Monthly Archives: January 2016
January 29, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Michael Cromartie (“the Crom” to me for 30 years now) is the most significant person in Washington DC that you’ve never heard of. And that’s just the way he likes it. Not because he’s a backroom K Street wire puller from the shadows of House of Cards. To the contrary: he is the rarest thing you can find in Washington: a truly honest broker; a person of faith, understated on
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January 29, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
The big news associated with today’s release of more Hillary Clinton emails isn’t the content of any email released. The biggest news is the fact, noted by Scott, that 22 of the emails found on her personal email server are classified as “Top Secret” and can’t be released because even with redaction they would be too damaging to national security. The second biggest news may be the State Department’s announcement
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January 29, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at only a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized rate in the fourth quarter of last year, the Commerce Department reported today. That’s quite weak. 2015 as a whole wasn’t so good either. GDP expanded at only 2.4%, the same as in 2014. That’s called limping along. For as James Pethokoukis points out, from the end of World War II through 2005, the economy grew at an
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January 29, 2016 — John Hinderaker
This afternoon Paul, Steve and John got together for a guest-free edition of the Power Line Show. Topic number one was, of course, last night’s GOP debate in Iowa and the state of the races in both parties. Steve and Paul ventured predictions on New Hampshire. They found time for a few more stories in the news, including the latest on Hillary’s home email server, possibly the worst IT decision
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January 29, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Via our friends at Intellectual Takeout, we see a list of the 200 books most often assigned to American college students. Having perused the list, my judgment is: it could be a whole lot worse. It is striking how many are legitimate classics, everything from Strunk and White–number one on the list–to Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Homer, Chaucer, Mill and Locke. If students are actually reading this stuff,
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January 29, 2016 — John Hinderaker
The State Department is releasing the latest trove of Hillary Clinton emails today, and the Associated Press reports that seven email chains are being withheld entirely from production (as opposed to being produced in redacted form) because they are classified as Top Secret: The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails with material requiring one
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January 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne continue their reportage on Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured private email server for her official business as Secretary of State. How sensitive was the information stored on the server and accessible to the prying eyes of hostile powers? Let’s put it this way: “Official: Some Clinton emails ‘too damaging’ to release.” Herridge and Browne report: The intelligence community has now deemed some of Hillary
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January 29, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
I strongly recommend Sean Trende’s three-part series about the rise of Donald Trump. The series has graced the “picks” section of our main-page this week. It represents the most incisive analysis of the Trump phenomenon I’ve read. Here are the links to Part I, Part II, and Part III. I’m going to focus on Part II — “Cruz, Trump and the Missing White Voters.” In this article, Trende makes the
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January 29, 2016 — Steven Hayward
I know I’m not the first to suggest that some of the elite disdain of Donald Trump arises from the class conflicts peculiar to New York City. He’s obviously an outer borough man, and while you might let him build your high rise luxury condo on the Upper West Side, you certainly wouldn’t invite him to dinner with your pals from The New Yorker and the board of the Met.
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January 29, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio weren’t the only candidates exposed in last night’s debate as having changed their position on immigration reform. Rubio pointed out that Jeb Bush has also changed his. Bush’s current position, and the one set forth in a book he wrote (with an eye, surely, towards a presidential run) is that illegal immigrants should have a path to legalization but not to citizenship. But when Sen.
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January 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
David Horowitz was in town yesterday to speak at the University of Minnesota in the afternoon and at a supporter’s house in the evening. I attended both events. It was good to see David back on his feet after recent health challenges and it was good to reconnect with my old friend Michael Finch, president of the David Horowitiz Freedom Center. David is a former leader of the New Left
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January 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
In New York’s Observer, John Schindler has a good column summarizing the mind-boggling story of Hillary’s Clinton’s unsecured private server for her official business as Secretary of State. To borrow a question, what difference at this point does it make? Clinton’s conduct implicates numerous criminal statutes, but the heart of the story is something like this: Regardless of whether Ms. Clinton was engaged in political corruption, she unquestionably cast aside
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January 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll explains: WHY I AM BOYCOTTING THE OSCARS. She writes: Oh, mercy me! I realize that by now this is not breaking news but, evidently, black people have not garnered any nominations this go-round in the Oscars. Disaster! Black Awards Matter! It certainly could not possibly be that no individual black actor was outstanding enough in a good enough film to merit such acclaim in 2015. Oh, no. It’s
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January 28, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Tonight, the University of Maryland defeated Iowa’s third ranked men’s college basketball team 74-68. Maryland forwards Jake Layman and Robert Carter held Iowa all-American Jarrod Uthoff to 9 points on 2-13 shooting. Carter had 17 points on 7-11 shooting. In other Iowa news, there was a Republican presidential debate. As expected, Donald Trump boycotted it. I still don’t know whether this was a good decision, but it’s not looking too
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January 28, 2016 — John Hinderaker
I multi-tasked through tonight’s GOP presidential debate, watching the proceedings on Fox while participating in Power Line Live and simultaneously exchanging several hundred texts with my wife and three of my children. It provided a sort of three-dimensional perspective on the proceedings. For what it’s worth, here is my take. My guess is that the only candidate who gained perceptibly was Marco Rubio. As you may know, I have endorsed
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January 28, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Paul and Scott have both seen the movie 13 Hours and wrote about it here and here. Scott noted that at the theater he attended, the large room was reserved for Carol. 13 Hours got the smaller venue and was sparsely attended. Scott linked to a Hill story headlined “Benghazi film flops at the box office.” This was a pretty common theme on the left; to cite just one instance,
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January 28, 2016 — John Hinderaker
GOP debate number seven is tonight, from Des Moines, Iowa. It begins at 9:00 Eastern and will be televised on Fox News. Drama is building, as some speculate that Donald Trump may show up after all and steal the spotlight. Others are hoping that Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, or maybe someone else will break out from the crowd. One way or another, it should be interesting. So: plan to
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