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Letters to the Editor: May 25, 2012

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Real reform begins before children enter school Re: "Rebooting education reform," May, 23 Jonetta Rose Barras' glib views on education reform impugn those doing the work. She asks why there haven't been dramatic improvements across the board after the Adrian Fenty/Michelle Rhee reforms and millions of dollars spent upgrading school buildings and teacher assessments. And although Barras opposes more school closings, she doesn't explain how to pay for 123 school buildings with...

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Manhattan Moment: Improving the FDA

Paul Howard — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Republicans and Democrats continue to disagree about how to fix the struggling economy, but most members of both parties agree on at least one thing: Technology will continue to drive economic growth in the future. The life sciences sector, in particular, will be as crucial to tomorrow's advances as the physical sciences were in developing yesterday's -- the jet engine, the semiconductor. This is the good news for American patients and companies, since the United States is the...

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Dim Bulb: Joan Walsh

Commentary Writer — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Who: Salon editor Joan Walsh What: Said on MSNBC that Catholic institutions suing the Obama administration over the contraception mandate have "the idea of religious freedom backwards, frankly. They are imposing on the rest of the country's religious freedom with this opposition to this mandate." Why it's dim: Who is "imposing" if the Obama administration forces religious believers and institutions to do something to which they morally object? Cure: Look up the word "mandate" in...

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What the unemployment numbers mean

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most reported and anticipated numbers in Washington is the unemployment rate. Currently, the official unemployment rate stands at 8.1 percent. Each month, this number is calculated by taking the number of people without jobs who are available to work and actively sought jobs in the four weeks preceding, divided by the total number in the labor force. Although this official rate remains the most commonly reported measure of labor market performance, it isn't necessarily the...

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Arizona burns amid Obama's hydraulic despotism

Ron Arnold — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

It's bad enough when your town has to worry about high mountain forest fires. It's even worse when the scorched earth left behind gives way to monsoon rains that drive mud and boulders smashing into your municipal water pipeline system. And it's much, much worse still when President Obama's Forest Service won't let you repair the damage, ostensibly because that might disturb the wilderness. Even now, there is a cluster of new wildfires glowering through the sullen...

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How to kill the First Amendment

Mark Tapscott — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Fox News' Roger Ailes said this recently during an address at his alma mater, Ohio University: "I have one wish for OU, that it continues to be a place for open debate where people from different points of view with various opinions can meet and discuss these things openly. Because there will be no progress, and America will not survive, if we don't allow that open debate," Ailes said. Ailes is right about the crucial importance of freedom of speech and thought in American life. The...

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Examiner Editorial: Big-spending Obama frames himself as scrooge

Examiner Editorial — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

"Do not buy into the B.S. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday. Carney went on to cite a MarketWatch column by Rex Nutting, purporting to show that "under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s." Is this true? Is Obama, contrary to all conventional wisdom, actually the most...

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Chen case highlights coercive and sex-selection abortions

Marjorie Dannenfelser — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

When Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng and his family arrived in Greenwich Village from Beijing, Chai Ling was among the crowd cheering their arrival. In many ways, Chen was following in Chai's footsteps. A political generation ago, Chai was deemed an enemy of the state for her participation in the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, where a papier-mache Statue of Liberty was the students' chosen symbol. Chai escaped to the West in search of freedom, and her...

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From Mao to money-worship

Steve Chapman — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:45:18 +0000

CHANGSHA, China — On an island in the Xiang River stands a massive bust of the late Chinese ruler Mao Zedong as a young man, his long hair blowing gracefully in an imaginary wind. Good thing for him he's a safe distance from the Expo Central China. If he could see it, he would be tearing his hair out. As leader of the communist revolution of 1949, Mao was dedicated to class struggle and the elimination of property. He created a totalitarian society in which everyone wore the same...

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Pretending the great debate doesn't exist

R. Emmett Tyrrell — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:42:25 +0000

WASHINGTON — Here I am on the campaign trail, frenetically promoting my book, "The Death of Liberalism." I appear on scores of radio interviews, in and out of the studio. I appear on Fox News and C-SPAN. I hardly have time for dinner, but it could be more demanding still. I could be invited to appear on mainstream media, as it is still quaintly called. Yet I am not. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC do not call. I, the editor of a major magazine from the right that has been around for 45 years,...

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