Will Newt's Iowa Surge Lock Down The Nomination?
Newt Gingrich, convinced as ever of his own world-historical importance, must be grinning today as he looks at a new poll showing him up by 14 points in Iowa. After all, he had been written off by nearly everyone only a few weeks ago, and his ground operation in the state remains pretty threadbare. Does Newt’s recent surge signal the end of the GOP primary race? A 2007 paper suggests that a last-minute realignment of GOP allegiances could have outsized impact.
Is Signing Albert Pujols A Dumb Move?
Albert Pujols, the St. Louis Cardinals superstar (and longtime scourge of my own Cincinnati Reds), must be feeling pretty popular this week. On Monday, the Marlins reportedly offered him a ten-year contract worth over $200 million—enough, they hope, to peel him away from St. Louis, which offered him a nine-year contract worth $195 million at the start of last season. The Cardinals are scheduled to meet with Pujols today, and it’s likely they’re preparing for a bidding war. Is a decade-long investment in Pujols worth it? Maybe not, according to a 2008 paper by two economists.
Why Fewer Arrests Means Better Border Enforcement
According to new DHS data, arrests for illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border fell to just over 325,000 in FY2011. This represents a fall from a peak of 1.6 million arrests in 2000 and is, as The Washington Post notes, the lowest number since the early 1970s. To some, a low number of arrests might suggest that more illegal immigrants are successfully entering the United States, but these numbers actually suggest that the border is increasingly secure. What’s the reason for this counterintuitive interpretation? Put simply, fewer arrests indicate fewer attempts and better enforcement.
Visiting The Titanic? Be Careful Not To Litter
If you have two free weeks and $60,000 to spare, The New York Times has a vacation idea to suggest: Go visit the Titanic on the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking. Visiting the wreckage is apparently popular among certain kinds of deep-pocketed tourists, but the practice is not without detractors: “Scientists and scholars worry about new damage to the famous ship,” the Times reports, resulting in large part from carelessness and clumsiness.
What Newt Can Teach Herman
Herman Cain is said to be “reassessing” his candidacy amid new allegations of infidelity—specifically, Ginger White’s claim that she carried on a 13-year affair with the candidate. Cain is already facing numerous allegations of sexual harassment and even sexual assault. Is this the final blow to his campaign? A recent paper by three political scientists provides perspective, if not hope.
Which Travelers Will Get Hit By The American Airlines Bankruptcy?
News broke this morning that AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, has gone belly-up. The company said today that it doesn’t expect frequent flyer programs or flight schedules to be affected. But will the long-term impact be different? According to a 2003 paper by two economists, airline bankruptcies actually have a rather limited overall impact on air travel.
Bill O'Reilly, Freedom Fighter
[Guest post by Nathan Pippenger] If you somehow haven’t seen the video of campus security officers pepper-spraying the students at UC Davis’s Occupy protest, watch it now: These situations are complicated and difficult to reconstruct from just a few minutes of video footage, but it seems obvious that the students in the video posed an immediate threat to nobody. But that wasn’t the take on Fox News last night, when Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly held a sort of ad hoc summit on the events. The problem was that nosy (liberal) people might overreact to all this.
What Is Ignoring Global Warming Going To Cost Us?
After meeting in Uganda this week, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a troubling warning: over the next several decades, “unprecedented extreme weather” will become much less unprecedented. Because global warming has continued mostly unabated, future generations can expect more floods, cyclones, and droughts—and, of course, more heat waves. A century from now, heat waves that today are once-in-a-generation events will occur every other year.
Will Obama’s Latest Immigration Reform Really Fix Anything?
On Thursday, The New York Times broke the news that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is belatedly taking steps to implement the Obama administration’s commitment to “prosecutorial discretion”—that is, concentrating enforcement resources on criminals and serial lawbreakers, not DREAM Act students or other “low priority” immigrants. That policy, outlined in a memo by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton in June, has been ignored for months, as I’ve shown here, here, and here.
A Brief History Of Assaults On The White House
An Idaho man who was reported missing last month has been arrested for shooting the White House with a semiautomatic rifle. The suspect is 21-year-old Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, who has criminal records in three states and a history of drug and alcohol problems. He is believed to have fired an AK-47 at the White House last Friday night. At least one round hit the building, but it was stopped by bulletproof glass.
