Author Archives: Jack Newsham

This past Sunday marked the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan, a day all the more festive for its coincidence with the Super Bowl. The NFL prepared a special three-minute segment fawning over the life of Ronald Reagan (and making a compelling case for his canonization) to air during the game. Festivities in California featured an »

As many of my readers would be able to surmise, it’s not often the case that I am in agreement with Ludwig von Mises, one of the most conservative economists to have ever lived. Nor, I doubt, would many of them suspect that I am a fan of various degrees of privatization and devolution of »

It’s not often that literacy rates make headlines. And why should they? The United States has a literacy rate of 99 percent, as do 26 other industrialized countries. A smattering of central African countries still make up the bottom of the list, but on the whole, many of these countries are slowly improving. None of »

Critics from across the political spectrum have recently turned their ire against the Transportation Security Administration. Its use of full body scanners (labeled by its detractors a cancer-causing “porno-scanner”) and enhanced pat-downs (“gropings”) has been panned by commentators of all political stripes. A headline on the conservative website redstate.com shouts, “TSA Agent Molests Three-Year-Old,” while »

The lame-duck session of Congress started Monday, and the months to follow will not be pretty. Thanks to the gridlock facing the Senate since early 2009, several important legislative issues — including unemployment benefits, Chinese currency manipulation, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Bush tax cuts — have been put off, and the Democratic Congress »

After taking a “shellackin’” at the polls on Nov. 2, President Obama and his Democratic Congressional allies have been laying low. Meanwhile, Republicans, confident after their 60-seat sweep in the House, are gloating; “the American people,” equated with the disproportionately old and white electorate that voted Nov. 2, were “heard at the ballot box” — »

Bipartisanship is dead. For the time being, at least. It really shouldn’t be. In fact, Democrats have done a lot to try to keep it alive. They left single-payer healthcare off the table, ultimately voting on a plan that was very similar to a Republican Senate bill of 1993, with certain passages nearly identical to »

Like most Democrats, I was obviously disheartened watching election results unfold Tuesday evening. Even though I knew it was coming, it still hurt to read words like “Senator-elect Rand Paul,” and to watch with frustration and helplessness the almost uniformly negative outcomes in my home state of Missouri. But when I glanced at the New »

Last Thursday, the Republican House leadership released their 21-page “Pledge to America,” a document containing more rhetorical flourishes and safe sentiments to “uphold the purpose and promise of a better America,” than substantive — or even conservative — solutions. Pundits from across the spectrum were left dissatisfied in the wake of its release, from New »