May 16, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Bill Clinton’s political genius in 1992 was his keen sense of effective rhetorical straddles that enabled him to appeal to moderate voters who were thoroughly turned off by the doctrinaire liberalism of the 1980s-era Democrats. His “Sister Souljah” moment is legendary, as well as his tough-on-crime rhetoric and pledge to “end welfare as we know it.” (Leave for some other day that he was mostly lying about all of these
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May 15, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Vice President Kamala Harris has offered up fresh profundities, this time on the manner in which we will all “work together,” though there is no reference to the time frame, as in, whether the time to work together is now, or every day, as we have been doing while working together, all the time. You think I’m making this up? See for yourself (only 35 seconds, but it seems much
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May 15, 2022 — Steven Hayward
So I pull up Fox News to find an opinion article titled, “It’s Time for Medicare for All.” And I notice the byline of the purported author: “Sen. Bernie Sanders.” To be sure, the article that follows does sound quite a lot like the real Bernie Sanders, the Socialist Democrat from Vermont. But it’s hard to imagine the real Bernie Sanders willingly appearing at Fox News. Though it is hard
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May 14, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The Biden Administration blames everyone but itself for everything going wrong in the country today, from inflation to the baby formula shortage. The Wall Street Journal today walks through all of the distortions the federal government has imposed on the baby formula market, which includes trade restrictions on imports from Europe: America’s baby-formula shortage illustrates how bigger government can make big business bigger, thereby limiting competition and choice. This is
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May 14, 2022 — Steven Hayward
There are so many things that seem . . . wrong about the 2020 election, and lot of listeners and readers have been asking about the new documentary film “2000 Mules,” which offers some visually compelling circumstantial evidence, along with a few examples of direct testimony of voting misbehavior in nursing homes and other locales. So Lucretia and I both took it in this week, and try to give an overview
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May 14, 2022 — Steven Hayward
You mean MAGA comes in pints?! Hooray. Thanks Joe. Now I have a whole new level to aim for. If it means a return of 2 percent inflation, $2 diesel, and the government recognizing “women” again, then I’m down for it. Headlines of the week: Okay nerds and geeks, get ready, because here they come (an extra large helping this week) . . . And finally. . .
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May 13, 2022 — Steven Hayward
The time has come to introduce Power Line readers to our adjunct sports desk, available on YouTube as “Savage Brick Sports.” Don’t ask me where the adolescent in my household came up with that name, but maybe after he heads off to college at Clemson this fall he can explain it after taking in that professional league known as SEC college football. Click the link above if you want to
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May 12, 2022 — Steven Hayward
• So Democrats couldn’t even get to 50 votes in the Senate for their complete abortion-on-demand at any point for any reason bill, which was clearly written with the express political purpose of making it impossible for pro-choice Republican senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins to vote for it. The bill exposed the Democrats’ hostility toward religion with a clause that would have required Catholic (and other denominational) hospitals to
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May 11, 2022 — Steven Hayward
“It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid,” David St. Hubbins informs us in This Is Spinal Tap, and to adapt his profound insight, given that contemporary liberalism operates mostly in cliches, how do you discern the fine line between plagiarism and stupid liberal cliches? Consider the case of this year’s Duke University undergraduate commencement speaker, Priya Parkash, who is being accused of plagiarizing a Harvard student commencement speaker
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May 11, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Midge Decter deserves the outpouring of accolades she is receiving this week. I didn’t know her as well as Scott, but can attest that in my several encounters with her over the years stretching back to the late 1990s she put you so at ease in conversation that you’d think you had been lifelong friends. It was clear she paid attention to details and grasped the essence of things quickly.
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May 10, 2022 — Steven Hayward
• Remember how during the Iraq War the deranged left fingered Leo Strauss (d. 1973) as somehow the intellectual inspiration behind the neoconservative drive to war in the Middle East? It was downright silly, and in any case Thomas G. West provided a thorough refutation of this nonsense in the Claremont Review of Books. Better get ready for a sequel. A few years ago there appeared a new edition of
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May 10, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Polls taken since the Dobbs leak last week continue to be mixed, reflecting the long-time cognitive dissonance of public opinion about abortion, with a majority favoring basic abortions rights, but with a large majority also supporting some restrictions, especially in the third trimester. Above all, most polls find that abortion ranks far down the list of voter concerns, behind inflation, crime, health care, and education. It is ironically fitting that
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May 9, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I think I have posted this chart before in a Geek in Pictures gallery, but it is worth breaking out on its own for a spotlight: Notice that back in the 1980s and early 1990s, “trust in science” was higher among Republicans than Democrats, but what accounts for the explosion in Democratic Party trust in science in the last two years? I suspect if Donald Trump had been re-elected, and
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May 9, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Consider the following language from Justice Alito’s draft opinion in the Dobbs case: On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman’s right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. . . No wonder the left is freaking out that
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May 8, 2022 — Steven Hayward
A lot of people, including Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business, think the person behind the leak of Justice Alito’s draft on Dobbs is going to be discovered or revealed very soon, apparently going on the assumption that the leak must have come from a clerk for one of the three liberal justices, and there are only 12 of them, so it shouldn’t be hard to figure out which one. I
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May 8, 2022 — Steven Hayward
We may have reached peak climatista absurdity with this article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology: Prescriptions for Mitigating Climate Change–Related Externalities in Cancer Care: A Surgeon’s Perspective Abstract In April 2021, President Biden pledged to drastically reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% relative to 2005 levels by 2030. This ambitious agenda will inevitably require significant changes across the breadth of the United States economy, including the health care
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May 7, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Looks like Dianne Feinstein isn’t taking the hint. So, New York Times, you’re up next! These days, however, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the trailblazing Democratic power broker who has served in the Senate for 30 years, is far from the towering presence she once was on the American political stage. At 88, Ms. Feinstein sometimes struggles to recall the names of colleagues, frequently has little recollection of meetings or telephone conversations,
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