The winds of change are blowing once again -- this time in the Middle East. When British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made his historic 1960 “Winds of Change” speech in Cape Town about the continent of Africa, he elected to place Britain on the side of history and to hasten decolonization.
1:32 PM 09/22/2010
South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint likes to claim that President Barack Obama is to the “left of Europe.” He would do well to acquaint himself with what’s actually happening on the other side of the pond -- that is, if he cares to tether himself to reality.
3:11 PM 09/20/2010
“The movers and shakers of our society seem…oblivious to the terrible destruction wrought by the economic storm that has roared through America.” Thus writes the New York Times’ Bob Herbert, who notes in a weekend column that “nearly 44 million people were living in poverty last year, which is more than 14 percent of the population. That is an increase of 4 million over the previous year, the highest percentage in 15 years.”
1:54 PM 09/16/2010
I have to take issue with my former Cato colleague Dan Mitchell and Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, two people who I agree with on many issues. Like them I want to see the cost of government curtailed and agree that we shouldn’t live at the expense of future generations. We would no doubt disagree on the priorities for government -- I believe in a greater welfare role -- but even so, on the issue of reducing government we are on the same side.
2:30 PM 09/15/2010
There hasn’t been much to cheer up the White House in recent weeks, but last night’s Tea Party upset in Delaware’s GOP Senate primary must have prompted some pretty big smiles in the West Wing. “Tea Party Scores Big” was the Washington Post headline this morning. But the headline could easily have been: “Big Night for the White House.”
3:25 PM 09/13/2010
Can Obama reverse the tide and stop the GOP from taking back the House and the Senate? According to veteran Democratic strategist Robert Shrum, “yes, he can.” For Shrum, this is 1948, with the president pitched against “do-nothing” Republicans, fighting on the side of the people against the privileged. He has found his voice and “while Harry Truman used to “give ‘em hell. This week, Barack Obama gave ’em heck.”
10:49 AM 08/18/2010
Why should the British middle-class instantly reach for their wallets whenever they hear a British politician talk about closing the gap between the rich and the poor? Nick Clegg, the UK’s deputy prime minister, demonstrated exactly why today with his speech on creating a more socially mobile society. The rich quickly morph into the middle class, and so what he really means is closing the gap between the middle-class and the working-class. The real rich, as we all know, will just move overseas if there is too much redistribution out of their pockets.
9:43 AM 08/17/2010
“We are engaged in a battle for the soul of America,” wrote TV actor Joseph Phillips in a recent Daily Caller opinion piece. Apparently the building of a mosque dedicated to the principles of integration, tolerance and inter-faith understanding two blocks from Ground Zero would mean America losing its soul.
10:00 AM 08/10/2010
A few hours before my father died coming on for three years ago I became a U.S. citizen, joining about 80 or so others in a hall in Baltimore’s federal building in a naturalization process that included Africans, Asians, Europeans, South Americans and, dare I say it, Arabs. The World’s religions were also represented that chilly day – there were Christians, Jews and Muslims.
12:06 PM 08/06/2010
David Cameron is still paying the price for his remarks about Britain being the “junior partner” to the U.S. in the “special relationship.” During a town hall meeting in Hove yesterday he was accused by a pensioner of “denigrating” his country. Cameron responded immediately by conceding that he misspoke when he used the date of “1940” during his “junior partner” interview with Sky News on his trip to the States. But that didn’t assuage the pensioner. His previous corrections as to the date have also fallen on deaf ears. The critics actually care little, I suspect, whether Cameron was talking about 1940 or the 1940s and beyond.
2:53 PM 08/02/2010
So now we have a second Republican Senator calling for the “revoking” of birthright citizenship in the U.S.– in other words another GOP luminary who wants to copy progressive places such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, countries that deny citizenship — and even birth certificates — to tens of thousands of children born to foreign workers, rendering them stateless and vulnerable and at risk of a life of official non-existence.
12:09 AM 04/05/2010
Ten years ago, and presumably without any sense of risking fate, then-Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown declared he had exorcised boom and bust. Next week, Prime Minister Brown will end the phony political war Britain has been engulfed in for the past year and likely announce a general election. The election will be held in the midst of the most terrifying bust the country has experienced since the Jarrow March and the Great Depression.
