Superb Tuesday: The Right People Won By Froma Harrop
Guess MitchMcConnell's charm wasn't enough. The Senate minority leader's anointed man lostthe Kentucky Republican Senate primary to Rand Paul, son of tea partytoastmaster Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
Commentary by Froma Harrop
Most Recent Releases
May 20, 2010
May 18, 2010
Taxpayers and Housing Need a Divorce By Froma Harrop
Even though Las Vegas is full of never-sold and foreclosed-upon houses, a rumble of new home building has begun there. Similar trends are seen in other housing meltdown meccas: Phoenix, Florida and inland California.
May 13, 2010
Gulf Shrimpers Had Economic Interests, Too By Froma Harrop
A pile of beautiful Gulf shrimp beckoned from the fish counter, and I thought, better buy them soon. Louisiana shrimpers are now trying to grab all they can get before the oil takes over. A lot of pleasure is dying in the Gulf of Mexico -- but economic activity, too. Only lawyers seem to be prospering as the suits begin to fly.
May 11, 2010
Who Are You Calling Racist? By Froma Harrop
Many Tea Party critics accuse the movement of racist tendencies. Their evidence includes its obsession over illegal immigration and nasty epithets hurled during Tea Party rallies.
May 6, 2010
Preparing for the Bomb That Goes Off By Froma Harrop
It was the best possible terrorism outcome: several heroes and no victims. A prime suspect sitting in cuffs, and chinks in the national security armor exposed for correction. But while the attack on Times Square failed, the perpetrator did manage a small psychological victory -- re-stirring the public's fear. We should cut that win down to size.
May 4, 2010
Latino Giant to Change U.S. Politics By Froma Harrop
SAN ANTONIO -- It was over frozen lattes three blocks from the Alamo that Lydia Camarillo and I discussed the wave of Latino voters expected to change politics in Texas -- and America. Camarillo is vice president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a group that signs up new Hispanic voters and spurs them to the polls.
April 29, 2010
Is the Sunbelt Ready for Urbanity? By Froma Harrop
HOUSTON -- Houston faces a crossroads, or to be more precise, a five-level stack interchange. Is it going to nurture compact walkable neighborhoods? Or is it going to do what it has always done -- stand back and watch developers build anything anywhere?
April 27, 2010
Arizona May Prod Feds to Finally Act By Froma Harrop
President Obama is right that Arizona's tough immigration law is "misguided." And Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is right that her state has been "more than patient waiting for Washington to act." The two are not unrelated.
April 23, 2010
Bad Service Dressed as Good Service By Froma Harrop
More service is not necessarily good service. And bad service dressed as good service is even worse. Here are examples:
April 20, 2010
Too Much Medicine Isn't Good Medicine By Froma Harrop
In the land of "too much ain't enough," the idea that less medicine could be better medicine is a hard sell. This was impossible to discuss during the fracas over health care reform, when any talk of fewer tests and less surgery was portrayed as rationing or the government coming between you and the doctor.
April 15, 2010
Politicians Honoring Their Kind By Froma Harrop
Fly from Atlanta to Houston, and you may start at an airport named after two mayors and land at one named for a president. While in the air, you pass over hundreds of bridges, roadways and public buildings -- all honoring politicians, alive or dead.
April 13, 2010
Where Third Party Candidates Are Almost Routine By Froma Harrop
They make less of a ruckus than the tea party people, but independents in New England are brewing their own revolution. Third-party governors may have been elected elsewhere -- Walter Hickel in Alaska (1990) and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota (1998) -- but in New England, such candidacies have become almost routine.
April 8, 2010
The Five Commandments of Tax Reform By Froma Harrop
The tax code needs fixing to be fairer and less complex. But let's set some rules for this debate. Here are the Five Commandments of Tax Reform:
April 6, 2010
'Doing Better' Than One's Parents By Froma Harrop
If the new federal program to help homeowners pay their mortgage bugs you, read a Wall Street Journal article titled, "Bank of Mom and Dad Shuts Amid White-Collar Struggle." It will make you even madder.
April 2, 2010
Reading in Black and White By Froma Harrop
Such is our gadget obsession that the launch of a new electronic reader has set off a death match between two new-media gorillas, Apple and Amazon.com. Apple's iPad seeks to end the Amazon Kindle's domination of the market for devices that let you download books and read them on a screen.
March 30, 2010
Down With Political Prognostications By Froma Harrop
Political sages turn today's polling and past voter behavior into confident predictions about upcoming elections. That's their job. But fortune-tellers may do nearly as well, especially when the vote takes place months in the future.
March 25, 2010
Take Student-Loan Companies Off Welfare By Froma Harrop
When the government hands money to poor people, that's welfare, Republicans say. That's taking money from productive taxpayers and encouraging dependency, they assert.
March 23, 2010
This Time, a Real Immigration Fix By Froma Harrop
What part of "immigration reform" don't you understand -- or, rather, don't want to understand? The send-'em-home crowd doesn't "get it" that a new enforcement regime must be paired with an amnesty for millions, even though they broke the law by working here illegally. And an alliance of cheap-labor types and ethnic activists don't want to understand that real reform means the government will actually stop employers from hiring undocumented workers.
March 16, 2010
Jihad Jane: Terror by Reason of Insanity By Froma Harrop
Consider the case of "Jihad Jane." Divorced twice (first marriage at 16), Colleen LaRose was arrested for drunkenness in Texas. She ended up living with a boyfriend in a Philadelphia suburb and taking care of his elderly father. Let's say that LaRose was not one of life's winners under conventional definitions.
March 12, 2010
Coming Between You and Your Doctor By Froma Harrop
The lights must dim around Google's data-storage centers every time someone does a search for "government bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor." Foes of the Democrats' health-reform proposals have been chanting this on the hour for a year -- with a surge after Democrats put money for "comparative effectiveness research" in the stimulus bill.
