POLITICS

When Veterans Betray the Chain of Command

The chain of command isn’t just military protocol—it’s the constitutional architecture that keeps American democracy from sliding into chaos. Six Democratic members of Congress just attacked it.

The Mealy Mouthed Media

The Mealy Mouthed Media

The enraged speeches and street disorders across the country that accompanied the inauguration of President Bush may tell us more than we want to know about what is happening to this country. The media dignify these outbursts by calling them "protests" but what are...

Should We “Save Jobs”?

Now that the elections are over, there's little political gain for demagoguery about jobs, but let's prepare ourselves for the next time. Losing a job means a financial crunch and readjustment regardless of the source of job loss. If it's not from an economic...

Western Media: Fourth Estate or Fifth Column?

Western Media: Fourth Estate or Fifth Column?

There are still people in the mainstream media who profess bewilderment that they are accused of being biased. But you need to look no further than reporting on the war in Iraq to see the bias staring you in the face, day after day, on the front page of the New York...

Weaker Than We Think

"On Sept. 11, one in 3,000 New Yorkers perished, but in the same year, over one in 1,000 urbanites were murdered in three major cities in the Western Hemisphere alone," according to Russell Seitz in his article "Weaker Than We Think" in The American Conservative (Dec....

Social Insecurity

Social Insecurity

The latest liberal spin on Social Security is that there is no problem. Of course, there is no problem with any obligation if you are willing to welsh when it comes time to pay it. Politically, the bottom line of this approach is that President Bush's plan is "not a...

Medical Lawsuits

Medical Lawsuits

When a friend told me recently that he was going to undergo a painful medical procedure to see if he has cancer, it reminded me of a time years ago when I faced a similar prospect. The testing procedure in my case would have been both painful and with some risk of...

End Social Security

End Social Security

Throughout the nation, a fierce debate rages over Social Security. One side, led by President Bush, says the system is in crisis and must be saved via "partial privatization." The other side says the system is basically sound and can be saved with a little tinkering....

AFCM Interviews HSA Bank President Kirk Hoewisch

AFCM Interviews HSA Bank President Kirk Hoewisch

The year was 1901 and someone in Howards Grove, Wisconsin, observed that the first automobile to appear in town was driven by a man from nearby Sheboygan. A century later, the town is making its mark on another new vehicle--which has the potential to revolutionize how...

Rational Disagreement

Rational Disagreement

My assistant sorts the incoming mail into various categories, such as "critical mail," "fan mail," etc. But the so-called critical mail is seldom critical. It may be bombastic or vituperative or full of pop psychology, but it seldom presents a critical argument based...

The Race Card — 2005

The Race Card — 2005

The Democratic Party continues to play the race card for political gain. The Reverend Jesse Jackson steamed into Ohio, the so-called battleground state that went for Bush, claiming that Ohioans' votes failed to count. "The playing field is uneven," said Jackson. " . ....

New Year For Choosing a Health Plan

For many workers, the new year initiates a process called open enrollment--when many employees designate a health plan through their employer--that's as comprehensible as the tax code. During the annual cattle call, employees are pummeled with bureaucratic jargon...

Greedy or Ignorant

"The Dog and His Bone" is one of Aesop's many instructive fables. It's about a dog carrying a bone in his mouth. As he was crossing a footbridge over a stream and happened to glance into the water, he saw his own reflection. Thinking it was another dog with a bigger...

U.S. Government Should Not Help Tsunami Victims (Updated)

As the death toll mounts in the areas hit by Sunday's tsunami in southern Asia, private organizations and individuals are scrambling to send out money and goods to help the victims. Such help may be entirely proper, especially considering that most of those affected...

Susan Sontag: Not So Judicious

Writer Susan Sontag, one of America's most "celebrated" intellectuals, died a few days after Christmas of leukemia. She was 71. "In my view," she once explained, "the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying." An yet, in her...

America The Stingy

America The Stingy

"It is beyond me . . . why are we so stingy, really," said U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland, after the tsunami in southern Asia. " . . . Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become. . . . "...

A Wave of Criticism

A Wave of Criticism

The catastrophic tsunami wave that has devastated so much of southern Asia has even killed more than a hundred people on the east coast of Africa, more than 4,000 miles away. Two questions: First, what country has done the most to help the victims of this natural...

Get Ready for Another Strong Year

So what's not to love about 2004? I admit that it wasn't easy going, but at this writing it looks like the S&P 500 is going to close out the year at better than three-year highs, with something like an 11% total return. The Russell 2000 Index of small-cap stocks will...

Property Rites: Part 2

Property Rites: Part 2

When I was house-hunting, one of the things that struck me about the house that I eventually settled on was the fact that there were no curtains or shades on the bathroom window in the back. The reason was that there was no one living on the steep hillside in back,...

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