Monthly Archives: March 2012
March 16, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Here in Minnesota, we have enjoyed an unusually mild winter, and now it seems to be rushing pell-mell into summer. The thermometer has edged over 70 degrees several times this week, and today I think it got up to 75 or so. This is truly extraordinary for mid-March in Minnesota; March ties with February as Minnesota’s snowiest month, on the average. A few days ago, the Minneapolis Star Tribune posted
»
March 16, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We noted yesterday that the Democrats have continued their phony “war against women” campaign by alleging in fundraising appeals that Senate Republicans “will oppose re-authorizing the Violence Against Women Act,” thereby “put[ting] women’s lives in danger.” This is just one more in a series of Democrat scams, intended to 1) divert attention from the Obama administration’s record of failure, and 2) raise money from the Democrats’ gullible base. What is
»
March 16, 2012 — Steven Hayward
The Washington Post essentially announced the death of the environmental movement today. Oh, the headline doesn’t say quite that, though it should; the actual headline is “Young Americans Less Interested in the Environment Than Previous Generations.” [A]n academic analysis of surveys spanning more than 40 years has found that today’s young Americans are less interested in the environment and in conserving resources — and often less civic-minded overall — than
»
March 16, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The Republican National Committee put out this satirical poster, ridiculing the professionally-produced Obama campaign movie called “The Road We’ve Traveled.” It is really very funny. Maybe there is hope for the Republicans after all!
»
March 16, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Not singlehanded, to be sure; but in this video–in effect, a trailer–Ryan announces that House Republicans intend to do no less than save the United States from fiscal collapse. The House’s budget is coming soon, and it will be greeted with howls of politically-inspired execration by the Democrats, who wouldn’t dream of passing a budget–any budget. They haven’t passed one for three years, and don’t intend to start now. They
»
March 16, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Maybe we’ve been too hard on Osama bin Laden. Yeah, yeah, he was an odious mass murderer and an evil human being, but as that old Monty Python sketch (at the 5:50 mark) goes, “let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who.” I say this because the Washington Post is out this afternoon with a scoop from bin Laden’s papers recovered from the raid that killed him last May. He
»
March 16, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Courtesy of QuickMeme:
»
March 16, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Dr. Bob Shillman writes: “In his speech below, Netanyahu describes what he attemtped to do in Washington and he summarizes the Israeli government’s views about Iran. My conclusion drawn from his speech and from many other sources is that Israel will attack Iran in the next few months…with or without U.S. support.” For relevant background to this speech, see my introductory remarks to the video of Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech last
»
March 16, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Power Line reader Justin Hohn offered a very thoughtful comment on my post yesterday on the role of dollar weakness in both rising oil prices and the housing bubble: It’s not the dollar. Yes, base money has been cranked up from ~$800B to about $2.8T. But the velocity has crashed so hard (and with it, the multiplier) that M2 hasn’t really shown a hiccup at all. If the rest of
»
March 16, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Rep. Allen West was in town yesterday to appear as the featured speaker at the annual dinner of the Minnesota GOP Elephant Club. Out of the goodness of his heart, he also agreed to speak before the dinner to our small local chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition. Chapter leader Mark Miller noted that we added a few new members who signed up to hear Rep. West, but Mark’s enthusiasm
»
March 16, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Idan Raichel is the Israeli pop star who made waves with his 2006 recording The Idan Raichel Project. He has followed up with subsequent recordings that Amazon has collected here. Commenting in the New York Times on Idan’s original recording, Jon Pareles perfectly captured my reaction: The Idan Raichel Project was a huge hit in Israel for good reason: it envisions a modern, multicultural nation where voices of young and
»
March 15, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Today Matt Drudge ridiculed the ineptitude and irrelevance of our president: Hey, he may not know a damn thing about the economy, or business, or foreign policy, or science, or history–but he can copy the experts’ basketball predictions! Michael Ramirez adds more ridicule of our pathetic “chief executive”:
»
March 15, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Barack Obama gave a speech on energy and gas prices to an audience of college students today, at Prince George’s Community College. He chose his audience carefully; the kids knew nothing about energy, and received him enthusiastically. But anyone even slightly knowledgeable about energy policy would have recognized Obama’s speech for what it was: one misrepresentation after another. Let’s start, however, with an even more basic point: energy is one
»
March 15, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out this fundraising email: First we learned that Mitt Romney wanted to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood. Now, there are news reports that Republicans in Congress will oppose re-authorizing the Violence Against Women Act. Enough is enough! The Republican War on Women must be stopped NOW. We must raise $17,581 more by midnight tonight to double-down on our Women’s Health Accountability Fund.
»
March 15, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Rick Santorum is regarded by many of his supporters as the “real” conservative in the GOP presidential race, and most Democrats pay him the unintended compliment of considering him an arch-conservative. Undoubtedly, Santorum is a conservative of a certain type, but how far to the right was his voting record during the three terms he spent in the United States Senate? To answer this question, I went to the American
»
March 15, 2012 — Scott Johnson
At the AIPAC policy conference last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave a serious, substantive, unflashy, stalwart speech on Iran that directly addressed the pathetic weakness radiated by the Obama administration. In every significant respect, Senator McConnell is the unObama. My attention was drawn to Senator McConnell’s speech by Judith Levy, who aptly summarized it in her terrific review of the AIPAC proceedings: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky)
»
March 15, 2012 — John Hinderaker
A day or two ago, a Democratic pollster made news by announcing that “people”–talking about voters–“are stupid.” But this is nothing new; we have noted many times over the years that the Democrats’ electoral strategies are aimed more or less exclusively at the ignorant. When it comes to stupidity, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is something of a connoisseur. Yesterday she sent out the Democrats’ latest appeal to the party’s
»
