Monthly Archives: July 2013

Voters Trust Republicans More On Key Issues

Featured image Currently, voters trust Republicans and Democrats just about equally across a broad range of issues. These numbers have sometimes been better; there have been times when voters preferred the GOP almost across the board, and by bigger margins. But still, today’s Rasmussen survey is interesting: The most important issues are the economy and jobs. Republicans hold the edge on both, 44/40 and 46/38, respectively. Along the same lines, Republicans are »

Our Poll On Why Conservatives Don’t Do Better: What Does It Show?

Featured image Last night I did a post on a question that has long perplexed me: If conservatives are a majority, why can’t we win? Polls consistently show that conservatives outnumber liberals by 1 1/2 to 1 or 2 to 1, yet liberals dominate government. Why? The specific context of my post was a Rasmussen survey showing that by nearly two to one, voters prefer Michele Bachmann’s approach to the financial crisis »

How Coleman Young Ruined Detroit

Featured image Many observers, including us, have written about how Detroit’s slavish devotion to liberalism, unions and the Democratic Party ruined that once-great city. But one malefactor stands out above all others: Coleman Young, former organizer for the UAW, whom the union booted for being too radical, and who went on to become Detroit’s long-time mayor. A reader with first-hand experience recounts Young’s role in Detroit’s downfall: I listened to some of »

Off to Europe

Featured image Tonight, I am leaving for a two-week (plus) visit to Europe. Amsterdam is one of the cities on the itinerary, and I will certainly take advantage of Scott’s fine reporting from that great town. I don’t to expect to do much blogging while I’m gone, and may not do any. Call it a cooling-off period. JOHN adds: I clearly need to up my vacation game! The last time I traveled »

The New York Mayoral race — a look at the Republican field

Featured image The focus in New York City politics has been, of course, on the Democrats. How could it be otherwise with Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer both attempting comebacks, and Weiner hoping for the comeback of his comeback? But how about the Republican field? My conservative cousin finds two good GOP candidates for Mayor, and some reason to believe that one of them might win the job. My cousin writes: My »

Yes, the gloves are definitely off

Featured image Yesterday, I wrote about the fight between Chris Christie and Rand Paul. It began on the substantive, and vital, issue of domestic anti-terrorism surveillance policy, and quickly became personal. Now another intra-Party fight, on a completely different vital issue, has broken out and is becoming personal. Ted Cruz is attacking fellow Republican Senators who disagree with his proposal to bring about a shutdown of the government in order, Cruz hopes, »

Did FEC collude with IRS to target conservatives?

Featured image Eliana Johnson finds that Lois Lerner appears to have colluded with an attorney in the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office to influence the record before the FEC’s vote in the case of a conservative non-profit organization. Readers may recall that Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, worked at the FEC from 1986 to 1995, and was known there for aggressive investigation of conservative groups. Email traffic »

How Bad Was It?

Featured image The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has always produced superior—and often iconoclastic—analytical work, chiefly because of the inspired leadership of its governor, Richard W. Fisher.  (Among other things, Fisher has been a vocal skeptic of quantitative easing, and also thinks we should consider breaking up the big banks.  This does not make him popular with Obamaworld.) The latest piece of research worth taking in is the new report entitled “How »

Soft Weiner

Featured image So the LA Dodgers, my old hometown team, are surprisingly in first place in the National League West, which reminds me of my favorite stadium fare of old, the foot-long Dodger dogs (which are probably $29.95 nowadays).  But Anthony Weiner, the gift that keeps on giving, has ruined foot-long hot dogs forever (add your own sequels to this stream of consciousness if you like), because his latest effort is a »

Reporting from Amsterdam: Impressions

Featured image Amsterdam is a beautiful city whose canals and bridges are the outward signs of the engineering feat that created it. We are told it sits on millions of wooden pilings dating from the seventeenth century. The city was essentially created by a network of canals to the west and south of the historic old town and the medieval port that encircled the old town, accompanied by the repositioning inland of »

The Christie-Paul fight, and other fights to come

Featured image Chris Christie and Rand Paul are in the midst of a food fight. Not literally, but very much figuratively. Their debate has devolved from one about warrantless federal surveillance programs to the question of which state, New Jersey or Kentucky, receives more “pork.” You can read some of the lowlights here. For the record, I’m with Christie on the original issue — warrantless federal surveillance programs — and agnostic on »

If We Are a Majority, Why Can’t We Win? Let’s Poll Our Readers!

Featured image That is a question that we conservatives could ask every day. Polls consistently show that in the U.S., there are far more conservatives than liberals–from 1 1/2 to 2 to 1, depending on the survey–and conservative positions on specific policy issues generally poll well, too. Today’s example comes from Rasmussen Reports, which asked questions about banks. That doesn’t sound promising; doesn’t just about everyone hate banks? (Maybe, but don’t ask »

The Bradley Manning verdict, two views

Featured image The Bradley Manning verdict is in. A military judge found Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy, but guilty of all 19 other counts, including five espionage charges. Presumably, he will face a long jail term as a result. Two of my go-to sources on matters relating to secrecy in the national security context take different views of the Manning verdict. Gabriel Schoenfeld, author of Necessary Secrets: National Security, the »

The Hinderaker-Ward Experience, Episode 51: The Savior Podcasters, With Victor Davis Hanson [BUMPED]

Featured image If you missed Episode 51 of the Hinderaker-Ward Experience over the weekend, here is another chance to catch up with Brian Ward and me. If you are new to podcasting, or just new to the HWX, I hope you will check it out. It is, I think, a very entertaining podcast, with a guest appearance by Victor Davis Hanson. This is how I described Episode 51 on Saturday: Brian Ward »

Reporting from Amsterdam: The Anne Frank Museum

Featured image I last visited the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam 50 years ago, as a kid. It’s a different experience for me now as an adult father of three daughters, but the museum has become a phenomenon (along with Anne’s diary) of universal appeal. It now draws large crowds of visitors from all over the world. How many of these visitors have any sympathy for the state of Israel or the »

Obama quietly pushes forward with anti-suburban campaign

Featured image I wrote here about President Obama’s plans to redistribute wealth from the suburbs to the cities, as exposed by Stanley Kurtz in his book Spreading The Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing The Suburbs To Pay For the Cites. Stanley returns to this theme in a post about the latest element of the president’s regionalist policy — the July 19 publication of a Department of Housing and Urban Development regulation broadening »

Hillary For President!

Featured image The liberal press, apparently unchastened by their guy Barack’s disastrous term in office, is gearing up for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 run. Is America really yearning for an old lady president? I guess we will find out. I didn’t believe it for a long time, but it now seems clear that Hillary is determined to reign in the White House until close to her 80th birthday. The Democrats don’t mind; they »