Columns ‹ Opinion
Immigration reform comes to the House of Representatives
Memo for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas:
The political reality behind the need to handle immigration reform the right way is obvious to anyone who reads Jonathan Alter’s new book on the campaign of 2012, “The Center Holds.” Alter is a...
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10 Takeaways From The Senate Immigration Fiasco
It was a fiasco — the worst possible result: A terribly flawed bill that, of all the GOP’s Senate superstars, only Marco Rubio could support. All the other rising stars — Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and John Thune — voted “no,” as did Leader McConnell and Whip Cornyn. Worse yet, the jam down created a toxic environment around...
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Should Gun Companies Pay A Sin Tax?
By Brian Fahy & Garrett Fahy
In a June 23, 2013 New York Times article, “Make Gun Companies Pay Blood Money,” law school professors Lucinda Finley and John Culhane proposed that gun companies, those who import guns, or those who lawfully use guns should pay a sin tax based on the public threat of the particular gun. They further proposed a compensation...
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Immigration Reform: Time for a Congressional Fencing Match
By Brian Fahy & Garrett Fahy
It has been said that the U.S. Senate is where good ideas go to die. In the context of immigration reform, the opposite is true: this week the Senate passed a bundle of mostly bad ideas, “comprehensive” immigration reform. Attention is now focused on the House of Representatives, where hopefully this bundle of errors will...
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MP3, Camera Phones and the Price of Convenience
When I was in high school, I went without lunch for a month in order to pay for my first stereo system.
When I was in college and graduate school (late ’60s and early ’70s), my friends and I would brag to each other about the stereo systems we had just purchased.
Friends would come over to hear our latest amps, preamps, speakers, record players, and...
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Why Not Separate the Immigration Issues?
Conservatives who remain dubious over immigration reform often want to separate the issues, emphasizing border security first, with consideration of legalization later. But the political problem is obvious: Democrats won’t agree to reform without a path to legalization, any more than conservatives would agree without enhanced security.
In policy terms, the...
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The Echoes from 150 Years Ago
Thank you to the Shaaras, Michael and Jeffrey, as we enter the beginning of the most important weeks of the Sesquicentennial commemorations of the Civil War.
The siege of Vicksburg was already underway 150 years ago as General U.S. Grant pressed and pressed against the lifeline of the Confederacy between its western and its eastern halves. The city would...
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Trust But Verify: A Tentative Thumbs Up For Corker-Hoeven and the 700 Mile Fence It (Allegedly) Guarantees
Fine print matters — a lot — but if press reports of the Corker-Hoeven amendment are correct and the small print matches the large promises, this amendment would yield a Senate bill that I could applaud.
The increase in Border Patrol presence is fine, but it’s no substitute for the fence. I agree with my friend Kurt Schlichter, who argues that,...
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Double Standards on Flaunting Sexuality
Why welcome public expressions of gay affection that we wouldn’t tolerate between males and females? Joel Engardio, a Democratic Party activist writing in USA Today, proudly described lecturing at a San Francisco high school while “two boys in the front row held hands the whole time I spoke.”
It’s hard to imagine that a boy and girl conducting...
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Discrimination Redefined
The Obama administration has filed suit against two major companies that disqualify job applicants with serious criminal records. Statistics show that African-Americans are disproportionately arrested and convicted of such offenses, so the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges that evaluating a job-seeker’s violent history amounts to racial...
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An Open Letter on Middle-East Confusion
A close-friend wrote to my wife with serious concerns about her nephew, a bright and idealistic young man who came home from his elite university full of indignation about the state of Israel and its alleged destruction of the once flourishing nation of Palestine. In response, I wrote back with a general point about any nation’s “right to...
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Why Some Scientists Embrace the ‘Multiverse’
Last week, in Nice, France, I was privileged to participate, along with 30 scholars, mostly scientists and mathematicians, in a conference on the question of whether the universe was designed, or at least fine-tuned, to make life, especially intelligent life. Participants — from Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley and Columbia among other American and...
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Sen. Charles Schumer’s choice: Immigration reform or a campaign issue
Immigration reform, including the regularization of the nation’s 11 million-plus illegal immigrants, appeals to a large slice of the conservative movement — if it is accompanied by genuine border security, specifically a very long, very strong border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA, calls the proposal for a border fence...
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Joe Dolan: A Father Remembered
You probably don’t know Tony Dolan, but you know his work. I’ve known him for many years. He’s been a second father to me — and I have a great first father, so that’s no small compliment. He’s also been a great mentor, though he’d never admit it. He’s advised me. He’s inspired me. He’s told me things I didn’t want to hear — things I...
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Filling a Void
The remarkable new film FILL THE VOID is richly romantic, overwhelmingly emotional, and full of inspiring religious overtones. Set among Israel’s devout Hassidic community, this film festival favorite tells the story of an 18-year-old girl, forced into new responsibilities—and opportunities—when her adored older sister dies in childbirth.
With English...
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A Christian Minister Opposes ‘God Bless America’
If you were a Christian minister who was given the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the Washington Post, what subject would you choose? War and peace? The decline in faith among America’s young people? The increasingly empty pews in mainstream Protestant churches? The ethical decline in society? Or any of myriad other morally and religiously...
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