Monthly Archives: April 2018

What Alfie’s all about

Featured image Twenty-three month old Alfie Evans was held for nearly a week without care against the will of his parents in a Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool until he died yesterday. He could have been cared for in a Vatican hospital if the British authorities had let him go. The British authorities denied him care to avoid his or their suffering. The basic facts of the case are set forth by »

Redacted (2)

Featured image The House Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was heavily redacted by the “Intelligence Community” before its release to the public on Friday. I posted the report as released here. In his contemporaneous press release, Chairman Devin Nunes expressed his displeasure with the redactions: “Given the substantial public interest at stake, the Committee is publishing the redacted version we’ve received. However, we object to the »

The smearing of Ronny Jackson

Featured image Ronny Jackson, the president’s physician, seemed like a questionable choice to head the Veterans Administration. The VA is a vast and apparently poorly run bureaucracy. And unlike other vast, poorly run bureaucracies, it’s entrusted with the vital task of delivering medical care directly to our nation’s veterans. Thus, the job of VA head cries out for an experienced administrator with a history of running, and taming, large bureaucracies. Jackson is »

The Trials of Joy Reid

Featured image In recent days, MSNBC commentator Joy Reid has been under fire for “homophobic” blog posts that she did years ago. Full disclosure: I have never seen Ms. Reid on television, and if she has ever written anything, I haven’t read it. My impression is that she is a cookie-cutter leftist and is of no interest. So my knowledge of the controversy is limited to the Associated Press’s account. Still, the »

Packers draft JK Scott

Featured image JK Scott is the punter for last season’s national champion University of Alabama football team who, during a recent team visit to the White House, initiated a prayer for President Trump. He described it this way: I said ‘Hey, Mr. Trump, would you let me pray over you.” “He said ‘Yeah, come on.” From there, Scott put one hand on Trump’s shoulder and the other on his chest. “And I »

Candace Owens Tells the Truth About the NAACP

Featured image The NAACP has long been a sacred cow. It did some good long ago, but for decades it has been a useless, left-wing pressure group in thrall to the Democratic Party. As such, it has generally opposed the interests of most African-Americans. So it is good to see the fearless Candace Owens denounce the NAACP: It seems that every day, more cracks are appearing in the wall that has blocked »

Say it ain’t so, Bret

Featured image Bret Baier recited something close to the approved Hamas version of the current edition of its continuing war on Israel at about 27:40 of Special Report last night (video here). There really is no excuse for this (which I transcribed from the video): “Weekly protests along the Gaza border with Israel turned deadly again today. Gaza’s health ministry says three Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire while trying to breach »

Redacted

Featured image We have highlighted the revelation of the House Intelligence Committee report that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper leaked the Steele Dossier to Jake Tapper/CNN, lied about it to the committee, and then went on the CNN payroll to continue the anti-Trump hatefest. At the Weekly Standard, Eric Felten sketches out the ramifications of Clapper’s treachery. Based on his reading of the Comey memos, Felten speculates reasonably that it »

The “legend” loses his way

Featured image James Comey is a legend in his own mind. He expressed part of the legend to Donald Trump when, according to one his memos, he told the president on January 27, 2017: He could count on me to always tell him the truth. I said I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves. Yet, as Peter Berkowitz reminds us, after Trump fired him, Comey violated »

The Week in Pictures: Yes, We Kanye Edition

Featured image Liberals really have become as twitchy as an over-caffeinated teenage meth head. First, Rosanne Barr revives her old sitcom with a mildly pro-Trump flavor, getting unheard of ratings for a classic format sitcom, and the cultural left goes nuts. Then this week Kanye West rapped the arthritic synapses of the left further with some Trump bromance tweets. Kanye 2024! Yes we Kanye! Maybe someone needs to do a reality TV »

The Streets of San Francisco

Featured image Wonderful evening last night in Denver at the annual Founders’ Dinner for the Independence Institute, the conservative think tank of Colorado. It was great to see some Power Line readers and old friends from my time as an inmate at Boulder. The Institute’s president, the colorful John Caldara (other adjectives in addition to “colorful” come to mind when you think of John) invited me to participate in the program to »

North Korean Breakthrough? Plus, Tweet of the Day [with comment by Paul]

Featured image I don’t think we have said much about what could become a stunning diplomatic triumph: the rapprochement between North Korea and South Korea, accompanied by North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization. This assessment by Todd Rosenblum at The Hill strikes me as balanced: “Stunning Korea denuclearization statement bodes well for America.” It is too early to pop champagne corks, but it would be absurd to deny that so far, President Trump »

James Clapper: Leaker, Liar & Sleazeball

Featured image Neither of the two Obama-era intelligence chiefs turned Trump resisters — John Brennan nor James Clapper — is anyone’s idea of a luminary. Of the two, though, Clapper seems the more intelligent, the more clever, and thus the more dangerous. Sean Davis’ report, cited by Scott earlier today, that Clapper leaked the anti-Trump dossier to CNN and then lied about it demonstrates the point. Clapper testified before the House Intelligence »

Voters Want FBI Investigated

Featured image This finding from today’s Rasmussen Reports is remarkable: As Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation wears on and former FBI Director James Comey’s book drops more inside information about the 2016 election, more voters now think a special prosecutor should be assigned to investigate the FBI. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters believe a special prosecutor should be named to investigate »

Today in Green Energy Fail

Featured image This story is so pathetic that it doesn’t even rise to the level of being a Green Weenie Award contender: South Korea’s most-destructive quake probably triggered by geothermal plant A magnitude-5.4 earthquake that struck the South Korean city of Pohang on 15 November 2017 was probably triggered by an experimental geothermal power plant injecting water a few kilometres underground, a research team reports. A second independent analysis also finds the »

James Clapper: Leaker & liar

Featured image Among the first revelations extracted from the House Intelligence Committee report — this by Sean Davis at the Federalist — is that former Director of National Intelligence “James Clapper lied about dossier leaks to CNN.” It is a revelation that fits perfectly with former FBI Director James Comey’s discussion of his limited briefing of then President-elect Trump on the “salacious and unverified” Steele Dossier. Davis cites Mollie Hemingway’s shrewd reading »

Civil War on the Left, Part 56: Diversity for Thee, But Not for Me (Updated)

Featured image One of the things you can always count on from liberals is that their earnest care about the poor and disadvantaged always ends when policies to alleviate inequality might affect them. Like this story from the Wall Street Journal today about how parents on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (it hardly gets any more correctly liberal than the Upper West Side) object to a plan to admit student with—gasp! »