Monthly Archives: July 2019
July 31, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
In a general sense, the theme of tonight’s Democratic presidential debate was the same as last night’s — skewer the the frontrunner[s]. Last night, the frontrunners were Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. They came under attack from four no-hopers: John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan, and Steve Bullock. Tonight, the frontrunner was Joe Biden. He came under attack, at one point or another, from Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand,
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July 31, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Baseball fights are usually rather tedious, but last night’s bout between the Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates was an exception. It featured something I don’t recall seeing before — one player attacking opposing players in front of the opposing team’s dugout. (I understand that Brian McRae of the Kansas City Royals charged the Texas Rangers’ dugout in the 1990s.) Trouble has been brewing between the Reds and Pirates all
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July 31, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I like this discussion of last night’s Democratic debate by Daniel McCarthy. His main point is that, although the less radical participants — John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan, and Steve Bullock — have no chance of being the Democratic nominee, they typify a certain type of congressional Democrat (though only Ryan serves in Congress) with whom a Democratic president would have to work. McCarthy says: Congress is full of
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July 31, 2019 — Steven Hayward
• This explains a lot: Bernie drank the Kool Aid (or is this just a booster shot?): • Isn’t Marianne Williamson wonderful? It appears that a lot of viewers think so. Here’s a before and after graph of Google searches for the Dem field from last night. I think Williamson is like Herman Cain and Ben Carson in the last two GOP nomination cycles—a shiny new thing that generates a lot
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July 31, 2019 — John Hinderaker
I was curious to see whether, in the second round of presidential debates, the main contenders would moderate their headlong flight off the leftwardmost cliff. Last night, at least, it didn’t happen. The contenders apparently think there is no point on the spectrum that is too far left for Democratic primary voters. That might be true. However, Bernie Sanders accused Democrats of being “afraid of big ideas.” The problem, I
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July 31, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The cultural left exerts a tyrannical force policing our speech. To take just one small example, witness the case of novelist Lionel Shriver. The cases can be multiplied endlessly. You don’t need my help on this score. The cause of free speech threatens to become the exclusive property of conservatives. Wherever the left holds sway, free speech is a dying or dead letter. The utopia implicit in leftist thought provides
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July 30, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Of the ten participants in tonight’s Democratic presidential debate, only two — Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — have a realistic hope of being nominated. Thus, we might have expected that these two would clash, the way we expect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to lock horns tomorrow night. But that didn’t happen. It was the debate that wasn’t. The debate that was turned out to be Sanders-Warren versus three
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July 30, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Pumpsie Green wasn’t the only old-time major leaguer of note to pass away this month. Pitcher Ernie Broglio also died in July. The two players are closely connected. Both Green and Broglio were natives of the East Bay portion of the San Francisco Bay region. Indeed, Broglio said that Green was his catcher in high school. Both signed with the Oakland Oaks, though only Broglio played for them. Broglio is
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July 30, 2019 — John Hinderaker
One of the left’s favorite tricks is to assert that a conservative has said something “without evidence.” The formula has become ritual, but usually it just means that the liberal employing it has no idea whether the conservative’s statement is correct, and is too lazy to try to find out. An entertaining instance comes from InstaPundit. Kyle Griffin is with MSNBC: Which drew this response on Twitter: Glenn Reynolds comments:
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July 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
My Somali sources tell me that Ilhan Omar’s new guy raises funds for her and is not Somali. The Daily Mail has posted this story together with the exclusive March 24 video below of the two leaving Caffé Pinguini’s in Playa Del Rey after her CAIR speech in Los Angeles the previous evening. (The Daily Mail, however, doesn’t have a clue who the guy is.) When my friendly sources texted
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July 30, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I’m posting up our podcast early this week, as I thought might be traveling overseas tomorrow on a sudden mission, but instead a bad back is likely going to keep me immobile. In any case, by popular demand from listeners, this special edition of the Power Line Show features both Kelly Jane Torrance of the Washington Examiner and “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery. Kelly Jane is just back from
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July 30, 2019 — John Hinderaker
The White House has taken aim against the the Squad (“leaders of the Democrat Party”) with this highly effective video. It features President Trump quoting Squad members before an audience, followed by video of the Squad member (Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley) saying exactly what Trump alleged. The video clips expose the Squad’s racism, anti-Americanism, and sheer stupidity. I expect this ad will rack up millions
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July 30, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Democrats, journalists, and some in the intelligence community are expressing outrage over the replacement of Daniel Coats by John Ratcliffe (if Ratcliffe is confirmed). A headline in the Washington Post (paper edition) says the move is viewed as a “bid to silence [intelligence] agencies.” It’s certainly true that intelligence gathering and analysis ought not be politicized — not by partisans of any stripe. Ratcliffe will have to satisfy Senators like
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July 30, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
July saw the passing of Elijah “Pumpsie” Green, a utility infielder for the Boston Red Sox and, briefly, the New York Mets. Green was the Red Sox’s first black ballplayer. That fact is particular noteworthy because Boston was the last major league team to integrate. The Red Sox did so in 1959, twelve years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. Green died almost 60 years to the day that
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July 30, 2019 — Steven Hayward
• I recall a few years back that it was fashionable to argue that Abraham Lincoln was a closet homosexual, based on the thin tissue of his letters to Joshua Speed and other close friends, along with the fact that Lincoln sometimes shared a bed with a man (including Speed I think), especially when out on the road doing legal work and staying at the local inn. To be sure,
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July 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Eric Felten is a meticulous and literate reporter as well as one of my favorite analysts of the mysteries of Russiagate. Earlier this month we posted Eric’s July 1 RealClearInvestigations column “Insinuendo: Why the Mueller Report doth repeat so much.” Eric waded further into the Mueller miasma in the RCI column “The shaky foundations of Mueller’s footnotes.” Today Eric continues his investigation of Russiagate in the RCI column “Why the
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July 30, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Former funnyman Al Franken titled his poorly timed memoir Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, just before Chuck Schumer shoved him and Franken resigned. Franken posed for the self-mocking cover of his memoir. The title and the photograph made a small concession to self-awareness, or to the public relations value of pretending self-awareness, but he deserved credit for the thought. It was a joke. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar pretends no
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