December 10, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Here in America we have Civil War re-enactors, and it seems France has 1968 Paris Riot re-enactors. The only thing missing is Charles de Gaulle. Emmanuel Macron isn’t even fit to be de Gaulle’s stand-in poodle. I notice his public approval ratings are around 18 percent. No wonder Trump smiles when they stand together at G-20 meetings. I’ve been wanting for months to write up a retrospective look at the
»
December 10, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Is it purely a coincidence that the governments of Britain, France, and Germany are all in deep trouble? Both Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron may not survive the week, and Angela Merkel is testing just how long a lame duck period is possible. Gee—I wonder what they have in common? It’s a total mystery. (NB: Theresa May and the Tories would likely already be gone were it not for the
»
December 10, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I’m with the sober voices who say we shouldn’t overdo the piling on of Her Highness, the Countess Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and while there are a lot of great memes mocking her, I think we’re better off reserving our fire for actual stupid things she says rather than making them up. Like her declaration in a recent appearance about her idea for a “Green New Deal” (you can read all about it
»
December 8, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The spectacle of liberals and the media falling all over themselves in their fond remembrance of George H.W. Bush refreshes the point that for the left, the only good Republican is a dead Republican, since they all despised Bush when he was in office. Still, I suppose it is all worth it just for this first pic: Headlines of the week: And finally. . .
»
December 7, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Everyone knows Twitter is an abyss, but some people abuse the privilege and have clearly been working overtime this week. Like this: John Dingell in a “hipster” coffee shop? More likely a hip-replacement coffee shop. I’m sure he just misheard. Twitter is the perfect medium for romper-room socialism: Oh please, please propose a wealth tax for New York City! I suspect that eight of the ten richest people in New
»
December 7, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Scott has his spindle for his accumulated news items, and after nearly two weeks on the road I need a forklift for all of the news items that have landed in my pile. So let’s clear some of them out. • Speaking of forklifts: Trump Assassination Plot Foiled After Man Stole Forklift to Flip President’s Limo . . . “The intent was to try to get to the limo, flip the
»
December 6, 2018 — Steven Hayward
We and many others frequently criticize the major media for their biased reporting on gun issues, and above all for the scarcity of coverage of citizens who defend themselves with their lawfully-owned weapons. So we should acknowledge the major media when they report a story like this one in the Washington Post (aka, the Bezos Bulletin) that I will pick up in the middle: An escaped inmate kicked down a sleeping
»
December 5, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Many of you have likely seen or heard of Jerry Seinfeld’s video series “Comedians in Cars,” and for this episode of the Power Line Show I decided to emulate it with “Historians in Cars.” But not just any historian. I got to take the great Andrew Roberts for a car ride in the Bay Area this week. (Thanks to those Power Line readers who braved the lunacy of the Berkeley
»
December 4, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Want some holiday cheer, especially after the dispiriting mid-term elections? Check out of these delightfully droll news headlines: John Kerry Not Ruling Out 2020 Bid for President Former Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday did not rule out running for president in 2020, keeping his name among a growing list of prospective candidates vying to be the Democratic nominee. . . “Am I going to think about it? Yeah,
»
December 3, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Regarding the “irredeemable deplorables”—the white working class that liberals now openly disdain—a few perceptive liberals have pointed back to something written in 1998 by Richard Rorty, the “neo-pragmatist” epigone of John Dewey, in his book Achieving Our Country: Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported.
»
December 1, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I think the election is finally over—or are Democrats still finding “lost” votes underneath couch cushions in Florida and California??—and while most of us are looking ahead now to the holiday season, liberals and the media are looking forward to the celebration of their secular Lord and Savior and Messiah, Saint Robert Mueller. While the chimney stocking named “Collusion” looks to end up with a lump of coal, Dancer and
»
November 30, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Just in time for your weekend listening pleasure, Episode 99 is ready! This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Timbs v. Indiana, concerning the widespread practice of “civil asset forfeiture,” in which law enforcement will seize your property upon arrest (sometimes even without an arrest and criminal charge) and keep the money or asset for themselves. By coincidence this week I ran into the person
»
November 30, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Today is Winston Churchill’s 144th birthday, though any day is worthy of recalling what I have taken to using with students on the first day of my seminar on political leadership—Leo Strauss’s famous eulogy to Churchill in the classroom at Chicago: The death of Churchill is a healthy reminder to students of political science of their limitations, the limitations of their craft. The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his
»
November 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
I have a hypothesis that I’ve not yet published anywhere, but it seems like the propitious time has arrived. My hypothesis is that while places like Berkeley, Colorado/Boulder, the University of Wisconsin, etc. have the rap for being the most politically correct and radical institutions of higher education, in fact they are relatively sane compared to small, elite private liberal arts colleges. I believe that most small private liberal arts
»
November 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
A week or ten days back we linked to Michael Uhlmann’s speech to the Claremont Institute on “The Struggle Ahead“—the “struggle” being the ongoing political battle to preserve our constitutional order from the predations of the contemporary left that hates the Constitution and its principles. But we were remiss in not including an excerpt from Claremont Institute president Ryan Williams’ introduction of Michael, which offered a summary of some of Michael’s
»
November 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
Last night in my lecture at Yale on the topic of equality (previewed here, and coming soon as a podcast) I mentioned that the popular leftist attack today on the American Founding and especially on the Declaration of Independence is ironically the exact same argument the southern defenders of slavery made in the 1850s. Stephen Douglas explicitly argued that Jefferson only meant white English men in his phrase “all men are
»
November 27, 2018 — Steven Hayward
• After the “renewable energy” scam, the next greatest rent-seeking scam has to be urban “light rail” transit, or what I have sometimes called “The Quest for the Holy Rail,” or “A Desire Named Streetcar.” Construction costs are always underestimated (funny how consistent this is) while ridership projections are always way higher than reality. And then after a while, like San Franciso’s BART or Washington DC’s Metro, “deferred maintenance” results
»
