January 13, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Judge Burke was unavailable for comment

Featured image The Star Tribune posted an utterly unilluminating story on the DFL shenanigans at 8:26 this morning. The Star Tribune didn’t even get a quote from Judge Kevin Burke. Surely he could have shed some light on what they all thought they were doing. The lack of illumination may be unintentional. However, with former Walz DEED commissioner Steve Grove at the top, the Star Tribune is the house organ of the »
January 13, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Burn after reading

Featured imageThe wildfires ravaging Los Angeles County expose a generation of bad government in California. Governor Newsom is its perfect face and hairdo. In Los Angeles the authorities are scrubbing the record. In a detailed story at the Washington Free Beacon, Susannah Luthi reports: Los Angeles fire chief Kristin Crowley warned city officials in November that her department had about half as many firefighters as it needed. When deadly wildfires struck »
January 12, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Constitutional Crisis In Minnesota [Updated]

Featured imageMinnesota is a purple state, balanced on a knife’s edge, as the 2024 election showed. There are 134 Minnesota House districts, and when the returns were in, it looked like Republicans had gained enough seats so that the House would be tied, 67-67. But then it came to light that one of the Democrats’ candidates had cheated: in House District 40B, Democrat Curtis Johnson falsely claimed to reside in the »
January 13, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Secret ceremony

Featured imageWhen you violate a law in secret and subsequently proclaim that there is nothing to see here, you probably know you’re doing something wrong. That proposition bears on the illegal “swearing-in” ceremony conducted by the Democrats yesterday afternoon at the Minnesota History Center by senior judge Kevin Burke (pictured in the thumbnail on the home page). Judge Burke’s active service as a regular judge expired in 2020 when he reached »
January 12, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Biden’s legacy

Featured imageReading serious reference to President Biden’s “legacy” as though it is anything but an unprecedented catastrophe presents a challenge to my progress in anger management. Joe Biden — this is the guy who opened our borders and invited the world to “come on down,” like someone trying to find his calling as a game show host. This is the guy who deployed the forces of the Department of Justice to »
January 12, 2025 — Scott Johnson

You haven’t got a friend (of the court)

Featured imageI have been writing about the lawsuit styled United States v. City of Minneapolis that was filed last week here in federal district court. I covered the press conference announcing the consent decree in “Is it something I didn’t say?” and in four subsequent footnotes (Note 1, Note 2, Note 3, and Note 4). The case has been given the File No. 25-CV-48. If you are a registered PACER user, »
January 11, 2025 — Steven Hayward

Scenes from the Fire Line

Featured imageThe first picture here, which has appeared widely in the media in LA, shows the likely first outbreak of the Eaton Canyon fire, which is now thought to have been sparked by an electrical line owned by one of our corporate socialist “public” utilities. The relevant thing for Powerline readers to know is that the house in the foreground is owned by one of my best friends (who by the »
January 11, 2025 — Steven Hayward

Podcasts: An All New Format 3WHH, Ricochet, and WTH

Featured imageIt’s been a three-fer podcast week for me, with the resumption of both the Ricochet podcast on Friday, a guest turn on Dany Pletka and Marc Thiessen’s “What the Hell is Going?” podcast, and then today with the all-new format 3WHH, which is moving to its own wholly independent identity at Ricochet and on my “Political Questions” Substack. We have an all-new logo for the 3WHH, as you can see »
January 11, 2025 — Scott Johnson

MPD consent decree: Note 4

Featured imageFollowing up on the Deena Winter/Jeffrey Anderson exchange in “Note 3” of this series, I want to add a few facts. Deena cites the current budget of the Minneapolis Police Department. Deena writes: “[F]unding has only increased every year since 2020, except in 2021. It is now at record levels.” Deena doesn’t break down the budget. It should be noted, however, that as of 2020 the department employed around 900 »
January 11, 2025 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Gulf of America Edition!

Featured imageTrump clearly isn’t satisfied with just making America great again: he wants to make the entire western hemisphere great again! And who says Reaganism is over and fine with, now that we’re on course to reconquer the Panama Canal. Here’s an idea: build a long water pipeline from the Gulf of America directly to fire hydrants in California. (And maybe sneak some oil and natural gas in it when Newsom »
January 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Trump Sentenced to…Nothing

Featured imageThe farcical prosecution of Donald Trump in a Manhattan courtroom came to an anticlimactic end today, as Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump to be discharged by the court with no penalty–no jail time, no fine, nothing. This was no surprise, as Merchan had already announced that intention. District Attorney Alvin Bragg disgraced himself by bringing this prosecution. He tried to revive an alleged misdemeanor on which the statute of limitations »
January 12, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Sunday morning coming down

Featured imageThe second time I saw Tom Rush perform live he appeared in Minneapolis for a show at the Cedar Theater on the West Bank. A few days before the show I contacted Tom by email and asked him for an interview, which he kindly granted. I was ecstatic to see him live after many years and just about equally happy to chat with him for Power Line, although I don’t »
January 11, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Biden: Freedom of Speech Is Un-American!

Featured imageIn a rare Q and A session with reporters, Joe Biden was asked his opinion of Meta’s abandonment of third-party “fact checkers.” President Biden slammed Meta on Friday for ending its third-party fact-checking program, arguing that the change goes against American values and is “shameful.” “The whole idea of walking away from facts checking [sic] as well as not reporting anything having to do with, uh, um, discrimination regarding TPS »
January 11, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Apocalypse Now, In LA

Featured imageAs fires continue to destroy Los Angeles, the incompetence of that city’s leadership, along with that of the State of California, is coming into focus. It is almost incredible that anyone could do as bad a job as Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom have done. Many instances of their incompetence have come to light, but Michael Shellenberger takes the broad view, explaining how progressive politics inevitably led to »
January 11, 2025 — Scott Johnson

The Russia hoax continues

Featured imageThe Russia hoax was concocted by the Clinton campaign with attorney Marc Elias serving as a cutout. They undertook the hoax with the full knowledge and assistance of the Obama administration, including CIA Director John Brennan, Vice President Biden, and Obama himself. The underlying documents were handed off to the press and the FBI, whose senior leadership then sought to surveil, sting, and depose President Trump in the early days »
January 10, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Zuckerberg Unbound

Featured imageMeta announced today that it is saying goodbye to DEI. Its memo to employees, which I take it was signed by Mark Zuckerberg, is here. It begins: Hi all, I wanted to share some changes we’re making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before getting into the details, there is some important background to lay out: The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the »
January 10, 2025 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Immigrant Crime in Norway

Featured imageA lot of my libertarian friends, especially at the currently drifting but once-great Cato Institute, like to defend their clueless open-borders disposition by pointing to statistics that purport to demonstrate that illegal immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. Even if you assume the crime statistics are complete and accurate these days (and usually it is libertarians who express doubt that our law enforcement bureaucracy reports accurately), it »