May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Meet the new oppressor, same as the old oppressor

Featured image If this were April 1, I’d bet that the following headline from ABC News is a joke: “IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office.” But the joke is on us. Here’s the story: Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

The Hispanic vote in presidential elections

Featured imageA reader provided me with several useful comments on my post regarding the Republican share of the Hispanic vote in presidential elections since 1980. First, he says that the figure I used for George W. Bush’s share in 2004 — 43 percent — is an outlier: In 2004, NEP (National Exit Poll) reported 44% for Bush, the highest of all ten polls. That result was widely and immediately challenged. Pew »
May 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker

And Now, Back to Immigration

Featured imageLet’s put aside the Obama administration’s scandals for a moment, and return to an issue that will have a great deal more to do with America’s future: immigration. The proposed Gang of Eight bill will result in somewhere between 30 million and 57 million new immigrants over the next ten years. This is, in a nutshell, why the bill is so bad. The impact of such a mass influx of »
May 16, 2013 — John Hinderaker

Trust Me! Or Else…

Featured imageYesterday, Scott suggested that President Obama’s commencement speech at Ohio State, which was essentially a paean to big government, may have represented the high tide of Obamaism. In hindsight, Obama’s words were chilling: Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to »
May 16, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Nietzsche & Hayek, Gott im Himmel!

Featured imageWe take this brief time out from our ongoing Obama scandal coverage for a detour in the intellectual fever swamps of the left, in particular a bizarre article out in the current issue of The Nation by Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin.  Nothing subtle about that title.  The Nation article, “Nietzsche’s Marginal Children: On Friedrich Hayek” attempts to discredit Hayek’s free market »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Schumer not to blame for IRS scandal

Featured imageChuck Schumer easily makes my list of the ten politicians I dislike most. So my ears perked up when I heard that, in 2012, he signed a letter that, as it has been characterized, told the IRS to go after conservative groups. The other signers were Sens. Bennet, Whitehouse, Merkley, Udall, Shaheen, and Franken. The letter can be found on Schumer’s website. I don’t read it as calling on the »
May 16, 2013 — Scott Johnson

P.S. on the AP

Featured imageAccording to Eric Holder, Eric Holder is no more responsible for the investigation of the Associated Press than Barack Obama is for events in Benghazi according to Barack Obama. That was Holder’s theme in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, which I first read about yesterday in a post by Allahpundit at Hot Air. Looking around for a narrative account of Holder’s testimony this morning, I find the liberal »
May 15, 2013 — Steven Hayward

This S— Just Got Real

Featured imageI’ve been skeptical if not dismissive of all the loose talk that the multiple scandals piling up around Obama would be sufficient to bring about his impeachment–until this afternoon.  Let’s remember that impeachment didn’t work out too well with Clinton, and the evidence of his bad behavior was a lot more direct than it is (so far) with Obama.  In the case of Nixon, it will be recalled, it required »
May 15, 2013 — John Hinderaker

The Multiple Facets of the IRS Scandal

Featured imageWhat is commonly referred to as the IRS scandal consists of several distinct, although obviously related, elements. The scandal was brought to light by the revelation that the IRS, in evaluating nonprofits’ applications for 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) status, discriminated against Tea Party and other conservative groups. The IRS would routinely hold up such applications, sometimes for years, while often making irrelevant inquiries of the applicant, e.g., asking for the names »
May 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Marco Rubio ducks genuine debate over his amnesty legislation

Featured imageLast week, Bret Baier’s Special Report program on Fox News featured interviews with Marco Rubio and Jeff Sessions about the Rubio-Schumer amnesty legislation. The interviews were given separately. Although Baier tried his best to make it into a point-counterpoint kind of affair, it couldn’t really be a debate because Rubio and Sessions didn’t appear together. I understand that Baier, naturally enough, would have preferred to have Sessions and Rubio on »
May 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Adventures in administrative law

Featured imageObama presents himself as detached from the events giving rise to the controversies that now beset his administration. He’s just the president. Obama has found this a useful pose in the face of the exposure of the IRS as the handmaiden of his efforts to help friends and harm enemies. He has touted the IRS as an independent agency. How can he be responsible for the shenanigans of agents that »
May 16, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Director of IRS Tax-Exempt Determinations Office Is Obama Donor

Featured imageEliana Johnson points out that the director of the Office of Rulings and Agreements, which oversees the determination of tax-exempt organizations, is a donor to Barack Obama. Holly Paz donated $2,000 to Obama’s 2008 campaign, according to Open Secrets, which maintains a database of individual political donations. Liberal Democrats comprise the vast majority of federal bureaucrats. For example, in the past two presidential races, roughly 85 percent of the money »
May 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

This month in civil rights history

Featured image50 years ago, the nation witnessed seven dramatic days in May, as helmeted policemen used dogs and fire hoses against black children chanting freedom songs and hymns in Birmingham, Alabama. More than 3,000 peaceful demonstrators were arrested. The images from those days, including that of Birmingham police chief “Bull” Connor, are indelibly etched in the minds of those of us who saw them, and many of those who have seen »
May 15, 2013 — John Hinderaker

The Benghazi Emails: What Do They Show?

Featured imageThis afternoon the White House released 100 pages of emails that trace the development of the talking points about Benghazi that Susan Rice eventually used on her notorious tour of the Sunday morning news shows, and that formed the basis for much of what the Obama administration said about the attacks for weeks afterward. This is the original version of the talking points that came out of the CIA, with »
May 15, 2013 — Steven Hayward

The Power Line 100: Hadley Arkes

Featured imageHadley Arkes of Amherst College (since 1966!) would make the top of the Power Line 100 Best Professors list if we went either by alphabetical order or any kind of semi-objective scoring system.  Hadley is the Edward Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst, and is also affiliated with our friends at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the Jurisprudence of the Natural Law, whose fine blog, right-reason.org, is worth bookmarking. »
May 15, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Hispanic voting patterns don’t correlate to major immigration debates or legislation

Featured imageKey elements of the Republican establishment insist that Republicans must support amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in order to make major inroads with Hispanic voters. But an analysis of the Hispanic vote in the last nine presidential elections does not support this claim. It shows, instead, that other considerations help explain how Hispanics vote. Here is the Republican share of the Hispanic vote in those elections: »
May 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson

High tide of Obamaism

Featured imageIt may be too optimistic to wonder if commencement speech to the graduating students of Ohio State University (White House video here) might not have represented the high tide of Obamaism. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I wonder if it might not be (bumpily, with the implementation of Obamacare before us) downhill from here: Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as »