Monthly Archives: July 2017
July 19, 2017 — Scott Johnson
President Trump has given a wide-raning interview to New York Times reporters Peter Baker, Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman. The Mueller investigation is on his mind in a big way. President Trump observes: “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else” (audio below). The President further characterizes
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July 19, 2017 — John Hinderaker
I will guest host Laura Ingraham’s radio show tomorrow and Friday. The show runs live from 9:00 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern, and is heard at other times in some geographies. We will have a good lineup of guests tomorrow, but there will also be time to talk about some recent Power Line posts. It will be a fun show, and I hope you can tune in! You can go
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July 19, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
“Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, our civilization and to set free suffering humanity….and we know that by thy grace, and the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.” Who wrote these words, asks John Fonte. Was it someone from the Alt-Right? A white nationalist, perhaps? In fact, they were composed
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July 19, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Unless you read the LA Times, you may have missed this astounding story from Monday about the now-former dean of the University of Southern California’s medical school, Dr. Carmen Puliafito. It is a long story, so here are the highlights: An Overdose, a Young Companion, Drug-Fueled Parties: The Secret Life of USC Med School Dean During his tenure as dean, Puliafito kept company with a circle of criminals and drug
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July 19, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I offered a long reflection here the other day on what is shaping up as the most scandalously bad book since Michael Bellesiles’s fraudulent Arming America—Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains. I decided to get a copy for myself (despite complaining that the criticism of the book is yet another Koch-directed conspiracy, MacLean must be delighted that the controversy is juicing sales), and there is literally a howler on every page.
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July 19, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Andrew Stuttaford at NRO informs us that a statue of Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s writing partner and and benefactor, has been erected in Manchester, England. The Manchester Evening News gushes: Iconic socialist thinker, Friedrich Engels has returned to Manchester[,] 150 years after he left. As part of the Manchester International Festival, a statue will be officially unveiled of the German writer, in Tony Wilson Place, this Sunday. Tony Wilson, by
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July 19, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump chatted at some length with Vladimir Putin during a dinner for G-20 leaders in Hamburg, Germany last week. The Washington Post and New York Times describe the meeting as “undisclosed,” an accurate description in the sense that Trump’s team didn’t tell the press about it. But the press acts as if Trump was obligated to tell it. He wasn’t. The press also acts as if there was something
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July 19, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The UK’s Guardian has posted the exclusive video above of Justine Damond with the following explanation: When reporters asked friends and family for stories about Justine Damond, many of them asked: “Have you heard about the ducks?” Three weeks before she was shot dead by police Damond, a 40-year-old Australian who had changed her surname from Ruszczyk in anticipation of her wedding, climbed into a storm drain and rescued a
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July 19, 2017 — Scott Johnson
At a press conference early yesterday evening Minneapolis authorities provided the the first account of the shooting of pajama clad Justine Damond by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor in the alley behind Damond’s home in southwest Minneapolis. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating Ms. Damond’s death. The account is based on the BCA’s interview of Noor’s partner, Officer Matthew Harrity. Noor himself isn’t talking, at least not yet.
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July 18, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Harry Reid’s decision to end the judicial filibuster of nominees for U.S. courts of appeals may have paved the way for Republicans to confirm Justice Gorsuch by ending the same practice at the Supreme Court level. But that doesn’t mean Reid’s decision isn’t paying off for the left. In fact, it’s paying off with some regularity at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the second
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July 18, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Along with Darkest Hour, the forthcoming Churchill movie we noted here the other day, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk opens tomorrow. From the trailers it looks to be extremely impressive, which is what you’d expect from Nolan, and most early reviews are glowing. There is, however, this passage in the USA Today review yesterday by Brian Truitt: The trio of timelines can be jarring as you figure out how they all fit,
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July 18, 2017 — Steven Hayward
You may have heard the rant about Washington’s unseriousness about economic growth that JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon delivered on an earnings call the other day. In case you missed it, here it is (with some key bits marked in bold): Since the Great Recession, which is now 8 years old, we’ve been growing at 1.5 to 2 percent in spite of stupidity and political gridlock. Because the American business
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July 18, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Eli Lake reports that President Trump came very close yesterday to not certifying Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal. Eli writes: On Monday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was supposed to certify Iranian compliance again. Talking points were sent to columnists. Senior administration officials briefed analysts on a conference call. The Treasury Department was set to announce new sanctions against a number of Iranians to soften the blow for the
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July 18, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Scott wrote yesterday about a tragic shooting incident in Minneapolis. At about 11:30 last Saturday night, a 40-year-old woman named Justine Damond, a native of Australia, thought she heard a sexual assault in progress in the alley behind her house. She called 911 and a Minneapolis Police Department squad car with two officers responded to her call. She left her house in her pajamas to talk to the officers. While
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July 18, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Within a few hours of the death of the Obamacare repeal-and-replacement bill in the Senate, a version of the repeal-only option appears to have died. That option represented Senator McConnell’s fallback position. Why not? Only eighteen months ago, in December 2015, Republican Senators (minus Susan Collins) voted unanimously to repeal Obamacare. They must have had their fingers crossed behind their back. The December 2015 repeal vote in the Senate was
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July 18, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Many Democrats, and even a few Republicans, have claimed that Donald Trump, Jr’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have information about Hillary Clinton’s illicit dealings with Russia while she was Secretary of State constitutes the long-sought evidence of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, even though the Russian with whom Trump, Jr. met conveyed no such information. This, I think, overlooks a very basic
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July 18, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Last night, Sens. Jerry Moran and Mike Lee announced that they would not vote for the latest Senate version of Obamacare repeal and replace. They argued, in effect, that the proposed legislation did not really amount to repeal. Sens. Rand Paul and Susan Collins were already “no” votes. Thus, the defection of Moran and Lee meant the demise of the bill. What now? President Trump has called for the straight
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