Terence Jeffrey from Creators Syndicate

Can Obama Order Grocers to Give Away Bread? for 02/15/2012

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

In October 2009, I published a column titled, "Can Obama and Congress Order You to Buy Broccoli?"

Now I need to ask a follow-up: Can Obama order grocers to give away bread?

I wrote the broccoli column after Sen. Orrin Hatch raised serious questions in the Senate Finance Committee about the constitutionality of President Obama's proposal to force people to buy health insu ...

Updated: Wed Feb 15, 2012

Did Mass. Constitution Authorize Romney to Mandate Health Insurance? for 02/08/2012

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

You can now divide Americans into two groups: Those who believe government rightfully has the power to force people to purchase goods and services they do not want and those who don't.

Among the former are two subgroups: Those who believe only state governments have this coercive power and those who believe the federal government has it, too.

President Barack Obama is in the latte ...

Updated: Wed Feb 08, 2012

Romney Told Catholic Hospitals to Administer Abortion Pills for 02/01/2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

A defining moment in Mitt Romney's post-pro-life-conversion political career came in his third year as governor of Massachusetts, when he decided Catholic hospitals would be required under his interpretation of a new state law to give rape victims a drug that can induce abortions.

Romney announced this decision — saying it was the "right thing for hospitals" to do — ...

Updated: Wed Feb 01, 2012

Obama Creates Unconstitutional Monster at Fed for 01/25/2012

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Did President Barack Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without a Senate confirmation vote violate the Constitution? The answer is plainly yes.

Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution says the president "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint ... Officers of the United States ...

Updated: Wed Jan 25, 2012

Missing From Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial: God for 01/18/2012

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Four days after police arrested Rosa Parks for refusing to surrender her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the young Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. explained the Christian foundation of the civil rights movement he was about to lead.

"I want to say that we are not here advocating violence," King said in a Dec. 5, 1955, speech at the Holt Street Baptist Church.

Updated: Wed Jan 18, 2012

The Mythical Middle in American Politics for 01/11/2012

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Why did the Democrats run Bob Casey Jr. in Pennsylvania in 2006 against Sen. Rick Santorum?

Why did President George W. Bush win a higher percentage of the African-American vote in Ohio in 2004 than he won nationwide?

Why did Proposition 8 win in California in 2008, while Sen. John McCain was losing the state in the presidential election?

The answer: The middle in American ...

Updated: Wed Jan 11, 2012

Santorum's Experiment in Truth-telling for 01/04/2012

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Even though he is a columnist for The Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer often makes shrewd observations about American politics.

On Fox News the night before the Iowa caucuses, however, Krauthammer indulged in a false appeal to common knowledge — before casually dismissing Rick Santorum as a nonviable presidential candidate

Bill O'Reilly asked: Who is going to win Iowa?
Updated: Wed Jan 04, 2012

Virginia Must Change Its Election System for 12/28/2011

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

When I managed Pat Buchanan's presidential campaign in 1996, I learned that some states conducted fair and honest caucuses and primaries and that some did not.

Iowa, historically the first caucus state, and New Hampshire, historically the first primary state, conducted their political business fairly. New York did not.

Today Virginia's political system is beginning to resemble New ...

Updated: Wed Dec 28, 2011

Manure Makers, Yes; Catholics, No for 12/21/2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Under this administration and this Congress — which includes the Republican-controlled House of Representatives led by Speaker John Boehner — the right of Catholics to freely exercise their religion is treated with less deference than the presumed right of stockyard owners to fill the skies with effluvia.

I mean this literally.

When Congress wants to stop the Executive ...

Updated: Wed Dec 21, 2011

Elena Kagan and Question 3 for 12/14/2011

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Considering the debate around President Barack Obama's health care plan and the lawsuits filed against it, then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan's written answers to some of the 13 written questions relating to Obamacare that Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans submitted to her during her Supreme Court confirmation process were remarkably simple and straightforward.

"No," she s ...

Updated: Wed Dec 14, 2011

The Greatest English Teacher for 12/07/2011

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Rev. John Becker, S.J., sat at the front of the classroom, paperback in hand, glasses pushed to the end of his nose. As he spoke, he looked intently from one student to another.

"This semester, I am going to teach you how to read 'King Lear,'" he said. "It may be Shakespeare's most difficult play. But it has a powerful message to tell."

When we were done reading "Lear," the p ...

Updated: Wed Dec 07, 2011

Romney Voted for Population-Control Fanatic Presidential Candidate for 11/30/2011

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

When he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992, Paul Tsongas repeatedly made it clear: He loathed President George H.W. Bush's flip-flopping on abortion and his inattentiveness to what Tsongas perceived as the urgent need for global population control.

And he won Mitt Romney's vote in the 1992 Massachusetts presidential primary.

"This land, this water, this ai ...

Updated: Wed Nov 30, 2011

Is Michelle Obama Bad for Kids? for 11/23/2011

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Will Michelle Obama's efforts as first lady help or hurt American children and the nation in which they live?

When speaking about her "Let's Move!" program to fight childhood obesity, Mrs. Obama often explains her vision of government as parent — the Big Mother who will teach children the important things their derelict real moms and dads do not.

Big Mother made a ...

Updated: Wed Nov 23, 2011

Under GOP House, Federal Debt Has Increased $6,766 Per Household for 11/16/2011

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Americans who follow the workings of our government — even if only casually — presumably know that the Republican Party took control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November 2010 elections.

Fewer likely know that the Republican-controlled House gained a veto over federal spending on March 4, 2011.

Fewer still may know that from March 4, when the Republican- ...

Updated: Wed Nov 16, 2011

Country Music's Raye of Hope for 11/09/2011

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

About a decade before he began a Nashville recording career that has included five platinum albums, Collin Raye was singing at a nightclub in Beaverton, Ore., when he experienced something he would later recognize as an act of Providence.

There was a couple that came every weekend to see him perform.

"As I was working the crowd, I would sit down with them," Raye told m ...

Updated: Wed Nov 09, 2011

Put Constitutional Cap on Federal Spending for 11/02/2011

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

If anything good came out of the deal House Speaker John Boehner cut with President Barack Obama to increase the limit on the federal debt by as much as $2.4 trillion, it was that the legislation enacting that increase also provided that by the end of this year both houses of Congress must vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

However, Boehner may now turn that good t ...

Updated: Wed Nov 02, 2011

Hyde Was Right, Bush Was Wrong for 10/26/2011

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Events unfolding in the Middle East are proving that Henry Hyde was right and George Bush was wrong on the wisdom of a foreign policy focused on promoting democracy.

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared in Hyde's House International Relations Committee on Feb. 16, 2006, she presented written testimony touting Bush's messianic policy.

"In his second inaugural ad ...

Updated: Wed Oct 26, 2011

Court Ruling Proves: Kagan Must Recuse for 10/19/2011

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle, a Clinton appointee, ironically provided evidence last week that seals the case that Justice Elena Kagan is required by law to recuse herself from cases challenging Obamacare.

The law in question is 28 U.S.C. 455. It mandates that a justice "shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be reasonably questioned" o ...

Updated: Wed Oct 19, 2011

DOJ: Feds Can Tell Church Who Its Ministers Will Be for 10/12/2011

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama's Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be.

The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be ...

Updated: Wed Oct 12, 2011

The Question Hilda Solis Won't Answer for 10/05/2011

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

I followed along on a short tour that Catholic University gave on Tuesday to Hilda Solis, President Barack Obama's Catholic secretary of labor, who has spent much of her political career zealously advocating legalized abortion.

When Solis served in the U.S. House in 2003, she voted against the partial-birth abortion ban. The day President Bush signed it, she called for the Supreme Court ...

Updated: Wed Oct 05, 2011