Monthly Archives: June 2012

Say “hell no” to this manipulative president, Part Two

Featured image Before the ink was dry on the Supreme Court’s mixed decision on Arizona’s immigration control law, President Obama was calling for “comprehensive immigration reform.” By that he means, in essence, eventual citizenship for illegal aliens in exchange for more promises of enforcement that he and, in all likelihood, his successors won’t fulfill. The Democrats firmly controlled both chambers of Congress for two years, so Obama could have proposed and likely »

Take This, Sheperd Fairey

Featured image Jon McNaughton, the artist who produced the classical-style painting depicting Obama torching the Constitution, is out with a new painting that he’s auctioning off.   Don’t miss the video below where he explains clearly how he’s the anti-Shepherd Fairey: »

Where Maurice Sendak was

Featured image Under the rubric of “Annals of the Tolerant Left,” Glenn Reynolds links to a post by the Daily Caller’s pseudonymous Jim Treacher. Treacher quotes from an interview given by the late Maurice Sendak — author of Where the Wild Things Are and many other such books — to Gary Groth of The Comics Journal last October: SENDAK: Bush was president, I thought, “Be brave. Tie a bomb to your shirt. »

The Waiting Game and the Pre-Emptive Freak Out

Featured image So, anything going on this week?  I’m away most of this week in Ashland, Ohio, teaching my annual summer course in the Ashbrook Center’s master’s degree program in history and government for teachers (this year on the history of American foreign policy).  Since I’m in the classroom four and a half hours every day, I’m a bit pinched for time to keep up my posts here. What’s that?  The Supreme »

Why Republicans should say “hell no” to this lawless president

Featured image There’s been much speculation about whether the Obama administration has a Plan B ready in case the Supreme Court strikes down all or some of Obamacare. But it’s clear that the White House was ready today when the Court rejected its challenge to the constitutionality of an Arizona law requiring local law enforcement officers, during routine stops, to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is in the country »

The Supreme Court’s immigration decision — an affront to federalism and to common sense

Featured image The Supreme Court’s decision strking down, on preemption grounds, major portions of an Arizona law designed to help that State cope with the massive and unlawful influx of aliens is an affront to federalism and to common sense. Justice Scalia has it right in his dissent: Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade »

The real problem of having the Americans as your ally

Featured image I’m reading Notes On A Century: Reflections Of A Middle East Historian, the memoir of the great historian Bernard Lewis. We feature this book on the Power Line bookshelf below. Notes On A Century works at many levels. It combines page after page of insights about the Middle East with a glimpse into the life of a pathbreaking historian. Lewis continuously displays a delicious feel for anecdote and irony. In »

Wise words about Israel from Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Featured image I hope our readers have watched the most recent video of Scott interviewing Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In this installment, Ms. Hirsi Ali offers her observations about Israel. Her first observation pertains to Israel’s vibrant, flouishing economy, which has continuously transformed the country since she began visiting 15 years ago. My wife, who attended college in Israel in the early 1970s and who visits every few years, says the same thing. »

Democrats’ Fundraising Hysteria Growing

Featured image Democrats had no complaints about the campaign finance laws in 2008, when Barack Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing in favor of exploiting his own fundraising prowess. Obama smashed all records for spending on a presidential campaign, and reportedly outspent John McCain by five to one in the closing weeks of the campaign. If any Democrat was unhappy about that disparity, I don’t recall »

Celebrate (Or Mourn) the Court’s Obamacare Decision at Power Line Live UPDATE: No decision; tune in on Thursday!

Featured image Whatever the Supreme Court does today with Obamacare–my guess is they will put it out of its misery–there will be lots to discuss. Whether your mood is mourning or exultation, Power Line Live will be open for you to discuss the Court’s opinions with fellow conservatives. Just click the “Live” button on the masthead, immediately to the right of “Home.” I will spend some time at PL Live once I »

Brothers’ Day

Featured image Mark Steyn cruelly recalls the wisdom of Obama administration Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding events as they were unfolding in Egypt last year. Mark writes: “[D]on’t worry, on the day Mubarak stepped down, America’s Director of National Intelligence, who presides over the most lavishly funded intelligence bureaucracy on the planet, was telling the world that the Muslim Brotherhood is ‘largely secular.’ So that’s okay.” Mark links to the »

This day in baseball history

Featured image On June 24, 1962, the New York Yankees defeated the Detroit Tigers 9-7 in 22 innings. The game lasted exactly 7 hours, making it the longest ever played in terms of elapsed time as of that date. The Yankees and the Tigers had battled for the 1961 pennant, with the rest of the American League far behind. But heading in late June of 1962, as the Yankees headed to Detroit »

What Happened In Rio?

Featured image Very little, happily. The Rio + 20 conference has ended quietly, with not much damage done. Ken Haapala, Executive Vice President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), sums up the conference: Apparently, the Rio + 20 Conference ended on Friday. The word apparently is used jokingly. Saturday’s headlines of both the New York Times and the Washington Post failed to include any mention of the closing of the »

We Are Living In a Virtual World…

Featured image …and some of us are virtual people. From the Daily Mail comes a story of 21st Century romance gone wrong: The chance encounter online between a gorgeous young 18-year-old girl named Jessi and a handsome 18-year-old marine called Thomas Montgomery seemed on the surface to be innocent enough. However, what Jessi, whose online name was Tallhotblonde, didn’t know was that her ‘sweet sexy Marine’ was actually a 46-year-old married father »

Avoiding the full Jimmy Carter in Egypt

Featured image As Scott has noted, Mohammed Morsi is the winner in Egypt’s presidential run-off election. Morsi is the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood. He captured 51.7 percent of the vote. His opponent, Hosni Mubarak’s former Prime Minister, gained 48.3 percent. So the Egyptians toppled Mubarak and then nearly elected one of his cronies president. That’s not much of a mandate for Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. But mandates don’t matter; power »

The MB’s useful idiots

Featured image Today comes word that the man from the Muslim Brotherhood has been declared the winner of Egypt’s presidential election. For Americans trying to understand the meaning of this development, I don’t know of better commentary than Caroline Glick’s column “The Muslim Brotherhood’s useful idiots,” which anticipated it last week. UPDATE: Providing a little more background and putting an exclamation point on Glick’s column, Breitbart TV has posted the video below, »

Notes on Tomorrow 2012

Featured image This is a concluding post on Israel’s Fourth Presidential Conference that ran from Tuesday afternoon through Thursday evening in Jerusalem. Previous posts deriving from my attendance at the conference are accessible here. In this concluding post I’ve included a few photos to document personal highlights. In its four years of existence the conference has become an event. It attracts a field of distinguished speakers addressing matters of politics, public policy, »