may already have. This year, the fourth straight year that we borrowed more than $1 trillion to support the U.S. government, our budget deficit will top $1.3 trillion, 8.7 percent of our GDP. If you think that sounds bad, it’s because it is. In fact, only two European countries, Greece and Ireland, have larger budget deficits as a percentage of GDP. Things are only slightly better when you look at the size of our national debt, which now exceeds $15.3 trillion, 102 percent of GDP. Just four European countries have larger national debts than we do — Greece and Ireland again, plus Portugal and Italy. That means the U.S. government is actually less fiscally responsible than countries like France, Belgium, or Spain. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Ever-Growing Palestinian Problem 2.22.12

Daniel Pipes — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:57:35 -0500

Of all the issues that drive the Arab–Israeli conflict, none is more central, malign, primal, enduring, emotional, and complex than the status of those persons known as Palestinian refugees. The origins of this unique case, notes Nitza Nachmias of Tel Aviv University, goes back to Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Security Council’s mediator. Referring to those Arabs who fled the British mandate of Palestine, he argued in 1948 that the U.N. had a “responsibility for their relief” because it was a U.N. decision, the establishment of Israel, that had made them refugees. However inaccurate his view, it still remains alive and potent and helps explain why the U.N. devotes unique attention to Palestine refugees pending their own state. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Santorum ‘Unplugged’ The candidate speaks from the heart. Is that an asset or a liability? 2.22.12

Robert Costa — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:56:45 -0500

Hour by hour, Rick Santorum is getting dinged by the press and his primary opponents. The fervor over his surge, however, is more about what he says and how he says it — not whether he is qualified or whether he’s conservative. The intense scrutiny raises the question of whether Santorum can survive the long haul — whether he can remain steady under the Klieg lights. These questions are not new. In December 2005, five Republican consultants participated in a panel discussion in Washington, D.C. The forum, moderated by Chuck Todd and sponsored by the University of Virginia, focused on the “future of the Republican party.” Stage left, hunched behind a water bottle, sat John Brabender. At the time, Brabender was an influential adviser to an influential senator, Rick Santorum, who was preparing for a tough reelection bid against Democrat Bob Casey. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Taliban’s Mob Rules: The Taliban is a Mafia-like crime syndicate, not a religious movement. 2.21.12

Kevin D. Williamson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:17:59 -0500

Reports from Monday’s New York Times of the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) stepping up its ransom-kidnapping campaign are a reminder of one of the reasons we have failed to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and will continue to do so: Most of us believe that we are at war with a paramilitary outfit mainly inspired by a fundamentalist Deobandi interpretation of Islam. We are in fact engaged with a very different kind of entity: an organized-crime syndicate acting out of interests that are largely economic, rather than religious or ideological. There are, to be sure, terrorist and paramilitary organizations inspired by a sincere commitment to Islam. Al-Qaeda is one. The senior leadership of the Taliban, on the other hand, bears at least as much resemblance to the old Sicilian Mafia — or to the present-day FARC, another misunderstood organization — as it does to martyrdom-minded jihadists in the mold of Osama bin Laden. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Phony-Drug War: Fake drugs are increasing drug-resistant tuberculosis 2.21.12

Roger Bate — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:16:58 -0500

Alice Ndlovu has tuberculosis but, relatively speaking, she is one of the lucky ones. Hers is a strain that responds to the best medicines available, which also happen to be the cheapest. At 28, this single mom knows that without treatment she would likely die, leaving her child to face the orphanage in a country that already has a million orphans. “I still have six weeks’ treatment to go, but hopefully that will be the end, and I’ll be home. I will see my son grow up,” she told me at her home in a poor suburb of Cape Town. At least a quarter of the world’s population — overwhelmingly concentrated in poorer regions of the world — is infected with TB, which generally lies dormant until the carrier’s immunity is impaired by another disease. (Often, this is HIV.) Without treatment, about half of the patients with active TB will die. According to the World Health Organization, TB claimed 1.7 million lives in 2009, most of them in Africa. The standard treatment for TB is long and complicated: It requires that patients take antibiotic combinations, at least 15 pills per day, over a six-month period. The side effects of treatment are unpleasant, including fever, vomiting, jaundice, and blurred vision. If treatment is stopped too soon or skipped, the bacteria that are still alive can become resistant, leading to a form of TB that is much more dangerous and difficult to treat. And in malnourished or weak patients, drug-resistant strains of TB can quickly become fatal. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

A Tax Reform for Romney 2.21.12

The Editors of NRO — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:16:02 -0500

We have frequently noted that, for all the rancor of the primary season, Republicans are increasingly united behind a conservative program. Almost all Republican members of Congress and presidential candidates support a free-market reform of Medicare, favor the appointment of originalist judges, and wish to lower corporate tax rates. We are seeing signs of a growing consensus in one other area, too: An increasing number of Republicans have come out for pro-family tax reform. The remaining holdout from this consensus is Mitt Romney. We hope that does not stay true for long. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich each have plans to triple the dependent exemption and thus lower the tax bill for parents based on the number of minor children they are raising. Former candidate Rick Perry included the same proposal in his tax reform. The Republican Study Committee, the large assembly of conservatives in the House, also backs the idea. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Pill Is Not Good for Women: The feminist movement asked too little of men. 2.21.12

Erika Bachiochi — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:14:29 -0500

The recent Health and Human Services mandate and the ensuing debate appear to have pitted religious-liberty claims against women’s health. But because religious leaders (rightly) focused on the need for a religious exemption, it may appear to some observers that they are unable to articulate a reasoned and weighty response to the administration’s claim that contraceptives are essential to women’s health and well-being. The Obama administration is wrong on this score as well, and the substantive case needs to be made: The contraceptive revolution has failed to be the unmitigated boon to women or to society that it was hyped up to be. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Death of a Long-Gun Registry: Canada sank $2.7 billion into a pointless project. 2.20.12

John R. Lott Jr. — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:13:18 -0500

Despite spending a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a long-gun registry, Canadians never reaped any benefits from the project. The legislation to end the program finally passed the Parliament on Wednesday. Even though the country started registering long guns in 1998, the registry never solved a single murder. Instead it has been an enormous waste of police officers’ time, diverting their efforts from patrolling Canadian streets and doing traditional policing activities. Gun-control advocates have long claimed that registration is a safety issue, and their reasoning is straightforward: If a gun has been left at a crime scene and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry will link the crime gun back to the criminal. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Canada’s Terrorist: Why are they taking back Omar Khadr? 2.20.12

Michael Taube — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:12:24 -0500

Of all the prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay, few have received the kind of intense political discussion and extensive media coverage that Omar Khadr has. In 2002, Khadr was accused of killing U.S. Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, a combat medic, during a skirmish in Afghanistan. He was captured, linked to al-Qaeda, and detained at the ripe old age of 15. For the past decade, Khadr has been depicted as everything from a vicious child terrorist to a political martyr. It’s little wonder some American and Canadian observers have expressed confusion about the question of Khadr’s guilt for so long. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Too Poor to Marry? 2.20.12

Heather MacDonald — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:11:35 -0500

The most idiotic reason that single mothers give for not marrying is: “I’m too poor to get married!” Evidently these women believe they’re not too poor to educate, house, feed, clothe, and provide a stable home and an enriching moral and cultural environment for a child on their own. The “I’m too poor” defense, documented by researchers such as Kathryn Edin, refers not simply to the cost of a wedding (which of course is avoidable through a City Hall ceremony), but to the day-to-day institution of marriage itself. Now comes the New York Times validating this facile excuse for non-marriage in a front-page article on the juggernaut of illegitimacy (more than half of children born to women under 30 in 2009 were illegitimate): “Money helps explain why well-educated Americans still marry at high rates: they can offer each other more financial support, and hire others to do chores that prompt conflict.” Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Catholic Betrayal of Religious Freedom 2.20.12

George Weigel — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:10:28 -0500

It was not surprising that ill-educated Catholics in Congress rushed to embrace President Obama’s “accommodation” on the HHS mandate on sterilization and contraception (including possible abortifacients), or that the faux accommodation was defended, if risibly, by another embodiment of Catholic Lite, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. One does not look to Senator Patty Murray, or to Representative Rose DeLauro or Nancy Pelosi, or to Secretary Sebelius, to learn anything about Catholic doctrine or the history of the Church’s teaching on moral issues. Nemo dat quod non habet, as the scholastic philosophers used to say: No one gives what (s)he does not have. The willingness of the Catholic Health Association and its president, Sister Carol Keehan, to embrace the Obama shell game was also unsurprising; CHA is a trade association far more concerned about a friendly relationship with HHS and access to federal largesse than about Catholic solidarity on a question of first principles. CHA’s role in helping to pass Obamacare clarified for all with eyes to see what the association understands to be its primary interests. These interests define its true loyalties, which were on full display when Sister Carol helped the White House roll out the Obama “accommodation” ruse and sell it to an eager-to-be-sold press. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Money Bawl 2.16.12

Ramesh Ponnuru — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:58:42 -0500

When the Federal Reserve decided to loosen monetary policy in September 2007, not many people criticized it. The vote was unanimous. Few congressmen said anything about the move. Three years later, inflation was lower and unemployment higher than in 2007. But the Fed’s move to loosen money in mid-2010 aroused fierce opposition from conservative politicians, economists, and journalists. Sarah Palin complained that “printing money out of thin air” would “erode the value of our incomes and our savings.” Republicans and conservatives have started to take a much harder line against inflation and a Federal Reserve they consider too inclined toward monetary expansion. In the early 1980s, supply-siders would sometimes criticize Paul Volcker’s Fed for fighting inflation too vigorously. Few on the right say anything similar today. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Tyrants’ Best Friend Only Mugabe and his friends benefit from Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth. 2.16.12

Roger Bate — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:57:57 -0500

Superficially, Zimbabwe is in much better shape than it was just a few years ago. Hotels are full of foreign businessmen, and luxury vehicles seem ubiquitous in the capital, Harare. Henry Ncube, a local street cleaner, has never seen as many new cars. But Mr. Ncube, 33 and married with two children, is not happy: “I only have this job part time, things are only a bit better for my family [since 2008] and I still can’t afford school” (for my children). Mr. Ncube has reason for pessimism. Zimbabwe’s growth is being fueled almost entirely by the diamond trade, which benefits only the political elite and their friends. Zimbabwe, which has had all sorts of political problems over the past three decades, is now also succumbing to the resource curse too. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Listening to the Syrian Resistance: Assad has created a humanitarian crisis — and a strategic opportunity. 2.16.12

Clifford D. May — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:43:22 -0500

Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, members of the resistance movement inside Syria were able to have a secure conversation last week with a small group of foreign-policy mavens in Washington, D.C. What they told us boils down to this: A revolution is under way. On one side is the dictator Bashar al-Assad, backed by Iran’s rulers, Hezbollah, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. On the other side are ordinary Syrians, facing bombs and bullets with the kind of courage exhibited in Tiananmen Square. Meanwhile, those who should be their allies dither. “Why is Syria not as important as Egypt and Libya?” asked “Muhammad,” one of the resistance leaders on the Skype call connecting the offices of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with an undisclosed location outside Damascus. His comments were translated by FDD fellow A,mmar Abdulhamid, a prominent Syrian dissident who was forced into exile in 2005. “We are facing a killing machine,” Muhammad added. Indeed, the Assad regime is estimated to have slaughtered more than 7,000 Syrian men, women, and children to date. “We are not asking for any boots on the ground,” he added. So what do they want? Supplies, equipment, secure communications technology — and, yes, the means to defend themselves, their families, their homes, and their communities. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Sovereignty, Syria, and the Arab Spring 2.16.12

Mario Loyola — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:42:25 -0500

Since the earliest days of the Arab Spring, U.S. policy has been waylaid by deep confusion on the vital question of state sovereignty — when we may violate it, and when we should recognize it. Answering that question will help us understand both how to handle decrepit Arab regimes on their way out, and how to shape the emergence of a new order in the Arab world. The Obama administration’s initial response to the demonstrations at Tahrir Square in Cairo was an early signal of confusion in the government. Was the U.S. position that President Hosni Mubarak had violated an otherwise legitimate constitution? Or was it that the constitution of Egypt, such as it was, was illegitimate? Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Divide and Conquer? The administration continues to misread Catholics. 2.15.12

George Weigel — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:30:00 -0500

In 1849 and then again in 1852, the Catholic bishops of the United States petitioned the Holy See to grant the archbishops of Baltimore the title of “primate” of the Catholic Church in the United States: an honorific, to be sure, but one that implied that the head of America’s oldest Catholic diocese would enjoy a de facto preeminence as leader of American Catholicism. But the Vatican, nervous that an American “primate” would assert himself in some fashion against Rome, declined to bestow the title (although, interestingly, it didn’t cavil about the title “primate” being given to the archbishop of Quebec City, the Primate of Canada, and the archbishop of Gniezno remained the Primate of Poland even when “Poland” disappeared from the map of Europe in the 19th century). Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The HHS Mandate: One Battle in a Two-Front War - Obama has opened two fronts in the war on religious liberty, and may try more. 2.15.12

Carl Anderson — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:29:01 -0500

Before we turn the page on the HHS contraception mandate and focus on the current inadequate compromise, or on just how far the Obama administration will backtrack — or be forced back — let’s not forget what it nearly got away with. Twice in recent months, the administration has attempted to apply wide-reaching government regulation to religious organizations. And twice it has faced repudiation — first from a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling and now from outraged citizens in the court of public opinion. But it is the combined effect and underlying philosophy of these proposals that has so many religious believers concerned. The perception is growing that there is hostility within the Obama administration to the role of religious institutions in American life. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

HHS Mandate: A Bridge Too Far Obama has set off a culture war, for real. 2.15.12

Conrad Black — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:28:12 -0500

The last two weeks have produced an astounding convergence of profound philosophical public controversies in the United States that finally does justify the phrase, much bandied about for some years, “culture wars.” That expression was coined originally for Bismarck’s mad Kulturkampf against the Roman Catholic Church (and, to a lesser degree, other churches) in the mid–19th century. It was the usual self-aggrandizement of secular states against a vast, international, unsubmissive, foreign-governed church, and recalled French and Spanish railings against the Jesuits, Napoleon’s detention of Pope Pius VII, and many other church–state frictions. But the interim final regulation in the Affordable Care Act that would require Roman Catholic–affiliated hospitals and agencies to pay for insurance of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraceptives for their employees, gratis, was an astonishing affront to America’s largest religious denomination. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Arab like Me: Maybe, just maybe, Arabs can break out of their self-destructive hatred and envy. 2.15.12

Lee Habeeb — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:27:14 -0500

There are two kinds of Arabs in this world. Those who hate Jews, and those who don’t. And in my life, I have met more of the former than the latter. I am not proud to say that. Arabs will not like me for admitting it. But it is true. And it is something I wish the Obama administration understood. It is something Americans should know as the “Arab Spring” enters its second year. I didn’t know much about any of this as a Lebanese kid growing up in New Jersey. But I found out about it when I wrote my first pro-Israel column for my college paper as a young student journalist. I defended Israel on some point I’ve long forgotten, but what I’ll never forget is the backlash I received from fellow Arabs. Some were Americans, others were students from Arab countries, many of whom I counted as friends. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Obama Wrecks the Mars Program: The president’s plans for NASA are completely flawed. 2.15.12

Robert Zubrin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:25:58 -0500

In its budget submitted to Congress on February 13, the Obama administration zeroed out funding for NASA’s future Mars-exploration missions. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity, currently en route to the Red Planet and the nearly completed small MAVEN orbiter, scheduled for launch in 2013, will be sent, but that’s it. No funding has been provided for the Mars probes planned as joint missions in 2016 and 2018 with the European Space Agency, and nothing after that is funded either. This poses a grave crisis for the American space program. NASA’s Mars-exploration effort has been brilliantly successful because, since 1994, it has been approached as a campaign, with probes launched every two years, alternating between orbiters and landers. As a result, combined operations have been possible, with orbiters providing communication links and reconnaissance guidance for surface rovers, which in turn can conduct investigations on the ground to verify and calibrate orbital observations. Thus, the great treks of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003, were supported from above by Mars Global Surveyor (MGS, launched in1996), Mars Odyssey (launched in 2001), and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO, launched in 2005). But after serving ten years in orbit, MGS is now no longer operating, and if we wait until the 2020s to resume Mars exploration, the rest of the orbiters will be gone as well. Moreover, so will be the experienced teams that created them. Effectively, the whole program will be completely wrecked, and we will have to start again from scratch. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Ball Four 2.14.12

The Editors of NRO — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:02:15 -0500

President Obama’s fourth budget promises a fourth straight year of trillion-dollar deficits, a fourth straight year of masking new spending with lame gimmickry, and a fourth straight year of asking Congress to yoke the American people with a historically massive tax hike. It is a budget with all the courage and resolve of an intentional walk, and just in time for spring training. It is a budget that spends a staggering $47 trillion over ten years and capitulates to the inevitability of a national debt larger than the national economy, assuring that by 2022 our interest payments alone will reach $1 trillion a year. It is a budget that hikes income, estate, and other taxes by $1.9 trillion over ten years, and uses that revenue not to reduce the deficit or shore up our existing entitlement commitments but on a raft of new stimuli that are as substantively dubious as they are politically opportunistic. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

If the House GOP Ruled: A thought experiment on serious rollback of overweening Washington power. 2.14.12

Michael G. Franc — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:00:43 -0500

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment. Imagine that the Republican majority in the House of Representatives ran things in Washington. Unilaterally. No need to negotiate with the Senate or assemble two-thirds majorities to overturn those pesky presidential vetoes. Imagine that legislation commanding majority support in the current House would become law immediately upon passage. What might our nation and our world look like? This is not an altogether quixotic exercise. A thorough review of roll-call votes cast since the 2010 electoral upheaval allows us to approximate the world view that guides the 243-member House Republican caucus. Such a review reveals a conception of America — and America’s role in the world — as ambitious, and conservative, as that of any previous congressional majority. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Problems with the STOCK Act 2.14.12

John Berlau — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:59:41 -0500

It’s April 2012. You are a conscientious congressional staffer who still takes seriously the need to be a steward of taxpayers’ money. (Yes, we know for a fact there are more than a few of these folks around on Capitol Hill.) You are watching closely events surrounding an “omnibus” or “minibus” spending bill deemed even by conservative Republican members as “must pass” because it funds the military as well as other parts of government. Suddenly, you hear about an outrageous earmark about to be slipped into the bill that would enrich a Fortune 500 company. You decide to alert a network of fiscal watchdogs you’ve met with over the years to wage an instant campaign against this piece of corporate welfare. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Santorum’s Turn 2.13.12

The Editors of NRO — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:38:22 -0500

At the moment Rick Santorum appears to be overtaking Newt Gingrich as the principal challenger to Mitt Romney. Santorum has won more contests than Gingrich (who has won only one), has more delegates, and leads him in the polls. In at least one poll, he also leads Romney. It isn’t yet a Romney–Santorum contest, but it could be headed that way. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Compromise That Isn’t 2.13.12

The Editors of NRO — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:35:34 -0500

The White House has offered something it calls a compromise on the so-called contraception mandate — and by “compromise” the Obama administration apparently means offering a symbolically tweaked plan to go forward with trampling Americans’ religious liberties while pretending to accommodate them. In truth, nothing of substance has changed from the administration’s January 20 announcement that religious employers will be forced to provide services they find morally objectionable. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Libertine Police State Live-and-let-live is not the sexual revolution's endgame. 2.13.12

George Weigel — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:34:47 -0500

Shortly after Prep-Comm III, the Third Preparatory Commission meeting in anticipation of the 1994 Cairo World Conference on Population and Development, one of those “Senior Vatican Officials” who like to remain nameless told me an enlightening story. For his sins, the SVO had been condemned to attend Prep-Comm III and try to prevent it from calling for a universal human right to abortion on demand, which would then be formally declared at the impending Cairo conference. His tale of what unfolded during his week of Purgatory remains quite relevant, despite its age. In fact, one moment from Prep-Comm III sheds important light on recent events, including the Susan G. Komen/Planned Parenthood wars and the Obama administration’s determination to compel employers to provide contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization “services” those employers find morally abhorrent. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Wherefore Art Thou ACLU? Only certain civil liberties need apply. 2.13.12

Charles C.W. Cooke — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:33:45 -0500

The American Civil Liberties Union is something of a wildcard. Marked by caprice, it can be occasionally thrilling, but it is more often frustrating, inconsistent, and ramshackle. On issues of speech, the organization can be an ally of limited government — it recently played a key role in the gutting of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill, siding with Citizens United against the Federal Election Commission and winning a signal victory for the First Amendment — but, more often than it joins the chorus for liberty, it remains dumb. If, to paraphrase an old saying, 90 percent of defending the Constitution is just showing up, then the ALCU is an incorrigible part-timer. The ACLU’s stated mission is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Given its record, however, one would be forgiven for concluding that its copy of our charter is incomplete. Unfortunately, the ACLU appears to base its actions on the text of a tattered and torn document, from which the Second and Tenth Amendments are missing entirely, the Fourth was re-written in 1973, and the words “more or less” are appended to each paragraph along with an explicit invitation to interpret the document as broadly as humanly possible. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Explaining Santorum’s Surge Social conservatives feel marginalized. 2.10.12

Artur Davis — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:40:48 -0500

You could have gotten a decent bet ten years ago that Rick Santorum would emerge as a finalist for the Republican presidential nomination circa 2012: He had the telegenic presence, the savvy required to dislodge incumbents in a fiercely competitive environment like Pennsylvania, and a reliably conservative record that was middle-class-friendly. Then the 2006 midterm intervened and Santorum’s fortunes seemed destroyed. It wasn’t just that Santorum lost in 2006; that year was lethal for many Republican officeholders. It was the size of the loss — almost 20 points — and the trail of baggage from the race: a clumsy response to attacks that he had “gone Washington” and was barely in the state; impolitic comments on homosexuality; and a poorly run campaign that never seemed combat-ready. Instead of being offered a sinecure in the middle tier of the Bush White House, or getting a head start on the next governor’s race, Santorum faded into the oblivion of lobbying and consulting that is Washington’s graveyard. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Bungling Bundlers Some of Obama’s fundraisers have questionable associations. 2.10.12

John Fund — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:39:51 -0500

President Obama’s sudden reversal on super PACs — moving from outright condemnation of the fundraising vehicles, which are separate from any campaign, to dispatching cabinet officers to headline events for super PACs supporting him — threatens to overshadow a more serious issue. This one involves his campaign bundlers — upper-echelon supporters of a candidate, basically fundraisers, who, with official sanction from the campaign, persuade others to write checks, then collect them and package them for delivery. The issue bears attention. This week Team Obama had to return over $200,000 in campaign funds bundled by two American brothers of Pepe Cardona, a casino mogul in Mexico. Cardona, born in Iowa of Mexican parents, jumped bail in 1994 to avoid drug and fraud charges against him. Ever since, he and his family have been seeking special treatment that would allow him to return to the U.S. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Iran’s Final Solution for Israel: Persian Shiite anti-Semitism is deep-seated and points to genocide. 2.10.12

Andrew Bostom — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:38:44 -0500

Reza Khalili (pseudonym), a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has reported the latest restatement of the Iranian Shiite theocracy’s Jew-annihilationist jihadism: Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification’ to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.” The article, written by Alireza Forghani, an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

The Welfare State and Freedom: A Mismatch In order to feed the growing welfare state, Danish citizens are heading down the road to serfdom. 2.10.12

Jacob Mchangama — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:37:22 -0500

America’s looming presidential election will likely present voters with a clear choice between moving the country further toward a European-style welfare model or bucking the trend of increased public spending. This choice not only has consequences for the economic future of Americans but also for their freedom. For a while, the success of Scandinavian welfare states seemed to disprove the notion that high taxes, generous benefits, and a large public sector inevitably lead people down the road to serfdom. Indeed, by intellectuals such as Francis Fukuyama and celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Denmark has been hailed as a model state, successfully combining freedom and prosperity with “social justice.” But now, the combination of a debt crisis, an aging population addicted to public welfare benefits, one and a half decades of low growth rates, and increasing competition from countries in rapid development is revealing the dark underbelly of welfarism. As a result, the friendly compassionate face of the Danish state is increasingly being replaced with intrusive measures that were unthinkable just a decade ago. It is not an overstatement to say that the balance between the state and the individual has been shifted decisively in favor of the state. A few non-exhaustive examples may help illustrate how far down Hayek’s road Denmark has gone. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Unconscionable 2.9.12

The Editors — Thu, 9 Feb 2012 11:51:35 -0500

The Obama administration is now telling liberals that it is not backing down on its new health-care mandate, even as it coos of compromise to religious groups appalled by it. These messages may seem to be contradictory, but actually the administration has been quite consistent: Nothing it has ever said on this issue has been trustworthy. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, has been the leading misleader. The administration, recall, has decided that almost all employers must cover contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients in their employees’ insurance plans — even if those employers are religious universities, hospitals, and charities that reject those practices. So she has tried to make the mandate seem more moderate than it is. In USA Today, she writes that “in the rule we put forward, we specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith.” Taken at face value, this statement would seem to imply that Notre Dame could escape the mandate if it fired its non-Catholic employees. That policy would be outrageous: What gives the federal government the legitimate authority to tell a religious institution how it should structure its mission? But in fact the administration would make the university jump through several more hoops. It would also have to expel its non-Catholic students. And even these changes would not be enough, since the university would continue to do much more than attempt to inculcate religious beliefs in its students — which is another test the administration requires for the exemption to apply. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com

Two Decades Too Late 2.9.12

Henry Olsen — Thu, 9 Feb 2012 11:50:03 -0500

For months, former senator Rick Santorum has been talking about working-class woes and promoting a working-class-friendly economic agenda, and in late January President Obama’s State of the Union speech placed working-class concerns at the center of the election debate. Nevertheless, Santorum remains in third place in the GOP race. Does this suggest that Republican efforts to address working-class angst are politically ineffective? No, it doesn’t. The problem is twofold: Santorum has not emphasized this aspect of his campaign enough, and the agenda he has presented seems designed to resurrect an idealized past rather than to lead worried workers into a new future. Brought to you by OutloudOpinion.com