Ramesh Ponnuru: Obama scandals could actually hurt Republicans
Republican politicians and activists can barely contain their glee at the simultaneous eruption of three major controversies about the Obama administration.
Republican politicians and activists can barely contain their glee at the simultaneous eruption of three major controversies about the Obama administration.
On those days this year when I picked up my children from school, I often felt like I was operating in a parallel universe from many of the other parents. Their skin is brown. Mine is white. They speak Spanish. I speak English. I work one job. Some of them work two.
Courage is often talked about but seldom witnessed. On Memorial Day each year, America comes together to remember those courageous souls who inspire us all – those who answered the call to serve our country and laid down their lives for our freedom.
I have not seen the video.
A recent survey indicates that those in the American middle class have become more pessimistic about the economy and are deeply worried about their own future.
It’s looking like a long summer for Kathleen Sebelius.
Gov. Sam Brownback has probably been thinking of the old adage: “Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.”
I am one of the owners of the Wichita Wingnuts, and I feel compelled to respond to articles in The Eagle on May 14 and May 19 about the National Baseball Congress and the Wingnuts organization. The articles did not tell a complete or accurate story. The rest of the story was left out.
I’ve been traveling to Yemen, Syria and Turkey to film a documentary on how environmental stresses contributed to the Arab awakening. As I looked back on the trip, it occurred to me that three of our main characters – the leaders of the two Yemeni villages that have been fighting over a single water well and the leader of the Free Syrian Army in Raqqa province, whose cotton farm was wiped out by drought – have 36 children among them: 10, 10 and 16.
There is no standard definition of the all-important term “wing nut,” so let’s provide one. A wing nut is someone who has a dogmatic commitment to an extreme political view (“wing”) that is false and at least a bit crazy (“nut”).
Six months after winning an impressive re-election, Barack Obama finds himself in some kind of trouble – battered by semi-scandals and bombarded by foreign policy challenges he can’t possibly manage.
It turns out that President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget is no more trustworthy than the rest of his administration. His budget, unsurprisingly to conservatives, is not “balanced” and does not deliver on its promise to cut $1.8 trillion in spending over a decade.
A proposal to block the Kansas State Board of Education and school districts from spending any state funding to implement the Common Core standards, the Next Generation science standards, or any assessments associated with the two was proposed last week during conference committee negotiations on the state budget. This measure failed to pass either chamber earlier this session and, in fact, was defeated in the House Education Committee on a vote of 11-7.
After the news broke that Internal Revenue Service agents in Cincinnati had been giving extra scrutiny to applications from conservative groups for tax-exempt status, I immediately downloaded IRS Form 14449, the “Self-Declarers Questionnaire IRC 501(c)(4), (5) and (6) Organizations.”
Given the revelation that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, it’s worth recalling President Obama’s Ohio State University commencement address on May 5. The president decried voices warning “that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner.”
Here’s the White House view of the current trilogy of so-called scandals: Republicans are trying to destroy President Obama’s second term by magnifying bureaucratic miscues and distorting policy realities. This isn’t without some merit.
The opponents of immigration reform have many small complaints, but they really have one core concern. It’s about control. America doesn’t control its borders. Past reform efforts have not established control. Current proposals wouldn’t establish effective control.
What is it about presidents’ second terms that makes them seem so scandal-ridden? Simple: The iron law of longevity. All governments make mistakes, and all governments try to hide those mistakes. But the longer an administration is in office, the more errors it makes, and the harder they are to conceal.
I respectfully disagree with state Rep. David Crum’s support for the Brownback administration’s proposal to hand off community developmental disability services to national health insurance companies (May 17 Opinion). The nonmedical services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities need to be carved out of KanCare, and I/DD parents and advocates are sincerely appreciative that more and more legislators agree with us.
Well, this is a fine mess.
The events surrounding the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, look dramatically different depending on your politics. Republicans tend to see a cover-up and a scandal. Democrats see an attempt to damage President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A Pew poll suggests that the public is divided as well, with 40 percent saying the administration has been dishonest, 37 percent saying it has told the truth, and 23 percent saying they’re not sure. Let’s assess what we do and don’t know:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., proposed that the federal government charge the same interest rates for student loans as the Federal Reserve Board charges large banks for overnight loans – a rate currently set at 0.75 percent. In making this intriguing proposal, Warren made it very clear that her ultimate purpose is to prevent student-loan interest rates from doubling on July 1 from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.
You are a financial supporter of the Westboro Baptist Church. You know, that posse of full-blown whackdoodles from Kansas that descends on our nation’s most tragic moments, particularly military funerals, waving signs that say “Thank God for dead soldiers.”
“Great Gatsby,” meet Raise Up Milwaukee. And New York. And Chicago. And St. Louis. And Detroit.