By: John ShafferFriday September 3, 2010 We have had presidential speeches that warned of impending conflicts that may be on the horizon; we have had presidential speeches to rally the nation in times of crisis. There have been presidential speeches that declared war, or declared peace or declared victory. The President's speech last night declared. . . what exactly? Not victory, for the war is not over; not defeat, for Harry Reid decla...

By: John ShafferThursday August 26, 2010 It has been said that one reason government wastes so much money is that it measures things incorrectly - that is, it measures spending, rather than the results of that spending. This explains how governors and presidents and senators can campaign from coast-to-coast touting how much "they"  (forgetting that it is the taxpayers' money - not their own) spend on various great projects. Pennsyl...

By: John ShafferFriday August 20, 2010 President Obama has a habit of saying things and then, when they prove to be unpopular, of denying that what we heard is actually what he said. He also has a habit of making those unpopular statements in front of  narrow, selected audiences and his indignant denials in front of wider ones.  An early example of this, before he even won his party's nomination, was the accusation that the ...

By: John ShafferFriday August 13, 2010 President Obama laid his own claim to the title of "the Man who saved the US Auto Industry" with a speech at, of all places, a Ford Motor Company plant in the Chicago area.  Ford was the only one of the "big three" US Automakers NOT to take federal bailout money, and it seems to be doing better than General Motors or Chrysler, who did take scads of government money…oh, wait - correcti...

By: John ShafferFriday August 6, 2010 Republican Scott Brown won the US Senate race in Massachusetts this spring,  basing his campaign on the fact that his would be  "the 41st" vote against the Obamacare bill.  The significance of Mr. Brown's election in Massachusetts, allegedly one of our most liberal states, and one that had its own version of government health care already in place, galvanized American politics - so...

By: John ShafferFriday July 30, 2010 Those who enjoy situations that illustrate a politician's self-interest trumping his public virtue are reveling in Massachusetts Senator John Kerry's problem with the "sails tax" his state levies on luxury yachts.  Neighboring Rhode Island repealed similar taxes in 1993, so many folks register their boats in that state to save taxes. This is much the same reason that corporations charter in ...

By: John ShafferFriday July 9, 2010 With the massive number of problems that plague the world today, this next one seems unimportant, but it is another example of the growing politicization of science that is taking place under the Obama administration, which forswore against the practice when committed by the Bush Administration. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created to promote the goals of its title - the ...

By: John ShafferFriday July 2, 2010     A couple of weeks ago the Secretary of the Interior apologized for inserting a paragraph into a report supposedly written by a panel of scientists. That paragraph called for a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling - the problem was that once the report was released, seven of the scientists protested, saying that the offending paragraph was not in their report; not only that, but...

By: John ShafferFriday June 25, 2010 Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton created a firestorm when he apologized to BP for what he termed "a shakedown" by President Obama. The Congressman's remarks were inappropriate in the forum he chose, but when read in their entirety they had some valid points; but he made two fundamental errors: 1) Do not apologize for the actions or behavior of someone else (except perhaps a close family m...

By: John ShafferFriday June 18, 2010 There are no "rules" for how to respond to a crisis, but for a man whose political instincts are said to be razor-sharp, the President has demonstrated anything but a deft political touch with the oil spill. Illustration #1: The President did not attend the memorial service for the eleven people who perished when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. Instead he attended a fundraiser in California....