Public misunderstanding, ignorance and possibly contempt for liberty play into the hands of people who want to control our lives. Responses to my recent column “Compliant Americans” brought this home to me. In it, I argued that the anti-tobacco movement became the template and inspiration for other forms of government intrusion, such as bans on […]

The conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C., is even more demented that usual in its confident prediction of an Barack Obama victory. The fact is that a careful analysis of the polling suggests that he faces the likelihood that his political base will underperform in the 2012 election, voting with their feet by staying home. An […]

One of the highly developed talents of President Barack Obama is the ability to say things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. That talent was displayed just this week when he was asked whether he thought the Supreme Court would uphold ObamaCare as constitutional or strike it down […]

Anyone who’s had a casual conversation with his neighbors or is cognizant of reality TV should already be petrified of democracy. But if the Supreme Court — or, as Barack Obama likes to refer to them, an “unelected group of people” — overturns Obamacare’s individual mandate, the president says that the court would be taking […]

America’s constitutional structure is built on checks and balances. The idea behind these checks and balances is simple: We want interest counteracting interest, ego counteracting ego. We don’t want any one person to gain too much power — or any one faction or any one way of thought. Gridlock, for lack of a better word, […]

My fiancee insists on having our wedding at “THE most magical place to get married,” this beautiful lake resort. Her family’s well-off, but having it there creates a financial hardship for my relatives and our friends, who are working crappy jobs in a terrible economy. Our guests mostly live in our hometown, and the lake […]

It looks as if it’s going to be Mitt Romney after all. With Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush endorsing the former Massachusetts governor last week, there aren’t any white knights left to play the role of GOP savior. But that news hasn’t reached his competitors yet. Psychoanalyzing the remaining contenders for why they […]

All of us have awakened on a given morning not really “feeling” like going to work. Maybe a mild headache threatens, or we are fatigued from lack of sufficient sleep. Perhaps we are facing a difficult assignment. Being a responsible individual, however, we roll out of bed, head for the kitchen for a cup of […]

Last week, Mitt Romney described Russia as America’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe,” prompting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to respond: “I think it’s somewhat dated to be looking backwards instead of being realistic about where we agree, where we don’t agree.” While Romney’s basic sentiment is correct, Clinton is also right in suggesting that Romney’s […]

A long-standing legal charade was played out again recently, when Federal Express paid $3 million to settle an employment discrimination case brought by the U.S. Department of Labor. Federal Express was accused of both racial discrimination and sex discrimination. FedEx denied it. Why then did they pay the $3 million? Because it can cost a […]

Because of the nation’s and Supreme Court’s war over Obamacare this past week, I’m deferring until next week Part 2 of my article last week, “Not All Presidential Orders Are Created Equal,” to address this raging debate. Though I have concern that every American citizen has affordable health care, too, I have grave concerns about […]

In his excellent daily Web news summary, “The Transom,” Ben Domenech says that President Obama’s speech at the Portland Museum of Art on Saturday “is likely to be Obama’s campaign speech from here on out.” He’s probably correct, so let’s take a look, with an eye to whether it’s likely to work. Obama’s template is […]

Apparently, many liberals were disappointed in the administration’s performance before the Supreme Court. They felt that the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, did not respond effectively to the challenges of some of the conservative justices. The editor of Commentary, John Podhoretz, offered an explanation on his magazine’s blog. “American liberals,” he wrote, “know their […]

“Who killed the debt deal?” read The New York Times Magazine as it hyped its Sunday cover story as a “Washington whodunit.” Author Matt Bai explained that “some of Washington’s most connected Democrats and Republicans” didn’t know whose story to believe or what had been on the table after last summer’s “grand bargain” deficit reduction […]

The debate isn’t new, but as the country awaits the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, suppose the conversation switched from a health care system devoted primarily to caring for the sick to one that gives top priority to finding cures for disease? […]