Monthly Archives: March 2013

Immigration reform at risk, not over principles but over pennies

Featured image The Washington Post reports that the bipartisan Senate deal on immigration reform is now at risk. At a minimum, the Senate bill may not be unveiled in April, as had been expected. What’s the problem? Have Republicans come to understand that it is wrong to provide a pathway to citizenship for those who, for years, have flouted American law? Has the irrationality of creating 10 million or so underclass voters, »

Fundamental transformation, originalist style?

Featured image Over at NRO’s Corner, my daughter Eliana has an interesting preview of coming attractions in the Senate: Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Mike Lee — the Senate’s rabble-rousing GOP triumvirate – seek nothing less than to fundamentally transform the debate over gun control. As has been reported, they will likely filibuster when Harry Reid brings his gun-control legislation up for a vote. In doing so, according to sources, they hope »

A note on comments

Featured image We get occasional email messages complaining about our comments setup and its occasional glitches. I find it hard to respond to all these messages, mostly because I don’t know what’s going on or don’t care for the indignation that sometimes accompanies the complaints. Here is what I would like you to know, courtesy of Power Line publisher Joe Malchow: Power Line uses Facebook for our commenting system. This means that »

We’re number 34

Featured image Over at NRO’s Corner, Veronique de Rugy draws attention to the Freedom in the Fifty States Index just released by Professor William Ruger and Jason Sorens. Professors Ruger and Sorens have a companion column on the index in USA Today. The index ranks states based on public policies affecting economic, social, and personal freedoms (e.g., bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, licensing laws, taxes, mandated family »

Candid camera, Israeli style

Featured image The IDF has posted the video below taken last month of two terrorists captured by Israeli soldiers as they prepared to fire at passing Israeli vehicles. The Times of Israel reports: The video was recorded on February 15 by two female soldiers who spotted the terrorists from a military observation post near Beit Fajjar, a Palestinian town next to Gush Etzion, approximately 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of Jerusalem. After »

Same-sex marriage is not the last frontier

Featured image Peter Wehner provides a good analysis of why public opinion has shifted so dramatically on same-sex marriage. This passage caught my eye: “once many Americans believed that the gay movement was de-radicalized and domesticated–much of the opposition to gay marriage began to dissipate.” Pete is right to attribute the shift in opinion in part to the perception that the gay movement is de-radicalized. He is also wise to speak of »

Worst Job in the World: Politburo Member—Herb Meyer Explains

Featured image This next installment from Herb Meyer’s YAF lecture on Bill Casey features a hilarious description of Casey explaining why being a member of the Soviet Politburo in the 1980s was “not a lot of fun.”  Having read some translations of transcripts of Politburo meetings (not available to the CIA at the time), I can see what he meant.  They came to resemble faculty meetings run by worn-out left-wingers.  This segment »

Rand Versus Lewis: It’s No Contest

Featured image For someone who represented herself as the acme of philosophy and individual strength, Ayn Rand could be remarkably touchy.  Whittaker Chambers’s famous review of Atlas Shrugged in National Review infuriated her, to the point that she would not be in the same room with William F. Buckley ever after. Buckley and Chambers weren’t the only ones to feel her volcanic wrath.  Over at the fine First Things blog, Matthew Schmitz »

U.S. advances toward world cup, unimpressively

Featured image The World Cup qualifying campaign of the U.S. soccer team gained a big boost this week from a 1-0 victory at home over Costa Rica and a 0-0 draw against Mexico. Although we are still early in the campaign, qualification seems likely. The U.S. need only finish third in a six team group to advance, and a fourth place finish would enable us to qualify if we can then beat »

Hillman’s homeless gig

Featured image You may recall the case of the shoeless beggar found on a New York City street this past November by a NYPD officer. A passerby photographed NYPD Officer Lawrence DePrimo kneeling beside the man on a cold November night in Times Square, giving him a pair of boots. The photo, shot by tourist Jennifer Foster on her phone, went viral. I originally found the story here via ABC News. The »

How Iran could get the bomb overnight

Featured image Our friend Edward Jay Epstein is the author of the just-published Annals of Unsolved Crime, one chapter of which addresses the case of Amanda Knox (“The Knox Ordeal”). Recent developments caused Ed to return to the case this week in “The bizarre pursuit of Amanda Knox: Injustice, Italian style.” In the Wall Street Journal today Ed reveals how Iran could get a nuclear bomb overnight: The West has tried to »

So, how’s that apology to Turkey working out?

Featured image Not well, according to Israel’s new Minister of Economy and Trade Naftali Bennett, who should know. Bennett had this to say on his official facebook page: It seems that since [Netanyahu’s] apology, Erdogan is doing everything to make Israel regret it. He is running a personal and vitriolic campaign at the expense of Israeli-Turkish relations. For example, Erdogan has announced that he intends to visit Gaza, and has stated that »

Republicans as modernizers — the path to revival

Featured image What is the key to a revival of the Republican Party? In a sense, the question is unfair because it assumes the Party is in need of revival even though it did fantastically well in 2010 and well enough at the state and U.S. House of Representatives level in 2012. Even at the presidential level, the Republican candidate did about as well as the Democrat did in 2004. And John »

The Supreme Court is unlikely to uphold DOMA

Featured image Having listened on C-SPAN to the oral argument in the DOMA case, I believe the Supreme Court will hold DOMA unconstitutional if it reaches the merits. Presumably, the Court’s four liberal Justices would reach that conclusion. And Justice Kennedy seems ready to join them. Kennedy’s questioning of Paul Clement, who was defending DOMA on behalf of the House leadership, demonstrated considerable concern that DOMA constitutes an unwarranted intrusion by the »

Mid-Week in Pictures

Featured image Oh what the heck; the memes, cartoons, and guffaws are piling up so fast this week that I can’t wait until the weekend for a visual highlight reel.  So here goes. So, perhaps this is the solution to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner woes: And finally, a video highlight that Peter Robinson says means he can die a happy man: »

Grenada, Poland, and the Pope: Herbert Meyer Explains It All

Featured image In this next installment from Herbert Meyer’s YAF lecture on William Casey and the Cold  War, he explains the importance of going on offense against the Soviet Union.  Along the way, he drops some very big hints about the circumstances behind the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in May of 1981.  (About 9 minutes long.) Coming later: a hilarious account of how Bill Casey described the misery of »

Gay Marriage: The Libertarian Solution

Featured image The incomparable Iowahawk offers his solution to the gay marriage controversy over at Breitbart.com.  Get the government out of the marriage business entirely, and devolve it all to a matter of contract.  This would essentially “privatize” marriage in ways that gays might not like.  Let Iowahawk explain the nub of it: The solution? Maybe it’s time for government to get out of the whole marriage business altogether. Or at least »