My Latest Podcast

May 10, 2012

With Kevin Holtsberry and Jonah Goldberg on the sometimes tyrannical nature of clichés.

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From the “If This Happened to George W. Bush, You’d Be Hearing a Lot More About It” Files

May 9, 2012

Link: In an embarrassment to President Obama, Federal Inmate No. 11593-051 – otherwise known as Keith Judd – won 10 counties and 41 percent of the vote in West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday. Mr. Judd is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas, where he is serving a 210-month sentence for extortion, according to The Charleston Gazette. Judd [...]

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Profile in Compulsion

May 9, 2012

As one who has publicly supported same sex marriage since 2003, I congratulate President Obama on finally completing his evolution on the subject, and getting to a position both Dick Cheney and I have held to for quite a while now. But let’s not pretend that the president wasn’t dragged kicking and screaming into the debate. [...]

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In Praise of Dick Lugar

May 8, 2012

Let it be conceded–as though it has to be–that Dick Lugar never had any particular right to be re-nominated to another term in the United States Senate by Indiana’s Republican voters. Let it also be conceded–as though it has to be–that Richard Mourdock had every right to run against him, and won fair and square. [...]

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Answering John Bellinger

May 8, 2012

In response to this post, I would note that much of the press is simply bad at doing its job, and that a lot of the incompetence stems from sheer laziness. John Brennan can give all of the thoughtful speeches that he wants; if there aren’t a significant number of thoughtful members of the press [...]

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Let’s Review the Bidding

May 7, 2012

Joe Biden has come out in favor of same-sex marriage, as has Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Good for them, I say. Gays, lesbians and bisexuals did not choose to be gay, lesbian or bisexual any more than I chose to be straight, and they shouldn’t be penalized for a sexual orientation they have no [...]

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Congratulations to François Hollande

May 6, 2012

Not just for having won the presidency in France, but also for scaring the wealthy out of the country. I am sure that the resulting reduced tax base will do wonders for the French government’s ability to collect revenue, and that a flight of the successful from France will do wonders for the French economy. [...]

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It’s Barack Obama’s World, and Julia Just Lives in It

May 6, 2012

If you have no life are a serious political junkie, you may have heard of “Julia,” a composite character made up by the Obama campaign to highlight supposed differences between the president’s policies, and those of Mitt Romney. We are meant to see and understand the import of those policies through the progression of Julia’s life; [...]

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Why Economic Austerity Now?

May 6, 2012

As Garrett Jones points out, it helps demonstrate credibility, which incidentally, is good economic policy: . . . in the 70′s, Fed officials always said they were going to fight inflation right after they got back from lunch, as Hetzel showed in his excellent history of Fed policy.  Since politicians and bureaucrats can rarely sign real contracts, [...]

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The Beam in Their Eye

May 5, 2012

So, commenting on yesterday’s disappointing job numbers, Mitt Romney said that we should be creating 500,000 jobs a month. People like Paul Krugman jumped on the comment, and remarked that it proved that Romney knew nothing about employment rates or the economy in general. Funny. I don’t recall them saying or writing such things when someone [...]

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Team Obama’s Need for Distractions

May 4, 2012

Let’s all understand why the Obama campaign is making the absurd claim that Mitt Romney would not have authorized the killing of Osama bin Laden if he had the chance: The economy stinks under the Obama administration’s watch, and the president’s re-election campaign would prefer that economic issues not be talked about in the run-up [...]

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My Latest Podcast

May 3, 2012

With Kevin Holtsberry and Andrew Kelly on education policy.

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Quote of the Day

May 3, 2012

THE first time someone said to me that serious concern about the future of Social Security was over-blown, right-wing-hype and that fixing it could be put off several decades I was speechless. Now I just feel sad to be hearing it more. The state of Social Security is a problem worthy of our attention. There are [...]

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I Ask Anew

May 3, 2012

Why do people insist on taking Thomas Friedman seriously?

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Look Who Has Come Out Against Politicizing the bin Laden Killing

May 2, 2012

Admiral Mike Mullen. You remember him, I am sure. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when bin Laden was killed: Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has joined the chorus of concern about the politicization of Osama bin Laden’s killing a year ago Tuesday. The [...]

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How to Commemorate May Day

May 2, 2012

Follow Ilya Somin’s example: Today is May Day. Since 2007, I have been commemorating this day here at the Volokh Conspiracy as Victims of Communism Day. Various other websites and blogs have promoted the same concept. In time, we hope to make this a worldwide commemoration similar to Holocaust Memorial Day. [. . .] I don’t deny [...]

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Priorities (Campaign 2012 Edition)

May 1, 2012

As I have written more times than I can count, for Republicans to win back the White House, and to do well in down-ticket races, the GOP will have to emphasize the economy as an issue. Any distraction from the economy only serves to help Barack Obama’s campaign. Of course, this means that there are [...]

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From That Right-Winger, Arianna Huffington . . .

April 30, 2012

Le mot juste on the Obama campaign’s demagoguery: Arianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of the The Huffington Post, called the Obama campaign’s decision to tout the assassination of Osama bin Laden in a campaign advertisement ”despicable.” The ad questions whether presidential candidate Mitt Romney would have ordered the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “I don’t think there [...]

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“There’s an Anomaly in the Crotch Area”

April 29, 2012

I’m pretty sure that you guessed what this is about even before reading it.

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Just a Reminder: The President’s Job Is NOT Political Fundraising

April 29, 2012

Although you wouldn’t know it from watching Barack Obama operate: Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than every elected president since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book. Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in [...]

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