On the criticisms of Obama and BP over the Gulf oil spill
In a press conference today, President Obama defended the federal government’s handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including his own response. He also announced a suspension of drilling in the Gulf, Virginia and the Arctic.
Clearly, the oil spill in the Gulf has proved to ...
1,200 troops sent to Mexican border to… do what exactly?
President Obama has ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to the border in the Southwest.
The New York Times reports that Obama’s decision came after Obama met with Republican senators who had demanded more troops. But Republicans were generally not placated. Senator John McCain of Arizona said it was not enough, ...
“NYC Super Bowl”
The National Football League owners have decided that the 2014 Super Bowl will be played in the Meadowlands of New Jersey, in the yet-to-be built stadium.
The New York Daily News and the New York Post are ...
Global exposure to European default
There’s more discussion of how the European sovereign debt crisis is global in scope.
Tony Barber of the Financial Times writes about a Royal Bank of Scotland report, published on Monday, that suggests that banks outside of southern Europe have much greater exposure than previously thought. RBS estimates that institutions ...
Racism reduced to a liberal smear
Last week Rand Paul made some comments about his support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act during an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and the media commentary has continued to run since. Paul suggested that Act should not have covered discriminatory policies of private businesses.
It’s hard to see the relevance ...
Why Mrs Europe is bashing the bankers
Angela Merkel’s unilateral decision to ban “short selling” shows how deluded and divided the political class is.
Read my spiked article in full here.
This week’s articles of note
“The failure of the American Jewish establishment,” The New York Review of Books, by Peter Beinart
“Sex and the Shiite,” Newsweek, by Christopher Dickey
“The Kerry-Lieberman scheme for carbon rationing,” Reason, by Ronald Bailey
“What did Jesus do?” The New Yorker, by Adam Gopnik
“Take your kids to the ...
Observations on Tuesday’s votes
Some quick observations about the results of the various elections that took place on Tuesday:
Neither party can be said to have come out of it better than the other. The Democrats’ victory in John Murtha’s old House seat in western Pennsylvania, in particular, showed that it wasn’t an entirely Republican ...If you don’t know what to do, ban short-selling
German chancellor Angela Merkel joined the ranks of Western politicians who blame short-sellers for market woes. On Wednesday, the German government acted unilaterally to impose a temporary ban on “naked” shorting – that is, selling shares and bonds that are not owned or borrowed. Specifically, the ban is on sovereign ...
Brooklyn Public Library
This past weekend I took my seven-year-old son to our local library, the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza.
He wanted to go so that he could learn more about the French Revolution (having had his curiosity piqued ...
ABOUT SEAN COLLINS
I write about American current affairs for Spiked, the online magazine. I am a native New Yorker, and I divide my time between New York City and upstate New York.
In addition to articles for Spiked, The Australian and other publications, I contributed an essay, "BDS: Demonizing Israel, Destroying Free Speech," for the book Unsafe Space: The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus (2016). I also wrote a chapter on New York City's economy for the book London After Recession: A Fictitious Capital? (2012).
My writings have been cited in American Conservative, Arts & Letters Daily, the Financial Times, Fox News, the Huffington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the New York Times, Real Clear Politics, and the Times of London, among other media.
For more about The American Situation site, go here.
