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Political Commentary

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October 28, 2009

GOP Must Not Vote 'Present' on Our Future By Tony Blankley

A growing percentage of those Americans who oppose President Barack Obama believe the president is testing the envelope of acceptable domestic, constitutional and foreign policies. Staggering deficits measured in the trillions, unemployment measured almost in double digits and a weakening dollar measured in ever fewer ounces of gold are creating an economic crisis that is testing America's historic optimism and faith in a brighter future.

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October 28, 2009

Vaccine Supply and the Public Option By Susan Estrich

My internist told me he is now using the technique he learned many decades ago in the military, when supplies of vaccine were short and they had to split doses. I wouldn't even think of asking. But I did ask my rheumatologist, since rheumatoid arthritis is one of those things that makes getting the flu worse. He would have been happy to give me a flu shot -- I'm talking regular flu here, not the swine kind -- but he was out.

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October 27, 2009

The Phantom of the Option By Froma Harrop

The public option, we hear, is about to take earthly form. While congressional leaders working to combine five health care reform bills will determine its final shape, a government-run health plan to compete with the private offerings will almost surely become reality. And the specter of a populist uprising against it will haunt centrist Democrats no more.

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October 27, 2009

License To Drive While Unlicensed By Debra J. Saunders

Mayor Gavin Newsom's office has argued that San Francisco's "sanctuary city" policy protects undocumented immigrants who are otherwise law-abiding residents.

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October 26, 2009

Obama at Odds With His Own Vision for the World By Michael Barone

Barack Obama, who found time to go on a 24-hour jaunt to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to seek the 2016 Olympics games for Chicago, apparently cannot find the time for a 24-hour trip to Berlin on Nov. 9 for a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Well, we all have our priorities, and the president can't be everywhere at once, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will surely represent the United States ably in Berlin.

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October 25, 2009

The Long and the Short of Steve Poizner By Debra J. Saunders

Why isn't Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner doing better in his bid for governor? On paper, Poizner is a solid contender.

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October 23, 2009

Obama Hits Opponents With Chicago Brass Knuckles By Michael Barone

"His father was a great friend of my father." The reference to William Ayers' father was how Mayor Richard M. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley's father, of course, was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers' father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980.

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October 23, 2009

The Real Flaw: Fox Is a No-Fawn Zone By Debra J. Saunders

The Obama White House's war on Fox News heated up when President Obama appeared on five Sunday talk shows in September, but snubbed Fox's Chris Wallace. Then White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told CNN's Howard Kurtz, "Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party." On ABC's "This Week" Sunday, Obama guru David Axelrod commented on Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch's "talent for making money" -- and added that Fox News programming is "not really news."

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October 22, 2009

Playing Monopoly With America's Health By Joe Conason

Popular disgust over the fat premiums that financial executives bestow upon themselves is burgeoning, and rightly so. Those Wall Street piggy banks are filling up with billions upon billions of government-subsidized dollars.

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October 22, 2009

'America's Best Idea' Meets One of the Worst By Froma Harrop

The Ken Burns series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" got me thinking about one of America's worst ideas, the war on drugs. Particularly ill-conceived is the crusade against marijuana.

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October 21, 2009

Parents Behaving Badly By Susan Estrich

As it turns out, it was no secret that Richard and Mayumi Heene were very bad parents. Their associates knew it. Television producers witnessed it. Their willingness to put their children in danger to get attention was nothing new. They chased storms with their children. They used them to become "stars" of reality television. They taught them an ugly and offensive rap song about not being "pussies," which they posted on YouTube.

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October 21, 2009

The World Won't Wait On Washington Indecision By Tony Blankley

On three fronts -- South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting -- the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. I will discuss the Afghan war decision in a future column.

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October 20, 2009

Social Security: Every Politician's Toy? By Froma Harrop

Social Security is a glossy piece of paper on which nearly every politician wants to finger-paint an agenda. But Social Security has no need of ornament. It is a very grown-up program. Put some other toy into the political playpen.

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October 20, 2009

Buying the Votes of Senior Citizens By Debra J. Saunders

It's hard to instill confidence in the U.S. economy when Washington keeps finding new and creative ways to spend money it doesn't have.

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October 19, 2009

Unlike Obama, Americans reject European model By Michael Barone

An interesting paradox. Last year, America elected a president who, in attitudes and policies, is closer to the elites of Western Europe than any of his predecessors. Yet in the nine months that he has been in office, ordinary Americans have been moving away from those attitudes and policies and have increasingly embraced positions that over the years have made Americans distinctive from those in other advanced Western democracies.

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October 18, 2009

Bipartisan Facade Can't Hide Health Plan's Flaws By Debra J. Saunders

If the Democrats' health care package is so great, why are President Obama and Dem congressional leaders so hungry to share the credit for its passage with a Republican?

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October 16, 2009

The Bay Area Bridge That Time Forgot By Debra J. Saunders

On Oct. 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake brought down a chunk of the upper deck of the Oakland-Bay Bridge onto the lower deck. Anamafi Moala Kalushia, 23, of Berkeley died. Twenty years later, some 280,000 cars use the bridge daily -- and it still isn't safe.

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October 16, 2009

A Big Difference for Science and Medicine By Susan Estrich

Dr. Carol Greider may be the only Nobel laureate to have been folding laundry when she got the call. She was up early, and there was a lot of laundry. After the phone call, she woke up her two children and told them she had won the Nobel Prize.

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October 16, 2009

Storm Clouds Gather as Dow Hits 10,000 By Lawrence Kudlow

Dow Jones 10,000 arrived on Wall Street Wednesday for the first time in a year. It's a milestone of sorts, and it certainly represents a vote for investor confidence in economic recovery. Blowout profit reports from Intel and JPMorgan helped fuel the day's 145-point gain. So did a retail sales report that excluding Cash for Clunkers was actually quite strong.

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October 15, 2009

Science and the Female Brain By Froma Harrop

The recent award of Nobel Prizes in biology and chemistry to three women dredges up Larry Summers' suggestion in 2005 that differences in the female brain may account for the dearth of top women scientists. Now President Obama's economic adviser, Summers was then speechifying as president of Harvard.

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