Essay
Let’s be careful before we say yes too quickly to this request: The FBI on Tuesday asked the U.S. Congress for sweeping new powers to seize business or private records, ranging from medical information to book purchases, to investigate terrorism without first securing approval from a judge. Valerie Caproni, FBI general counsel, told the U.S.…
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell gave this speech on the Senate floor prior to the capitulation by the 7 Republican senators. It offers a history lesson and is complementary to this posting by Mac Owens.
Well, it’s official. A group is attempting to draft Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey into a run for Sen. Lincoln Chafee’s seat. A group of Republicans statewide has organized a committee to encourage Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey to challenge Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in 2006. There are 85 names on a letter given to Laffey…
These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender “disparities” are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a…
Most analysis (like here or here) trying to set up Uzbekistan as a realist-versus-idealist problem in foreign policy is missing an important point. No matter how the US reacts to the Andijan massacre, Uzbekistan’s current government is likely to replace us with the Chinese as an alliance partner. So tolerating their brutal actions makes no…
Here they go again: The Teacher of the Year for the Lucia Mar Unified School District cannot be named within the space of this story. “It’s everyone,” said Branden Leach, president of the Lucia Mar Unified Teachers Association. All 575 instructors in San Luis Obispo County’s largest school district are winners, he said. “We all…
If you ever wanted some clear examples of how far the NEA teachers’ union (with at least the implicit support of their bureaucratic allies in public education) will go to win desired contract terms, read this posting and learn about three inexcusable actions in my home town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island. Let’s begin with…
If you want another example of how misguided incentives in the public sector lead to bad outcomes, here is another pathetic example (available from the WSJ for a fee): …What’s meaningful about the [highway] bill the Senate passed yesterday…is just how quickly and utterly some Republicans have abandoned all spending principle. The 89-11 Senate vote…
In the heat of intense political warfare, perspective is often the first thing to disappear. Let’s apply that observation to the debate about Tom DeLay, Republican Majority Leader in the US House of Representatives, and see if we can regain some perspective. I have been critical of Tom DeLay even before Howard Dean got into…
Howard Dean, national chairman of the Democratic party, thinks Tom DeLay is guilty until proven innocent: “I think he’s guilty . . . of taking trips paid for by lobbyists, and of campaign-finance violations during his manipulation of the Texas election process,” Dean said. But Howard Dean thinks Osama bin Laden is innocent until proven…