Monthly Archives: September 2011
September 16, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Anthony Watt’s WattsUpWithThat site has a panel of cartoons by “Josh” that summarize Al Gore’s telethon. This is just too good to be missed. UPDATE: Our friends at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow offer us their own cartoon rendering of Gore’s status. (But wait! Aren’t sharks endangered by global warming too?) UPDATE 2: Apparently most of Gore’s fellow green-weenies don’t think much of his telethon. Marc Morano has the
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September 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Not content with winning Power Line’s “Quote of the Day” award yesterday, Henry Waxman is quoted today in the press saying that Jewish voters in NY-9 voted Republican because “they want to protect their wealth.” Looking at Waxman and Obama, don’t we all. Here’s the complete quote, just to show it doesn’t get any better “in context”: “But there’s no question the Jewish community is much more bipartisan than it
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September 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
I’ll be on Bill Bennett’s “Morning in America” radio show tomorrow morning during the 8 o’clock hour (eastern), to talk about energy and environmental issues with guest host Seth Liebsohn. (For a station guide, see this link.) I gather there’s some energy news to talk about this week. And Al Gore’s wacky climate telethon. Tune in! Call in! Let your Power Line voice be heard! I actually spent much of
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September 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Former Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop died yesterday at the age of 78. Wallop was one of the great unsung heroes of the modern conservative movement. He tended to be overlooked because he was not a flamboyant media hound or a lightning rod like Jesse Helms. To the contrary, he was a behind-the-scenes workhorse. Where to begin recounting Wallop’s greatness? He was, in some ways, the father of Reagan’s Strategic Defense
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September 15, 2011 — Scott Johnson
The Solyndra scandal exploded yesterday with the Washington Post story on the White House emails produced to the congressional committee investigating the affair. Deep into the story the Post reports: “In August 2009, e-mail exchanges between Energy Department staff members pointed out that a credit-rating agency predicted that the project would run out of cash in September 2011. Solyndra shut its doors on the final day of August.” The White
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September 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
While everyone was no doubt glued to their TV for the last 24 hours watching Al Gore’s “24 Hours of Reality” telethon–wait, you mean you weren’t?–there was another breaking story that has not got the attention it deserves. Nobel Prize-winning scientist Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society two days ago in protest of the APS’s climate change position. This is notable in part because Giaever
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September 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
I hope Power Line readers took in and enjoyed the two “Hayek v. Keynes” rap music YouTube videos that were a viral hit last year. (The first one is up to 2.6 million views.) They are the product partly of George Mason University economist Russ Roberts, who does one of the more interesting interview podcast series around—worth checking on if you haven’t.) One of the small subtexts of these videos
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September 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
This is a sad story: Israel has ordered its diplomats home from Jordan in anticipation of a protest outside the embassy. The protest is being promoted on Facebook with the slogan, “No Zionist embassy on Jordanian territory.” Given what happened in Cairo a few days ago, it is easy to understand the Israeli government’s caution. But it is sad nevertheless: Jordan is not Egypt, or Libya, or Syria. Its government
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September 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Was it Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon who was first said to suffer from a “credibility gap”? I’m not sure; but the conventional wisdom since then has been that once an administration’s credibility is gone, it can never be regained. If that is true, Barack Obama is in deep trouble. Scott Rasmussen finds that 50 percent of likely voters think that President Obama’s policies have hurt the economy. Only 32
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September 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Poor Sarah Palin! Where she is concerned, no libel is too low or too improbable. There are two stories about Palin in the news today, both of which are being peddled by the Left as scandals, or at least mini-scandals. Both come from Joe McGinniss’s not-yet-published book; as you may remember, this is the book that he bought a house next door to Palin in order to write. What is
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September 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Henry Waxman is clearly taking his demotion as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee very hard. Today he unloaded with this: “The Republicans want us to repeal the 20th century, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, to turn us back to the robber barons running the country, and to eviscerate the environmental and other regulations to protect public health and safety, and to cut spending in ways that
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September 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
For years now I’ve noted that on the very rare occasions when some media person asks a liberal what the top tax rate should be on someone’s income, they change the subject, shuffle their feet, and refuse to name a figure. The implicit answer is always “higher than it is now,” but the consequent logic of their position is always that the rate could be 100 percent. Latest case in
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September 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Paul Ryan has released a series of excellent videos on the economy. He has a real knack for communicating ideas about the economy and the budget in a way that is readily understandable and appealing. Here, he offers the broad outline of pro-growth reforms in the federal tax code. The one subject he doesn’t address, however, is what constitutes a “loophole.” Most people do not put all tax preferences in
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September 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
So yesterday there was the usual wave of euphoria as Iran’s President Ahmadinawackdoodle told NBC’s Ann Curry (properly adorned with a head veil in Tehran–lots of brave feminism on display here) that the two hapless hikers imprisoned for the last 18 months would be released shortly–perhaps in two days. It was clear all along that Iran would require a ransom for their release, though it would be called “bail.” Well,
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September 14, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Republican Bob Turner handily won Anthony Weiner’s old Queens/Brooklyn seat in New York’s Ninth Congressional District last night, defeating Democrat Bob Weprin. Weprin didn’t live in the district, but, hey, he’s Jewish. That was supposed to impress the district’s Jewish voters, but somehow it wasn’t enough. The JTA reports on the race here; Steve Hayward comments on the race here. William Jacobson stayed up late to deliver the news and
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September 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Up to now I’ve thought Michele Bachman was the most impressive performer in the GOP field, going toe-to-toe with the “big boys” in the field, out-arguing them on several occasions, and introducing serious constitutional arguments that the rest of the field (even Perry) are too timid to attempt. She’s right to go after Rick Perry on the issue of mandating the use of the Gardisil vaccine, along with the issue
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September 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Most of the political prognosticators are focusing on whether Obama can be re-elected if the unemployment rate is still near 9 percent by election day next year, but most of the fancy quantitative political science models suggest that this is the wrong variable (or perhaps the dependent variable if you are into multiple regressions). Most of the models find that the most important economic factor is income growth. If incomes
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