Barack Obama

The Week in Cancellation: Bonus Obama Edition?

Featured image I’ve had a theory for a while now, for which there is some suggestive empirical survey data, that the left began to go nuts a couple years before Trump rode down the escalator in 2015 and caused full-blown leftist insanity. The theory, first suggested to me by Charles Murray actually, is that the activist left was frustrated and angry by around 2014 that President Obama was such a huge disappointment. »

Democrats rely on myth to defend their unwillingness to compromise

Featured image Joe Biden and the Democrats plan to go it alone on stimulus legislation in response to the Wuhan coronavirus. Apparently, they will not compromise in order to pick up Republican support. There’s nothing wrong with that. The Dems have a majority in the House and the functional equivalent of one in the Senate. They can do whatever they want on stimulus, thanks to the miracle of “budget reconciliation.” What Biden »

Open judgeships

Featured image Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell did a fine job of filling federal court of appeals judgeships. They left very little on the table for Joe Biden. However, if one looks at federal district courts, a different picture emerges. Trump and Senate Republicans left more than 50 district court judgeships unfilled at the end of Trump’s term. Some of these slots have been vacant for four years or more. These were »

Who is running the Biden administration?

Featured image Is it Joe Biden? Maybe, but many question whether he has the mental capacity and the energy to run the show. In this post about the Biden administration’s early hard-left initiatives, I speculated that Susan Rice, Ron Klain, or some combination of the two are determining Biden’s domestic policy agenda under pressure from the left. On the foreign policy side, no known policy has yet emerged about which to speculate. »

Blue Hawaii

Featured image When I saw the photo of President and Mrs. Obama on Twitter (below), I wondered if it was the real deal. It seems to cry out for a thought bubble (or two). Have the Obamas defied the public health guidance handed down by Saint Fauci to head off for vacation in Hawaii? And is the Missus as unhappy as she appears with the contribution of her husband in propelling the »

Obama projects

Featured image Barack Obama must be sleeping better at night secure in the belief that Joe Biden will soon be in position to kill further disclosure of their wrongdoing in connection with the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and — what’s the word? — transition. Obama has a new doorstop of a memoir out this week and took advantage of his old supporters at 60 Minutes to defame and disparage President Trump in »

Obama misses the mark in critique of Trump

Featured image I have watched every Democratic National Convention since 1960. I have written extensively about every convention of both parties since 2004. This year, I haven’t watched a minute of the Democratic Convention. This isn’t something I’m proud of. As a citizen and writer about politics, I should be watching at least some of the proceedings. I just can’t bring myself to do it. In lieu of coverage by me, I »

Obama to the rescue

Featured image I have waited until today to declare this the quote of the week: We are just now beginning to see what it means when the people who run large parts of America fundamentally lose their minds. To refer to this class as an elite is shorthand for describing the people who occupy the commanding heights above the intersection of mass culture, communications, education, and Democratic Party politics. We are not »

Powell vs. Obama

Featured image We are a day or two late with this, but it is still worth your attention. Barack Obama said on a phone call that the Department of Justice’s dropping of charges against General Flynn was unprecedented and, somehow, a threat to the rule of law. News organizations naturally repeated Obama’s assertions uncritically. But Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, casts a more critical eye in her Open Memorandum to Barack Obama. She »

Speaking of unprecedented

Featured image Barack Obama has a conflict of interest — a personal stake — in commenting on the ordeal of Michael Flynn and the Russia hoax in which it was embedded. One would never know it, however, from the ecstatic dissemination of the leak of his halting comments on the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case. Jonathan Turley takes a headfirst dive into Obama’s comments in “President Obama Declares »

Obama’s airbrushed dreams

Featured image I placed David Garrow’s biography of the young Barack Obama (now available in paperback) in my top 10 books of 2017. Forgive me for quoting myself. This is what I wrote: Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, by David J. Garrow. This staggeringly researched book covers 1078 pages of text supported by 300 pages of footnotes — even though Garrow relegates his comments on Obama’s presidency to a 50-page »

Mayor Pete: Plain Vanilla Obama?

Featured image A lot of people have suggested that Mayor Peter Buttigieg is trying to be the white (gay) Obama, and it makes a certain amount of sense. But maybe he is taking this too far? Check out this 24-second video: Yeah, I think we had enough of this the first time. »

Is there a Democrat who can stop Bernie Sanders?

Featured image I think there might be, but he probably will choose not to. Suppose Barack Obama endorsed his former VP for president. The endorsement would probably carry Joe Biden to victory in South Carolina and position him for a solid showing on Super Tuesday. Suppose Obama endorsed Pete Buttigieg, the gay Obama. Biden, who is campaigning on the fact that he was Obama’s number two, would be finished. Buttigieg would suddenly »

Trump pins some blame on Obama for missile attack. Should he have?

Featured image During his address to the nation this morning about the situation with Iran, President Trump said the ballistic missiles that targeted two U.S. air bases in Iraq were paid for using “funds made available by the last administration.” This assertion enraged Democrats and their media allies such as the Washington Post. Is their outrage justified? I see two issues here. The first is whether President Trump should be calling out »

Poll: Democrats consider Obama a better president than George Washington

Featured image Last month, I noted with dismay that, in a survey, a majority of Republicans deemed Donald Trump a better president than Abraham Lincoln. It’s only fair for me to note, with even more dismay, that most Democrats who participated in a new survey deemed Barack Obama a better president than George Washington. The survey comparing Obama and Washington is from Monmouth University. It found that among Democratic voters, the “Father »

Behind closed doors (2)

Featured image What really happened when the president met behind closed doors with congressional leaders in the White House last week and Nancy Pelosi wagged her finger at President Trump? In his remarks to the press immediately following the meeting, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did not go into detail. McCarthy subsequently gave an account that contrasted with the one touted by the Democrats and faithfully disseminated by their media adjunct. In »

Obama Swept Iran Terror Plot Under the Rug

Featured image Former Defense Secretary James Mattis has a book coming out in which he is harshly critical of President Obama. Among other things, he recalls his dissent from Obama’s decision to pull troops out of Iraq prematurely, which had nearly-disastrous consequences. But this less well-known story about Iran is also noteworthy: Mattis says Washington didn’t even inform him when Iran committed an “act of war” on American soil. Mattis was CENTCOM »