House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is the world's worst cleaning lady. How has she fulfilled her vaunted promise to "drain the swamp" and preside over the "most ethical Congress in history"? By shrugging her shoulders, downplaying the gravity of myriad ethics charges against corruptocrat Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel and waiting for the "political chips" to "fall where they may." Imagine a custodial service that fixed toilet clogs by letting the overflowing waste and polluted waters "fall where they may." At a press conference to preempt the... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/the_enablers_of_charlie_rangel_106548.html 200106548 Michelle Malkin Michelle Malkin 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:00:08 -0500 Asked if the United States might send still more troops to Afghanistan, if the Obama surge is not succeeding by year's end, Vice President Joe Biden answered, "I do not believe so." So, that is it. Biden is saying the 100,000 U.S. troops in theater or on the way is our limit. If Kabul and the Afghan army fail with this investment of American forces, they will be permitted to fail. All the chips we are going to commit are now on the table. And a series of critical deadlines is approaching. By the end of August, all U.S. combat troops are to be out of Iraq. Only 50,000... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/coming_home_at_last_106547.html 200106547 Pat Buchanan Pat Buchanan 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:59:04 -0500 WASHINGTON -- In most administrations, "leaks" of classified information precipitate presidential ire. Nearly all such unauthorized disclosures are the consequence of disgruntled government employees deciding that a "leak" is the best way to stop some activity they have decided should not continue. To justify their unlawful actions, they call themselves "secret whistle-blowers." The so-called "mainstream media" love them. Most American presidents do not. That's what makes the current commander in chief's reactions to a whole series of... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/leak_city_106546.html 200106546 Oliver North Oliver North 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:56:53 -0500 Chelsea Clinton is getting married, and we all wish her well on the biggest day of a girl's life. Bill and Hillary were the focus of scandal and controversy, left, right and in-between, but never the first child. Chelsea's parents and the press deserve credit for preserving her privacy when she was growing up, first in the governor's mansion in Little Rock and then in the White House in Washington. That's as it should be. The rest of us were deprived only of gossip and titillation. Oh, for the good old days when Theodore Roosevelt was president and Washington was atwitter... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/growing_up_with_potus_106544.html 200106544 Suzanne Fields Suzanne Fields 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:09:56 -0500 WASHINGTON -- On the federal debt crisis, inertia has all the momentum. A compelling political logic favors inaction. America's debt problem is mainly an entitlement spending problem. Serious entitlement reform would involve concentrating limited resources on the poor, eliminating subsidies for the rich and moving support for the middle class from a system of defined benefits to defined contributions. However skillfully this transition is designed, it will mean a middle-class benefit cut. That's why, in 2005, Republicans and Democrats both fled from Social Security reform like... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/the_real_spending_debate_106543.html 200106543 Michael Gerson Michael Gerson 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:08:57 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Christmas came early for demagogues. The court decision putting a hold on the worst provisions of Arizona's new anti-Latino immigration law is a gift-wrapped present to those who delight in turning truth, justice and the American way into political liabilities. As surely everyone knows by now, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday blocking the state from enforcing parts of the law that look patently unconstitutional. The political fallout is pretty clear: In the short run, at least, Republicans win and Democrats lose. Longer term, the... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/immigration_as_partisanship_106542.html 200106542 Eugene Robinson Eugene Robinson 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:07:00 -0500 BOSTON -- The court victory that the Obama administration won this week in Arizona will not make the ugly national tension over illegal immigration go away. The president needs to take this brief respite, step back from the Washington logjam and remember what he and every president going back to Ronald Reagan have been trying to achieve. If he does, he might ask: Why not accept John McCain's 10-point border security plan? Answer: He should. Now. Or immediately after the Arizona primary election on Aug. 24. The policy wonk community and pro-immigrant Democrats will object, but they are... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/try_the_mccain_border_plan_106541.html 200106541 Edward Schumacher-Matos Edward Schumacher-Matos 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:05:26 -0500 Come in. Make yourself comfortable. What's that? You are a congressional Democrat? You voted to triple the national debt, destroy a health care system that the overwhelming majority of Americans were happy with in a way that creates a massive and infinitely complex new entitlement, bailout the banks and car companies, and "stimulate" the economy with an $862 billion boondoggle that hasn't created a single private-sector job? Your president is suing the state of Arizona for having the effrontery to enforce a law he wishes not to enforce (though he does have the... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/30/a_democrat_goes_into_a_psychiatrists_office__106540.html 200106540 Mona Charen Mona Charen 2010/07 07/30/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:03:56 -0500 Democratic spin doctors have set out how their side is going to hold onto a majority in the House. They'll capture four at-risk Republican seats, hold half of the next 30 or so Democratic at-risk seats, and avoid significant losses on target seats lower on the list. That's one plausible scenario. The shift of opinion away from Democrats so evident in the polls could turn out to be illusory. The widely held assumption that Republicans will turn out in greater numbers than Democrats could prove wrong. Democratic candidates do indeed have a money advantage in many close races, and... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/house_democrats_head_for_a_thumping_at_the_polls_106526.html 200106526 Michael Barone Michael Barone 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:21:57 -0500 The Senate Democrats' "DISCLOSE" Act -- "DISCLOSE" stands for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections" -- represents perhaps the baldest, if failed, power grab attempted this year. But you wouldn't guess it reading news stories on the bill. As The New York Times reported, "The Senate on Tuesday refused to take up a bill that would require more disclosure of the role of corporations, unions and other special interests in bankrolling political advertisements, after Democrats failed to persuade even one Republican to... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/only_in_washington_is_this_transparency_106528.html 200106528 Debra Saunders Debra Saunders 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:25:01 -0500 Welcome, Dr. Donald Berwick. Once you pull the arrows out of your back, you can get down to the important work for which you are supremely qualified: fixing the government health-insurance programs. President Obama named you head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services through a recess appointment. That deprived Senate Republicans of another televised round denouncing "socialized medicine" -- though they are churning out press releases calling you a "health-care-rationing czar" and advocate of "cookie-cutter medicine." A pediatrician and expert on... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/berwick_can_improve_health_care__cut_costs.html 200106524 Froma Harrop Froma Harrop 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:52:04 -0500 Recent polls show that more than 70 percent of the public holds an unfavorable view of Congress. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wins about a 10 percent approval rating; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has similarly rock-bottom poll numbers. Why this astounding -- and growing -- disdain for our lawmakers? After all, Congress has had plenty of scandals and corruption in the past, such as the House post office and check-kiting messes the Charles Keating payoffs, and the Abscam bribery. But lately, Congress seems not merely corrupt, but -- far more worrisome -- without apparent... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/why_are_we_beginning_to_hate_congress_106525.html 200106525 Victor Davis Hanson Victor Davis Hanson 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:12:02 -0500 The outpouring of tens of thousands of classified military documents by WikiLeaks is not precisely comparable to the publication of the Pentagon Papers -- but in at least one crucial respect, it may be more valuable. While the Pentagon Papers revealed the duplicity of American policy-makers in the senseless Vietnam War, their release came too late to save many lives or change the course of that conflict. The WikiLeaks disclosures may have arrived in time to influence policy and prevent disaster. It is true that the lightly classified memoranda and cables in the WikiLeaks trove contain very... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/leaking_to_avert_disaster_106523.html 200106523 Joe Conason Joe Conason 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:09:15 -0500 Who knows what lies ahead for Shirley Sherrod -- a book, the lecture circuit, a wrongful discharge lawsuit that could bring millions? But if she keeps talking, the woman "wrongfully portrayed" as a racist may out herself as exactly that. Andrew Breitbart, a "right-wing" critic of the traditional liberal media, operates websites designed to expose the liberal bias of politicians, Hollywood types and the news media. He rejects the tax-and-spend, grow-the-government, race-based/identity policies of the left -- and believes these policies are aided and abetted by the left-wing... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/shirley_sherrod_quit_while_youre_ahead_106521.html 200106521 Larry Elder Larry Elder 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:06:58 -0500 MIDDLETOWN, Del. -- A lot of the mail I receive these days reads like this letter from a Milford, Utah, man, who says: "Truly, there is a lot of anger in the land, and one other thing that columnists like you appear to have missed or perhaps are ignoring. That thing is disgust with the obvious, deliberate refusal by elected officials to do their duty and actually represent the will of the people."If that is your feeling, too, come with me to Delaware, where I spent the weekend with two Senate candidates who will restore your faith in representative government. The seat that Joe... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/in_delaware_civility_rules_106527.html 200106527 David Broder David Broder 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:14:46 -0500 MADISON, Wis. -- Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex unions, has brought his 23-city bus tour here in hopes of drawing a crowd. He has succeeded, but not in the way you might expect. On a warm weekday, with the university students mostly on vacation and the legislature in recess, the state Capitol grounds have a placid midsummer air. But with the appointed time of noon at hand, that is about to change. As Brown stands at the foot of the Capitol, watching a few sympathizers gather around a lectern, a distant rumble intrudes on the quiet.... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/dueling_protests_on_gay_marriage_106522.html 200106522 Steve Chapman Steve Chapman 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:08:19 -0500 WASHINGTON -- Can a nation remain a superpower if its internal politics are incorrigibly stupid? Start with taxes. In every other serious democracy, conservative political parties feel at least some obligation to match their tax policies with their spending plans. David Cameron, the new Conservative prime minister in Britain, is a leading example. He recently offered a rather brutal budget that includes severe cutbacks. I have doubts about some of them, but at least Cameron cared enough about reducing his country's deficit that alongside the cuts, he also proposed an increase in the... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/the_politics_of_stupidity_106520.html 200106520 E.J. Dionne E.J. Dionne 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:46:05 -0500 10:09 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Everybody, please have a seat. Have a seat. Take a load off. (Applause.) Thank you. Good morning, Urban Leaguers. AUDIENCE: Good morning. THE PRESIDENT: Yes. It is wonderful to be here with all of you. It is wonderful to be here. And let me begin by congratulating Marc Morial for his outstanding leadership, his great friendship. (Applause.) I want to thank the entire National Urban League on your centennial. From your founding, amid the great migration, to the struggles of the civil rights movement, to the battles of today, the Urban... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/29/obamas_remarks_to_the_urban_league_106539.html 200106539 Barack Obama Barack Obama 2010/07 07/29/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:42:48 -0500 SEAN HANNITY, HOST: A federal judge has struck down parts of Arizona's controversial immigration law. Nonetheless, part of the law remains enforced and will go into effect just hours from now. Now here's a breakdown of what Judge Susan Bolton decided to block: First, police will not be allowed to check the immigration status of Arizona's citizens in the course of enforcing other laws. Additionally, individuals will not be required to carry proof of their immigration status with them. Now originally, the law made the failure to carry these papers a crime. Now the law was further... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/interview_with_arizona_governor_jan_brewer_on_hannity_106538.html 200106538 Hannity Hannity 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:36:35 -0500 Tastee Sub ShopEdison, New Jersey 2:42 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Well, I just had a terrific meeting with these small business owners here at Tastee Sub Shop. And I want to thank Dave and Carl for hosting us here today. And I highly recommend everybody buy a sandwich while you're here, although as I said before, I can't eat a 12-inch these days, now that I'm 49 -- well, I will be in a week. We talked about some of the difficulties that people have had making payroll and turning a profit during this recession. And we talked about what we can do to make it easier for small... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/obamas_remarks_on_small_business_initiatives_106518.html 200106518 Barack Obama Barack Obama 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:49:38 -0500 A Gallup poll reveals that only 11 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in Congress, and though it's the lowest ranking ever, one wonders what malady afflicts the yea-sayers. Might a review of reality correct their misperceptions? To do the task justice would require at least as many pages as some of the bills Congress passes, but that itself is a place to start -- mention of a debt-stimulating stimulus bill over 1,000 pages long, of a topsy-turvy health-care remake over 2,000 pages long and of a recent financial-regulation mishmash also over 2,000 pages long. Members of... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/grading_congress_106510.html 200106510 Jay Ambrose Jay Ambrose 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:37:42 -0500 Though I've seen evidence to the contrary, experts assure me that children are the nation's most precious natural resource. Logic, then, says that teaching is the most important profession in the country. And by extension, firing teachers who consistently fail to do their job should not be very controversial. Still, political parties come and go; teachers don't. All the while, urban school districts remain on a stable trajectory, headed from horrendous to Mississippi. Who knows? Perhaps there's hope. The country's top minds on education have cooked up a surefire... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/a_rhee_of_hope_106508.html 200106508 David Harsanyi David Harsanyi 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:47:19 -0500 WASHINGTON -- In the almost nine years the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan, any thoughtful person who follows the war has had a recurring worry: Can America rely on Pakistan? Can our allies in that turbulent country close the Taliban's safe havens along the border? And, for that matter, are the Pakistanis really trying? The massive disclosure of war-related documents this week by WikiLeaks raised a number of questions, but none more important than the Pakistan conundrum. Although the Obama administration has downplayed the leaks in general, senior officials agree that... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/the_pakistan_conundrum_106497.html 200106497 David Ignatius David Ignatius 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 05:12:07 -0500 In the last fortnight: 1) The NAACP called the tea parties racists; 2) Andrew Breitbart called the NAACP racist; 3) Shirley Sherrod called Republican opponents of Obamacare racists; 4) Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack called Shirley Sherrod racist; 5) many in mainstream media called Andrew Breitbart racist; 6) Howard Dean called FOX News racist; and, 7) it was revealed that liberal journalist Spencer Ackerman proposed calling Fred Barnes and Karl Rove racist. Thus, through a confluence of bizarrely unlikely events, the vicious act of falsely accusing people of racism became a laughing... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/cry_racism_and_let_slip_the_dogs_of_politics_106505.html 200106505 Tony Blankley Tony Blankley 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:38:37 -0500 America is one of many countries that forbid openly gay people to serve in the military. Others are: Cuba, China, Egypt, Greece, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Turkey and Venezuela. See a pattern? With a few exceptions, those are not countries where free people want to live. By contrast, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia and Spain all allow gay people to serve. No country has America's in-between policy: Gays... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/dont_askdont_tell_should_go_106500.html 200106500 John Stossel John Stossel 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:30:31 -0500 You know when a politician starts a sentence with "frankly," he's about to lie to your face. The same principle applies to campaign finance legislation dubbed the "DISCLOSE Act." The voter's instinctive reaction should be: What are they trying to hide now? Drafted out of public view with left-wing lobbyists and rammed through Congress after bypassing committee hearings, this bum bill would have been better named the CLOSEDDOOR Act. At a Rose Garden press conference on Monday, President Obama decried the influence of "shadow groups" on elections and... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/hide-and-seek_hypocrites_on_the_hill_106503.html 200106503 Michelle Malkin Michelle Malkin 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:28:09 -0500 SAN DIEGO -- In the November elections, and the 2012 contests to follow, Latinos are faced with a lose-lose situation. As a group that political analysts now label swing voters, they could support a party that doesn't care about them, uses them to score cheap political points and refuses to tackle immigration reform because it is opposed by parts of its base. Or they could vote Republican -- and things might get worse. Elements in the GOP that made gains courting Latino voters in the 1990s -- especially in local and state elections -- with appealing messages of lower taxes, less... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/the_latino-obama_quandry_106502.html 200106502 Ruben Navarrette Ruben Navarrette 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:27:20 -0500 WASHINGTON -- If anyone thought Colombia's Alvaro Uribe, who will be succeeded Aug. 7 by Juan Manuel Santos, was going quietly into that good night, they were wrong. The Western Hemisphere has been shaken by his government's expose of the sanctuary that Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has provided to two Colombian terrorist groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). Uribe's ambassador to the Organization of American States presented photos, videos, satellite maps and testimonies as evidence that 1,500 guerrillas enjoy... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/venezuelas_smoking_gun_106501.html 200106501 Alvaro Vargas Llosa Alvaro Vargas Llosa 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:24:23 -0500 WASHINGTON -- The modern Republican argument about taxes seems to boil down to two principles, both misguided: Taxes can be reduced, but they can never be allowed to go up. And whatever level taxes are at, they are too high. Think back to the beginning of the Bush administration tax cuts. It seems almost impossible to believe, but the argument then was that the budget surplus was too large. There was, or so President George W. Bush assured us, ample cash to cut taxes for everyone and protect the Social Security surplus and set aside $1 trillion over the next decade for "additional... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/quack_medicine_on_taxes_106498.html 200106498 Ruth Marcus Ruth Marcus 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:21:16 -0500 Events this month opened three windows into the mirror world of espionage and covert operations. The three windows are opaque and narrow, but that's always the case with the spy business, a shadowy enterprise where the source (or sources) of light should also be regarded with suspicion. Window One, Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri's return to Iran, is reminiscent of a Cold War spy novel where double agents steal, deal and often die. This current affair, however, involves a flesh-and-blood human being, not a character, and the driving issue behind the incident, the Iranian... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/three_windows_into_spydoms_world_of_mirrors_106507.html 200106507 Austin Bay Austin Bay 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:18:02 -0500 I woke this morning in Elgin, Ill., and pointed the nose of the rental car toward Madison, Wis. My leg of the National Organization for Marriage's 23-city "Summer for Marriage" bus tour began last Friday in Columbus, Ohio, and ended at noon on Tuesday with a rally on the statehouse steps in Madison. Earlier this month, in Providence, R.I., several hundred very angry and very morally self-confident protesters stormed the podium, trying to shout down NOM president Brian Brown, and failing in that endeavor, satisfied themselves with hurling insults and threats at small... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/28/on_the_road_for_marriage_106504.html 200106504 Maggie Gallagher Maggie Gallagher 2010/07 07/28/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:16:19 -0500 ANNOUNCER: It's time to go "One-on-One". KING: Unless a judge stops it, Arizona's controversial new immigration law goes into effect Thursday. We'll be heading out there starting tomorrow to do the program Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from Arizona. Groups of union members, students, even religious leaders from Los Angeles are making plans for protest rallies against the new law. But the state's governor, Republican Jan Brewer, is used to taking the heat political and otherwise. She joins us now to go "One-on-One". Governor, my first question to you... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/interview_with_arizona_governor_jan_brewer_106519.html 200106519 John King, USA John King, USA 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:51:04 -0500 SEAN HANNITY, HOST: The balance of power in Washington could dramatically shift just 98 days from now. Now races all around the country are beginning to heat up this summer ahead of the midterm elections and a major x-factor in many of those battles, particularly in border states, could be the Arizona immigration law. Now the controversial measure signed into law back in April by Governor Jan Brewer is set to take effect just two days from now, this Thursday. Now that is unless U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton steps in as the Obama administration has requested and issues an injunction to... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/interview_with_senator_john_mccain_on_hannity_106517.html 200106517 Hannity Hannity 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:48:31 -0500 12:30 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. I just concluded a productive discussion with the leaders of both parties in Congress. This was one of a series of regular meetings that I called for in the State of the Union because I think it's important for us to come together and speak frankly about the challenges we face and to work through areas where we don't agree; hopefully find some areas where we do. Our conversation today focused on an issue that's being discussed every day at kitchen tables across this country -- and that's how do we create jobs that... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/obamas_remarks_following_the_bipartisan_leadership_meeting_106494.html 200106494 Barack Obama Barack Obama 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:01:56 -0500 Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time-- and with the same disastrous results. One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/how_smart_are_we_106479.html 200106479 Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:50:57 -0500 Even with last week's Elaine Sherrod -NAACP media uproar, the Obama administration's recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick as Medicare czar continued stirring controversy, with Senate Republicans "spoiling for a fight" and "escalating the conflict" according to the Washington Examiner's Byron York.  Putting the unpopular Obamacare measure back on the political front burner just as Democratic candidates were hoping it had gone away, the administration's decision to bypass congressional committee hearings with the Berwick appointment had an... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/the_growing_battle_over_berwick_106474.html 200106474 Hal Scherz Hal Scherz 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:20:12 -0500 The news in that massive data dump provided by the dauntingly mysterious Wikileaks (who? what?) to one American and two European publications is that there is no news at all. We already knew that the war in Afghanistan was not going well. We already knew -- or, in the words of The New York Times, "harbored strong suspicions" -- that Pakistan's military spy service was aiding the Taliban (with friends like this ... ) and we already knew that Afghanistan's army and police would be reformed and able to stand up to the Taliban sometime around when pigs fly or Washington... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/telling_us_the_obvious_106484.html 200106484 Richard Cohen Richard Cohen 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:58:42 -0500 You have to hand it to US President Barack Obama. He is relentless. Just when you thought he was shifting gears - easing up on Israel and turning his attention to Iran's nuclear weapons program - he pulls out a zinger. His recent courtship of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu led some Israelis and supporters of Israel in the US to believe the administration had seen the light. After 18 months, we were told Obama finally realized that contrary to what he had thought, Palestinian statehood is not the most urgent issue in the Middle East, Iran's nuclear weapons program is. In the past... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/the_new_improved_obama_106486.html 200106486 Caroline Glick Caroline Glick 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:08:25 -0500 White House economic adviser Christina Romer is off-message. Her offense is nearly as grave as that of White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who let slip that Democrats are in danger of losing the House. Romer's indiscretion is an academic paper arguing that tax increases kill growth . . . just as the White House prepares to raise taxes. Published with her husband in the June issue of The American Economic Review, Romer's paper is complicated and nuanced, befitting the work of a serious academic economist. It surveys tax changes during the past few decades in widely varying... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/tax-hike_hypocrites_106487.html 200106487 Rich Lowry Rich Lowry 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:31:39 -0500 WASHINGTON -- The tens of thousands of classified military documents posted on the Internet Sunday confirm what critics of the war in Afghanistan already knew or suspected: We are wading deeper into a long-running, morally ambiguous conflict that has virtually no chance of ending well.The Obama administration, our NATO allies and the Afghan government responded to the documents -- made public by a gadfly organization known as Wikileaks -- by saying they tell us nothing new. Which is the problem. We already had plenty of evidence that elements within Pakistan's intelligence services were... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/this_was_all_secret_106483.html 200106483 Eugene Robinson Eugene Robinson 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:57:35 -0500 As the debate rages over letting some of the Bush tax cuts expire, Republicans have raised their starve-the-beast theory from its coffin. They insist that government (the "beast") can be shrunk by cutting taxes: The less money government has, the less government there can be. Time has not been kind to this theory. The beast never did better than when tax-cutting Republicans were in charge. The fiscal grown-ups who used to run the Republican Party didn't cotton to reducing taxes before spending in normal times. But Ronald Reagan offered the far more pleasurable doctrine of just... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/raise_taxes_to_cut_government_106482.html 200106482 Froma Harrop Froma Harrop 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:56:07 -0500 Arriving at a biker's convention in Ukraine on his Harley Davidson trike, Vladimir Putin offered a few observations on his recent celebratory meeting with the 10 Russian sleeper agents deported from the United States. "They had a very difficult fate," the former KGB colonel noted sympathetically. "They had to carry out a task to benefit their motherland's interests for many, many years without a diplomatic cover, risking themselves and those close to them." The reunion was heartwarming. They sang patriotic songs and "talked of life." Putin assured them,... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/russia_spies_america_apologizes_106481.html 200106481 Mona Charen Mona Charen 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:54:20 -0500 Public confidence in Congress has plummeted to the lowest level of any institution since Gallup began asking the question in 1973. One-half of all Americans have little or no confidence in the Congress. Only 11 percent have a "great deal" or "a lot of" confidence in what is, given its place of primacy in the Constitution, the first branch of government and the branch most representative of the people. The house of such giants as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Henry Cabot Lodge, the greatest legislative body in the world that was home to John F.... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/trusted_most_--_men_with_guns_106480.html 200106480 Pat Buchanan Pat Buchanan 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:52:53 -0500 Perhaps the most telling of the recent revelations of the liberal/left Journolist, a list consisting of about 400 major liberal/left journalists, is the depth of their hatred of conservatives. That they would consult with one another in order to protect candidate and then President Obama and in order to hurt Republicans is unfortunate and ugly. But what is jolting is the hatred of conservatives, as exemplified by the e-mail from an NPR reporter expressing her wish to personally see Rush Limbaugh die a painful death -- and the apparent absence of any objection from the other liberal... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/the_left_hates_conservatives_106478.html 200106478 Dennis Prager Dennis Prager 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:15:15 -0500 BELL, Calif. -- This little city was a pleasant place to be last Sunday morning. There are nice gardens around small bungalows and four-family apartment buildings. Hundreds of kids in snappy soccer uniforms, their parents behind carrying coolers of food and drink, were headed for the perfectly groomed turf near City Hall. It's a very nice City Hall, red brick, with a park and community center next door, along with the restored house of James George Bell, the founder of the town in 1876. Of course it's changed a bit since then. More than 35,000 people live here now, 90 percent... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/ask_not_for_whom_the_bell_tolls_106477.html 200106477 Richard Reeves Richard Reeves 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:48:26 -0500 The Obama administration had gone to federal court to kill Arizona's new illegal-immigration law, scheduled to go into effect on Thursday. The Department of Justice argues that enforcement of the Arizona law "is pre-empted by federal law and therefore violates the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution." Does this mean that if Team Obama prevails over Arizona, San Francisco and other sanctuary cities should prepare to go to court against the feds? After all, the Obama brief argues that "a state may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/tasing_arizona_106476.html 200106476 Debra Saunders Debra Saunders 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:11:37 -0500 Beltway insiders have asked for months whether Republicans must do more than oppose Democrats to win back power. "Just say no" has historically sufficed. Democrats' offered no grand vision statement when they recaptured the House in 2006. But Republicans are not taking their chances. The Contract with America's sequel is coming soon. It's debut, like the original, is expected in September. In truth, waves are waves regardless of these public relations events. The Contract with America typifies the sort of campaign news that consumes operatives and reporters but only... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/will_opposing_dems_be_enough_for_gop_this_year_.html 200106475 David Paul Kuhn David Paul Kuhn 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:25:37 -0500 WASHINGTON -- The Wikileaks document download -- illustrating Afghan corruption, Pakistani duplicity and Taliban toughness -- revealed little that is new. But it will intensify a popular kind of desperation. A consensus is growing among foreign policy realists, skittish NATO allies and anti-war activists that the time has come to cut a deal with the Taliban. The Afghan government is hopeless; recent elections were discrediting; nation-building has failed. The only hope is to pursue not only reintegration of low- and mid-level Taliban fighters into Afghan society but reconciliation with... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/27/the_desperation_of_an_afghan_deal_106485.html 200106485 Michael Gerson Michael Gerson 2010/07 07/27/2010/00/00/00 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:11:51 -0500 SEAN HANNITY, HOST: From closing Gitmo to putting Americans back to work the list of broken promises President Obama has racked up in his first 18 months in office is long and illustrious. And it's not just average Americans who are upset with him. His left-wing base is revolting as well. At a liberal blog convention in Vegas last week comedian-turned-Senator Al Franken said there is a whole host of reasons why the left should be disappointed in the president. Take a look at this. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM JULY 24) SENATOR AL FRANKEN, D-MINN.: Like you, I wish we've gotten the public... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/26/interview_with_marco_rubio_and_linda_mcmahon_106496.html 200106496 Hannity Hannity 2010/07 07/26/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:05:08 -0500 2:49 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon, everybody. Tomorrow there's going to be a very important vote in the Senate about how much influence special interests should have over our democracy. Because of the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in the Citizens United case, big corporations -- even foreign-controlled ones -- are now allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on American elections. They can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads -- and worst of all, they don't even have to reveal who's actually paying for the ads. Instead, a group can hide... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/26/obama_on_the_disclose_act_106495.html 200106495 Barack Obama Barack Obama 2010/07 07/26/2010/00/00/00 Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:03:08 -0500