All That Is Necessary

Category: Uncategorized

  • Enough on the Debt Ceiling, Let’s Talk Bicycles

    Cranky political commentary will resume soon enough. For this afternoon, there’s ribeye, shrimp and corn on the cob for the grill. I’m on vacation with a beautiful blonde who just spontaneously felt moved to tell me how much she loves me. Life is good.

  • Surprise! New Jersey Has the Highest Tax Burden

    Econ 101: Investment supports job formation. Raising taxes on anyone deters job formation. In particular, tax increases on "the rich" should be thought of as coming dollar for dollar out of a pool of money that otherwise would be invested.

  • Glenn Greenwald on Norway: It Must Be America’s Fault

    Greenwald implicitly assumes that the attack is probably "jihadi" related. Why else go into detail about Norway’s participation in the wars in Afghanistan and Libya? He’s less interested in giving Islamists the benefit of the doubt than he is in saying "we’re just as bad."

  • In the Budget Battle, GOP Should Not Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good

    If purists force a government shutdown in August to avoid exceeding the debt ceiling, each side will of course point fingers at the other. But Republicans have seen this movie before. In 1995, Bill Clinton triggered a government shutdown by vetoing budget bills — yet Republicans ended up shouldering the blame, and Clinton was re-elected.

  • Happy Independence Day to You;
    Happy Blogiversary to Me

    Three years ago today I posted my first substantive blog post, about Senator Obama, the Democratic nominee for president. Here’s how it began: "From the start, my take on Obama has been that he’s a talented and charismatic politician who some day could become an important senator."

  • The Wages of Socialism Are Greece

    Look to Greece, the cradle of democracy, to see what happens when the people no longer are able to vote themselves bread and circuses. From the Voice of America: Workers in Greece are in the second day of a 48-hour general strike, and the country is all but shut down by the protest action against […]

  • On Gay Marriage, NY vs. NJ, and the Maplewood Bubble

    Same-sex marriage is a basic civil rights issue, and the only acceptable outcome is full marriage equality. With every passing year America will bend further in that direction. Faster, please.

  • Obama Swats the Gay Ping-Pong Ball

    While I was at the Karen Armstrong lecture last night, President Barack “Marriage is between a man and a woman” Obama was walking back his position on one of the few issues where I have found myself politically to his left: Same-sex marriage. He didn’t use the word “marriage,” but last night at a New […]

  • Karen Armstrong Preaches Compassion in Morristown

    I tried to bait the famous author into a partisan screed, but she was having none of it. “America is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now our Nobel Peace Prize winning president is taking us into war in Libya.  I’d be interested to hear your take on how some of the things you’ve […]

  • Quick Take: VDH on Obama’s Afghanistan Speech

    Victor Davis Hanson on last night’s presidential speech about Afghanistan: "We are on the hinge of history, unsure whether we swing to 1974 and give up, or swing back to 2006 and win."