September 8, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff

Iraqi protesters torch Iran’s embassy in Basra

Featured image Protesters in Basra stormed the Iranian Consulate yesterday and set the building on fire. The protesters, who also set fire to headquarters of pro-Iranian militias as well as many government buildings, chanted “Iran out.” They also trampled portraits of Iran’s ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei Basra is a majority Shiite city. Thus, as the Washington Post says, the attack on the consulate. . .upended notions of solidarity between Iraq’s Shiite heartland and »
September 8, 2018 — Steven Hayward

Today’s Academic Cowardice Report

Featured imageIt seems that we can report on some academic outrage on a daily basis now. Today’s story comes from Canada, where Acadia University professor Rick Mehta has been fired. Mehta was a tenured professor of psychology, and since firing a tenured professor is not supposed to be easy, what could have been his offense? Acadia University is not commenting, and won’t release any of the documents produced in an investigation »
September 8, 2018 — Scott Johnson

Spartacus meets the press

Featured imageIn “Mayor of Crazytown” we touched on Senator Cory Booker’s farcical contribution to the Judiciary Committee hearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Senator Booker lives in a realm somewhere beyond satire with other of his Democratic colleagues. He is not alone. It turns out that Wall Street Journal reporter Byron Tau tried to follow up with Cory Booker following his “I am Spartacus” performance at the committee »
September 8, 2018 — Scott Johnson

Anatomy of a Fusion smear (2)

Featured imageWe are now in position to identify the hallmarks of a Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS fabrication. The Fusion smear of Cleta Mitchell is illustrative. Cleta’s case offers a small example, but this is not a small matter. The Russia hoax giving rise to the appointment of Robert Mueller represents the case writ large. This is Glenn Simpson’s world. We’re just living in it. The Fusion smear follows a template with four »
September 8, 2018 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Anonymous Edition

Featured imagePower Line is facing a test of its blognificence unlike any faced by a modern American website. It is not just that the googleplex of leftist internet censorship looms large. Or that the readership is bitterly divided between dog pic lovers and cat pic lovers. I am an anonymous senior level staffer for Power Line who works diligently behind the scenes to curtail John’s beauty pageant “news” stories, Paul’s soccer »
September 7, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff

Medicaid for all

Featured imageFollowing the lead of Bernie Sanders, many Democrats advocate “Medicare for All.” It’s a smart move. Most old folks, including me, are very happy with the insurance Medicare provides. Many non-old folks realize this and wish they had coverage as good. But Wesley Smith argues that Sanders is actually offering Medicaid for all. Medicaid is a troubled health insurance program for the poor and, thanks to expansion, some who are »
September 7, 2018 — Steven Hayward

Academic Cowardice Reaches a New Low

Featured imageAbout ten days ago I reported on the academic study of “sudden onset gender dysphoria” that Brown University repudiated after it came under fire from the transgender community, but today I learn of a new suppression of academic expression that makes Brown’s cowardice look tame. The good people at Quillette have the whole story (and if you’re not reading Quillette you should be). The story is long and detailed and »
September 7, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff

Kamala and Cory, compare and contrast

Featured imageSens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker both treated the Brett Kavanaugh hearings as an audition for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. Amy Klobuchar did too, but she’s not the same bracket as Harris and Booker — the ostentatiously left-wing, person-of-color bracket. How did Harris and Booker fare in the head-to-head competition? It depends on what Democrats, especially those who will pick their bracket from — are looking for. In »
September 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson

Anatomy of a Fusion smear (1)

Featured imageThis past weekend I noted the Wall Street Journal editorial decrying the wrong done to Cleta Mitchell in connection with the Russia investigation(s). Cleta is the prominent Foley & Lardner partner and campaign finance expert. The Journal editorial is “Anatomy of a Fusion smear” (truncated but accessible here on Outline). It appears that the Fusion smear was planted in his accustomed style by Glenn Simpson with a few of his »
September 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageAmmo Grrrll is homeward bound in FROGGER, or TRUE TALES FROM THE TRIP. She writes: Here, at last, is the final installment of my recent trip. So, I’m just under 100 miles away from my summer abode in Prescott, Arizona, after driving 1700 miles from Minnesota. I am exhausted, slightly anxious about my father’s situation, and very lonesome for my husband. But yet I am in a remarkably upbeat mood. »
September 6, 2018 — John Hinderaker

Crazytown

Featured imageI keep waiting for voters to notice that the Democrats are crazy. Of course, I’ve been waiting for a long time. Either a lot of people aren’t paying attention, or a lot of people have a higher insanity threshold than I do. Yesterday the RNC released this ad, “The Left Is Crazytown.” Maybe it will help: »
September 7, 2018 — John Hinderaker

Democrats’ Hostility to the Constitution Laid Bare

Featured imageOne of the more revealing moments in the Democrats’ Judiciary Committee clown show was when Kamala Harris sneeringly referred to the Constitution as “that book that you [Judge Kavanaugh] carry.” Harris is her generation’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ridiculously far-left, quite good-looking, and utterly ill-informed. Here is the exchange: Of course, as Kavanaugh went on to explain, unenumerated rights are indeed in the “book” for which Harris showed so much contempt. The »
September 7, 2018 — John Hinderaker

Whose Side Is Google On?

Featured imageThe Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on Wednesday, to which representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter were invited. Google declined to attend, perhaps because its representative would have been questioned about why Google privileges the governments of Russia and China over that of the United States. Top executives of Facebook and Twitter–Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey–did show up. Tom Cotton noted Google’s empty chair while questioning Sandberg and Dorsey »
September 7, 2018 — John Hinderaker

In America, It Is Reality vs. Fantasy

Featured imageI spent the day in Washington yesterday. The city is roiled by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, where the Democrats are disgracing themselves with fantastical assertions against a superb, mainstream jurist. Beyond the Kavanaugh hearing, the city’s main obsession is an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times by a person who may or may not exist and may or may not be a senior executive branch official. The gist »
September 7, 2018 — Scott Johnson

I am not Anonymous

Featured imageI am not Anonymous, the author of the New York Times op-ed column by a senior administration official denouncing President Trump. I am not a senior administration official and I have no unexpressed thoughts left after writing under my own name for Power Line every day for the past 16 years. Indeed, it has been my goal in life to make the name “Scott Johnson” distinctive to me rather than »
September 6, 2018 — Scott Johnson

Mayor of Crazytown

Featured imageWatching Cory Booker in action on the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, I’m searching for an appropriate literary analogy. Is he the Elmer Gantry of the Senate, or is that unkind to Gantry? I lack the heart to summarize Booker’s theatrics this morning and defer to Ryan Saavedra’s blunt Daily Wire report: “TOTAL FRAUD: Booker Claimed To Defy Rules In Releasing »
September 6, 2018 — Steven Hayward

The Ghost of Richard Darman

Featured imageAlthough the internet tells me that Richard Darman, the éminence grise of the “deep state” during the Reagan-Bush years, died in 2008, apparently he is alive and working in the Trump White House.* Or at least his ghost is haunting the White House mess. I was on airplanes again yesterday afternoon crossing the country, arriving late at night on the east coast, and hence missed the afternoon firestorm over the anonymous »