Monthly Archives: May 2019
May 31, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Media Analytics is a fun site that allows you to chart how frequently the New York Times has used a particular word through the years. The data begin in 1970 and go through 2017. All you have to do is plug in a word, and the site generates a frequency chart. Thus, for example, we can see how “gender” went from a boring word that was a prissy way of
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May 31, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I thought about calling this week’s episode “Everything You Know about the Enron Story Is Wrong,” but that isn’t completely accurate, nor just to my guest and the breadth and depth of his insight into this subject. This week’s guest is Robert L. Bradley Jr., who deserves to be known as the Robert Caro of energy history. Rob is the founder of the Institute for Energy Research, one of the best
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May 31, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Attorney General Barr sat for an extended interview with Jan Crawford of CBS News to discuss matters of current concern including Robert Mueller’s public “it’s not my job” statement and the ongoing investigation of the spying on the Trump campaign. CBS News has posted its transcript of the interview in its entirety here. I have posted the podcast version below. Mollie Hemingway gives the interview a rave review: “AMAZING INTERVIEW!
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May 31, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Check out this short video of Elizabeth Warren answering questions about her alleged Native American heritage on the Breakfast Club radio show. Zinger: “You sound like the original Rachel Dolezal a little bit.” Watch @cthagod grill @ewarren on her heritage. "When did you find out that you weren't [Native American]?" "Were there any benefits to that?" "You sound like the original Rachel Dolezal a little bit" @breakfastclubam pic.twitter.com/GFzH8JqSqN — Sarah
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May 31, 2019 — Scott Johnson
In his Commetary essay “The Gaza conundrum,” Jonathan Schanzer describes a senior Israeli official in Tel Aviv speaking to him in private. “He was in a foul mood. He looked as if he hadn’t slept much,” he writes. “He rubbed his eyes, scratched his stubble, and blurted suddenly, ‘Gaza is a problem from hell.’” Hamas and Iran are the source of this particular problem from hell. The original Hamas charter
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May 31, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll doesn’t really think THE 2020 ELECTION IS ALREADY OVER! She writes: Well, it’s official, my friends. Some no-name polling outfit – Lying4DemocratsRUs? – has done a, like, totally scientific poll that showed Slow Joe Biden 5 points ahead of President Trump. In my ARIZONA!! Goodness gracious, what a harbinger of things to come if he can’t even win a Deplorable-Filled, Gun-Totin’ State like AZ. They are already speculating
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May 30, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The Left increasingly uses economic coercion in the form of boycotts to stamp out conservative ideas and institutions. Efforts to ban Chick-fil-A, one of America’s most popular restaurant chains, are one example. Apart from outliers like Chick-fil-A, corporate America tends to respond to boycotts as liberals desire, because corporate America is mostly liberal already. Liberals also sometimes boycott states, which is mostly an effort to enlist companies within those states
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May 30, 2019 — Steven Hayward
• Yesterday I mentioned that California received something like 160 percent of normal rainfall this year, but that was going by rough memory of a media report. It might be higher. In any case, I just now saw the official figures for Colorado’s snowpack: 432% of normal, and 1,638% higher than last year. Here’s the chart: • So this is interesting: North Korean “leader” and all-around bro Kim Jong Un
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May 30, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Robert Mueller’s mini-press conference yesterday had what must have been the intended effect: it cast another cloud over President Trump, and gave rise to renewed talk about impeachment among Democrats. The takeaway, for most naive observers, likely was that the president may be “guilty” after all. This headline on the front page of my local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was typical: The casual observer likely won’t understand that President
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May 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Michelle Malkin reviews what I called “The curious case of Ilhan Omar” back in 2016. Michelle briefly summarizes our current state of knowledge — far advanced over what I began with in 2016 — in her Townhall column “Revoke Ilhan Omar’s marriage fraud immunity card.” In the conclusion of her column she writes: We have enough native-born scam artists and fraudsters without having to import more from around the world.
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May 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday morning we received the following message from Leonard Schrank, former CEO of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). Speaking from a position of first-hand knowledge, Mr. Schrank responds to my recent Power Line posts taking up the subject of the New York Times and its malicious treatment of highly classified national security information. I am most grateful for his permission to share these comments with Power Line
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May 29, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I am waaaay behind on things, partly because my summer session class, which meets every day, is consuming both time and concentration. But anyway. . . • Bob Mueller today made life even more miserable for Nancy Pelosi. Just who is he working for? Don’t be so sure you know (or that Mueller knows). • From a survey of the media tonight, “the dam is about to break” is replacing
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May 29, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Much has been written about Robert Mueller’s appearance before the press today, in which spoke briefly and nervously, repeating points that have already been made ad nauseam in his own report and elsewhere. Why did he do it? And why did he appear so nervous while he did it? Speculation has been rampant. Scott posted a transcript of Mueller’s remarks earlier today. Much could be said about them, but I
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May 29, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ignited a firestorm yesterday at an event in Paducah, Kentucky. McConnell responded to a question from the audience: “Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?” the attendee asked. After a pause, McConnell answered, “Oh, we’d fill it.” Democrats, harkening back to McConnell’s refusal to bring Merrick Garland’s nomination up for a vote during the last
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May 29, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
and other central European destinations. I’ll be gone for two weeks and will take a break from blogging during this time. I will follow the news, but won’t obsess over it. If I learn anything about European populism, etc. I’ll report on it when I return.
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May 29, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Robert Mueller appeared before cameras at the Department of Justice this morning to make a departing statement today. In substance the statement doesn’t go beyond his report, but it is clear that he was determined to raise a cloud of dust behind him as he exited stage left and handed off to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Via Politico, here is the text of Mueller’s statement followed by the video posted
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May 29, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The Supreme Court’s decision constitutionalizing the alleged right to abortion in Roe v. Wade (1973) was about as bad as it gets. Expressing the Court’s sheer will to power, it is one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. The principled liberal law professor John Hart Ely called out the Court in the classic Yale Law Journal comment “The Wages of Crying Wolf.” Professor Ely condemned
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