Monthly Archives: June 2012
June 24, 2012 — Steven Hayward
With the Supreme Court set to rule on Obamacare as soon as tomorrow, everyone is reading the tea leaves and making predictions. Orin Kerr, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, took note of the jaunty bearing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in a recent speech before a liberal group, wondering if it meant she was pleased with the outcome of the case. Meanwhile, a poll of former Supreme Court clerks found
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June 23, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
Tomorrow, the results of the Egyptian presidential run-off election supposedly will be announced. The voting ended a week ago, and the elections commission pledged to declare the winner three days ago. However, it later said it needs more time to review hundreds of complaints lodged by the campaigns. In the meantime, the Muslim Brotherhood has led protests against the military, which has made known its reluctance to transfer power to
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June 23, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
As John notes here, Bill Whittle is arguing that the Fast and Furious program was an effort by the Obama administration to increase bloodshed in Mexico and thereby lead to tougher gun control regulation in the U.S. This theory has been around for a while, and may receive a wider hearing now that Obama has asserted a weak privilege claim to prevent the disclosure of some Fast and Furious documents.
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June 23, 2012 — John Hinderaker
As the Obama campaign continues to sputter, mockery is starting to come from unexpected directions. Like the Chicago comedy troupe Second City. You may have seen some of the Obama campaign videos starring Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter. Here is one, in which she attacks Mitt Romney for being an international businessman. Don’t feel obliged to watch it to the end; it’s like fingernails on a chalk board: And here
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June 23, 2012 — John Hinderaker
At PJTV, Bill Whittle makes the case that Fast and Furious was driven by Barack Obama’s and Eric Holder’s anti-gun ideology. The case is, I think, a persuasive one, as no one has offered an alternative explanation of why the administration would deliberately facilitate the shipment of thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels, with no effort to track them unless and until they were involved in the commission of
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June 23, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been meaning to get around to some excerpts from Churchill’s charming autobiography My Early Life, but Power Line reader Bill Befort of Grand Rapids, Minnesota suggests this one, about Churchill’s less than fond relationship with Latin as a schoolboy: I will here make some general observations about Latin which probably have their application to Greek as well. In a sensible language like English important words are connected and related
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June 23, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The series I started here a week or so ago on Democratic Presidents who couldn’t win the Democratic nomination (a rebuttal to the risible lib-media theme of the moment that the GOP is “too extreme” for Ronald Reagan) was turned into a full-blown article for the Weekly Standard, and is out this morning: Rather than try to make Reagan out as too moderate for an extreme party, the decriers of
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June 23, 2012 — Scott Johnson
The great Ayaan Hirsi Ali agreed to meet with me for an interview at the Tomorrow 2012 edition of the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday afternoon. For me, it was the highlight of an incredibly rich three-day event that had many highlights. The video below is the third of three that I shot with Ayaan when she sat down with me on Wednesday. The first two are posted here;
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June 23, 2012 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been meaning to offer some observations on what appears to be the disastrous start out of the box for France’s new president, Francois Hollande, whose Socialist Party saw its strength grow with the follow on parliamentary elections. So what does he check off first on his to-do list? Lowering the retirement age, from 62 to 60, for several classes of government employees. I imagine Scott Walker won’t be vacationing
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June 23, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick agreed to sit down with me on Thursday afternoon at the Tomorrow 2012 edition of the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem. Caroline’s two most recent Post columns are “The Muslim Brotherhood’s useful idiots” and “Dreamy foreign policies.” When I caught up with her Caroline had just spoken on a panel addressing issues related to Israel’s future borders. Caroline wanted to talk about her satirical Hebrew-language Web
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June 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
James Pethokoukis has cast doubt on claims by the Washington Post that, while at Bain Capital, Romney was involved with companies that were sending jobs overseas. As I discussed here, the Post relied on six Bain-related companies: Computer Software Inc. (CSI), Stream Internationl, Modus Media, GT Bicycle, SMTC Corp., and Chippac. Let’s look at each of them. CSI — The Post says that CSI provided companies like Microsoft with a
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June 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Anyone who is active in the political world knows that the most obnoxious, profane, hateful partisans, the ones most likely to engage in harassment, are the left-wing gay activists. So I was not at all surprised to see the latest misbehavior from that source: gay activists invited to the White House for a “gay pride” event by President Obama photographed each other making obscene gestures toward Ronald Reagan’s portrait. Proud
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June 22, 2012 — Steven Hayward
With Obama’s poll numbers tracking the weakness of the economy, you can feel Democratic anxiety building like the summer humidity here inside the Beltway. Sean Trende says it’s too early for Democrats to panic, and he’s probably right in general terms. But my god man, did you see the latest item from the Obama campaign, suggesting people omit birthday and wedding gifts in lieu of giving cash to the campaign?
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June 22, 2012 — Scott Johnson
I am home from the Tomorrow 2012 edition of the Presidential Conference in Jerusalem that came to a close last night. I’ll have some reflections on the conference when I have finished posting the videos of the speakers whom I caught up with this week. Yesterday former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold addressed a large audience as part of a panel on the American presidential election in November.
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June 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
The lead story in today’s Washington Post is a report about how companies which with Bain Capital was involved during Mitt Romney’s time there “sent jobs overseas.” Having failed to gain much mileage out of a “Romney the job-cutter” theme, the White House and its allies in the MSM hope that a “Romney the outsourcer” theme will resonate. The Romney camp reportedly has criticized the Post’s story because it “does
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June 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
As we noted yesterday, Mitt Romney delivered a major (and I think effective) speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. His campaign followed it up with this video, targeted specifically to Latinos. It begins with Obama’s appearance before the same group as a candidate four years ago, and the promises he made. Which, of course, have not been fulfilled; nor has Obama returned to address NALEA
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June 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
“Lags” is actually an understatement. While President Obama mines a Hollywood full of celebrities tripping over each other to assist in his reelection, Mitt Romney received contributions from four actors/actresses in May, according to Politico. The four are Nick Searcy, William Shockley, Nina Onuora and Richard Huisman. I haven’t heard of any of the four, but then I confess to being out-of-it with respect to this sort of thing. (Unlike
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