[ Posted Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 – 16:48 UTC ]
OK, I fully admit that's a provocative title for me to write. To be more accurate (and a lot less sensationalistic) it should probably read: "In Support Of Dick Cheney's Call To Declassify The Evidence To Prove Whether Torture Worked Or Not." Call me biased towards openness and knowing what was done in the American public's name, but I support Cheney's recent call for more (not less) disclosure in this case. Whether it makes logical sense to anyone's argument about the subject or not.
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[ Posted Monday, April 20th, 2009 – 16:13 UTC ]
President Obama called last week for simplifying the United States income tax code. This issue may be too big for even Obama to succeed at changing, though. Because while politicians love to rail against the briar patch that is our tax code, and love to call for "reforming" or "simplifying" it, very little progress is ever actually made at doing so. But there's an easy one-step solution for this systemic problem that would go a long, long way towards simplifying the thousands of pages of instructions from the Internal Revenue Service. This idea could fit on a postcard: "Force Congress to do their own taxes. With no help. And then immediately audit all of them, and post the results publicly."
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[ Posted Friday, April 17th, 2009 – 16:57 UTC ]
What a strange set of sentences that is to begin an article about the twenty-first century world we live in. But pirates are attacking ships with regularity off the coast of Somalia. This has been going on for years, but Americans just realized it is happening (because an American ship was just attacked). And, while the two are not connected (and I am not advocating for their connection, sorry for the slightly-misleading headline), people are finally talking about torture after President Obama released the Bush torture memos to the public. We'll get to the Bush torture memos in a bit, but I'd like to begin with a proposed solution to the pirate problem first.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 – 16:54 UTC ]
I have to admit, when I sat down to write about President Obama's change in America's Cuba policy, the first headline which suggested itself was: "Obama Does Exactly What He Said He Would Do -- Media Stunned." But then, that headline could apply to so many things these days, that I thought I needed to be a bit more specific.
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[ Posted Monday, April 13th, 2009 – 16:15 UTC ]
Tea doesn't get much respect in America. This historical snubbing will continue Wednesday, with protests across America meant to evoke the Boston Tea Party, a seminal event in the foundation of our county. How effective these protests will be is going to be open to interpretation, however.
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[ Posted Friday, April 10th, 2009 – 16:38 UTC ]
A bumpersticker seen in more liberal areas of the country reads: "Jesus save me from your followers." Now, that may not be a very "Christian" way to open a column which falls on the Christian Good Friday, but I was reminded of it by yet another episode of Catholic leaders denouncing liberal politicians. To these leaders, I have to say, isn't there something about beams and dust motes and eyes which you could be more productively teaching about? Or perhaps that one about throwing the first stone?
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[ Posted Wednesday, April 8th, 2009 – 16:47 UTC ]
It must be tough to be a member of the media class these days. The inside-the-Beltway crowd is getting more and more frustrated with the public's refusal to go along with the storyline they are trying to sell... oh, excuse me, that should read "tell," shouldn't it? They've been beating the drum of President Obama's supposed failure from Day One, but that rascally public keeps right on giving him roughly two-thirds approval ratings. In fact, his approval ratings have just not budged during the entire time.
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[ Posted Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 – 16:44 UTC ]
ChrisWeigant.com is proud to announce that our much-beloved resident cartoonist C.W. Cunningham has been honored by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, by being featured in their "Jefferson Muzzles" awards column.
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[ Posted Monday, April 6th, 2009 – 16:09 UTC ]
Following conventional wisdom, especially in Washington, is often a fool's errand. Groupthink can be wildly wrong, even if "everyone knows..." or "everyone believes..." something to be true. But every now and then, the conventional wisdom turns out to be right. Which may be the case for the punditocracy's predicted doom for cap-and-trade legislation intended to reform America's energy policy. If this proves to be the case, it will be the first major Obama priority to fail in Congress.
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[ Posted Friday, April 3rd, 2009 – 16:33 UTC ]
Because (are you sitting down), Krauthammer's big bugaboo, his big boogeyman spectre designed to send us all screaming out into the night... is "fairness." America being "fair" is such an awful, frightening, downright terrifying future for our country, that all good citizens should rise up against it. To the barricades! To fight for Unfairness For All!
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