THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Articles by THE WASHINGTON TIMES
EDITORIAL: The GOP retreats into fear
With frightened Republicans scattering like bunny rabbits at the sound of distant thunder, a job-killing minimum-wage increase is probably inevitable. Only 63 House Republicans voted to maintain the budgetary discipline that prevented President Obama from breaking the budget into even tinier pieces. The early, unconditional surrender in the House sends a message that these congressmen will throw good policy overboard at the first sign their re-election could be imperiled. The Republican cynicism stands proud and naked. It's enough to make a speaker cry. Published December 15, 2013
EDITORIAL: A bad idea making America even less competitive
The usual suspects were positively giddy last week after five federal agencies got together to adopt what's known as the Volcker rule. This somewhat obscure, thousand-page regulation isn't the sort of thing to come up in casual conversation around the water cooler (except on Wall Street). But it's another example of how the government thinks it knows best how to spend other people's money. Published December 15, 2013
EDITORIAL: The art of stealing elections
Stealing elections is an old game politicians play. Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president, got to the U.S. Senate in 1948 by "winning" the closest race in Texas history by a margin of 87 votes out of more than a million cast. An election judge in tiny Alice, Texas, said he counted more than 200 names on the voting roll for Box 13 that were written in alphabetic succession in the same hand, same color of ink. When a federal court subpoenaed Box 13, it was discovered to be "lost." LBJ took his seat in the Senate. Voting machines were supposed to put an end to such election-night chicanery, but Earl Long, the colorful governor of Louisiana, where fraud is the national sport, boasted that "I can make a voting machine play 'Home on the Range' all night long." Published December 15, 2013
EDITORIAL: Caught under the mistletoe
Eleven-year-old Madison Root is an example of what's right with America, and her story is an example of everything that's wrong with America. Published December 12, 2013
EDITORIAL: The war on pronouns
To most people, pronouns are an inoffensive combination of letters used to convey meaning. "He" went to the store. "She" read a book. The latest cause celebre among professional umbrage takers is the oppressive pronoun. Published December 12, 2013
EDITORIAL: The Potemkin website
Oppressive regimes throughout history have built cities of false facades meant to impress from afar, concealing the embarrassing condition of the places. In its quest to persuade Americans that Obamacare is working, the Obama administration has built the most expensive Potemkin website yet. Published December 12, 2013
EDITORIAL: The new payday inequality
President Obama says income inequality is the "defining challenge of our time" and insists that America must address the difference between the rich and the poor. He may be on to something, but not in the way he thinks — or wants to talk about. Published December 11, 2013
EDITORIAL: This is no bargain
Can Mitch McConnell rescue the conservatives? The senior senator from Kentucky leads an increasingly irrelevant Republican minority in the Senate, but he is the key to bringing down the newly struck budget deal that gives Democrats all they want, and then some. The Republican leaders in the House have surrendered early, giving the Democrats a $65 billion spending card for letting them get home in time for Christmas. They still believe in Santa Claus. Published December 11, 2013
EDITORIAL: Turbulence at 30,000 feet
Nobody's going to get any sleep on the red eye to Milwaukee sitting next to a blabbermouth yammering into a plastic box about what he plans to do when he lands. There's growing sentiment that the federal government must protect passengers from this annoyance. Many, no doubt most, passengers want the Federal Communications Commission to keep the prohibition on using cellphones on airliners. Published December 11, 2013
EDITORIAL: Harry Reid’s favor factory
The radioactive smoke has yet to clear from Harry Reid's detonation of the nuclear option, but the senator from Las Vegas is already using his new powers. Mr. Reid can rubber-stamp any name President Obama puts forward to hold a high office; Republicans have been cut out entirely. Cushy sinecures are handed out as reward for faithful service (and cash) to the Democratic Party. Published December 10, 2013
EDITORIAL: Mr. Obama’s pretentious obsession
Most mourners at a funeral are happy that the occasion isn't about them, but President Obama wants star billing everywhere he goes, even at the gates of paradise. Speaking Tuesday in Johannesburg at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, the president imagined that a somber occasion where the eyes of the world were upon him was an appropriate stage for advancing his political agenda at home. Published December 10, 2013
EDITORIAL: The shake that shook the world
Soweto, the Johannesburg suburb where popular resistance to apartheid set off the revolution that changed South Africa and established Nelson Mandela as the father of a new country, is the most dangerous place on the continent this week. Anyone who ventures into the street risks being crushed by the hordes of official visitors trying to get in front of a camera. Published December 10, 2013
EDITORIAL: Electric dreams
Liberals think they know better. To the progressive, there is no undertaking that couldn't be made better with governmental direction and the collective advice of an ivory tower full of experts. When it comes down to it, they think Americans are too dumb to know what's in their own best interests, and thus someone must tell them what to do. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently put it, "It takes the government (to make a market)." Published December 9, 2013
EDITORIAL: Colorado ruling takes the cake
A Colorado court is making it a crime to refuse to cater to militant homosexual activists. Judge Robert N. Spencer held on Friday that a bakery owner who, citing his Christian religious beliefs, wouldn't bake a wedding cake for a homosexual couple must "cease and desist from discriminating" or pay fines so large that he'd go out of business. Published December 9, 2013
EDITORIAL: Rules from the Obama air force
No crystal ball is necessary to foretell what's in store for the country in the new year. The Obama administration has a scheme to regulate the air itself. Published December 9, 2013
EDITORIAL: Lights out in Venezuela
The lights are out in Caracas, and "right-wing sabotage" is to blame, according to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. That's the socialist leader's version of saying it's George W. Bush's fault — a favorite tactic of our own president. Published December 8, 2013
EDITORIAL: Health care hardball
Chris Matthews may still get a tingling sensation whenever he listens to Barack Obama, but for millennials, the thrill is gone. A new Harvard Institute of Politics poll finds the president's favorability rating underwater among those between the ages of 18 to 29. Not surprisingly, once-devoted youthful fans have been turned off by Obamacare. Published December 8, 2013
EDITORIAL: IRS doubles down
While most Americans were buying turkeys, baking pumpkin pies and planning their family Thanksgiving get-togethers, the Internal Revenue Service was hard at work strengthening its grip on free speech. With the release of a new set of new rules governing nonprofit organizations, the tax man is granting himself the authority to crack down further on groups that annoy the administration. Published December 8, 2013
VIDEO: Emily Miller on CNBC on Obamacare leaving more people losing insurance than new enrollees
CNBC's Larry Kudlow interviewed Emily Miller about Obamacare resulting in more people losing their health insurance plans than uninsured enrolling in the exchanges. They also discussed how the elderly can't keep their doctors because the Affordable Care Act raids $700 billion from Medicare, and young people not signing up Obamacare. Published December 6, 2013
EDITORIAL: Our ideological president
At a fundraiser in Seattle on the day before Thanksgiving, President Obama told a group of Democratic donors, apparently without a hint of irony, "I'm not a particularly ideological person." One wouldn't know it from the ponderous 48-minute oration on income inequality that he delivered in Washington on Wednesday. Published December 5, 2013