The secretary of state was back in Washington a few days ago (5/09), begging the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to take it easy on the poor Iranians.  Enough with the sanctions, he said.  Secretary Kerry has joined decades of his predecessors, buying  into the latest version of the 30-year old illusion that we can make a deal with the Tehran regime if only we deal properly and humbly with them.  He said there was a "window of opportunity" for a couple of months.  It doesn't much matter if he really believes this legend, or is following instructions from President Obama, who is still pursuing this unholy grail despite five years of swift kicks in his behind.  The one he so loves to lead with.  Either way, it's an embarrassment. But then, our new secretary of state has great flair for embarrassing us.  In Obama's community of narcissists, Kerry is a bit different.  He excels at self-humiliation, as he showed in his recent sortie to Moscow, where Czar Putin kept him waiting for many hours before sparing some time to "discuss" Syria and related topics, no doubt including Iran. 

Thanks to the testimony of whistleblowers last week, and subsequent reporting of how "talking points" were systematically scrubbed of every reference to the truth, we know for sure President Barack Hussein Obama and senior aides were lying when they blamed a Youtube video for the attack on our consulate in Benghazi. More important is what is being covered up.  To get to the bottom of what may be more a looming national security crisis than a scandal in the past, we must have answers to a large number of critical questions.  The way to get them is for the House of Representatives to form a Select Committee, armed with subpoena power, to investigate what was going on before and during the attack on 9/11/2012, and what's been happening since. Here's how to form it, who should be on it, and what its members should focus on.  Hint: not impeachment.  There are very good reasons why - at least not before the mid-term elections in November 2014.

[Note from JW:  Dr. Rahn here presents an economic discussion of immigration - after all, he is an economist.  It is not a discussion of the national security threat of immigration, specifically that of illegal immigration from Mexico. A lively discussion of Dr. Rahn's arguments is expected on the TTP Forum!] How many new immigrants should the United States allow each year? How many guest workers? These are not easy questions, which is why there is as much fierce debate within the two parties as between them. The two main reasons given for restricting current immigration are the myths that immigrants take away American jobs and that immigrants are more likely to go on welfare, thus putting an additional burden on the taxpayers. Rather than taking away American jobs, good economists understand that immigrants who work create wealth in America, which in turn creates more and higher paying jobs for everyone. To explain the economics of this adequately would take more space than this entire commentary, but the truth of the assertion can be seen in the fact that high-wage countries with many immigrants such as Switzerland, Australia and Canada tend to have much higher labor force participation rates and lower unemployment rates than low-wage countries.

How different history might have been if the news media then were as blasé about Watergate as they've been about Benghazi, if Republicans then were as disinterested in truth as Democrats are now. If Watergate had not brought Richard Nixon low, the "emerging Republican majority" Kevin Phillips predicted in his 1969 book might well have.  Democrats wouldn't have won the lopsided majorities in the 1974 congressional elections that led to the vast expansion of domestic spending that now threatens to bankrupt the country. President Nixon, if unweakened by scandal, wouldn't have abandoned South Vietnam when the North Vietnamese invaded. The Watergate burglars were caught while removing a bug on the phone of a Democratic National Committee official they believed supplied prostitutes for visiting Democrat big shots.  President Nixon and his senior aides were furious when they found out. They were undone by their attempt to cover up a crime in which they were not involved.  A crime in which no one died, like those in Benghazi.

There is considerable evidence that drinking one glass of red wine per day for most middle-aged men has more health benefits than costs. There is also considerable evidence that drinking three or more glasses of wine per day causes more health problems than benefits. Even so, the owner of your favorite winery might encourage you to drink at least three glasses a day, perhaps with the following argument: "If you and my other customers drink three times as much, it will enable me to hire more workers, thus increasing employment." What the winery owner conveniently ignores is the damage the additional drinking causes to both your health and your pocketbook, and the fact that if you spend less on wine, you probably will be spending more on other goods and services, thus increasing employment in those areas. Many of the economic arguments I hear from the political class -- including members of Congress and President Obama -- are equally fallacious. It is tiresome to hear the president (as he did again last week during his news conference) and others say, time and time again that if we just tax and spend a bit more, our problems will diminish.