Hanen, they claim, is an immigration restrictionist zealot. His decision was entirely political. It will get reversed on appeal by what one advocacy group calls “serious jurists.”

The claim that the decision was political is apparently based on the fact that Hanen was appointed by President George W. Bush, something critics strongly highlight. Which is odd. Bush was an ardent supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for those currently in the country illegally....]]> Wed, 17 Dec 2014 00:00:00 -0600 The floor speech John McCain gave in response to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA detention and interrogation practices was highly acclaimed. It was poignant, coming from a national leader who was himself subjected to torture in the service of his country.

In the speech, McCain said: “(T)he use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights … (W)e are always Americans, and different, stronger, and better than those who would destroy us.”

That’s the way Americans would like to see ourselves. But it shortchanges the inherent moral...]]> Thu, 04 Dec 2014 00:00:00 -0600 The decision by the Ferguson grand jury not to charge Darren Wilson with a crime occasioned more than the usual quotient of muddled thinking.

Let's begin at the top, with President Barack Obama.

Obama made essentially three points. First, respect for the rule of law requires accepting that this was a decision for the grand jury to make. Second, riots and looting weren't an appropriate reaction to the decision. However, third, peaceful protests were.

And why were peaceful protests appropriate? Because, independent of Ferguson, there is a legitimate general issue of discriminatory policing in minority neighborhoods.

However, a protest regarding the general issue...]]> Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 -0500 America’s post-Cold War foreign policy has suffered from imprecision in defining national interests and failure to calibrate our involvements in international conflicts accordingly.

The current debates over what to do regarding Ukraine and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria offer good illustrations.

When the Ukraine crisis erupted, I speculated that partition probably would give the western section of the country the maximum opportunity to pursue its desire to affiliate and integrate with Europe. Events seem to have validated that instinct. And, indeed, partition still appears the best shot western Ukrainians have of obtaining their aspiration.

Russian...]]> Tue, 03 Jun 2014 00:00:00 -0500 Critics of the Obama administration’s proposed carbon rule for electricity generation are calling it another extra-legal power grab.They aren’t entirely wrong. But they aren’t entirely right, either.

This isn’t a case of the administration acting contrary to clear statutory law, as with moving various Obamacare implementation dates. Nor is it a case of the administration inventing law out of whole cloth, such as the amnesty program for those brought to this country illegally as children.

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court held that greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, were an air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. And that the Environmental...]]> Fri, 02 May 2014 00:00:00 -0500 Secretary of State John Kerry worked overtime to try to force-feed a peace agreement to Israel and the Palestinians. The most consequential byproduct of his frenzied diplomacy was a reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, which blew up what remained of his peace process.That, however, might turn out to be an important first step in a true peace process that takes place independently of the United States.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the reconciliation, saying that Hamas was a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of his country. Israel would not deal with a Palestinian government that included Hamas.

That’s an accurate description...]]> Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0600 President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was apparently intended to demonstrate his continued dominance of the political agenda. That presumably was the point of the chest-beating his aides did before the speech about the in-your-face unilateral actions the president was going to announce.

The speech itself, however, demonstrated what a spent political force Obama has become. He might as well have been wearing a sign saying: I’m a lame duck.

When, before the 2012 election, Obama compared his accomplishments to those of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, conservatives and even some liberals scoffed. But it was an earned boast. In terms of output,...]]> Fri, 17 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0600 As a political issue, health care is driven by two anxieties: fear of not being able to get treatment if you need it; fear of going broke if you can get it.

Rather than deal with these anxieties discretely, President Obama used them as a political fulcrum to transform health insurance into essentially a regulated utility. Under Obamacare, the federal government specifies what insurance policies must cover and indirectly regulates price by limiting profit. It also requires insurance companies to accept all applicants.

None of this was necessary to address the two anxieties. And the disruption in a healthcare marketplace most people, outside the two anxieties, found...]]> Wed, 25 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0500 On gun control, it’s almost universally conceded that attempts to ban certain guns or clips aren’t going anywhere. If the emotional freight train of the Newtown shooting couldn’t get such a measure through the Democratically-controlled Senate, there’s not much political life in the idea.

Expanding background checks might have some life, if gun control proponents would listen to Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake rather than pulverizing him with campaign-style attack ads. An expansion that truly exempted causal private sales, which the rejected Senate bill purported to do but really didn’t, might have a chance. But gun control advocates don’t seem to be in...]]> Wed, 11 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0500 If you think that bombing Syria is a bad idea, are you an isolationist?

That’s the charge being hurled with increasing promiscuity by the neoconservative Thors on the right. And even by some on the formerly pacifist left. Secretary of State John Kerry called opposition to bombing Syria “armchair isolationism.” I guess isolationism sitting down is even worse than isolationism standing up.

Intellectually, this is flabby reasoning that robs the word “isolationism” of any useful meaning.

True “isolationism” favors a full-spectrum withdrawal from interaction with other countries. There are very few true isolationists in the United...]]> Wed, 04 Sep 2013 00:00:00 -0500 It was right for President Barack Obama to seek authorization from Congress before launching a military attack on Syria. And now, it would be right for Congress to say no.

The Constitution has a clear division of responsibility regarding U.S. involvement in a military fight: Congress has the power to declare war; the president is the commander in chief. So, Congress decides when and where we fight; the president decides how we fight.

The president’s inherent duty to protect the nation’s security cannot override the explicit constitutional delegation to Congress to decide when the country should engage in combat.

In Syria, the decision should be no because...]]> Thu, 29 Aug 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Apparently the United States is going to go to war, at least sort of, with Syria.

That’s not because Syria has attacked the United States, because it hasn’t.

It’s not because the United States believes that it has strategic interests at stake in Syria’s civil war that warrant military intervention. If that were the case, we would have already taken action.

And it’s not really out of humanitarian concern with what’s going on in Syria’s civil war, although that will be the rhetorical cloak with which we don our military action. If we were truly acting out of humanitarian concern, we would have intervened tens of thousands of...]]> Fri, 19 Jul 2013 00:00:00 -0500 House Republicans are trying to score populist points by saying that if President Obama is going to delay the employer mandate under Obamacare, he should delay the individual mandate as well.

That’s probably effective political rhetoric. But it’s not a sound substantive argument. The two mandates are only marginally related, operationally or in terms of fairness.

The heart of Obamacare is the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges where federally-subsidized individual health insurance can be purchased. Those are the two provisions that ensure that all Americans can get health insurance regardless of income or illness.

The individual mandate is intended to...]]> Sat, 25 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500 President Barack Obama intended his speech on counterterrorism last week to offer a thoughtful exposition of where the country stands since 9/11 and where we go from here. And for the most part, he did.
It’s clear, however, that Obama has some moral reservations about where we are and where we should go that the country doesn’t share.

According to Obama, the effort to get those who committed the 9/11 attacks is basically completed. That doesn’t mean that the terrorist threat is gone. But it is different, in Obama’s view. And he wants a new legal framework to deal with it.

After 9/11, Congress approved an authorization of force resolution for the...]]> Fri, 03 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500 The Boston bombing reawakens our sense of vulnerability to terrorist attacks and will undoubtedly spark renewed discussions about what measures, if any, should be taken to make us safer.

This is good. After 9/11, Americans worried about another big attack. When one didn’t come, we became complaisant, largely ignoring that our greater vulnerability was to smaller-scale attacks such as the Boston bombing. We overlooked the warnings from the underwear and Times Square bombers, who failed not because they were detected and thwarted, but only because their explosives didn’t detonate.

In reality, not enough is being done to protect us against terrorist attacks. Doing...]]> Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500 President Barack Obama is in search of a grand bargain with congressional Republicans on debt and deficits. It’s not in the offering and Obama’s proposed budget doesn’t provide even a starting point for such a discussion. Simply put, too much debt, spending and taxes.

That means the country’s undoubtedly headed for another series of unproductive stalemates and short-term continuing resolutions on spending, rather than a real budget.

Perhaps the focus in Washington should change. Perhaps, rather than looking for a big deal, Obama and congressional Republicans should be trying to make small deals where they agree or can cobble together something both...]]> Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500 The actual immigration reform legislation produced by the Gang of 8, including Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, is a substantial improvement on the framework statement the group initially released. The proposal now represents a good starting place, both politically and substantively.

The border security provisions have attracted the most attention. They are muscular. Excessively so, according to some immigration rights groups.

This complaint is perplexing, unless the goal is to keep the border at least somewhat open to illegal immigration.

The need to button up the border is only partly related to controlling illegal immigration. Unless the country is...]]> Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500 The tributes to Margaret Thatcher in this country upon her passing were nice. But what America really needs is its own Margaret Thatcher.

In Republican circles there’s great nostalgia for Ronald Reagan. Thatcher is seen as sort of Reagan’s sidekick, an ally in promoting democratic capitalism and taking a firm stance against Soviet expansionism. Not to diminish Reagan, who transformed American politics in ways that reverberate today, Thatcher actually had the tougher task.

Reagan had to restore the health of the American economy, which was plagued by high inflation and sluggish growth. But he had some fiscal headroom within which to operate. When Reagan became...]]> Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500 As tensions mount, this question is being asked too infrequently: Why is North Korea primarily a U.S. problem?

At the moment, it is inescapably a U.S. problem. The leader of the country is threatening to lob nukes at us. We may doubt his seriousness or capabilities. Nevertheless, the threat cannot be ignored.

But did it have to end up this way?

North Korea is an extortionist regime. It sable-rattles at least in part to get other countries to give it stuff to stop.

The United States, under both the Clinton and Bush II administrations, played North Korea’s game. Since 1995, U.S. taxpayers have given North Korea over $1 billion in food and energy...]]> Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500 The gang of eight senators working on comprehensive immigration reform (including Arizona’s John McCain and Jeff Flake) has reportedly hit a snag over a guest worker program for the future.

That’s not surprising. The politics of a guest worker program are difficult enough. The policy specifics are mind-numbing. Once you wander into that snake pit it’s difficult to find a way out.

And it’s all based upon a false premise perpetuated by the business community: that the country has an ongoing need for large numbers of low-skilled imported workers. And that in turn is based on the false premise that illegal immigrants are currently doing work that legal...]]> Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Except in a few neoconservative hideouts, the Iraq war is generally regarded as a mistake.

The war has cost over $800 billion so far, with more than 4,400 U.S. soldiers killed and around 32,000 wounded. Hard to argue that the United States has acquired security gains commensurate with that sacrifice.

So, why was the Iraq war a mistake and what lessons should be learned from it? The 10th anniversary of the initial invasion has occasioned considerable discussion of those questions. But most of the discussion is wide of the most important lesson to be learned.

The Iraq war was a mistake not because the Bush administration lied about the intelligence or because the press...]]> Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500 Many of the angriest rhetorical shots in the budget resolution duel this week are beside the point.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s proposal to change Medicare into a premium support system wouldn’t kick in for 10 years, or after the budget resolution planning horizon. Republicans aren’t going to repeal Obamacare as long as the eponym remains in office.

In fact, the Ryan budget and that proposed by Democratic Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray spend pretty comparable amounts on Social Security, Medicare and defense over the next 10 years.

The real difference is in what is spent on the rest of the budget. And that difference is driven by...]]> Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0600 President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address illustrated what a dead letter federalism is among Democrats. Not that further illustration was necessary.

Federalism holds that the national government should limit itself to things of truly national scope. Things that are primarily of local concern should be left to state and local governments.

Federalism was a big deal to the founders. They wanted an energetic national government, but one that was confined to enumerated national functions. The founders also envisioned a bright line between the federal and state governments, each sovereign within their own spheres.

We are a long way from that. Today, the...]]> Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0600 Let’s assume everything President Obama has proposed regarding gun violence were adopted. How much would it reduce the likelihood of future mass killings such as at Newtown?

The only honest answer to that question is: Hardly at all.

This is not an argument that gun control cannot be effective. If the United States adopted Australian-style gun control, in which guns were not only banned but confiscated, the incidence of gun violence in the United States might very well go down.

But the United States is not going to discuss, much less implement, Australian-style gun control. There’s virtually no political support for it and it would require amending the...]]> Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0600 I’ve been having irresponsible thoughts. Or at least I’ve been thinking more favorably about something I have previously denounced as irresponsible: not increasing the federal debt limit.

There is no good end in sight for the non-negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff. And the impasse goes far deeper than the question that preoccupies the public discussion about whether to increase the tax rates on the affluent.

There has been an intellectual stampede from all quarters toward the conclusion that restrictionist immigration policies caused Romney to get clobbered among Latino voters, which in turn cost him the election. This is a sloppy analysis.

There are still votes being counted, but as of this writing Romney is losing the popular vote by 3.4 million.

The latest maneuver to end the crisis was the announcement that Spain would borrow $125 billion to bail out its banks. The surprise is that anyone was surprised that this didn’t work.

The problem in Europe is that its governments have overborrowed and its banks own too much of the dodgy debt. Why would anyone think that more borrowing would be regarded as the solution to too much borrowing?

There are certain fundamentals that lead to sustainable economic growth. Business cycles are...]]> Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Critics of Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposed budget resolution are almost universally unserious about getting federal debt and deficits under control. The country will be very lucky if it gets a chance to implement as gentle and gradual a path to fiscal sobriety as the Ryan plan outlines.

Economists believe there are two red lines for debt and deficits. If accumulated debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP, it begins to affect private sector economic performance and raise questions about the ability of the government to pay it back. And annual deficits of more than 3 percent of GDP are regarded as a sign of a government that has lost control of its finances.

Right now, total federal debt...]]> Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600 There was a revealing inconsistency in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.

The most memorable phrase from the speech was this: “It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom. No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.”

The rest of the speech was a litany of preferences and punishments, different rules for different people depending on whether Obama approves or disapproves of their behavior.

One of our major problems is that the federal government has gotten too complicated to operate or be effectively managed. Obama want to compound the complications.

One of the reasons Obama didn’t embrace the tax...]]> Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600 Jon Huntsman’s showing in the New Hampshire primary probably wasn’t good enough to keep him in the presidential race much longer. That’s too bad, because on the two most important domestic issues of the day Huntsman has the best policy prescriptions of any of the candidates.

The first is the interplay between the economy and the federal government’s finances.

Huntsman endorsed the most radical tax reform recommended by the debt commission appointed by President Obama. Eliminate all deductions and credits. The highest rate would be 23 percent, compared to today’s 35 percent and the nearly 40 percent Obama has advocated.

Despite the much...]]>