Monthly Archives: January 2014
January 28, 2014 — Steven Hayward
I wonder sometimes how the reasonably sensible Bill Galston can remain in today’s Democratic Party, whose obsession with equality has elided into pure, envy-filled resentment of the successful. There’s a reason why envy was long considered one of the seven deadly sins, and to give voice to this in punitive redistributive policy, as Democrats now so clearly wish to do, may well prove deadly to American society. Writing in the
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January 28, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
The excellent Peter Wehner has responded to my post disputing his statement that “Barack Obama is Jimmy Carter without Camp David.” Pete writes: I’ll take this opportunity to clarify what I was saying. My point about President Obama being Jimmy Carter without Camp David has to do with Mr. Obama being incompetent; I wasn’t arguing that he’s inconsequential. To take these two categories in order. I’m not sure I could
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January 28, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
Walter Pincus, the Washington Post’s long-time voice of conventional liberal thinking on national defense issues, is unhappy with Robert Gates’ new book. He complains that, although Gates devotes nearly half of the book to his two years at the Pentagon under President Bush, he provides “no embarrassing anecdotes or acidic comments.” No doubt, there were embarrassing moments at the Pentagon while Gates was serving Bush there. But Gates’ high-profile revelations
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January 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
In the title of his excellent essay on Pete Seeger, Howard Husock (accurately) proclaimed Pete Seeger “America’s most successful Communist.” Seeger faithfully toed the Stalinist line through more than two decades and publicly declared that he was still a communist periodically ever after. The New York Times compiled Seeger’s statements of repentance, such as they were, here in 2007. It is something beyond pathetic that the White House has issued
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January 28, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about the plan of the House Republican leadership to push for immigration reform that includes amnesty. Subsequently, there have been several strong critiques from conservative opinion-writers such as Bill Kristol, the NRO editors, Peter Kirsanow, and Quin Hillyer. I was most struck, though, by this excerpt from an email that someone wrote to Mark Krikorian: To me, the House immigration effort proceeding is also, somehow, not to
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January 28, 2014 — Steven Hayward
Fred Barnes reminds us in the Wall Street Journal this morning that opposition party responses to State of the Union speeches typically fall flat, and gently chides Republicans for having little imagination to try anything different. One idea might be suggested by Bret Stephens’ column today, which extrapolates from Kurt Vonnegut’s famous short story “Harrison Bergeron.” If you don’t know the story, Stephens helpfully provides Vonnegut’s self-explanatory opening: The year
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January 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
I’m pretty sure that if George Tsunis were the ambassadorial nominee of a Republican president, you’d know his name by now. As it is, he is the nominee of Barack Obama to represent the United States as ambassador to Norway, and you probably have never heard of him. Tsunis’s sole qualification for the job is quantitative. He contributed large sums to the Democratic Party and Democratic causes; he also bundled
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January 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Mark Landler covers Iran’s public relations offensive at Davos in the New York Times article “Iran message at Davos has eerie echo.” That eerie echo that Landler hears has nothing on the message sent by the catalogue of Iran’s activities compiled by Michael Ledeen: ● A few days ago, Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the head of the Basij– a highly ideological militia under the umbrella of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps
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January 28, 2014 — Scott Johnson
An observant friend draws my attention to the classic New York Times article by Philip Lutz: “Art meets environmental activism in ‘The Crossroads Project.'” Lutz reports on a performance piece that is to have its New York debut next month, and he’s pretty excited about it: This month’s blast of arctic air may have roused climate-change skeptics. But the composer Laura Kaminsky and the painter Rebecca Allan were unfazed. Holed
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January 27, 2014 — Steven Hayward
There’s a story in the front section of today’s Wall Street Journal that seems perfectly suited to Hinderaker’s beat: “Towns Fret as ‘Bikini Baristas’ Draw Crowds.” “Bikini” or “lingerie” coffee stands have caused a stir across the Northwest, a region already crowded with drive-through coffee outlets operated by mainstream companies such as Starbucks and Dutch Brothers. According to a consumer website that functions as a guide to kiosks, more than
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January 27, 2014 — John Hinderaker
It has been a while since we cranked up Power Line Live. Tomorrow night’s State of the Union, perhaps Obama’s last before he becomes a hopeless lame duck, seems like a good occasion to sweep out the cobwebs and reopen the tavern. I see that a few drunken libs have been hanging out past closing time, but we will evict them before the festivities start tomorrow evening. The speech begins
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January 27, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
Amidst all of the speculation about whether Republicans will capture the Senate in this year’s election, this fact stands out: Democrats must defend seats in five of the 10 states where President Barack Obama is most unpopular. Here are the five states and Obama’s approval rating (measured by Gallup) in each: West Virginia — 25.1 percent South Dakota — 31.7 percent Montana — 33.1 percent Alaska — 33.5 percent Arkansas
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January 27, 2014 — John Hinderaker
It is almost unbelievable that Republican leaders in the House are seriously considering an immigration “reform” bill that reportedly resembles the disastrous package that was passed by the Senate. With poverty skyrocketing, labor force participation plummeting and wages declining, why on Earth would we want to import tens of millions of new, unskilled laborers to compete with our own fellow citizens, who are already hurting? In order to lower wages
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January 27, 2014 — John Hinderaker
The Obama administration has unleashed a series of attacks on conservatives that at present has no end in sight. One of those attacks was the indictment of Dinesh D’Souza, whose anti-Obama film 2016 is the second biggest-grossing political documentary of all time. D’Souza is accused of contributing $20,000, more than the legal limit, to the Senate candidacy of his friend Wendy Long. The U.S. Attorney in New York announced a
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January 27, 2014 — John Hinderaker
President Obama will deliver his sixth State of the Union speech tomorrow night. The media will cover it as though it matters, even though hardly anyone is listening and most Americans have little or no confidence in the president. Obama’s fundamental problem, as he discourses on the state of the union, is that the union’s state is palpably worse, after five years, than it was when he took office. So
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January 27, 2014 — Steven Hayward
It was fifty years ago that The Beatles took the U.S. by storm, culminating in their February 9 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (supposedly the most watched TV show in American history at that point). Here’s a short highlight reel And here’s “The Rutles” spoof (and if you’ve never seen The Rutles, well, order it on Netflix tonight. I’m convinced The Rutles was the Inspiration for This Is Spinal
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January 27, 2014 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about Alex Mooney’s campaign for Congress. Alex seeks to represent West Virginia’s second congressional district. The seat has for years been held by Shirley Moore Capito, a moderate Republican who is now running for the Senate. As I explained in my earlier post, Alex, whom I’ve known for some time, is the most conservative candidate in the race who is electable. I’m also told that he has
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