National Politics
Check out the video. ADDENDUM The original Reagan ad.
Although he isn’t speaking solely about our state, Theodore Gatchel’s op-ed, Sunday, presents a worthy reminder that taxation is not the only government burden that must decrease in Rhode Island: The idea held by many politicians and government bureaucrats that simply passing a new law or issuing a new regulation will solve a problem is…
Senator Arlen Specter says it all in just a single sentence: “I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate — not prepared to have that record decided by that jury,” he said. After three decades in the federal government, the folks who’ve…
Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has become a Democrat. Many view this as only a change of label, but it could have a significant impact nonetheless. As you may all be painfully aware, card-check legislation is pending in Washington. If passed, it would eliminate the secret ballot for workers and give unions the ability to knock…
Vincent Bzdek contacted me requesting a comment for a Patrick Kennedy profile related to mental health parity that he was beginning to write for the Washington Post back in early December. Well, it looks like he and the editors decided to go with the “no criticism” angle. To be sure, the following would have stood…
Pollster Scott Rasmussen offers this analysis of the current state of the national GOP (h/t): Many Republicans had expressed concern about the growth of government spending throughout the Bush years. Then there was the immigration issue. On that topic, the Bush team championed a bill that was even less popular than the bailouts. Eventually, despite…
A few days ago, Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti issued perhaps the most disturbing bit of “journalism” in recent memory: It didn’t take long for Barack Obama — for all his youth and inexperience — to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis. “I feel surprisingly comfortable…
The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl makes an observation and then wonders… New American presidents typically begin by behaving as if most of the world’s problems are the fault of their predecessors — and Barack Obama has been no exception. In his first three months he has quickly taken steps to correct the errors in George…
Following a week of tea party rallies that the president professes to have barely noticed, a couple stories in today’s Providence Journal suggest some modest attempts to puncture his big-spending image. Considering that some banks have suggested that they’d like to return bailout money to the feds, it isn’t surprising that the administration thinks more…
Although Arlene Violet subsequently whacked him with a great question about using stimulus money to suppress changes to teachers’ healthcare benefits, I’m very disappointed that the Newsmakers gang let Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse ramble on with this partisan mumbo-jumbo for three minutes: I think it’s sort of an ironic moment on this subject, and particularly to…