President took a major victory lap and took political shots at Republicans, but ignored shortcomings in his administration’s official numbers Press secretary Jay Carney will only say ‘we’re aggregating a lot of data’ when asked how many enrollees have paid for coverage Carney dodged questions about damning study that showed very few Obamacare customers were uninsured before the law took […]

By Chris Butler | Tennessee Watchdog KNOXVILLE — If you’re a University of Tennessee at Knoxville student on financial aid, it’s possible you could quit going to class outright or even graduate and you would still qualify for that money. An audit that Tennessee Comptroller Justin Wilson released last week said it will happen if school officials aren’t watching you carefully. […]

As I begin this column, I’m on a business trip to New York City in a high rise hotel looking out at one of the world’s truly  great cities, an architectural masterpiece, and a technological wonder when you think about the infrastructure above and below ground that lights, heats and moves the population of over eight million human beings who […]

Is the Republican Party’s Middle East policy up for bid? For four days ending Sunday, a quartet of presidential hopefuls trooped to Las Vegas to attend the annual gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Impresario: Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas-Macau casino mogul whose fortune is estimated at $39 billion — 8th richest man on the planet — and who dumped $92 […]

By Walter E. Williams There are several race and sex issues that need addressing. Let’s look at a few of them with an ear to these questions: Should we insist upon equal treatment of people by race and sex or tolerate differences in treatment? And just how equal are people by race and sex in the first place? According to […]

1. ObamaCare website buckles under last minute pressure As Americans scrambled to beat the Mar. 31 ObamaCare enrollment deadline, Healthcare.gov was overloaded by the sheer number of people trying to sign up for insurance. The site stopped taking applications for several hours and even made it difficult for those who hadn’t yet set up accounts. A spokeswoman for the Department […]

The Daily Caller It looks like the National Science Foundation has been handing out grants for some unorthodox research projects, according to House Republicans. This includes $700,000 in funding for a climate change musical. House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith questioned White House science czar John Holdren in a Thursday hearing over whether or not the National Science Foundation (NSF) […]

Ray Neudecker, 71, died on Sunday, March 30, 2014 at his residence. He was born in Memphis, TN on June 6, 1942, the son of the late Dr. Roy M. and Frances Brien Neudecker.  He was a 1960 graduate of the former Jackson High School, where he played football and attended two years at Union University at the former downtown […]

Income Inequality The Senate Budget Committee will discuss economic mobility and inequality with several economists on Today, part of an election-year push by Democrats to more closely examine the broad issue. Tax equality = Theft The Senate Permanent subcommittee on Investigations will continue to question machinery giant Caterpillar on its efforts to reduce its tax bill through offshore maneuvers. Panel […]

That Senate Finance markup of tax extenders — that grab bag of expired temporary tax incentives — looks to be getting pushed back. Finance members had expected to mark up an extenders package on Wednesday, after more than 50 preferences expired at the end of last year. But Finance Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), the committee’s […]

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will unveil his budget plan on today that aims to balance the nation’s books within 10 years. His panel is expected to mark up the plan on Wednesday, and the full House could seek to approve it next week. How it will shape the already moving appropriations process remains unclear. Ryan is known […]

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a dire report Monday calling for action to reduce climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions while preparing for the effects, some of which are already here. Democrats agreed that the report lends credence to what they’ve been saying for years. “The latest IPCC report adds a tremendous sense of urgency for […]

The Asia pivot is still on, and defense officials are citing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s upcoming 10-day trip there this week as proof. “The rebalance is real. We are following through on the rebalance, and this whole trip is an embodiment of that,” said a senior defense official, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on Hagel’s trip on Monday. Questions […]

Ukrainian officials have asked the U.S. for a list of military equipment and aid, and officials are finalizing their decision, according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “The interagency is going through the last cuts of decision-making on what additional assistance the United States would provide,” Hagel told reporters at a Pentagon briefing on Monday. Over the weekend, 300,000 Meals-Ready-to-Eat packets the […]

Lawmakers are giving Navy Secretary Ray Mabus a mouthful as he considers whether to ban the sale of tobacco on Navy bases and ships. A group of five Democratic senators wrote to Mabus in a letter released Monday where they urged him to adopt the ban. “We commend your efforts and hope that you will move forward with this initiative, […]

Democrats Bet on Technology Despite Debt The DNC “is entering this campaign season with millions of dollars in debt, gambling that money spent now on technology and organizing efforts will outweigh the burdens of red ink,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “The DNC had more than $15 million in debt and less than $7 million in cash as of the […]

By John Berlau and Michael Mayfield / The American Spectator Matt Drudge’s widely discussed mid-March tweet that he has already paid Obamacare’s “liberty tax” highlights the uncertainties the self-employed face both from the health care law and the tax code in general. As pointed out by an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily, “self-employed entrepreneurs ranging from Drudge to small-shop proprietors and […]

Equalizing the boys’ and girls’ athletic fields… by tearing down the newly built seating on the boys’ side, provided by voluntary parent contributions. What’s important is that things be equalized, and someone had filed a Title IX complaint. “The seating was also not handicapped accessible.” [Plymouth, Mich.; MyFoxDetroit] P.J. O’Rourke on that viral Supreme Court brief The humorist speaks out […]

Walter Olson sent me this note that there was a new book by British humor scholar Christie Davies (via Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal) has a discussion of lawyer jokes, which, Davies says, surged in the 1980s in America in a way not seen in other countries: …American attorneys in the late Twentieth Century who felt offended by lawyer jokes were […]

By Emma Woolf / The Daily Beast      They say good news travels fast. Perhaps this explains why it’s taken me two years to get around to watching Girls. I’d never seen a single episode of the hit HBO series until last week. And frankly, I’m still recovering). Can someone please enlighten me: is Girls supposed to be serious? Bittersweet or […]