Monthly Archives: April 2012
April 25, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
In the post just below, I described how, in last night’s Pennsylvania primary, liberal Democrats defeated two moderate incumbents – Jason Altmire and Tim Holden – both of whom voted against Obamacare. I noted that when conservatives engage in this type of voting, Democrats and their pals in the mainstream media characterize it as ruinous extremism or, in the case of David Axelrod, terrorism. With this in mind, consider the
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April 25, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
We hear constantly how conservatives are out to purge any elected Republican who fails wholly to embrace right-wing orthodoxy. President Obama’s political point man, David Axelrod, went so far as to call this a “reign of terror.” In this Democrat/MSM narrative, conservatives are de-civilizing politics. And in doing so, they are ensuring that the system will become ever more polarized, to point that it will barely function. But yesterday’s Pennsylvania
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April 25, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Toward the end of his New York Post column today, Michael Goodwin covers Joe Biden campaigning down in Florida. Goodwin writes that Biden visited the Everglades Monday and ended up joking that his Secret Service staff might shoot a Florida official named Ronald Bergeron. A recording and transcript available on CNSNews.com capture Biden’s “bizarre ramble,” as Goodwin calls it: “But you see this man right here, my Secret Service guy?
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April 25, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I haven’t had much to say here about the higher education bubble, a favorite topic of Glenn Reynolds over on Instapundit. But with total student loan debt topping $1 trillion (higher than total credit card debt I believe), this is looking like the next major financial disaster. Among other things, student debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, so many debt-happy students are coming out of college with the equivalent of
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April 25, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Song. The lady was a remarkable artist. Each period of her long career is rewarding, though she deepened her art as she got older. She excelled in a wide variety of material and in every musical setting. There is an emotional reserve or detachment in her singing, but there is also joy and an irrepressible sense
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April 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that some of the Secret Service employees accused of misconduct in the Colombian prostitution scandal are privately contending that their conduct didn’t warrant dismissal because senior managers tolerated similar behavior during official trips. In addition, according to the Post, several of the men who agreed to resign under pressure last week are considering reversing their decisions and fighting to keep their jobs. I don’t wish to
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April 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Mitt Romney swept five Republican primaries today–no surprise there. He gave a terrific speech tonight in the wake of those victories. I caught it on Fox News. Romney was introduced by his wife Ann, which prompts this observation: First Ladies are like vice-presidential nominees; they do not swing any significant number of votes. What they can do is contribute, in a subtle way, to the overall image of the ticket.
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April 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Last summer, Republicans in Congress agreed to increase the federal debt limit in exchange for the Democrats’ pledge to cap future spending at agreed-upon levels. The compromise was embodied in the Budget Control Act; discretionary spending was to increase by no more than $7 billion in the current fiscal year. I wrote yesterday about the fact that the Democrats intended to violate the Budget Control Act by increasing deficit spending
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April 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Speaker John Boehner and Democratic National Chair Debbie Wassernan Schultz don’t agree on much. When they do agree on a proposition, the appropriate posture for the rest of us is skepticism. That’s my take, anyway, on the view espoused by Boehner and endorsed by Wasserman Schultz that the Democrats have a one-in-three chance of re-capturing a majority of the House of Representatives in November. Boehner and Wasserman Schultz have the
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April 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I got a Twitter account some time ago, but didn’t do a lot with it. More recently I have paid more attention, for better or worse–going to a Twins game and spending the whole time monitoring my Twitter feed and tweeting; spending lunch hours on Twitter; and so on. Twitter is not just addictive, but is a virtual world unto itself. I’m still learning, but have 1,276 tweets to my
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April 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The news story is horrifying: after a trivial encounter with a group of youths who were playing basketball, a man in Mobile, Alabama, was set upon by a gang of twenty men armed with brass knuckles, chairs, pipes and paint cans. The victim, Matthew Owens, was attacked on his own front porch and beaten within an inch of his life. He is in critical condition and may die: As the
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April 24, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The Medicare Trustees released their annual report yesterday. Today, at a conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, Medicare’s chief actuary, Richard Foster, summarized the Trustees’ report. The picture isn’t pretty. The report projects that the Medical Hospital Insurance trust fund will run out of assets in 2024. But, as Foster explained, even this dire projection is almost certainly too optimistic. That’s because the projections are based on changes to
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April 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Barack Obama is on a pandering tour of college campuses, trying to generate enthusiasm for his re-election campaign by warning that interest rates on student loans will rise if Congress doesn’t act by July. That is true; the Democratic Congress wrote the legislation that way, and Obama signed it. Coincidentally, no doubt, Obama’s campus appearances will all be in swing states like North Carolina, where he spoke today. Whether it
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April 24, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Driving home from work tonight, I heard Frank Gaffney on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show talking about a new ten-part course by the Center for Security Policy called The Muslim Brotherhood In America. It sounds like mandatory viewing. There has been a lot of confusion over the years as to who our enemy is in the War on Terror; or the War on Islamic Extremism; or the Skirmish Against al Qaida
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April 24, 2012 — Steven Hayward
So Obama, no doubt partly to shore up his weakness with Jewish voters, made a perfunctory appearance at the Holocaust Museum yesterday, where from the video and transcript it seemed that he more or less phoned it in. In introducing Obama, Elie Wiesel put him on the spot: “How is it that Assad is still in power?” Wiesel asked. “How is it that the Holocaust’s No. 1 denier is still
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April 24, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The old phrase “BS and balderdash” seems to have been tailor-made for Barack Obama’s speech at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington yesterday. The guy cannot talk about anything, no matter how somber the subject, without talking about himself. The more somber the subject, the more he talks about himself. Perhaps the appropriate response is the one I learned from John Cleary in The Subject Was Roses: “Bless us and
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April 24, 2012 — Scott Johnson
I would love to see the complete uncut interview of Israel’s Ambassador Michael Oren by Bob Simon for the 60 Minutes hatchet job on Israel this past Sunday. According to this report, the interview was 80 minutes long. Here is an unaired clip posted by CBS of Ambassador Oren speaking at greater length on Israel’s Christians.
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