Monthly Archives: May 2015

The real Rand Paul stands up

Featured image As John notes below, Rand Paul has used his Senatorial prerogative to block the Patriot Act. As a result, its provisions will expire at midnight. A new Act will be passed, but probably not for at least 72 hours. Let’s hope that terrorists worldwide respect Sen. Paul’s prerogative and wait 72 hours before using using U.S. phone lines to plot attacks on U.S. interests. Rand Paul is concerned, as he »

Media Alert: Bill Bennett Tomorrow Morning

Featured image For commuters in the east and early risers elsewhere, I’ll be a guest on Bill Bennett’s “Morning in America” radio show at 8:05 am eastern time tomorrow (Monday) morning, to talk about the latest in climate science, and other topics. Tune in to your local station, or you can listen in online at BillBennett.com. Call in! Love to say hello to Power Line readers. »

2014-15 EPL round-up and all-stars

Featured image English soccer wrapped up its season on Saturday when Arsenal crushed Aston Villa 4-0 in the FA Cup final. This makes back-to-back FA Cup titles for the Gunners. Saturday’s victory capped a fine season for Arsenal. The Gunners finished third in the EPL, thus qualifying for the Champions League for the 18th year in a row. Once again, Arsenal made a fool out of celebrity (sort of) fan Piers Morgan. »

Rand Paul Blocks Patriot Act Extension, For Now

Featured image Important provisions of the Patriot Act expire at midnight tonight, unless renewed by Congress. The House has passed such a bill, and the Senate has been in session today, trying to do the same. This effort was blocked, in the end, by one senator: Rand Paul. Fox News reports: The Senate failed Sunday to strike a deal to extend the NSA’s phone surveillance program before the midnight deadline. … The »

Buzz

Featured image Our friend David Lebedoff has written a number of books, one or two of which we have plugged here. But now, just in time for the Summer beach market, he has published his first thriller, called Buzz. Buzz is somewhat in the tradition of Jaws, only the deadly predator is a whole lot smaller. Most of us are used to swatting them without much thought: That’s right: mosquitos. The plot »

Break a Leg!

Featured image John Kerry is a noted sportsman, despite his 71 years. Who can forget how he wind-surfed his way into the hearts of voters everywhere in 2004? Or his goose-hunting excursion in Ohio during the same campaign, where he claimed to have shot a goose–gotta have credibility with these swing-state rubes!–but when he emerged from the woods he wasn’t carrying one; a picture of a dead goose would have been bad »

On Tuesday, P.J. O’Rourke at the Center of the American Experiment

Featured image The 25th Annual Dinner of the Center of the American Experiment is Tuesday evening at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. For something like the ninth year in a row, I will serve as master of ceremonies. The featured speaker will be P.J. O’Rourke, so the evening should be a great deal of fun. America’s most famous political humorist, P.J. has written for such diverse publications as National Lampoon, Car »

Behind Science Fraud, Chapter 7

Featured image New York magazine has a terrific piece up this weekend that tells the whole story of how the Green-LaCour Science magazine article on changing support for gay marriage by way of a canvas was exposed as a fraud—by another graduate student. It’s a long piece, but worth an extra-grande latte and a good slow read. In addition to the details of the fraud itself—which involved LaCour fabricating emails with a »

On encountering Hillary Clinton’s “old friends”

Featured image One by one, Hillary Clinton’s “old friends” are surfacing as figures in the 2016 presidential campaign. George Stephanopoulos put himself front and center by suggesting that Peter Schweizer, author of an expose about the Clinton Foundation, has an ax to grind because he worked briefly as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Stephanopoulos, who worked in the Clinton administration for years, failed to disclose that he contributes time and »

Media alert

Featured image Tonight at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, I will be on One America News Network talking about Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi emails. The show is called “On Point.” The host is the dynamic Tomi Lahren. One America News Network is a national TV news network. It airs on Verizon Fios, channel 116, AT&T U-verse, channel 208, and CenturyLink Prism, channel 209. It streams on Roku and Amazon Fire. I’ll be on for »

Deep secrets of racial profiling (1)

Featured image The current assault on the criminal justice system has taken the form of an assault on local law enforcement as racist. Who speaks for the police? Not many. The task has apparently fallen to Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, profiled recently by Charles Cooke in the NR cover story “The sheriff as rebel.” Inundated as we are by a farrago of politically inspired falsehood and hysteria, it may be useful »

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the coming ninny state

Featured image Scott’s post, “The Unmaking of a Mayor,” directs our attention to the stunning exchange between Fox News Channel’s Leland Vittert and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake during her weekly press conference. Vittert was pressing Rawlings-Blake on whether the wave of shootings that has plagued Baltimore is related to the sharp decline in arrests. Rawlings-Blake looked like a deer in the headlights. I almost wanted to find her a “safe space” and »

I’ll say one thing for Martin O’Malley

Featured image He isn’t Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. But then, Rawlings-Blake, the current mayor of Baltimore, isn’t running for President. O’Malley, the former Baltimore mayor is, and he’s not profiting from reports about how badly the city is doing. As the Washington Post puts it, “Baltimore’s blight has O’Malley on the defensive.” The Post provides a useful look at O’Malley’s time as mayor. As you would expect from an ambitious liberal, O’Malley was an »

Is the Iran deal good for us?

Featured image Intelligence Squared US arranged one of its excellent debates on the upper West Side of Manhattan this week. The debate had as its subject the merits of President Obama’s pending arrangement with Iran. Addressing the proposition that the deal is good for the United States, the debate matched Philip Gordon and Amb. Thomas Pickering (for the affirmative) with Michael Doran and Mark Dubowitz (for the negative), with moderator John Donvan »

The Power Line Show, Episode 18: Obama’s Global Crack-Up, With Pete Wehner

Featured image Last night, Steve, Paul and I were joined by Pete Wehner of the Ethics and Public Policy Center for a discussion of the comprehensive failures of the Obama administration in foreign policy. The conversation took off from Pete’s recent Commentary post, “Counting Up Obama’s Cataclysmic Foreign Policy Failures.” Pete then stayed with us for a spirited discussion of “reform conservatism,” a movement with which he is identified. It is a »

Life lessons from Justice Thomas

Featured image This is the season of formulaic left-wing commencement speeches. Contributing to the cause of true “diversity” — diversity in the life of the mind — Zev Chafets has edited a volume of heterodox commencement speeches under the title Remembering Who We Are: A Treasury of Conservative Commencement Addresses. There are several speeches that I find inspirational and/or moving and/or thought-provoking in the book. One that is all of the above, »

The Week in Pictures: Liberal Crack Up Edition

Featured image In looking for a theme for the week, it is hard to escape noticing the senescence of liberalism across the board. Obama is lame even for a lame duck, with the relentless advance of ISIS making a hash of his pronouncements about how we were on the road to defeating them. Bernie Sanders is stuck in a Galbraithian time warp; surely he’ll advocate regulating advertising after we ban Ban Roll-On. »