Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts' special Senate election was for Democratic leaders a moment that can be described in two words, of which I will only print the first here, which is "oh."
Stocks shrugged it off yesterday, but I’d like to commend President Obama for his three-year budget freeze plan. That's right. It gives me good old-fashioned, American patriotic State of the Union pleasure to praise the president when he does good.
CBS will air an ad during the Super Bowl in which college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam Tebow, discuss her decision not to have an abortion despite doctors’ advice to do so. The news is creating precisely the stir that its sponsor, the Christian conservative group Focus on the Family, was almost certainly hoping for.
As I was preparing to write a column on the ludicrous maligning of the Tea Party movement by liberals, Democrats and the mainstream media (which I hope to write next week, instead), I started thinking about one of the key objectives of the Tea Party people -- the strict enforcement of the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people").
Political correctness is alive in the Pentagon. Witness "Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood," a Department of Defense report released last week on the Nov. 5 shootings that left 13 people dead.
Somewhere between "Avatar's" first billion-dollar gross and its subsequent $841 million take lie my 10 bucks. "Avatar" is about blue-skinned beings who confront Earthlings actively strip mining their natural paradise on the moon Pandora.
What exactly did Ben Bernanke promise Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid? That’s the big question right now. Reid reluctantly endorsed Bernanke after a one-on-one meeting. Here’s what Reid said, according to the Las Vegas Sun: “I made it clear that to merit confirmation, Chairman Bernanke must redouble his efforts to ensure families can access the credit they need to buy or keep their home, send their children to college, or start a small business.”
When the New York Times columnist David Brooks first sat down with Barack Obama, they talked a lot about Burke. That's Edmund Burke, the 18th century conservative British politician and philosopher. Not Jimmy Burke, the 20th century Massachusetts pol, who said that all you had to know to serve in Congress was "Social Security and shoes."
I like Harold Ford. The former congressman and senatorial candidate from Tennessee is bright, articulate and attractive. But that doesn’t mean he should be the senator from New York.
Sen. Scott Brown’s epic victory in Massachusetts on Tuesday night dealt a crushing blow to Obamacare, cap-and-trade, card check (and other union favors), and most importantly, all the tax hikes that are lingering on the table. But does Washington really understand the Scott Brown message?
It’s been a time of Tea parties throughout America, but did anyone really believe that the limited government movement that’s sweeping across the country would arrive at the site of the original Tea party so soon?
The final percentages aren't in as this is written, but it's plain that Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley by a substantial margin in the race for the remainder of the late Edward Kennedy's Senate term. In Massachusetts. The state that in the last four presidential elections has voted on average 61 percent Democratic and 33 percent Republican. That's a bigger margin than in any other state.
As we look back on a tumultuous first year for President Barack Obama, three questions matter. What have we learned about him? What has he learned about his job? And how much does the first year foretell about the Obama presidency?
Having taken the oath of office just one year ago, Barack Obama is a flashing meteor that sputtered out too soon -- or so the national media narrative tells us. According to this story line, the young president is a presumptuous liberal who disappointed his own idealistic followers while irritating everyone else.
There are two ways to look at Republican Scott Brown's pivotal victory in the Senate race to represent Massachusetts. The voters looked at runaway spending in Washington and the corrupt deals cut to grease the support of key Democratic senators, government workers and Big Labor for Obamacare, and said, "Enough."
With Tuesday night’s upset by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the GOP gained more than just a 41st vote to disrupt the Obama agenda. As attention turns to the midterm elections in November, the Republican Party has strong momentum.
1. The terrorists are not all out of Afghanistan. Curt Schilling is not a Yankees fan. Martha Coakley was not a great candidate. Telling people that electing Scott Brown would kill health care didn’t necessarily help her. Of course, she still should have won.
As a general rule, diagnosis should precede treatment. But last week, we saw in both the legislative and executive branches examples of the "treatment before diagnosis" mentality. In Congress, the first hearings of the congressionally created Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was held under the chairmanship of Phil Angelides, former California treasurer and former chairman of the California Democratic Party. The commission was "mandated" by law with reporting back to Congress by December 2010, "with a series of conclusions about what occurred, and recommendations as to how to avoid future market breakdowns. (Disclosure: I provide professional advice to some financial institutions.)
I know there have been a million blog posts about the Scott Brown race for the Senate. But I want to add a couple of points to the discussion.
Tax the bankers' profits, tax their bonuses, tax their golf scores. I mean it. Take their windfall, and give it to the taxpayers who bailed them out. Britain and France plan a 50 percent tax on banker bonuses -- coordinated lest their financial bigwigs think of crossing the channel for a better deal. President Obama's proposal to tax the big banks' extraordinary profits fits the theme.
