To get an idea of what it’s like to tangle with the IRS, imagine having to fight Mike Tyson — with both hands tied behind your back. The IRS is the most feared government agency, and with good reason. Americans who run afoul of this bureaucratic behemoth...
POLITICS
Trading Insults: The WTO’s Cancun Free For All
Don’t give a starving man a fish, give him a fishing rod. That used to be the mantra in foreign aid circles. The message that came out of the collapsed World Trade Organization negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, last week took the metaphor one step further;...
What Are We Fighting For?
Our lack of moral clarity is keeping us from winning the war.
The Voucher Debate
In Washington D.C. right now, there’s a huge debate going on about school vouchers. Here’s the debate boiled down to its bare — and honest — essentials. The opponents of school vouchers resent the fact that some kids will end up in superior...
The War On America Did Not Begin On Sept 11th
The War we are in didn’t begin on Sept. 11, 2001. It began 22 years earlier. On Nov. 4, 1979, Islamist radicals stormed the US embassy in Tehran and, with the support of the Ayatollah Khomeini, proceeded to hold 52 Americans hostage for the next 15 months. The...
NYSE Chairman Should Have Kept His Money–and Been Proud of It
One year ago Jack Welch, who as CEO of General Electric created $400 billion in stockholder wealth, faced a storm of public protest over his retirement benefits, which were worth a modest $2.5 million a year. Welch caved in and renounced the benefits. Now Richard...
Why and How to Remember September 11
There is good reason to remember the attacks of Black Tuesday, to give that day a solemn acknowledgment.
“The Patriot Act” vs. Freedom
Ask a journalist about the Patriot Act, and the response may strike you as overly suspicious or even paranoid. But those who have submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to a federal agency know better. Consider FOIA requestor Robert Todd, who recently asked...
Paul Krugman Concedes–Sort Of
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is an angry man. If he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears every time he hears someone say “tax cuts” or “George...
The Jobs Glass Is More Than Half Full
You can’t open the financial pages without hearing about our “jobless recovery.” There’s no end to the hand-wringing about how gross domestic product, corporate profits and consumer spending are all moving up smartly — yet the economy...
The Level Playing Field Act
Recent advocacy of free trade in this column has caused considerable reader apoplexy and anxiety, not to mention accusations of unconcern with worker plight. Readers have protested loss of good paying jobs to low-wage countries such as India, China and other Asian...
California’s Real Problem
Maybe it is just local pride on my part, but I think California is the purest example of liberal fundamentalism. New York and Massachusetts have their claims on that title, but California is not called the Left Coast for nothing. Some recent examples: After an...
The Left Against Israel
“I have developed a habit,” writes Richard Ingrams, a columnist for The Guardian, a far-left British newspaper, “when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish...
America’s Academic Tyrants
Many of America’s colleges and universities have become the modern leaders of racism and intolerance. Recently, we were treated to information about racism at the University of Michigan, where its academic elite gave students 20 extra points toward admission...
The Moose is On Fire
I can’t change the TV channels without seeing the ubiquitous mug of former Montgomery County, Md., police chief-turned-author Charles A. Moose. First, it was “Dateline NBC” with Stone Phillips. The following morning, he chatted up the...
The Autism ‘Spectrum’
When Billy’s mother sees her 12-year-old son’s popularity with team mates on his baseball team, she thinks back to predictions made when he was a pre-schooler that he would have so much trouble making friends that, among other things, he would probably...
Jimmy Carter and North Korea
This disgraceful moral treason by Carter is, among other things, the Marxist notion that ideology and politics is determined by “the mode of production.”
Click It or Ticket
Imagine you’re having a backyard barbeque. A cop walks in and announces, “This is a random health and safety check to see whether you’ve removed the skin from the chicken before you served it.” Though delicious in taste, we all know that...
Tough Issues Challenging Stock Investors
I get lots of terrific letters from readers (both roses and thorns, I assure you). But one I got last week takes the prize. It’s a list of penetrating questions about all of the toughest issues challenging stock investors. The minute I saw it I knew what...
The Energizer Takes on the Terminator: Interview with State Senator Tom McClintock
If Arnold Schwarzenegger is the Terminator, State Sen. Tom McClintock, a conservative who has figured prominently into the nation’s most controversial election since 2000, is the Energizer Bunny. Against a media onslaught that has emphasized celebrity over...
Prosperity Through Trade vs. Poverty Through ‘Eurolateralism’
CANCUN, Mexico – As the “extremely dangerous” Hurricane Isabel advances toward the Yucatan from the Western Atlantic, delegates from 146 countries are racing to finish work at this resort town on a once-in-a-generation opportunity to slash subsidies...
New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso vs. Karl Marx
New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is a private business, even if heavily regulated; and what the owners pay their chairman, Richard Grasso, is no one’s business but theirs. Motivating the complaints about Grasso’s compensation is the Marxist notion that all...
P.C. vs. the Indian Princesses
Political correctness is breaking the hearts of thousands of little girls — and their daddies are having a hard time explaining why multicultural hypersensitivity is more important than their daughters’ innocent fun. Beginning this month, the YMCA’s...
Quotas,Tenure, and Diversity of Opinion in Academia
This is the time of year when millions of parents send their children off to universities. Unfortunately, one price of getting one’s children into a top school these days is that they may be subjected to four years of liberal propaganda. Those in academia like...
A Contract with Black America?
A caller on the Rush Limbaugh show recently had an inspired suggestion for Republicans: Since the “Contract with America” was such a political success back in 1994, why not a Contract with Black America during next year’s election campaign? The...
Workers of the World, End Poverty: Unite for Global Capitalism!
Swarms of left-wing and environmentalist activists plan to demonstrate against free trade and “globalization” next week during the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico. These activists will be united by a single emotion: a...
Mutually Assured Destruction II: New York Eliot Spitzer’s Campaign for the Governorship
The mutual fund scandal that erupted last week is the latest front in vigilante New York Eliot Spitzer’s campaign to climb to the governorship over as many ruined careers as possible. Here are some thoughts on where it could lead. Are there abuses of trading...
September 11th
On this day, the best way to honor the dead is to reassert — and expand — the values that made their lives in this country (and our own) possible. This means rebuilding the World Trade Center — with private dollars and within the capitalist...
Spitting on Their Graves
Across the nation, public officials will strike somber poses and shed television-friendly tears and bow their blow-dried heads in memory of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. They’ll hold hands, light candles, and pass around a plateful of...
Facing Down North Korea
when we have agreed to the North Korean’s terms in the past, we only find ourselves facing them again later, stronger, and even more threatening.
Paul Krugman Unraveled
Paul Krugman’s book, The Great Unraveling, hits bookstores today. Are you surprised that Krugman’s publisher, W.W. Norton, has repeatedly refused my requests for a review copy of the book? Despite this inexplicable omission, America’s most dangerous...
Manufacturing Will Be Booming
With Congress having returned from its August recess last week, the rhetoric on employment has heated up. In particular, we are hearing more and more about the loss of manufacturing jobs. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study warns that many have disappeared...
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