Monthly Archives: January 2012
January 23, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Shortly before the 2008 election Barack Obama proclaimed: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” What did he mean by that? Last year we posted Stanley Kurtz’s speech to David Horowitz’s Wednesday Morning Club in Los Angeles. In his remarks Kurtz gives an overview of the results of his research for Radical-in-Chief: The Untold Story of American Socialism. It is the most effective presentation
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January 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
When a photo of Newt Gingrich as a young college professor hit the internet a week or two ago, my wife was stunned, because he looked almost exactly like a certain TV star. She wasn’t the only one who noticed the resemblance. All American Blogger notes the affinity between Newt and Dwight K. Schrute of The Office: Separated at birth, indeed!
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January 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Today Barack Obama released a proclamation commemorating the 39th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the low water mark of American constitutional jurisprudence since the Dred Scott case. Obama’s proclamation was not widely noted, except in circles that take (as Scott put it long ago) the sacramental view of abortion. But I happened to read it, and was struck by this brazen bit of Obama BS: As we mark the 39th
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January 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
McKinsey Global Institute has produced an interesting report on international debt and deleveraging. It finds that a few of the world’s largest economies, including the U.S., have made significant progress in reducing debt since the second quarter of 2008, while others, mostly in the EU, have continued amassing more debt. This chart requires a little study; it shows total debt (government, household, financial institution and non-financial corporate) for ten countries
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January 22, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I couldn’t help it. With apologies to Meredith Wilson and The Music Man, herewith an update of “Trouble in River City”: Prof. Harold Charles Hill: Well, either you are closing your eyes to a situation which you do not wish to acknowledge, Or you are unaware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a Gingrich in your political party; Well, ya got trouble my friend, I say,
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January 22, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I’ve had occasion here before (“Mister We Could Use a Man Like Warren Harding Again“), more than once in fact, to praise the unjustly underrated legacy of Warren Harding, but don’t miss today’s article in the Washington Post (yes, the Post!) from James Grant, noting how Harding quickly cured the depression of 1920-1921 with precisely the medicine that causes Krugmania Dementia, austerity: Our Great Recession ended 2½ years ago, according
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January 22, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Newt Gingrich’s stunning victory in the South Carolina primary last night suggests that Newt owes a major debt to Juan Williams of Fox News, Brian Ross of ABC, and John King of CNN, without whom…the result would not have been so astounding. I’m thinking that these liberal media figures are, inadvertently, the nattering nabobs of Newtism. The result exposes the weakness at the heart of the Romney campaign: Mitt’s weakness
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January 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Newt Gingrich won big tonight in South Carolina, about as big as Mitt Romney did in New Hampshire. To some extent that reflects the differences between those states, but also, certainly, it is the result of momentum flowing in Newt’s direction as a result of the South Carolina debates and, somewhat weirdly, the ABC interview with his ex-wife. This afternoon I was at a shooting range, and the guy working
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January 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Republicans shouldn’t let a single day go by without reminding voters of the Keystone pipeline, the most visible symbol of the Obama administration’s hostility to economic growth and job creation. Today’s contribution comes from Michael Ramirez, who depicts Obama stubbornly blocking the jobs pipeline:
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January 21, 2012 — John Hinderaker
A few years ago, as part of its strategy of facilitating voter fraud as a means of winning close elections, the Democratic Party undertook a campaign to secure as many Secretary of State offices in swing states as possible. From those perches, the Democrats would be in a position to oversee elections and enforce (or decline to enforce) election laws. That strategy has been quite successful, but the Democrats suffered
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January 21, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I thought it would be a tall order to have a greater energy folly than our ethanol scam, which cost taxpayers billions in direct and indirect subsidies over the last decade or two, but it turns out the Germans have figured out how to do it—through solar power. Der Spiegel online has a devastating article out this week on Germany’s manic obsession with solar power, whose price tag has now
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January 21, 2012 — Scott Johnson
A few weeks ago Barry Rubin wrote an excellent column making a point that hadn’t occurred to me, but that was obviously true. Rubin observed that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is Obama’s favorite Middle East leader: For the first time in forty years, Israel is not the American president’s favorite Middle Eastern ally. Instead, that role is played by Turkey’s government. This would not be such a bad
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January 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
What is it about this primary season that causes Republicans to go around the bend? The current beneficiary of the “anyone but Romney” mania is Newt Gingrich, who may actually win the South Carolina primary tomorrow. I find that astonishing. Gingrich has been mostly out of the public view since he retired from Congress 13 years ago. The most surprising feature of this endlessly surprising political year is that, at
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January 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
That is the title of an excellent essay in the American Spectator by William Tucker (via InstaPundit). His reflections, which harken back to Thorstein Veblen, were prompted by President Obama’s decision to kill the Keystone pipeline. You really should read it all, but here are a few key paragraphs: This week President Obama handed down what may prove to be one of the most fateful decisions of his entire administration
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January 20, 2012 — Scott Johnson
We didn’t start the fire, but Ted Bromund might have. He follows up on our “A PolitiFact case study” with “PolitiFact’s Pants on Fire” over at Contentions. Bromund writes: I wouldn’t normally respond to a piece by PolitiFact, but because I’m quoted as a source for a recent piece on Mitt Romney, I think it’s worthwhile offering a bit of context. On Tuesday, I got the same email Tom Bruscino
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January 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
A long-time reader adds his thoughts to Steve Hayward’s “worries” about how Newt Gingrich would fare in debates against Barack Obama: In thinking about a Gingrich-Obama debate, it’s helpful to consider why Gingrich has done so well in his debates against the Republican presidential field. One key to Gingrich’s success is his bashing of MSM questioners. For example, without Gingrich’s response to John King regarding the Speaker’s second marriage, I
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January 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
In an ominous development for the Obama administration, Patrick Cunningham, chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona, has told the House Oversight Committee that he will assert his privilege against self-incrimination rather than testify before the committee next week. DOJ officials in Washington evidently have blamed Cunningham for the fact that they provided false information to Congress in what appears to be an effort to
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