The Londoner

President Obama likes to say his campaign is about building up the middle class, but his signature initiative in office — ObamaCare — will pile thousands of dollars in new taxes and higher health costs on top of America’s middle class. How so? Through redistribution, of course. The president has made no secret of his fondness for using the government’s tax and spending powers to spread our diminished wealth around from one group of Americans to another. And ObamaCare is nothing if not a massive redistribution machine. It places huge new financial burdens on some Americans — primarily those who already have health insurance, including the vast majority of middle-class families — in order to extend new federal entitlement commitments to other households, primarily the uninsured. In broad terms, the amount of redistribution is easily ascertained form the aggregate expenditures an

The world economic downturn and upheaval in the Arab world might grab headlines, but another big problem looms: environmental change. Along with extreme weather patterns, rising sea levels, and other natural hazards, global warming disrupts freshwater resource availability -- with immense social and political implications. Earlier this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a report, Global Water Security , assessing hydropolitics around the world. In it, the authors show that international water disputes will affect not only the security interests of riparian states, but also of the United States.  In many parts of the world, freshwater is already a scarce resource. It constitutes only 2.5 percent of all available water on the planet. And only about .4 percent of that is easily accessible for human consumption. Of that tiny amount, a decreasing share is potable because of pollution and agricultural and industrial water use

Americans haven’t lost a war in so long, we’ve forgotten what doing so looks like — and what it costs. The only war that we undeniably lost was the Vietnam War; thrown out of the country literally under fire, we abandoned our allies to a horrific fate and left behind a legacy of terror in the region, breaking our Army in the process. Despite the miasma of discontent with the effort, the United States and its many allies are not losing in Afghanistan. The spate of “green on blue” killings of U.S. soldiers by members of the Afghan security forces — some Taliban infiltrators, but mostly disgruntled or frustrated Afghans after a decade of foreign occupation — is a serious threat to our partnership strategy. After a temporary stand-down, to allow reactions to cartoons and videos caricaturing the prophet Muhammad to pass, joint patrols have resumed. We are proceeding with our plan to hand over primary responsibility for security to the Afghans by

China is on course to becoming a superpower - but not in the way many expect, writes economist Martin Jacques. Beijing these days is positively throbbing with debate. It may not have the trappings of a western-style democracy, but it is now home to the most important and interesting discussions in the world. When I addressed an audience of young Chinese diplomats at their foreign ministry a year ago, it was abundantly clear that a fascinating debate is under way about what kind of foreign policy might be appropriate for the global power China is in the process of becoming. What will China be like as a superpower? You might think it is already - it is not. Its military power is puny compared with that of the US. While America has 11 aircraft carriers, China only commissioned its first last month - based on, of all things, a Ukrainian hull. And its global political influence is still extremely limited. The only sense in which China is a superpower is economic

With two presidential debates in the books, two things are clear: First, Mitt Romney has demonstrated a command of the issues the next president will face. Second, of the two candidates, only Romney spends any significant time talking about what he’s going to do when elected. Despite President Obama’s resurgence in Tuesday’s town-hall debate at Hofstra University, the incumbent spent far more time criticizing Romney’s plans and blaming George W. Bush -- if not by name, then by inference -- for the problems facing this country. The most consistent feature of Obama’s performances is that he does not offer a vision for the future, or a plan he’s willing to share with voters -- either because he knows it will be unpopular or because he doesn’t actually have one. Indeed, the president has not shied away from blaming Congress for what ail

With the unprecedented budget explosion of means-tested, welfare-related entitlements, does Team Obama think it can buy the election? It's a cynical question. But I wouldn't put it past that cynical bunch. Remember Harry Hopkins, Franklin Roosevelt's close aid? It was Hopkins who argued tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect. Sound familiar? And if I'm not mistaken, the high-tax, anti-rich, big-spending, redistributionist FDR is one of Barack Obama's idols. So let's take a look at some of the recent budget-explosion data points: According to Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, means-tested welfare programs soared to over $1 trillion last year. The federal government accounted for $750 billion of that, while $250 billion came

There are those who say that the tea party is fading in influence, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the movement is on the cusp of achieving what once seemed nearly impossible: keeping the Senate Democratic. A year ago, famed political handicapper Charlie Cook gave Republicans a 60 percent to 70 percent likelihood of capturing control of the Senate; now, he tells me the likelihood of it remaining Democratic is 60 percent. The switch in fortunes can be attributed to many causes — a slate of lackluster Republican candidates high among them — but one thing is beyond serious dispute: If not for a series of tea party upsets in Republican primaries, the Republicans would be taking over the Senate majority in January. In the 2010 cycle, tea party candidates caused the Republicans to lose three Senate seats easily within their grasp: Sharron Angle allowed Democratic leader Harry Reid to keep his seat in Nevada, Chris