Keeping Business Honest By John Stossel
Instinctively, we look for people's motives. We need to know whom we can trust and whom we can't. We're especially skeptical of business because we know business wants our money.
Political Commentary
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May 24, 2012
May 24, 2012
Bain And Our Screwed-Up Culture By Froma Harrop
We recently saluted Leslie Sabo for giving his life to save fellow soldiers in Vietnam 40 years ago. Injured after shielding a comrade with his body, the Pennsylvanian grabbed his grenade and stormed the foe's bunker. He died in the explosion. For his selflessness, America awarded Sabo the Congressional Medal of Honor.
May 22, 2012
The United States of Gambling By Froma Harrop
A surprising fact: Gamblers spent more last year at commercial casinos in Indiana than they did at non-Indian casinos in all but three other states -- not surprisingly, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The 11 casinos and two racinos (horse racing tracks with slots) are the Hoosier State's third-largest source of tax revenues.
May 21, 2012
Obama Pursues Higher Tax Rates, Growth Be Damned By Michael Barone
In the run-up to this weekend's G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European "austerity" with Barack Obama's economic policies.
May 19, 2012
The States That Put President's Over The Top By Geoffrey Skelley
We all think we know which states are the pivotal players in the Electoral College. The Crystal Ball's most recent look at the map showed that there are seven "Super Swing States:" Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Virginia.
May 18, 2012
Sound and Fury: Feeding Frenzies In The Presidential Silly Season By Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik
In the beginning, there was the Etch A Sketch.
May 18, 2012
The Only True Way to Save Marriage From Obama By Joe Conason
For honoring his conscience on the issue of marriage equality, President Obama earned angry rebukes from all quarters on the right, including the Uncle Toms of the Log Cabin Republicans, who said he was "a day late and a dollar short"; teenage mom Bristol Palin, who mocked him for invoking his daughters in changing "thousands of years of thinking about marriage"; and 50-year-old virgin Ann Coulter, often engaged but never wed, who called his decision "a sign of desperation."
May 18, 2012
It's the Economy, Stupid By Scott Rasmussen
Mitt Romney has pulled a point or two ahead of President Obama in polls of likely voters. In polls of registered voters, Obama has the advantage. The president's job approval ratings are hovering in the upper 40 percent range, which suggests a close race.
May 17, 2012
Grief Is Not a Mental Illness By Froma Harrop
We moderns seem determined to suppress all unhappiness with one exception: grief. The intense sadness following loss of a loved one still occupies a warm spot in our culture. We want that pain protected from the deadening analgesics of pharmaceuticals.
That explains the American Psychiatric Association's decision to retreat from a plan to categorize ordinary grief as an adjustment disorder. Some wanted to classify a response to significant loss -- deep sadness, insomnia, poor appetite, inability to concentrate, crying -- lasting more than two weeks as a depression rather than normal grief, drawing fire from both mental-health professionals and ordinary folk.
May 17, 2012
Recent News Could Cause Panic for Obama Campaign By Michael Barone
Is it panic time at Obama headquarters in Chicago? You might get that impression from watching events -- and the polls -- over the past few weeks.
May 16, 2012
Making Life Fair By John Stossel
When my wife was a liberal, she complained that libertarian reasoning is coldhearted. Since markets produce winners and losers -- and many losers did nothing wrong -- market competition is cruel. It must seem so. President Obama used the word "fair" in his last State of the Union address nine times.
May 15, 2012
Silicon Slumming By Froma Harrop
The Victorian era gave birth to a very unpleasant custom called slumming. Parties of swells in London and New York would descend on impoverished neighborhoods as a form of entertainment. In addition to breaking up the tedium of their posh lives, the adventure made them feel superior.
May 14, 2012
Three Different Ways to Look at the 2012 Campaign By Michael Barone
Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.
May 11, 2012
Do Independent Voters Matter? By Todd Eberly
Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary's College of Maryland, recently wrote a report for the centrist group Third Way about independent voters. Crystal Ball senior columnist Alan Abramowitz addressed that report in a recent article, and Eberly asked to respond. His point of view differs from Abramowitz's and the inclinations of the Crystal Ball staff, but in order to present readers a full view, we agreed to give Eberly a chance to share his views.
-- The Editors
Are independent voters a myth? That is certainly the conclusion of many who study political science. Research has demonstrated that, when pressed, independent voters often reveal significant partisan preferences: They lean Democratic or lean Republican. When leaners are reclassified and grouped among their partisan peers the share of pure independents in the electorate falls -- by some accounts -- to less than 10% of the electorate.
May 11, 2012
Let's Not Overreact to the Judd Mutiny By Kyle Kondik
We would make a joke about President Obama only taking 59% of the West Virginia primary vote against a federal prison inmate named Keith Judd, but every possible one was exhausted on Twitter by Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say, it was an embarrassing performance for the president, albeit in a state he has no chance of winning in November.
May 11, 2012
What the China Crisis (and His Gay Crisis) Revealed About Mitt By Joe Conason
Just as aspiring judges ought to possess the quality known as "judicial temperament," a would-be president should have certain obvious attributes of mind and character. Two incidents tested Mitt Romney this week -- and both times, his ambition overwhelmed his judgment.
May 11, 2012
Lugar Loss Highlights Sour Relationship Between Voters and Politicians By Scott Rasmussen
When relationships go bad, an early warning sign is that one side doesn't really hear what the other is saying.
May 10, 2012
Education Should Have Second and Third Acts By Froma Harrop
On the HBO series "Girls," Hannah asks her boss at a publishing house for a salary. The 24-year-old has been working as an unpaid intern for over a year, and her parents will no longer support her.
May 10, 2012
Long, Hard Slog Ahead in Presidential Race By Michael Barone
Just as the political air is filled with talk of the inevitability of Barack Obama's re-election -- we are told that the kids at his Chicago headquarters are brimming with confidence -- in come some poll numbers showing him behind.
May 10, 2012
A Senate That’s Fit to Be Tied? Updating the Battle for Congress By Larry J. Sabato and Kyle Kondik
Some analysts have been making the case that 2012 is going to turn decisively one way or the other — perhaps evolving into a 2008-style margin for Democrats or Republicans.
