February 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Mountains Of Debt

Featured image Maybe you have to be Greece before most people get seriously concerned about sovereign debt. Of all the good reasons to evict Barack Obama from the presidency in November, the most fundamental is that he is spending our country into financial ruin. I don’t think most Americans understand how much federal spending and debt have risen during the Obama administration (and even before it, when Democrats took control of Congress »
February 22, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Remembering the Indispensable Scott

Featured imageScott notes below that today is George Washington’s birthday, but omits to mention that it is also — drum roll please — Scott Johnson’s birthday!  I know it’s cool of Coolidge to be the only president born on the 4th of July, but it’s really cool to share a birthday with George Washington. And since we’re celebrating great men, I’ll just second Scott’s notice of the first George W. (since »
February 22, 2012 — Steven Hayward

And Now For Something Completely Different: Humor of the 1%

Featured imageI’m still getting the hang of Twitter (my latest contribution: “Carnivale in Brazil is like the Tournament of Roses Parade on LSD”), but for now I think the best Twitter feed around—and reason enough to join or follow—is the feed that supposedly comprises elevator gossip and quips from the hallowed halls of Goldman Sachs (featuring Goldman CEO Lloyd Bankfein in the photo thumbnail): GS Elevator Gossip @GSElevator Now that I have »
February 22, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Ishmael Jones: On John Kiriakou

Featured imageBack in 2007 Paul Mirengoff wrote hereabout one of the Washington Post stories inspired by former CIA officer (and former Democratic Senate committee staffer) John Kiriakou. Last month John Hinderaker commented here on Kiriakou’s indictment for leaking classified information. His comments having been cleared by the CIA Publication Review Board, former CIA case officer Ishmael Jones writes on the proceedings against Kiriakou: On January 23, former CIA employee John Kirakou »
February 22, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Remembering the indispensable man

Featured imageToday is the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington’s greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend. Take, for example, Washington’s contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that resulted »
February 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Global Warming Alarmists Resort to Hoax

Featured imageWe are remiss in not having written about the Peter Gleick scandal. Gleick is a founder of the liberal Pacific Institute and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is an expert on water resources, not climate. Like many left-wingers in irrelevant fields of study, he has irrationally strong feelings about global warming. So, as Gleick has now admitted, he obtained documents from the Heartland Institute under false »
February 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker

The Strange Case of the Proliferating Refugees

Featured imageIf, like me, you have long wondered why many thousands of Palestinians continue to live in “refugee camps” more than sixty years after the events that ostensibly made them refugees, Daniel Pipes explains: The origins of this unique case, notes Nitza Nachmias of Tel Aviv University, go back to Count Folke Bernadotte, the United Nations Security Council’s mediator. Referring to those Arabs who fled the British mandate of Palestine, he »
February 21, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Footnote to failure

Featured imageIn his memoir Surrender Is Not An Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad, John Bolton recalls his appointment as assistant secretary for International Organization Affairs by President Bush (I) following the 1988 election. The position made him responsible for overseeing the entire UN system. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it, and no one better than John Bolton. In early 1989, Bolton writes, »
February 20, 2012 — Steven Hayward

The Unsolvable Problem of Executive Power

Featured imageSince it’s still Presidents Days for a few more hours, it’s worth taking up a challenge from one of our good-natured liberal commenters, an old pal from high school (are you paying attention, Eric?), who posted a comment on an earlier PIG book post of mine raising the question of the constitutional issues raised in the Iran-Contra scandal.  Glad you asked.  In fact, the Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents »
February 20, 2012 — Scott Johnson

I’m OK–You’re OK

Featured imageJohn’s support of Mitt Romney is implicit in his comments on Rick Santorum, as it was in his comments on Newt Gingrich. John thinks that Romney presents Republicans with the best chance of beating Obama in November. He is therefore frustrated that they haven’t lined up behind Mitt in service to the cause. Mitt is an inspirational candidate. The problem is that what he inspires is intense apathy among a »
February 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Dismantling the Phony Case Against Voter ID [Updated With Right Video!]

Featured imageHere in Minnesota, an overwhelming majority of voters are disgusted with the state’s lax voting laws. Polls indicate that a large majority support a voter identification requirement. Our legislature–in Republican hands after the 2010 election–passed a voter ID law, but it was vetoed by Democratic Governor Mark Dayton. So the legislature is now working on a proposed amendment to the Minnesota Constitution that in all likelihood will be on the »
February 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Unemployment Rising Again?

Featured imageThe Gallup organization reported today that its mid-February survey found unemployment increasing to 9%: The U.S. unemployment rate, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 9.0% in mid-February, up from 8.6% for January. The mid-month reading normally reflects what the U.S. government reports for the entire month, and is up from 8.3% in mid-January. That is a very sharp jump, probably due in part to seasonal factors, and it »
February 21, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Breakfast in Brazil

Featured imageSo it’s Carnivale week here in Rio, and your intrepid Power Line Southern Command bureau chief decided to dress up in the scariest festival costume imaginable—American tourist—and take in the street scene last night.  My keen journalistic conclusion: Carnivale is a cross between Pasadena’s Doo-Dah parade and the drums and space segment of a Grateful Dead concert, with a dash of the Stanford marching band thrown in just for some »
February 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker

Obama Is Driving Us Crazy

Featured imageUnemployment is down, according to the official numbers, yet more people than ever are not working. What are they doing instead? The New York Post reports that an astonishing number of them are classifying themselves as disabled in order to continue receiving government benefits: Standing too many months on the unemployment line is driving Americans crazy — literally — and it’s costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. With their »
February 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Satan Is Real

Featured imageThe New York Times Book Review carries a good review of the late Charlie Louvin’s memoir (written with Benjamin Whitmer), Satan Is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers. As the review notes, Charlie Louvin died last year just after the manuscript of his memoir was completed. (The book borrows the title of the Louvin Brothers gospel album with the memorable fire and brimstone cover.) Who the heck is Charlie »