Articles

Eighty percent of voters live in cities, and Ted Cruz needs them. What to make of Senator Ted Cruz? He is a very, very smart man who apparently believes that the median Republican presidential primary voter is very, very dumb. There’s some evidence for that proposition — Donald Trump still leads in the national polls — but Cruz’s strategy rests…

The State of the Presidency: Spent President Obama’s Tuesday night address to Congress was less about the state of the union than the state of the presidency. And the state of this presidency is spent. The signs of intellectual exhaustion were everywhere. Consider just three. After taking credit for success in Syria, raising American stature abroad and prevailing against the…

Bernie Sanders released his Medicare-for-all health care plan Sunday, detailing how he’d implement a decades-old liberal dream just two hours before Democrats start their final debate before the February 1 Iowa caucuses. The Vermont senator’s plan would funnel all Americans into a government-run health insurance program similar to the Medicare program that already covers senior citizens. “Universal health care is…

Because Cruz kept a repeat offender in prison, Brooks says he’s not a good Christian. David Brooks does not like Ted Cruz. In an escalating series of attacks, Brooks has gone from saying that Cruz doesn’t “live within the confines of reality” and is “nakedly ambitious” — a “selfish Machiavellian” — to now saying that Cruz’s rhetoric is “Satanic” or…

What boxer Sonny Liston’s manager said of him (Sonny had his good points, the trouble was his bad points) is true of Marco Rubio. His strengths include intelligence, articulateness and, usually, cheerfulness. His misjudgments involve, in ascending order of importance, the Senate immigration bill of 2013, sugar, Libya and S . 590. Together these reveal a recurring penchant for ill-considered…

The first Republican presidential debate of 2016 was also one of the feistiest. Seven candidates — the fewest of any of the previous debates — took the stage in North Charleston, South Carolina and took the gloves off. The debate was indicative of a Republican primary that is fast reaching its boiling point just less than three weeks before the…

In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama began with a near-perfect expression of progressive dogma. The great and glorious future awaits, we need only calm our quaking hearts and embrace the fundamental transformation. The old beliefs must be discarded, and American history shows that only fear can slow change: “America has been through big changes before  – …

Congress has repealed the No Child Left Behind Act only to replace it with a far worse centralized control of education — Every Student Succeeds Act. Congress has admitted that Common Core now will be federal law and that it is not about academic learning but rather changing the beliefs, values, behavior, and worldviews of students.  In a nutshell, the…

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans: Tonight marks the eighth year I’ve come here to report on the State of the Union. And for this final one, I’m going to try to make it shorter. I know some of you are antsy to get back to Iowa. I also understand that because it’s an election…

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, my fellow Americans: Tonight marks the eighth year I’ve come here to report on the State of the Union. And for this final one, I’m going to try to make it shorter. I know some of you are antsy to get back to Iowa. I also understand that because it’s an election…

President Barack Obama has promised to make an unconventional State of the Union speech tonight, and it is a safe bet to assume that by “unconventional State of the Union” he means “conventional campaign speech,” heavy with his trademark alloy of intellectual shallowness and risibly inflated self-regard. In 2008 it was “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” but…