Monthly Archives: November 2015
November 29, 2015 — Scott Johnson
In today’s letters to the editor the Star Tribune publishes Gary Gilson’s apology for his sideswipe of John Hinderaker while swiping me head-on. Here is how it is published it today’s paper: DEBATE OVER THE MOVIE ‘TRUTH’ I apologize for a statement made about the Power Line blog In a Nov. 8 letter to the editor, I wrote that John Hinderaker, a founder of the conservative blog Power Line, had
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November 29, 2015 — Steven Hayward
According to diplomatic legend, when the French diplomat Talleyrand heard that the Turkish ambassador to the Congress of Vienna had died, he asked, “I wonder what he meant by that?” Alternative versions attribute this to Metternich, with the slightly different rendering: “I wonder what his motive was?” With the greatest climate conference peace conference since the Congress of Vienna getting under way in Paris tomorrow, it is worth noting the
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November 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Bill Otis reports that Opinion Research Corporation, in a poll taken during the period Nov. 19-22, asked a sample of 1008 adults the following question: Thinking about the criminal justice system, which comes closer to your view — that we have too many drug traffickers in prison for too long, or that we don’t do enough to keep drug traffickers off the street? It was no contest. Only 30 percent
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November 28, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Over 1,500 people in the Princeton community (not all of them students according to one report) have signed on to the Princeton Open Campus Coalition to President Eisgruber reported here the other day. No word yet on whether Eisgruber has agreed to meet with the Open Campus Coalition, but this is a good sign that the silent majority of non-crazy students on the campus is going to be a bit
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November 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Our friend Dave Begley has been running the rule over the Republican presidential field as it passes through Council Bluffs, Iowa and other venues not far from Omaha, Nebraska where Dave resides. We are proud to have featured his excellent reports on Power Line. Now, Dave has settled on a favorite candidate — Carly Fiorina. He explains why here. Dave argues that we need an “outsider” president. I agree that
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November 28, 2015 — John Hinderaker
When I hosted the Laura Ingraham radio show on Wednesday, one of our guests was Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. I quizzed Milbank about a column he had written two days before, asserting that Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist. Milbank got a little prickly; as a liberal journalist, he apparently isn’t used to being challenged. But it was, I thought, a good and civil exchange. The
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November 28, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Donald Trump has proved himself a master of mockery. It is a powerful weapon in his rhetorical arsenal. Sometimes it’s on target. Occasionally it misfires. It has yet to backfire. When his mockery has veered off target, Trump has effectively denied the upshot of the mockery. The latest case seems to me a misfire and the denial particularly implausible. Anthony Trollope titled the first of his Palliser series of novels
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November 28, 2015 — Steven Hayward
The next big UN climate summit opens on Monday in Paris, except—wait!—oops, it’s now a “Peace” conference, because climate change caused ISIS, 9/11, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hmm: global peace conference in Paris. Where have I heard of such a thing before? Maybe people will remember when the climate equivalent of the Versailles Treaty is announced in the next couple weeks, since we’re going through the War on Coal to
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November 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
From time to time, I have directed the attention of Power Line readers to the work of James P. Scanlan. Specifically, I have linked to and discussed his analyses of disparate impact theory in various contexts involving allegations of discrimination. Years ago, Jim wrote a piece for the Midwest Quarterly on a very different subject — nuclear deterrence. It was called “Facing the Paradox of Deterrence.” The paradox Jim posited
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November 27, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Yeah, right. With the latest U.N. confab scheduled to begin in Paris on Monday, global warming hysteria is being hyped by governments around the world. Reality, though, tends to intrude, as it did in Paris just a week or two ago. Between bullets and bombs on one hand, and the theoretical prospect of a one degree increase in average world temperatures on the other, which would bring us closer to
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November 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
In his article about the troubles at his alma mater, my Princeton alumnus friend noted the role of William Bowen, Provost from 1967 to 1972 and President from 1972 to 1988. Not content with screwing up Princeton, Bowen co-wrote (with former Harvard President Derek Bok) a defense of race-based preferential college admissions. The book bears the odd title The Shape of the River. In The Shape of the River, Bowen
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November 27, 2015 — John Hinderaker
In October 2014, Laquan McDonald, 17 years old and high on PCP, broke into a series of vehicles in a trucking yard. He then walked into the middle of a busy street, where he proceeded for some distance, followed by two policemen. The usual mantra, “unarmed black teenager,” is not used with respect to McDonald because he was carrying a knife, which he used to slash the tire of a
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November 27, 2015 — John Hinderaker
I hope your Thanksgiving was as enjoyable as mine. We had our immediate family for dinner (minus one daughter who is living in Australia), so there was no potential for political disagreement, as we are all conservatives. Of course, I can’t imagine any family spending Thanksgiving arguing about politics in any event. But the Democrats can. In fact, they encourage it. The Democratic Party has developed its own Thanksgiving tradition:
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November 27, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Hollywood provides a steady left-wing pressure on our politics, our culture, and our collective memory. This year the Rathergate film Truth gave an almost unbelievable example, turning the perpetrators of the greatest journalistic scandal of our times into heroes. John and I tried to set the record straight in the Weekly Standard article “Rather shameful” and the Star Tribune column “Lies upon lies.” As the institutional voice of the left,
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November 27, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll is feeling MARGINALIZED! (Thank God!). She writes: Marginalized is a silly, imprecise word thrown around a lot by the Perpetually Furious Grievance crowd without the slightest notion of its definition, let alone any documentation that deliberate “marginalization” exists. It sounds good, in that it sounds like something bad to be, something to whine about, and something one can blame others for. (Parenthetically, I can live with being marginalized;
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November 26, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Tomorrow morning I will guest host the Laura Ingraham show from 9 to 12 Eastern time. You can go here to find a station in your area. If you miss the show live, you can get highlights via podcast on iTunes, and it also airs later in the day on various stations. Guests will include Senator Rick Santorum, our own Steve Hayward, and Chad Hennings, author of Forces of Character.
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November 26, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Last night I did a not-very-serious post about this cartoon by my favorite cartoonist, Michael Ramirez. I liked the cartoon, I said, and the three turkeys pictured bore an obvious resemblance, but I felt like I was missing something: Lots of readers weighed in with their interpretations. But now we have the definitive word from Michael Ramirez himself, who took note of my puzzlement and wrote to explain: Hey John,
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