Jimmy Carter, through his naïve diplomacy with Hamas’s leaders, brought us all the goodies, except the most essential one: Is Hamas willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist?

Carter has his own reasons for believing that discussions with Hamas will lead to peace, but whatever they are, they are not based in reality.

Negotiations with Palestinians, beginning with the legitimization of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Yasir Arafat, have led only to increased terrorism because of increased opportunity and untold suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians. I report, U decide.

The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter-identification law on Monday, declaring that a requirement to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and that the state has a “valid interest” in improving election procedures as well as deterring fraud.

Justices Indicate They May Uphold Voter ID Rules (January 10, 2008)
Text of the Opinion In a 6-to-3 ruling in one of the most awaited election-law cases in years, the court rejected arguments that Indiana’s law imposes unjustified burdens on people who are old, poor or members of minority groups and less likely to have driver’s licenses or other acceptable forms of identification. Because Indiana’s law is considered the strictest in the country, similar laws in the other 20 or so states that have photo-identification rules would appear to have a good chance of surviving scrutiny.
This is a defeat for the Democratic party.
I report, U decide.

Politicians love a 'crisis.' Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hink that the government should bail out homeowners who can't pay their mortgages. When they say the government should do this, they mean the taxpayers, including those who are paying their mortgages. They also think the government should regulate the lending and investment industries further. Why? Because 'crisis' justifies making big government bigger. It's why we now have a global warming 'crisis' and in previous years we had 'crises' over avian flu, the Y2K threat to computers, imaginary cancer spikes caused by pesticides, killer bees flying up from Mexico, and uncontrolled population growth leading to a 'Population Bomb' that will bring 'riots and mass starvation' by the year 2000. This is not to say that lots of homebuyers aren't having a hard time. But the rapid rise and fall in housing values in some parts of the country-and the rippling consequences at each stage-do not justify scrapping what we know about economic success and turning to government control. Prosperity and stability come from people being free to innovate and produce-and yes, fail... The best regulator of economic activity and source of knowledge is free competition. Of course, government inhibits that in many ways. If we want to avoid disruptions like the current one, let's undertake a wholesale examination of government intervention in the economy. Freedom, not control, is the ticket to success. I report,U decide.

Americans are angry about trade, and a lot of politicians — especially the two Democratic presidential candidates — are eager to capitalize on it. The country would be far better served by a serious, dare we say fact-based, discussion of what is causing the dislocations in American workers’ lives, how much trade is to blame and what government can do to help.

Still, critics’ charges that trade is to blame are misguided. While trade can hurt some workers, most economists believe it plays a modest role compared with other forces in the economy, including advances in technology, the decline of trade unions and mushrooming executive pay. Many Americans benefit from freer trade, whether they are buying cheaper imports or exporting products.

Consider the four million manufacturing jobs lost over the last decade. That number is daunting — and the human pain behind it very real. But in most years the United States generates more jobs than it loses. I report, U decide.

Consider the four million manufacturing jobs lost over the last decade. That number is daunting — and the human pain behind it very real. But in most years the United States generates more jobs than it loses.

Suppose the critics are right and all those workers were displaced by cheap imports and factories moving overseas. Those lost manufacturing jobs — an average of 400,000 a year — amount to less than 3 percent of the 15 million jobs lost each year across the economy. Meanwhile, about 17 million jobs were created annually, which is why the unemployment rate at the end of 2007 was not much different than it was at the end of 1997.