Monthly Archives: April 2016

Democrats channel Herman Cain

Featured image Politico reports that the White House and its allies are about to commence a new campaign to get a hearing and a vote for Judge Merrick Garland. They’re calling it the 9-9-9 campaign: nine states, during nine days, to push for a court with nine justices. The nine states are ones where Democrats think they might be able to pick up Senate seats this Fall. In addition, to the usual »

Baltimore’s shrinking police department

Featured image The Baltimore Sun reports that in the year since the death of Freddy Gray, 271 sworn members have left Baltimore’s police department. Only 86 have been hired. The department currently has 284 vacant positions in a force of around 2,300. It’s not difficult to understand the mass resignations (about 3 every 4 days). Gray’s death was followed by riots in which police officers were told to stand down in the »

Back to Your Safe Spaces, WHM Is Ending!

Featured image Today is the last day of Whiteness History Month up at Portland Community College, though it is not clear whether the social justice set at PCC want the world to know about it or not. Yesterday a person attempted to videotape a session on feminist theory, and as you can see at the beginning of this six minute video, one of the instructors encourages people in the audience to physically »

All Those Years, Prince Was Working for the Government

Featured image Prince probably never thought of himself as a public employee, but it turns out that the main beneficiary of his decades of hard work will be the government. The Heritage Foundation’s Rachel Greszler explains: Although Prince has one full sister and five half-siblings, Prince’s family members will not be his biggest heirs. Both the federal government and Minnesota’s state government will assess so-called “death taxes” or estate taxes on Prince’s »

Hillary Wants to Make It Illegal to Criticize Her

Featured image In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN yesterday, Hillary Clinton had this to say about the Citizens United decision: I really respect the important point of getting money out of politics. Remember, Citizens United was an attack on me, so I take it very personally and even before Senator Sanders got into the campaign way back in April of last year, I said we are going to reverse Citizens »

The Power Line Show, Episode 34: Back in the Arena!

Featured image The Power Line Show was on hiatus while I toured Australia and the Caribbean. But I’m back now, and yesterday Scott, Steve and I recorded Episode 34 of the Power Line Show. Our guest was Pete Hegseth, an old friend from his days in the military and with Vets For Freedom. Pete’s new book is called In the Arena. He talked about his experiences as a soldier in Guantanamo Bay, »

Trump Gets the Zizek Endorsement

Featured image Slavoj Zizek is one of the celebrity figures of the radical Left today, one of those intellectuals whose fame seems to be derived in inverse proportion to the distance between his thought and intelligibility. The Guardian describes him thus: But Žižek is not just any self-declared Leninist: the Slovenian philosopher not only incorporates the intellectual rigours of Hegelian dialectics and Lacanian psychoanalysis into his wideranging critique of global capitalism, but also »

A big week for “Glencoe man”

Featured image The Star Tribune headline refers to Abdul Raheem Habil Ali-Skelton (no relation to Red) as “Glencoe man.” (Glencoe is a small town about 50 miles west of Minneapolis.) Ali-Skelton seems to have something in common with the “Minnesota men” charged with supporting ISIS. Indeed, Ali-Skelton pleaded guilty this past Wednesday of lying to the FBI about his contacts with ISIS. Prosecutors said he had exchanged more than 75 messages with »

Live from Omaha, it’s James Hansen

Featured image Nebraska attorney Dave Begley is our faithful Omaha correspondent. Dave reports: Friday night in a crowd of 500 to 700 people at Creighton University it appeared that I was not only the only conservative, I was also the only person who was thinking clearly and critically. One of global warming’s oldest and most revered leaders, Dr. James Hansen, spoke prior to his protest at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting on »

The Week in Pictures: Bathroom Break Edition

The Great Bathroom Wars of 2016 are still raging at full pitch, and we won’t take a break from our stall-to-stall . . . coverage of this epochal moment in the decline of the West. At least we still have toilet paper, unlike Venezuela. Meanwhile, Trump rolls on, the campuses are still falling apart, and the California legislature has refused to pass a resolution in honor of John Wayne because »

How Does Hillary Run On a Bad Economy?

Featured image Democrats love to cherry pick statistics to make the case that Barack Obama’s stewardship of our economy has been successful. Obama himself often claims to have saved the world economy from disaster, but how? If anything averted collapse, it was the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was executed by the Bush administration, for better or worse. If any government measure saved the economy, it was TARP. The “stimulus” bill that »

Will Rioters Hand the Election to Trump?

Featured image I think Donald Trump likely will defeat Hillary Clinton, simply because she is such a terrible candidate. But if the current trend toward anti-Trump riots and violence continues, Trump could win going away. Last night in Orange County, Trump addressed a crowd of thousands. Anti-Trump demonstrators, some waving Mexican flags, attacked policemen and bystanders. The liberal Los Angeles Times reports: Hundreds of demonstrators filled the street outside the Orange County »

Pence finally endorses Cruz

Featured image With only a few days remaining before the Indiana primary, Gov. Mike Pence has endorsed Ted Cruz. He did so during a radio interview this morning. Pence began by praising Donald Trump. He stated: I like and respect all three of the Republican candidates in the field. I particularly want to commend Donald Trump who I think has given voice to the frustration of millions of working Americans with a »

Why Are Liberals So Insecure and Miserable?

Featured image You may have seen the news yesterday that the faculty senate at George Mason University has voted by a wide margin to oppose naming their well-regarded law school after Antonin Scalia. Among other complaints, according to Inside Higher Ed, is “the reinforcement of the external branding of the university as a conservative institution rather than an unaligned body that is a comfortable home for individuals with a variety of viewpoints.” »

Ted Olson’s Bad Idea, Take 2

Featured image Further to Paul’s point below on “Ted Olson’s Bad Idea,” just take in the dreams of Erwin Chemerinsky, writing a couple weeks ago in The Atlantic about his ideas for what the Supreme Court could do with a durable liberal majority. Chemernisky, one of the leading liberal law professors in the country, doesn’t even try to disguise or dress up his undemocratic will to power: Thinking of a Court where »

Ted Olson’s bad idea

Featured image The estimable Ted Olson, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argues in favor of Republicans giving Judge Merrick Garland, President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, “a good look, a respectful hearing and a vote on the merits.” More broadly, Olson calls for “a pact. . .among responsible Republican and Democratic leaders to give well-qualified Supreme Court nominees of either party a hearing and a vote within 120-180 days of a nomination.” »

Roots of BDS

Featured image The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign seeks to delegitimize and destroy Israel. It has made its presence felt on many college campuses. Whence BDS? Bret Stephens and Caroline Glick devote invaluable columns to the question this week. Both columns are based on the eye-opening testimony presented by former Treasury official Jonathan Schanzer, now with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism »