Author Archives: Joe Malchow

Calling Washington, D.C. Readers

Featured image Many readers know that I serve on the board of directors of a small but feisty nonprofit in Washington, D.C. called the National Civic Art Society. NCAS campaigns for good taste in federally commissioned architecture. The U.S. government is the country’s largest buyer of architectural services, and the choices it makes tend to enrich already-rich modernist starchitects whose buildings are meant to baffle rather than to ennoble us. Sad! In »

“Washington at War” Architectural Tour Series in D.C.

Featured image The National Civic Art Society, an excellent nonprofit on whose board I am pleased to serve, focuses on restoring dignity and quality to taxpayer-funded architecture in the United States. My good friend Justin Shubow leads the organization. NCAS has had success in crimping some of the indignities of the Eisenhower Memorial, and it leads the charge in advocating for a renewed Penn Station in New York. The National Civic Art »

“Bubbles of Our Own Liberal Sentiments”

Featured image I think that I am like most American men in, every five or ten years, directing my reading deep into the Revolution and the Founding generation. It is impossible to resist the magnetic attraction of this period. It is not that the Founding Fathers were geniuses (though some were) or gods (though one was close). Instead there seems to be something about the vacuum of the founding moment and the »

Ask Us Anything, Baby

Featured image Power Line readers who are members of our exclusive circle of VIPs will be well aware that, from time to time, we conduct live video broadcasts via a private YouTube link. Broadcasting from our homes in, variously, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, and central and northern California, we dilate on the news of the day, enjoy a glass or two of scotch, and fire up dangerous fast-moving drone aircraft indoors. In a »

Eek! A man!

Featured image Every once in a while San Francisco’s NPR affiliate, KQED, offers up a news report too hilarious not to share. Last night, the San Francisco City Board of Supervisors experienced a putsch of sorts. A new mayor was appointed. He is Mark Farrell, the city’s second interim mayor since Ed Lee died suddenly of a heart attack in December. Like every other person on the Board of Supervisors, and like »

A beautiful little film

Featured image Were you aware that, in 1996, cocreator of South Park Trey Parker directed a film called For Goodness Sake on the subject of race in American life? Dennis Prager and Larry Elder host, and, though it’s rough around the edges, many of the vignettes – remember, this film was made when noted American Aboriginal Elizabeth Warren was still teaching Bankruptcy at Harvard Law School – are bitingly true today. Watching »

Join the National Civic Art Society for a Classical Tour of Washington, D.C.

Featured image In my spare time, I serve on the volunteer Board of the National Civic Art Society, an excellent organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. and focused on enforcing aesthetic standards in public architecture. Readers won’t be surprised to learn that the federal government lavishes tens of millions on “starchitects” of low taste and great fame on the global capital cocktail circuit. This summer, the Society is going to run a series »

The Power Line Show, Episode 15: We Interview Scott Walker

Featured image Thursday evening, Scott Walker addressed the Freedom Club’s annual dinner in Minnesota. Governor Walker made time between photos and the dinner for a Power Line interview. It is posted below. But first, how was his speech? It was terrific. I have wondered whether Walker would be dynamic enough to succeed on the national stage. His low-key style has served him well in Wisconsin, but would he be able to inspire »

The Power Line Show, Episode 9: Jay Cost on Political Corruption

Featured image The gang assembled to tape Episode 9 of the Power Line Show this afternoon. I couldn’t make it, but Steve, Paul and Scott all turned up. Their guest was Jay Cost, author of A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption. They finished out the show by discussing the news of the day, including the Brian Williams fiasco, with a fond recollection of Dan Rather, »

Power Line Show Episode 4: Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!

Featured image This afternoon Steve, Paul and I got together to bid farewell to 2014 and usher in the new year. We talked about some of the major news stories of the past twelve months, and made bold predictions for 2015 (in my case, the demise of Obamacare). I think you will find the show entertaining. You can play it right here: Or you can click here to download Episode 4 and »

Two books for Autumn reading

Featured image Two friends have books out this autumn worthy of your attention. No cashmere sweater mysteries here: both of these books, Among the Ruins: Syria Past and Present by Christian Sahner, and Not Guilty: The Unlawful Prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens by Rob Cary tell us something sort of grim about the modern world. Christian Sahner, who will soon be graduated from Princeton with a Ph. D in Islamic studies, »

Who reads Power Line?

Featured image The brilliant attorney, widely acclaimed good chap, and Socratic radio host Hugh Hewitt. We found ourselves at the same retreat this weekend. And look what he had to say: Hugh would probably also advise that you become a Power Line VIP. Previous installments in “Who reads Power Line.” »

Recovery Over; Was It Good for You?

Featured image Is it possible that the U.S. economic recovery is currently, at this very moment, moving at the fastest pace at which it will ever move? The BEA GDP growth figure for 2Q13 was +1.7%, meaning that the United States economy grew 0.425% over that period. That is about half of what we might like. Bill Gross at PIMCO, among others, has been advancing the proposition that this low-or-no growth is »

Pop Quiz: Does the U.S. have fast internet because of regulation, or in spite of regulation?

Featured image One of the crazy things that you have to believe when you are a liberal is that you can correctly predict which technologies are in need of regulation by the federal government. You will frequently get this wrong in a somewhat inoffensive fashion–see seatbelts, which are potentially idiotic; and airbags, which came along a few years later and are brilliant–causing little more than annoyance and higher prices for companies and »

The Underloved Reginald Heber

Featured image Reginald Heber was from 1823 to 1826, when he died prematurely at age 42, the Anglican Church’s Bishop of Calcutta. He was also a more or less superb lyricist. Although he wrote the “Holy, Holy, Holy” still used on certain days in the Anglican rite, most of his poetic output has been–I don’t want to say lost to the ages, because nothing has been lost. What has happened is that »

Friedrich Engels Was an Entitled Jerk

Featured image Prussian louse Friedrich Engels, you probably recall from an ornery high school history teacher pining for his resurrection, was one of the fathers of communism. That’s a common way to describe Engels, but it’s even more accurate when you recall that Engels bankrolled the perpetually financially floundering Karl Marx. They did co-author The Communist Manifesto together, but the relationship seemed, more or less, to be one in which Engels constantly »

This is the Best Thing that Ever Happened to Reza Aslan

Featured image Thin-frame glasses owner Reza Aslan needs to stock up on Kiehl’s silk groom, because there are a lot of serious photo shoots on the schedule and that just-roughed-up-by-Fox News look does not just happen by itself. Readers may recall the internet clip in which a Fox reporter interviewed Aslan about his new volume, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. The line of argument was: You hew personally »