Those who remember the Warren Court recall imaginative renderings of the constitution to expand criminal’s rights coupled with outright judicial hostility to police. The result was a national crime wave only recently curbed by new police techniques and more favorable rulings from the Supreme Court. Now that Barack Obama has identified Earl Warren as a model judge, we could face a judicial flashback to the 1970s. Unfortunately, we have a preview of what that might look like from a recent Sixth Circuit case involving a drug arrest in Michigan. The …
China has been rightly criticized for censoring speech on the Internet. It is the one major economy in which the government has denied free speech and free access online. But this could change if the Orwellian-sounding “Minister of Culture” in Britain gets his way. The Minister, Andy Burnham, would like to see at least film-style ratings, and possibly outright censorship, imposed upon the Internet internationally. He is “planning to negotiate with Barack Obama’s incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites.” He is very clear …
Former-Rep. James Bacchus (D-FL) writes in today’s Wall Street Journal: President-elect Barack Obama is rightly focused on preparing a stimulus plan to “jolt” the American economy toward recovery. Yet missing thus far is any mention of international trade as part of his plan. Democratic presidents — Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton — have long been advocates for trade. What about Mr. Obama? … Will Democrats approve the pending free-trade agreement with Panama? American workers and businesses could clearly benefit from their fair share of the contracts for the pending …
Judge for yourself. Meyerson writes today: If Abraham Lincoln were still among the living as he prepared to turn 200 six weeks from now, he might detect in the congressional war over the automaker bailouts a strong echo of the war that defined his presidency. Now as then, the conflict centered on the rival labor systems of North and South. Now as then, the Southerners championed a low-wage, low-benefits system while the North favored a more generous one. And now as then, what sparked the conflict was the North’s fear …
It has been quite a year for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). As the Los Angeles Times documents today, despite the fact 2008 was filled with SEIU corruption, intimidation, and violence, the largest union in North America still managed to spend $85 million electing Democrats across the country and President-elect Barack Obama to the White House. One shudders to think about the influence this multi-billion dollar racket will have at the federal level in the coming year. But before we get to their coming policy priorities, lets review their …
The Bush Administration’s disclosure that the Treasury Department had already transferred $5 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program money to GMAC, and that another $1 billion had been promised to GM directly, represents a significant turning point in US economic policy. TARP has now been used, not just to restore market function as originally advertised, not just to prop up industrial companies contrary to original advertisement, but now to prop up an individual financial company just because it was in trouble and not because its demise posed a greater threat …
Covering the Bush Administration’s latest attempt to save the free-market by abandoning free-market principles, The Washington Post reports: The new loans push the government’s planned investments under the financial rescue beyond the $350 billion that Congress has authorized; in order to make all the investments that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has agreed to, Congress would need to approve a second $350 billion infusion into the so-called Troubled Asset Relief Program. A Treasury official said last night that the government has not committed all of the money in the …
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) first came to power she promised, “the most honest, most open, and most ethical Congress in history.” She has since flagrantly and repeatedly broken this promise. It is part of the reason Congress has record low approval ratings. Now President-elect Barack Obama is also making grand promises to create a more open and transparent government. We hope that, unlike Pelosi, Obama chooses to keep his promise to the American people. But so far the signs are not encouraging. Starting in mid-December Obama’s advisers have huddled …
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Glenn English and Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperative CEO Jackson Reasor write in the Washington Post: In the past five years, utility bills have risen 30 percent, largely because of the rising cost of fuel, mainly coal and natural gas. The country’s leading consumer organizations, including the Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, recently wrote to President-elect Barack Obama, calling on him “to devote as much attention to the affordability of electricity as has been devoted to gasoline.” The U.S. …
Hamas once again has provoked a crisis with Israel to advance its revolutionary agenda by exploiting the misery that its own policies have forced upon the Palestinian people and blaming Israel for everything that has happened. Hamas ended the six-month ceasefire (that it never fully enforced anyway) and resumed its indiscriminate bombardment of Israeli civilians, while its terrorists hid among Palestinian civilians. The sad truth is that Hamas and other Palestinian extremist organizations are more interested in killing Israelis than in protecting the interests of their own people. As long …
