Monthly Archives: April 2012

Impromptus (Minnesota edition)

Featured image National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger, you may recall, is the author of Peace, They Say, a history of the Nobel Peace Prize. He stayed with us last week when he was in town to make a couple of presentations to audiences assembled by the Center of the American Experiment. We greatly enjoyed our time with Jay. Jay devotes the second half of his NRO Impromptus column today to his »

Who played whom at Dartmouth?

Featured image Dartmouth president Jim Kim is leaving the College after only three years to become head of the World Bank. Scott reported about this development here. Kim made good use of Dartmouth. It represented a relatively prestigious place to hang his hat for a few years until the Obama administration came to its senses and found a suitably important place for him. And his Dartmouth connection with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner »

Could Newt pull off a Delaware upset?

Featured image Politico breathlessly asks the question and suggests that the answer might be yes: Newt Gingrich has got a new hope: the tiny but dangerous state of Delaware. With Mitt Romney and the national press corps now focused on the general election, Gingrich is hoping to become the Christine O’Donnell of the 2012 race — rallying the state’s conservatives to pull off an upset victory over the more moderate candidate who »

Democrats Set to Break Spending Cap Agreement

Featured image Last summer, as part of the agreement that resulted in raising the federal government’s debt limit, Congress passed the Budget Control Act, which set spending caps for future years. These spending caps represented “cuts” in the Washington sense; that is, spending was allowed to increase, but not as fast as might otherwise have been projected. When it has suited their purposes, the Democrats have been champions of the Budget Control »

A message to CBS

Featured image Christians United for Israel has prepared a message from its members for the principals at 60 Minutes in response to the hit job on Israel last night. The message reads as follows: As a member of Christians United for Israel, I am writing to express my concern with the 60 Minutes story “Christians of the Holy Land” which aired on April 22nd. This story scapegoated Israel and ignored the greatest »

Big trouble for the Artest formerly known as Ron

Featured image Metta World Peace plays basketball for the Los Angeles Lakers. Until recently, he was known by his given name, Ron Artest. His new moniker notwithstanding, Mr. World Peace is not a peaceable man. He has been involved in several notorious incidents of basketball-related violence, including the infamous brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills. If I recall correctly, he once broke Michael Jordan’s ribs during a pick up game. Yesterday, »

This Week’s Helping of Winston

Featured image With all the excitement of Earth Day yesterday, I forgot to post my weekly Churchill installment.  So here’s Winston, in 1908, with language that voters might take in mind in reflecting on the ill-liberalism of President Obama: Socialism wants to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty.  Socialism would destroy private interests—Liberalism would preserve them in the only way they could justly be preserved, by reconciling them with »

GOP Winning War on Women

Featured image A Hill poll published today confirms what we thought, impressionistically: the Democrats’ “war on women” theme, and the accompanying attacks on Ann Romney, have backfired: More voters think Mitt Romney and the Republican Party respect women who work outside the home than think President Obama and the Democrats respect women who stay at home, according to the latest The Hill Poll. Forty-nine percent of likely voters said the presumptive GOP »

Willful blindness at the FBI

Featured image According to Jim Kouri of the Examiner, the FBI is revising its counterterrorism training programs by removing all references to Muslims and Arab-Americas that are offensive to groups such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). President Obama is said to be watching this process. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin has been leading it. This is a troubling development. As Rep. Allen West »

A showing Claire McCaskill can’t make to the “show me” state

Featured image The Washington Post reports that Claire McCaskill, the embattled Democratic Senator from Missouri, is trying to make super PACs a major issue in her re-election campaign. In fact, she devoted her first campaign ad to advancing the proposition that out-of-state special interests are gunning for her. Wasn’t this a major theme that former Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln used, on her way to a 58-37 trouncing in 2010? To be sure, »

Who ya gonna call?

Featured image 60 Minutes performed a classic hit job on Israel in a 14-minute segment last night. Titled “Christians of the Holy Land,” video of the segment is here; transcript is here. Bob Simon “reported” the story. The gist of the story is that Israel is responsible for the exodus of Christians from the West Bank and Jerusalem. The story was short on facts and context, particularly the context of the assaults »

And Republicans Are Better Looking, Too

Featured image The Daily Caller reports on a recent Pew survey that finds Republicans are better informed than Democrats on political issues: On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points, according to a new Pew survey titled “Partisan Differences in Knowledge.” The Pew survey adds to a wave of surveys and studies showing that GOP-sympathizers are better informed, more intellectually consistent, more open-minded, »

The State of Play in Utah

Featured image A day after Orrin Hatch fell just short of avoiding a primary, the conventional wisdom has taken shape: Hatch starts out as the strong favorite in the primary, but if his opponent, Dan Liljenquist, raises enough money, he could make things quite uncomfortable for the incumbent. This Politico story reflects the prevailing view. The Politico piece submits, as others have, that the convention that nearly gave Hatch the 60 percent »

Sarko — Going, Going, But Not Yet Gone

Featured image The French voters have winnowed a ten-person presidential field down to two – Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande (the first place finisher) and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy, who finished second. Ultra-nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen finished a very strong third. Here are the latest results that I have seen, rounded to the nearest half percent: Hollande – 29 percent Sarkozy – 26 percent Le Pen – 18. 5 percent Jean-Luc Mélenchon »

Obama Dog-Eater Joke of the Day

Featured image No, Barry! We said PEPperoni, PEPperoni! »

Mind of the Times

Featured image I respectfully request that you put aside whatever you are doing right now and spend the next six minutes watching the video below, The Value of Our Pension and What’s At Risk. Produced by the union representing Times employees for its members at the Times, the video stars reporters, columnists, and others who have faithfully brought us the news over the past many, many years. It’s an impressive cast, and »

A thriller at Old Trafford

Featured image Everton threw a monkey-wrench into Manchester United’s title hopes today, coming from two goals down in the last ten minutes to secure a famous 4-4 draw at Old Trafford, Manchester United’s home ground. That result means that Manchester United leads second-place Manchester City by only three points (the equivalent of one full game, in American terns) with three matches to go. Moreover, Manchester City still has a game with United »