IT MAY have taken the Supreme Court just an hour to wrap up its discussion of illegal immigration this week, but America’s politicians, it seems, cannot get enough of the subject. It will be several months before the court rules on the case in question, which concerns a state law in Arizona, but Democratic leaders in the Senate are already planning a vote to overturn its decision if the law... (more...)
ON JULY 21st 1991 Marcus Robinson and an accomplice abducted Erik Tornblom, a 17-year-old heading home from his restaurant job. They forced him to drive to a field. Mr Robinson took his money; the accomplice shot him in the face. Three years later, Mr Robinson was sentenced to die. But on April 20th his death sentence was commuted.Mr Robinson was the first person to have his death sentence vacated... (more...)
Going for 42 years THE political class first sat up and paid real attention to the “tea-party” movement two years ago, when its acolytes in Utah ended the career of Bob Bennett, a venerable Republican senator, by denying him the party’s nomination for his re-election bid. If Bob Bennett is not conservative enough, incredulous congressmen asked, who on earth is? One person assumed to... (more...)
LIKE most sins, tax breaks are easier to condemn than to resist. Politicians regularly decry the inefficiency and complexity that tax breaks introduce to the overall tax system, while merrily adding to the pile. Bill Clinton created the child tax credit. George W. Bush slashed the rates on capital gains and dividends. Barack Obama created a new “American Opportunity” credit for university... (more...)
WHAT happens to a two-party political system when one party goes mad? That is the question posed in a powerful and angry new book by two scholars at two respected think-tanks, Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. The book’s cheery title is “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks” (Basic Books), and its argument is encapsulated in its... (more...)
IT IS over two-and-a-half years since the law governing spending on America’s motorways expired. Instead of passing a replacement, as might happen anywhere else, Congress has approved a series of brief extensions of the old law—nine of them, to be exact. It is now haggling over its next move, with a tenth extension (already approved by the House of Representatives) seen as the likeliest... (more...)
WHEN Paul Ryan released his proposed federal budget a year ago, Mitt Romney greeted it coolly. He congratulated the House Budget Committee chairman for “setting the right tone”, but pointedly declined to endorse any of its details.The coolness was understandable. Mr Ryan’s budget was political dynamite. It proposed to slash income-tax rates, especially for the rich and businesses, and... (more...)
Hello, we’re Persian THOSE who know Los Angeles are well aware that parts of the city swarm with rich Iranian expats. Tens of thousands fled the 1979 Islamic Revolution and settled in the west of the city, especially in swanky neighbourhoods such as Beverly Hills. In Westwood, one popular high street filled up so fast with Iranian shops and businesses that it is now called “Tehrangeles”.More... (more...)
“TAKE a sticker,” urges the woman from Ambush Firearms. “We are giving away two free guns every day to people wearing them.” What your correspondent would do with an semi-automatic rifle, let alone one that also comes in pink, was not obvious. Welcome to the annual convention of the National Rifle Association (NRA)—this year held in St Louis, Missouri. It is a yearly celebration of... (more...)
JUST three months after he unveiled it, Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, has signed into law an unprecedented overhaul of the state’s awful school system. His bold plan weakens teacher tenure, and therefore the teachers’ unions, while greatly expanding the use of school vouchers and the reach of charter schools. These reforms are modelled on, but go well beyond, the ones already employed... (more...)
