EPPC Briefly: The Deal Obama Should Have Made With Cuba

Evangelical Challenges for Vatican Diplomacy
EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel examines the task facing the pope’s diplomatic representatives in Cuba and China, whose main task is “to help maintain free space for the Church’s evangelical, sacramental, educational, and charitable missions.”

Jeb’s Prospects
EPPC Senior Fellow Henry Olsen does some electoral math and finds that the best course for Jeb Bush – and any other candidate hoping to secure the 2016 GOP nomination – is to focus on “devising conservative solutions for the problems of the working class.” (See also EPPC Senior Fellow James C. Capretta’s response to Mr. Olsen, in which he urges GOP candidates to “find some way to convey to voters an approach to reforming the welfare state that working-class voters and independents find acceptable.”)

The Smartest Guy Ever to Be President Isn’t Quite As Smart As He Thinks
Despite President Obama’s confident assertions, EPPC Senior Fellow Peter Wehner offers several examples showing that “the president’s foreign policy–country by country, region by region, crisis by crisis–looks to be a disaster.”

Losing Liberty in an Age of Access
Some pundits have heralded the so-called “sharing economy,” as Americans increasingly rely on services like Airbnb, Uber, and Zipcar, renting access to goods and services instead of buying them. In this essay from EPPC’s journal The New Atlantis, James Poulos asks whether freedom can flourish when access no longer involves ownership.

Westminster Abbey and Charlie Hebdo
Britain and France are having an especially difficult time defending themselves against jihadist violence, explains EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel, because “the vacuum in what was once the Christian culture of those societies has been filled by a kind of nihilism.”

Time to Arrest the Federal Criminalization Spree
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, EPPC Fellow Brian W. Walsh lauds a new rule adopted by the U.S. House that marks “a wise step” toward combating the problem of overcriminalization.

More Fiscal Folly in the White House
EPPC Senior Fellow James C. Capretta analyzes the president’s new budget proposal and finds that “the Obama administration’s fiscal policy is deeply flawed and risky.” (See also EPPC Hertog Fellow Yuval Levin’s “five stray thoughts” on the proposal.)

POTUS on Ukraine: A Reverie
In its public life, the Christian church “puts everything into proper perspective through its witness to the truth about the human person, human community, human origins, and human destiny,” explains EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel in First Things.

France: Obama’s Paradise
With cradle-to-grave subsidies, sclerotic labor laws, and socialized medicine, “France has everything that Barack Obama finds wanting in his own country,” observes EPPC Senior Fellow Mona Charen.