THE WASHINGTON TIMES

EDITORIAL: Too much mercy for Illinois terrorist

The price for joining al Qaeda, training to kill Americans and then secreting yourself on an Illinois college campus to wait for orders is a mere eight-year prison sentence. That's a light punishment for a man who pled guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

November 2, 2009

EDITORIAL: Stop suing yourself

It's a neat racket when you're a lawyer who can file class-action suits against a corporation, supposedly on behalf of the company's shareholders, who will end up paying themselves the judgment if they win. The whole exercise is nonsensical.

November 2, 2009

EDITORIAL: The chamber’s voice

"Over the last 10 years, the Chamber of Commerce alone spent nearly half a billion dollars on lobbying - half a billion dollars," blustered President Obama on Oct. 9. The faux outrage exposes some false piety.

November 1, 2009

EDITORIAL: A pay-to-play White House

Finally, it is clear what President Obama meant when he said this would be the most "transparent administration in history." He wasn't saying that his White House would be open and accountable; he was saying that his administration didn't feel much need to come up with plausible lies, they'd be fine using the transparent kind.

November 1, 2009

EDITORIAL: Dawdling on trade

President Obama says he is for free and fair trade. Yet amidst an economic downturn, his trade policy in action is a mix of nice rhetoric, small protectionist payoffs for political supporters and inexcusable inertia that together hobble prospects for a strong global recovery.

November 1, 2009

EDITORIAL: Economic road to hell

Christina Romer, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, told Congress on Oct. 22 that most of the economic growth from President Obama's stimulus package has occurred already. This underwhelming revelation presents an opportune time to evaluate what - if anything - has been accomplished by the $239 billion that already has been doled out. The results are depressing.

October 30, 2009

EDITORIAL: Legislative poison

The public option isn't the only thing that should worry the public about Obamacare.

October 30, 2009

EDITORIAL: Muddled thinking on Afghanistan

It's been more than two weeks since President Obama announced that a decision on courses of action in Afghanistan would be made "in the coming weeks." Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said a decision would wait until "sometime after the Afghan election is finally resolved." Given the fluid nature of Afghan politics, it's hard to say what "finally resolved" means. We doubt it will be anytime soon.

October 30, 2009

EDITORIAL: Getting ready for the Islamic bomb

The White House believes there is an Islamic bomb in your future. Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Obama administration is "quietly laying the groundwork for long-range strategy that could be used to contain a nuclear-equipped Iran and deter its leaders from using atomic weapons." Granted this could be routine contingency planning, but it's believable that President Obama is pursuing an acquiescent policy given his foundering efforts to dissuade Iran from developing a nuclear capability.

October 29, 2009

EDITORIAL: Guns and the Virginia election

With just days to go before the election, Virginia Democrats are getting desperate. In the race to become the commonwealth's next attorney general, state Delegate Stephen Shannon is trying to tar his opponent, state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, for purportedly giving guns to convicted felons. Mr. Shannon is sending around literature with a scary picture of a violent criminal claiming: "FACT: Ken Cuccinelli, candidate for attorney general, voted to allow violent felons to purchase guns in Virginia."

October 29, 2009

EDITORIAL: D.C. voucher program fights to survive

When you are America's first mixed-race president, it has to be especially galling to flip on the news in America's majority-minority capital city and find commercials accusing you of failing to help the city's black children escape from substandard schools. That's not the change people voted for.

October 29, 2009

EDITORIAL: Tow-the-line flu

Late Friday night, President Obama signed a proclamation declaring that the H1N1 virus - the swine flu - is a "national emergency." While 120 million doses were originally promised by mid-October, the government now hopes to get 50 million by mid-November. Academics are telling us the vaccines will be delivered too late to help. So with the world seemingly falling apart, the Obama administration announced last week that the United States is donating 10 percent of our vaccine supply to other nations.

October 28, 2009

EDITORIAL: Undermining Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is joining Israel as a country facing a war crimes investigation for effectively fighting back against terrorism. America should support the Sri Lankan government or keep its nose out of Colombo's business.

October 28, 2009

EDITORIAL: Attacking the Defense of Marriage Act

The Obama administration is looking for a fight over the definition of marriage. That means asking more than 100 Democratic members of the House and Senate to repudiate their votes for the Defense of Marriage Act within 12 months of next year's midterm election. That's political poison for members in swing districts and purple or red states.

October 28, 2009

EDITORIAL: Justice Department to blacks: We know better

Black voters across the land should be offended by the Obama Justice Department. In a decision last month, the department effectively told black voters in the town of Kinston, N.C., that they are too stupid to choose their own elected officials unless the candidates are identified by party label. In doing so, the department overruled Kinston's black voters themselves, who helped vote overwhelmingly to join most other North Carolina towns in holding nonpartisan local elections.

October 27, 2009

EDITORIAL: Green world government

Environmental alarmism is being exploited to chip away at national sovereignty. The latest threat to American liberties may be found in the innocuous sounding Copenhagen Climate Treaty, which will be discussed at the United Nations climate-change conference in mid-December. The alert was sounded on the treaty in a talk given by British commentator Lord Christopher Monckton at Bethel College in St. Paul, Minn., on Oct. 14. Video of the talk has become an Internet sensation.

October 27, 2009

EDITORIAL; Fomenting financial disasters

Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration's "pay czar," has no clue about how to run a business. And why would he? His professional background is not in business, but as a liberal trial lawyer. His career includes such relevant experience as placing valuations on the Kennedy assassination's Zapruder film and on the lives of those killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

October 26, 2009

EDITORIAL: Hate crimes and jet engines

With a war on, it would be nice if there were some adults in the Democratic Party who understand that the 2010 defense-policy bill is not the place for payoffs to domestic constituencies. Instead, President Obama is about to sign a bill that expands federal thought crimes to cover bias based on sexual orientation and greenlights more funding for an unnecessary and wasteful second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

October 26, 2009

EDITORIAL: Needless tax complexification

Taxpayers aren't the only ones who need fear an audit. The Internal Revenue Service gets its own audits, and the latest isn't just embarrassing to the IRS, which finds the tax code too complicated to enforce properly. The Democratic Congress, so fond of adding new doodads and gewgaws to the vastly overfestooned revenue laws, should be red-faced as well.

October 26, 2009

EDITORIAL: New extremes in budget gimmickry

Paying for the president's government health care takeover with gargantuan cuts in Medicare isn't so popular with doctors. A third of them already refuse to take new Medicare patients because the program pays less than their costs. Other doctors participate only because they can make up Medicare losses by boosting prices for privately insured patients. The Democrats' health care takeover plan, which covers more people with Medicare by lower reimbursements further, would only make problems worse.

October 25, 2009