How Obamacare Undermines Federalism: Part 2
Amity Shlaes has an excellent article in Businessweek dissecting the various ways Obamacare will undermine state experiments with health care reform. This is the classic example of the competitive...
View ArticleCocktails Cops Can't Resist
Beat a raw egg white into a citrusy cocktail and you get a meringue-like effect, frothy and delicious. The resulting beverage—technically classified as a flip or fizz—is irresistible, not only to the...
View ArticleOffshore Drilling Vs. Fuel Efficiency Standards
This week saw two apparently contradictory moves by the Obama Administration. The first was the much criticized (by the environmental community) decision to allow for offshore drilling off the Atlantic...
View ArticleThe Growth Managed Death of Oregon's Pear Farms
Oregon became a nationwide leader in statewide growth management when it passed its law in 1973 to protect farmland and open space. It turns out, an unintended side effect is the undermining of the...
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Long-Term Jobless Woes
From the weekend WSJ:It's especially distressing to see that the number of long-term jobless—those out of work for 27 weeks or more—jumped again to 6.55 million, and as a share of the total jobless hit...
View ArticleObama's "Unilateral Disarmament" is Neither
When Republicans and Democrats agree on a factual matter, it is for one of two reasons. Sometimes it's because a certain fact is true. And sometimes it's because both sides hope to gain from promoting...
View ArticleThe FCC Doesn't Need to Be
As exercises in bureaucratic hairsplitting go, it is tough to beat the sheer audacity of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski's recent declaration, "I've been clear repeatedly...
View ArticleThe NoVa Police Blackout
Last November along the roadside of Richmond Highway, a major thoroughfare in Fairfax County, Virginia, a police officer shot and killed David Masters, an unarmed motorist, as he sat in the driver's...
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Does Bus Transit Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
The American Public Transit Association claims that public transit saves an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of gas annually, which translates into about 14 million tons of CO2. Time’s Global Warming...
View ArticleA Theory of Recovery: Exports or Flying Cars
The Economist has an interesting vision of economic recovery, one that has them really bullish on the future of the market. Basically they posit that that "a 'rebalancing' is under way: from...
View ArticleTraditional Schools Aren't Working. Let's Move Learning Online.
Deep within America's collective consciousness, there is a little red schoolhouse. Inside, obedient children sit in rows, eagerly absorbing lessons as a kind, wise teacher writes on the blackboard....
View ArticleThe 9/14 Presidency
If you believe the president’s Republican critics, Barack Obama takes a law enforcement approach to terrorism. His FBI came under fire for reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian national who...
View ArticleRed Ink and Green Jobs
In 2006, when California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a mandate for dramatic reduction of greenhouse gasses into law, the state's economy was in a very different place. Unemployment was 4.5...
View ArticleUp from Slavery
For many libertarians, "the road to serfdom" is not just the title of a great book but also the window through which they see the world. We’re losing our freedom, year after year, they think. They (we)...
View ArticleThe FCC Loses Another One
The Federal Communications Commission keeps grabbing and the judges keep slapping its hands.The big news today is that a federal appeals court has ruled the FCC has no legal authority to regulate the...
View ArticleCutting Costs for State's Prisons
Orange County Register We all know California is swimming in red ink and facing chronic budget troubles. The state deficit is at least $20 billion â?? again. Debt levels and overwhelming pension...
View ArticleDon't Let President Obama Get Near Immigration Reform
Anyone who has had to deal with America's immigration system knows what a crazy, confusing and, at times, cruel mess it is. It seems to operate on the assumption that it is its patriotic duty to harass...
View ArticleSmoke a Joint, Lose Your Country
Under U.S. law, a legal resident who commits an "aggravated felony" is automatically deported. But a crime need not be aggravated or a felony to qualify: As several groups that defend immigrants'...
View ArticleLast Chance for School Reform
American public school teachers don’t get fired. They just don’t. In New York City, hundreds of teachers spend all day in “rubber rooms” because they’re deemed too dangerous or stupid to supervise...
View ArticleHealth Care's History of Fiscal Folly
The Affordable Care Act—otherwise known as ObamaCare—isn't the first attempt to expand health insurance coverage in America. Before Washington passed its law, a number of states took smaller-scale...
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