Monthly Archives: February 2014

Some call it “political unrest”

Featured image Whoever he was, he was an exceedingly wise man who said that it is “[b]etter to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.” President Obama proved the wisdom of the adage once again this afternoon in his statement “on political unrest in the Ukraine,” as the White House fittingly styles it. You can’t make this stuff up. This is the statement in »

Who Is Un-American? Harry Reid Violates All Standards of Decency

Featured image Once upon a time we had the House Un-American Activities Committee. Most people, certainly most Democrats, would call that an ugly chapter in our history. But those who were called “un-American” during the 1950s were (or were believed to be) traitors in the pay of a hostile power. Calling them “un-American” was not such a stretch. Since then, the term has gone entirely out of fashion. Can you imagine the »

Russia Invades Ukraine, Obama Declares Happy Hour

Featured image Russian troops are on the move in Crimea. Ukraine’s Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said that Russia is trying to seize the territory: Authorities closed airspace over Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and at least five Russian transport planes landed at a military air strip near the regional capital late Friday, as the country’s acting president accused Moscow of trying to seize territory. A duty officer at the Simferopol airport said that »

Politics and ideology trump justice at Swarthmore

Featured image “Why could we not expel a student based on an allegation” of serious sexual misconduct?” asked Amanda Childress, the Sexual Assault Awareness Program coordinator at Dartmouth College. As posed, the question is aspirational. But it looks like some colleges have adopted practices that approach Childress’ aspiration. Swarthmore College seems to be one of them. Swarthmore grad Peter Berkowitz reports on a lawsuit filed against Swarthmore by “John Doe,” whom that »

Election law experts join in the denuniciation of IRS’s attempt to curb free speech

Featured image Scott and I have been writing about the IRS’s latest attempt to silence conservatives, this time through potentially crippling regulations on political advocacy groups (known as 501(c)(4) organizations). The period for commenting on the IRS’s proposed rules, which we discussed with some specificity here, is now closed. I understand that more than 120,000 comments have been filed. The proposed rules don’t just adversely affect conservative groups. Many liberal groups would »

Minnesota Man Who Filmed Sheriff’s Deputies Acquitted By Jury

Featured image I have long been a big supporter of the police, but it is undeniable that in recent years, too many instances of abusive behavior by law enforcement have come to light. To a great extent, this is due to the ubiquity of video cameras, in cell phones and elsewhere, that allow public actions of law enforcement to be recorded. Understandably, some police officers don’t like this fact, and Glenn Reynolds »

The Climate Desperados

Featured image Just when you think the Climatistas can’t get any more desperate, they get their freak on to a whole new level.  The latest claim to add to The Warmlist of things caused by global warming is . . . a higher crime rate—100 years from now. I love the precision of this forecast, which matches the faux-precision of temperature forecasts 100 years out: Should global warming (or climate change, or »

Obamacare in seven states

Featured image Peter Suderman conducts a tour of seven state Obamacare exchanges that have been hobbled by technical difficulties. Suderman compiles the sums spent on the state exchanges and notes this mind-blowing fact: “The federal government spent more on broken state-run exchanges than it did on its own troubled system.” Assessing the performance of the state exchanges, Suderman finds that Obamacare is well above the Mendoza line but putting in a pitiful »

The Collected Cleta: The IRS scandals

Featured image To understand the Obama administration properly, one has to understand the multifarious wrongdoing committed by the IRS at the behest of President Obama and the Democratic Party. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel puts it this way in her weekly column today: “Few presidents understand the power of speech better than Barack Obama, and even fewer the power of denying it to others. That’s the context for understanding the White »

The Camp tax proposal and Reform Republicanism

Featured image House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp has proposed a radical overhaul of the U.S. Tax Code. Camp’s proposal broadens the tax base and lowers tax rates, which is the correct direction in which to move. Camp touts his proposal as “tax simplification,” which seems to be fair up to a point. However, his 1,000 page bill will leave federal taxation a complicated affair. Here, via Accounting Today, are »

9th Circuit Holds that School Can Ban Display of American Flag

Featured image You may have heard about Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District, in which a unanimous panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that it was permissible for a public high school to demand that students remove clothing that displayed an American flag. Many conservatives are understandably upset with the decision. The context was this: the high school, in northern California, had a history of conflict between Caucasian »

Keystone: Environmentalists Suddenly Rediscover Property Rights

Featured image In George Will’s fine column this morning that makes a nice shout out to Power Line, he mentions the lefty billionaire Tom Steyer’s plans to spend heavily not only to block the Keystone pipeline, but to push climate measures generally.  I’ve been wondering whether Steyer might go so far as to buy land in on the pipeline route and then attempt to resist the eminent domain proceedings that will be »

Obama Launches “Brother’s Keeper” Initiative

Featured image At the White House today, President Obama announced a new program called “My Brother’s Keeper.” President Barack Obama on Thursday launched his “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, urging stronger efforts to create more opportunities for young minority men and to improve conditions that keep them impoverished and imprisoned in disproportionate numbers. If you keep reading, however, you see that Obama doesn’t really mean “minority men,” or, as he also put it, »

FBI suspected that first Clay-Liston fight was fixed

Featured image Fifty years ago this week Cassius Clay “shocked the world” by defeating Sonny Liston to win the Heavyweight Championship. Clay was a 7-1 underdog. Sports Illustrated rated his victory the fourth-greatest sports moment of the 20th century. However, Thom Loverro of the Washington Times reports that the FBI suspected the fight may have been fixed by a Las Vegas figure tied to organized crime and to Liston. The FBI was »

Media Alert [UPDATED]

I am scheduled to appear on KMOX CBS Radio St. Louis at 2:15 p.m. Eastern Time with host Mark Reardon. We will discuss Arizona S.B. 1062 and Gov. Brewer’s veto thereof. My appearance will be brief, but I’m looking forward to it. UPDATE: I’ve recorded the interview. I think it went well and that Reardon was an excellent questioner. I’m told, though, that the interview won’t air until sometime between »

The Russian Bear, On the Move

Featured image With the Olympics over, Vladimir Putin has Russia on the march. Former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych has surfaced in Russia, where he has been given asylum. In Crimea–a part of Ukraine–armed men have seized the Parliament building and hoisted the Russian flag: The buildings of the Crimean Council of Ministers and the Crimean parliament were seized by an unknown group of 120 armed men at around 4 a.m., according to »

Happy Birthday to the Tea Party

Featured image There will be a celebration of the fifth anniversary of the Tea Party today in Washington DC.  The Wall Street Journal‘s Jason Riley gives a run down here.  The Tea Party is the best thing to happen to American politics since the tax revolt of the 1970s.  Paradoxically, its broader focus has made it both less easy to lead and organize effectively, and easier for liberal media to attack, such »