Monthly Archives: March 2013
March 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
It is a cliche to salute Israel as a land of miracles — Ruth Wisse observes more originally in the context of Passover that “modern Israel represents an immense human accomplishment that may even go beyond the prophetic vision” — but for a tiny country it has staked out an improbable position at the forefront of many life-saving and life-enhancing technologies. In the New York Daily News Matthew Kalman provides
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March 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Michael McConnell is a distinguished scholar, law professor (currently at Stanford Law School, my alma mater) and jurist (he served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit). He is also a friend of Power Line which, I understand, he started reading back in 2002, our first year. McConnell has written a Wall Street Journal op-ed about the two same-sex marriage cases the Supreme Court will hear next
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March 22, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
The estimable Noemie Emery chides the “conservative wing” of the GOP for making “excuses, excuses” for the fact that the Republican Party hasn’t been nominating candidates for president more to its liking. The excuse offered is that “The Establishment met at the Country Club on alternate Tuesdays to undermine all the upcoming Reagans.” The reality, says Emery, is this. [A]gainst establishment types who were national figures, the conservative movement flung
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March 22, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama said some good things in Israel. The good things he said contradicted the thesis of his first-term approach to Israel. In the style of what might be called Obama knows best — knows best what is good for you — he also said some foolish and patronizing things that represented continuity with his first-term approach. In his speech to Israeli students, for example, Obama gave the impression that
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March 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Recommendation Number 13 on the Republican Party’s recently released list of demographic outreach priorities is to “Expand our presence on more pop culture oriented outlets to ensure our message is reaching all voters.” A few years ago, I might have scoffed at this recommendation. The electorate, I thought, became serious enough during high presidential election season to make sure it reached the message of presidential candidate’s in traditional ways e.g.,
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March 21, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The Senate continues to debate the Democrats’ budget, which features massive deficits as far as the eye can see. Tonight Jeff Sessions moved to recommit the budget in order to produce a budget that balances sometime in the next ten years. This is the language of Sessions’ motion: Mr. Sessions moves to commit S. Con. Res. 8 back to the Committee on the Budget with instructions to report back no
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March 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Remember the Fort Hood massacre? It occurred in early November of 2009, when Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people on a military base. Three and half years later, the military still has not tried Hasan. Not that a trial of his guilt or innocence is necessary. Hasan asked, through his attorney, to plead guilty to 13 counts of premeditated murder. However, Army rules prohibit a judge from
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March 21, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Haven’t seen a lot of notice for a recent study of water pollution from natural gas fracking in Pennsylvania, produced by Resources for the Future and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. So far it seems only Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations has shown it much love: The team’s conclusions are fairly straightforward. They find enhanced chlorine concentrations downstream of waste water treatment
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March 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
Adrian Dantley is among the three best basketball players (along with Elgin Baylor and Dave Bing) ever produced by Washington, D.C., and the best high school player our area has seen in the past 50 years. As a pro, Dantley average 24.4 points per game over a 15 year career. He stands 25th on the NBA’s all-time points scored list. Dantley scored most of his field goals from the low
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March 21, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Sure, that’s an optimistic question to ask. But following the election, fissures have appeared in the Left’s coalition, and frustration is mounting. Here are a couple of examples. First, an email that MoveOn.org sent out yesterday on gun control. The email is long, so I will excerpt it: Subject: Argh! Dear MoveOn member, This is the nightmare scenario: “Reid guts Senate gun control bill.”1 “Tuesday’s developments are a major win
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March 21, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
According to this Washington Post report, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu displayed “unusual solidarity” during the first day of Obama’s visit to Israel. By this, the Post means unusual solidarity for them. The Obama-Netanyahu interaction was what one expect from the leaders of two close allies, but not what we’ve seen in the past from these two, thanks to Obama’s studied belligerence. But, the appearance of good will
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March 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In mid-2011, as you may recall, President Obama sought to bring peace to the Middle East through his proposal that Israel should return to its 1967 borders in exchange for being annihilated by its enemies. Has Obama’s thinking on the subject advanced? Aaron Klein suggests that it has not. We’ll have to check back after Obama’s big speech to Israeli students, from which he has thoughtfully barred the students of
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March 21, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Investigative reporter/editor Tom Lipscomb is a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg Center for the Digital Future (USC) and the founder of Times Books. He broke stories on questions about the military records of both John Kerry and George W. Bush in the 2004 election in the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Sun. Tom argues that the media’s allegiance to the Democratic Party is suppressing news: In one of the
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March 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Last night the low temperature where I live was one degree. Tonight in church I learned that it was the coldest first day of spring since 1965. We are going on vacation to a warmer place in a few days, and none too soon. So I was reminded of this post, which I did one year ago, on March 16, 2012. We had a fabulously warm spring last year, and
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March 20, 2013 — Paul Mirengoff
During the past twenty years or so, the Republican establishment and the conservative base have operated pursuant to an unwritten accommodation. The Party nominates an establishment candidate who receives the base’s support; the establishment nominee embraces all major positions of the conservative base. Mitt Romney, for example, ran as a down-the-line conservative in 2012. Before he began seriously contemplating a run for the presidency, however, Romney was a moderate on
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March 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Today the Senate passed a mammoth spending bill that will fund the federal government until September, and that locks in the Republicans’ sequestration victory. The Senate also debated the Democrats’ budget–the first they have proposed after four long years. We have written extensively about the Democrats’ budget proposal. It would increase taxes by $1.5 trillion, accelerate federal spending and add $7 trillion to the federal deficit. It is, in other
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March 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Later on tonight, I am planning on doing a post or two about budget numbers. But before undertaking that green-eyeshade task, let’s talk spring training. Spring training has a special resonance here in the North; the overnight low last night was one degree, and there is a pile of snow ten feet high in my cul-de-sac. Around here spring is only a rumor, save for the far-off crack of bat
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