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Jerry Shenk
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July 14, 2020
Getting a handle on ‘white supremacy’I know what it’s like to be judged by people I’ve never met and never will, usually smug left-liberal scolds who, based on some published words with which they merely disagree or which they’ve (usually willfully) misconstrued, assum...
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August 7, 2019
Big Tech would be smart to sit out 2020, but can it?If Big Tech's executive offices contain smart people, and there's little reason to believe they don't, their companies will sit out the next election, starting immediately. A failure to do so will risk the wrath — and ret...
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May 16, 2018
RINO Rep. Charlie Dent ditches office for cable TV obscurity: Good riddanceIn 2017, my congressman, nominal Republican Charlie Dent, 1) announced he will not run again and then, in 2018, 2) ditched office early. His last day in the House was Friday, May 11. Dent deserves a proper goodbye. Dent is emblematic of w...
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November 16, 2017
Sixty nails in climate alarmism's coffinThere are plenty of well-credentialed, objective, if little-publicized, climate skeptics, but few who are able to present their material in layman’s terms to an audience of curious, unschooled, but receptive climate truth-seekers. A new reso...
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November 11, 2017
Rep. Charlie Dent: Taking the 'fun' out of 'dysfunction'In one of the whiniest, most amusing yet revealing accidental admissions ever, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) told Yahoo News, "You've got this administration that's taken the fun out of dysfunction." Washington's dysfunction...
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February 23, 2017
What the white 'puzzle piece pin' says about liberalsFifty years ago, young people who matriculated at Elizabethtown (Penn.) College were required to sign a pledge that, under penalty of expulsion, they would not use alcohol. Weekly chapel was mandatory. E-town, as both the college and comm...
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November 26, 2016
Democrats’ post-election fault linesOne need not be a Democrat to notice their party’s disarray. In fact, attentive outsiders have a far clearer understanding than its operatives of the Democratic Party’s fault lines. Following November’s general election deb...
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June 17, 2015
Donald Trump: 'The ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula'In a piece entitled “Witless Ape Rides Escalator,” National Review Online’s Kevin Williamson thoroughly eviscerated Donald Trump and the June 16 announcement of Trump’s presidential “candidacy.” Anyone who wi...
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April 21, 2015
Hillary's media worries on the Schweizer bookThomas Lifson posted a blog entry yesterday about Peter Schweizer’s new book, Clinton Cash. In it, Thomas made a persuasive case for the credibility of the author and praised Schweizer’s deals with The New York Times, The Washington...
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February 26, 2015
America's Future Depends upon <em>Which</em> Republican WinsIn 2008, candidate Barack Obama pledged to "change the trajectory of America," to discard the political triangulation of the Clinton years and transform the Democratic Party. President Obama has remade his party, but he has not changed m...
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February 5, 2015
Not Sarah Palin -- not againSince her 2008 appearance on the national scene, I’ve come to know and understand several things about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: Back then, many Americans admired her, both politically and personally; in some quarters, she remains ext...
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October 28, 2014
Barack Obama's 'malaise' - and America'sIn July 1979, President Jimmy Carter made a nationally televised address still known as Carter's "malaise" speech. Intended to address energy policy, the speech, as PBS reported, evolved through "the most remarkable exercise in ...
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September 5, 2014
Progressives have nothing to fear (from conservatives) but fear itselfAmericans are constantly barraged with liberal viewpoints by media and entertainment sources, public and higher education and even professional sports. Attentive conservatives are very familiar with liberal orthodoxy, and they understand the language...
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October 17, 2012
Never let a Good (Gas Price) Crisis go to WasteIf BS were a motor fuel, we'd all be playing Obama audios while driving. During the second presidential debate, Obama claimed that America is "drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration and the previous president was an oil man...
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October 16, 2012
Reforming the Leviathan stateIf the excesses of political Washington are to be corrected, the leviathan state contained and good governance restored, the temptations of officeholders to place personal interest over public service and the competing claims of special interests...
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October 1, 2012
Barack Obama: World's worst poker player?During the summer, 2011, standoff between the president and Congress over the budget ceiling, Barack Obama committed a novice poker player's error: he telegraphed that he was bluffing by warning House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.): "Don't call ...
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September 10, 2012
A little perspective, please, on Chicago teachersTeachers in the Chicago public schools have rejected a $400 million offer, a 16% pay raise in a down economy, to go on strike for more pay and benefits. 350,000 public school students have been put into the streets. Chicago police are turning out in ...
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September 8, 2012
Grievances and CondescensionDespite other commitments and a desire to avoid, live, the overwrought grievance-mongering and arrogant condescension of certain speakers, speech transcripts provided details of the recent Democratic National Convention, the puzzling themes and clear...
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September 2, 2012
Farm Bill-Inspired Food FightThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported a student food fight in a Plum School District (Pennsylvania) cafeteria when the kids revolted against the federally-mandated contents of their lunch plates. From the article: "...USDA guidelines announced in ...
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August 9, 2012
Liberal BigotryRegrettably, sadly, there's a history of religious bigotry in my family -- Germans on both sides -- some of whom continued to fight the Thirty Years War until their deaths. My maternal grandparents (long departed) never voted until 1960. ...
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July 16, 2012
Remember how funny it was...?Do you remember how funny it was when an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at President George W. Bush? When they weren't obsessing about the decline of American diplomacy under Bush, for days the American national media repetitiously showed photos and...
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May 19, 2012
Economists Are Not HistoriansIt's past time for some economic myth-busting: the American government is not "starved" for revenues, but it should be. The Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Treasury collect more taxes annually than any nation in history, but, in each of t...
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May 11, 2012
Francois Hollande takes half a page from Obama playbookNew French President Francois Hollande has publicly stated that his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, underestimated France's budget problems. Sound familiar? Not coincidentally, the European Union lowered growth forecasts for France and for the entire U...
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May 4, 2012
'Jesus has no place in budget conflict'In a remarkably clear-eyed and compelling letter to the editor of a Pennsylvania newspaper, a Catholic priest from a small-town parish published a decisive smackdown to the conceit that politicians and editors know the answer to the question, "What...
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April 27, 2012
Blue Dog BluesIn July, 2009, before the watershed health care vote, the Blue Dog coalition consisted of fifty-two Democratic members of the United States House. Formed in 1995, the Blue Dogs self-identify as fiscal conservatives representing "the center of t...
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April 12, 2012
VP Biden: Al Franken 'leading legal scholar'According to Vice President "Slow Joe" Biden, Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota), a/k/a, Stuart Smalley, is a "leading legal scholar." At least that's how Biden described former Saturday Night Live comedian and current Democratic Senator Franken. The W...
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February 29, 2012
The House Acts to Protect Private PropertyIn 2005, the US Supreme Court issued its now infamous Kelo opinion which ruled it constitutional for governments to use the power of eminent domain to seize homes and businesses and turn them over to private parties who would develop the properti...
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December 30, 2011
Ethanol subsidies not renewed. Taxpayers and families hardest hitWhen the United States Congress adjourned on Friday, December 23, 2011, it allowed ethanol subsidies to expire at year end after thirty-three expensive years for taxpayers and consumers. Estimates of the program's direct cost over that time excee...
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December 22, 2011
Boola MoolahCynically and opportunistically, New York University has announced that it will offer two courses on Occupy Wall Street. Given the current state of higher education, and especially of liberal arts education, NYU's announcement is not surprising...
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December 5, 2011
Herman, how the heck does that work?We learned on Saturday, December 3, 2011 that presidential candidate Herman Cain had suspended his campaign. On Sunday evening, Politico reported that Cain would endorse Newt Gingrich on Monday. If Cain only suspended his campaign, theoretically, a...
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November 29, 2011
Chevy Volts: Spontaneous Combustion or Self-Immolation?USA Today reports: General Motors is contacting every owner of a Chevrolet Volt to assure them the extended-range electric car is safe and allay fears it could catch fire after a crash. In addition, GM is going to give any owner who still has c...
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November 20, 2011
The Farm Policy End-RunIn an article entitled "'Secret farm bill' primed for passage in debt deal," The Hill's Erik Wasson reports that "[l]awmakers on the House and Senate Agriculture committees are trying to write a new five-year farm bill through the supercommittee proc...
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November 16, 2011
If the Occupiers Have Lost the Washington Post...Since the protesters began to gather, the Washington Post has published dozens of stories favorable to Occupy Wall Street and its various regional spinoffs. On September 26, about ten days after the first stirrings of protest, Washington Post opinion...
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October 27, 2011
Tea Parties тЙа OccupiersTea Parties and the Occupiers have a few commonalities, but, although many media outlets have attempted to do so, it's a mistake to equate the two phenomena. The American left has been pining for a liberal balance to the popular Tea Party/grassroots ...
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October 26, 2011
Former one-term House member sues over lost 'career'So, this is what it's come to. A one-term Democratic House member jettisoned by his constituents in 2010 is suing campaign critics for "loss of livelihood." From US News: "When voters in Ohio's 1st Congressional District threw Democrat Steve Driehau...
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October 12, 2011
Rep. Hoyer blames voters for gridlockOn the heels of President Obama's "Malaise Speech," Democratic House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer has pointed the finger of blame for congressional dysfunction at the American people, more specifically at American voters. Hoyer told The Hill newspaper...
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October 7, 2011
Has Harry Reid presented the GOP with the means to overturn Obamacare?Following cloture, on Thursday, October 6, the US senate was poised to cast a pro forma vote on final passage of a China currency bill when Senate Republicans attempted to use the rules of the Senate to attach a post-cloture amendment. The Re...
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October 6, 2011
Old Energy, New ApplicationsAn old energy source has the potential to drive down the cost of gasoline, thanks to new technology. Lower fuel prices effectively provide a non-artificial stimulus for the economy by leaving more money in taxpayers'/consumers' hands. I'v...
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September 30, 2011
Obama's 'Malaise' MomentOn July 15, 1979, during an energy crisis and at a time when Americans had stopped listening to him, President Jimmy Carter used national television prime time to make a speech to the American people. Though the speech was originally meant to add...
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September 9, 2011
Democratic Candidate Channels Monty PythonAugust was arguably the worst month for the Obama presidency to date. The president's approval numbers sank to new lows; the jobs picture continued to be weak; favored administration projects went belly up; and the perception that Obama is weak, unpr...
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September 4, 2011
Obama just not that into usIn a wonderful satire in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, A. Barton Hinkle reports that President Obama's patience with the American people has run out: President Obama's approval rating of the American public has fallen to an all-time low, according ...
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September 3, 2011
Three Congresses: A Study in WorldviewsThe 112th Congress is on summer hiatus. It's a good time to reflect on the recent activities of the body and contrast them with prior Congresses, most notably those of the House. Comparing the priorities of Republican Speaker Boehner with those...
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September 2, 2011
The New Normal?What is one to make of reports that the White House is resigned to persistent high unemployment through the 2012 Presidential election year? From the New York Times: The White House budget office forecast on Thursday that unemployment would remain a...
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September 1, 2011
Obama's 'Mission Accomplished'?Nicholas Kristof, one of Obama's most enthusiastic cheerleaders at the New York Times, published a column from Libya on August 31, 2011 in which he declares the NATO Libyan operation a success. (Before you ask, it's difficult to single out any Times ...
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July 28, 2011
Hysteria at the DNCDebbie Wasserman Schultz, a House member from Florida and Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, has publicly accused House Republicans of seeking to impose a "dictatorship" in America. Apparently Wasserman Schultz has discovered a her...
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July 23, 2011
Obama's Whole Lotta NothingThat was then; this is now: Now America is facing a sovereign debt crisis caused by excessive government borrowing and spending, exacerbated by a recession and by actuary-confirmed, financially unsustainable commitments to entitlements. The failure o...
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July 19, 2011
Breaking the Incumbent Protection RacketsNo matter how witless or mediocre, no matter how thin their legislative records, once elected, members of Congress have a far better chance of reelection than challengers have of unseating them. In the two years prior to the 2010 general election, th...
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July 14, 2011
Obama Blunders, Admits Bluffing on Debt CeilingApparently fueled by his natural tendency to petulance, President Obama made a startling admission yesterday. In a careless moment, Obama admitted that he is bluffing House Republicans in the current debt ceiling/cost cutting meetings. There is no ot...
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July 13, 2011
Are Conservatives Being Fair to Barack Obama?Every day conservative media outlets devote incredible amounts of column inches, pixels, and air time to criticize President Obama and his administration. Conservatives comprehensively hammer Obama for his fiscal policies, spending policies, mi...
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June 20, 2011
Blogs busting open AGW 'science' fraudsIn a June 18, 2011 edition of Canada's National Post, Rex Murphy takes a swipe at the incestuous nature of the climate "science" community. Much of what the world bizarrely allows to be called climate "science" is a closet-game, an in-group referr...
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June 10, 2011
A Nation of Government DependentsMost of us are in some way dependent upon the central government. It's only ignorance of our dependency that permits many to deny it. American government, at least as older citizens know it, is nearly extinct. Politicians are killing it b...
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May 12, 2011
Puddle Power GrabBarack Obama's EPA means to implement the major provisions of failed legislation by regulatory means, a massive power grab with frightening implications. But with the American media preoccupied with a royal wedding and the assassination of Osam...
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May 8, 2011
It's harder to get a job at Walmart than it is to be admitted to an Ivy League school.Harvard College accepted just 6.9 percent of applicants for the class of 2015, its lowest rate ever. The numbers were not much better elsewhere in the Ivies: 8.2 percent at Princeton, 11.5 percent at Dartmouth.In other words, there were nearly 15 a...
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April 19, 2011
If the unions have lost Detroit, they've lost. Period.Today's issue of the Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the City of Detroit. In it, Matthew Dolan reports that Robert Bobb, the head of the city's school district, authorized "layoff notices to the district's 5,466 salaried employ...
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April 16, 2011
A Consequential ManWhat would you think of a man who knew he was not well for more than a year, then assembled a team of experts which spent seven months to diagnose a fatal, but treatable disease and recommend a comprehensive cure? Would you consider the man prud...
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April 7, 2011
Regulatory DysfunctionGovernment costs us more than the taxes we pay (and the money we borrow), because taxes do not include the cost of regulatory compliance. Compliance costs are built into the price of goods and services purchased by American consumers and busine...
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March 29, 2011
Want to live forever? Raise the price of gasoline!You remember the old joke about your boss making you do more with less until you end up doing everything with nothing? An Atlanta Journal Constitution writer has found practical applications for that principle, sort of -- the solution to the health ...
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March 25, 2011
The Energy Myth That Won't DieThe renewed prospect of $4.00 or even $5.00 per gallon gasoline has brought greater urgency, if not clarity, to a debate about national energy policy. Predictably, the response of liberal energy navel-gazers has been off the mark. According to this g...
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March 22, 2011
The 'good old days' are not so very oldDo you remember the good old days... * ...When observing the Constitution by getting congressional approval to use military force was still fashionable?That was a mere eight years ago when President Bush 43 got bipartisan support to attack Iraq.* ......
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March 13, 2011
Challenging the Teachers UnionsThe public school monopoly on taxpayer education funds is under challenge, and the unions are fighting back hard.This year, Pennsylvania's state legislature will consider Senate Bill 1 - The Opportunity Scholarship and Educational Improvement Tax Cre...
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March 8, 2011
Quids and quos, but never a proIn recent media coverage, a congressional mover-and-shaker and a back-bench congressional time-server each spoke out on earmarks. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) and Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA) both commented favorably on the practice and criticized the congr...
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February 18, 2011
Blue Dogs still voting in lock-step with DemocratsOn Thursday, February 17, 2011, the House of Representatives voted on an amendment to a continuing funding resolution that would defund nine extra-constitutional White House "czars." Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) proposed the amendment to eli...
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February 14, 2011
Vigilance: Blue Dog UpdateThe Blue Dog coalition in the House was decimated last November, losing about half their number in the general election. Some claim that the loss of Blue Dogs further polarizes the House. Others suggest that members can call themselves anything they ...
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February 8, 2011
Detroit High LifeDespite what we've been reading in the press, life is good in Detroit. According to the Detroit News today, "General Motors Co.'s hourly workers can expect some of the largest profit-sharing checks ever, when the automaker pays bonuses for the...
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February 6, 2011
Energy Dollars and SenseOne of the most pressing problems for businesses, individuals and families is the cost of energy. Americans are paying too much for the energy needed to run factories and offices, for motor fuel, and for home heating oil. Aside from taxes on petroleu...
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January 22, 2011
The 'Business' of GovernmentGovernment is not and never will be a business -- although we would certainly benefit from having it run like one. Most politicians are not and never will be businesspeople. Yet neither of those things has ever stopped American politician...
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January 13, 2011
Approval of Congress shoots up more 50%The way that some congressmen are talking. using the words "Congress" and "shoots" in the same sentence might get you some time in the slammer.Gallup reports that the number of Americans who approve of the job Congress is doing ha...
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January 10, 2011
More 'reporting' from the Gray LadyIn a news article entitled "House Democrats Rapidly Unleash Sharp Attacks," New York Times, reporter Carl Hulse writes about the progress Democrats are making against the new Republican majority after only seventy-two hours of the 112th Con...
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January 3, 2011
Pay/Go, Cut/Go, No GoAmong the most deceptive measures passed in the 111th Congress was the Statuary Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, or, in Washington vernacular, Pay/Go.Democrats passed Pay/Go in February 2010 to convince Americans of their fiscal moderation while plotting t...
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December 10, 2010
America's Political Class: In Business for ThemselvesMany citizens living outside the Beltway correctly think Washington is a swamp. Our capital city pulls people in and grips them. It doesn't matter how smart, altruistic, or committed newcomers are -- the longer they stay, the more they lo...
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December 4, 2010
Playing Chicken with SeniorsLast February, President Obama named Clinton White House staffer Erskine Bowles and former Republican senator Alan Simpson to co-chair a bipartisan commission to address the federal budget deficit and the coming crisis in entitlement costs. Recently,...
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December 2, 2010
So that's why the Democratic caucus is shrinkingAmong the biggest losers in the last general election was the Democratic House caucus self-described as Blue Dogs, or "fiscally conservative" Democrats. Caucus members have enjoyed media complicity in advancing that image even though mos...
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December 1, 2010
Congressional Earmarks: Embracing and Ignoring a Message from VotersAs the installation of a new Congress with a Republican House majority and a larger Republican presence in the Senate approaches, the debate over congressional earmarks has resumed. House Republicans seem ready to declare at least an earmark moratori...
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November 20, 2010
Blue Dogs: Tireless in their quest for moderationJust when House Republicans thought things couldn't get any better, House Democrats named Speaker Nancy Pelosi to run their new, almost historically-shrunken minority caucus.The hyper-enthusiastic cheering heard on Capitol Hill following the Democrat...
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November 17, 2010
Still a lot of work to do in CongressIn a recent American Thinker article having some fun with the little known inanities passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, mention was made of the House's habit of spending an inordinate amount of time "...officially congratulating multit...
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November 13, 2010
The Congressional Follies, 111th EditionBefore the 112th Congress is sworn in, let's review some of the lesser-known activities of the departing 111th. For every high-profile issue on which the House of Representatives votes, there are far more votes that receive scant, if any, publicity. ...
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November 9, 2010
One Blue Dog's lament against Pelosi a day late and a dollar shortNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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October 22, 2010
When liberal activists collide with themselvesNormal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 ...
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October 17, 2010
The Problem With Government SchoolsPublic -- that is, government -- education in America is in terrible shape. No matter what professional educators tell us, identifying the causes and solutions isn't rocket science. There's plenty of blame to go around, but the fault lies largely wit...
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September 27, 2010
Getting Hosed at the PumpIn the new year, we may notice that more than our taxes have increased. By the end of November 2010, the U.S. Energy Department is expected to complete tests to determine whether increasing the ethanol blend in gasoline would have a detrimental effec...
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September 11, 2010
The successful Clinton economy was based on tax cuts. No, really...At the end of this year, America will be looking down both barrels of one of the biggest tax increases in history: the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 rate reductions on income and dividends/capital gains. It's seldom a good time to raise taxes, but ...
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July 31, 2010
Redundant by Practice, Not by DesignThe United States Constitution made Congress one of three branches of the American system of government with specific, enumerated responsibilities. Recent history in that body has blurred constitutional distinctions and, in some ways, virtually undon...
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July 1, 2010
Last chance for RepublicansIn 1994, an electoral tsunami washed House Democrats out of the majority for the first time in forty years. The runoff returned them in twelve years. Four years later, pundits predict another Republican wave in Washington.Memory won't permit attribut...