Monthly Archives: April 2012
April 20, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Anti-Semitism is just one of many unsavory aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it helps to explain why mainstream Democrats have quietly dropped the “Occupy” crowd like a hot potato. We have documented several anti-Jewish incidents since the Occupy movement began; there was another one on the organization’s Facebook page yesterday, on Holocaust Remembrance Day. I am not sure how long this cartoon stayed up; long enough, anyway,
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April 20, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Over at my regular “Energy Fact of the Week” feature on American.com, I look at the relationship between the price of gold and the price of oil, and come to no firm conclusion about how much of the price volatility of oil can be attributed to a weak dollar. But along the way I thought that it is worth reminding people of what Democrats said about Reagan’s decontrol of oil
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April 20, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Does every private enterprise Obama come near turn to ashes? What might be called “the Solyndra Syndrome” seems to be spreading beyond the green energy sector. This morning’s bankruptcy concerns TW & Co, a Maryland-based private security firm that provides security for, among other government locations, the White House. From the Wall Street Journal story: Maryland-based TW & Co. filed for Chapter 11 protection Wednesday and sought to borrow $1
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April 19, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We haven’t said much about the GSA scandal. Is it important? The dollars involved are small, by Washington standards, but it illustrates a timeless truth: no one else will spend the money you earned as carefully as you will. When you are spending other people’s money, why shouldn’t you waste it? That is the attitude that generally (although not always, of course) prevails in government. Michael Ramirez sums it up:
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April 19, 2012 — John Hinderaker
While most people’s attention has been focused on the Democrats’ War on Dogs, something even more important has been happening in Washington: opposition to the Keystone Pipeline has been crumbling. Byron York tells us something I hadn’t seen reported elsewhere: [O]n Capitol Hill, more and more Democrats are joining Republicans to force approval of the pipeline, whether Obama wants it or not. The latest action happened Wednesday, when the House
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April 19, 2012 — John Hinderaker
We wrote in MSNBC, the Faux News Network about MSNBC’s latest attack on the Koch brothers, whom guest host Karen Finney outrageously blamed for the Trayvon Martin shooting. Finney’s slander was repeated on MSNBC by former Obama administration official Van Jones, who said, “You’ve got all of the passion around Trayvon and what a horrible injustice that was and you can draw a direct line to the Koch brothers.” The
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April 19, 2012 — Steven Hayward
There is some risk that this morning’s meditation on Social Darwinism might become another multi-part tutorial from me, if you can stand it. A gimlet-eyed reader points me to the biology textbook, A Civic Biology: Presented in the Problems, used by the infamous John Scopes, of monkey trial fame, which includes these fine passages: Improvement of Man. – If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not
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April 19, 2012 — John Hinderaker
That’s what the Democrats’ slogan comes down to for the 2012 election. They can’t defend their records–either the Obama administration’s or the Democratic Senate’s–and they can’t talk about the economy. They can’t brag up their achievements, because they don’t have any. So their campaign will come down to: at least we aren’t those dreaded Republicans! Not exactly inspiring, but I suppose the Democrats’ base will find the theme persuasive. If
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April 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Marc Fink reports at the Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch that Best Buy contributed as a Platinum sponsor to the annual banquet of CAIR’s Minnesota chapter this past February. Best Buy maintains its corporate headquarters in suburban Minneapolis, so this story hits close to home. The company is dealing with a few other public relations issues deriving from the its executive leadership and business struggles, so this story has flown
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April 19, 2012 — Steven Hayward
More than two weeks later I’m still snorting my morning coffee over President Obama’s risible charge that the Ryan budget represents a return to “Social Darwinism,” even though it would return us to the same level of spending as a proportion of GDP seen under that infamous Social Darwinist Bill Clinton. Jonah Goldberg has a nice takedown of the nonsense of the matter in the Weekly Standard, drawn from his
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April 19, 2012 — Scott Johnson
With our friends at the Center of the American Experiment we are co-sponsoring the appearance of National Review senior editor Jay Nordlinger for a lunch presentation on his new book, Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World. Jay will be appearing at the downtown Minneapolis Hilton at 1001 Marquette Avenue South tomorrow at noon. The Center’s Web page
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April 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Who can resist? The war on dogs continues apace, and Obama is losing badly. Say what you will about Hitler, he never ate his pets:
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April 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
That is actually an easy question to answer. The Obama administration has heaped trillions of dollars in new debt on the heads of your children, and mine. That debt will be repaid with interest, at rates far higher than those that are now artificially maintained by the Fed. The $15 trillion that our children now owe, and the many trillions more that President Obama and the Democrats will add if
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April 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
To say that the Democrats are out of ammo would be an understatement. Their policies have failed, President Obama has no agenda for a second term, and Congressional Democrats refuse even to propose a budget. Lacking any constructive ideas, the Democrats have resorted to ignorant demagoguery. Most recently, President Obama has vowed to hire a bunch of law enforcement officers to crack down on “speculation” in the oil market. Whatever
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April 18, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Michelle Obama, the nation’s pre-eminent childhood nutritionist, has been arguing that much of the childhood obesity problem is due to the fact that too many urban children live in “food deserts,” lacking access to fresh fruits and vegetables, etc. But, as the New York Times’ Gina Kolata reports today, it isn’t true: But two new studies have found something unexpected. Such neighborhoods not only have more fast food restaurants and
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April 18, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Brian Ward and I recorded Episode 24 of the Hinderaker-Ward experience last night. We talked about some of the hottest issues in the news, including the Senate Democrats’ dereliction of duty in refusing to adopt a budget; the GSA bacchanalia scandal; the 2012 presidential race, including our assessment of Mitt Romney’s performance so far as reflected in the poll data, about which Brian and I disagreed rather sharply; and much
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April 18, 2012 — Scott Johnson
or at least the World Bank’s, with the formal appointment of Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim as the bank’s new president. President Kim stuck around Dartmouth barely long enough to get his ticket punched (not quite three years). He is the shortest-serving Dartmouth president since the reluctant Rev. Daniel Dana (1820-21) who, unlike Kim, made his distaste for the position clear prior to his appointment. Except for Kim’s apparent lack
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