In response to public outcry and overwhelmingly negative poll numbers regarding his handling of the Ebola outbreak, President Obama appointed an Ebola czar to coordinate America’s response to the crisis. The problem is, the president’s new czar has caused more crises than he has solved. As chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, Ron…
The Treasury Department released this month figures showing that federal tax revenue exceeded $3 trillion in fiscal year 2014—the first time revenue surpassed that mark. Yet the deficit was still almost $500 billion. Clearly, the government continues to spend too much. We should tax enough to fund the legitimate functions of government, like national defense,…
President Obama has evolved on marriage. Again. After supporting marriage as the union of a man and a woman until just before the elections of 2012, Obama announced back then that he supported democratic efforts to redefine marriage—but he didn’t think judges should redefine marriage. Now, just before the elections of 2014, Obama has announced…
At a Maryland campaign stop Sunday, members of the crowd at a Democratic campaign rally left as President Obama was still speaking. Obama attended a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown in Upper Marlboro, Md. Brown is currently the lieutenant governor of Maryland and a former law school classmate of Obama’s. During the president’s…
Last week in Santa Monica, California, President Obama spoke of the achievements of the millennial generation—those of us born after 1980 and before the mid-2000s. He praised millennials for being the most educated, energetic, and tech-savvy generation ever, but he left out one important distinction: We are the most indebted generation in American history. And…
The first rule for managing a crisis? Act like a grown-up. Looking and really acting like an effective leader in tough times is job one. That can be a tough task–particularly, in responding to a public health crisis with a deadly disease like Ebola. Distant wars and tax inversions are one thing: some care, some…
President Obama and Gov. Bobby Jindal took a beating last night from Louisiana’s three leading U.S. Senate candidates. At their first debate, incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu, Republican challenger Rep. Bill Cassidy and Rob Maness, a retired Air Force veteran also running as a Republican, squared off over health care, Social Security and climate change. The…
President Obama once again has warned Republicans they will be committing political “suicide” if they do not legalize millions of illegal immigrants. “If they were thinking long-term politically, it is suicide for them not to do this,” Obama said in a town hall Thursday in Santa Monica, Calif. “Because the demographics of the country are…
A second case of Ebola has Americans rightly scratching their heads. Does our government really know what it’s doing? From the way the U.S. government communicates “risks” sometimes, it’s hard to tell. The single most important tool the government has for responding to a public health threat such as Ebola is “legitimacy.” When Americans believe…
A family-owned timber firm that operates the last significant sawmill in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest has won a momentous U.S. Forest Service contract: the Big Thorne Project, which will allow the harvest of nearly 150 million board feet of wood. The Obama administration's decision marks the transition away from old-growth timber and toward a sustainable…
The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who has chronicled U.S. military action in Iraq for years, said today that America and the world are in “a mess” in the fight against the Islamic State, the brutal terrorist group also called ISIS or ISIL. President Obama “has clearly gone through a wake-up call,” Woodward told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” adding: “He’s…
Leon Panetta, who served as both CIA director and defense secretary under President Obama, today said his former boss is too isolated in the White House. Continuing media interviews to promote his new memoir, which is critical of the president on ISIS and other national security matters, Panetta said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that a staff shakeup after the midterm elections…
President Obama declared during a recent speech at Northwestern University that he has turned the economy around and that while he might not be on the ballot in November midterm elections, his “agenda will be.” Democrats across the country cringed when they heard that one. Right now Michelle is a lot more popular than he…
In trying to convince voters to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, his Democratic challenger has worked to distance herself from President Obama. In a meeting yesterday with the Louisville Courier-Journal’s editorial board, Alison Lundergan Grimes persistently declined to tell Kentucky voters whether she voted for the president in 2008 and 2012. Grimes previously released an…
Gwyneth Paltrow would like President Obama’s life to be easier. The Oscar-winning actress held a fundraiser Thursday for the Democratic National Committee at her home in Los Angeles, during which she extolled Obama. “It would be wonderful if we were able to give this man all of the power that he needs to pass the…
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has joined other former members of the Obama team in criticizing the president’s Middle East policy and his handling of the Benghazi attack. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly this week, Panetta said he always thought the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, was…
Former President Jimmy Carter sharply criticized President Obama for his handling of foreign policy yesterday, saying it’s often “hard to figure out what his policy is.” In an interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the nation’s 39th president accused Obama of violating the U.S. Constitution with drone strikes that killed Americans. >>> Drone Strikes: The Legality of U.S….
We can all agree that all students should have access to top-notch teachers. But the approach the Obama administration is taking is unlikely to lead to this. Last Wednesday, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent 14,000 school districts a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter outlining administration guidance on resource equity—ensuring resources and good teachers…
Michelle Obama is heading to the heartland Friday to lend Iowa Democrats a helping hand in one of the closest U.S. Senate races in the country. Earlier in the day, the first lady will visit Michigan, home to another key Senate contest. Notably missing from the travel arrangements so far: her husband, Barack Obama. Iowa’s…
President Obama insulted many Americans when he raised events in Ferguson, Mo., during his United Nations speech. They chafed at the implied moral equivalence of a shooting still in legal dispute with the many lethal foreign threats besieging the world. While such rhetoric is divisive at home, there is another problem. The president does not…