David Boaz

NPR reports on a new Florida law that requires the teaching of American history in the schools and sets up some rules for how it should be taught. At the beginning of the report I was amused by the description of the impetus for the law:
Mike Fasano was a state …

Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Finance Committee, is asking Medicare/Medicaid administrator Mark McClellan why two senior Medicare investigators spend up to two months each year “on travel to popular vacation destinations.” Grassley wants to know, “What did American taxpayers and Medicare beneficiaries get for the travels of Rollow …

Do Republicans still support limited government Don’t laugh–there are still people around who would answer “yes.” On this site we’ve spent plenty of time on Republicans spending like drunken Democrats, nationalizing education, expanding entitlements, declaring the president an absolute monarch, embracing Wilsonian foreign policy, and so on. The latest just …

Have blogs become part of the mainstream Consider the evidence of a front-page story in Saturday’s New York Times, which reports on reaction to the federal court ruling that the NSA wiretapping program is illegal. The first three legal experts quoted are bloggers; two of the quotes are from the …

The Wall Street Journal’s “Remembrances” column notes the death this week of Alfredo Stroessner this way:
Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, the military strongman who ruled Paraguay from 1954 until 1989. Among 20th century Latin American leaders, only Cuban President Fidel Castro has served longer.
Why is Stroessner a “military strongman” while Castro is …

For a hint of what Washington bureaucrats think of the rest of the America, take a look at this letter to the Wall Street Journal:
You say the average federal civil worker makes more than the average private sector worker. That’s true, but this isn’t even an apples and oranges comparison …

From Walter Scott’s “Personality Parade” in Parade Magazine (to be posted here soon):

Q: How much time do former President Carter and wife Rosalyn devote to their Habitat for Humanity projects

A: Since 1984, they have spent one week each year on Habitat projects, helping to construct 2,733 new homes.

In a story on people without health insurance, NPR interviewed a spokesman for a “consumer advocacy group” who warned that we shouldn’t get rid of the estate tax (so we can spend more tax dollars on health care). Yeah, that’s what consumers think — except for the 68 percent of …

What’s the best business to be in these days Steel Automobiles Maybe not any more. Maybe these days it’s software, or finance. Maybe. But judging from this lead story in this morning’s Washington Post —
The three most prosperous large counties in the United States are in the Washington suburbs, according …

The big scandal in public (or actually government) broadcasting is that the taxpayers are forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the propagation of unremittingly liberal views on politics and policy. As I said in my testimony to the Senate last year, I agree with some …