Monthly Archives: September 2013
September 25, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The White House has posted the text of President Obama’s speech to the United Nations yesterday here. Paul has ably extracted the highlights, so to speak, and explicated them here. Obama’s speech should be read in its entirety. The speech represents a comprehensive map of misreading, to borrow Harold Bloom’s phrase. It takes us on a tour of American interests focused on the Middle East and advertises the cluelessness that
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September 24, 2013 — John Hinderaker
At this hour, Ted Cruz is still speaking on the Senate floor. He is, at this moment, reading Green Eggs and Ham as a bedtime story for his children, but until how he has carried on a long, substantive denunciation of Obamacare. The parts I listened to were very good. It isn’t exactly a filibuster, just a really long speech. Still, he clearly intends to follow in Rand Paul’s footsteps;
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September 24, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Scott Rasmussen polled voters on whom they trust, and found that voters prefer Republicans over Democrats on ten of fifteen issues. Not only that, the issues where voters trust the GOP more than Democrats are generally the most important ones: the economy (by seven points), national security (15 points), taxes (seven points) and spending (21 points). Here is the complete list: There are some interesting findings. The Democrats (and some
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September 24, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
President Obama addressed the United Nations today. It’s a fool’s errand if you think about it, and Obama’s remarks were duly foolish. He began by assuring the world of America’s near-pacifism and lack of seriousness when it comes to fighting terrorism. Obama cited our retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan, new limitations on the use of drones, and his “diligent” work to close Gitmo. The world already understands how ineffectual you
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September 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Yes. Next question? Gallup is out with a new poll showing the number of Americans who think the government has too much power at a record high: PRINCETON, NJ — Six in 10 Americans (60%) believe the federal government has too much power, one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. At least half of Americans since 2005 have said the government has too much power. Thirty-two
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September 24, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Back in the heady days of 2009-2010, I couldn’t eat a meal in a restaurant or watch a soccer match in a bar without overhearing wonky Washingtonian 20 or 30-somethings gushing about how proposed health care legislation — Obamacare — was going to “bend the cost curve.” These insufferable leftists were adopting a myth espoused by candidate Barack Obama in 2008. As Avik Roy reminds us: Back in 2008, three
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September 24, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
My conservative cousin from New York is basically an optimist, as befits a true Reaganite. But right now he’s far from optimistic about the New York City mayoral race or about the city’s future. The analysis appears below. For more on the radicalism of the man New York almost certainly will elect mayor, see Stanley Kurtz. The chances of Joe Lhota the GOP candidate for New York City Mayor winning
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September 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Last week a student presented himself in my office with a series of questions going back to the 1990s, with one in particular standing out: how the heck did Ross Perot emerge in 1992, and whatever happened to him and the populist mood he tapped into? Realize that today’s students were barely or not yet born in 1992, so this is distant history. The Tea Party phenomenon, of course, can
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September 24, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Tevi Troy’s excellent new book What Jefferson Read, Ike Watched, and Obama Tweeted is full of revealing stories about presidential consumption of books, movies, and television. His discussion of Barack Obama’s consumption of culture, both as president and before, is particularly revealing. Obama, it seems, is not the most cultured guy ever to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s not even the most cultured among recent residents. But Obama has
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September 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In his Temperance Address of 1842 to the Springfield Washington Temperance Society on the 110th anniversary of George Washington’s birth, Abraham Lincoln had some deep thoughts on the fine art of persuasion: “When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim, that a ‘drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of
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September 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Ted Cruz explains “The path to victory” in the struggle to defeat Obamacare. I have a hard time following the procedural twists and turns that Cruz insists must be taken. Bryan Preston seconds Cruz here and Glenn Reynolds offers a concise explanation here, but I have a somewhat easier time following Thomas Sowell’s explanation of “The defunding distraction.” There’s something about Senator Cruz that rubs me the wrong way. He
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September 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Joe Romm, who some environmentalists have called the Joe McCarthy of the climate campaign, has a brilliant satire up right now at ClimateProgress.org (the climate desk of the Center for American Progress). I can’t do any better than to just let you take in the Swiftian brilliance of his piece entitled, “Will Breaking Bad Have a ‘Koch Brothers Ending?’” (I swear, I’m not making this up.) With the finale of
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September 24, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Legendary songwriter Dan Penn returns with his friend Bobby Emmons to the Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant in downtown Minneapolis for a show this coming Monday, September 30. Penn’s site is here; his bio is here. The show is an almost unbelievable review of Penn’s almost unbelievable career at the heart of soul/rhythm and blues over the past 50 years. I have a pretty good idea what he’ll be doing
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September 23, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Is this related to the retirement of Lois Lerner? I don’t know, but it seems that the Obama administration has decided to cut its losses on the IRS. The Department of Justice told a federal court on Friday that it is conceding in the lawsuit brought by True the Vote, Inc., and will grant True the Vote 501(c)(3) status. True the Vote’s press release explains: TTV, the nation’s leading voters’
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September 23, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Remember when it was scandalous if a candidate for major office did not serve up for public scrutiny all of his tax returns going back years? Return with us now to those thrilling days of…2012. For much of that year’s presidential campaign, as Jim Geraghty recalls, Mitt Romney’s tax returns for 2011 and the period before 2010 were treated as a huge pressing issue for the wealthy candidate: Romney’s tax
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September 23, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this month, I argued that the U.S. is not really winning the war against al Qaeda. Although we have mainly succeeded against al Qaeda groups in Pakistan, at least for the time being, I noted that al Qaeda, having fundamentally shifted its approach, has become a global network. As such, it is arguably stronger today than it was in 2001. Events this weekend, highlighted here by Max Boot, tend
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September 23, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Immigration “reform” has something to do with amnesty for the 11 million or so who are now here illegally, but it has a great deal more to do with drastically increasing the future flow of legal immigrants. The Senate’s bill would authorize tens of millions of new immigrants over and above present levels, almost all of them–contrary to breathless news accounts of Mark Zuckerberg’s lobbying–low-skill. Why would anyone consider this
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