LETTER FROM FMR. SEN. ALAN SIMPSON TO CALIFORNIA ALLIANCE FOR RETIRED AMERICANS
My suggestion to you – an honest one – read the damn report. The Moment of Truth – 67 pages, and then tell me if we’re not doing the right thing with Social Security. What a wretched group of seniors you must be to use the faces of the very people that we are trying to save, while the “greedy geezers” like you use them as a tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap. You must feel some sense of shame for shoveling out this bulls**t.
A WAY OUT OF THE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE MESSMAE KUYKENDALLNEW YORK TIMESMr. Obama was right both to embrace equality as a principle and to respect the process by which the understanding of marriage gradually evolves to include same-sex couples, within the premises of federalism. What is needed now is a similarly coherent and sound ruling by the Supreme Court. The Constitution allows for creative solutions to seemingly intractable conflicts. The justices should neither mandate state marriage law nor tolerate the arbitrary use of state power to void a critical legal status awarded to more and more American couples.
Must-Read Op-Eds for Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Must-Read Op-Eds for Tuesday, May 22, 2012 ELIZABETH WARREN’S IDENTITY POLITICSGEORGE WILLWASHINGTON POSTBarack Obama, who carried Massachusetts by almost 800,000 votes in 2008, will win here again, and a senior official of Brown’s campaign thinks that in order to win Brown must run between 250,000 and 500,000 votes ahead of Romney. In the special election in January 2010, Brown defeated a female opponent (women are 53 percent of Massachusetts voters) by 107,317 votes. He won independents 2 to 1. The turnout this November, with Obama on the ballot, probably will be larger, less white and more Democratic. But just 0.3 percent of Massachusetts residents are Native Americans, even counting Warren. PROTECTING OUR CATHOLIC CONSCIENCE IN THE PUBLIC SQUAREDONALD WUERLWASHINGTON POST[The Catholic Church] is simply trying to defend our – and other faith groups’ – long-standing rights. While the administration wants to regulate religion, we are not trying to force anything on anyone. … Conscripting us into advancing government objectives against our conscience does. This struggle is all about the Bill of Rights. You don’t have to agree with the Catholic Church and its teachings to agree that the government shouldn’t force us to violate our beliefs. People of all faiths or no faith should cherish the right to follow one’s conscience. We do not want to tell the government what it must do. We simply ask the same of them. SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR … SEES NO CAUSE FOR ALARMDANA MILBANKWASHINGTON POST“Over the last six years, we’ve done 37,000 trips around the world, and we’ve had no situation like this one before,” [Director Mark Sullivan] said from the witness table. “This is not a cultural issue. This is not a systemic issue with us.” Not a single member of the panel, Democrat or Republican, accepted Sullivan’s blithe and categorical dismissals. Yet no amount of bipartisan incredulity, and no piece of evidence the senators presented, would budge the ringmaster from his breezy insistence that the Cartagena Dozen were the only clowns in his circus. ROMNEY’S ROADS TO THE WHITE HOUSEKARL ROVEWALL STREET JOURNALThen there’s the Plains route. Iowa (six electoral votes) launched Mr. Obama in 2008 but National Journal’s Hotline reports Team Obama is targeting it for special attention with TV ads, evidence of its worry. Mr. Obama long ago lost his chance to duplicate his 2008 performance. A record of failure will do that. He’s now forced to fight for states he easily won in 2008. The odds now narrowly favor a Romney win.GREECE’S FALSE AUSTERITYDAVID MALPASSWALL STREET JOURNALBeyond the current fight over austerity, growth or the euro, Europe’s battle comes down to government-guaranteed wages and benefits versus labor flexibility. Europe’s failing governments simply won’t allow competition or give up power to achieve competitiveness. As the U.S. struggles with tax reform, deficit reduction and the year-end fiscal cliff, it will be critical to distinguish between reforms that downsize the government and reforms that downsize the private sector and put the dollar at risk. One approach points to growth, the other to Greece.
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