Monthly Archives: May 2011

Big Trouble Now?

Our friend and occasional Power Line contributor Paul Rahe writes over on Ricochet of his disappointment with Mitch Daniels’ decision not to run, while noting the misgivings he had about Daniels all along, namely, his ill-advised call for a “truce” on social issues. Rahe goes one step further here, thinking Daniels should have reached this decision months ago: We as Republicans and we as Americans have been ill-served by the »

Power Line Prize Update

Excitement about the $100,000 Power Line Prize continues to grow. Entries are already coming in, even though the deadline isn’t until July 15. A few days ago, we received our first painting entry. It is pretty darn good, too. Whether you are a creative individual or a firm that does this kind of thing for a living, you should get to work and compete for the prize. If you win »

No Daniels

As Steve Hayward noted this morning, Mitch Daniels has bowed out of the GOP presidential race. Some analysts find this highly significant; I don’t. Daniels, in my view, is a good guy who was a fine governor but suffers from weak instincts on foreign policy. Worse, he is one of the most nondescript individuals ever taken seriously as a presidential candidate. To this day, I am not confident that I »

Obama on Israel, Continued

This is a supplement to Scott’s very perceptive post earlier today, on President Obama’s speech to AIPAC. I want to make one basic point about that speech, as well as the one Obama gave last week at the State Department. It seems to me that the key passage in Obama’s AIPAC speech was this: There was nothing particularly original in my proposal; this basic framework for negotiations has long been »

Obama at AIPAC: Ten theses

President Obama just completed his address to the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington. Given the context, it was an important and dramatic speech. Here is the text. It deserves the closest attention. I offer ten theses based on the text of the two speeches, in no particular order, with no claim to originality: 1. Obama’s statement of his principles for a deal between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs did »

Law & Order: OMB, Canceled Before the Pilot Screens

So I eagerly turned to the Washington Post Outlook section this morning to see who, indeed, would be selected for the “Worst Week” award, and I guess there shouldn’t have been any suspense: Newt is the runaway winner. I still say the whole thing was Newtworld’s oblique attempt to get the media behind him: anyone who offers copy this good must be kept in the race. Along the way, though, »

Right Wing NotHaus revisited

On April 27, following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke conducted the first official press conference of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke began with a long opening statement before taking questions. A good summary along with a video of the press conference is posted here. Our friend Seth Lipsky wasn’t able to make it to the press conference, but he took to the pages of »

Is the Knesset in Israel?

Last week Richard Epstein examined the question whether Jerusalem is in Israel as a matter of American constitutional law. Congress says it is, at least insofar as in a statute that requires the Secretary of State to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel when issuing passports. Indeed, the statute is the law of the land. The Secretary of State, however, begs to differ. Is the statute constitutional? The federal courts »

Harmon Killebrew, RIP

I am ashamed to admit that I never really appreciated Harmon Killebrew when he was playing. Growing up in South Dakota, I didn’t buy into the idea that we should become Washington Senators fans just because the team had moved to a neighboring state. But a long-time reader and Senators fan sent us this appreciation of Killebrew. He was, by all accounts, a fine human being, and his achievements as »

Repent! The End of Keynesian Economics Is At Hand!

I have been puzzled by the extent of the media coverage of some crank’s prediction that the world would come to an end today. People are always predicting the end of the world. So far they have always been wrong. Was there something about this particular prediction that was newsworthy? Did any significant number of people expect to wake up this morning and see graves opening and people ascending into »

We Don’t Need No Stinking Budget!

It has been two years since the Democratic Senate proposed, let alone passed, a budget. Harry Reid and his cohorts are now in defiance of federal law, but they don’t care: Reid confirmed on Thursday that the Democrats have no intention of giving the American people a plan to stave off fiscal disaster: “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget in my opinion,” Reid said in an interview Thursday. »

Michael Barone Previews 2012

At the indispensable PJTV, Glenn Reynolds interviews Michael Barone on the 2012 Presidential and Congressional races, and much else. With respect to the 2012 GOP Presidential field, Barone says that at this point “there is no front runner, just runners.” »

Lake Humphrey?

Lake Calhoun is the largest and most heavily used of four lakes in south Minneapolis. I once lived on the lake’s north shore. In the summer, it is packed with sailboats, canoes, runners, rollerbladers, bikers and beach-goers. I have lived in the Twin Cities for over 30 years, but have never known (or cared) how Lake Calhoun got its name. It turns out that it is named for John C. »

Obama’s revealing mistake

Barry Rubin is an Israeli and a serious scholar of the Middle East. See, for example, his books including The Muslim Brotherhood: The Organization and Policies of a Global Islamist Movement and The Truth About Syria. He blogs here and here. Rubin is absolutely on fire commenting on President Obama’s Middle East speech of this past Thursday. He comments at some length in “The opposite of strategy is catastrophe” and »

A New Rick-Roll for a New Decade

The Washington Post editors who select one person for the dubious achievement of having had the worst week face a conundrum. There are three obvious finalists: Arnold, DSK, and Newt. Arnold and DSK have obvious pop culture potential. Jon Stewart already offered up mockings of Arnold movie posters (“Bonin the Barbarian”), noting that on some you didn’t even need to change the title (“True Lies”). The Law and Order: SVU »

Mad Dogs & Englishmen

Joe Cocker didn’t want to hit the road in 1970, but a tour of the United States was put together on his behalf and he was directed to undertake it. He turned to Leon Russell to put the band together. Russell created an instrumental supergroup drawn from the Los Angeles studio scene. He compiled an assemblage of 21 musicians including three drummers, two percussionists, a horn section, and a ten-member »

The “Borking” of Goodwin Liu

Watching the left complain that Republicans have now done to one of theirs–once–what they have been doing to conservative judicial nominees for 25 years is just too much. Ordinarily I don’t cross-post too many items from NRO’s Corner or the other two places I blog (I like to offer original material to faithful Power Line and Corner readers), but this is an exception. Herewith mostly crossposted from The Corner: The »