National Politics
Michael Barone in the Wall Street Journal: It has become a commonplace to say that population has been flowing from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, from an industrially ailing East and Midwest to an economically vibrant West and South. But the actual picture of recent growth, as measured by the 2000 Census and…
Jim Baron has an op-ed in today’s Pawtucket Times where he discusses a possible improvement to the Presidential primary system (and once again, Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis seems to be at the cutting edge of reform)…Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, a Democrat, has embraced a plan put forward by the National Association…
Andrew spoke for all of us at Anchor Rising when he made a vow to not discuss a certain political event, and those who aim to be deeply involved in said event, until the actual event was much closer. It seems we are not alone. Here’s The Anchoress (no relation ;): I resent like hell…
In addition to talking about Iraq with Dan Yorke, Congressman Langevin also talked about Speaker Pelosi’s recent botched Syrian excursion and said she was following the precepts of the Iraq Study Group report (PDF). While Langevin condemned the regimes of both Iran and Syria, he also offered that–as per the Iraq Study Group–pragmatic diplomacy was…
Some proponents of having the Electoral College replaced by a National Popular Vote to elect the President write: In today’s climate of partisan polarization, the current system shuts out most of the country from meaningful participation by turning naturally “purple” states into simple “red” and “blue.” The result is a declining number of Americans who…
Scott MacKay’s immigration piece in the Sunday ProJo was a good piece of historical writing. However, and inevitably, it will be used by some as proof for their arguments in the contemporary illegal immigrant debate. Namely that the U.S. has “historically” allowed all immigrants, whether illegal or not. My first thought after reading the piece…
I recently remarked on the rhetorical similarities between the Civil War-era Copperheads, “the Peace Democrats” who went out of their way to obstruct the Union war effort, and today’s Democratic Party. Of course, rhetoric is one thing. Action to obstruct is another. With their recent vote to hamstring the authority of the president and his…
The new Democratic Congress really is changing the way things are done in Washington, aren’t they? I’ll leave it up to the reader to define “change” (h/t) in John Fund’s story: Democrats promised reform and instituted “a moratorium” on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up. Now the appropriations committees are privately accepting pork-barrel…
Over at the OSB, I’ve put up a post putting yesterday’s testimony by Valerie Plame in context. Included is an informative reminder that, at first–while attempting to protect their own journalists against charges of publishing sensitive national security information–many mainstream media outlets tried to convince the Justice Department that Plame’s identity was well known. (Guess…
I’ve already asked, “How is Firing Government Attorneys a ‘Scandal’?” Well, it ain’t. I agree with Andrew McCarthy: The politicians on Capitol Hill theatrically castigate the politicians in the administration for making political decisions about political appointees based on political considerations. The politicians in the administration reply, “That would never happen,” before conceding that it…