County News Online Blogs

Townhall Finance... Time for the Timid President, By John Ransom
8/29/11 - Decision time for a real energy policy is near for a president whose critics on both the left and the right have declared him “timid.” The State Department gave a thumbs-up on late Friday to the Keystone Pipeline project designed to help bring up to 3 million barrels of oil per day to the US from Canada. The State Department was required to evaluate the project for environmental impact. “There would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed pipeline corridor... read more

Human Events... Joe Biden’s China Walkback, by John Hayward
Don’t let him out in public if you’re not ready to stand by what he says. 08/24/2011 - Vice President Joe Biden’s office is making one of the most desperate and hilarious walkback attempts in recent history, claiming that his remarks in support of China’s forced abortion policy actually meant the exact opposite of what he actually said. From a Fox News report: “The Obama administration strongly opposes all aspects... read more

Townhall... Demonizing Big Business is Not Going to Bring Back Jobs, By Donald Lambro
8/26/2011 - WASHINGTON -- When a heckler at the Iowa State Fair told Mitt Romney that raising taxes on corporations was one way to solve America’s fiscal and economic problems, the former governor shot back that “Corporations are people, my friend.” The heckler and his friends groaned in disbelief. They believed, as they had no doubt been taught in school, that corporations were part of the nation’s evil power structure, beholden to no one, made up of faceless, amorphous rich executives... read more

Townhall... Obama and Irene: Category Four Forces of Destruction, By Hugh Hewitt
8/26/2011 - “I hope,” I told Stuart Varney on his excellent Fox Business Network program yesterday, “that President Obama watches the preparations for Hurricane Irene closely.” “People are battening down their hatches, boarding up their houses or simply fleeing and they are right to do so. The storm might not hit them but if it does, they will wish they had prepared for it.” “President Obama’s economic policies are to the private sector as Irene is to the East Coast, a vast swirling... read more

Townhall... For Employees, It’s Time for RAISE, By Mike Needham
8/27/2011 - With fears of a double-dip recession growing, Americans are saving more and spending less. Economic uncertainty and stagnant wages are a bad combination for American families. Image, for just a moment, the following situation: You complete a very important project for your company, coming in on time and under budget. Your boss is ecstatic and the company’s profits are set to soar. In any economy, especially this one, that is great news. Here’s the catch, though; despite your... read more

Orlando Sentinel... Like Frankenstein, Charley Reese’s “final” column lives again
By Mike Lafferty - July 31, 2011 - Charley Reese wrote his last column for the Orlando Sentinel on July 29, 2001. You wouldn’t know it from surfing the Internet. In fact, you wouldn’t even get his last column. You’d most likely find a version that the popular columnist wrote for the Sentinel back on Feb. 3, 1984. It still resonates with the public -- maybe more today than 27 years ago -- as Congress and... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... The GOP’s tax increase, By Harold Meyerson
Thursday, August 25, 2011 - America’s presumably anti-tax party wants to raise your taxes. Come January, the Republicans plan to raise the taxes of anyone who earns $50,000 a year by $1,000, and anyone who makes $100,000 by $2,000. Their tax hike doesn’t apply to income from investments. It doesn’t apply to any wage income in excess of $106,800 a year. It’s the payroll tax that they want to raise -- to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent of your paycheck, a level established for one year... read more

FoxNews... Mainstream Media Pushing Hard to Defeat the Tea Party, Raise Taxes, By Dan Gainor
Published August 26, 2011 - The Politico headline read: “Conservative elites pine for 2012 hero.” They could have shortened that sentence to “Elites pine” or more likely to “Elites freak the heck out.” Because it’s not just the conservative cognoscenti, it’s all of them. The folks in charge of the mainstream media equation miss the good old days when they ran everything and ordinary American voters and taxpayers did as they were told. Those days are gone and the in-crowd... read more

FoxNews... Eight Back-to-School Survival Tips for the Modern Parent, By Eileen Wacker
Published August 25, 2011- I live my life in 15-minute increments during the school year. We have four kids who are entering 8th, 7th, 4th and 3rd grade. They are in three different schools and all have after-school sports and activities. We both have demanding jobs with travel. At least once a week, our dog, Buster Brown, runs away to be with the neighbor’s Chihuahua just to keep things exciting. And we have the normal dental, medical, and social drama cropping up every day... read more

Wall Street Journal... Boehner’s Surprising Success
Time and again the House speaker has out-maneuvered the president. By Karl Rove - The politician who has done more than any other to set the national agenda this year will soon return to Washington. It is not President Barack Obama. It’s House Speaker John Boehner. After his annual August bus tour to help re-elect House Republicans, Mr. Boehner will spend a short vacation next week at his house in... read more

FoxNews... Back to School -- Time to Make a Dinner Resolution, By Dr. Dale Archer
Published August 22, 2011 - Each year, many of us choose to make a New Year’s resolution in order to better ourselves, our loved ones and our lives in general. School days are here again, and this year I propose that you commit to a School Year resolution that will benefit all of the above. Your life will be better, your children’s lives improved and you will give them memories that will last a lifetime. How much will this cost? Zero, yet it’s priceless. It’s time. Time spent as a family…at the dinner... read more

Canton Repository... It’s just so easy to cry ‘politics’ Repository Editorial
Posted Aug 21, 2011 - The issue: Dismissal of JobsOhio challenge - Our view: If lawsuit has merit, it’s worth refiling - A liberal group that is challenging the constitutionality of JobsOhio, Gov. John Kasich’s economic development corporation, lost a round Friday when the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed its lawsuit. The court didn’t rule one way or the other on the merits of the lawsuit. Instead, six of the seven justices agreed that ProgressOhio needs to file the lawsuit in Franklin County... read more

Toledo Blade... Regulate fracking
8/25/11 - There’s a land rush under way in Ohio, as drilling companies buy up leases on thousands of acres of land that sit on potential natural gas riches. A new federal report offers a clue about how to prevent the rush from turning into an environmental catastrophe. The jury still is out on whether hydraulic fracturing is a safe way to extract natural gas from rock formations often more than a mile below the surface of the Earth. The method involves pumping huge amounts of water... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... Job for the president
August 23, 2011 - President Obama will try again to take command of the debate over the iffy economy. For the past year, Republicans have been shaping the discussion, pointing to the rising national debt, arguing for a heavy dose of austerity, staging a crisis involving the debt ceiling. The president has promised a big speech after Labor Day. He wants to shift the focus to job creation. It is a conversation the country must have, Washington facing the imperative of doing two... read more

Daily Events... Wednesdays with Audrey Hudson, Regulations for Goat Herder employers
08.24.11 - The Obama administration has created new workplace rules for foreign workers taking jobs in the U.S. as goat herders, including employee-paid cell phones and comfy beds. The regulations set strict rules for sleeping quarters, lighting, food storage, bathing, laundry, cooking and new rules for the counters where food is prepared. “A separate sleeping unit shall be provided for each person, except in a family arrangement,” says the rules signed by Jane Oates, assistant secretary... read more

Toledo Blade... Upgrading the states
8/14/11 - Ohio and Florida get plenty of attention as presidential election swing states, but this year they deserve notice for another reason. While Uncle Sam was having its debt downgraded, Ohio and Florida both got upgrades from Standard & Poor’s in July as a result of their improved fiscal management. In its report on Ohio, the rating agency attributed its upgrade to AA+ stable from AA+ negative to the Buckeye State’s budget reforms. Gov. John Kasich pushed through a budget that... read more

FoxNews... Almost Everything We’re Taught Is Wrong, By John Stossel
Published August 24, 2011 - We grow up learning that some things are just bad: child labor, ticket scalping, price gouging, kidney selling, blackmail, etc. But maybe they’re not. What I love about economics is that it can show that what seems harmful is actually good for society. It illuminates what common sense overlooks. This was the subject of my Fox Business show last week. It was inspired by the eye... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... A ruling to promote charter school accountability: editorial
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board - Sunday, August 21, 2011 - It took a Franklin County judge to make Ohio law perfectly clear to for-profit charter school operators: Despite years of lax oversight by Ohio education officials, they must follow the law. Although Ohio’s community schools are privately operated, their finances -- which come from taxpayers -- cannot be shielded from public scrutiny or oversight. That ruling in early August, from Franklin County Common Pleas... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... Creating JobsOhio
August 21, 2011 - The details of Ohio’s new job-development strategy began to emerge last week. Officials in the Kasich administration described how the governor’s new private, nonprofit agency, JobsOhio, will work with regional economic development organizations and a restructured state Department of Development. Legislation needed to implement the strategy will be introduced in the fall. Led by Mark Kvamme, a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist, JobsOhio will take... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Unions’ rejection of Kasich’s offer to re-examine SB 5 was the wrong answer for a state facing serious problems, By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board - Saturday, August 20, 2011 - Perhaps not till Judgment Day will anyone know whether the Senate Bill 5 negotiations Republican Gov. John Kasich offered public-employee unions last week was statesmanship or showmanship. The unions -- expressing skepticism about Kasich’s sincerity, given GOP arrogance in ramming SB 5 through the General Assembly -- declined. So, unless something changes... read more

Townhall... Smacking Down Progressives of Pallor, By Michelle Malkin
8/19/2011 - Is there anything more condescending than a porcelain-skinned Hollywood liberal who attempts to show her presumed solidarity with minorities by referring to them as “people of color”? Yes, there is: Two porcelain-skinned liberals attempting to show their allegiance to “diversity” by attacking “people of color” who happen to disagree with their radical politics. Such an exchange took place... read more

Redstate... The Palin Factor, Posted by Erick Erickson
Monday, August 22nd - September 3rd is fast approaching and a lot of people are suddenly buzzing that she will declare her candidacy for the Presidency at that time. Karl Rove is convinced. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal thinks she will not run. A lot of Sarah Palin supporters have been telling me she’ll announce that day that she is running and I’m a fool and idiot for thinking she won’t run. Now her PAC is saying don’t believe the hype about September 3rd. The analysts, etc. are... read more

Christie, Palin, Ryan: The New Candidates? By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Published on DickMorris.com - August 22, 2011 - Three new candidates are slowly circling above the GOP presidential race. Will they land or fly on by? New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former VP candidate Sarah Palin, and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan are in various stages of contemplating possible candidacies. Start with Palin. A good Iowa source tells me that she is preparing a massive event in his state on September 3rd, very possibly to announce... read more

Columbus Dispatch... An enterprising plan
Sunday, August 21, 2001 - Ohio’s higher-ed chancellor outlines bold changes to spark innovation, cut costs - Ohio needs a new approach to higher education, one that recognizes that its 14 public universities aren’t likely to get much money under the state’s tight budget and so shouldn’t continue to be shackled by cumbersome, costly and archaic rules. The legislature should embrace, after thorough review and thoughtful tweaks, a bold plan created by Jim Petro, chancellor of the... read more

Human Events... Big Brother Goes Green, by Audrey Hudson
08/18/2011 - Gas-guzzling vehicle owners pay the lion’s share of highway maintenance, but advanced technology is paving the way for eco-friendly cars to contribute more revenue through a new tax. By requiring cars to be equipped with odometer spyware that will report to authorities how many miles are driven, government is looking to toss out the old gas tax for a new miles-driven fee. “The Left is always... read more

Columbus Dispatch... Dean talks ethics today, but damage from 1972 is lasting, By Joe Hallett
Sunday August 21, 2011 - You never know what you can trust from a man like John Dean. He is, after all, a convicted felon who did prison time for his role in the Watergate cover-up nearly 40 years ago. He pleaded to one count of obstruction of justice in exchange for becoming a witness for the Watergate prosecution. At the time, the FBI called him the “master manipulator of the cover-up” that led to the 1974 resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Dean blew Watergate wide open when he... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Teachers, unions risk being shoved aside, By Brent Larkin
Saturday, August 20, 2011 - It will be remembered as the great summer sellout. It was the week labor leaders and overly partisan Democrats did a disservice to 360,000 public-sector employees whose collective bargaining rights all but disappeared with the passage in Ohio of Senate Bill 5. And it was the week Gov. John Kasich handed his foes a win on Senate Bill 5 -- and they turned him down because it wasn’t big enough. No one is claiming Kasich’s offer Thursday to water down... read more

Toledo Blade... Trash talk
8/19/11 - JUST days after he launched his presidential campaign, Texas Gov. Rick Perry already has lowered the tone of the discussion. This week, Mr. Perry said it would be “treasonous” for the Federal Reserve Bank to issue more money “to play politics.” He also warned that if Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke “prints more money between now and the election” and then comes to Texas, he will get “pretty ugly” treatment. The Federal Reserve issues U.S. currency and is charged by... read more

Townhall... The Growing Bipartisan Consensus on Obama, By Emmett Tyrrell
8/19/2011 - Washington: Who on Aug. 18, 2010 -- almost one year ago -- said, “I now think it is clear even to official Washington that President Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed”? Yes, it was I. And I threw the entire weight of The American Spectator behind that asseveration, putting both Jimmy and Barry on the cover. Now, of course, others are... read more

Townhall Finance... Bernanke’s Manslaughter of US Economy, By Bill Tatro
8/19/11 - My, oh my. According to Karl Rove, Rick Perry, has committed the unpardonable sin of calling Bernanke’s actions of printing money treasonous. I thought I was the only one in the public domain that was calling for jail time for crimes committed against the country during the great credit meltdown of 2008. I’m not sure treason is the right word since it connotes “knowingly” taking action against our country. I don’t think Bernanke could be accused of that, however... read more

Cincinnati Enquirer... Our financial prudence compared to other states paying off - By Josh Mandel
August 10, 2011 - While global financial markets are marred by uncertainty, Ohioans’ hard-earned tax dollars are being prudently invested and safeguarded. To highlight the contrast between Ohio’s fiscal management with that of the federal government, look no further than the recent actions of Standard & Poor’s. In analyzing the fiscal management of each, the firm decided last month to upgrade Ohio’s outlook (from “negative” to “stable”), but last week downgraded the federal government’s... read more

Redstate... An Open Letter to Anyone Who Thinks Obama Should Not Go On Vacation
Posted by Erick Erickson - Friday, August 19th - Dear People Who Think Obama Should Not Go On Vacation: Are you out of your ever living mind?!?!?! Have you not seen what destruction on our economy and morale this man has wrought for three years?!?! And you want him to go back to Washington, D.C.? Congress too? You are out of your mind. The correct answer is STAY ON VACATION ALL OF YOU. The stock market tends to do better when Congress is gone... read more

Townhall... Wanted: Ideas That Work, By Suzanne Fields
8/19/2011 - If all politics were truly local, Tim Pawlenty might still be in the race. The former governor of Minnesota made the best offer to Iowans, promising to cook their dinner or mow their lawn. Of course, there was a catch. The winner of the dinner and a freshly clipped lawn had to come up with an example of something specific offered by President Obama to solve the economic mess... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Downsizing the public payroll, By Kevin OBrien
Thursday, August 18, 2011 - Let’s say a group of Americans worked for an employer that was badly overextended. Because of awful management over a period of many years, the employer is having to borrow money just to make payroll. Signs of impending doom don’t get much clearer than that. To make matters worse, the accounts payable book is downright apocalyptic, with fabulous sums owed to creditors and clients. Meanwhile, the popularity of the product line has diminished... read more

Townhall... Obama’s Mideast Mess, By Oliver North
8/19/2011 - Having completed his three-state “Midwest listening tour,” President Barack Obama is now on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. According to his handlers, in between golf outings and cocktail parties, our president also is working on yet another speech on how he will balance our government’s books and put Americans back to work. Those who believe that ought to recall his remarks March 22, five days after U.S. and allied military operations began in Libya: “I said... read more

Redstate... Rick Perry Insensitive to Barack Obama’s Feelings! Posted by Moe Lane
Yeah, it was a trap. Thursday, August 18th - Governor and new Presidential candidate Rick Perry (R, TX), on his priority levels: …if I hurt the president’s feelings, well, with all due respect, I love my country and I love future generations more than I care about his feelings. To give the context: the White House has been taking the opportunity offered by Perry’s entrance to the race to take slaps at the candidate. As Glenn Reynolds noted at the time, this was not a particularly smart strategy... read more

Daily Events... Thursdays with John Hayward: Meaningful Representation
08.18.11 - Everyone knows that “taxation without representation” is bad. It prompted a shower of pamphlets, tea bags, and cannonballs across Colonial America. But why is it bad? The colonists insisted that America should hold seats in the British Parliament, in return for paying taxes to the Crown. They felt that taxes can only be morally and ethically justified if the people who pay them have representation... read more

FoxNews... Why Doesn’t Warren Buffett Just Write the Government a Check? By Cal Thomas
Published August 17, 2011 - Warren Buffett, the multi-billionaire, thinks he doesn’t pay enough taxes. He wants the government to tax him more because he says as a percentage of income he pays less in tax than his secretary. -- Maybe he should give his secretary a raise. There is an Office of Public Debt in the Treasury Department which exists so that people who think the government isn’t already getting enough of their money can pay more. It’s a free country... read more

Redstate... The Food Stamp Party is Stimulating Poverty, Posted by Daniel Horowitz
Wednesday, August 17th - The loss of jobs is only half of the result of the government interventionist equation. The other casualty of an economy driven by taxation, regulation, litigation, subsidization, monetary intervention, and debt is the crippling cost of living for all Americans. [Yes, I was about to say middle class, but we would be wise to eradicate that sort of socialist innuendo from our vernacular.] Earlier today, the latest wholesale inflationary numbers were released. The... read more

FoxNews... Why Journalists Can’t Stop Speaking About ‘Conservatives', By Bernard Goldberg
Published August 17, 2011 - “If you hooked network news reporters and producers to polygraph machines and asked them, ’Do you think you are guilty of liberal bias?’ most would almost certainly answer, ’No.’ And they would pass the polygraph test because they’re not lying. They honestly believe what they’re saying. And that’s the biggest problem of all.” I wrote those words 10 years ago in my first book “Bias,” a behind-the-scenes expose on how and why mainstream journalists... read more

Townhall... Oh, How America Has Changed, By Phyllis Schlafly
8/16/2011 - USA Today published one of its colorful front pages last week detailing how America has not only grown dramatically in population over the last two decades, but has radically changed ethnically, geographically and culturally. The most costly of the many changes is the fact that having children has become increasingly detached from marriage. Illegitimate births for all Americans have risen from... read more

Townhall... America’s Judeo-Christian Roots are Bigger Than Texas, By Susan Brown
8/16/2011 - The hysterical reaction to Republican presidential hopeful Governor Rick Perry’s faith is about as overblown as his home state of Texas is big. Perry is facing a federal lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) - purportedly because Perry prayed publicly for our nation. America is headed south to a place much hotter than Texas, and you would think national figures offering prayers for the... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... Growth through immigration
August 16, 2011 - With Rick Perry jumping into the Republican race for president, the dissection of the “Texas miracle” has begun. The economic truth isn’t as rosy as the governor likes to portray. The state hardly avoided the recession, unemployment around 8 percent. What Northeast Ohioans should note from the Texas experience are the benefits of immigration, an influx of new people providing a spur to growth. For decades, Texas has far outpaced the country in population... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... State of distrust
August 16, 2011 - Ideally, Democrats and Republicans at the Statehouse would have worked together to rework collective bargaining for public employees. The approach would have been thoughtful and balanced, fitting for a law three decades on the books and successful in many ways. That is what has been appealing about recent efforts to avoid a massive collision at the polls in the fall. In June, cooler heads began to search for a compromise, a way to repair the... read more

Conservative Examiner... Sources say smackdown of Obama by Supreme Court may be inevitable
By Anthony Martin - According to sources who watch the inner workings of the federal government, a smackdown of Barack Obama by the U.S. Supreme Court may be inevitable. Ever since Obama assumed the office of President, critics have hammered him on a number of Constitutional issues. Critics have complained that much if not all of Obama’s major initiatives run headlong into Constitutional roadblocks on the power of the federal government... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Create jobs, grow the economy, By U.S. Senator Rob Portman
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 - The recent downgrade of the U.S. credit rating was unprecedented, but, sadly, not unexpected. It was the experts’ confirmation of what most Americans already understand: Government excess fueled by mounting debt is a threat to America’s economic vitality. On the same day as the downgrade, the government released a jobs report that showed the unemployment rate still hovering... read more

Human Events... Is Romney Making an About-Face on Flat Tax?
by Tony Lee and Jarrett Stepman - 08/16/2011 - Tax reform and the flattening of tax rates may become a bigger campaign issue than they currently are as the primary season heats up and after Congress comes back and the “Super Committee” begins deliberations. Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney seems to be aware of where the mood of the electorate is heading, as he seemed more than open to... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Scaling back Senate Bill 5 would be better than a bloody ballot fight: editorial
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board - Saturday, August 13, 2011 - There remains a faint chance that Ohio can avoid a nasty, divisive, expensive war at the ballot box this fall. But doing so will require activists on both sides -- some of them spoiling for a fight -- to do something they have rarely done in the seven months since Senate Bill 5 was introduced: Look for common ground, not battlegrounds. In particular, it will require Gov. John Kasich to back away... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... When the moment is right
August 13, 2011 - Watching Congress struggle to reach agreement on an increase in the debt ceiling, few observers have high hopes for the bipartisan legislative commission with the task of recommending ways to reduce the federal budget deficit by $1.5 trillion during the next decade. Perhaps there is incentive enough for a balanced and gradual approach given the automatic reductions in Medicare and defense spending if agreement cannot be reached... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... The mark of a tired nation, By Michael Gerson, Washington Post
Friday, August 12, 2011 - ORLANDO, Fla. -- It is strange to contemplate the end of the world from The Happiest Place on Earth. Wall Street may be littered with broken dreams, the streets of London may be in flames, but the streets of Walt Disney World are clean, flower-decked and relentlessly cheerful. The dollar is weak, the nation’s credit questioned, but the state of the Disney brand is strong. Yet somehow it doesn’t seem sufficient -- except at the White House -- to whistle... read more

Human Events... After America, the World Gets Expensive, Deadly, and Hilarious
by John Hayward - Mark Steyn tours the edge of ruin, and has a few laughs along the way. 08/16/2011 - Mark Steyn’s new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, is both spiritually and chronologically a direct sequel to his landmark America Alone. If you liked the earlier work, you’ll love this one. It’s bigger, stronger, scarier, and funnier. If America Alone was Steyn’s Star Wars, this is... read more

The Shape of the GOP Race, By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Published on DickMorris.com - August 15, 2011 - The key question going forward is how to arrange the semi-finals and the seeding of the contest. There are three possibilities, all involving Rick Perry. Is the Texas governor a Tea Party/Evangelical candidate competing with Bachmann? Or is he a Party Establishment/Job Creating candidate competing with Romney? Or is a... read more

Columbus Dispatch... Good choice, hard job
Sunday August 14, 2011 - Portman an excellent pick for debt panel, but success won’t be easy - Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s appointment to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — the ‘ supercommittee’ created by Congress as part of its recent debt-ceiling deal — is a smart move by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a hopeful sign for a nation that desperately needs competent leadership. Portman, elected to the Senate in November, has an impressive... read more

Remap Ohio districts your way, By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
Saturday, August 13, 2011 - A constructive and creative initiative co- sponsored by Secretary of State Jon Husted, Ohio’s chief election officer, may or may not reform the way Ohio draws General Assembly and congressional districts. But the initiative will, at the very least, heighten voters’ awareness of what up to now has been an insiders’ game in Columbus. Every 10 years, Ohio is required to change legislative and congressional districts to match population shifts. This is one of... read more

Columbus Dispatch... SB5 vote could hurt GOP, or not
Sunday August 14, 2011 - Imagine a ship in a bottle, crafted, surgeon-like, by steady-handed Republicans with lots of patience: Think Ohio House Speaker William G. Batchelder, a Medina Republican, the rest of the conservative circle around Republican Gov. John Kasich, and the Ohio Senate’s Republicans. Then imagine a baseball bat, held by Democrats and many independents, poised to smash the Republicans’ handiwork into smithereens. That’s the peril Republicans face going... read more

Townhall... Iowa Straw Poll, By Rich Galen
8/15/2011 - It’s all about expectations. In the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames on Saturday, the expectation was that the number of Iowans who got on a bus, or into their cars and drove to Ames to participate would be about the same number as four years ago. Some 13,000 Republican Hawkeyes voted in 2007. Over 16,800 people showed up today (which was not expected) and 4,823 of them (28.6%) voted for Michelle... read more

Townhall Finance... Paying for Government Now Takes a Record 224 Days, By Bob Beauprez
8/16/11 - Americans for Tax Reform publishes s a “Cost of Government Day” report every year, which calculates how long the average American must work to pay for the full costs of government spending and regulation. The 2011 version just came out and it isn’t encouraging. Here’s the bad news: The 2011 Cost of Government Day fell on August 12 – last Friday – meaning Americans labored a full 224 days into... read more

Toledo Blade... Deserved tribute
African-Americans have fought in all of America’s wars. The first casualty of the Revolutionary War was a black man. The tales of the black regiments that fought and died for the Union during the Civil War are well documented. The Buffalo Soldiers of the closing years of the 19th century are justifiably legendary. Even with such an honorable history, the conventional wisdom among American military brass during World War II was that blacks didn’t have the will, fighting spirit, or intellectual... read more

Talking Points... The Next Labor Vs. GOP Fight: Ohio, By Eric Kleefeld
August 12, 2011 - Following Democrats’ and organized labor’s near-miss in the Wisconsin state Senate recalls, in which they fell just short of picking up the magic number of seats that would have flipped control of the chamber, the political world will now turn to a new battle: Ohio. The Wisconsin fight was triggered due to newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union legislation, which eliminated most collective bargaining rights that unions had previously enjoyed... read more

Columbus Dispatch... Underachievement
Debt-ceiling debacle and credit downgrade underline Obama’s weaknesses - Friday August 12, 2011 - On Friday Oct. 9, 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Prize. Less than two years later, on Friday, Aug. 5, he presided over the first downgrade of the creditworthiness of the United States in a century. This resulted in a stomach-churning plunge in the New York Stock Exchange that sent shocks through the global economy. The trend line between these two points... read more

Townhall... I Like Big Trucks And I Cannot Lie, By Katie Kieffer
8/15/2011 - So, fellas! So, ladies! Do you want cheap gas and big, safe rides? Then, drill. Drill. Drill a healthy life. No, I’m not Sir Mix-A-Lot. I simply think we should responsibly utilize our natural resources to improve the security and prosperity of all Americans. Think about the last time you moved, went camping or took your boat to the lake. Did you wish you drove a Smart car? Or, did you wish your ride were... read more

Townhall... The End of the World Is Not Nigh, By Tony Blankley
8/10/2011 - Except according to the Lord’s plans -- which are not known to man -- the “end of the world” is not nigh, although to listen to politicians and pundits, we should be packed and ready to go by next Thursday. Recently, the headlines have read like Woody Allen’s 1979 “My Speech to the Graduates”: “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter... read more

Townhall... What Will the 2012 Election Look Like? By Salena Zito
8/14/2011 - Democrats were remarkably unprepared for the discontent that dislodged them from running the U.S. House last year, a sentiment that began in the summer of 2009. Pete Sessions, the Texas congressman charged with retaining today’s Republican majority, says he will not repeat that mistake. “I am listening to people,” he said, bursting into an empty boardroom as if he’d rather be walking onto a football field to go over plays with his team... read more

Townhall... Can’t We All Just Not Get Along
By Derek Hunter - 8/14/2011 - Yesterday was the Ames Straw Poll, the winner of which was not determined by the time this was submitted, but that doesn’t matter since I’ve already written about how I think it’s a waste of time. But what wasn’t a waste of time are debates...as long as they aren’t hosted by CNN...and we had one on Thursday. I’ve avoided commenting on the Republican candidates to this point, mostly because I suspect a lot people are like me and haven’t... read more

Reason... Two Types of Crazy, By Peter Suderman
August 10, 2011 - The downgrade of America’s credit rating reveals the nation’s long-term fiscal insanity. Creditors don’t like risk. And when a nation acts a little crazy, creditors—and the credit rating agencies that decide which sovereigns are risk-free borrowers—are bound to notice. That’s what happened last week, when credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s credit rating from its risk-free AAA status. S&P’s downgrade notice observed two types... read more

Townhall... There Is Just No Satisfying Liberals, By David Limbaugh
8/12/2011 - What is 2011 if not a dramatic global outworking of the abysmal failures of liberalism? Their failures are everywhere, but liberals are no closer to abandoning their political theology than they were, say, five years ago. Every marginally intelligent person must know that events unfolding in Britain are a likely foreshadowing of what’s in store for us if we don’t radically alter our ways. Unchastened and... read more

Townhall... Ingratitude, Insolence and Entitlement -- Brought to You by the Welfare State
By Linda Chavez - 8/12/2011 - The riots that have wracked England in the last week should be a sober warning to the United States: This is what happens when a country breeds a generation of welfare dependents who are happy to bite the hand that feeds them. For days, roaming gangs of young people have engaged in looting, setting fires, intimidating citizens, even killing innocents. Speaking to a special... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... House Speaker John Boehner is rewarded with stock market plunge
By Dale McFeatters - Thursday, August 11, 2011 - Scripps Howard News Service - The evening after his House passed a debt-ceiling bill that was all spending cuts and no revenue increases, Speaker John Boehner took a victory lap. “When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I’m pretty happy,” he said. Other Republican lawmakers boasted that they had seized control of fiscal policy... read more

Townhall Finance... Hey Libs, Face Facts: Obama’s a Bad President, By John Ransom
8/12/11 - I’ve gotten a chuckle out of the liberal civility war that’s been going on since the debt deal was signed and S&P downgraded U.S. credit ratings. The Bolsheviks are trading salvos with the Mensheviks and hunkering down for the long war. On the one hand you’ve had some liberals who feel that Obama just “appears” weak; on the other you have some progressives who think that Obama’s been done in by a message problem and lack of conviction more than anything else... read more

Townhall... The Spurned Millionaire’s Vendetta, By Jeff Jacoby
8/11/2011 - JOHN P. WALSH learned five years ago that some people don’t especially care for him. He still hasn’t gotten over that discovery. Maybe it’s himself he needs to get over. The revelation that we aren’t everyone’s cup of tea is something most of us manage to figure out by the time we get through kindergarten. But Walsh, a self-made millionaire and chief executive of the Elizabeth Grady skin-care salon chain, apparently didn’t realize it until 2006, when he tried to buy... read more

Redstate... Government Motors Spends Your Money, Posted by Ben Howe
Wednesday, August 10th - Yes, General Motors. A great example of Obama’s efforts to revitalize our economy. He bravely handed a failing industry billions of dollars of other people’s money and then planted political friends in high positions while paying off the unions with shares of the company. As recently as May of this year, people like Jen Psaki, White House Deputy Communications... read more

Townhall... A Pyrrhic ‘Victory’ By Thomas Sowell
8/10/2011 - In Don Marquis’ classic satirical book, “Archy and Mehitabel,” Mehitabel the alley cat asks plaintively, “What have I done to deserve all these kittens?” That seems to be the pained reaction of the Obama administration to the financial woes that led to the downgrading of America’s credit rating, for the first time in history. There are people who see no connection between what they have done... read more

Redstate... The Horserace for August 12, 2011, Posted by Erick Erickson
Friday, August 12th - IA Caucus: Feb. 6, 2012 - NH Primary: Feb. 7, 2012 - NV Caucus: Feb. 18, 2012 - SC Primary: Feb. 28, 2012 - Last night in Iowa, the Republicans debated. It was like the Island of Misfit Toys. Mitt Romney won the debate if only because Ames is apparently not big enough for two Minnesotans. The barbs between Bachmann and Pawlenty did them no favors. Ron Paul embarrassed himself without even knowing it. The debate was a spectacle to behold... read more

Redstate... You Know The Left Truly Fears a GOP Candidate When… Posted by Repair_Man_Jack
Thursday, August 11th - Some on the Left have begun to fear Texas Governor Rick Perry. He has increasingly dropped not-so-subtle hints about a run for the White House. This has caused the usual and predictable sources to start unloading the smears. The second a leftist fears a Conservative politician; they immediately whip out either the race card or the class warfare card. Texas Governor Rick Perry doesn’t have that air of being born to the manor. Thus, to smear... read more

Redstate... GOP Picks for Super Duper Committee Won’t Make a Difference, Posted by Daniel Horowitz
Wednesday, August 10th - Forget about the tax issue; what happened to the spending cuts? Well, the much anticipated picks for the debt deal Super Committee have been announced. There will be much ink spilled over who was chosen and who was rejected. However, the salient point is not the orientation of the committee, but the entire premise behind the committee itself. Many conservatives will laud the choice of Pat Toomey for the committee; others will decry the pick... read more

Townhall... The Death of a Principled Moderate, By Cal Thomas
8/11/2011 - Mark Hatfield, 89, who died last weekend in his native Oregon, was the first Christian politician I recall meeting in Washington, which is to say he did more than keep a Bible on his desk. He sought to keep its words and teachings and its main “Character” in his heart. When we first met in the early ‘70s I was in the middle of my own “faith journey,” trying to sort out what Scripture teaches about this world and... read more

Townhall... Remembering the Shame, By Suzanne Fields
8/12/2011 - We’re all children of our histories. Some of us become victims, others reactors and rebels. Some of us just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Commemorations, celebrations and memorials become important, documenting what is, what was and what might have been. Germany commemorates the 50th anniversary of the building of the Berlin Wall this week. That wall wasn’t... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... Downgrade nation
August 8, 2011 - Standard & Poor’s long warned that it would downgrade the country’s credit rating if the White House and Congress did not deliver a substantial package for reducing federal deficits during the next decade. The rating agency talked favorably about a package in the vicinity of $4 trillion. In the end, Washington agreed to roughly $2 trillion as part of increasing the debt ceiling. Thus, on Friday, Standard & Poor’s stuck to its word, lowering the rating — for the first time ever — from... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Politics drove U.S. downgrade, By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
Tuesday, August 09, 2011 - Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the credit rating of the U.S. government was based, for better or for worse, on political considerations. That became clear almost immediately Friday night, when it was reported that, even after Treasury officials pointed out a $2 trillion mistake in S&P’s calculations, the ratings agency simply rewrote its rationale to emphasize political, rather than economic, underpinnings for the move. In a statement explaining... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Congress has a strange definition of ‘functional government’
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board - Saturday, August 06, 2011 - When it was all over and he had helped broker a deal that allowed the United States to pay its bills on time, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the critics were wrong. “It may have been messy. It might have appeared to some like their government wasn’t working,” the Kentucky Republican told The Washington Post. “But, in fact, the opposite was true.” His Democratic counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid, was... read more

Townhall... Ignorance, Stupidity or Connivance? By Walter E. Williams
8/10/2011 - President Barack Obama has called for a luxury tax on corporate jets as a means to generate revenue to fight federal deficits. The president’s economic advisers ought to be fired for not telling him that doing so is unwise and counterproductive. They might have already told him so, only to have the president say, “Look, I know you’re right, but I’m exploiting the public’s envy of the rich!” Let’s... read more

Human Events… Wisconsin GOP ‘Darling’ Deals Democrats a Blow, by John Gizzi
08/10/2011 - Few—if any—observers in or out of Wisconsin expected the nationally watched recall elections for six state senate seats to turn out the way they did last night. With more than $28 million nationwide flowing into the Badger State, and the Republicans’ 19-to-14-seat majority in jeopardy, three of the six GOP senators held onto their seats against hard-hitting Democratic challengers, and did so with... read more

Columbus Dispatch... If Congress does nothing, that might be a pretty good start
Monday August 8, 2011 - There are two deadlines that Congress faces in the next year and a half, and both will affect every American. The first is Nov. 23. On that day, a bipartisan 12-member congressional panel must unveil a plan to reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion during the next decade. If the committee fails to produce an agreement, then a series of automatic spending cuts go into effect in 2013, evenly divided between domestic and national security programs... read more

Akron Beacon Journal... Free of bias
August 6, 2011 - Jon Husted wants to make sure that when voters consider Issue 3 on the statewide ballot in November, they see a title that is fair and not loaded with political freight. And well he should. The Ohio secretary of state and chairman of the state’s ballot board has final say on the wording of the titles of ballot issues. He has to finalize the title by the end of the month. Issue 3 proposes an amendment to the state constitution. If a majority of voters approve it, the amendment... read more

Columbus Dispatch... Meet in the middle
Ohio should avoid political warfare, seek compromise on collective bargaining - Sunday August 7, 2011 - Ohio is about to tear itself apart. No matter which side wins the impending war over State Issue 2, the state will suffer deep and long-lasting wounds that will threaten its already fragile economy. At a minimum, labor-management relations will be set back years. The referendum to keep or reject Ohio Senate Bill 5, the collective-bargaining-reform effort, will become a historic study... read more

Townhall... A Government That Kills, By John Stossel
8/10/2011 - President Obama has declared that auto companies’ fleets must average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, almost double the current 27.5. Standing at his side when he made the announcement were executives from the Big Three automakers. The New York Times reported: “It is an extraordinary shift in the relationship between the companies and Washington. But a lot has happened in the last... read more

Townhall... Mr. Green Jobs Boondoggle Rides Again, By Michelle Malkin
8/10/2011 - Van Jones, President Obama’s disgraced green jobs czar, is back with a radical progressive plan to rescue America ... from his old boss. The problem, posits Jones, is that his fellow community organizer in the White House hasn’t spent enough, regulated enough or taxed enough to achieve their perverse version of the “American Dream.” What the country needs to “get the economy back on track... read more

Investors.com... Brokest Nation In History On Edge Of Armageddon, By Mark Steyn
Posted 08/05/2011 - On Thursday, in honor of Barack Obama’s 50th birthday, the Dow dropped 10 points for every year he has walked among us. It was the ninth-largest drop in history. We should be relieved he wasn’t turning 80. The markets are apparently concerned that the entire global economy might be “stalling.” You don’t say? Observant fellows, these market chappies. And yet, in a certain sense, these are still the good times. At the end of the week, U.S. Treasury yields... read more

Cleveland Plain Dealer... Kasich goes looking for extra trouble, By Brent Larkin
Saturday, August 06, 2011 - Columbus -- This should be the best of times for Ohio Republicans. In the wake of last year’s election sweep, they own every statewide office. That same election gave them control of the Ohio House. They’ve run the Ohio Senate for more than 26 years and look to be in charge for at least a couple more decades. And they’ve had numerical -- though not always philosophical -- control of the Ohio Supreme Court since 1987. So the appearance is unmistakable... read more

Columbus Dispatch... Merger math
Expert panel would help determine if Ohio has too many school districts - Monday August 8, 2011 - Setting up an expert commission to determine whether Ohio has too many school districts would be a great help, especially as the state budget has fewer dollars for local governments, demanding greater efficiency and partnerships. Gov. John Kasich has asked the legislature to create a commission to explore consolidating the state’s 614 school districts, spread out... read more

Townhall... Who’s Really Downgrading America? By Pat Buchanan
8/9/2011 - The decision by Standard & Poor’s to strip the United States of its AAA credit rating, for the first time, has triggered a barrage of catcalls against the umpire from the press box and Obamaites. S&P, we are reminded, was giving A ratings to banks like Lehman Brothers, whose books were stuffed with suspect subprime paper, right up to the day Lehman Brothers fell over dead... read more

Townhall... Spending Is Just Our Second-Biggest Problem, By David Limbaugh
8/9/2011 - Being a disciple of Saul Alinsky might not be so easy as it would appear. President Obama and his minions obviously can’t decide whom to scapegoat for the nation’s credit downgrade and our financial crisis.
One thing is for sure: It’s not in Barack Obama to accept personal responsibility for the consequences of his actions and policies. He still won’t own this economy and the exploding... read more

Townhall... American Resources For American Jobs, Revenue and Prosperity, By Paul Driessen
8/6/2011 - A frequent refrain during budget and debt ceiling debates is that we need revenue enhancement: higher tax rates, reduced deductions, eliminated credits. But doing this, especially amid today’s massively expanding regulations, will kill more jobs and further reduce government revenues. There is a better way. Huge revenue sources are literally under our noses, or more precisely our feet... read more

Reason... MSNBC’s O’Donnell Weighs in on Matt Damon, Teacher Comp. & Reason’s Politics
At Least He Gets His Own Name Right. By Nick Gillespie - August 3, 2011 - Reason.tv’s video featuring Matt Damon from Saturday’s “Save Our Schools” rally is making the rounds. In the vid, Matt Damon tees off on the “shitty” salaries that teachers make and argues that teachers do what they do out of love, so that structural arrangement such as early-and-easy-to-get tenure have no impact on what sort of job educators may do in the classroom... read more

Truthout... Why S.& P. Has No Business Downgrading the US, by Robert Reich
Sunday 7 August 2011 - Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s debt couldn’t come at a worse time. The result is likely to be higher borrowing costs for the government at all levels, and higher interest on your variable-rate mortgage, your auto loan, your credit card loans, and every other penny you borrow. Why did S&P do it? Not because America failed to pay its creditors on time. As you may have noticed, we avoided a default... read more

Townhall... Obamanomics: The Gift that Keeps on Giving, By Michael Reagan
8/7/2011 - Like everybody else, presidents have birthdays and have a right to celebrate them and invite others to join them in the festivities. But taking advantage of the occasion to bash the rich and then charge some of them a whopping $40,000 to be able to sit near him as he observes his birthday is nothing short of outrageous. The only thing President Obama excels in is fundraising -- after all, when a president... read more

B-b-b-but it’s HIS fault - Verities & Balderdash, By Bob Robinson
More and more Americans are finally giving Pres. Obama credit for the state of today’s economy, despite continued efforts to explain to us how it was inherited “from the previous administration.” Some of the media excepted, of course. I’ve had to bite my tongue dozens of times in favor of doing my own research and writing a column about “HIS fault” but have been unable to find the time... the following... read more

Reason: The Daily.Com... Op-Ed: Fiscal hawks beat war hawks, By Shikha Dalmia
Thursday, August 4, 2011 - Debt deal finally hacks away at GOP sacred cow: Defense budget - Post-9/11, the neocon wing of the Republican Party had made it seem positively gauche to think about money when it came to financing wars. But even though the debt-ceiling deal hammered out this week won’t do nothin’ to cure Washington’s fiscal incontinence, it might just do something for the GOP’s foreign policy incontinence by putting the question of defense spending center stage... read more

Townhall... It’s Only Money, By Bill O’Reilly
8/6/2011 - Judging by the low TV news ratings, most Americans were out fishing or watching “Pawn Stars” when the debt debacle debate was taking place in Washington, and I can’t blame them. It was truly pinheads on parade, with propaganda and craziness all over the place. A new Rasmussen poll says that just 22 percent of likely voters approve of the deal, while 53 percent disapprove. A substantial 26 percent of the voters simply don’t know what to think. Another survey, this one... read more

The American Thinker... We The Stupid, By Ann Barnhardt
August 2, 2011 - I stand here in abject stupefaction. The so-called “right” or “Tea Party” in this republic is being so thoroughly rolled and defeated that I am struggling to come up with an adequate violent submission metaphor that does not involve prison rape . . . and they honesty think that they’re “winning.” Really? You call this winning? - Obama gets over $2 Trillion to spend before the 2012 election - There are no real spending cuts - There is a massive tax increase effective January... read more

Townhall... Where Have All the Liberals Gone? By John C. Goodman
8/6/2011 - What happens when people who completely dominate the conversation have nothing to say? What happens when the people who talk the most and are listened to the most about our nation’s most serious problems do not have a plausible solution to any of them? What I think happens is the current state of affairs. Let me explain. Sometime in the mid-1970s, near the end of the Vietnam War... read more

Foxnews.com… Matt Damon’s Silly Teacher Rant, By Michelle Malkin
Published August 05, 2011 - Actor Matt Damon is a walking public-service reminder to immunize your children early and often against La-La Land disease. In Damon’s world, all public-school teachers are selfless angels. Government workers and Hollywood entertainers are impervious to economic incentives. Anyone who disagrees is a know-nothing, “corporate reformer” ingrate who hates education... read more

Townhall... The Regulatory Recession, By Fred Smith
8/6/2011 - The debt ceiling negotiations and debates over government spending have transfixed the nation for the last few weeks. President Obama’s call for a “clean” debt limit increase—one without spending reductions attached—was bound to fail from the beginning, as many House Republicans were elected on promises to bring the growth of government under control. To Democrats’ chagrin, opposition to greater government spending was a winning issue in 2010... read more

Townhall Finance... Fools and the Market Are Soon Parted, By Mike Shedlock
8/6/11 - Wall Street is unwavering in its outlook that the S&P will hit 1400 this year. That is nearly a 17% rally from here. Please consider Strategists Sticking With 17% S&P 500 Rally by Year-End on Rising Profit - Wall Street has never been more sure that the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will rally in 2011, even after speculation the U.S. economy is heading for a recession prompted the biggest plunge since the bull market began. Chief strategists at 13 banks from Barclays... read more

Townhall... Obama’s Only Policy, By Caroline Glick
8/5/2011 - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has explained repeatedly over the years that Israel has no Palestinian partner to negotiate with. So news reports this week that Netanyahu agreed that the 1949 armistice lines, (commonly misrepresented as the 1967 borders), will be mentioned in terms of reference for future negotiations with the Palestinian Authority seemed to come out of nowhere. Israel has no one to negotiate with because the Palestinians reject Israel’s right... read more

Townhall... Time for a Red Tape Rescue, By Ed Feulner
8/6/2011 - “The economy isn’t growing as fast as it needs to.” That’s Commerce Secretary Gary Locke addressing the latest report on the country’s economic output. His comment is a model of understatement: gross domestic product grew less than 1 percent in the first half of this year. As Reuters news agency put it, the U.S. economy came “perilously close to flat-lining in the first quarter... read more

Townhall... So, I Guess We’re All Terrorists Now, By Rachel Marsden
8/2/2011 - Lone Nordic nutbar Anders Behring Breivik kills nearly 80 people in a terrorist attack linked to his frustration with growing multiculturalism. Suddenly, media reports around the world are mistakenly calling it an alarming trend and a sign of far-right extremism sweeping Europe. Meanwhile, in America, a 21-year-old U.S. soldier of Muslim Palestinian origin, Naser Abdo, is arrested for planning a... read more

Redstate... The Debt Rises, The Economy Sinks, Posted by Daniel Horowitz
Thursday, August 4th - Not even a debt increase cheered by Wall Street can override the debt-induced economic stagnation. Despite being dispirited by the one-sided nature of the debt ceiling deal, most of us were looking forward to reaping the rewards from its only ancillary benefit; the impending stock market rally. Much to our chagrin, the Dow dropped precipitously, losing over 800 points since the opening bell on Monday. After the initial euphoria from the debt ceiling hangover... read more

Redstate... Lisa Jackson is Using the EPA to Destroy the Coal Industry, Posted by Ben Howe
Thursday, August 4th - I reported recently on EPA rules that ran the risk of causing shut downs of plants in Texas and elsewhere. But that was before the massive heatwave began putting the real strain on them. So much so that they are almost at full capacity. And unfortunately, the EPA is only tightening it’s grip. Via Wall Street Journal: The agency is now tightening nearly every eco-regulation in existence, abusing in particular traditional air pollutant laws to shut down... read more

Townhall... America’s Deepening Immorality, By Armstrong Williams
8/2/2011 - An utterly riveting cable TV show called the “Love Crimes of Kabul” follows the stories of Afghan women who have been imprisoned for breaking strict Sharia law governing sex outside of marriage. Their crimes would be hardly recognizable in the United States: adultery, fornication, prostitution and lewd behavior have become pretty much the norm here. In one fascinating episode, a young... read more

Townhall... Marital Criticism and Pessimism, By Rebecca Hagelin
8/2/2011 - “He’s a good dad to our kids, but was always criticizing me,” Terry complained. “I couldn’t do anything right, in his mind at least. Thirteen years was enough. I figured it would only get worse, so I left.” Like most marriages that end in divorce, Terry’s marriage began happily enough. And it ended not because of a serious transgression like adultery, abuse, or substance use, but because the couple’s... read more

Townhall... Voting My Conscience for an Imperfect Bill, By Renee Ellmers
8/3/2011 - Nothing worthwhile has ever come easy. I have often reflected on these words throughout my life as a wife, mother, and a nurse for over 21 years. Yesterday, as I stood on the House floor, I took a deep breath and cast my vote for a bill that, while imperfect, will protect our economy and begin bringing accountability back to Washington. This crisis did not begin last week or even a few months ago. The pressure has been growing in the months leading up to this vote... read more

The Left Turns on Obama, By Dick Morris
Published on TheHill.com on August 2, 2011 - The pathetic performance of President Obama in the debt debate is showing the left how incompetent and weak a leader it selected. Many are wishing they had Hillary Clinton in the White House instead! Once the man has to move beyond a set teleprompter speech, he is lost. During the BP disaster, he showed what a poor administrator he is. And now he has belied any pretensions to legislative skill. He is the un-Lyndon Johnson... read more

A lesson from Iowa: the three questions Washington must ask, by Newt Gingrich
I was struck by two conversations I had in Iowa on Saturday. At the Mitchell County Fair a farmer told me about the dramatic increase in corn production per acre over the past few decades. In his lifetime science has increased the yield from 73 bushels per acre in 1970 to 162 bushels per acre in 2009. The same day, a county commissioner in Decorah, Winneshiek County told me the sheer weight of the corn harvests have been beating up the roads and bridges. He was faced with... read more

Townhall... Cruel Laws, By Walter E. Williams
8/3/2011 - What does it take to be able to own and operate a taxi and earn $30,000, $40,000 or more a year? You need to purchase a used car and liability insurance. Compared with other businesses, the startup cost to become a taxi owner/operator is modest; that’s until you have to come up with money for a license. In May 2010, the price of a license, called a medallion, to own one taxi in New... read more

Daily Events... Pipeline Clogged In Senate Recess
Wednesdays with Audrey Hudson - 8-3-11 - The Democrat-controlled Senate fled the Beltway Tuesday night for a five-week summer vacation without taking action on a number of bills sent over from the House including a measure to expedite the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline. The 36-inch pipeline would stretch more than 1,600 miles from Alberta, Canada through several states and into Nederland, Texas... read more

Redstate... Jonah Goldberg is tired of the vicious hypocrisy of these people... for that matter, so am I.
Posted by Moe Lane - Tuesday, August 2nd - ‘These people’ being the media, and their contemptible willingness to accept a double standard when it comes to violent rhetoric. After screaming for so long about every possible hint of a suggestion of a possibility of violent speech from the Right, it’s amazing what will be forgiven when it comes from the Left: Tom Friedman — who knows a bit about Hezbollah — calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent... read more

Townhall... Obama Is Out of Options, By Jonah Goldberg
8/3/2011 - After Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency changed. As he put it in 1943, “Dr. New Deal” had to be replaced by “Dr. Win the War.” It was a colossal policy switch, but it wasn’t an extreme makeover politically. He was still the same FDR, and the public understood the need for change. And it saved his presidency. As President Obama’s former economic advisor, Larry Summers, said recently, “Never forget ... that if Hitler had not come along, Franklin Roosevelt... read more

Redstate... Reflections on the Deficit Deal, Posted by streiff
Tuesday, August 2nd - I don’t make claims to prescience and have no idea what the final product of the current debt ceiling negotiations will produce. I’m guessing it will not be as good as the boosters claim and not as bad as the partisans on both sides suggest. Make no mistake about it, the debate and deal were of historic import. This is the first time that an increase in the debt ceiling has ever been seriously debated. It would be a mistake, I think, to be discouraged over... read more

Townhall... Balancing the Budget, By John Stossel
8/3/2011 - The political class predicted “disaster” if Congress didn’t raise its debt limit. I think that was a scam to get more money. See, the poor politicians don’t have enough, and they need to borrow more. We taxpayers are cheap. This year we’ll give them only $2.2 trillion. They want to spend $3.8 trillion. The president said if he didn’t get more money, Social Security checks wouldn’t go out. Why not? With $2 trillion... read more

Townhall... Back to Big Government-Spending as Usual, By Michelle Malkin
8/3/2011 - The American Age of Austerity lasted approximately three minutes, give or take a nanosecond. Immediately after the Senate approved the bipartisan “Budget Control Act of 2011” on Tuesday afternoon, President Obama hustled over to the Rose Garden -- to crow about the renewed opportunity to make “key investments.” Yes, the pitched battle to force government to live within... read more

FoxNews... Tax Hikes ‘Impossible’ Under Debt Deal? Think Again ...
Published August 01, 2011 - But as everyone knows, “impossible” isn’t really in Washington’s vocabulary. Here’s how it could happen: After Congress enacts more than $900 billion in spending cuts to give President Obama a $900 billion lift in the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, a bipartisan committee will be formed to find roughly $1.5 trillion in additional deficit savings over the next decade. To get there, the committee is free to look at virtually anything -- including “revenue... read more

MSN Money... Owe, yes we can, By Bill Fleckenstein
8/1/11 - Fiddling as the debt ceiling falls in - Regular readers know that I loathe all politicians. Almost by definition, anyone who wants the job has a serious character flaw and is basically capable of thinking only about his or her own re-election and power rather than embracing any change that is a long-term positive for the country. Thus, my bilateral disgust is part of what I believe keeps my views from being a political attack on either side... read more

Enforcing the Debt Deal, By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Published on DickMorris.com on August 1, 2011 - If the Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, opt for a deal with the Democrats to aim for big spending cuts, in two phases, but to raise the debt limit so it is out of the way until after the 2012 elections, how do we make Obama agree to cuts? The current discussions focus on triggers which would automatically impose cuts in programs near and dear to both party’s hearts -- Medicare for the Democrats and Defense... read more

Townhall... The Bullied Gene, By Mike Adams
7/29/2011 - Yesterday, when I was arguing with a liberal he told me I was entirely too harsh in my assessment of today’s youth. He told me specifically that I needed to be aware of the fact that in 21st Century America one out of five boys gets bullied in school on a “regular basis.” I don’t know where he got that statistic but it really made me ashamed of my country. We need to do better. When I was a kid back in 20th... read more

Townhall... Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, By Kathryn Lopez
7/30/2011 - Sometimes, the yelling stops long enough to remember that there are real people involved in abortions. And not just the youngest one, who doesn’t get a say in the decision. I read the other day a piece about the “safe and successful” telemedicine abortions, getting “high grades” in Iowa. That’s an abortion where a doctor doesn’t even have to be present. The clinical efficiency with which the... read more

Townhall... When the Plot Is Runny, By Brent Bozell
7/29/2011 - They say the movie theaters make more money on popcorn, candy and soft drinks than they do on the movie tickets. If that’s true, theater owners really ought to reconsider the previews they’re airing. They can make you sick to your stomach. I don’t know why Hollywood moviemakers are so fascinated with flatulence and excrement. It’s become almost an obsession, a formality of sorts in the “humor” oeuvre. Watching a recent preview of the forthcoming movie “The Change-Up... read more

Townhall... More Than Lives Lost In Camp Massacre, By Diana West
7/28/2011 - On Tuesday, I read a New York Times online report about a press conference held by Geir Lippestad, the defense lawyer for admitted Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. I found one of Lippestad’s statements of interest, and saved it for future reference. Little did I know it would apparently disappear from the news website. The statement was: “Asked if the rampage was aimed at the Labor Party or at Muslim immigrants, Mr. Lippestad said: ‘This was an attack... read more

Redstate... The 22 Who Held the Line, Posted by Erick Erickson
Saturday, July 30th - Here are the 22 heros who defied their House leaders and opposed the Boehner plan. Note that the South Carolina delegation comes out on tops. Its two senators, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, also opposed it. It’s something that South Carolina has more testicular fortitude than Texas. Amash (MI), Huelskamp (KS), Jordan (OH)... read more

Verities & Balderdash... Six political tidbits to tickle your funny bone, By Bob Robinson
As the world we’ve grown to know and love begins crashing around us, it behooves us to be positive and optimistic. We are, after all, inheritors of the greatest nation ever to exist on the face of the earth. While we face the challenges of keeping it that way, maybe it’s time to take a brief “time out” and look at the lighter side of things. One of the great things about the American people is their ability to... read more

Redstate... Not Playing the Fool, Posted by Erick Erickson
Monday, August 1st - There are a lot of Republicans tonight willing to play the fool for the GOP in this debt ceiling plan. They say, for example, that there will be no tax increases from this super committee. Never mind that the Democrats are saying otherwise. I can prove to you right now that there will be tax increases. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the Bush tax cuts to expire. So all the... read more

Reason... McDonald’s to Kids: Apple Slices For All, Whether or Not You Want Them
By Katherine Mangu-Ward - July 26, 2011 - McDonald’s nudges kids to eat more fruit, fewer fries after being given a good shove by regulators - Every Happy Meal shall henceforth contain apple slices, according to a decree from McDonald’s HQ today, which boasts that the change is part of “a comprehensive plan [that] aims to help customers—especially families and children—make nutrition-minded choices whether visiting McDonald’s or eating elsewhere.”... read more

Townhall... Big Labor: The Real Hostage Takers, By Brett McMahon
7/30/2011 - It took an amazing amount of gall, guile, or both for a former Ted Kennedy political staffer to decry supposed Tea Party “terrorist tactics” in seeking to rein in the debt drowning our nation. “It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House ‘hostage takers,’” William Yeomans wrote. “But they have now become full-blown terrorists.” Forget, for a moment, the lack of violence—verbal or physical—coming from Tea Partiers, which would constitute terrorism... read more

Reason... Does Your Body Belong to You? By A. Barton Hinkle
July 29, 2011 - Food nannies want the government to control your diet. “Perhaps you’ve noticed the trend among certain people these days,” wrote Neil Genzlinger in The New York Times the other day, “to decide that certain other people are not living acceptable lives and must be reformed.” Yes. There certainly is a lot of that going around. You can see it in the comments from Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus—who says homosexuals are “barbarians” who need to... read more

Human Events... Obama Depression Update: Economy Slows Again, by John Hayward
07/29/2011 - Minimal growth, flat consumer spending. The new Commerce Department report is out today. There was some hope that it might reveal glimmers of growth, but instead, its numbers are all either stagnant or decaying. It’s a mausoleum for the American economy. Economists had been lowering expectations in advance of the report, which led some to speculate they were trying to make a... read more

Dems will win debt debate; Repubs will win election, By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
Published on DickMorris.com on July 30, 2011 - In the parlance of Washington, the Democrats are going to get the upper hand in the final round of the debt debate. Republicans will succeed in making a vast cut in federal spending, unimaginable before the 2010 election and will block any tax increases. Democrats will get an extension of the debt limit until after the election so as to avoid... read more

Townhall... Heretical Thought: The System Is Working, by Paul Greenberg
7/30/2011 - Walking by the bank of television sets out in the old-fashioned, wide-open, sunlit newsroom here in Little Rock, I just had to stop for a minute to see what the panel of distinguished commentators were saying about the latest capital-C Crisis. That's how it is in Teeveeland. No broadcast out of Washington or anywhere else is complete without a Crisis of the day, maybe hour. The talking heads were wearing expressions even more solemn than usual. When I turned up the... read more

Townhall Finance... Satellite Data Blows Hole in Gobal Warming, By Mike Shedlock
7/30/11 - Forbes Magazine reports New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism - NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and... read more

Townhall... Castro Regime Furious with Townhall, By Humberto Fontova
7/29/2011 - “The terms scoundrel and traitor should precede every mention of Humberto Fontova!” raves the Castro regime’s captive (literally!) press. “Fontova’s books and columns are nothing but scandalous libels against our Revolution’s founders, Fidel and Che! Now he has another editorial outlet for his rants and libels against our leaders. Townhall has put him on their payroll of ranters against Obama, where he cuddles close to tacky and scummy blonds and brunettes.” (Ahora... read more

Townhall... The Myth of Bi-Partisan, By Rich Galen
7/29/2011 - While waiting for the debt limit vote … The entire near solar system is begging and pleading for Washington to exercise a concept known as “bipartisanship.” By “bipartisan” they mean, of course “non-partisan” as in “without regard to political party.” The two-party system is mentioned nowhere in the U.S. Constitution, but there is absolutely nothing non-partisan about our form of government... read more

Townhall... The Limit To Foolishness on Television, By Hugh Hewitt
7/29/2011 - The atmosphere in the green room at the Sean Hannity Show was amped up. On ordinary days I will banter with Beckel and talk radio shop with Sean as we both tell Levin stories, a friend of both of ours for years. But Thursday night was tense. Juan Williams and Ann Coulter weren’t yucking it up, but were watching the House maneuvers on Boehner 2.0. Once on set Coulter pushed for passage over... read more

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