Year: 2012

While calls for U.S. Attorney General Eric “Stonewall” Holder’s resignation grow and the House GOP gears up for a contempt vote next week, it’s worth remembering how we got into this mess. In two words: feckless bipartisanship. “I like Barack Obama and want to help him if I can.” That was Utah GOP Sen. Orrin […]

Ancient Sparta turned its conquered neighbors into indentured serfs — half free, half slave. The resulting Helot underclass produced the food of the Spartan state, freeing Sparta’s elite males to train for war and the duties of citizenship. Over the last few decades, we’ve created our modern version of these Helots — millions of indebted […]

My daughter learned a neat rhetorical trick to avoid eating things she doesn’t like. “Daddy, I actually really like spinach, it’s just that this spinach tastes different.” Democrats and the journalists who love them play a similar game with Republicans and conservatives. “Oh, I have lots of respect for conservatives,” goes the typical line, “but […]

I saw it with my own eyes on a video clip that Sean Hannity played. At a speech in Baltimore, President Obama laughingly dismissed the notion that he is responsible for our nation’s current spending orgy. Seriously. Sporting a wide grin, Obama said, “I love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and […]

Barack Obama keeps desperately pounding the entertainment industry’s ATMs in Hollywood and Manhattan, while our manufacturers of make-believe have absolutely refused to expel their vicious hatred of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. You wonder if, on any level, Obama is upset or chagrined or even embarrassed. Two examples have shown their ugly heads — […]

Reading a recent Haaretz article was stupefying – headlined: “The settler behind shadowy purchases of Palestinian land in the West Bank” one may think that Ha’aretz had discovered a mass scandal worthy of a “shadowy” headline. In reality, the sad truth the newspaper “exposed” was the Jews who work to purchase homes for Jews to […]

The new Federal Reserve report showing that household net worth collapsed between 2007 and 2010 quickly became campaign fodder for both sides. Republicans seized on the data to claim that the current administration is out of touch. President Obama helped the GOP with his comments that the private sector is doing fine and that small […]

Last week, President Obama said “the private sector is doing fine.” This was not reassuring to those of us who suspect the Democrats haven’t the first idea what “private sector” means. He did not help matters by becoming lachrymose over the suffering of public sector employees: “Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to […]

After President Barack Obama said, “The private sector is doing fine,” he later quickly regrouped. “The economy is not: doing fine (emphasis added). That’s the reason I had the press conference.” But Obama said he was particularly concerned about losses in the public: sector. The cluelessness is absolutely stunning. Obama is wrong about both the private and […]

Don’t you find it odd that the word extremism seems to apply only to conservative Republicans? Terminology often drives political discourse and those who control the terms often determine the outcome. Establishment Republicans have too often been uncomfortable in their own skin. When they win elections, they sometimes seem unsure of what to do next. […]

Who does Barack Obama listen to? Not Republican politicians. Evidently weeks go by between his conversations with Speaker John Boehner, who determines what legislation comes to the House floor. Not Democratic politicians. We have it on good authority that he seldom talks to Democratic members of Congress. Lyndon Johnson used to be on the phone […]

While JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been credited for a confident and feisty performance today in front of Congress, he was careful to not criticize their efforts thus far to regulate the financial services industry. Given that JP Morgan has been on the receiving end of federal bailouts, this should not be surprising. Last […]

It was gutsy for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein to come out against Washington’s recent rash of dangerous intelligence leaks last week; she made criticism of the leaks bipartisan. Flanked by the House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat, Dutch Ruppersberger, and GOP committee leaders, Feinstein declared: “This has to stop. When people say they don’t […]