Last week, I noted that various forms of the word "unexpected" almost inevitably appeared in news stories about unfavorable economic developments. You can find them again in stories about Friday's shocking news, that only 54,000 net new jobs were created in the month of May and that unemployment rose to 9.1 percent.
On Sept. 11, 2001, when two planes plunged into the World Trade Center, Americans watched in awe as New York firefighters, police and paramedics rushed to the scene at risk to their own lives. Some 343 firefighters and paramedics and 60 police officers paid the ultimate price in their desperate rush to save other lives.
The current puppet play in Congress -- where Republicans sponsored a bill to raise the nation's debt ceiling only because they wanted to vote it down -- would be funny, if only they weren't risking economic disaster. Unfortunately they're not joking, as they push the country closer and closer to a potentially ruinous default.
Political advantage can be fleeting. A couple of months ago, during the winter quarter, job gains looked to be picking up, unemployment was easing lower, and President Obama's re-election hopes looked more secure. But things sure have changed.
Former tennis star Andre Agassi deserves enormous credit for recognizing that nothing is more important than ensuring every child gets the kind of quality education that is their best chance for success in a rapidly changing world. I know, there are high school dropouts who make it to the top.
In 2010, San Francisco supervisors banned Happy Meals. They showed no regard for parental choice. So it should not come as a shock that activists have managed to put a measure on the November ballot that essentially would outlaw the circumcision of baby boys.
With a flamboyant downgrade of the outlook for economic growth, jobs and profits, Wednesday's 280-point Dow plunge to launch the so-called June stock swoon is a warning shot across the bow.
Keeping up with the always-spinning news cycle can eat into a media hound's free time. Thus, I'm grateful when cable television plugs its news holes with stories of no consequence. One can safely check out, secure that nothing important has escaped notice.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates leaves office this month as widely respected as any public figure in America today, appreciated for his willingness to return to public service at a moment of high danger in Iraq and to faithfully serve presidents of both parties.
"The Rules" urged women trying to hook a man to play "hard to get." As insulting, dehumanizing and childish as the rules might have been (for instance, say no if he doesn't call by Wednesday for the weekend), there's plenty of anecdotal evidence (not to mention the sales figures for the book) suggesting they work.
While Western media continue to rhapsodize about the "Arab Spring democratic revolutions" in the Middle East, it may be that the real democratic revolution is beginning to occur in the European Union and the United States. And if the timing is right, the crisis in the European Union may play a decisive part in tipping the American electorate against President Obama and the Democrats in our 2012 elections.
Unexpectedly! As megablogger Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, has noted with amusement, the word "unexpectedly" or variants thereon keep cropping up in mainstream media stories about the economy.
The good news: Last year, California's homicide rate dropped to its lowest level since 1966. Violent crimes were down from the year before.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor turned the policy temperature down on austerity this week by rolling out a strong economic-growth agenda. Headlined by a 25 percent top tax rate for individuals and business, the Cantor package includes regulatory relief, free trade and patent protection for entrepreneurs. It's job creation and the economy, stupid.
I was bouncing back and forth between worrying about my daughter flying to Ukraine (very far away, 4 connections, 1 airline I'd never heard of, very far away) and worrying about what I was going to say to a very smart, tough federal judge who was about to keep me on my feet for hours arguing on behalf of my client.
On the prowl for a good dinner in a Florida town we didn't know well, I went on Yelp. Yelp is a social networking website that lets anyone review a business. One Italian restaurant looked promising, with mostly positive reviews and few grumbles. We went there, had a fine meal and told the chef-owner so. But on mentioning that we had seen the reviews on Yelp, a cloud crossed his face.
Right now, first-term Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) looks likely to be elected to the Senate seat left open by the retirement of Kent Conrad (D) in November 2012. The Crystal Ball wondered: How rare is it for someone to get such a fast elevation from the House to the Senate? (We realize some House members will insist it is a demotion.) We've scoured the records and identified nine members of the Senate in this category. Only senators in office sometime in the previous 50 years were included.
One of the least remarked upon aspects of the Obama presidency has been the lack of scandals. Since Watergate, presidential and executive branch scandal has been an inescapable feature of the American presidency, but the current administration has not yet suffered a major scandal, which I define as a widespread elite perception of wrongdoing. What happened, and what are the odds that the administration's streak will continue?
Take a poll of political pundits about next year's presidential election, and most at this point would probably predict that President Barack Obama would win reelection, but with a reduced margin from 2008 in both the popular and electoral vote. Yet if that actually happens, it would be an historical rarity of the first order.
Do Americans have the will to cut government spending in order to curb the rampant growth in government debt and liabilities? Not if the politicians they send to Washington have anything to do with it.
