June 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson

American Betrayal

Featured image 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 »
June 15, 2013 — Scott Johnson

My conservative crackup

Featured imageIn “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 »
June 14, 2013 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures (and Video!)

Featured imageSo back in the fall Obama thrilled the youth vote by “slow jamming” the news on Jimmy Fallon, but now Obama is being slow-jammed himself by the slowly unfolding multiple scandals, once again the chief unifying theme of this week’s pictorial/cartoonial (?) review. Bonus!  Remy Munasifi is out with a new ReasonTV video that slow jams the NSA, down at the bottom. Enjoy your weekend.  We’ll be around and on »
June 14, 2013 — John Hinderaker

Liberals Prepare to Sell Out America’s Working Class

Featured imageThe Gang of Eight’s immigration bill is nothing less than a frontal assault on America’s already-struggling blue collar population. Forget border security–the bill would be an abomination even if it could magically guarantee that upon passage, not a single person would ever again cross the border illegally. The bill is a disaster because of the legal immigration it will authorize, estimated at somewhere between 30 million and 57 million above »
June 14, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Are we on the verge of a conservative crackup?

Featured imageOver the years, I’ve read plenty of claims that we’re witnessing a “crackup” of liberals or conservatives (or sometimes both at the same time). Normally, I react by rolling my eyes. For me, “crackup” claims are a almost always hack way of expressing unjustified triumphalism. But now I think I see a crackup. Given the scandal-a-week Obama administration, you might think that the crackup, if any, is looming on the »
June 14, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

A random “Mad Men” thought

Featured imageIrving Kristol said that a neoconservative is “a liberal who was mugged by reality.” If so, then Abe Drexler — the lefty new-journalist in “Mad Men” — must have gone on to become one of Kristol’s prime neocon disciples. »
June 14, 2013 — John Hinderaker

June 18, 1972 Revisited?

Featured imageOn June 18, 1972, the Washington Post reported that the night before, there had been a break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. Although the break-in story made the Post’s front page, no one could then foresee the consequences that would spin out over the ensuing months. This morning, the Post’s Erik Wemple reported that forensic analysis has confirmed multiple invasions of at least »
June 14, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Obama proceeds cautiously in Syria, for good reason

Featured imagePresident Obama has drawn plenty of criticism for his position on aiding Syrian rebels in light of his acknowledgement that the Assad regime has crossed his “red line” by using chemical weapons. Here is the key part of the administration’s response to that development: [T]he President has augmented the provision of non-lethal assistance to the civilian opposition, and also authorized the expansion of our assistance to the Supreme Military Council »
June 14, 2013 — Scott Johnson

On the IRS case

Featured imageFBI 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.” »
June 13, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Did Eric Holder lie to Congress? One more look

Featured imageLast week, I argued that Eric Holder’s submission to a court suggested that Fox News’ James Rosen was a flight risk. This representation — coupled with the statement that Rosen was “an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” in illegal obtaining, national security materials from a government official also under investigation — led me to conclude that Holder lied to Congress when he testified that he has never been “involved in” “potential »
June 13, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

The Lindsey Graham of the Tea Party

Featured imageFor many years, I’ve referred to Lindsey Graham as the “Arlen Specter of the South.” The idea is that, although Graham isn’t as bad as Specter was, he’s the “moral equivalent” of Specter, considering how much more conservative South Carolina is compared to Pennsylvania. Now, the same friend who gave me the Graham-Specter analogy suggests that Marco Rubio is the Lindsey Graham of the Tea Party. I think I’ll adopt »
June 14, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Liberals and Race, Part 2

Featured imageMy post yesterday about liberals and racism, and the way the Left attacks any mention of “states’ rights” as code for racist oppression, brought a note from Prof. Jack Pitney at Claremont McKenna College (not to worry Jack—you’ll make the Power Line 100 roster, though maybe as a group entry since your whole department makes the cut) about how contemporary liberals have suddenly rediscovered the virtue of states’ rights in »
June 14, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Private Versus Public in Two Charts

Featured imageOur pal Mark Perry put out the first chart here today, showing that the recent growth in oil production in the United States is the largest in the nation’s history.  Some time I’m going to have to go back and collate all of the “peak oil” pronouncements from just a few years ago that U.S. oil production was destined to decline, full stop.  Instead, as Mark puts it, “Welcome to »
June 14, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Green Weenie of the Week: Hors D’oeuvres Edition

Featured imageThis is one of those weeks where we have to pass out hors d’oeuvres-style mini-green weenies on toothpicks, like they surely serve at receptions at the French embassy.  (Quelle horreur!) Start with all the breaking wind of the windmill enthusiasts: a study from the University of North Carolina published recently in Environmental Research Letters finds that “the power capacity of large-scale wind farms may have been significantly overestimated.”  The green »
June 14, 2013 — Scott Johnson

CRB: Aristocracy in America

Featured imageThis 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 »
June 13, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff

Yes, they seem to miss him now

Featured imageMore Americans remember George W. Bush approvingly than negatively, according to a new Gallup survey. 49 percent of Americans view Bush favorably while 46 percent view him negatively, says Gallup. Bush’s showing is superior to President Obama’s. The current president’s numbers, according to Gallup, are 47 percent approval and 46 percent disapproval. I wouldn’t attribute too much meaning to these numbers. Frankly, I doubt that Bush could defeat Obama today »
June 13, 2013 — John Hinderaker

Liberals, Race and Immigration

Featured imagePaul noted last night that the Democrats “probably need fewer than two dozen House Republican votes” to pass the Gang of Eight’s bill, or some other amnesty proposal. The number depends, obviously, on how many Democrats defect. Which raises the question: how many members of the Congressional Black Caucus–if any–will be willing to stand up and oppose the immigration bill? The mass importation of unskilled Mexican labor contemplated by the »