From “Born to Run” to “Born in the USA,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town” to “Human Touch,” Bruce Springsteen has brought his brand of rock from the streets of New Jersey to the farms of the heartland, speaking to the American experience as a poet with a six-string. For more than 40 years, he has carried the torch of rock-and-roll to millions of fans, and now he’s headed back on tour, this time with a new song that, believe it or not, speaks to conservative values. Sure, it might seem …
Tonight, Americans who tune in to the State of the Union will watch the work of a rhetorical master with a flair for illusion. President Barack Obama will take to the floor of the Capitol in hopes of laying the groundwork for a political debate on his terms–one where he stands on emotional appeals, populism, and class warfare, not the shaky ground of his crumbling record. And looking right back at him will be the U.S. Senate, which has for the past 1,000 days failed to pass a budget–a total …
Americans are blessed to have inherited a constitutional republic. If we are to keep it, we must vigilantly preserve the Constitution upon which it stands. As 2011 draws to a close, we made a list (and checked it twice!) of the year’s most important constitutional trends. Nice: Congress begins to rediscover its (atrophied) constitutional muscles Congress kicked off the year with unprecedented reverence for the Constitution. Congress began the session with a ceremonial reading of the Constitution on the house floor, and then adopted a new rule that requires any proposed …
Barack Obama ran for President claiming the mantle of Abraham Lincoln. Then he took office and recast himself as the second coming of FDR. He then railed against the “Do Nothing” Congress in his very best Harry Truman impression. Now, in a pilgrimage to the small town of Osawatomie, Kansas, President Obama has given the defining address of his administration and revealed that his heart lies with the old Bull Moose progressive, Theodore Roosevelt. Osawatomie is where Teddy Roosevelt delivered his famous speech in 1910 calling for a “New Nationalism” and …
If there was any doubt where President Barack Obama’s ideological heart lies, yesterday he let it be known loud and clear in a wide-ranging speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. President Obama is at his core a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who sees the federal government as the answer to all of America’s problems. And he is charging full steam ahead on this far-left course toward Election Day 2012, despite the total failure of his big-government policies and an American people who have flatly rejected the message he is trying to sell. True to …
Modern conservatives look to a variety of historical figures for guidance as they confront progressive liberalism. Some are from the 1700’s and 1800’s, including Edmund Burke, the Founders, and Abraham Lincoln. Others, like Russell Kirk, F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ronald Reagan, are from the postwar era. Strangely enough, conservatives rarely turn to the original opponents of progressivism, even though that would seem like the first place to look. And as historian Jonathan O’Neill writes in a new paper, American conservatism was hardly on hiatus during the progressive ascendancy. Opponents …
The 111th Congress, the most unpopular Congress in the recorded history of the United States, ended last week with a flurry of legislative activity that set a record for a lame duck Congress. Some in the media are eager to make the case that last week’s events portend a new era of bipartisan accomplishment, led by the White House, that will extend into the 112th Congress. They are half right. Last week’s events in Washington were a preview of lawmaking in 2011, but Congress was not where the real action …
$154 billion. That is the amount of taxpayer money that will be needed to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac according to a new “stress test” performed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. And that is the good news. If the economy dips into a second recession and foreclosures rise, the Fannie and Freddie bailout could nearly double in size. The agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, released the numbers “to inform public debate about the future of the two companies” ahead of expected Obama administration proposals slated for …
Love him or hate him, Glenn Beck has a point: Progressivism rejects America’s foundational principles. For the past one hundred years, progressive intellectuals and politicians have been desperately trying to sever Americans’ attachment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence—with its emphasis on human equality, natural rights, consent of the governed, and limited government—and instead embrace a more European model of governance. Progressives assert that America has advanced beyond the principles of the Declaration of Independence. All men were not created equal; some peoples are more historically advanced than …
Health Insurers Plan Hikes. That was the headline of a Wall Street Journal story last Tuesday which reported: “Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats’ efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections. Aetna Inc., some BlueCross BlueShield plans and other smaller carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators.” And The Wall …
