This is just too good to miss: A Zogby International survey measuring basic economic knowledge across the ideological spectrum found that conservatives and libertarians rated quite well. Progressives and liberals? Not so much. Researcher and economics professor Daniel Klein explains: Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents’ (all American adults) answers to … Read more
A conversation overheard at the White House… Rahm Emmanuel: Mr. President, you need to toughen up about this oil spill, because you look like a *****. A little, pigtailed, tea-party dress wearing, oversized lollipop licking *****. President Obama: I see. And what would you suggest? Rahm Emmanuel: Well, Cupcake, I’d suggest you pretend Michelle married … Read more
Veteran journalist and public irritant Helen Thomas just announced her retirement, effective immediately. I wonder what might have prompted that? Her decision comes after her controversial remarks about Israel hit the blogosphere. She later apologized for her comments, saying she “deeply regretted” making them…. The reaction of most reporters, friends and former White House officials … Read more
The United States is in the midst of a realignment as the private sector gives way to the government as the nation’s primary employer. We’re not there yet, but the direction is clear. Of the 431,000 new jobs the Labor Department just announced, a full 390,000 of them are with the government (primarily, short term … Read more
Free market capitalism gets blamed for everything from the financial collapse to salmonella-contaminated meat to the BP oil spill, and this is primarily due to a misunderstanding of the term. The economic system we have in the United States is not free market capitalism, but corporatism. Free market capitalism allows two parties to exchange goods … Read more
Does Israel’s recent attack on the Turkish ship, MV Blue Mamara, trigger NATO action? The Daily Kos has the relevant passages from the NATO charter. Article 5: The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently … Read more
Here’s Pat Buchanan on the significance of Rep. Joe Sestak’s claim that he was promised a White House job if he ended his primary race against Arlen Specter. If Sestak was offered a high government post to get out of the Pennsylvania race, it would appear an open-and-shut case that a felony was committed by … Read more
This will be of interest to IC readers: Former television news producer and anchor Bob Bowden has created his first documentary — a feature-length indictment of the education establishment. The Cartel has won both film festival awards and a long list of rave reviews. The trailer will certainly get your heart pumping: [UPDATE: Like a … Read more
While Kentucky senatorial candidate Rand Paul pulled back from the national media after his Rachel Maddow Show appearance, he did allow one interview on Friday with local television station WHAS11. It hasn’t gotten much notice, but it’s worth reading. Paul said one lesson learned from the MSNBC experience is “I need to be very careful … Read more
An 18-year-old Emirati woman who was gang-raped by six men is being charged with having sex outside of marriage. The woman and one of her male Emirati friends, HA, went for a drive in his vehicle on May 2, prosecutors said. The charges allege that because she had agreed to be in the car, the … Read more
Deal Hudson and Matt Smith have been on fire over the USCCB’s membership in the controversial Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR). Deal wrote: There is nothing ambiguous about LCCHR’s lobbying activity on behalf of abortion, same-sex marriage, and “family planning.” All the items on the LCCHR Web site listed here affirm their … Read more
Despite protests from human rights groups, Sani Ahmed Yerima, a 49-year-old senator in the Nigerian government, has just married a 13-year-old girl. This will be his fourth wife, and he bought her for… er… paid her Egyptian parents a dowry of $100,000. Of course, Senator Yerima doesn’t much care what the critics say. He has … Read more
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is becoming quite a political star, and for good reason: He’s facing down a terrible state financial crisis and he’s doing it with courage and principle. Happily, some in the mainstream press are noticing: Christie is tackling the nation’s worst state deficit — $10.7 billion of a $29.3 billion budget. … Read more
This was unexpected: The national security conservatives at the popular military group blog Blackfive have released a joint statement on the expected repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and it may surprise you. Just to the left of an ad for a t-shirt that blares “Sometimes Violence is the ONLY Answer,” they write: … Read more
One of the great black boxes in medicine is the placebo effect — we know that it works, but we don’t know why. The fact is, if you give a large enough set of people a phony medical treatment for some disease they share, a percentage will experience some degree of genuine recovery. And that … Read more
Last week, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson endorsed candidate Trey Grayson in his primary race against Rand Paul for Kentucky’s open U.S. Senate seat. Yesterday, Dobson shocked the Kentucky political establishment by pulling that endorsement, and switching his support to Paul. Dobson felt tricked by some in the Republican leadership, and let them … Read more
Rome will be taking control of the Legionaries of Christ, at least for the time being: In a statement on Saturday, the Vatican said that Benedict would appoint a special delegate to govern the Legionaries, an influential worldwide order that has been an important source of new priests in a church that has struggled with … Read more
Is there another shoe yet to drop in the Church sex abuse scandal? Mary Ormsby of the Toronto Star thinks so, and suggests the next group of victims to come forward may be heavily female. That would reverse the findings of the John Jay study, which concluded that over 80 percent of the victims were … Read more
In reference to Comedy Central’s latest low-bow to Islam, Ross Douthat writes: [T]here’s still a sense in which the “South Park” case is particularly illuminating. Not because it tells us anything new about the lines that writers and entertainers suddenly aren’t allowed to cross. But because it’s a reminder that Islam is just about the … Read more
Three weeks ago at the Cochise County courthouse in Arizona, clerks Bonnie Cook and Michelle Garcia made a fascinating discovery. While digging around a storage closet, the two noticed an old and yellowing envelope, stuffed into a corner. What they found inside will flesh out one of the most famous events in American history — … Read more
With so much happening in the Church right now, we are hard at work drawing out the battle plans so we can keep the faithful informed—but we need to know who we have on our side. Do you stand with Crisis Magazine?