Monthly Archives: February 2013
February 19, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The gulf between Barack Obama and reality continues to grow, but Barry remains a legend in his own mind. Michael Ramirez brilliantly weaves together Obama’s penchant for vacations and his second-favorite sport with his appalling record when he is ostensibly working:
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February 19, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Nate Silver considers whether Marco Rubio is the most electable conservative in the putative field. His answer appears to be “yes, but.” [L]ong before Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire cast their ballots, the potential nominees will be competing against one another in the so-called “invisible primary.” In this stage, which is already under way, they hope to persuade party insiders that they represent the best path forward for
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February 19, 2013 — John Hinderaker
John Cochrane of the University of Chicago and Stanford said it succinctly: Once upon a time, the minimum wage, like free trade, was a basic test of whether you were awake in the first week of econ 1. We put a horizontal line in a supply and demand graph. Minimum wages increase unemployment of poor people. Yes, that fact was once considered so obvious that, if I recall correctly, both
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February 19, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Alana Goodman at the Washington Free Beacon reports that Chuck Hagel said Israel is on its way to becoming an apartheid state, according to a contemporaneous account of an appearance by Hagel at Rutgers University on April 9, 2010. Hagel also accused Israel of violating U.N. resolutions, called for U.S.-designated terrorist organization Hamas to be included in any peace negotiations, and described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “radical,”
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February 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Office of the Israeli Prime Minister has posted Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency. It is an interesting speech at whose heart lies the question of Iran: I think that the development of nuclear weapons by Iran will be a pivot of history, will change the balance of power irrevocably in the world. When people with unlimited ambitions of aggression get unlimited weapons,
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February 19, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The Democrats now control all of the levers of power in Minnesota, so when the national Democratic Party made its gun control push after Newtown, Minnesota Democrats followed suit. Legislation to ban a random selection of semiautomatic rifles and average-capacity magazines for all firearms was introduced here, largely mirroring gun control measures at the federal level and elsewhere. Given the Democrats’ control over both the legislature and the governor’s office,
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February 19, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Never mind the Keystone pipeline for a moment–could Obama have opened the door to drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)? If he did that, environmentalists would literally (meaning, in this case, actually) riot in the streets, rather than just getting arrested as a a symbolic gesture as they have done with Keystone. The Washington Free Beacon (which I always want to render as the Washington Free Bacon, even
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February 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal’s Weekend Interview feature this past Saturday sent Journal editorial board member Matthew Kaminkski in the direction of the author of the screenplay of Zero Dark Thirty, Mark Boal. While he has teamed up with director Katheryn Bigelow, Boal is also a reporter who has written for such reliably left-wing outlets as The Village Voice, Rolling Stone and Mother Jones. With his screenplay for the Zero Dark
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February 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The liberal media manifest their bias not primarily by writing things that aren’t true–although that sometimes happens–but rather, by selecting what they do and do not report as news. Major scandals and events of great importance are simply ignored if they do not reflect well on the Democratic Party, while minor stories receive endless attention if they advance the liberal agenda. You could illustrate this every day; here are a
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February 18, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
According to Politico, “GOP senators [are] waiting for Obama outreach” and disappointed that none has been forthcoming: President Barack Obama will need Republican senators to pass his ambitious agenda — and the White House has even identified the top prospects. But after months of buildup and a week since his State of the Union address, key aides on the Hill and at the White House acknowledge that even GOP senators
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February 18, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Recently, Republicans have exhibited a fascination with the “flavor of the month” in presidential politics. Flavors have included Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Herman Cain, and now Dr. Benjamin Carson. The tendency towards such infatuation is understandable, especially given the Party’s tendency to nominate stale candidates like Robert Dole, John McCain, and (many would say) Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, though, a few speeches and appearances on conservative talk shows provide a dramatically
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February 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker
In Benghazi, four alleged Christian missionaries–from the U.S., Egypt, South Korea and South Africa–have been arrested for distributing extracts from the Bible, and may face the death penalty: Four foreigners have been arrested in Libya on suspicion of being missionaries and distributing Christian literature, a charge that could carry the death penalty. The four – a Swedish-American, Egyptian, South African and South Korean – were arrested in Benghazi by Preventive
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February 18, 2013 — Steven Hayward
The woeful Hagel nomination brings back memories of the 1936 appointment of the “entirely unsuited” (Richard Langworth’s phrase) Sir Thomas Inskip to be the Minister for the Coordination of Defense in the British government—a post that everyone thought Churchill should fill. William Manchester pointed out that “a search of The Times files reveals that his only notable public effort had been a successful campaign to suppress revisions of the Anglican
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February 18, 2013 — Steven Hayward
That was my first reaction this morning to seeing the news that Colorado’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper recently drank a glass of fracking fluid to demonstrate that it is safe. From the Washington Times account: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper went to unusually great lengths to learn firsthand the strides the oil and gas industry has made to minimize environmental harm from fracking. The first-term Democrat and former Denver mayor told
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February 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I’ll be at the David Horowitz Freedom Center West Coast Retreat in Palos Verdes this weekend. They call it a retreat, but I think of it as group therapy. The retreat features an unbelievable lineup of speakers including Senators Jeff Sessions and Ron Johnson, Rep. Michele Bachmann, Victor Davis Hanson, Andy McCarthy, Bill Whittle, Bill Voegeli and Ben Stein, among others. The retreat kicks off with dinner on Friday and
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February 18, 2013 — Scott Johnson
On its home page, the Daily Caller flags Charles Johnson’s story with the heading above. Clicking on the story shows the headline to be the more prosaic but perfectly serviceable “Supporter of Iranian dictatorship brought Chuck Hagel to Rutgers for 2007 speech.” Charles Johnson reports: A pro-Hezbollah, pro-Hamas candidate for the Iranian presidency, a man linked to Iranian-controlled front groups, brought former Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to speak at
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February 17, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
I confess to watching Downton Abbey, the glorified soap opera that PBS runs on “Masterpiece Classic.” (By the way, what was the last true masterpiece to appear on Masterpiece Theatre/Classic, I Claudius?) My excuse is that I got hooked before I realized how flawed the show is. A better excuse, albeit of the after the fact variety, came briefly to mind when I saw, via Forbes Magazine, that some among
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