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As the election approaches, Barack Obama is now in full campaign attack mode. Actually, he’s always in campaign mode. It’s what he does best. He’s a failure as a chief executive, a diplomat, an economic policymaker, a leader and certainly as a uniter. But, to the gullible, he’s a smooth talker and he loves to…

With Republicans moving ever further to the right and Democrats to the left — though not so far as Republicans are to the right — there really is a crying need for a centrist alternative. President Barack Obama hopes to win re-election with populist appeals for “fairness,” meaning raising taxes on the highest earners regardless…

President Obama is an intelligent, judicious man who can see all sides of an issue. But every once in a while he tries to get politically cute, and he puts on his Keith Olbermann mask. I suppose it’s to his credit that he’s most inept when he tries to take the low road. He resorts…

President Obama admits it: His proposed “Buffett Rule” tax on millionaires is a gimmick. “There are others who are saying: ‘Well, this is just a gimmick. Just taxing millionaires and billionaires, just imposing the Buffett Rule, won’t do enough to close the deficit,’ ” Obama declared Wednesday. “Well, I agree.” Actually, the gimmick was apparent even…

THE historian Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a brutally clear-eyed piece in The National Review, looking back at America’s different approaches to Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan and how, sadly, none of them could be said to have worked yet. “Let us review the various American policy options for the Middle East…

The 2012 major party presidential candidates have put forward a variety of ideas and plans to deal with our huge deficits and mounting debt. All four of the GOP presidential candidates have proposed plans with varying degrees of specificity, and President Barack Obama set out his plan in his recently proposed budget. Unfortunately, all the…

The other day, David Bernstein argued that there’s been an “important tipping point” where many national media figures have come to understand that “in the Romney campaign, they are dealing with something unlike the normal spin and hyperbole.” Bernstein suggested they are realizing Romney has crossed into groundbreaking levels of dishonesty. I wish I were…

So Greece has officially defaulted on its debt to private lenders. It was an “orderly” default, negotiated rather than simply announced, which I guess is a good thing. Still, the story is far from over. Even with this debt relief, Greece – like other European nations forced to impose austerity in a depressed economy –…

The nation’s top military official concedes that President Barack Obama’s plan to cut the Pentagon’s budget will leave the United States with a force that assumes more risk and is slower to respond to emergencies. Last month, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the…

I’m rooting for Rick Santorum to win the Republican nomination. Seriously. You probably think that is because it would be the best possible outcome for President Obama. No doubt it would be. If Santorum were the Republican nominee for president, the independents disenchanted with Obama would come flocking back; their fear of Santorum’s unyielding brand…

I was getting ready to write something nice about Rick Santorum. Then Rick Santorum talked me out of it. The nice thing was about the former Pennsylvania senator’s self-described support for Title X, the federally funded family planning program that provides contraceptive services for low-income women. Santorum has pointed to his support for Title X…

November 8, 2011 – Politics, Money and You!
Subject: November 8: Taxes, the deficit and the economy

There are a number of things that are deeply unsettling about the debt ceiling deliberations. One is the apparent willingness of Congress to deny the Treasury the ability to meet the nation’s legal obligations. Also troubling is the fact that a handful of people are rewriting long-standing federal programs that are important to tens of…

March 22, 2011 – Financial Planning
Subject: March 22: GOP supporters from Big Business caused Deficit!