Monthly Archives: April 2016
April 25, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Today came word that Ted Cruz and John Kasich have agreed to coordinate in future primary contests in an attempt to keep Donald Trump’s delegate count as low as possible. The two remaining Trump rivals reportedly agreed to stand aside in certain states where they do not pose a credible threat to the tycoon. Thus, Kasich wouldn’t actively seek votes in Indiana and Cruz wouldn’t actively seek them in Oregon
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April 25, 2016 — Steven Hayward
In my post yesterday on “The Cold War Never Ended,” I mentioned that I had written a long memo to management at AEI several years ago about aspects of this problem that I could not find. I found it. Turns out it dates from the fall of 2011, and while it doesn’t exactly describe the present moment, I think it saw some of the storm clouds that were gathering. Here
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April 25, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Today in Hannover, Germany, President Obama laid out for Europe’s citizens his vision of the world. In a wide-ranging speech, which you can read here, Obama urged Europeans to uphold the European Union–that message was directed largely to the English–to welcome endless numbers of refugees, and much more. Parts of the speech were pretty good. Other parts, one is tempted to dissect line by line. But I will try to
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April 25, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
A new GW Battleground Poll has Donald Trump within three points of Hillary Clinton. Her support is at 46 percent; his is at 43 percent. The poll is a bipartisan effort — a collaboration between Ed Goeas’s Tarrance Group (Republican) and Celinda Lake’s Lake Research Partners (Democrat). They surveyed 1,000 “registered likely voters.” The margin of error is plus/minus 3.1 percent. Other surveys show Trump considerably further behind Clinton. In
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April 25, 2016 — Steven Hayward
The New Criterion and Change Up Media have produced a series of videos featuring Mark Steyn discussing climate change and especially Michael Mann’s ludicrous libel suit against Mark. You can watch the entire 27 minute interview conducted by Benjamin Weingarten here, but here’s a 5 minute excerpt on how the climate extremists resemble Islamic extremists: Also this two-minute clip on the Godfathers of climate extremism:
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April 25, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Today is the 40th anniversary of the greatest play in baseball history: Chicago Cubs outfielder Rick Monday snatching away an American flag from two hooligans determined to set it afire at Dodger stadium in Los Angeles. Scott reviewed this episode here on Power Line back in 2005 (and maybe Paul has, too, but I missed it in my archival search). But here’s the video of the episode with Monday’s recent
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April 25, 2016 — Steven Hayward
We have our winner for this week from the august academic journal Feminism and Psychology, which hits the quadrifecta: eco-feminism, gendered something-something, race (can’t ever leave out race), and animals. Roosters, hawks and dawgs: Toward an inclusive, embodied eco/feminist psychology pattrice jones, Social Sciences, MCTC, 1501 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55403 Abstract The gendered exploitation of roosters used in cockfighting is a case example of the social construction of gender via animals
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April 25, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Physicist Richard Muller of UC Berkeley offers up a remarkably unbiased classification of climate change thinkers in the unlikely venue of the Puffington Host. I think it isn’t half bad: In my book, “Energy for Future Presidents” (pg 74) I give the following categories: Alarmists. They pay little attention to the details of the science. They are “unconvincibles.” They say the danger is imminent, so scare tactics are both necessary
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April 25, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the Star Tribune devoted a long editorial to the threat of terrorism emanating from Minnesota’s Somali Muslim community, only not in those words. Running under the headline “Countering extremism in Minnesota: A beautiful goal, barely begun,” the editorial adopts the Obama approved indirection and approach. The editorial pursues the line that I criticized in the Star Tribune column “Islam and Minnesota: It’s time for some straight talk for a
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April 25, 2016 — Scott Johnson
The United Kingdom’s referendum on continued membership in the European Union is set for June 23. Prime Minister Cameron seeks a yes vote and invited President Obama to express his views in support of Britain’s continued membership. Has President Obama ever persuaded anybody of anything? I don’t think so. His performance standing next to Cameron on Friday was classic Obama. It was patronizing. It was threatening. It was offensive. It
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April 24, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
William Seward is in the news these days. He was the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 and had the most first ballot votes, but was surpassed in later voting by Abraham Lincoln. This saga is cited as precedent (and there is much other) for denying the nomination to a candidate who comes to the convention with the most delegates. As I have noted, though, there were no
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April 24, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I wrote about Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s order removing the disqualification from voting for felons who have completed their time, both in custody and on parole or probation. His order will allow more than 200,000 ex-cons in Virginia to register to vote in the upcoming presidential election. In his order, McAuliffe explained the decision in standard liberalese: the ban on felon voting “disproportionately affects racial minorities and the economically disadvantaged;”
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April 24, 2016 — Steven Hayward
A lot of conservatives have expressed shock and disorientation at the revival of enthusiasm for socialism, not to mention the shattering of the consensus for free trade, low taxes, open markets, freedom of expression, and so forth. It is clear—and I wrote a long memo about this at AEI about five years ago that I cannot now find—that we all made a major mistake in the early 1990s when the
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April 24, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Paul is all over the transparently cynical move of Virginia Governor Terry McAwful to grant voting rights (but not gun rights) to convicted felons, which may well tip the 2016 election if it is decided by the vote of one swing state. But The Simpson’s “Sideshow Bob,” ironically voiced by the rare Hollywood conservative Kelsey Grammer, predicted this in a show way back in the early 1990s. Just 15 seconds
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April 24, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Remember Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos,” his initiative in 2008 to encourage people to vote for Hillary Clinton in the late primaries just to mess with Barack Obama’s march to the nomination? Well, it looks like the Koch brothers have decided to imitate the idea. I’m loving this story for all of the angst this will cause on the Left: Charles Koch: ‘It’s possible’ Clinton is preferable to a Republican for president
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April 24, 2016 — Scott Johnson
A reader writes: You might want to check out and comment on a ruling and statements by U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt for the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans. It concerns a case involving an incident in New Orleans during the hurricane Katrina flooding and is referred to down here as the Danziger Bridge case. It involved some serious misconduct and coverup by the N.O. police. What is
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April 24, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Michael Goodwin summarizes the latest news emanating from the prosecutors circling around New York’s Mayor de Blasio in the New York Post column “The mayor is going down!” The schadenfreude is overwhelming. The Post runs the column with the tabloid cover below. I’m thinking there must be something to it. Goodwin writes: Less than a week ago, Mayor de Blasio was offering aid to Ecuadorians after the earthquake there. Now
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