Reason Holiday Gift Ideas
For the Lou Dobbs/Pat Buchanan fan in your life. Compatible with both the "Terrified Immigrant Family" and "Misidentified Sex Offender" playsets. Sold separately.

At Least No One Can Say the Federal Reserve Didn't Know What it Was Doing
Don't worry--the Federal Reserve is very alert to exactly what it's doing. From AP via Yahoo!: The Federal Reserve doesn't expect the recovery will be strong enough to quickly drive down the jobless rate, and acknowledged its efforts to keep the rebound going could feed a new speculative bubble. Record-low interest rates "could lead to excessive risk-taking in financial markets," according to documents released Tuesday of the Fed's closed-door meeting earlier this month....Although

Sing That Song Again, Kentucky
Matt Welch and Michael Moynihan have already blogged the news that the death of Bill Sparkman, the Kentucky census worker found bound and lifeless with the word FED on his chest, has been ruled a suicide. Michael was kind enough to include a link to my essay on the paranoid center, with its argum

Stock Transaction Tax: It's Like Slapping Yourself in the Face
Via Drudge comes this news, reported by The Hill newspaper, of a long-awaited (by lefties) stock transaction tax bill. Just about every sentence in the article is infuriating, in that dull way: Under a bill being drafted by Democratic Reps. Peter DeFazio (Ore.) and Ed Perlmutter (Colo.), the sale

I Had to Quash the Debate in Order to Save It
A few weeks ago, I noted that Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) had introduced an amendment that would prohibit the National Criminal Justice Commission proposed by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) from considering changes to the drug laws. The amendment (PDF) says "the Commission shall have no authority to make findings related to current Federal, State, and local criminal justice policies and pract