Monthly Archives: July 2012

Never Mind the Higher Ed Bubble

Featured image While we’re watching the early innings of the collapse of the higher education bubble (the ultimate blue state edifice), we’re overlooking that the Mainstream Media bubble is collapsing even faster.  First comes the news that Jim Walton, the head of CNN, is stepping down.  For some reason the Puffington Host calls this news “shocking” on its home page.  Quitting or getting sacked—how can it be “shocking” when the pioneer of »

To gaffe and gaffe not

Featured image There’s plenty of buzz about two alleged gaffes that have arisen in connection with Mitt Romney’s visit to England. The first is a genuine gaffe. Romney said that the logistical problems encountered in connection with the London Olympic games were “disconcerting.” Romney was only echoing what the Brits themselves had been moaning about for weeks. Indeed, Piers Morgan found Romney’s comments directly on point. It doesn’t matter. A national leader »

The Future of Global Energy? Looks Like Coal

Featured image That the Obama Administration is trying to kill coal in the United States to please its greenie base is not news, but it won’t make a lick of difference to the trend of soaring global coal use, as my pal Robert Bryce points out in the Los Angeles Times today: Prohibiting new coal-fired power plants may please President Obama’s domestic supporters, but it would leave global coal demand and CO2 »

Headline of the Day

Featured image Just when you thought headlines couldn’t get any sillier than “Experts Still Perplexed,” we see this one: »

Giuliani sees Rubio as best Veep pick

Featured image Rudy Giuliani has told a Florida television station that he believes Sen. Marco Rubio would be Mitt Romney’s best pick for his running mate. Giuliani made it clear that he is comfortable with all of the potential VP candidates being widely talked about. However, he favors Rubio, citing his believe that the Florida Senator would help attract young voters. The youth vote angle is one I haven’t heard mentioned in »

George Lakoff built it?

Featured image Obama’s sneering disparagement of successful business owners in his Roanoke declaration seems to open a window to Obama’s political soul. Indeed, I believe it did. But one cannot avoid seeing the highly scripted nature of Obama’s declaration. Its proximate roots lay in Elizabeth Warren’s famous diatribe this past September. Now come William Jacobson and Chris Bray to trace Warren’s diatribe back to left-wing Berkeley professor George Lakoff. Lakoff holds himself »

Real GDP grows by only 1.5 percent in the second quarter

Featured image Real GDP — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of only 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent. The second quarter figure is an estimate, and is subject to possible revision. The deceleration in real GDP in »

Is 2012 a Rerun of 1980?

Featured image I am not alone in predicting that this election might be a replay of 1980, where the Republican candidate (Ronaldus Magnus, in case anyone needed reminding) blew open a close race in the last week.  I can see a lot of voters who went for Obama wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt right up to the last minute, even as especially many evangelical Christians who voted for »

In Defense (More Or Less) Of a Banned Triple-Jumper

Featured image We’ve written little or nothing about the Olympic Games that will begin tomorrow evening, and the story of the banned Greek triple-jumper Voula Papachristou–the first Olympian, I believe, to be cashiered for a tweet–isn’t the kind of thing we usually weigh in on. But, what the heck–why not? Miss Papachristou was summarily dropped from the Greek Olympic team, with no opportunity to be heard, because of a tweet that everyone »

The case against Joe Paterno, Part Two

Featured image As expected, we have received some excellent correspondence disagreeing with my friend’s take, with which I agreed, on Joe Paterno and the Freeh Report. The essence of these responses is that Paterno should have done more than he did to make sure that kids weren’t being abused by Sandusky. I agree, and so did Paterno. If I recall correctly, he said before he died that he wished he had done »

Williams not on Romney’s short list

Featured image I would have said that it was impossible for Mitt Romney to say something deemed controversial by his British hosts on his foreign trip, but no. That seems not to be the case. I would also have said that there was no way he would destroy Brian Williams in a face-to-face interview in London, but no. That also seems not to be the case. Romney sat for an interview with »

Carney’s conundrums

Featured image Jay Carney was asked to identify the capital of Israel during today’s press conference. He wouldn’t answer the question (video here), but that wasn’t the toughest question he was asked. The toughest question was whether he could say that no one in the White House was involved in the torrent of leaks of classified information obviously emanating in part from high administration officials. He could probably answer that question, or »

We Built This!

Featured image Just kidding. Power Line wouldn’t exist without the Government Internet upon which it is transmitted and the Government Roads we drive on to buy our Government MacBooks and consequently our true and deepest thanks belong to the Public Servants who moved upon the waters to create this amazing American system of spontaneous centralized capital bestowal. But we’re nevertheless grateful also to you, our readers. We haven’t boasted much, but more »

It Worked? Seriously?

Featured image This new Romney ad, hot off the press, so to speak, illustrates the problem Barack Obama has in running for re-election. His record is simply terrible, so whenever he tries to articulate his rationale for a second term, he opens himself up to a devastating rejoinder. On Tuesday he said he should be re-elected because “we tried our plan and it worked.” Watch what the Romney campaign does with that: »

The case against Joe Paterno: Weak to non-existent on the current record

Featured image I haven’t followed the Penn State child molestation scandal closely. My interest in sports is an interest in sports, not investigations of crimes by people involved (or formerly involved) with sports. Nonetheless, I am aware that a consensus exists that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno acted improperly in connection with Penn State’s response to allegations of child molestation committed by one-time assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. This consensus led »

For the Moment, At Least, the Momentum Is Romney’s

Featured image The Romney campaign continues to pound away at President Obama’s the-government-did-it-all philosophy, to increasing effect. Today Romney launched a new web called Built By Us. The site allows small business owners to tell their stories and upload videos. They can also download this sign: This video is on the site’s front page: The press has tried to run interference for Obama on this story, but without much success, as more »

George Will says: This book is a blast

Featured image When Encounter Books debuted its Broadsides series of pamphlets in 2009, I saluted it in this post. Three years later, it is time to look back. That is the mission of The New Leviathan: The State Versus the Individual in the 21st Century: A Collection of Encounter Broadsides. Edited by Roger Kimball, the book compiles Broadsides pamphlets written by a panoply of prominent authors including Daniel DiSalvo (“Government unions and »