POLITICS

Why Is American Healthcare So Expensive?

Because it doesn’t operate as a market.

Why Democrats–and Conservatives–Fear Arnold

Why Democrats–and Conservatives–Fear Arnold

A Nazi groper, running the fifth-largest economy on the planet? I mean this time you gotta see why liberals are mad! Nixon was one thing, with the hiring of burglars and all to lift McGovern’s secrets, and the bombing of Cambodia on the sly — and goofy,...

Lean, Mean, and Dean

From the Howard Dean for President website: “Repeal the Bush tax cuts, and use those funds to pay for universal health care, homeland security, and investments in job creation that benefit all Americans.” In other words: Raise taxes, nationalize medical...

The NYSE: Use It, Then Lose It!

I hate the New York Stock Exchange. I admit it — I hate the place. I always have and I always will. So even though I have no objection to executives earning huge salaries and bonuses, I’ve been positively tickled to see the NYSE dragged through the mud...

The “Bloviator’s” New Best Friend

Alec “the Bloviator” Baldwin has a new bosom buddy: Beltway Republican strategist Grover Norquist. The Bush-bashing actor-turned-activist and the Muslim vote-courting political organizer joined together at a Washington, D.C.-area conference last weekend to...

Palestinian Authority Violence Against Americans

Is there any subject that the mainstream media treats worse than the Palestinian Authority (PA)? Case in point: placing the Oct. 15 murder of three American security personnel in Gaza. Here is USA Today‘s comment, representative of media assessments of the...

No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning

“Excellent schools deliver a clear message to their students: No Excuses. No excuses for failing to do your homework, failing to work hard in general; no excuses for fighting with other students, running in the hallways, dressing inappropriately and so...

The Estate Tax Non-Repeal

Of all the tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration, none has been more controversial than repeal of the estate tax. Even though it represents only a very small part of the total revenue loss from the 2001 and 2003 tax bills — and isn’t really...

Saddam’s Weapon of Mass Destruction Lies

Suppose for an instant that no weapons of mass destruction ever turn up in Iraq. Of course, they might well still appear, but let’s imagine that Saddam Hussein did not have an advanced program for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, as well as the missiles...

The Bali Bombers: What Motivates Death Worship?

On the anniversary of the Bali bombing, survivors and mourners are still asking: Why? The bombers Amrozi, Mukhlas and Samudra have been sentenced to death, but they show no remorse or regret. What motivates their death worship? At 11.07 pm, October 12 th 2002, 5 kg of...

Rush Limbaugh’s “Offended” Critics are Wrong

You probably have heard about Rush Limbaugh having to resign from ESPN for having made an allegedly racist remark on the air. Limbaugh’s remark was about black quarterback Donovan McNabb. Here is what is up on the CNN website: “Before McNabb led the...

March to Irrelevance

Many leaders, including French President Jacques Chirac and U. N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, are still seething because the United States and Great Britain led a coalition into Iraq last March without explicit U.N. support. Of course, just a few months earlier, the...

Syria Is The Enemy

Immediately after September 11th, segments of the American foreign policy establishment hoped to include Syria, given its brutal suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, in the anti-terror coalition against al-Qaeda. Indeed, for a time, it did appear that Damascus might...

Time Do Something About the Budget Deficit?

Despite improving economic and budgetary news, there is rising pressure to do something about the budget deficit. I expect this pressure to grow rapidly over the next year. By early 2005, I believe such pressure will be irresistible. It’s not too soon to start...

Crossing the Line Over Health Care As a Right

Southern California’s largest grocery strike in 25 years offers a clear example of opposing ideas in action; the labor dispute is a fundamental conflict over whether health insurance should be financed by those who want insurance — or by those who hire...

Vouchers and Votes

Vouchers and Votes

During a recent visit to Washington, I was told by a high official there that he had posed this question to Democrats: “Why are you so opposed to vouchers?” The reply: “We aren’t going to give you guys a victory.” If you stop and think...

The War Against Success

The War Against Success

Name some of the things that make us so much better off than Americans of just a couple of generations ago. One of the most important things are new medicines that not only prolong life but leave us vigorous at ages when old folks used to sit around in rocking chairs....

Will Israel Save Us Again?

The Iranians are on the verge of building nuclear bombs. If this is not stopped, mass death will result. The situation is not entirely without precedent, although the crisis today is immeasurably greater. By 1981 Iraq had a similar program. Had it succeeded, America...

Kill Bill – To Expand Medicare

From time to time, Congress passes, and the President signs a bill, that forever changes every American’s life. The Medicare prescription drug coverage bill — which President Bush has vowed to sign — is such an event; if passed, this expansion of...

The Case for Off-Shore Drilling

For a small State, New Jersey continues to send a large delegation of mental midgets to Washington, DC to represent it. In the last election, Sen. Robert Torricelli, the man famed for leaking the name of a CIA agent, was yanked off the ticket at the last minute as the...

In Defense of Mutual Funds

A month ago, Eliot L. Spitzer, New York’s attorney general and the scourge of Wall Street, announced that his office had “obtained evidence of widespread illegal trading schemes that potentially cost mutual fund shareholders billions of dollars...

The Irony of California

The Irony of California

The California recall election and its surrounding hoopla may have confirmed the suspicions of some people in other parts of the country that Californians are crazy. But not all Californians are crazy — just the most affluent and highly educated ones. Although...

Baby Kim’s Ace in the Hole: Western Moralists

North Korea just announced it is using plutonium extracted from spent nuclear fuel rods to make atomic weapons. How could the United States let this happen? In 1994, when North Korea was on the brink of economic collapse, its new leader Kim Jong Il, following in his...

Great Myths About the Great Depression

Great Myths About the Great Depression

They say “truth will out” but sometimes it takes a long time. For more than half a century, it has been a “well-known fact” that President Franklin D. Roosevelt got us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That view was never pervasive...

A Sound Dividend Strategy

Earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which is roughly tied with General Electric (GE) as the most valuable company measured by market cap in the world, declared the first dividend in its 28-year history. On Sept. 12, it doubled that dividend from 8 cents a year...

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