No Recession: Strong Profits, Easy Money and Tea Party Gains Argue Against It By Lawrence Kudlow
Stocks and bond yields are sinking as Wall Street disses the debt deal and instead focuses on a likely double-dip recession.
Political Commentary
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August 4, 2011
August 3, 2011
Debt Status Quo Triumphs Over Future -- Again. By Tony Blankley
The debt deal, if it sticks, is a triumph for the bipartisan, status quo-clinging Washington establishment. Here is a prediction: Between now and January 2013, total actual spending cuts will be minimal. That will result from the following: (1) The $900 billion deficit reduction is almost all back-loaded to the years beyond 2012. (2) The select committee created by the budget deal will fail to pass a "second tranche" deficit-cut package of an additional $1.5 trillion. (3) The "trigger" will be pulled that will identify an additional $1.2 trillion. (4) The pulled trigger won't require any more deficit reductions to go into effect until 2013, when a new Congress and either a new president or a re-elected President Obama will be able to re-decide (or repeal) all these decisions. That president will also have to decide what to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts, which if extended would be scored to increase deficit by $3.5 trillion over ten years. (5) The debt ceiling will not need to be raised until 2013.
August 2, 2011
Democrats Also Need a Presidential Primary in 2012 By Froma Harrop
Ed Rendell, do you have plans for 2012? Hillary Clinton? If you, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, or you, the secretary of state, are free next year and wouldn't mind, would you please launch a primary challenge against President Obama?
August 1, 2011
Republicans Win When the Fight Is Over Cuts Not More Taxes By Michael Barone
Everyone seems pretty cross at this juncture in the fight over raising the debt limit. As this is written, the House has just passed the bill that Speaker John Boehner yanked from the floor Thursday night and then revised with a balanced-budget amendment on Friday. The Senate has yet to pass Majority Leader Harry Reid's measure that in many but not all respects is not that much different.
July 31, 2011
In This Brave New World, 160 Million Girls Are 'Missing' By Debra J. Saunders
The world is becoming unbalanced. In pockets across the globe, women are giving birth to too many boys. In China, the sex ratio is 121 boys to 100 girls. In India, it's 112-to-100. Sex selection also is a force in the Balkans, Armenia and Georgia. In her eye-opening book, "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men," journalist Mara Hvistendahl estimates that ultrasound and abortion have "claimed over 160 million potential women and girls -- in Asia alone." That's more than the entire female population of the United States.
July 30, 2011
Why China is Laughing All the Way to the Bank By Joe Conason
The global impact of the American debt crisis -- and the likelihood of permanent damage to American interests -- are already visible to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., from his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Indeed, he is not only seeing but hearing those effects.
July 29, 2011
The Nazi from Norway By Susan Estrich
They were texting their parents as they were being killed.
July 29, 2011
Why Can't Women Be Comfortable? By Froma Harrop
Women run companies and countries. Some even play on co-ed football teams. But there's one glaring gender disparity that never gets better and only seems to grow: comfort.
July 28, 2011
A Downgrade Is Serious Business By Lawrence Kudlow
Standard & Poor's government-credit-ratings guru David Beers played his cards close to the vest on the topic of a U.S. downgrade in our CNBC interview this week. However, this head of S&P's global sovereign-ratings business -- with a staff of 80 covering 126 countries -- issued three strong warnings to the debt-ceiling negotiators in Washington.
July 28, 2011
The Folly in Obama's 'Grand Bargain' by Debra J. Saunders
Here is what I do not understand: President Barack Obama is acutely aware of what will happen if Congress fails to raise the government's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. As he told the nation Monday, if Washington does not raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, rating agencies are expected to downgrade the government's AAA credit rating, and interest rates will rise for everyone. The fallout could spark "a deep economic crisis."
July 28, 2011
Under Obama, Millennials Move Into the Republican Fold By Michael Barone
Most presidents affect the standing of their political parties. Ronald Reagan advanced his party's standing among young voters. So did Bill Clinton.
July 27, 2011
Stand by Your Man By Susan Estrich
The headlines on the Drudge Report make it sound worse than it is: "Blacks, liberals flee in droves." And underneath: "Sanders (that's Bernie Sanders, the Independent from Vermont): Obama should face primary challenger." And above: "Obama's Base Crumbles."
July 27, 2011
Government by Coup de Theatre or the Constitution? By Tony Blankley
How have we arrived at this place where the fate of our federal budget -- our economy, indeed our capacity to have a functioning federal government -- seems to depend on what two men (the speaker of the House and the president) may or may not be secretly talking about in an interior room in the White House?
July 26, 2011
Norwegian Crime and Punishment By Debra J. Saunders
In 2007, Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget proposed extending Norway's absolute maximum criminal sentence of 21 years to 30 years for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism. That proposal didn't go anywhere. The maximum criminal sentence in Norway is 21 years.
July 26, 2011
What the Oslo Killer 'Wanted' Doesn't Matter By Froma Harrop
"What did the Oslo killer want?" asks one of many irritating headlines over the weekend. The Norwegian terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, called for a number of societal changes as he massacred his countrymen in a meticulous assault, Foreign Policy reported. But let's skip them and cut to the chase: Breivik was insane.
July 25, 2011
To Get a Mandate, GOP Must Win Another Election By Michael Barone
Those who consider themselves constitutional conservatives should take care to consider not only the powers that the Constitution confers on the different branches of government and reserves to the states and the people, but also the schedule that the Constitution sets up for sharp changes and reversals of public policy.
July 24, 2011
Pawlenty's Appeal to GOP: I Won't Embarrass You By Debra J. Saunders
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's bid to win the GOP presidential nomination hasn't exactly been catching on fire. Earlier this month, The New York Times ran a story about his candidacy under the headline "Will Republican Race's First In Be the First Out?"
July 23, 2011
"Dysfunctional" Too Polite to Describe Tea Party Congress By Joe Conason
As America lurches toward new and unfamiliar status as a nation that defaults on its debts, commentators around the world are wondering how the democratic government that was once the most admired in the world -- for many reasons -- is now so "dysfunctional," to use the polite term. But the truth is that the entire U.S. government is not dysfunctional. Much of the government functions well enough or better, and even the members of the troubled U.S. Senate seem to be trying, a little late, to deal with the problem before us.
July 22, 2011
Fundraising: Much Ado Over Not All That Much By Kyle Kondik
Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer is expected to officially launch his presidential campaign today. His announcement again tests the famous philosophical question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
July 22, 2011
Updating The Governors' Races By Larry Sabato & Kyle Kondik
Although the calendar for gubernatorial elections in the 2011-2012 cycle is relatively light since most of the action in statehouse races occurred last year, several notable contests are developing for this November and next. States such as Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina, which happen to have been the three closest states in the 2008 presidential election, could see competitive races for governor in 2012, and two off-year elections -- in West Virginia and Kentucky -- will test Democrats' strength in deeply Red states.
