Monthly Archives: July 2015
July 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
John Kerry testified today before the House Foreign Relations Committee about the Iran deal. I watched only a small portion of it. The debate, though very important, is becoming stale. For me, the most interesting moment occurred when Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked Kerry whether, if Congress disapproves of the agreement and overrides President Obama’s veto of its disapproval, the administration would follow the law regarding what
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July 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, the Daily Beast smeared Donald Trump by suggesting that he raped his ex-wife Ivana. It justified digging up this ancient story on the theory that “Donald Trump introduced his presidential campaign to the world with a slur against Mexican immigrants, accusing them of being ‘rapists.'” If Donald Trump committed rape, however long ago, there is no need to justify writing about it. The problem is that, from all that
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July 28, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Except when it comes to law enforcement, by doing less. The Obama administration has been a disaster for Africa-Americans, but most pretend not to notice out of a sense of ethnic loyalty. That is understandable, but if you are an African-American and are looking past the Obama administration, wondering what policies might produce better results, check out this graphic that was tweeted a couple of days ago by the Young
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July 28, 2015 — John Hinderaker
The Center for Medical Progress released its third Planned Parenthood video today. It is around 12 minutes long and is posted below. This video is quite different from the first two. It features a woman named Holly O’Donnell, who formerly worked for a company called Stem Express. Her job was to extract intact body parts from aborted babies. The first time she tried to do it, she fainted. The video
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July 28, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Last night I watched on C-SPAN the Senate roll-call vote on the transportation bill amendment to reinstate the Export-Import Bank, and it passed by a vote of 69-28. (McConnell voted no on the amendment.) So note that there is overwhelming support in the Senate for the Ex-Im Bank, at least on a recorded vote. It is remarkable that the opposition to this small piece of crony capitalism has succeeded in
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July 28, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Below is the video of the Hudson Institute event held over the noon hour today in Washington, D.C. on the pending nuclear deal with Iran. Senator Tom Cotton keynoted the event. Senator Cotton’s address was followed by a stellar panel discussion including Michael Doran, William Tobey, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith. The embed code was graciously sent at my request by the Hudson Institute. I can only say that I
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July 28, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Ted Cruz has upset some of the usual “cultured despisers” (a phrase that I have traced back to sociologist Peter Berger in the 1960s, incidentally, though it may have earlier origins [UPDATE: It was Schleiermacher—I should have tried out that Google thing]) by asserting in the New York Times Magazine Sunday that Captain James T. Kirk of the Original Series is superior to Captain John Luke Picard of the UN-congruent
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July 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that if Congress rejects the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, Israel will be blamed. “I fear that what could happen is if Congress were to overturn it, our friends Israel could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed,” Kerry told the Council of Foreign Relations. The question is: “more blamed” by whom? The answer, I think, is “more blamed” by
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July 28, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Last week we pondered the disappearance of Rand Paul. Once again, Power Line was on top of the curve. Today, Politico has a long feature on Paul’s “downward spiral.” Interviews with more than a dozen sources close to the Kentucky senator, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of an underfunded and understaffed campaign beaten down by low morale. They described an operation that pitted
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July 28, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Mike Huckabee is under attack for a comment he made about the Iran nuclear deal. Huckabee stated: This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. The comment is over-the-top for several reasons. First, it is too harsh. It’s Iran that
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July 28, 2015 — Scott Johnson
In their Wall Street Journal column “The stonewall at the top of the IRS,” Reps. Ron DeSantis and Jim Jordan write in connection with the bottomless IRS scandal: [O]n Aug. 2, the House Oversight Committee issued its first subpoena for IRS documents, including all of Ms. Lerner’s emails. On Feb. 2, 2014, Kate Duval, the IRS commissioner’s counsel, identified a gap in the Lerner emails that were being collected. Days
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July 28, 2015 — Scott Johnson
The end is nigh. This is the last in my series of posts about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book, Between the World and Me. The publisher retails the book for $24.00. Amazon sells it for the discounted price of $14.40. As a New York Times best-seller (number 1 on the nonfiction hardcover list), it is also available at a 30 percent discount from Barnes & Noble. None of these options represents
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July 28, 2015 — Scott Johnson
Today at 12:15 p.m.(Eastern), Senator Tom Cotton will keynote the Hudson Institute event in Washington, D.C. on the pending nuclear deal with Iran. Senator Cotton’s keynote address will be followed by discussion featuring a stellar panel including Michael Doran, William Tobey, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith. The event will be livestreamed via the video below once the program gets started. Until that time the video will feature Hudson’s most recent
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July 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Donald Trump has tried to explain why he was a Democrat by saying that a Republican president, George W. Bush, crashed the economy. He told MSNBC that in the last two years of the Bush administration, the housing market “was a bubble that was waiting to explode.” Bush, Trump claimed, had a “death wish,” so he ignored the obvious weakness in the housing market and the economy collapsed. We have
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July 27, 2015 — Steven Hayward
A couple of readers suggested I work up another “Hitler Learns About. . .” parody of the Planned Parenthood videos. I hesitated a long time on this. There’s nothing funny or ironic about this story, like a botched play call at the Super Bowl. The reductio ad Hitlerum style of argument is usually wrong or trivializing of the most monstrous evil of the last century when applied to current political
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July 27, 2015 — Paul Mirengoff
Nick Saban, the hugely successful head football coach at the University of Alabama, offered some interesting dating advice to his players, according to an excerpt from a new biography by Monte Burke. “Ultimately,” the coach reportedly told the team, “you never want to sleep with anybody who has less to lose than you do.” Saban found a colorful way to drive home the point. “So, ultimately, if I’m ever going
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July 27, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Following the headlines every day, one could easily give in to despair. But if you want a shot of optimism, focus on these NBC/Marist poll results in states where voters might actually be paying attention–Iowa and New Hampshire. This poll is a simple approval/disapproval comparison. Of course, it reflects the fact that politicians in general are not held in high esteem. And Bernie Sanders scores well, especially in New Hampshire,
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