Could this be the end of Monument Syndrome? Across the country, ordinary Americans are rising up in revolt against the old Washington tactic of closing public parks and memorials during selective government “shutdowns” to score political points. Tax-paying tourists are tossing off the orange traffic cones and “Barrycades.” Enough is enough. The movement started with […]

Government wants you to play a role in the “shutdown” of the federal government. Your role is to panic. Republicans and Democrats both assume that shutting some government is a terrible thing. The press concurs. “Shutdown threatens fragile economy,” warns Politico. “Federal workers turn to prayer,” laments The Washington Post. If the public starts noticing […]

Trade-offs apply to our economic lives, as well as our political lives. That means getting more of one thing requires giving up something else. Let’s look at some examples. Black congressmen and black public officials in general, including Barack Obama, always side with teachers unions in their opposition to educational vouchers, tuition tax credits, charter […]

Why didn’t anyone else think of it? Scott Pruitt, the Attorney General of Oklahoma, acting on the research of Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon published in the Case Western Reserve School of Law Journal, has brought a new lawsuit, on behalf of the state, against Obamacare. Unlike the suit brought by 26 state […]

Negotiating with Republicans has never been in Obama’s playbook. Three days after his inauguration in 2009, President Barack Obama silenced Republican lawmakers who voiced concerned about the enormity of spending in his stimulus bill by uttering two brash words, “I won.” That was his governing philosophy, as he rammed through the American Reinvestment and Recovery. […]

PARIS — Over a year ago, I sent my fingerprints for a standard foreign background check to the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., along with a money order. Both promptly disappeared, never to be seen again. A personal survey of those around me suggested that this was standard operating procedure — which is why […]

For all the acrimony in Washington over Obamacare, there’s an intriguing consensus around one issue: the ratchet effect. Neither side uses the term, but both the right and left treat it as an article of faith. The term was coined by the libertarian economist Robert Higgs. In his book “Crisis and Leviathan,” Higgs describes how […]

Let’s get clear about the political realities behind the budget impasse in Washington and the government shutdown. Nothing captures the distortions being perpetrated more than the headline of a Washington Post column by Anne Applebaum that reads: “The GOP Undermines Democracy.”And, according to President Barack Obama, a “faction” of Republicans (read “tea party”) is holding […]

If the continued existence of mathematics depended on the ability of the Republicans to defend the proposition that two plus two equals four, that would probably mean the end of mathematics and of all the things that require mathematics. Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, epitomized what has been wrong with the […]

A decade ago, there were roughly only 10 incidents of church violence across the U.S. In 2007, there were 41 incidents. In 2009, there were 108. In 2012, there were more than 135. And by mid-July 2013, there were already 58. Much media attention has been given of late to the Louisiana pastor who was […]