October 20, 2014 — Scott Johnson

The surrender will not be ratified

Featured image Facing a November 24 deadline, the Obama administration is rushing to reach a final agreement surrendering to Iran in the P5+1 talks. Jennifer Rubin takes a look at recent reports and finds that the Obama administration is “Chasing a bad deal with Iran.” This shouldn’t be news; it’s implicit in the terms of the interim deal that we proclaimed as a famous victory late last year. But the desperation reflected »
October 19, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff

Good news from Kobani

Featured imageI’ve offered mostly criticism, and only very occasional praise, for President Obama’s campaign against ISIS. I just haven’t been able to see how the president’s campaign is likely to destroy or seriously degrade the Islamist barbarians. I’m happy to report, however, that the campaign may have prevented the fall of beleaguered Kobani, at least for now. Local officials say that ISIS has been forced to withdraw from several neighborhoods, due »
October 19, 2014 — Steven Hayward

Another Shining Example of Liberal Open-Mindedness

Featured imageWriting about this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize for economics, Frenchman Jean Tirole, the New Yorker’s John Cassidy let’s fly with typical condescension right at the beginning: In general, I’m not a fan of the economics Nobel. Too often, since it was first given, in 1969, it has been used to reward free-market orthodoxy, as evidenced by the plethora of prizes awarded to scholars at the University of Chicago. Apparently »
October 19, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff

Gay marriage vs. religious freedom, the latest installment

Featured imageTwo ordained ministers, a husband and wife, who perform marriage ceremonies but oppose gay marriage reportedly face a 180-day jail term and a $1,000 fine for each day they decline to celebrate a same-sex wedding. The ministers operate a chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The city has an ordinance that prohibits discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation, in public accommodations. Recently, the ministers turned down a gay couple’s »
October 19, 2014 — John Hinderaker

Ouch!

Featured imageThis is featured on Drudge at the moment: The link goes to this Reuters story: President Barack Obama made a rare appearance on the campaign trail on Sunday with a rally to support the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, but early departures of crowd members while he spoke underscored his continuing unpopularity. When liberal news outlets talk about Obama in such blunt terms, things are grim. More: Most candidates »
October 19, 2014 — John Hinderaker

The New Normal and Millenial Voters

Featured imageThe Obama administration is in many respects a more sinister version of the Carter administration. Now, as then, we hear talk of a “new normal.” Pundits and news people who recognize that the economy is lousy, but can’t believe that liberal policies are the cause, conclude that we will just have to get used to slow growth, lower incomes, massive underemployment and a fast-rising cost of living. This “new normal” »
October 19, 2014 — John Hinderaker

Will Black Voters Turn Out This Year? Why Should They?

Featured imageThere is a lot of buzz today about this article in the New York Times: “Black Vote Seen as Last Hope for Democrats to Hold Senate.” The confidential memo from a former pollster for President Obama contained a blunt warning for Democrats. Written this month with an eye toward Election Day, it predicted “crushing Democratic losses across the country” if the party did not do more to get black voters »
October 19, 2014 — Scott Johnson

New frontiers in freedom

Featured imageI may be mistaken, but it has seemed to me for quite a while that the campaign for gay marriage is about something other than “freedom” or “acceptance” or “equal rights.” The point of the campaign seems to me that we are compelled to get our minds right, to borrow the resonant phrase of the jailers in Cool Hand Luke. The proponents of “marriage equality” demand our inner assent. We »
October 18, 2014 — Steven Hayward

Tom Friedman Gets One Right

Featured imageMaybe this needs to be filed under the “even a stopped clock is right twice a day” department, but Tom Friedman actually wrote an interesting and probative column a couple days ago about what’s going on with the falling price of oil, and I’m still picking myself up off the floor in amazement. Here are the three key paragraphs: Is it just my imagination or is there a global oil »
October 18, 2014 — Steven Hayward

“We Are Going To Win the Cold War”—A Conversation with Herbert Meyer, Part 3

Featured imageIn this installment of our conversations with Herbert Meyer (part one here, and part two here), we look back at the end of the Cold War, and especially Herb’s prescience in a memo he wrote in the fall of 1983, since declassified, entitled “Why Is the World So Dangerous?” (PDF link). Here he remarks that this memo was not just controversial, but also unwelcome even among many hard-liners in the »
October 18, 2014 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Quarantine Edition

Featured imageHere’s a thought: how about we quarantine the entire Obama Administration until January 2017?   Wouldn’t this be the greatest: Okay, let’s see who gets this one: And finally, new and improved with no trigger control issues, and special for Halloween! Okay, okay, if you must have real firearms, then let’s have one more salute to the ladies of the IDF:   »
October 19, 2014 — Scott Johnson

The Priebus proviso

Featured imageI don’t recall hearing anything both witty and true said on one of the Sunday morning gabfests in a long time, but I thought RNC chairman Reince Priebus got it done this morning in his appearance with DNC chairman Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz on FOX News Sunday. Asked by Chris Wallace whether Dems would hold their majority in the Senate, Schultz responded: “We’re going to hold the Senate because over the »
October 19, 2014 — Scott Johnson

Is it safe to laugh?

Featured imageThe omniscient Glenn Reynolds picked up the image below from a Twitter feed. If Obama’s own incompetence isn’t making him “seethe,” this photoshopped image just might do it. I’m filing this under Laughter is the Best Medicine. All I can say is thanks, I needed that. »
October 18, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff

Government case implodes as its former lawyers allege fraud against Holder DOJ

Featured imageThe New York Observer reports that two former Assistant United States Attorneys say the Holder Justice Department engaged in deceit and corruption of justice in connection with the DOJ’s litigation against Sierra Pacific Industries, a California lumber company. As a result of the allegations, a federal district judge has ordered the recusal from the case of every judge in the Eastern District of California. He reasons that the court may »
October 18, 2014 — John Hinderaker

Give the Gift of Power Line VIP

Featured imageIf you haven’t noticed the little box in the upper right-hand corner of the page, you should check it out. That’s where you go to subscribe to Power Line VIP. Don’t worry: Power Line has always been free, and always will be. Nor have we ever adopted the obnoxious ads that you see on so many other sites, where you are reading a post or article and an ad materializes, »
October 18, 2014 — John Hinderaker

NY Times Says: Obama Is Angry at Administration’s Incompetence!

Featured imageToday’s New York Times headlines: “Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe.” Said by whom, one wonders. The answer is as you would expect: “It’s not tight,” a visibly angry Mr. Obama said of the response, according to people briefed on the meeting. … “He was not satisfied with the response,” a senior official said. … Senior officials said they pushed Mr. Obama to name an Ebola coordinator…. »
October 18, 2014 — Scott Johnson

The people have spoken

Featured imageAmerican Commitment has claimed victory in the contest sponsored by far-left MoveOn and MAYDAY.US. Announcing the contest, MoveOn urged applicants to “make a 30-second ad to wake up America to the crisis of big money in our politics.” The public was invited to vote on the contest entries. The public has spoken: American Commitment, a national advocacy organization committed to free markets and limited government, easily won the vote in »