Yet another in a long line of evidence showing that while democracy might be a way to gauge the public’s general mood or satisfaction, it’s certainly too clumsy of a tool to really have anything to do with setting policy: Led by Loyola Marymount University’s Andrew Healy, a team of researchers compared 44 years of [...]

This is a post in our continuing “Point/Counterpoint” series, where TLP contributors and/or guest posters debate a topic. In this installment, Michael Powell argues against the existence of “states’ rights”. Tomorrow, Brad Warbiany will defend states’ rights, and his post can now be found here. During the twentieth century, there were several confrontations between federal [...]

William F. Buckley Jr. is famous for once having said: “I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” If he were still around today, I’m [...]

Pretty much sums up one of the main problems with modern democracy: In a widely quoted book entitled The End of History, Francis Fukuyama wrote about the intellectual and practical triumph of democracy as a system of government. No further political paradigm shifts would be required. Democracy was the omega end point of the historical [...]

Howard Zinn passed at the beginning of this year, and I will admit part of me was saddened at his passing. My mother owned his People’s History of the United States, and my fellow students at college seemed to adore his work. My best friend is a Zinn fanatic, bringing him up nearly every time [...]

Virginia Delegate James LeMunyon has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal where he makes an argument that I’ve been hearing with disturbing frequency lately: The remedy is in Article V of the Constitution, which permits a convention to be called for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments. Any proposed amendment then would have to [...]

Fundamentally, decisions are the marriage of facts and values, and although any government may have access to the facts, it does not have access to my values.

From tonight’s State of the Union address: “Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by [...]

I’d like to claim that I’m not one to pick nits — but I’d be lying. So here is exhibit 10,483 in the “Brad takes part of a post he agrees with and spins it way out of context.” The base post is about marriage and in support of gay marriage. But I found this [...]

Virgina Senator Jim Webb offers up one of the best perspectives on Scott Brown’s win tonight: Calling the race “a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process” Webb said Democrats need to hold off on further action until Brown is formally sworn in to [...]

…Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have any choice at all. The first freedom is the freedom to fail… And when it comes to choosing our leaders in this country… whoooo boy have we failed big time, for a long time. So fellow gunblogger Tam, being an Ovarian American, got a bit tweaked at a comment over [...]

Ezra Klein quotes approvingly from Bruce Bartlett’s new book, The New American Economy: The Failure Of Reaganomics And A New Way Forward: The reality is that even before spending exploded to deal with the economic crisis, the government was set to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation just to pay [...]

This is a good sign: WASHINGTON – A House leader says Democrats haven’t yet lined up enough votes to pass their health care overhaul bill. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week. Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that [...]

Over the past 30 years, America has seen Presidential scandals ranging from Watergate to Iran-Contra to Travel-gate, Whitewater, the Lewinsky scandal, and the Valerie Plame affair. We’ve learned the truth about some of the truly nefarious actions undertaken by some of most beloved Presidents of the 20th Century, including the iconic FDR, JFK, and LBJ. [...]

The governator sent a letter to the California State Assembly where he, er, told them he would “strike” them. Carnally. To the Members of the California State Assembly: I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature. For some time now I have lamented the fact that major issues are overlooked while manyunnecessary bills come [...]

Economist Bruce Bartlett had a column in Forbes outlining why he thinks spending won’t be cut. Every time I write about the need to raise revenues to pay for federal spending, some nitwit always demands to know why we don’t just cut spending. That is not a viable option to deal with our fiscal problem. [...]

Juan Carlos Hidalgo asks the question of the day in a post at Cato@Liberty: What Principle is Guiding Obama’s Honduras Policy? The Obama administration is threatening not to recognize the result of Honduras’ presidential election in late November unless Manuel Zelaya returns to the presidency beforehand. The presidential poll was already scheduled prior to Zelaya’s [...]

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear re-argument in a case that could lead to a big change in campaign finance law: The Supreme Court’s unusual hearing Wednesday on the role corporations can play in influencing elections carries the potential not only for rewriting the nation’s campaign finance laws but also for testing the willingness of [...]

In the health care debate, the question has somewhat changed within the Democratic party from “what do we want?” to “what can we actually pass?” Because they’re relatively sure there’ll be no help from Republicans, this puts them in an awkward spot, and as Bruce of QandO points out, highlights a point showing how all [...]

Over at QandO, Dale Franks suggests that we’re careening towards a fork in the road. If we keep on at our current pace, we will reach that fork. Will we go left or right? Dale suggests both: I’ve also said before–and every time I do, people like Oliver Willis call me crazy for saying it–we’re [...]