Articles Posted by Mark Landsbaum
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What makes this headline even more delicious is that the story is from President Barack Obama’s hometown. No not from Hawaii. Not even Kenyan. It’s from Chicago.\ As the sub-head explains: What Chicago would be like with the contraceptive mandate—and without Catholic Charities...
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Many Republicans decry the president's Affordable Care Act, but many of them like parts of the law. And don't forget that the GOP enacted its own huge medical entitlement under George W. Bush. ...
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Last we checked, about half of Americans don’t pay income tax. Is it surprising then that so many Americans want to receive benefits paid for by income taxes? When a benefit is offered at little or no cost to the one receiving it, how many people have the strength of character to turn it down on principle? Yes, we know, some people are flummoxed by the mere raising of “principle” as a basis for turning down something of value provided at little or no cost to them. What principle might that be? Might we suggest independence? As opposed to dependence...
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Left-leaning politicians and earth-saving environmental zealots have touted the “new economy” and its new “green jobs” as the solution to what ails us. So, what exactly is a “green job?” As you will see, the Big Government has defined “green jobs” in such a way that nearly everything can be considered a “green job,” which means no matter what happens, the Big Government can claim success. Virtually any new job is essentially a “green job.” Why? Because Big Government says so...
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If the high-speed train we call the Moonbeam Express will cost anywhere from $68 billion to $117 billion, we wonder how much this one would cost: “Engineers in the U.S. and elsewhere are working on the technology for trains that could shoot through airless tunnels at speeds up to 4,000 miles per hour, the BBC reports. The transporters, which remain at least a decade away, could eventually cut travel time between New York and Beijing to about two hours,” according to the New York Daily News. Actually, at only a decade away, it’s closer than the one floundering today in...
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Democrats say they can replace more than $1 billion in Gov. Jerry Brown’s cuts to programs for the poor. All they have to do is spend some of the state’s reserve and make a few accounting changes. Doesn’t this sound eerily familiar? California state government has taxed and spent itself into successive budget deficits and then covered over the mess by snatching money from one pot to spill into another. This latest fix sounds like more of the same. And what could go wrong? ...
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George Bernard Shaw, a Fabian Society socialist, knew the flaw of his own people: “A socialist is somebody who doesn’t have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.” Shaw said, before his death in 1950. Some folks, including this blogger, have accused President Barack Obama, of, shall we say, harboring socialist tendencies...
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A Green Bay Wisconsin television reporter asked President Barack Obama why he didn’t help out the unions in the Wisconsin recall. ABC News reported that Obama didn’t visit the state because, the president said, “the truth of the matter is that as President of the United States, I have a lot of responsibilities.” So, what kept the president so busy . . .
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The California High-Speed Rail project is absurd on the face of it, which gives reasonable people reason to wonder – “What in the world are they thinking?” Gov. Jerry Brown says . . .
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he Legislature has less than a work week to approve a “balanced” budget or get their pay docked. Never before has there been such incentive for these folks, who certainly hold their own interests above the interests of anyone else. But in the haggling over what to cut and what to spend, consider this: . . .
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The standing argument of the Barack Obama supporters since his entry into national politics has been that the guy is so good, only a bigot could oppose his election. So when (if?) Obama is defeated in November, what will the Obama defenders and loyalists say? “If Barack Obama loses re-election, he can blame bigoted white voters,” James Taranto writes at the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web. But . . .
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The problem in speaking without a teleprompter is that sometimes you say what you really believe. As the Heritage Foundation’s Amy Payne puts it “In now-infamous comments on Friday, President Barack Obama informed America that ‘the private sector is doing fine.’ This, of course, was news to the 12.7 million people who are out of work and the millions more who are struggling with the part-time jobs they can find, or have simply given up looking.” The part we liked even more...l
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Look for our editorial on Sunday, but until then, a few words about the passing of Ray Bradbury. Mr. Bradbury, who died at 91, was a champion of freedom. Through his fanciful lens, he had more to say about conventional reality than most conventional writers can muster. His imaginative tales revealed a world of new ideas, unbound by conventional limitations. It seems only appropriate that he didn’t drive or own an automobile. He operated in a different sphere, so to speak...
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Our recent column on how lousy the U.S. higher education system works included both these elements, but it’s always good to hear them from elsewhere too. The American Enterprise Institute’s Andrew G. Biggs points out that the $65 billion Washington spends annually on “student aid” ought more accurately to be referred to as corporate welfare. First, the money is sophoned off rather than being used to lower student costs. As we reported Sunday. Second, the money provides incentive for colleges to reduce what they spend out of their own accounts for aid to students...
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Let us stipulate that the government shouldn’t be making loans to companies in the first place. It’s not a proper role for government, which perhaps more than any other entity on the planet is most incapable of understanding what makes private businesses profitable. That said, how have the two candidates for president differed when they have done what governments shouldn’t be doing in the first place? . . .
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We were saddened last night as deadline approached and it seemed as if Proposition 29 was going to pass, adding yet another tax on Californians, even if it would fall directly only on those people who have yet to kick their cigarette habits. But as dutiful journalists on deadline, we were obliged to report the situation as it stood as we sent the paper to the presses. So, the newspaper you received on your porch included our editorial saying that to our dismay, Prop. 29 appeared to be passing. But . . .
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Government agencies, who have a vested interest in justifying what they spend, expanding what they do and making a case for more of both, are hardly disinterested parties. Witness the EPA, that political entity dating to the Nixon Administration, which was created much like opening a Pandora’s box. The unforeseen consequences continue to pour forth to degrees not even Rachel Carson could have imagined. One of the short-comings of the mainstream media is that it swallows then regurgitates so much of what the government has to say about itself without bothering to critically examine, or even to seek out other...
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To hear the Democrats and presidential re-election candidate Barack Obama tell it, the Republicans and that party’s presidential candidate wage a war on women. What would a war on women look like? . . .
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Deposed President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak was considered, rightly or wrongly, to be an American ally. Does the U.S. have any allies left in Egypt? And is Egypt a sign of things to come? We’re finishing up a book by David P. Goldman, “How Civilizations Die.” We recommend it. It dovetails with our recent column by Mark Steyn, in which he bluntly explained what has been left in the wake of the “democratic” Facebook-driven uprising in Egypt that tossed our presumed ally. . .
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If it’s not the global warming schemers deserting the cause, and global warming profiteers going belly up, and real life contradicting the premise, it’s another bulletin of bad news. Where will it all end for the global warming worshippers? Here’s the latest, which just happens to devastate another assumption of the warming theorists (emphasis ours): . . .
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