Year: 2013

According to our recently proposed treaty with the Iranian government, Iran keeps much of its nuclear program while agreeing to slow its path to weapons-grade enrichment. The Iranians also get crippling economic sanctions lifted. The agreement is not like détente-era arms reductions with the Soviets. After all, each superpower in the Cold War had enough […]

President Barack Obama recently asserted, “Thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, also known as ‘Obamacare,’ the cost of health care is now growing at the slowest rate in 50 years.” So, you may be losing your health care coverage, and you may end up paying more — but, hey, rising costs are slowing […]

Maybe someone can explain to me how, exactly, conservatives are the aggressors in the culture war? In the conventional narrative of American politics, conservatives are obsessed with social issues. They want to impose their values on everyone else. They want the government involved in your bedroom. Those mean right-wingers want to make “health care choices” […]

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes has ruled that Detroit, Mich., may seek to protect itself from its creditors under Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection, thus making this once proud city the largest municipality in American history to go bust. The city is $18 billion in the hole thanks to its debt and long-term liabilities, such […]

Making a so-called “living wage” is all the rage these days. Forget the minimum wage set by Congress. : A living wage adds all sorts of political factors to the equation, usually lumped upon business owners just barely making a profit in this economy. : It’s class warfare at its worst. In late August, labor unions helped […]

Having replaced savings with debt on both the national and individual levels, I think it’s well past time for Westerners to take a few lessons from our creditors in the East. Many Americans consider gold a “barbarous relic,” but in Asia, the yellow metal remains the bedrock of individual savings plans. This means that either […]

‘Tis the season for giving. But when you give, do you know your money will help someone? Social workers say, “Don’t give to beggars.” Those who do give are “enablers,” helping alcoholics and drug users to continue bad habits. It’s better to give to charities that help the “homeless.” I put “homeless” in quotes because […]

In a March 2008 column, I criticized pundits’ concerns about whether America was ready for Barack Obama, suggesting that the more important issue was whether black people could afford Obama. I proposed that we look at it in the context of a historical tidbit. In 1947, Jackie Robinson, after signing a contract with the Brooklyn […]

In the wake of President Obama’s decision to allow state insurance commissioners to decide if the cancellations of health insurance policies Obamacare has forced are to stand, Democratic, blue-state commissioners are digging a hole for the president and for their party. So deep and so wide is the hole that it may serve as a […]

The Affordable Care Act gets more and more curious. President Barack Obama promised to protect those with preexisting conditions and help the uninsured. Yet these vulnerable groups are getting clobbered. Congress needs to show mercy and protect them now instead of waiting until the entire misadventure plays out. Here’s a plan of action. One of […]

When George W. Bush was president of the United States, many of the left fell prey to what columnist Charles Krauthammer called “Bush Derangement Syndrome”: “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush.” With Bush out of […]

PARIS — Tens of thousands of protesters are flooding the streets of Ukraine, blocking access to government offices and threatening to start what the media is largely (and preemptively, if not mistakenly) referring to as a “revolution.” All this over the pro-Russian Ukraine leadership’s decision to renounce a free-trade agreement with Europe that would have […]