By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
The White House had better snap up one of these quick: American Mint has just issued the "$1 Trillion Coin," a gleaming, platinum-plated collector's coin that shows what the legendary, imaginary trillion-dollar coin could look like. There's an image of the U.S. Capitol's "Freedom" statue on the front, and "one trillion dollars" and "no legal tender" on back. And to the inevitable delight of both President Obama and the Republican Congress, this version is only $9.95.
Great rocks have tumbled from the sky since there was an Earth for them to tumble on, but the asteroid falling in Russia's Ural Mountains was the largest caught live on film. Dramatic footage shows pieces of a 10,000-ton cosmic object streaking through the atmosphere, glowing brighter than the sun.
It has happened again. Sam Tanenhaus, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, referred to by Paul Krugman the other day as "a longtime conservative," has essayed in the New Republic the modern conservative movement and traced us all back to John C. Calhoun.
The definition of a failed, spendthrift, debt-producing fiscal policy is making the same proposals over and over again and expecting a different result.
What do you do if the facts don't support your beliefs? If you are honest, you will rethink what you previously believed. If you are a Keynesian economist, though, like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, you make silly assertions.
The United States is no longer a beacon of freedom to the world. Countries once looked to America for inspiration on how to escape poverty and embrace prosperity, but now they can find better examples to follow.
"There's been a lot written about this movie; some of it has popped off the entertainment page to the news page. And from time to time, some of you might have wondered if we would have liked to comment on some of that coverage, and the answer is yes," said Mark Boal, writer of "Zero Dark Thirty," during his acceptance speech for best picture at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards on Monday.
In a recent interview with GQ magazine, Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, elicited a storm of controversy when asked the age of the Earth. "I'm not sure we'll ever be able to answer that. It's one of the great mysteries," he said.
Jeffrey Hillman shambles along the streets of New York City looking quite unkempt, drab and hopeless. He panhandles sometimes and mutters to himself. Frankly, he looks a wreck and apparently often is in need of a pair of shoes.
Northeasterners affected by Tuesday's massive storm are beginning the process of assessing the damage. Initial estimates suggest it could cost anywhere from $20 billion to $100 billion to bring things back to where they were before Hurricane Sandy struck.
The most telling numbers are often the most simple numbers. President Obama has conducted 222 re-election fundraisers in the past 18 months, more than any other incumbent president. Consider that President George W. Bush held 86 during his first term in office, and in comparable times, Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush staged 70 and 24, respectively. Ronald Reagan, incidentally, held no fundraisers during his 1984 re-election campaign.
How is it possible that Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney on who can better handle the economy when it has been in decline all year?
For all its amenities, life inside the Beltway is fraught with inconvenience. While some of the area's problems are unlikely to dissipate anytime soon, no problem divides Washington-area residents quite like the deer dilemma.
Editor's Note: In this first of a five-part series, Middle East and Islam specialist Daniel Pipes begins his inquiry into Barack Obama's early Muslim connections by noting the president's autobiographical inaccuracies.
Last week, we were treated to one of the biggest con jobs in this political season. Vice President Joseph R. Biden took the NAACP back to Jackson, Miss., and lynchings and even said that the same Supreme Court that approved Obamacare would become racist under Mitt Romney.
In 2012, when Mr. Obama boasted that the economy was "moving forward," New York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman, one of his earliest supporters, said, "This is still a terrible economy."
"If we discovered that, you know, space aliens were planning to attack and we needed a massive buildup to counter the space alien threat and really inflation and budget deficits took secondary place to that, this slump would be over in 18 months," he told CNN. "And then if we discovered, oops, we made a mistake, there aren't any aliens, we'd be better . . . ."
