Archive for the ‘National news’ Category

State Sen. Deb Fischer came out of nowhere yesterday to become Nebraska Republicans’ nominee for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Ben Nelson. By my count, she’s the first woman to be nominated for Senate or governor by either major party this year — although several female incumbents will almost certainly be renominated when the time comes, such as Democrats Kristen Gillibrand of New York and Maria Cantwell of Washington, and several female challengers are strong possibilities to capture nominations, including Republicans Linda Lingle of Hawaii and Heather Wilson of New Mexico.

If we add each party’s nominations for Senate and governor from 2010, we get 11 Republican women and 14 Democratic women — 10 Republicans and eight Democrats if we don’t include incumbents. (These figures don’t include Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, who lost the 2010 GOP Senate primary but won the general election as a write-in Republican.) Which can only mean one thing if follow liberal logic:

In the …

Continue reading GOP’s ‘war on women’ continues in Nebraska »

Perhaps Warren Buffett and the other members of his Billionaires for Higher Taxes club should go on French television, where they might actually be asked about the kind of high tax rates some people on the left think the U.S. should implement.

Perhaps they’d have the same kind of reaction Will Smith did (Smith’s interview follows a clip of French President-elect Francois Hollande, and the actor is asked about the tax rate after his first answer):

C’est vrai!

(H/t: Ezra Klein, who links Smith’s reaction to Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s recent renunciation of his U.S. citizenship ahead of the company’s forthcoming IPO, after which he will go from being very rich to ultra-rich.)

– By Kyle Wingfield

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Continue reading Will Smith: I’d pay more taxes. Wait, how much more?! (video) »

What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman. But what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated against on the job.

OK, confession time: I didn’t create those opening sentences. Then-U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama did, in 2004.

Obama offered a different, “evolved” belief Wednesday, saying he thinks same-sex couples should be able to marry. He had it right the first time.

Well, not the first first time. Before tackling the issue, let’s review Obama’s “evolution.” In 1996, while running for the Illinois Senate, Obama noted on a questionnaire that he “favor[ed] legalizing same-sex marriages.” By 2004, he’d flipped on that position.

Last week — after an endorsement of gay marriage by Vice President Joe Biden and a report that …

Continue reading Obama got it right about gay marriage . . . in 2004 »

On a day when the political sob stories ought to focus on Dick Lugar, whom Indiana Republicans voted out after 36 years in the U.S. Senate, the bulk of the bad news from yesterday’s primaries instead concerns President Obama:

1. North Carolina is a swing state. Four years ago, Obama won the state by 14,177 votes out of more than 4.2 million cast. Last night, almost 200,000 voters in the state’s Democratic primary voted against him, even though no one else was even on the ballot. A constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, publicly opposed by Obama despite the mixed signals from his administration on the issue, passed easily, 61 percent to 39 percent.

2. Wisconsin is generally not considered a swing state — it’s typically been safe territory for Democrats. But 2010 saw the election of Republicans to a majority of the state’s legislative seats and the governor’s mansion. That GOP governor, Scott Walker, currently faces a recall election fueled by labor unions still steamed …

Continue reading Obama steals Lugar’s bad-news thunder »

Sometimes, it’s the “principal” of the thing. Particularly when “the thing” is a loan.

As lots of homeowners learned, borrowing too much money can lead to trouble even if interest rates are relatively low. If college students are wise, they’ll realize the current debate about the interest rate for their loans is a sideshow compared to rising prices.

President Barack Obama visited college students last week to argue for keeping the interest rate for federal student loans at 3.4 percent. He urged them to tell Congress, “Don’t double my rate” to 6.8 percent, as current law requires.

He was arguing against … no one. Republicans and Democrats alike propose holding the rate steady. As is often the case, they differ only over how to offset the cost (Republicans would cut spending; Democrats would raise someone’s taxes). Obama’s presumptive GOP opponent, Mitt Romney, also favors holding down the rate.

No doubt, a higher rate would be a blow to students. And the …

Continue reading Rising tuition trumps interest rate among students’ worries »

Three years ago, the combination of a $787 billion stimulus and multibillion-dollar bailouts sparked the first tea party rallies. The tea partyers protested, yes, but most importantly they pledged to “remember in November” — that is, November of the following year, when the next congressional elections would be held.

Liberals, confident the tea parties would fail, called it a “temper tantrum.” That “tantrum” wound up sweeping many a Democrat out of office. Now, liberals are throwing a fit of their own. But they aren’t waiting for the next elections. They want their way, now.

That’s the upshot of both the threatened boycotts of a conservative legislative group’s corporate sponsors and the attempted recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The left, having lost last time, is too impatient to bide its time.

The conservative group in question, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been around since 1973. It has been quite active in Georgia since …

Continue reading A left-wing ‘temper tantrum’ to short-circuit elections and their consequences »

I’m not an attorney, but it seems to me we can deduce at least two things from the just-announced charge against George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin:

1. The special prosecutor didn’t buy Zimmerman’s claims of self-defense. Here’s what FindLaw says about Florida’s second-degree murder laws:

To prove second degree murder, a prosecutor must show that the defendant acted according to a “depraved mind” without regard for human life. Florida state laws permit the prosecution of second degree murder when the killing lacked premeditation or planning, but the defendant acted with enmity toward the victim or the two had an ongoing interaction or relationship. Unlike first degree murder, second degree murder does not necessarily require proof of the defendant’s intent to kill.

That doesn’t strike me as the kind of charge that would be filed if the prosecutor believed Zimmerman was being beaten by Martin and feared for his life, as Zimmerman’s supporters have portrayed the …

Continue reading From what we know, second-degree murder charge for Zimmerman sounds reasonable »

Our bitter, aggravated politics has many fathers, from gerrymandering to genuine, deep and abiding differences of opinion about how to move the country forward. But here’s another problem with our politics I’ve noticed lately: We can’t escape it.

I don’t mean the 24-7 frequency of our news media — in the age of Twitter, it’s really 60-60-24-7 — although that bears part of the blame. Rather, I’m talking about the increasing tendency of our politicians, especially our presidents and those who would be president, to pop up everywhere else, too: on Oprah and The View, on Leno and Letterman, during SportsCenter and the Super Bowl and the Final Four.

A friend’s mother calls this “inmaface.” As in, you can do things with which I disagree, just don’t do them “inmaface.” When it’s harder and harder to enjoy the apolitical without the intrusion of the politicos, they’re inmaface.

I think political handlers think this is a way to soften their man’s (or …

Continue reading Growing tired of the omnitopical presidency »

Good grief:

Look, I understand there are millions of Americans who believe Barack Obama has been a good president. (That is, I understand this is a fact; I cannot say I understand their perspective.) But, as Piers Morgan summarizes Davis Guggenheim’s position, to the filmmaker’s approval,  “the only negativity about Barack Obama is there are too many positives”? Seriously?

It’s almost enough to ruin “Waiting for Superman” for me. At least, I guess, it reveals how uber-liberal the opponents of school choice must be, if even a guy like Guggenheim supports it.

Oh, and lest I bury the local lede: I guess we now know who’s been writing on this blog under the alias “Bart Abel.”

I kid, I kid!

(H/t: Ed Morrisey at Hot Air)

– By Kyle Wingfield

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Continue reading ‘The only negativity about Barack Obama is . . .” (video) »

Mark this day as a big step toward a major cultural shift. From the Associated Press:

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the government’s war on drugs has failed.

The outspoken evangelical Christian and host of “The 700 Club” on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network he founded said the war on drugs is costing taxpayers billions of dollars. He said people should not be sent to prison for marijuana possession. …

“I just think it’s shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of a controlled substance,” Robertson said on his show March 1. “The whole thing is crazy. We’ve said, ‘Well, we’re conservatives, we’re tough on crime.’ That’s baloney.” …

“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Robertson told the newspaper. “If people can go into a liquor …

Continue reading Robertson’s remarks highlight cultural shift on pot legalization »