Monthly Archives: February 2010

Who’s Obsessed and Deranged?

Frank Rich of the New York Times retired as a drama critic in order to take up his new role as the paper’s full-time drama queen. As an op-ed columnist for the Times, his assignment, apparently, is to write in such a hysterical fashion that Paul Krugman seems rational by comparison. Currently, the most-recommended article on the Times web site is Rich’s column, “The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged.” »

Unholy Alliance

We’ve written many times about the seemingly odd-bedfellow alliance between the Left and Islamic radicals. Today, the Telegraph reports on the “infiltration” of the Labour Party by Islamists: The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state — has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” »

No year for the vultures

A little more than a year ago, Gary Williams and his University of Maryland men’s basketball program was under attack. The Washington Post led the charge, with an assist, it seems, from the Maryland athletic department. The word was that Willaims had lost his touch and might well lose his job. A stirring win against North Carolina, the eventual national champions, and a trip to the NCAA tournament ended most »

Purim merriment with a twist

Today marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday Purim (observing Jews will have started celebrating last night at sundown). This joyous festival marks the deliverance of the Jewish people of ancient Persia from a plot to annihilate them, as recorded in the Bible in the Book of Esther. Esther was the Queen of Persia. Her cousin (or uncle), a Jew, informed her of a plot to massacre the Jews. He »

Global Warming Fraud: The Big Picture

The recent revelations of scientific errors (not to say fraud) in the U.N.’s global warming documents are important, but Fred Singer reminds us not to lose sight of the most important point: the IPCC’s fundamental conclusions, relating to the allegedly unprecedented warming of the past half-century, are based on bad surface temperature data and are contradicted by more-reliable satellite data and by our knowledge of the earth’s climate history. We »

The truth about TiZA

As John notes below, we’ve written a lot about the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy K-8 public charter school in suburban St. Paul. It appears to be is an Islamic school operating illegally at taxpayer expense. Among other things, the school’s principal is an imam and almost all of its students are Muslim. It is housed in a building that was owned originally by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota (I’m »

Patriot Act Extended

The Democratic House and Senate have voted to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act which many liberals have criticized for the last eight years, and today President Obama signed that extension into law. One of these provisions allows investigators to obtain a warrant to wiretap all phones that may be used by a terrorist, not just a particular phone number. Federal agencies have had this power, which is obviously »

Not Your Parents’ PTA

We’ve written a number of times about Minnesota’s Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA), a charter school that appears to be Muslim in all but name, and is closely affiliated with, if not an alter ego of, the radical Muslim American Society. The American Civil Liberties Union is engaged in litigation against TIZA, in which the ACLU alleges that the school unconstitutionally promotes religion at taxpayer expense. That litigation has gotten »

Murder most incorrect…and complicated

We’ve written about the assassination of Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in posts including “Murder most incorrect” and “Murder more or less incorrect.” The Dubai authorities have vehemently fingered Israel’s Mossad as the perpetrator of the assassination operation since they first disclosed it. The only arrests made so far, however, have been of two Palestinian Arabs. An additional complication came to light this week. If the assassination was a Mossad operation, »

Transformation

Are Democrats nervous about the elections coming later this year? Will the prospect of those elections dim their ardor to ram Obamacare through? Andrew McCarthy thinks “our side is analyzing this all wrong.” He writes: “Today’s Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles. They have already »

Princeton’s Professor Truther

What does it take to be disowned by the respectable left? The case of Van Jones provides something of a test. Byron York conveniently summarizes the revelations that preceded his ouster as the Obama administration’s green jobs czar: During his time in the White House, it emerged that Jones had signed a 2004 petition supporting the so-called “9/11 Truther” movement; that he was a self-professed communist during much of the »

Health Care Summit A Bust With Voters

I haven’t seen any numbers on how many watched President Obama’s health care summit, but those who did (or who saw snippets on the news, or heard about it from their friends) apparently were not impressed. Obama’s approval index in the Rasmussen Survey dipped to -20 yesterday and is down to -21 today, matching the lowest level of his Presidency: The approval index is a three-day rolling survey of likely »

Mobile Power Line Apps Now Available

We’ve designed mobile applications that allow you to access Power Line directly on your iPhone or Blackberry, specially formatted for the small screen. Now you can read PL posts wherever you go. Our mobile app includes, along with our own posts, a breaking news feed from Breitbart.com, so, wherever you might be, you can always stay up to date on the latest news. Go here to learn more about Power »

The American Bar Association exposes its liberal bias once again

I wrote here about Goodwin Liu, the leftist law professor nominated by President Obama for a spot on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Among my observations was that Liu has only practiced law in earnest for two or three years. The rest of his time since graduating from law school has been spent as a law clerk or a law professor. Moreover, Liu appears to »

Girls just want to have fun

The Canadian women’s hockey team won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics yesterday, defeating the U.S. 2-0. About half an hour after their victory, the Canadian players returned to the ice. Still in uniform and wearing their gold medals, they swigged from bottles of champagne and cans of beer, and smoked cigars. The old farts at the IOC were not amused. Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the »

No talking points, please

“Discussion points” are fine, but only after you’ve finished your “personal story.” UPDATE: The radio.barackobama.com link above provides the phone number to dial to reach a particular talk radio program. The program listed changes as the day goes on. This morning it was NPR’s Diane Rehm show. Now it’s Rush. »

Ahmadinejad salutes Obama

President Obama has devoted great effort to “engage” iran, but his efforts have engendered nothing but ostentatious contempt from the target of his entreaties. In the latest installment of this embarrassment of the United States, the presidents of Iran and Syria ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East “without Zionists.” The Washington Post report observes that yesterday’s statement “combin[ed] a slap at recent U.S. »