June 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In its second term the Obama administration continues to do great harm to the land of the free and the home of the brave, nowhere more so than in the preservation of Obamacare. We really ought to be paying more attention to the subject. Open enrollment for Obamacare begins on October 1 for full implementation on January 1, 2014. The program is designed to capture millions of new clients for
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June 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has posted a statement on the IRS investigation that responds to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings’ announced intention to post the full investigative interview of IRS employee John Shafer online. Cummings has now posted the transcript here (part 1) and here (part 2), as the Washington Post reports. Here is Issa’s statement in its entirety: I am deeply disappointed that Ranking Member Cummings has decided
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June 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Democrats of the (Democratic) House Majority PAC are out with a seemingly ubiquitous Internet ad that blares: DON’T LET STUDENT LOAN RATES SKYROCKET! TELL REP. KLINE: STOP SCAMMING STUDENTS! Usage note: “Ubiquitous” is an adjective that does not admit of comparison. It means present everywhere at once. Something is not “very” ubiquitous, or “relatively” ubiquitous. In this context, when I use the adjective, I am describing a stupid left-wing
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June 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
It really shouldn’t be difficult to understand Iran’s presidential election, assuming you pay attention to such things. If you get your news from the mainstream media, however, it might be close to impossible to understand it. As Paul demonstrates, going a little bit out of your way online you can quickly find just about everything you need to know about the election and the winner, one Hassan Rouhani. Take, for
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June 17, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In “The other IRS scandal” John took a look at the IRS treatment of pro-Israel charities. The experience of some pro-Israel groups suggested that they had been subject to harassing and discriminatory treatment based on their support of policies that conflict with those of the Obama administration. John called for The House committees that looking into the IRS scandal to put this topic high on their agenda. My daughter Eliana
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June 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson
My father was a thoughtful man. In the last years of his life he listed the things he was most grateful for and in retrospect I can see he thought about gratitude a lot. He itemized the three things he was most grateful for in this order: 1) that his grandfather didn’t miss the boat from Russia to the United States, 2) that when his grandfather arrived in New York
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June 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Diana West’s American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character has just been published. I have only started the book and am unable to evaluate it, but I can say I hope it gets a hearing. Diana writes of the six-and-a-half minute video below: “Went on with the delightful Michael Coren on Sun TV in Canada last night to make my first attempt at sound-byting the 401 pages and
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June 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In “Are we on the verge of a conservative crackup?” Paul Mirengoff articulates the concerns I have had roiling in the back of my mind about the divisions within the dissident movement against unlimited government. Paul itemizes the big issues fomenting the crackup as immigration, foreign policy and national security. I’m with him down the line on the points in issue. I only want to add a personal footnote. In
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June 14, 2013 — Scott Johnson
FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan had a few questions about the FBI’s investigation of the IRS scandal. With a few basic questions about the case, Jordan stumped Mueller. Language note: It’s always a bad sign — indeed, it echoes Watergate’s “at this point in time” — when the witness limits his answer to “this juncture.”
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June 14, 2013 — Scott Johnson
This morning we conclude our preview of the Spring issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) with an essay on that most American of American novels, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The essay is by Power Line 100 member Paul A. Cantor, the Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English at the University of Virginia. Professor Cantor begins by noting the distance between the popular perception of Huck
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June 13, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Spring issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here) is out with the magazine’s usual ration of high-quality reviews and essays. Yesterday we previewed Colin Dueck’s review/essay on the folly of liberals, who mistook the end of the Cold War for the end of geopolitical competition. Today we turn to our very own, very prolific Steven F. Hayward’s review of two books on the postwar revival of free
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June 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Over at InstaPundit, Glenn Reynolds makes a shrewd observation about David Brooks that seems to me worth rescuing from the stream of links. Glenn writes: WHEN WOMEN COMPLAIN ABOUT THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHIVALRY, I’m prone to point out that chivalry was a system, one that imposed obligations of behavior on women and girls as well as on men. Likewise, when David Brooks complains that Edward Snowden is an unmediated man,
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June 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
This past weekend I pored over the magnificent new (Spring) issue of the Claremont Review of Books. The CRB is the flagship publication of the Claremont Institute and my favorite magazine. I want to persuade you to subscribe to it, which you can do here for the ridiculously low, heavily subsidized price of $19.95 a year and get immediate online access thrown in to boot. As has become the custom,
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June 12, 2013 — Scott Johnson
José Millán Astray was the founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion and a supporter of Francisco Franco. In a famous confrontation at the University of Salamanca early in the Spanish Civil War, he is said to have responded to a statement of Unamuno with the imprecation (variously reported): “¡Abajo la inteligencia!” (down with the intelligentsia). In his brilliant contribution to National Review’s fifteenth anniversary issue in 1970, Jeffrey Hart began
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June 11, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The New York Post adds detail to one of the scandals mentioned in yesterday’s CBS report in the series of scandals involving Hillary Clinton’s State Department. John wrote about the CBS report here. Now the Post reports: A State Department whistleblower has accused high-ranking staff of a massive coverup — including keeping a lid on findings that members of then-Secretary Hillary Clinton’s security detail and the Belgian ambassador solicited prostitutes.
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June 11, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review and the author, most recently, of Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream–and How We Can Do It Again, published today. I asked Rich if he would write about the book for Power Line readers on the book’s publication date. Rich has graciously responded as follows: Scott, thanks so much for the invitation to tell your readers a
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June 10, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In a sidebar to the Washington Post’s profile of of NSA leakmeister Edward Snowden, Barton Gellman reports regarding Snowden: “I understand that I will be made to suffer for my actions, and that the return of this information to the public marks my end,” he wrote in early May, before we had our first direct contact. He warned that even journalists who pursued his story were at risk until they
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