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Enough Talk About Entrepreneurs

In the documentary “Mitt,” Romney talks about a business owner who was complaining about his tax burden. The business owner didn’t just pay income taxes. There were also the payroll taxes and gas taxes. Fair enough, but what about Romney’s infamous 47 percent comment in . . . . Continue Reading »

Reading Ronald Reagan in Prague

And not with pacifists. Ricochet member and pomocon friend Flagg Taylor is over in the Czech Republic again, and sending home dissidents’ reports of what it was like to hear a U.S. president to speak openly against the communist oppression they lived under. . . . . Continue Reading »

Very Quick Thoughts

1.  Ross Douthat writes that Walker’s victory in the Wisconsin recall election indicated that “November 2012 will just be one battle in a longer war, and the outcome in Wisconsin suggests that the edge in that war currently (and to some extent unexpectedly, given the demographic . . . . Continue Reading »

I Guess John…

Got Some Truth! Emphasis on the some. Being against Carter in 1980 was an easy step. A number of rockers got the political jitters towards the end of the 70s—Bowie famously suggested, under whatever mix of drugs I know not, that Britain might need a fascist strongman, and even Paul Weller, as . . . . Continue Reading »

A Matter of Life and Death

HBO tells us “You Don’t Know Jack,” referring to Jack Kevorkian, played by Al Pacino in HBO’s recent movie of the same name, or as some might call it, a hagiography of Dr. Death.  Kevorkian came to notoriety in the 1990’s as a leading advocate of assisted suicide . . . . Continue Reading »

The Big Economic Lie

There they go again. The presidential election of 1992 is bringing out among politicians and the media the Big Economic Lie. Virtually all editors today allow their reporters to broadcast this lie uncritically: “During the 1980s under Reaganomics the poor and the middle class lost income.” Any . . . . Continue Reading »

Reagan's America, America's Reagan

First, a confessional note. Like many other Americans, I originally became aware of Ronald Reagan as a political figure during the Barry Goldwater presidential campaign of 1964. Reagan’s nationally televised speech near the end of the campaign was a cautionary moment. (Reagan had previously been . . . . Continue Reading »

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