During his meteoric rise to the White House, President Obama was touted as a pragmatist -- one who overcomes ideology, transcends partisanship, and focuses on the practical and doable. The stunning repudiation of the president’s leadership on Nov. 4 exhibits the poverty of his brand of pragmatism.
Last month, Jack gave a talk at the Hoover Institution on President Obama’s war powers legacy. It’s a remarkable address: hard-hitting, clear, and sure to discomfort Obama’s defenders on war powers issues. In essence, Jack argues that Obama has gone way beyond President Bush in the aggressiveness of his approach vis a vis Congress to initiating overseas conflict.
Maybe it has something to do with the polar invasion that’s about to descend upon the continent, but up in Alaska maybe it’s too frigid for the fat lady to come out and do her thing — and so the opera’s not over, the state’s contentious Senate race remains unsettled.
Over the years I’ve debated scholars and pundits on issues ranging from illegal immigration (no to open borders), George Bush’s troop levels in Iraq (don’t add and don’t subtract, but change tactics and force the Iraqis to step up), and World War II (the Red Army, for all the savagery and ordeal on the Eastern front, was not mostly responsible for winning the war, and its soldiers were no more courageous than Americans at Bastogne, Normandy Beach, Iwo Jima or Okinawa).
by Charles Blahousvia e21, Economic Policies for the 21st Century
Monday, November 10, 2014
The Affordable Care Act presents the incoming Congress with substantive and political challenges. On the one hand its widely-acknowledged problems warrant repair, and the electorate has made its displeasure with it loud and clear. On the other hand, the whole ACA will not be repealed while there is power-sharing between a Republican Congress and a Democratic administration. Consequently this Congress will need to be very clear-sighted about what it can fix and what it cannot.
A Democratic Legislature with a supermajority would have had a pent-up appetite for expansive government and social engineering – not the fancy of a “paddle left, paddle right” governor. What better political existence for Brown: having enough legislative Democrats to pass a budget, but not so many as to complicate his life with overly ambitious notions?
When we began working together in the crime-victim assistance field more than 30 years ago, domestic violence was considered simply a “family matter.” A typical law enforcement response in the 1980s would be to walk the alleged perpetrator around the block to “cool off.” Victims of domestic violence were not even eligible for crime-victim compensation to help pay for the associated costs with these violent crimes because they were not considered “innocent victims.”
The Kremlin is attempting a shopworn gambit to avoid further sanctions and shield Putin from world opprobrium at the G20 conference. Russia now declares it does not recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk elections. Instead it respects them. What difference do such semantics make? What greater recognition is there than to supply troops, tanks, missiles and other heavy weaponry to those so-called republics whose elections you “respect” but claim not to “recognize”?
The news that President Obama has sent a secret letter to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei––apparently promising concessions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for help in defeating ISIS–– is a depressing reminder of how after nearly 40 years our leaders have not understood the Iranian Revolution.
Stanford University professor and Hoover fellow Edward Lazear examines US employment data for October and explains why the US still falls short of needed levels of job creation.
Provost John Etchemendy Ph.D. ’82 and vice provost and dean of research Ann Arvin announced Wednesday that Stanford political scientist and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul ’86 M.A. ’86, will lead Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), according to the institute’s website.
Becky Liddicoat Yamarik, Hospice Palliative Care Physician, talks to EconTalk hostRuss Roberts about the joys and challenges of providing care for terminally ill patients. The two discuss the services palliative care provides, how patients make choices about quality of life and when to stop receiving treatment, conflicts of interest between patients and families, and patients' preparedness to make these decisions.
In war zones, private contractors can outnumber US troops, but who controls them? NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with Hoover's Joseph Felter and journalist Pratap Chatterjee about current safeguards.
She isn’t even gone yet, and Mayor Jean Quan is already laying the groundwork for a comeback — the first step being a campaign to brand her as “one of the best mayors” in Oakland’s recent history.
