Monthly Archives: August 2014
August 29, 2014 — John Hinderaker
President Obama can’t come up with a strategy to deal with ISIS. It’s just so…complicated. Here’s an idea: how about if we kill them? I don’t suppose Obama will go with that one. But hey: even Dilbert has a better grasp of strategy than our clueless president: OK, it may not be optimal, but it’s better than anything the Obama administration has come up with!
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August 29, 2014 — John Hinderaker
It was revealed today that Islamic terrorist groups are operating in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and that federal agencies have issued a warning of an “imminent terrorist attack on the border”: Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have
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August 29, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Sometimes it seems that Minnesota is ground zero in the war against terrorism. The problem is that we’re on the wrong side. This week we learned that two men identified as Minnesotans had died fighting for the Islamic State in Syria and now is such a time. Reporting from ground zero, we pause to ask what is happening here? One of the two — Abdiraaman Muhumed — was a Somali
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August 29, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The latest Gallup poll on President Obama job performance is out. At the top line, things could be worse for the president and his party. 44 percent approve of his performance, while 53 percent disapprove. That’s considerably worse than in the run-up to the 2010 election, and certainly cause for concern among Democrats. But Dems won’t be surprised by this split which, as I said, could be worse. The intensity
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August 29, 2014 — Scott Johnson
The University of Minnesota is another brick in the wall of the institutional left that holds Minnesota under its thumb. The university has done and continues to do some great things, but in many ways it remains an enemy of the ordinary citizen seeking to get on with his life. Its outré history faculty, to take just one example, is among the vanguard of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas supporters, and they’re not
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August 29, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Marco Rubio says that if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brought the immigration reform bill that Rubio sponsored last year to the floor for a vote now, he would vote against it. Rubio explained that passing his immigration bill wouldn’t be productive, and thus the vote would only be for show. But if “unproductive” and “show votes” automatically deserved a “no,” our solons would rarely vote “yes.” If his
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August 29, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll concludes her series on her high school reunion in a column she titles “50th Reunion, or, How Did I Get This Old?” She writes: You know those beautiful young ladies in high school back when you were a nerd who could never date them (if you were a boy) or BE them (if you were a girl)? Well, they are still beautiful! What kind of karmic fairness is
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August 28, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument yesterday in the case of Davis v. Guam. The hearing occurred in Guam, the first time the Ninth Circuit has sat there since 2002. Mr. Davis, a resident of Guam, attempted to register to vote in a plebiscite on Guam’s relationship to the United States. He was denied permission to register because he could not trace his
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August 28, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Michael Brown was a very large young man, 6’4″ and 292 (sometimes reported as 300) pounds. He used his size aggressively to rob a convenience store and shove aside a store clerk just ten minutes before his fatal encounter with a police officer. Brown’s height and weight are obviously relevant to the police officer’s claim of self-defense, which we assume will eventually be forthcoming. Yet these basic physical facts are
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August 28, 2014 — John Hinderaker
President Obama gave a press conference today, in which the prime topic was ISIL. Obama’s constant theme was that we don’t have a strategy to deal with the terrorist organization that has been rampaging across Syria and Iraq for months. A transcript of the press conference is here: I’ll be meeting with my National Security Council again this evening as we continue to develop that strategy. And I’ve been consulting
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August 28, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the College Board’s effort to mandate that AP U.S. History be taught from a leftist perspective. That perspective is based, in part, on a critique of “American exceptionalism.” In my post, borrowing from Stanley Kurtz, I took “American exceptionalism” to mean the view that celebrates America as a model, vindicator, and at times the chief defender of ordered liberty and self-government in the world. There are,
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August 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
No surprise here, but I had overlooked what Peter Wehner has extracted from the Jerusalem Post: Speaking extensively on US relations with Jerusalem since the end of the latest round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians last April, and throughout Operation Protective Edge, a candid [former US special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Martin] Indyk said at times US President Barack Obama has become “enraged” at the Israeli government,
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August 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
The historian Jeffrey Herf writes at the American Interest of the emergence of a pro-Hamas left: On July 31, 2014, a group of left-leaning historians called “Historians Against the War” posted an open letter to President Obama denouncing Israel’s actions in the Gaza War and calling for a cut-off of American military assistance to Israel. On August 13, the letter was posted on the website of the History News Network.
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August 28, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
Radical Democrat activist groups stand to collect millions from Attorney General Eric Holder’s record $17 billion deal to settle alleged mortgage abuse charges against Bank of America, Investors’ Business Daily reports: Buried in the fine print of the deal, which includes $7 billion in soft-dollar consumer relief, are a raft of political payoffs to Obama constituency groups. In effect, the government has ordered the nation’s largest bank to create a
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August 28, 2014 — Steven Hayward
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported (“Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy”) on the high cost of the climate-related energy fanaticism of Germany’s green shirts (why not?), which is now starting to take a tangible toll on the country’s economic competitiveness: Average electricity prices for companies have jumped 60% over the past five years because of costs passed along as part of government subsidies of renewable energy producers. Prices are
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August 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Visiting New York with my father in 1967 or 1968, I somehow persuaded him to take me to see the Fugs in one of their now legendary nightly performances at Greenwich Village’s Players Theater. It was a memorable show with something close to the founding group of the Fugs including Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg and two or three others. Thankfully, my dad fell asleep before the Fugs hit their scatological
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August 27, 2014 — John Hinderaker
The government of the United States is suing the town of St. Anthony, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb with a population a little over 8,000, to force the town to allow development of an Islamic center in an area reserved for industrial development. It is a minor news story, but one that sheds light on broader legal and cultural trends. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports: The federal government on Wednesday
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