Monthly Archives: November 2011
November 16, 2011 — John Hinderaker
In yet another illustration of how similar the Occupy movement is to the Tea Party, the Secret Service went looking for the man believed to have fired an AK-47 at the White House in the Occupy D.C. encampment: The Secret Service searched Occupy D.C. on Monday for a man suspected of firing bullets at the White House on Friday, one of which was stopped by the building’s ballistic glass. Protestor
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November 16, 2011 — Steven Hayward
So with the various Occupy encampments being taken down before they completely collapse, I thought I ought to pay a visit to McPherson Square, the primary venue for Occupy DC–especially after reading this preposterous Washington Post article about Occupy DC over the weekend. The result is this six minute Power Line exclusive video–worth watching to the end, I promise.
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November 16, 2011 — Scott Johnson
Paul A. Rahe holds the Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College. In view of his classic three-volume study of Republics Ancient and Modern, Professor Rahe is the academy’s foremost authority on the history of republics. He is also the author, most recently, of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect, a book that explains the deep roots
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November 15, 2011 — John Hinderaker
I have been investigating National Public Radio’s three-part series on child welfare in South Dakota. Briefly, NPR claimed that South Dakota’s Department of Social Services sends social workers onto Indian reservations to “kidnap” Indian children, who are then placed more or less exclusively in white foster care–a transaction which NPR alleged that the state carries out for profit. I refuted these bizarre claims here, here, and here. I have also
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November 15, 2011 — John Hinderaker
The Solyndra scandal gets worse and worse, and as it does so it teaches one lesson after another about the evils of entangling the government with private enterprise. The latest revelation is that when Solyndra was planning a massive layoff in late 2010, the Department of Energy pressured the company to delay its announcement until after the midterm elections: Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010,
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November 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Well, it’s happened again: NPR slipped up and ran a mostly positive story on Hayek, today on Morning Sedition Edition. Yes, I was in my car again, driving to the Columbus airport after last night’s Ashland University political economy class, where our reading for the week was chapter 19 of The Constitution of Liberty, entitled “Social Security,” though the chapter applies to Obamacare—and the general fiscal outlook brought about by
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November 15, 2011 — John Hinderaker
Occupiers have been cleared from a number of parks and public spaces over the past few days, most recently in New York, where, early this morning, the NYPD cleared out the Occupiers, arresting 200 in the process, so that Zuccotti Park could be cleaned. (The New York Post, which shares our view of the Occupiers, headlines “NYPD raiders roust OWS rabble.”) The battle, however, is not over in New York,
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November 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
Between now and whenever the Supreme Court issues its decision on Obamacare (I predict the last day of the term in late June next year), there will be endless reading of the tea leaves, textual analyses of the briefs, the dynamic of the oral argument, and so forth. (Will the Court limit the number of amicus briefs it will take on this case? America’s forests ought to be very worried
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November 15, 2011 — Steven Hayward
John has already noted here Obama’s relentless lamosity over the Keystone pipeline, but you shouldn’t miss Vaclav Smil’s rant about it, “Obama’s Indefensible Pipeline Punt.” Smil is one of the three or four best writers on energy questions, with several notable books deserving a place on your energy shelf. (My favorite is Energy at the Crossroads, but his shorter book for my peeps at AEI, Energy Myths and Realities, is
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November 15, 2011 — Scott Johnson
My daughter Deborah (Dartmouth ’10) draws my attention to the video of the sixth performance of the Dartmouth Aires on NBC’s Sing-Off (a show with which I am unfamiliar), in which the group performs a Queen medley. Jed Gottlieb’s Boston Herald column on the show has some good background. Deborah writes: “Dad, watch this video. It’s amazing!! The kid who sings the first solo was on my Foreign Study Program
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November 15, 2011 — Scott Johnson
My copy of Peter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out arrived yesterday morning with the publisher’s promotional material courtesy of the author, whom I’ve gotten to know a little and like a lot over the past few years. Among his previous books that I have enjoyed and learned from are Reagan’s War and Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy. Peter’s new book is officially published
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November 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
That is the question that Michael Ramirez poses:
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November 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
As we have often noted, North Dakota is booming. This is what happens when you have a great business climate and develop your energy resources. Currently, there are more jobs than people in North Dakota, and workers from around the country are pouring into that little-populated state to earn six-figure incomes in the oil fields and supporting industries. Like every boom, this has consequences; among them, a housing shortage and
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November 14, 2011 — Scott Johnson
I watched President Obama’s press conference from the APEC meeting in Hawaii last night live on television. Obama only took six questions, but a couple of them were really bad. Time has posted a transcript here; video is posted here. After calling on AP reporter Ben Feller, Obama called on CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian. Lothian’s question was the worst of the lot (it’s at 10:00 of the video):
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November 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
You have probably read about the invitations that actors Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake received, via YouTube, to attend two separate Marine Corps balls. Both accepted the invitations, and on Saturday night, Timberlake attended the Basic School Instructor Battalion 236th Marine Corps Birthday Ball with Marine Corporal Kelsey DeSantis. It might have sounded like a publicity stunt–I know next to nothing about Justin Timberlake and had never heard of Ms.
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November 14, 2011 — Steven Hayward
The news out today that the Supreme Court will hear the Obamacare case this term is not a big surprise (they might have punted on “ripeness” grounds, as more than one lower court judge argued), but Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute points out why this is no ordinary case–it’s beyond even an extraordinarycase: What was unexpected — and unprecedented in modern times — is that it set aside five-and-a-half
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November 14, 2011 — John Hinderaker
A new edict has been handed down in England’s National Health Service: hospitals must no longer deliberately postpone surgery in hopes that the patient will either die or pay to have the operation performed privately: NHS managers have been banned from rationing treatments while patients wait to die or go private after Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, admitted that some hospitals were delaying operations. It comes after a damning report
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