Columnist.
Buried in a New York Times story about the economy was this arresting statistic: Median family income for black Americans has declined a whopping 10.9 percent during the Obama administration. It has declined for other groups as well -- 3.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites and 4.5 percent for Hispanics - but the figure for blacks is huge. This decline does not include losses suffered during the financial crisis and the recession that followed, but it instead measures declines since June 2009, when the recession officially ended. That's not the only bad news for African-Americans. The poverty rate for blacks is now 25.8 percent. The black labor force participation rate, which rose throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has declined for the past decade and quite sharply under Obama to 61.4 percent. The black unemployment rate, according to Pew Research, stands at 13.4 percent. Among black, male, high school dropouts, PBS' Paul Salmon reports, the unemployment rate is a staggering 95 percent.
In Duck Soup, one of the stuffy characters responds to Groucho's raillery with the protest: "I didn't come here to be insulted!" to which Groucho quips "Oh really? Where do you usually go?" I went to Scotland. Don't misunderstand, the Scots were delightful hosts -- friendly, accommodating and, of course, a delight to the ears. The country is as beautiful as advertised, and the castles, museums and lochs live up to their billing.
Perhaps you've heard the radio or TV commercials sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services urging seniors to report instances of Medicare fraud. There's a number to call, along with cheerful suggestions. The intent here seems benign enough -- saving taxpayer money by catching the dishonest. One might even be tempted to praise it, were it not for what the Obama administration is doing with the other hand -- issuing an engraved invitation to commit fraud when signing up for the health care exchanges.
Is anyone else confused about the new standard of sexual propriety in the post Clinton impeachment world? So much of what seemed to have been settled has been thrown into disarray this week. Following revelations that "Carlos Danger" was continuing his sexting frolics long after resigning in disgrace in 2011, The New York Times editorial board was disgusted.
Noting the comeback campaigns of Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner in New York, feminist author Hanna Rosin wonders why "50 years into the sexual revolution" women politicians lag so far behind men in the sex scandal tally. She notes biological and evolutionary explanations only to reject them in favor of the idea that women are just too unused to power to abuse it in that way. She's cheered though by surveys showing that younger women are cheating on their spouses almost as much as men and confidently looks forward to the not-too-distant day when we'll "find ourselves willing to look past the indiscretions" of women philanderers, too.
Eric Holder dismissed America as a "nation of cowards" because we wouldn't, he argued, have a "national conversation" about race. It's a slander wrapped in a farce. We talk of race unremittingly. That's the farce. The slander is hydra-headed. No honest conversation about race is possible when accusations of racism replace reasoned arguments. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who mentioned high rates of crime among black males, was rewarded with the racist label within minutes by some of those (The Atlantic, Slate) who presumably agree with Holder that we are too timid when discussing race.
The day after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced, I was at the supermarket. As always, Americans of all races went about their business. An elderly Asian lady got help from a tall Caucasian kid reaching an item on an upper shelf. A black cashier shared a joke with a white customer. A manager who might be Hispanic helped a patron of indeterminate ethnicity with a return. All was calm and composed. Let's call that supermarket America.
Vincent Orange is one of the members of the District of Columbia City Council currently exulting in victory over the poor people of Washington. In an 8 to 5 vote, the council elected to prevent the "underserved" poor people of the District from getting fresh produce and other food, a wide variety of good quality products at affordable prices, and some 1800 jobs, many of them entry-level.
There is nothing the cable channels love more than a good murder trial, especially if the violence is spiced with the irresistible seasoning of race. But you don't understand much about America if you don't know that only some racial recipes are newsworthy. If the victim is white and the killer is black, it's not interesting (unless the killer is a celebrity). If the victims are both white, it's only interesting if the victim or the murderer is a comely blond female (preferably a nymphomaniac). If the victim and killer are both black, it's a yawn. If the victim is black and the killer is white -- make way for sweeps week!
The very wise Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, describes the differing dispositions of liberals and conservatives this way: Liberals are moved by outrage at what is wrong with their society; conservatives feel gratitude for what is right. "You need both," Levin allows and generously reminded a conservative audience, "We should never forget that the people who oppose our various endeavors and argue for another way are well intentioned, too, even when they're wrong, and that they're not always wrong."
Many commentators on United States v. Windsor have offered the view that the decision was not far-reaching, that it didn't enshrine same-sex marriage as a constitutional right and that therefore the struggle continues. Don't believe it for a minute. The contest is over. Windsor is a stealth Roe. It showed that five justices regard the arguments in behalf of traditional marriage to be nothing more than bigotry. It also revealed that those five will not be constrained by law or tradition from imposing their views on the nation at the next opportunity.
Defending the "Gang of Eight" immigration reform bill on Fox News Sunday, Senator Lindsay Graham sounded the bleat of panic: "If it fails, and we are blamed for its failure, our party is in trouble with Hispanics, not because we are conservative but because of the rhetoric and the way we handled this issue. I want to get reattached to the Hispanic community, to sell conservativism, pass comprehensive immigration reform and grow this party. The party has got to be bigger than Utah and South Carolina. The Hispanic community is close to our values, but we have driven them away over this issue." As someone who approves some provisions of the proposed legislation, it's still unsettling to see such self-delusion on the part of proponents. The laudable impulse to improve the Republican Party's standing among Hispanics should not lead to embracing a bad bill. Nor should Republicans imagine that immigration reform is a magic bullet that will initiate a flood of Hispanic voters into Republican ranks.
An estimated 93,000 people have died in Syria's metastasizing civil war. Hundreds of thousands of that conflict's refugees strain resources and stability in neighboring countries. Iran continues its steady march toward nuclear weapons development. North Korea menaces its neighbors and episodically threatens to launch nuclear missiles at Los Angeles. Turkey, long lauded by Obama as a model for the region, is violently cracking down on peaceful demonstrators. Slow growth and high unemployment hobble the world's most advanced economies as growing bureaucracy and crippling debt take their toll. Islamist movements are making gains in Mali, Indonesia, Pakistan and Iraq after gaining power in Egypt and Tunisia. The Taliban are boldly flying the flag of the "Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan" (the name of the country when they controlled it before 9/11) from their new offices in Doha. China is aggressively expanding its navy, engaging in barely concealed cyber espionage on American businesses and government and manufacturing territorial disputes with neighbors in the South China Sea. Russia is sliding steeply into tyranny, and Islamic terrorists have recently scored two victories -- one on the streets of Boston and one in London.
In the weeks before the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Obamacare, the country trembled with anticipation. No such eagerness is evident now -- yet the court is again poised to rattle our world. The case of Fisher v. Texas could upend the system of racial preferences in use throughout American higher education. The pursuit of racial justice in education has arguably led to some benefits since its inception in the 1960s. But in the two generations that have elapsed since affirmative action began, evidence of its unintended consequences has accumulated. Criticizing affirmative action (which is code for racial preferences) can be a career-endangering step for anyone and particularly for academics or politicians.
The New York Times is pleased with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 438-page, $20 billion plan to protect New York from the effects of future hurricanes. It notes benignly that the cost is probably an underestimate but agrees with the mayor, "Whether you believe climate change is real or not is beside the point; the bottom line is we can't run the risk." Really? Imagine the argument: "Whether you believe zombies are real or not is beside the point. ... We can't run the risk." Clearly one's willingness to undertake these sorts of preparations depends completely on whether the perceived danger is real.
It would be nice to write a column in praise of President Obama for his vigorous conduct of the war on terror -- to praise his willingness to look for "dots" to connect amid all the electronic noise of the communications web. It would be pleasantly nonpartisan to observe that some conservatives are being hypocritical -- denouncing Obama for surveillance of millions of Americans while they were content to permit President Bush to do similar things without protest, just as many liberals are doing the reverse. Three glaring obstacles stand in the way: One is the memory of the casual smears candidate Obama directed at President Bush. The second is the rank abuse of power his administration has demonstrated, which undermines one's trust that the trove of information the government is sifting will be used only to disrupt possible terror attacks. The third is the administration's pattern of lying -- which undermines any reassurances the president proffers that "nobody is listening to your telephone calls."
If I were the parent of a child who might be kept alive -- if only for a few more years -- by a lung transplant, I too would move Heaven and Earth to get it done. That the parents of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan have made her an Internet and cable news celebrity in a desperate effort to get her on the adult list for a lung transplant is completely understandable. No one with a particle of human sympathy can fail to be moved by the family's situation. The story, however, has loosed a torrent of demagoguery -- some of it coming from the very people who should be most alarmed about the politicization of cases like Sarah's and of health care generally.
In the course of his rambling monologue on national security policy delivered at the National Defense University, President Obama gave only glancing attention to the most significant military undertaking of his term in office -- the Afghanistan war. The president scarcely ever mentions Afghanistan except to note that Bush's war there was "paid for with borrowed dollars." The word Afghanistan is nearly always mouthed in the context of "winding down" or "ending" our commitment. And, of course, because Obama still cannot help himself, he again chastised his predecessor for supposedly "shifting our focus" and prosecuting a war in Iraq.
