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Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 05:00:54

Chile Con Conservative -- By: Deroy Murdock

Posted on January 16, 2010
Scott Brown?s bid for the U.S. Senate is not the only election that should intrigue conservatives and free marketeers in the days ahead. Center-right businessman Sebastián Piñera is on the ballot in Sunday?s run-off vote for Chile?s presidency. A Piñera victory could be a serious boost for the beleaguered forces of limited government in the Americas -- South and North...

Nun Need Apply -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

Posted on January 16, 2010
Fans of Grey?s Anatomy may not realize it, but the original Seattle Grace was Mother Joseph of the Sisters of Providence. In 1858, she and her sisters established the first permanent hospital in the Northwest, the four-bed St. Joseph Hospital, after traveling some 6,000 miles before the age of frequent-flier miles (When I say ?established,? by the way, I mean it quite literally...

Our Sorta, Kinda War on Terror -- By: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on January 15, 2010
After Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Great Britain and France sorta, kinda declared war on Germany. The formal declaration of war was real enough, but the allies? initial responses were laughable. Two days after Germany started to slaughter the Poles, Britain began conducting ?truth raids,? which were to drop 6 million leaflets over Germany...

Dems Feeling Heat Over Kennedy Seat -- By: Jonah Goldberg

Posted on January 15, 2010
In August, Ted Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate, the last son of Camelot, the soul of the Democratic party, friend of the people and scourge of robber barons, fat cats, and special interests, departed this mortal coil.Now, that?s not really my opinion of the man...

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Proud of My Country -- By: Mona Charen

Posted on January 15, 2010
As I write, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and half a dozen other U.S. Navy ships are steaming toward Haiti. They will join some 900 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division in providing emergency aid. Twenty-two hundred Marines will also be on hand...

The Great Right Hope -- By: Deroy Murdock

Posted on January 15, 2010
As Republicans succeed Democrats in New Jersey?s and Virginia?s governors mansions this month, Tuesday may see a vibrant, photogenic conservative replace the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy in the U.S. Senate. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is surging in the polls, sweeping in donations, and smiling on national TV news shows...

The Labor Loophole -- By: Rich Lowry

Posted on January 15, 2010
EDITOR?S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext. 246.What happens when the irresistible force of the Democratic urge to tax runs up against the immovable object of Democratic loyalty to the labor unions?Another ugly deal in a health-care bill that already was a grotesquerie of pay offs to favored politicians and interests...

One Year Out: The Fall -- By: Charles Krauthammer

Posted on January 15, 2010
What went wrong? A year ago, he was king of the world.Now President Obama?s approval rating, according to CBS, has dropped to 46 percent?and his disapproval rating is the highest ever recorded by Gallup at the beginning of an elected president?s second year...

Obama Rewards Losers, Punishes Winners -- By: Larry Kudlow

Posted on January 15, 2010
President Obama's misbegotten bank tax is precisely the wrong policy at precisely the wrong time. It will wind up backfiring across the board. Why? Because bank consumers and borrowers are the ones who will wind up paying this tax, creating an obstacle to economic recovery...

Paying for the Privilege -- By: Kevin Williamson

Posted on January 14, 2010
The new proposed tax on banks -- 15 basis points on all liabilities -- is not about revenue or responsibility: It?s about politics. President Obama is running away from Wall Street as fast as he can, but Wall Street has a funny way of catching up with him...

Overregulating the Internet -- By: Randolph J. May

Posted on January 14, 2010
While health-care reform may be the foremost example of President Obama?s overreaching domestic-policy agenda, communications policy deserves attention as well. In October, the Obama administration?s Federal Communications Commission unleashed a proposal to regulate a large swath of the Internet under a ?net neutrality? regime...

The Great Centrist Issue -- By: Chester E. Finn Jr.

Posted on January 14, 2010
The Wall Street Journal?s Gerald F. Seib is wise in the ways of Washington and practiced at reading its political entrails. But is he right to think that K-12 education is the great centrist issue of 2010 -- and that it will reignite the Democrats? prospects by appealing to independents and least a few Republicans? Hmmm...

The Next Meltdown -- By: Stephen Spruiell

Posted on January 14, 2010
Bob Wiedemer is explaining to a roomful of hedge-fund investors that the end of America as we know it won?t be as bad as they think. Wiedemer is co-author of the new book Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown. Sound overblown? That?s what they said about his first book, America?s Bubble Economy, in which Wiedemer and his co-authors, his Ph...

The Travails of Martha Coakley -- By: Jim Geraghty

Posted on January 14, 2010
Presumably Martha Coakley, the Massachusetts attorney general aiming to be that state?s next U.S. senator, has more political skill than she?s demonstrated in recent days. She must be on a spectacularly ill-timed run of bad luck and rookie mistakes.As Republican Scott Brown has roared from unknown to potential upset winner, Coakley came under fire for having her campaign largely go dark for weeks after the primary, but there was a certain logic to keeping a low profile during the holiday season; voters? minds are elsewhere...

Cadillac Tax Evasion -- By: The Editors

Posted on January 14, 2010
The nation?s labor unions, according to Congress Daily, have cut a deal with House Democrats: Labor will drop its opposition to the so-called Cadillac tax -- an excise tax on high-cost employer-provided health-care plans -- if Congress will carve out an exemption for plans provided under collective-bargaining agreements...

Senator Reid's vocabulary, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Posted on January 14, 2010
If you?re tired of the Harry Reid controversy, I don?t blame you -- and you know what controversy I mean: ?Negro dialect,? ?light-skinned,? and all that. But I?d like to add a few words, if you don?t mind.I thought I heard a dog not barking -- see if you agree...

When Conservative Felonies Become Liberal Misdemeanors -- By: Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on January 14, 2010
Why in matters of stupid behavior do liberals and Democrats often get second and third chances from the media and general public not accorded to their conservative and Republican counterparts? We?re seeing it now in the national reaction to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid?s reported racial gaffe...

Reinventing Airport Security -- By: Clifford D. May

Posted on January 14, 2010
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may have done us a favor. More than eight years after 9/11, he revealed that our multi-billion-dollar airport-security system doesn?t work.It doesn?t work because it was conceptualized as a search for weapons -- or anything that might be used as a weapon...

Escape from Guantanamo Bay -- By: An NRO Symposium

Posted on January 13, 2010
There is renewed interest in Guantanamo Bay. Released Gitmo detainees hold prominent positions in the terror network responsible for the foiled Christmas Day airline attack, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Can President Obama reverse his rash promise to close what everyone agrees is a top-of-the-line, Geneva Conventions-compliant detention center? Or must the president and his advisers press ahead? PETER BROOKES Considering the Christmas Day attack and the recidivism rate of former detainees, it makes no sense to close Gitmo...

A Real Stimulus -- By: Jeffrey A. Miron

Posted on January 13, 2010
As the unemployment rate remains in double-digit territory, policymakers continue their search for an appropriate response. The administration?s preferences, as discussed this past weekend by Christina Romer, chairman of the president?s Council of Economic Advisers, are tax credits for job creation and increased support for the unemployed...

Political Capital Gains -- By: The Editors

Posted on January 13, 2010
The Obama administration plans to propose a new tax on banks, arguing that such a levy would help recoup losses related to the Troubled Asset Relief Program and would discourage excessive risk-taking on the part of financial institutions. What kind of tax? The administration isn?t saying, and that says a lot: The bank-tax proposal is not about raising capital of the sort that banks deal in, but political capital...

American Energy Independence -- By: Barbara Lerner

Posted on January 13, 2010
Is energy a key element in the war we are fighting against the onslaught of Islamist terror and subversion? Does America need energy independence to really win this war? The American people seem to think so. The last time a Rasmussen poll asked them if the development of new homegrown energy sources was ?an urgent national priority,? 81 percent said yes...

Earth-Shattering News -- By: William Tucker

Posted on January 13, 2010
Geothermal energy, the effort to tap the earth?s ?renewable? internal heat, is often touted as the most promising potential source for clean, green energy -- only this week, the White House was bragging about its investments in geothermal generation. Team Obama may not have noticed, but geotherm has had a rough few months...

Playing Race-Card 'Gotcha' -- By: Jonah Goldberg

Posted on January 13, 2010
There is so much to enjoy about the Democrats? Harry Reid problem, and yet I find the whole spectacle horribly depressing.First, let?s recap the bright side. The addlepated and vindictive Senate majority leader is under fire for saying -- according to the new book Game Change -- that Barack Obama would make a promising Democratic presidential contender because he?s ?light-skinned? and can speak ?Negro dialect? only when he wants to...

Google Stands Up to Beijing -- By: The Editors

Posted on January 13, 2010
In 2005, Google, the Internet giant, went into China. It also agreed to censor its search engine, in order to appease the Communist government. Google in China would be different from Google elsewhere. If you typed in ?democracy,? ?human rights,? or ?Tibet,? you could come up with nothing at all...

Rape, She Cried -- By: Kathryn Jean Lopez

Posted on January 13, 2010
When desperate, cry rape. That?s one of the current strategies for the Martha Coakley campaign, which never expected to be running a real race for Ted Kennedy?s Senate seat the Massachusetts Senate seat long occupied by the late Ted Kennedy. During the final debate on Monday night, and in an ad on Tuesday, Martha Coakley tried to frame her opponent, Scott Brown, as lacking empathy for rape victims...

Great Scott! -- By: Jim Geraghty

Posted on January 12, 2010
To win Massachusetts? special Senate election, Republican Scott Brown will need a perfect storm. The good news for him and his campaign -- and for every conservative and spending-weary independent pulling for him -- is that the Bay State is seeing a lot of wind and some very choppy seas...

The Way Out of the Morass -- By: Conrad Black

Posted on January 12, 2010
Largely lost sight of in the current economic debate is that the practice of spending our way out of recessions is a Faustian bargain -- one that replaces occasional economic stagnation with devaluation of the purchasing power of the currency. From reading what routine articles and groceries cost Dr...

Harry Reid and the Offense Game -- By: Rich Lowry

Posted on January 12, 2010
In his State of the Union response to Pres. George W. Bush a few years ago, Harry Reid included a heartwarming anecdote about a kid in his old hometown saying he wants to grow up to be like him. Did the ten-year-old realize that he, too, could be charmless and inarticulate and still be an awesomely powerful politician?The furor over Reid?s comments about then-candidate Barack Obama being ?light-skinned? and not speaking in ?a Negro dialect? says less about the Senate majority leader?s racial attitudes than his already well-advertised tin -- or is it iron? titanium? some metallic substance yet unknown to man? -- ear...

Osama and Che, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

Posted on January 12, 2010
You will recall the Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in that suicide attack in Afghanistan. This was at the end of December. The suicider?s wife (widow?), a Turk, is all over the press, proclaiming her pride, etc. And she has written a book called ?Osama bin Laden, the Che Guevara of the East...

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