Monthly Archives: November 2016

Archive of posts published in the specified Month

Better Economic Policy Trumps Grandstanding Deals

Trump’s political victory in keeping Carrier and Ford plants from moving out of the country should not be confused with an economic victory. Trade is a critical component of any economy, but we are addressing the location of a plant. 

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A Political Vacation

I was less than enthusiastic about a Trump victory.  The best part for me was that is ensured a Hillary Clinton loss.  Yet I feel some sense of relief, not just that the slimy slugfest is over, but there are

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Ideology Separates from Political Parties

From National Review’s Kevin Williamson, Progressives Without Power: Beginning with the nomination of Barry Goldwater and thanks in no small part to the efforts of many men associated with this magazine, the Republican party spent half a century as a

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Re-Discovering the Constitution

From Mike Lee at National Review, Conservatives Should Embrace Principled Populism: All human history teaches us that people cannot be trusted with unaccountable power; therefore, freedom and security are best protected by dispersing power. Federalism and the separation of powers may

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Beware the Alternate Left

Al Sharpton’s incitement in Crown Heights in 1991 caused a pogrom in New York with several Jews attacked and one, Yankel Rosenbaum, killed. Another was killed who was thought to be Jewish, but was not. After a young black man,

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The Democrats Need a New Organizing Principle

From Jason Riley at The WSJ,   Democrats Are Obsessed With Race. Donald Trump Isn’t: Since when does a weekend gathering of “nearly 275” white nationalists in a country of more than 320 million people warrant front-page coverage in major newspapers?

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Failure to Persuade

From The New York Times, The End of Identity Liberalism by Mark Lilla But the fixation on diversity in our schools and in the press has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined

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Thoughts on the Transition

I did not think Trump would win the primaries or the election and I was wildly wrong.  I guess there is a chance that I am wrong about some of my fears about his policies as president.  So, for the

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The New Republicans

From Henry Olsen at National Review, Can the Republican Party Keep Trump Democrats?  They are best viewed through the lens of active citizenship. They take national identity seriously and imbue Americanism with an implicit bargain that flies in the face of

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The Electoral College Reader

From Jeff Jacoby, In Defense of the Electoral College: It’s easy to score rhetorical points by claiming smugly that “the people chose Hillary Clinton,” but the American method of choosing a president has been in place for two centuries. The

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The Greenspan Put

The Man Who Knew by Sebastian Mallaby is an excellent biography of Alan Greenspan, but it may have greater value in understanding the power and limitations of the Federal Reserve itself. Greenspan has been accused of being an ideologue by

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Death by Diktat

from the editors at The Wall Street Journal, Trump and the Democrats: excerpts Blaming “white-lash” is silly—of the roughly 700 U.S. counties that Mr. Obama won twice, about one-third broke this time for Mr. Trump—but these cultural rationalizations are lamentable

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We Need Better Elites

From Fay Vincent Jr. in The Wall Street Journal, Elite Is Not a Four-Letter Word: While the fine old word “elite” has become a pejorative, its official definition has not changed. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines elite as “a

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Racist Backlash

From Jonah Goldberg at National Review, Liberals should think twice before blaming the 2016 election on racism. Activists today are clear-cutting vast swathes of civil society to make room for reason-free zones where feelings outrank facts — they call them

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A Thousand Little Messes

Some advice for the new president from economist John Cochrane in the Wall Street Journal, Don’t Believe the Economic Pessimists: Health. Replace ObamaCare with a simple health-insurance voucher. Deregulate insurance and entry into health care dramatically. Finance. Replace strangling regulation of financial companies

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Hillary, Pelosi, and Warren

from Kimberly Strassel at The WSJ,  The Democrats Double Down What Democrats should realize, because everyone else does, is that voters rejected both their policies (which have undermined middle- and low-income families) and their governance (which has fueled rage at

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Reading 2016 11 17

The return of Glass Steagall What if the Experts are Wrong about What They are Supposed to be Experts About? ‘Tolerant’ educators exile Trump voters from campus” Reflections on The Trumpocalypse  For the past several decades, you’ve portrayed every Republican, no matter

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The Enlightenment Made Flesh

 “Unfortunately for Britain- and fortunately for America the generation that emerged to lead the colonies into independence was one of the most remarkable group of men in history-sensible, broad-minded, courageous, usually well educated, gifted in a variety of ways, and

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The Rejection Election

from Kimberly Strassel in The WSJ, Trump’s Secret Weapon:Obama  All along this election has been portrayed as a referendum on Mr. Trump. Tuesday’s results are far better viewed as a thundering repudiation, at every level, of Mr. Obama’s governing and

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