If you see the federal government as a benign force that seeks only to make your life better, then the questions in the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey may not bother you. But if you have a smidgen of doubt, or if you value your privacy, you probably aren't going to like some of Uncle Sam's invasive queries.
If right-wing broadcasters don't want to be blamed when someone murders a person they have demonized repeatedly -- as in the case of George Tiller, the doctor shot dead in his Wichita, Kan., church last Sunday by an anti-abortion zealot -- then they ought to moderate their rhetoric. No doubt they will choose their words more carefully for a while, and they will whine piteously about anyone who calls attention to their screaming extremism.
The alternative to a government rescue of General Motors is the collapse of the industrial Midwest. Nonetheless, there's been a surprisingly large amount of dumping on the Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan. The government-sponsored deal seems to have stirred up resentments for every ideology.
The Rasmussen poll conducted over the weekend of May 30-31 asked a key question designed to give us perspective on Obama's current popularity.
"What I have no interest in doing is running GM," President Barack Obama said on Monday, as he assumed ownership of the beacon of free enterprise.
The Roman historian Livy famously described the terminal plight of the late Roman Republic: "Nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus"
("We can bear neither our shortcomings nor the remedies for them"). As I reread this phrase in Christian Meier's biography of Julius Caesar this past
weekend, I couldn't help thinking of America's current fiscal profligacy -- which has been growing for years at an ever-accelerating rate.
A year ago, the nation’s largest newspaper wrote in an editorial that it was time to “move beyond vouchers” in the debate over America’s educational future.
Isn’t it fascinating that stocks rallied over 200 points on Monday, despite Obama’s command-and-control government takeover of General Motors? I think it’s because GM’s old-economy operation is yesterday’s story.
If law enforcement officials believe they can prove that Scott Roeder is guilty of Sunday's shooting death of abortion doctor George Tiller at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan., then they should work to put him away for life. Roeder is being held on first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
The most notable downsizing of the American home has been in its price. The luxury end usually escapes the worst of housing downturns, but not this time. For those seeking a reprieve from teardown mania, this is not a bad development. I refer to the trend whereby bungalows, Cape Cods and other assorted gracious homes are flattened and replaced by monster mansions. Perhaps the forces of sanity can regroup.
Move to the center. That's the advice Republicans are getting from quarters friendly and otherwise. It seems to make a certain amount of sense. If opinion is arrayed along a single-dimension, left-to-right spectrum and clustered in the middle in a bell-curve pattern, then a party on the right needs only to move a few steps toward the center or just beyond to convert itself from minority to majority status.
Get ready, folks: America is about to buy a car company. As of Monday, we the taxpayers will own more than 70 percent of GM. Whether the company will be formally renamed Government Motors remains to be seen. But that's what it will be.
Barack Obama has named his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. What's the likely fallout, politically and judicially?
Of all the jaw-dropping comments made by politicians this year, the one that takes top prize was not uttered in the nation's capital but deep in the heart of Texas. There, in conjunction with a tax day "tea party," Republican Gov. Rick Perry floated the idea of his huge state along the Mexican border seceding from the Union.
Don't tell anyone: This is the season when lawyers left and right cross our fingers behind our backs and solemnly swear that judges don't make law. Conservatives insist they adhere to original intent.
Identity politics are not good for the country or for the groups they purport to advance. This is not to undercut Sonia Sotomayor, who, as the news reports all start out, is the first Hispanic nominated to the Supreme Court and, if confirmed, would be the third female justice. From what we know about her so far, she seems qualified for the job.
How will the GOP react to President Obama's pick to replace Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court? Who cares? It doesn't matter what Senate Republicans think of Sonia Sotomayor.
Choosing Sonia Sotomayor as his first nominee to the United States Supreme Court will allow Barack Obama to prove three important things. As a politician, he is not afraid of a fight. As a constitutional lawyer, he is willing and able to defend his conception of that living document. And as president, he is prepared to brush aside the phony consensus of Washington's gossipy elite.
Within a decade, same-sex marriage probably will be legal in California. Thanks to the California Supreme Court 6-1 ruling on Tuesday to uphold Proposition 8, the law will be changed in the proper way -- not by judicial fiat, but with California voters determining whether, when and how best to broaden the state's marriage laws.
In 1845, the French economist Frederic Bastiat published a satirical petition from the "Manufacturers of Candles" to the French Chamber of Deputies, which ridiculed the arguments made on behalf of inefficient industries to protect them from more efficient producers:
