Monthly Archives: February 2013
February 21, 2013 — John Hinderaker
To further his gun-ban efforts, President Obama is using his permanent campaign organization, Organizing For Action, to solicit stories about “gun violence.” Some of the stories are no doubt sincere, some–since they are anonymous–are likely fabricated, and some are merely political, like this one from “Keith K.”: As a high school teacher, my students ask me why their lives are not as important as an NRA money. “that’s just the
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February 21, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Massachusett’s Democratic Rep. Edward Markey is currently a front-runner to succeed John Kerry in the Senate from the Bay State, and he’s perhaps the only candidate who can make Elizabeth Warren seem intelligent and probative by comparison. I’ve always thought Markey’s advocacy of low-wattage light bulbs is obviously congruent with his low-wattage intellect, and who can resist thinking of him as Rep. Malarkey? He’s one of those kind of politicians
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February 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post (per Jason Horowitz) makes John McCain an offer he’s unlikely to refuse and, in fact, has already accepted: McCain’s most probable avenue back to the land of mavericks and media adulation runs through immigration reform. The Republican base may hate him for it, but the country and a GOP whose unpopularity with Hispanic voters has prompted an existential crisis may end up owing him, as they say
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February 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I have it on excellent authority that, with the sequester looming, House Republicans will pass a bill to provide the various federal departments and agencies with the power to prioritize where cuts go in each organization. The total amount of cuts within a department or agency would be the same, but the cuts could be made on a more rational basis. I’ve been advocating this sort of legislation for some
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February 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Steve recently recalled the name of former Massachusetts Senator Leverett Saltonstall with fondness. Steve’s recollection prompted this first-hand account by attorney and Power Line reader Bill Levin in which Saltonstall, or at least one of his life lessons, makes a cameo appearance: It is not every day that you get to share a Leverett Saltonstall story involving Eliot Richardson and Judge Bork. During the Bork confirmation hearings, working in the
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February 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Daniel Henninger devotes his weekly Wall Street Journal column to the mind-boggling letter sent by Democratic Senators Feinstein and Levin along with their friend John McCain (Republican, I probably don’t need to remind you) to Sony Pictures protesting the film Zero Dark Thirty. “Zero Dark Thirty is factually inacurrate,” these solons write, “and we believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt
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February 20, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
As far as I’m concerned, Ted Cruz hasn’t put a foot wrong since he took his Senate seat early last month. In fact, he has been the star of the legislative session to date. You can tell by the fact that he has incurred the ire of Democratic Senators, the MSM, and John McCain. Today, though, comes a report that Cruz said that some of the attacks on fellow Republican
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February 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
A friend who is passionate, to say the least, about the immigration issue explains how we got where we are, and where we are heading if present trends continue. What follows is by him: Their intentions are, and always have been, crystal clear–unlimited immigration and unconditional amnesty. Everything else is a lie. As President Obama and lawmakers from both parties begin to take their first tentative steps toward again rewriting
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February 20, 2013 — Steven Hayward
This week we’re having to break out an Oscar Meyer eight-pack of Green Weenies to give away. First, the Keystone (Pipeline) Kops have attracted the notice of New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, who writes the following this week in “How Not To Solve Climate Change”: In fact, this should be a no-brainer for the president, for all the reasons I stated earlier, and one more: the strategy of activists
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February 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
First it was the official Marco Rubio water bottle, which you can get if you contribute to Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC. Thousands have been given away: Now Marco is in Israel, his visit a pointed contrast with the lengths Barack Obama and John Kerry have gone to in order to avoid visiting that country. Today his office circulated this photo of Rubio and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doing a water
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February 20, 2013 — Steven Hayward
A few days ago Mickey Kaus delivered one of his usual top-spin-heavy counter-intuitive schemes about how the best way to kill immigration reform is . . . the quick confirmation of Chuck Hagel. Say what? Actually I understand exactly what he means, and have thought for a while about laying out here a similar theory of my own about inter-party dynamics. Reflecting on the passing of Robert Bork last month
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February 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
In our republican form of government, politicians are not our rulers, they are our employees. That goes, too, for the bureaucrats who staff the many federal agencies. But these days, it seems clear that many politicians, and perhaps even more bureaucrats, have lost track of who is working for whom. To cite just one of many examples, President Obama and Congressional Democrats would not have rammed Obamacare through Congress against
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February 20, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
It must be fun being David Plouffe. Not only do you get to run rings around Republicans during election season, but you get to watch the Republican “brain trust” learn the wrong lessons from defeat, thereby improving the odds that your party will continue to run circles around the GOP. For example, many Republicans believe that the key to winning the Hispanic vote is caving on immigration reform (thereby allowing
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February 20, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Last summer, I posted with approval a critique of the report by Louis Freeh regarding Penn State’s actions related to the sexual abuse committed by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The critique was written by a friend of mine — a top-notch lawyer and former federal prosecutor. Our conclusion was that the Freeh report is badly flawed and that the case against Joe Paterno is weak to
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February 20, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that, as the sequester approaches, our politicians are focused not on dealing with it, but on attempting to blame ther opponents. No suprise there. In analyzing the politics of sequestration, it might be useful to separate two sets of consequences for which blame may attach. In the short term, politicians from one or both parties may be blamed for the inconveniences associated with cuts in government
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February 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
At my number one daughter’s primary school in the 1990’s, study of the Yanamamo bushmen permeated the curriculum. By the time my daughter moved on from the school to seventh grade, I believe she “knew” (I think much of what she was taught isn’t true) more about the Yanamamo than she did about American history. I should have been paying more attention, of course, but I had other battles to
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February 19, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesteday, in a post called “Waiting for Lefty,” I noted the complaint of some Republican Senators that President Obama hasn’t reached out to them to talk compromise on the big issues of the day. My take was that Obama isn’t calling them because he isn’t interested in compromises on the big issues of the day. His focus, instead, is on positioning Democrats to retake control of the House (while holding
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