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David Harsanyi looks at the encroachment of federal power on states’ rights. There are significant merits to state power: more fiscal responsibility, legislation tailored to regional issues, and less encroachment on individuals’ liberty.

…The most tangible policy issue that highlights this loss of control is education. When Ronald Reagan ran for president in 1980, he promised to shut down the Department of Education, arguing that the issue was the bailiwick of locals. But by 2001, a Republican president, George W. Bush, was championing a hyper-centralized Washington role in local education — increasing the Department’s budget 70 percent between 2002 and 2004. Today, the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competition hands out an additional $4.35 billion in “incentive” money (funded by the Recovery Act) to states that most closely adhere to the reforms favored by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the president. …

…More significantly, states are for the most part organic. They are geographically, culturally, socially and economically unique. Road rules in Nevada don’t make sense in New York City. Gun laws in Portland aren’t made for Muskogee. New Englanders won’t want the high school textbooks of Texans and Coloradans won’t want the energy policy of West Virginia. Power changes hands, and so does the focus of Washington.

So the continued growth of central power should be concerning to all. Because each time we are mandated or cajoled to cede to the wishes of Washington, we are surrendering our rights today, and tomorrow.

There is more criticism for the Bush and Obama administrations. Peggy Noonan discusses society’s growing distrust of government.

…In the past four years, I have argued in this space that nothing can or should be done, no new federal law passed, until the border itself is secure. That is the predicate, the commonsense first step. Once existing laws are enforced and the border made peaceful, everyone in the country will be able to breathe easier and consider, without an air of clamor and crisis, what should be done next. What might that be? How about relax, see where we are, and absorb. Pass a small, clear law—say, one granting citizenship to all who serve two years in the armed forces—and then go have a Coke. Not everything has to be settled right away. Only controlling the border has to be settled right away.

Instead, our national establishments deliberately allow the crisis to grow and fester, ignoring public unrest and amusing themselves by damning anyone’s attempt to deal with the problem they fear to address. …

…If the federal government and our political parties were imaginative, they would understand that it is actually in their interests to restore peace and order to the border. It would be a way of demonstrating that our government is still capable of functioning, that it is still to some degree connected to the people’s will, that it has the broader interests of the country in mind. …

Many on the right wish to pillory the Obama administration for a slow response to the BP oil spill. This is no doubt “tit for tat” after the abuse W took for Katrina. John Hinderaker of Power Line has a more grown up look at the issue. Perhaps one of the problems here is that we have pushed these rigs into deeper and deeper water rather than allow drilling on the Continental Shelf where there would be easier access to drill sites. Good thing Obama allowed more drilling a month ago. Now he will defend that because he is never wrong.

A reader who works “on the inside,” as he put it, in dealing with disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill, writes to defend the government’s actions so far:

“I am also no fan of the Obama Administration, and while I normally enjoy it when he catches grief, in this instance the criticism is undeserved.

The federal and industry response to this disaster was appropriate and timely. What you heard on FNS from the senior officials was completely accurate. We (BP and the CG and MMS and NOAA) knew from the first day the disastrous potential of this thing and began to respond immediately with an appropriately huge amount of resources. As the
problem unfolded, we threw more and more resources at it.

Most people cannot appreciate the technical challenges and daily miracles of deepwater drilling and production. It is in many respects more difficult than manned spaceflight or planetary exploration. It’s an endeavor on the very leading edge of human capability, and when things go wrong, our capabilities are severely tested.

I wish the collective psyche of America would frame this as an Apollo 13 moment instead of an Exxon Valdez moment, but I know that will never happen.

Sadly, the ignorance about drilling is matched by an ignorance about oil spill response and cleanup. The average American does not understand oil spill response and the oil spill liability and compensation regime in this country.

Unlike the rest of the world, the US system is based on polluters cleaning up their own messes, with government oversight. This system has worked well in the years since the Exxon Valdez spill. OPA 90 is one of the best pieces of legislation ever passed by our hapless Congress. The number, frequency, and gallons of oil spilled in the US has dropped dramatically over the last 20 years because of this law.

I also note with some dismay that there appears to be a nationwide misconception that DOD always has a silver bullet for every sort of contingency. That is simply not true in the world of oil spills. The nation’s expertise for managing oil spill response lies (in order) with the CG, industry experts like the Obrien’s Group and MSRC, the EPA, and NOAA. … “

In the Washington Examiner, Michael Barone asks where the center-left has gone.

…The left parties have reacted to their unpopularity by playing the race card. Democrats have tried to portray Tea Partiers as racist and Brown called a lifelong Labor voter who questioned his policies a “bigoted woman.”

Blaming the voters is the last resort of a party in trouble. Old Labor and the Obama Democrats may not yet be finished. But they’re not doing as well as their “third way” predecessors.

Roger Simon says Al Gore may have decided to take the money and run.

Al Gore’s purchase of a near nine million dollar Montecito mansion with an almost comical carbon footprint  (nine bathrooms!) probably means that he has given up on the global warming movement and decided to become a Hollywood producer (not that he ever made much of a distinction between two). …

…Well, maybe not quite that much, but Al is not alone and we could go down a long list of rich enviro-phonies who, added up, would easily reverse AGW, assuming you believe  it.  But I have a different suspicion. Most of them don’t believe it anymore.  They won’t admit that, of course.  But Lindsey Graham’s withdrawal from the latest iteration of cap-and-trade is just a signal of what’s ahead.  Get out while the getting is good.  And make sure you get out the side door, if possible. …

In the Corner, Ralph Reed comments on Charlie Christ’s exit from the Republican party.

…Second, voters across the board — from tea-party activists to party rank-and-file to anxious independents — are hungering for authenticity. Crist’s political calculation and chameleon-like shifts on the issues (and now party affiliation) repel far more voters than they attract. Voters would rather support a politician with convictions, like Marco Rubio, even as they may disagree with him on some issues, because they know where he stands and they trust him to tell them what he really believes. This is the essence of leadership, especially in a moment of crisis.

Finally, Crist still does not grasp that the country wants a check on Obama, not an enabler in Republican or independent skin. The backlash over spending, soaring debt, government take-over of major industries, and Obamacare calls for a new breed of GOP leaders who are unafraid to stand in the gap and stop the Obama agenda. Crist’s failure to understand that is what sunk his candidacy in the GOP and will likely do so in the general election. It also explains why John McCain is moving to the right so swiftly in his primary with J.D. Hayworth in Arizona — causing whip-lash for his former base, the media. …

Heather Mac Donald, in the City Journal, dissects a NY Times editorial criticizing the Arizona immigration legislation.

…The Arizona law is not about race; it’s not an attack on Latinos or legal immigrants. It’s about one thing and one thing only: making immigration enforcement a reality. It is time for a national debate: Do we or don’t we want to enforce the country’s immigration laws? If the answer is yes, the Arizona law is a necessary and lawful tool for doing so. If the answer is no, we should end the charade of inadequate, half-hearted enforcement, enact an amnesty now, and remove future penalties for immigration violations.

There is reason for caution in municipal bond investments, says Nicole Gelinas in Investor’s Business Daily.

…To get a glimpse of the possible future of Muniworld, look to Vallejo, Calif., about 30 miles north of San Francisco. Like many municipalities, this city of 120,000 residents found itself hard hit by the housing bust, with property-tax revenues falling by more than a quarter. …

…Vallejo violated the first principle of municipal-finance conventional wisdom: that cities and towns will do anything to avoid default. …

…Throughout its bankruptcy, Vallejo has not paid the full amount it owes on its municipal bonds. …What’s more, it has proposed, in its exit plan, to defer payments on its bonds, investing in infrastructure before paying lenders in full. …

The Economist reports on the new direction in electric car technology.

There are many innovations turning up in the latest experimental and production electric cars, affecting everything from batteries to motors to control systems. The need to make them all work together is prompting a complete rethink about the way cars should be designed and manufactured, and it is unclear which technologies will dominate as the constraints imposed by internal combustion engines give way to the new limits and possibilities associated with electric propulsion. But one group of engineers have stuck their necks out and declared that a particular technology, the electric hub motor, is likely to become the most widely used drive system.

A hub motor, as its name suggests, is built into the hub of a wheel and drives it directly, rather than having a single motor driving the wheels via a mechanical transmission. It is an idea pioneered by Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of the carmaker of the same name, more than 100 years ago. …

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Caroline Glick analyzes whether Obama is the reason for the loss of Democrat support for Israel, in the Jerusalem Post.

Bipartisan support for Israel has been one of the greatest casualties of US President Barack Obama’s assault on the Jewish state. Today, as Republican support for Israel reaches new heights, support for Israel has become a minority position among Democrats.

Consider the numbers. During Operation Cast Lead – 11 days before Obama’s inauguration – the House of Representatives passed Resolution 34 siding with Israel against Hamas. The resolution received 390 yea votes, five nay votes and 37 abstentions. Democrats cast four of the nay votes and 29 of the abstentions.

In November 2009, Congress passed House Resolution 867 condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution urged Obama to disregard its findings, which falsely accused Israel of committing war crimes in Cast Lead. A total of 344 congressman voted for the resolution. Thirty-six voted against it. Fifty-two abstained. Among those voting against, Thirty-three were Democrats. Forty-four Democrats abstained.

In February 2010, Fifty-four congressmen sent a letter to Obama urging him to pressure Israel to open Hamas-ruled Gaza’s international borders and accusing Israel of engaging in collective punishment. All of them were Democrats.

In the midst of the Obama administration’s assault on Israel over construction for Jews in Jerusalem, 327 congressmen signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for an end to the public attacks on the Israeli government. Of the 102 members who refused to sign the letter, 94 were Democrats.

These numbers show two things. First, since Obama entered office there has been a 13-point decline in the number of congressmen willing to support Israel. Second, the decrease comes entirely from the Democratic side of the aisle. There the number of members willing to attack Israel has tripled. …

…To date, both the Israeli government and AIPAC have denied the existence of a partisan divide. This has been due in part to their unwillingness to contend with the new situation. One of Israel’s greatest assets in the US has been the fact that support for the Jewish state has always been bipartisan. It is hard to accept that the Democrats are jumping ship. …

… Like the Israeli government itself, Republican House members express deep concern that blowing the lid off the Democrats will weaken Israel. As one member put it, “I don’t want to encourage the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attack Israel by exposing that the Democrats don’t support Israel.” …

We have a couple of blog posts on Gordon Brown’s faux pas.

In the Corner, John O’Sullivan gives an update on British election campaigning.

… Then, with eight days to go before the election, the second game-changer occurred. Yesterday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown — unaware that he was speaking on a still-open neck-microphone, described a Labour-voting woman who had ventured mild criticism of high immigration levels in an otherwise friendly chat as “bigoted.” This was played out in full on television — even the horribly embarrassing moment when Brown buried his head in his hands as he heard his own words played back to him. Brown apologized, but to little avail. Today’s headlines run as follows: “She went out to get bread and came back with BROWN TOAST!” …

In Contentions, Ted Bromund discusses the British immigration issue and the British election.

Shades of Frank Drebin: Gordon Brown may have sunk his chances in Britain’s general election with an unguarded comment into a microphone he didn’t realize he was still wearing. After campaigning in Rochdale in northern England, he muttered, amid a stream of invective directed at his aides, that 61-year-old Labour supporter Gillian Duffy was a “bigoted woman” for questioning him about the impact on the British job market of immigration from Eastern Europe.

Brown’s since made an in-person apology and e-mailed a fulsome “personal” letter to all Labour activists, but the damage seems to have been done. As one commentator put it, showing a nice grasp of British understatement, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to call voters bigots.”

On one level, of course, it’s possible to have some sympathy for Brown. This is the kind of thing that happens when you’re around microphones so much: few of us would want our every comment recorded and aired in prime time. On another level, as Andrew Rawnsley points out, this is just another example of one of Brown’s more unattractive attributes: his volcanic temper and his eagerness to pour vitriol on his aides and anyone else who gets in his way. …

Three of our favorites write on immigration.

Mark Steyn writes about some of the ironies that the governing class have created.

…The same day … I saw a phalanx of police officers doing the full Robocop – black body armor, helmets and visors – as they marched down the street. Naturally I assumed they were Arizona State Troopers performing a routine traffic stop. In fact, they were the police department of Quincy, Ill, facing down a group of genial Tea Party grandmas in sun hats and American-flag T-shirts.

If I were a member of the Quincy PD I’d wear a full-face visor, too, because I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the mirror.

And yet the coastal frothers denouncing Arizona as the Third Reich or, at best, apartheid South Africa, seem entirely relaxed about the ludicrous and embarrassing sight of peaceful protesters being menaced by camp storm troopers …

David Harsanyi believes that immigration isn’t the issue.

…Very few Americans, on the other hand, are inherently opposed to immigration. For the most part, the controversy we face isn’t about immigration at all. It’s about the systematic failure of federal government to enforce the law or offer rational policy. There’s a difference.

…The uplifting tale of the hard-boiled immigrant, dipping his or her sweaty hands into the well of the American Dream, is one thing. Today, we find ourselves is an unsustainable and rapidly growing welfare state. Can we afford to allow millions more to partake?

When the Nobel Prize-winning libertarian economist Milton Friedman was asked about unlimited immigration in 1999, he stated that “it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. …

Debra Saunders looks at several immigration issues, in the San Francisco Chronicle.

…It’s easy for San Franciscans, from 700 miles away, to sneer at Arizonans. Folks here don’t live in a state where cross-border drug violence has led to highway gun battles.

The Arizona Republic editorialized Wednesday that the bill was “ugly and indefensible.” The paper also noted, “The feds did nothing while Phoenix became the kidnapping capital of the country. The feds did nothing as rancher Robert Krentz was murdered on his border-area ranch.” …