Monthly Archives: August 2013
August 26, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
During the years of the Bush presidency, Democrats and the mainstream media delighted in finding flaws with the administration’s handling of veterans affairs. Recall the justifiable outrage over conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. The issue conferred at least three big advantages on the left. First, it embarrassed Bush. Second, it provided a means of appealing for the votes of both veterans and current members of the military, normally sources of
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August 26, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I grew up in St. Paul a few miles down the street from Macalester College. I have a vivid memory of seeing students stream in to hear Richard Nixon speak at the college fieldhouse on Snelling Avenue in September 1960. I recall seeing the young men dressed in coats and ties and the young women in equally formal attire. Nixon’s appearance came of course in the run-up to the presidential
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August 26, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The new issue of the Claremont Review of Books has arrived, once again full of incisive essays and reviews attractively set off by the artistry of Elliott Banfield. As I have said once or twice before here, it’s my favorite magazine. You can subscribe here for the absurdly low price of $19.95 and get immediate online access thrown in to boot. I spent last week poring over the new issue
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August 25, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
With the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march on Washington fast approaching, I had intended to check old newspapers at the Library of Congress to see how the mainstream reported the march. I confess to having an ulterior motive: I participated in that march and wanted to test the view, now a commonplace, that the media never gets right a story about which one has no personal knowledge. Unfortunately,
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August 25, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Most goal celebrations in soccer leave me cold, although I’m glad that the sport grants the players more leeway after scoring than the repressive NFL does. A penalty (in the form of a yellow card) will be assessed for removing one’s shirt, but this just encourages players find more creative ways to celebrate. Sometimes they use the corner flag as prop. But my favorite use of a prop occurred years
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August 25, 2013 — John Hinderaker
In a sane world, this would be a scandal: Obama’s Department of Justice has sued to block poor African-Americans (and others) from escaping failing schools in Louisiana and trying, at least, to get a decent education: The Justice Department is trying to stop a school vouchers program in Louisiana that attempts to help families send their children to independent schools instead of under-performing public schools. The agency wants to stop
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August 25, 2013 — John Hinderaker
In foreign policy, anyway. Funny thing about getting that 2012 election behind us; now that President Obama has been safely re-elected, we are seeing occasional outbursts of honesty about his performance. This AP report by Julie Pace is surprisingly accurate: Nearly five years into his presidency, Barack Obama confronts a world far different from what he envisioned when he first took office. U.S. influence is declining in the Middle East
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August 25, 2013 — Steven Hayward
About 30 people turned out for the impromptu Power Line “Take Back Boulder” Rocky Mountain Meet Up yesterday at the Bohemian Biergarten in downtown Boulder. Don Brookins, the creator of the “Doorbell” entry from the Power Line Prize Competition two years ago, was there, along with a lot of other folks who came in some cases from a considerable distance. Orson Olson risked injury to his person by defiantly wearing
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August 25, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I’d not paid close attention to Mike Adams, professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, until the following account came to my attention courtesy of CollegeInsurrection.com, but after you take this in you’ll see why he belongs on the Power Line 100. Among other things (like high ratings on RateMyProfessor.com), he’s the author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically-Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” on Campus. I
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August 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Lee Rigby was brutally murdered by crazed Islamists in the streets of London this past May 22. In a feat of timing, the Oxford Union Society held a previously scheduled debate the following day on the motion this House believes that Islam is a religion of peace. The motion carried 286 to 168. The Oxford Union has posted videos of each of the six participants’ debate presentations here. You can
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August 25, 2013 — Steven Hayward
I can’t bear to take in the speeches being offered today in commemoration of Martin Luther King’s famous March on Washington speech that took place 50 years ago this week. A note from Ken Masugi this morning observes that most of the speeches are partisan drivel and Obama cheerleading, a sign of the appalling decay of the so-called civil rights movement today. Ken notes separately how the Martin Luther King
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August 24, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Nicholas Frankovich at NRO writes: Bradley Manning wants to change his sex, and the bien-pensants of the Left honor his decision, changing the gender of the pronouns they use to refer to him. Meanwhile, John Doe wants to change his sexual orientation, but that’s different: They rush to save him from the horror of his self-hatred and psychological self-punishment, as they see it. Hence the bill that Governor Chris Christie
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August 24, 2013 — John Hinderaker
We have had fun at the expense of John Kerry, who only aspires to be a Frenchman. It turns out that the real article–in this case, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius–can match Kerry’s myopia. Agence France-Presse reports: A successful outcome to the US-brokered negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians would be like a “thunderbolt” for peace in the crisis-ridden Middle East, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Saturday. “Even if we
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August 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Via Rosanne Cash’s Twitter feed yesterday I learned the sad news that Linda Ronstadt has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Rondstadt discovered that the disease accounts for the loss of her singing voice. The Telegraph reports the story here. According to the Telegraph story Ronstadt has been experiencing the symptoms of Parkinson’s for the past eight years. We saw her perform at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis about five or six
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August 24, 2013 — John Hinderaker
…has long been Bar Rafaeli, for reasons that require no explanation. When a woman looks like Bar you can forgive anything, even dating Leonardo DiCaprio. But Rafaeli has not been terribly popular in her native Israel, mostly because she dodged service in the IDF and later explained, in a moment of ill-advised candor: I don’t regret not enlisting, because it paid off big time. That’s just the way it is;
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August 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
One of Lincoln’s many illustrations of the sophistry of the slavers was the question: “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” Trick question! The answer, as Lincoln pointed out, is still four: calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. So does Bradley Manning (and I use “Manning” advisedly) become a woman just because he says he is? If he wants
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August 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Susan Rice is the protagonist of our “Fools and knaves” series going back to the Sunday she hit the gabfests to circulate the Obama administration’s stupid Benghazi talking points in her capacity as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. She is the protagonist, but she is of course supported by a cast of Obama administration all stars including her patron. She is a piece of work. Failing upward, she
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