BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. The global economic crisis is exposing the president's preoccupations as the soppy indulgences they always were. 'Put away childish things', President Obama said during his inauguration. He couldn't have found a theme more suited to the moment. The preoccupations that he and most politicians are used to running on, and that still characterize too many of his administration's utterances, are being exposed in the global economic disaster as the soppy indulgences they always were. Put away the global warming panic. Mankind's contribution to rising CO2 levels raises serious questions, but the tens of billions poured into climate science have, by now, added up only to a negative finding. We don't really have the slightest idea how an increase in the atmosphere's component of CO2 is impacting our climate, though the most plausible indication is that the impact is too small to untangle from natural variability. In any case, has Mr. Oba...

By Norma White, Amarillo, TX Each presidential candidate is giving his rendition of the changes he wants for America. Here are a few changes all Americans want: Limit Congress from serving more than two terms. That is all that presidents are allowed. Stop congress from voting for their own raises. How did that ever get started anyway? Stop paying for Lawmaker’s high-priced insurance premiums. After all, they are only part time employees. They might pass some law changes on the insurance companies if they had to find one. Stop paying Lawmakers their full salary after serving just one term or at retirement. We need to get rid of that pension plan; they’ve let other companies get rid of theirs. You were luck to get 40-50 percent of your salary after 35 years, but they get 100 percent. Make Congress pay into the Social Security system, they make laws for it. If they spent some of their own money, they might be interested in making it solvent. Stop handing out aid to illegal aliens. If we d...

by Ken Blackwell Thanks to Joe the Plumber, we now know for sure that Barack Obama wants to "spread the wealth around." But the Democratic candidate still hasn't come clean on just how much of a European-style socialist he is. Look at the "tax cut" he says he'll give to 95 percent of Americans. In fact, this is simply a government check he'd hand out - including to millions who don't pay income taxes, since each year 38 percent of Americans already get a full refund. In other words, his "rebate" is a welfare plan, plain and simple. When called on this, Obama's answer is that those 38 percent still pay payroll taxes, so he's rebating part of those payments. But that actually puts him deeper into the socialist hole. Here's why. Payroll taxes go to fund Social Security and Medicare - the main US social-insurance programs. The taxes are dedicated because these are insurance programs - you're paying so that you'll be covered ...

By their fruits ye shall know them. By Stanley Kurtz What if Barack Obama’s most important radical connection has been hiding in plain sight all along? Obama has had an intimate and long-term association with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), the largest radical group in America. If I told you Obama had close ties with MoveOn.org or Code Pink, you’d know what I was talking about. Acorn is at least as radical as these better-known groups, arguably more so. Yet because Acorn works locally, in carefully selected urban areas, its national profile is lower. Acorn likes it that way. And so, I’d wager, does Barack Obama. This is a story we’ve largely missed. While Obama’s Acorn connection has not gone entirely unreported, its depth, extent, and significance have been poorly understood. Typically, media background pieces note that, on behalf of Acorn, Obama and a team of Chicago attorneys won a 1995 suit forcing the state of Illinois to implement the federal “m...