Campaign finance regulation
November 5, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
I’m not on Facebook, but I was told that Cleta Mitchell’s page contains a brief discussion of the legal implications of the Hillary Clinton-DNC scandal. As many of our readers know, Cleta Mitchell is a star lawyer. She has played a leading role in defending conservatives targeted by the IRS under the Obama administration and in pushing to hold the IRS accountable for the targeting. Here is Cleta’s take on
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May 17, 2017 — Steven Hayward
The dormant Power Line podcast is back up today with a fresh edition, featuring me in conversation with Jonathan Rauch of The Atlantic and the Brookings Institution, talking about his new ebook, Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Backroom Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy. You can download it for free from this link! I like Jon’s counterintuitive thinking, namely, that 40 years of political “reform” from people like
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March 22, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse devoted his first day of questions to Neil Gorsuch to the subject of “dark money.” He meant money that goes to politicians and political causes from contributors who aren’t identified. Whitehouse complained about a $10 million campaign in support of confirming Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. According to Whitehouse, “dark money” is being used to finance this campaign. Whitehouse did not claim that Judge Gorsuch is involved
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August 22, 2016 — Steven Hayward
I guess there’s still an independent conservative trying to mount a presidential bid to offer an alternative to Trump, but if you can’t even summon up his name is this for real? And is it possible any more to get on enough state ballots to make any impression at all? The impulse for either an independent or new third party is hardly new, and I’m not sure it is really
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April 13, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Following on to my post here a few days ago about how the Boston Globe‘s faux-cover attacking Trump exposes the reckless futility of government regulation of political speech, take in this interesting tidbit from Michael Tomasky’s latest dispatch about the presidential race in the New York Review of Books: In mid-March, mediaQuant, a firm that tracks media coverage of candidates and assigns a dollar value to that coverage based on
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April 11, 2016 — Steven Hayward
When thinking about the Boston Globe faux-edition attacking Donald Trump, remember that if a conservative non-profit organization—let’s hypothetically call them something like “Citizens United”—published the same thing, liberals would want it to be illegal. Of course, as Trump rightly pointed out in response, the Boston Globe is a “non-profit” organization (heh), but in the liberals’ worldview it is perfectly fine for a “newspaper” to produce a partisan hit piece on
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February 4, 2016 — Steven Hayward
As I mentioned the other day, standup comedians employ what they call “runners,” which are themes and punch lines they set up for recurrent laughs. Think of Jerry Seinfeld’s “did you ever notice. . .” or “not that there’s anything wrong with that” schtick. Only days after the New York Times pranked us with their endorsement of John Kasich for the GOP nomination, they have returned with another of their
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July 1, 2015 — Scott Johnson
We used to laugh along with Tom Wolfe when he mocked the left’s routine invocation of fascism in America. Quoting Jean-Francois Revel, Wolfe observed that the “dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe” (more here). We’re not laughing now. Now it’s not so funny. Now we’re a little worried. In part, we have Jonah Goldberg to thank for that. In
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June 1, 2015 — John Hinderaker
Something deep in the psyche of the Democratic Party prevents it from acknowledging that it, and its candidates, are awash in cash. Thus, we get stories like this one in the New York Times: “Democrats Seek a Richer Roster to Match G.O.P.” Republican contenders have already secured hundreds of millions of dollars in commitments from a stable of billionaires, including a Wall Street hedge fund executive, a Las Vegas casino
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January 23, 2015 — Steven Hayward
Of all the serial derangements of the left, the one that is most out of proportion is the fanaticism about the Citizens United decision. I call it “Citizens United Derangement Syndrome,” or CUDS. This week as you know we saw the nearly unprecedented disruption of the Supreme Court by a handful of losers protesting Citizens United. I’m betting not a one of them has actually read the opinion, or indeed
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December 26, 2014 — Steven Hayward
Way back in January I wrote over at Forbes about how the Democrats have become the party of the rich: If you brought back either of the Roosevelts—Teddy or Franklin—from the grave, the most astonishing thing they would find is that the “malefactors of great wealth” have become the benefactors of today’s liberalism, and Democrats have become the party of the rich. In the economic crisis of the 1930s, the
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October 31, 2014 — John Hinderaker
Two left-wing groups, MoveOn and Mayday.US, sponsored a video contest to highlight the “problem” of money in politics. They published the videos that were submitted on a web site, and encouraged viewers to vote for the best one. Sadly, their effort was nowhere near as successful as the Power Line Prize competition of a couple of years ago. They got one really good entrant, produced by American Commitment, which focused
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October 20, 2014 — Scott Johnson
[jwplayer file=”http://youtu.be/cROIofrDXn0″] Michelle Malkin hosted the documentary “Rocky Mountain Heist” (trailer above) telling the story of the Democratic takeover of Colorado via a quartet of liberal millionaires and billionaires — known as the “Gang of Four” — in the course of a decade. Something there is that doesn’t love the documentary. Something there is that would love to erect a wall blocking the documentary before the upcoming elections. Michelle writes
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October 18, 2014 — Scott Johnson
American Commitment has claimed victory in the contest sponsored by far-left MoveOn and MAYDAY.US. Announcing the contest, MoveOn urged applicants to “make a 30-second ad to wake up America to the crisis of big money in our politics.” The public was invited to vote on the contest entries. The public has spoken: American Commitment, a national advocacy organization committed to free markets and limited government, easily won the vote in
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October 17, 2014 — Scott Johnson
Our friend Hugh Hewitt publicized the adage If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. Like “the things that you’re liable to read in the Bible,” in the lyrics Ira Gershwin gave to Sportin’ Life, “it ain’t necessarily so.” If it’s not close, they can still cheat. Consider the video contest sponsored by far-left MoveOn and MAYDAY.US. Announcing the contest, MoveOn urged applicants to “make a 30-second ad to wake up
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October 16, 2014 — John Hinderaker
This is hilarious: Scott wrote here about a video contest sponsored by far-left MoveOn and MAYDAY.US. Announcing the contest, MoveOn urged applicants to “make a 30-second ad to wake up America to the crisis of big money in our politics.” The public could vote on the contest entries. The conservative group American Commitment took MoveOn at its word. They made this terrific video about Tom Steyer, the biggest hypocrite on
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October 10, 2014 — Scott Johnson
The conservative advocacy group American Commitment has entered a national video contest organized by the left-wing outfits MoveOn and MAYDAY.US. What’s going on here? Bear with me. In an email announcing the contest, MoveOn urged applicants to “make a 30-second ad to wake up America to the crisis of big money in our politics.” In its call for submissions, MoveOn declared: “The scale of the problem is clear. The corporate
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