Although my family did end its subscription last year due to the magazine’s increasingly visible slants, Newsweek still has some interesting articles. This piece discusses changing persona and economic positions of Obama’s top economic advisor, former Harvard President and Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. The article points out that Summers has moved out of his free market mold to support more interventionist policies because of the changing circumstances of the financial crisis; on the other hand, he may eventually move back towards the middle and endorse more moderate regulation policies. 

I don’t buy any talk of economic revelations in light of the financial crisis. It seems apparent to me that there is little consensus among economists, both among free-marketers and those who are traditionally more supportive of government intervention, and that many Obama advisers and cabinet members are “going along with the flow” of the massive government stimulus. I certainly hope they guess right on this one.

Michael Barone talks about this Obama White House initiative in this article. The census is, of course, much more than an interesting statistic for updating encyclopedias and the online CIA World Factbook every ten years. In the U.S., the census determines representation and the amount of federal funding for various federal programs. Barone suggests that Judd Gregg, who was originally nominated by Obama to head the Department of Commerce, withdrew his nomination partly because he did not want a major function of his department to be taken over by the White House. I see this as nothing less than an unnecessary attempt to expand executive power and manipulate an otherwise objective statistical bureau of the government.

On the afternoon of January 27, 2009, members of the George Washington College Republicans found Christian crosses strewn about and defaced with a variety of goodies, such as condoms, antagonizing words, and phallic symbols. The crosses were haphazardly appended to none other than the College Democrats’ bulletin board. The two political groups share the same space and have separate, but equal, private storage bins which are entrusted to protect private property, such as the crosses.

Keeping the extensive coverage in mind that we gave the defacing, or deflaging, that our own dear campus recently experienced, with the famed “black flag” incident, it is interesting to see how other schools respond to hate crimes compared to ours.

In the official statement of GW, President Steven Knapp flounders around with feelings of disappointment but will still “continue to hope” that his students act better in the future. No statements about condoning the behavior or seeking to punish those responsible anywhere on the GW official statement.

One might wonder, does the subject of a hate crime dictate the response?

A very interesting discussion about the possibility of libertarians slowly shifting towards the moderate wings of the Democratic Party. Here’s the original piece written by Ross Douthat.

I find the idea of libertarians supporting Democratic candidates in certain situations as somewhat plausible, but an entire shift of a whole political demographic seems unlikely. If we are discussing libertarians in the sense of socially liberal conservatives who distance themselves from the “Christian right,” then it is not all together improbable that this voting group may start to tilt more towards Democratic candidates.

This week’s Economist leader argues that President Obama should take a tougher stance on supporting a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After the results of last week’s Israeli elections, in which Kadima (Livni) only got one more seat than Likud (Netanyahu), it may still take weeks for Israel to build a coalition government. In the meantime, the Economist argues, Obama should make clear that movement towards a two-state solution is in the best interest of both Israel and the United States.