The Most Important Committee You've Never Heard Of

Today I have a piece in the Daily Standard, co-authored with my good friend Richard Brand, on recent reforms to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The End of the Year at the Supreme Court

I summarize and opine on the latest goings-on at the Supreme Court here.

Christmas in Fallujah

Billy Joel, whose music was the soundtrack of my adolescence, has written a new song, the anti-Iraq War "Christmas in Fallujah." Interestingly, he refuses to perform it because, he says, it deserves a "younger voice." It's a good song, though I don't really agree with the message. You can watch Cass Dillon's performance of it here.

So if it's Hillary vs. Huckabee, where do we move?

The Hollywood liberalatti is fond of saying that if X candidate is elected president, they’ll move to France. Fine (though Alec Baldwin once gave me the finger when I asked him what he was still doing here). But what shall we lovers of liberty do if, come next November, we are faced with the possibility of having presidential candidates from both major parties who clearly have no understanding of this country’s founding principles? To wit, here’s one of Hillary Clinton’s latest sound bites on health care:

“We can talk all we want about freedom and opportunity, about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but what does all that mean to a mother or father who can’t take a sick child to the doctor?”

Iowa-leading Mike Huckabee, meanwhile, “combines pure moralism with incoherent populism: He wants Washington to impose a nationwide ban on smoking in public, show more solicitude for Americans of modest means and impose more protectionism, thereby raising the cost of living for Americans of modest means.” (Hat tip: George Will.)

In other words, on the one hand we can forget about Jefferson and Madison and on the other hand we can turn their republic into an anti-market nanny state.

Given that choice, we’re left with another one: Estonia or New Zealand?

Me on TV and Radio re International War Crimes

Tomorrow from 1:30 to 2:30 EDT I'll be on Voice of America's "Straight Talk Africa" discussing "the role of the International Criminal Court in on-going war crime cases concerning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, northern Uganda and the Sudanese region of Darfur." Live streaming video and audio here.