February 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Occupiers Scrubbed From McPherson Park

Featured image The Occupy movement is winding down, as protesters in most cities have slunk away. Washington’s McPherson Park is the home–so to speak–of one of the last Occupier outposts. But even Washington has had enough; early this morning, District police officers descended on McPherson Park to enforce the no-camping law: Dozens of U.S. Park Police officers in riot gear and on horseback converged before dawn Saturday on one of the nation’s »
February 4, 2012 — John Hinderaker

A Lousy President and a Lousy Theologian

Featured imageScott wrote yesterday about President Obama’s attempt to enlist Jesus in his campaign for higher taxes: “But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’” In drawing this equivalence, Obama implicitly substituted the government for God; in Jesus’s teaching it is God, not any earthly ruler, who gives us much and expects much from us in »
February 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker

The Church of Government

Featured imageLiberals tell us that the most important principle is the separation of church and state. That applies, of course, only until liberals want to enlist the church in support of the state. The state, in their view, is the real church. So Michael Ramirez envisions our president as the Pope of the Church of Obama, who destroys all lesser faiths. Like Christianity, for example: Is liberalism the only acceptable faith? »
February 4, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Obamacare against the Church

Featured imageWe’ve been following the story of the Church’s response to the assault perpetrated by the Obamacare regulation on “preventive care” with a religious exemption so narrow that will require most Catholic institutions to comply. In the new issue of the Weekly Standard Jonathan Last provides an excellent journalistic account of events leading up to the regulations. As soon as Sebelius released th[e] decision [regarding the scope of the regulation], the »
February 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Was Today’s Jobs News Good?

Featured imageThe administration trumpets the fact that nonfarm payrolls increased by 243,000 in January, dropping the unemployment rate to 8.3%, only .5% higher than when Barack Obama took office. This is what counts as good news in the beleaguered West Wing! But how good was today’s news, really? What is mainly going on is that fewer Americans have any intention of working; therefore, they cannot be unemployed. That is the Orwellian »
February 3, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Budget? Who Needs A Budget?

Featured imageBarack Obama and the Democrats in Congress have set a new standard of irresponsibility: for the third year in a row, Harry Reid announced that he would not allow a vote on a FY 2013 budget to come to the floor of the Senate. “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” Reid told a conference call with reporters. This year? How about last year, »
February 3, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Render unto Barry…

Featured imagePresident Obama advertised some big endorsements for his tax-the-rich more policies and class warfare reelection strategy yesterday. In a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast — text here, video below — Obama made the case that Jesus, Muhammad, Moses and Plato (?!) are all on board with him, although that may be understating the matter: [W]hen I talk about shared responsibility, it’s because I genuinely believe that in a time »
February 2, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Respecting Eric Holder

Featured imageEric Holder appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, and received what can charitably be called a hostile reception. He was grilled by Republican members over everything from Fast and Furious–the intended subject of the hearing–to the Marc Rich pardon. I haven’t had time to track down and read the entire transcript of the hearing, but this ABC News account includes extensive quotations of Holder’s colloquies with »
February 2, 2012 — Steven Hayward

The Telos of Malthusian Environmentalism?

Featured imageMark this up as a triumph of environmental education in the schools–headline from Asia: Teen kills mom, sister to save planet A 15-year-old boy who killed his mother and sister because he believed there were too many people in the world was ordered to be detained indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital, a Hong Kong news report said on Thursday. Kan Ka-leung used a cleaver to hack to death his mother »
February 2, 2012 — Scott Johnson

A modest proposal

Featured imageThe Obama administration has performed in the mode of bread-and-circuses more or less since day one. The 2010 elections put a crimp in its style, but with the 2012 election looming, its creative juices are flowing again. The latest giveaway scheme is another mortgage refinance plan that promises free money for qualifying borrower. CBS News laments the plans’s dim prospects in Congress. Those damn Republicans! The plan is carefully crafted »
February 3, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Epic Greenfail: “Rivers of Urine. . .”

Featured imageAnother great story from the Daily Mail: Students step over ‘rivers of urine’ after green bathrooms plan for waterless urinals turns a high school yellow… and it will cost $500,000 to fix Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring ‘green’ waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired. School officials at Spanish River »
February 3, 2012 — Steven Hayward

O’Sullivan’s First Law in Action

Featured imageO’Sullivan’s First Law, named for John O’Sullivan, former editor of National Review, speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher, and author of the fine book The President, The Pope, and the Prime Minister, goes as follows: Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.  Good example include such seemingly anodyne institutions like the League of Women Voters, PTAs, National Public Radio, most professional associations like the American »
February 2, 2012 — John Hinderaker

The New Class: Profiting From Decline

Featured imageI haven’t yet read Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, but fellow Minnesotan Eric Falkenstein has. The self-described son of Beatnik parents, he pens not so much a review as an appreciation, and couples it with a nice skewering of the New Class: Murray argues the well-off should set a better example by not apologizing for their squareness, but rather, by advocating their lifestyle and scorning those who fail to live up »
February 2, 2012 — Steven Hayward

GK To the Rescue

Featured imageI’ve been meaning for a while now to start another occasional series, like my previous ones recalling Hayek and James Burnham, to recycle some timeless gems from G.K. Chesterton.  Via the Chesterton page on Facebook, here’s a Chesterton meditation perfect for our election season, from a 1921 interview with the Cleveland Press: The men whom the people ought to choose to represent them are too busy to take the jobs. »
February 2, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Calling All Students!

Featured imageAll politically curious college students or recent graduates out there (or faculty members with bright students—this means especially you Jean Y!) ought to have a look at AEI’s Summer Institute, a month-long program from June 17 to July 14 that offers total immersion into the world of public policy, economics, strategy, and statesmanship.  I’ll admit that we’re inspired partly by the long-running Publius Fellows program of the Claremont Institute (and »