Unveiling the Congressional Budget Office's latest long term forecast this week, new CBO Director Keith Hall made an unremarkable statement. "The evidence," Hall explained, "is that tax cuts do not pay for themselves." For the overwhelming majority of economists or just about anyone with a passing familiarity with the U.S. budget since Ronald Reagan first […]

While all eyes have been focused on the worldwide stock market plunge, a recent survey of economists by the Wall Street Journal identified a different threat to the vitality of the U.S. economy. But it's not the instability of Chinese stock prices, the devaluation of its currency, the Eurozone's Greek tragedy or even a premature […]

Of all of the Republicans' manufactured controversies during the Obama presidency, one less-remembered episode may be the most telling of all. Unable to prevent three-fifths of the Senate from voting to confirm Elena Kagan as the newest Supreme Court Justice, Republican in May 2010 denounced Obama's nominee for declaring that the Founding Fathers' three-fifths of […]

The top-grossing movie in America this past weekend was Straight Outta Compton, the story of the rise of the hip-hop legends N.W.A. With its $57 million opening box office take, morning show appearances and (supposed) fans like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the film's success illustrates the mainstream acceptance of rap culture once viewed by some […]

Things did not go well the last time Jeb Bush tried to blame President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Dubya's calamity in Iraq. After comically flip-flopping as to whether he would have invaded Iraq knowing what he knows now, Jeb! was then humiliated by a 19 year-old college student who correctly explained […]

Papa John's is everywhere. Its 4,500 restaurants, most run by franchisees, are in all 50 states and 34 countries. The Louisville Cardinals play their college football in Papa John's Stadium, while Papa John himself regularly appears in TV ads with his business partner, Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. And as the business press has been […]

In the course of American and world history, slavery and the Holocaust are sui generis cataclysms. Any comparisons--especially casual ones--to the Nazi genocide of European Jewry and the bondage and oppression of African-Americans necessarily diminish these unique and unparalleled horrors. To seriously equate the ordinary to the almost unimaginable is a special kind of blasphemy […]