Among the general public, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and their lesser known younger sibling, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), have reputations far exceeding their actual achievements. The OECD was originally set up as an organization to promote trade among the developed countries and to build statistical databases. It has now morphed into an organization whose principal goal appears to be the collection of more taxes for its member governments. Last week, Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD, said it was the "duty" of international companies to stop employing tax-reduction strategies -- aiming some of his comments directly at Apple and Google. Mr. Gurria seems to think the purpose of business is to pay taxes. Not so. The purpose of a business is...

I don't think it's hard to understand Obama's foreign policy.  Although there's a lot we don't know about him, his basic impulses are clear enough.  He's told us what they are (although, to be sure, he often misleads and obfuscates), and his actions are in keeping with his announced impulses.  Furthermore, there's nothing unique or surprising about them - you can hear them in our classrooms and our college dorms, and read them in the establishment press every day.  He's an establishment member in high standing. Voilá: He believes that most of the serious problems in the world are the result of past American actions.  Call it imperialism.  Call it meddling.  Call it arrogance (as the Iranians do).  Whatever you call it, it means that pre-Obama policies were bad. Ergo, it's mostly Bush's fault. (Shorthand for "before me, they didn't understand.  Anything.")  It follows that the single most important action to ensure good policies is...

The big news this week was the announcement by our caudillo-in-chief that for the 27th time, he's going to make a unilateral change in Obamacare.  This is both outrageous and amusing. * * * * Firms must certify to the IRS that ObamaCare was not and is not a factor in their staffing decisions, even though it is obvious that many employers of economic necessity are trimming staff and reducing hours due to the burden of ObamaCare's mandates.  Call this Omertacare, says Jim Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. * * * * It was jump the shark week for Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, who told the Dallas Morning News Tuesday that hey, maybe she could support a ban on abortions after 20 weeks.  * * * * The director of the Obamacare health exchange in Colorado has been placed on administrative leave after she pled guilty in a U.S. District Court in Montana Feb. 6 to eight counts of theft and fraud from a nonprofit housing agency in Billings. * * * * Guess what CBS blames for the cold spell we've been having. * * * * The hero of the week is is Billy Heroman of Heroman's Flowers in Louisiana who says - the IRS be damned - he's cutting jobs because of Obamacare.

All of us screw up from time to time.  But it's hard to imagine how anyone else could screw up anything else as badly as Obama and the Democrats have screwed up health care. Democrats may have believed Obamacare would do the things they promised when they rammed it through in the middle of the night of March 21, 2010. But it's clear now it does much more harm than good. Which President Obama in effect acknowledged Tuesday (2/11) when he said he'll put off until 2016 enforcement of the "employer mandate" for small businesses with 99 or fewer employees.  This is the 27th time he's unilaterally delayed a provision of the law, which he has no legal authority to do. So much for the Democrat claim Obamacare is "settled law." This is banana republic stuff, for which he ought to be impeached.  No president has the right to cherry pick what laws - or portions of laws - he'll enforce, or to say some Americans needn't obey them.