Tag: Obama-Administration
How the Recession Doomers Got the U.S. Economy So Wrong
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In 2022, it was a matter of conventional and nearly universal wisdom that the 2023 economy would be a nightmare.
Last October, a Bloomberg economic model said that the odds of a U.S. recession this year were 100 percent. No, not 99.99 percent, as in the odds that you’ll avoid
America Is Ceding the Seas to Its Enemies
Very few Americans—or, for that matter, very few people on the planet—can remember a time when freedom of the seas was in question. But for most of human history, there was no such guarantee. Pirates, predatory states, and the fleets of great powers did as they pleased. The current reality, which dates only to the end of World War II, makes possible the commercial shipping that handles more than 80 percent of all global trade by volume—oil and
The Logic Behind Biden’s Refusal to Negotiate the Debt-Ceiling
President Joe Biden has already made the most important domestic-policy decision he’ll likely face this year. Biden and his top advisers have repeatedly indicated that they will reject demands from the new GOP majority in the House of Representatives to link increasing the debt ceiling with cutting federal spending. Instead, Biden is insisting that Congress pass a clean debt-ceiling increase, with no conditions attached.
Biden’s refusal to negotiate with
Courts Should Be More Skeptical About Religious Beliefs
It was no surprise back in March when the Supreme Court ruled that Texas had to oblige a death-row inmate’s wish for the company of a pastor who would pray with him and touch him as the lethal cocktail dripped into his veins. Such execution-chamber companionship was “part of my faith,” the inmate claimed, and if anything could penetrate the Court’s wall of indifference toward the death penalty, it figured to be religion. The vote was 8–1.
But there
There Is No Liberal World Order
In February 1994, in the grand ballroom of the town hall in Hamburg, Germany, the president of Estonia gave a remarkable speech. Standing before an audience in evening dress, Lennart Meri praised the values of the democratic world that Estonia then aspired to join. “The freedom of every individual, the freedom of the economy and trade, as well as the freedom of the mind, of culture and science, are inseparably interconnected,” he told the burghers of Hamburg. “They
The Reason Putin Would Risk War
There are questions about troop numbers, questions about diplomacy. There are questions about the Ukrainian military, its weapons, and its soldiers. There are questions about Germany and France: How will they react? There are questions about America, and how it has come to be a central player in a conflict not of its making. But of all the questions that repeatedly arise about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, the one that gets the least satisfactory answers is this one:
David Frum: The Enduring Lessons of the ‘Axis of Evil’ Speech
Twenty years ago today, President George W. Bush delivered a State of the Union address that would instantly become one of the most bitterly controversial in U.S. history. At its core were short indictments of the aggressions and human-rights abuses of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq.
Then the kicker:
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave
Wird Joe Biden die Schulden des Studentendarlehens kündigen?
EINs Senatorin Elizabeth Warren sieht es, Präsident Joe Biden kann viele Probleme lösen – für Millionen Amerikaner finanziell und für sich selbst politisch – mit einem einzigen Schritt, gegen den weder Senator Joe Manchin noch irgendein Republikaner im Kongress ein Veto einlegen könnten. Der Präsident, sagt sie, sollte einseitig bis zu 50.000 US-Dollar an Studentendarlehensschulden für jeden Bundeskreditnehmer im Land tilgen.
Warren schlägt diese Trommel erst seit etwa zwei Jahren, seit sie den Vorschlag vorgestellt hat, um ihre Rivalen
Große Autos töten Amerikaner
Nach einem Jahrzehnt stetiger Steigerung ist der neueste Ford F-250 – Teil der Ford F-Serie von Pickups, das meistverkaufte Fahrzeugmodell in Amerika – an der Motorhaube etwa 55 Zoll groß. Das ist „so hoch wie das Dach mancher Limousinen“, a Verbraucherberichte bemerkte der Autor in einer kürzlich durchgeführten Analyse, die den Mega-Truck-Trend untersuchte. Diese Höhe würde einen Rollstuhlfahrer oder ein Kind leicht aus nächster Nähe völlig unsichtbar machen. Wenn ich, eine großgewachsene Frau bei 1,70 m, von einer neuen F-250
The Democratic Fight Over a New Climate Policy
The owners of million-dollar beach homes aren’t a particularly sympathetic political constituency. Conservatives deride them as (literal) coastal elites; progressives demand they fork over more in taxes. Both parties happily accept their campaign contributions, but few members of Congress shed tears for the plight of waterfront barons, and fewer still are willing to wage a public fight on their behalf.
Robert Menendez, the senior senator from New Jersey, is one of those brave lawmakers. Menendez is leading the opposition