The official who presided over the botched Fast and Furious gunwalking operation has stepped down as acting head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (known as ATF). He will move to another post at ATF, in the bureau’s Office of Legal Policy. Kenneth Melson bucked his superiors at the Justice Department in July by revealing details about the operation to congressional investigators in a closed door meeting with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who have been investigating the operation in their respective roles. …
Alan Krueger, President Obama’s nominee as chair of the White House Council on Economic Advisors, received accolades from liberals yesterday for his stances on a number of major economic issues, including his support for a cap and trade regime, and value added tax, and the Cash for Clunkers program. But few of his contributions to economics are more widely hailed by the left than a single study he published with David Card in 1993 which purported to show that a higher minimum wage does not necessarily lead to greater unemployment, …
A top advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently compared opposition to the administration’s new health care law to opposition to the 1960s civil rights movement, Politico Pro reported: Jay Angoff, special adviser to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, drew parallels between the two contentious efforts during a panel presentation in Baltimore. He said pushback from state governors over implementation of the law mirrors the acrimony held by many state lawmakers decades earlier when they had to adopt the civil rights package. “The states fought the civil rights …
President Obama’s pick as chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisors co-authored a paper that showed that extending unemployment benefits will likely exacerbate joblessness. The paper’s findings run counter to the president’s economic argument for an unemployment benefit extension, which is expected to be a major part of the jobs plan he will unveil early next month. Princeton University economist Alan Krueger, who will replace Austan Goolsbee as the White House’s chief economic advisor, “is likely to provide a voice inside the administration for more-aggressive government action to …
On Friday, the New York Times appended this correction to its front page article on Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA): An article on Aug. 15 about Representative Darrell Issa’s business dealings, using erroneous information that Mr. Issa’s family foundation filed with the Internal Revenue Service, referred incorrectly to his sale of an AIM mutual fund in 2008. A spokesman for the California Republican now says that the I.R.S. filing is “an incorrect document.” The spokesman, Frederick R. Hill, said that based on Mr. Issa’s private brokerage account records, which he made …
Driving the conversation: The east coast of the United States is bracing itself for a pounding from Hurricane Irene, expected to hit on Saturday. North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut have all declared a state of emergency. While the dangers to residents are worrisome, some commentators are wondering whether the economic damage wrought by the hurricane might make for its most devastating impact. Oil prices have already risen on the news that refinery closures could disrupt supply on the east coast. New York Times statistician Nate …
Reports from employers continue to belie President Obama’s repeated insistence that, under his new health care law, Americans would not lose their employer-provided health insurance coverage. A new survey shows that more than one in ten midsized and large employers are at least “somewhat likely” to drop their health coverage once Obamacare’s “exchanges” go into effect in 2014. “Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you,” President Obama said during his Obamacare push. “First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, …
Since Eric Holder took the reins as Attorney General, the Justice Department has hired 15 career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division’s Employment Litigation Section. Every one of them boasts stellar left-wing ideological credentials. All have either associated themselves with prominent Democrats, worked for left-wing legal organizations, or staked out left-wing positions on controversial issues. The complete political uniformity of this section aligns with DOJ’s hiring in four other sections of the Civil Rights Division. The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky has been documenting the left-wing dominance of the division …
Driving the conversation: CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller marked a grim milestone for President Obama in a post on the network’s website last night. “The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion,” Knoller writes. “It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.” Byron York takes on a bit of conservative conventional wisdom on the budget in his Tuesday column. “Spending, not entitlements, created huge deficit”, the headline …
Warren Buffett’s demand last week that the federal government stop “coddling” the country’s wealthiest citizens – meaning that it should take more of their income with even more confiscatory tax policies – has earned him rebukes from a few fellow members of the billionaire club. In today’s Wall Street Journal, former American Express CEO Harvey Golub writes: Governments have an obligation to spend our tax money on programs that work. They fail at this fundamental task. Do we really need dozens of retraining programs with no measure of performance or …
