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Recent Comments

• Ward on Why we envy the Mad Men and Women
• Michael Labs on The ‘Arab Street’ meets the ‘American Street’
• david pulley on The ‘Arab Street’ meets the ‘American Street’
• Robert Langk on The economy without government
• Neal Burgis on The economy without government

Canada’s balmy economy

Has anyone noticed that smart government regulations can help the economy?  It’s all there to see in Canada.

REGULATION MADE CANADA FAT AND HAPPY

Why would ethics trials hurt Democrats?

I can’t see it.  If Nancy Pelosi is backing the ethics investigations of two high- profile Democrats, shouldn’t that be a badge of honor for her party?

ETHICS TRIALS COULD HELP, NOT HURT, DEMOCRATS

The real immigration story

The drama in Arizona belies the real action on the immigration front. The Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal aliens and going after employers of them with unprecedented vigor.  This is

THE REAL IMMIGRATION STORY

Raise taxes to cut government?

So much for the starve-the-beast theory whereby cutting taxes leads to smaller government. Our two leading tax-cutting presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, advocated that theory, then expanded government with borrowed money. Clever fellows.

Another theory based on the “fiscal illusion” effect holds that raising taxes is a more effective way to contain government than cutting them.

I discuss that thinking in my new column:

RAISE TAXES TO CUT GOVERNMENT?

Rise up, Louisiana!

Many Louisianans remain sore over a recent column suggesting, half in jest, that the state become a U.S. protectorate. I was accusing state officials, and by extension the electorate, of groveling before oil money — at the cost of despoiling their natural paradise.

Seeing local fishermen, having been ruined by the BP well disaster, also demand more deepwater drilling has become a rather depressing element of the reportage from the Gulf.

But now we read of a churchwoman, Patty Whitney of Terrebonne Parish, talking back at the despotism of oil. So deep is the intimidation that friends call her brave for questioning the oil culture at public forums.

Whitney said that one of her brothers argued (as have countless readers), “America needs oil.”

And she responds:

Then let them drill. Let them drill in Yellowstone Park, in the Grand Canyon, in Puget Sound, off Martha’s Vineyard. Let them mess up their own places instead of just drilling in my beautiful Louisiana.

Boy, does she ever have it right.

And a note to all my Pelican State correspondents who take credit for heating my house in winter: I’d rather have their shrimp than their oil.

Jim Webb gets it right on race-based policies

Tough Liberals have long been frustrated by the Democratic leadership’s periodic ventures into racial preferences — even as they abhor Republicans’ not-so-subtle appeals to prejudices among white voters. I express such displeasure toward the end of a recent column.

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb hits the nail on the nuanced head, when he criticizes racial preferences as they’ve evolved since the Civil Rights era.  A long-time defender of poor Southern whites, he makes his case against laws that, in effect, discriminate against them in today’s Wall Street Journal.

By the way, Webb’s book, “Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America” is both informative and a wonderful read.

Thank you, Richard Reeves…

for generously praising my recent primal scream on what peoples’ answers to the pollsters’ questions really mean.

Hint: Being angry over ” the direction of the country” does not necessarily translate into support for the Republican Party. It may well mean the opposite.

Democratic rout no sure thing

Do we like the direction of the country?  No. Are Republicans the answer?  Hell no.

REPUBLICAN VOODOO PUT US ON THIS PATH

Obama, fix immigration, not Arizona

The tough Arizona immigration law reflects public frustration with illegal immigration. Going after Arizona may play well among some Hispanic voters, but it is a dangerous political strategy.

OBAMA SHOULD LEAVE ARIZONA ALONE

Happy 4th

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