A few months ago one of our readers reader kindly sent me a copy of The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. I finally got around to reading it, and recommend it to you all. Here’s the publisher’s summary over at Amazon: For [...]
The big news of the day is that President Obama, after years of reticence on the topic, has just announced that he supports same-sex marriage. I don’t suppose this will have much effect on the vote. It’s hard to imagine that his coming out in favor of SSM will snatch any supporters away from Mitt [...]
East Germany, before and after.
As depressing as presidential campaigns are, they can be entertaining, too, as long as you enjoy forms of entertainment that don’t cheer you up. President Obama just gave us a good example with his latest promotional offering, The Life of Julia, which chronicles a faceless, solitary woman’s journey “forward” from cradle to grave, apparently without [...]
We note with some surprise the Obama campaign’s adoption of the word Forward as its new slogan. The word has, of course, been a rallying cry of socialists and Marxists for a very long time — so much so that Wikipedia even has an entry about it. Perhaps this indicates a refreshing frankness on the [...]
In case you’ve been shackled to a drainpipe for the past couple of weeks, there’s been an escalating tension in the air over the fate of Obamacare, now that the Supreme Court has heard the case. President Obama, warning the other day that he would view a negative ruling by the Court as “judicial activism”, [...]
In the comment-thread of a recent post, I’ve been arguing with our resident gadfly The One Eyed Man about the Constitutional legitimacy of Obamacare’s individual mandate — part of a broader disagreement about the proper scope of Federal power. After much back-and-forth I wrote: Bottom line: Constitutional law is a fascinating study, combining history, literature, [...]
March 28, 2012 – 12:09 pm
The New York Times opines today about yesterday’s Obamacare arguments in the Supreme Court. Predictably, the editors seem to believe that the effects of the Affordable Care Act are of sufficient national importance to trump its Constitutional audacity, and so they are willing to brush aside yesterday’s sharp questioning by conservative Justices as mere tendentiousness: [...]
March 27, 2012 – 11:51 pm
It was a big day at SCOTUS, and long awaited: the Justices heard oral arguments about the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate, and the buzz seems to be that it was rough sailing for the Solicitor General. Transcript here. Decide for yourself. Tomorrow: severability. If the mandate falls, does it take down the whole rotten [...]
March 26, 2012 – 12:46 pm
The story making the rounds today concerns Barack Obama’s remarks to Vladimir Putin’s proxy Dmitri Medvedev, as detected by some open mics: President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space. President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message [...]
Here, courtesy of VFR, is another illustrative account of the myriad blessings that the cult of Diversity showers upon us all. As anyone with a realistic understanding of history and human nature knows, high diversity erodes social trust and cohesion, and this story has it all: ethnic conflict, identity politics, race-hustling lawyers enriching themselves by [...]
March 14, 2012 – 10:13 am
Oh, no, this is awful. It looks as if Obamacare is going to end up costing more than the Democrats told us it was going to! Who could ever have imagined that they would deceive us like this? I feel so… used.
March 13, 2012 – 11:02 pm
This in my inbox just now, from info@barackobama.com: Friend – If the general election were held today, President Obama would lose to Mitt Romney — according to the latest poll from Washington Post-ABC News. And then there’s this, from today’s Times: Obama’s Rating Falls as Poll Reflects Volatility Despite improving job growth and an extended [...]
We’ve been hearing ad nauseam about what a cad Rush Limbaugh was to call Sandra Fluke a “slut”. (I certainly agree that he would have been far wiser not to, for assorted good reasons, not least of which being that it was ungentlemanly.) President Obama was shocked — shocked! — to hear such language, and [...]
My goodness: it looks like the long Congressional career of Dennis Kucinich might be coming to an end as a result of tonight’s primary in Ohio.
February 28, 2012 – 4:17 pm
Here’s a rotten piece of legislation: the Virginia Senate has passed a bill requiring women to undergo an ultrasound examination prior to an abortion. The bill includes language saying that the procedure is to “to determine gestation age”, but that is surely a red herring; obviously the measure is an attempt to confront women with [...]
February 24, 2012 – 6:52 pm
Remember all those sanctimonious calls from the Left for “civility” in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting? New York Times columnist and race-warrior Charles Blow appears not to have got the memo. Come to think of it, it looks like Slate’s Alex Pareene didn’t either.
February 15, 2012 – 5:32 pm
Ever since the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” began its ontogeny in whatever sunless Congressional womb such hell-spawn are gestated, conservatives have howled that it reposes too much power in the Federal government (to be specific, in the capricious Executive Branch) — and so presents a grave threat to cherished liberties. “Suck it up, [...]
February 13, 2012 – 11:12 pm
In a recent comment-thread I cited William Voegeli’s opinion that liberalism admits of “no limiting principle” regarding what government can and should do. Indeed, one of our own more liberal commenters assured us not long ago that the bulging Constitutional aneurysm commonly known as the Commerce Clause is, in his opinion, “infinitely elastic”. We will [...]
February 13, 2012 – 12:12 am
Nicholas Kristof weighed in today on the Catholic-contraception kerfuffle, in a Times op-ed piece. Even Mr. Kristof acknowledges that this issue is hardly cut-and-dried. He writes: Look, there’s a genuine conflict here. Many religious believers were sincerely offended that Catholic institutions would have to provide coverage for health interventions that the church hierarchy opposed. That [...]
February 12, 2012 – 1:57 pm
Having just had yet another another arid and pointless dust-up about the Constitution, it seems apt to link to this interesting little art project, which comes to us courtesy of David Duff.
February 11, 2012 – 2:11 pm
The Obama administration made an embarrassing political blunder recently when it mandated, with swaggering disregard of First Amendment niceties and pugnacious indifference to the moral teachings of the Roman Church, that Catholic organizations would be required to provide contraceptives to their employees. When Catholic institutions objected, they were told they had a year to get [...]
February 3, 2012 – 11:18 pm
There was a positive jobs report today, and the markets, starved for encouragement, rallied. Obviously any upbeat economic news is to be welcomed, but it’s election season too, and so for the loyal opposition these little silver linings come complete with little clouds. (Those who found the Bush years unbearable often found themselves rooting for [...]
February 2, 2012 – 4:03 pm
Just saw this, from our “uniter”-in-chief: Today, we’re announcing the 2012 launch of African Americans for Obama. There’s no better time than African American History Month to consider the tremendous progress we’ve made through the sacrifice of so many—or a better time to commit to meeting the very real challenges we face right now. Visit [...]
January 30, 2012 – 11:51 am
At the Washington Post’s website there’s an item titled “Obama: The most polarizing president. Ever.” The article looks over the gap between Presidential job-approval and job-disapproval ratings (by respondent’s party affiliation) over the years, and concludes that Mr. Obama has divided the nation more than any third-year President ever has. (In a recent poll, 80% [...]
January 29, 2012 – 11:16 pm
Hey, maybe we’re going to win this thing after all!
January 23, 2012 – 6:39 pm
Here’s a funny line: “I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.” Funny? Well, not so much, maybe. According to a tart item at the Corner yesterday by Mark Steyn, Mr. Romney actually said this in a [...]
January 21, 2012 – 12:41 pm
Here’s a cheery item: Bankrupt Solyndra is now smashing its inventory and throwing it into dumpsters. I thought our American readers would find this of particular interest, having paid for the stuff.
January 19, 2012 – 12:28 pm
Lawrence Auster brings to our attention (with pithy comments of his own, here) an article from the Daily Mail on the SOPA bill that has been getting so much attention. (I’ll confess I haven’t read the dense 78-page bill itself yet, but from all the summaries I’ve seen it does indeed appear to be a [...]
January 18, 2012 – 6:34 pm
Sorry to harp on politics today, but President Obama has now petulantly squashed the Keystone Pipeline project, which had broad support, would have created many jobs, and would have decreased our reliance on Mideast oil. Even his own base was divided on this one, with unions supporting it and environmental groups in opposition. Detailed commentary [...]
January 18, 2012 – 3:31 pm
In a gratifyingly swift response, those non-recess “recess” appointments the President made a fortnight or so ago are now being challenged in court.
January 13, 2012 – 10:09 pm
Pat Buchanan has now lost his TV gig for crimespeak, but he’s still got his website and newsletter. In his latest offering, he examines Ron Paul’s candidacy, and what Mr. Paul’s investment strategy says about his view of the near future. Here.
January 8, 2012 – 5:43 pm
So, conservatives: who’s our guy going to be? Heading into the New Hampshire primary, Mitt Romney has a commanding lead — and the other candidates spent most of Saturday’s debate snarling at one another, while hardly even taking a swing at Mitt. There are two questions. First: who out of this lot would, by our [...]
January 8, 2012 – 1:09 am
I’ve never been a fan of Rick Santorum, and I hope he doesn’t win the GOP nomination, because then I’d have to vote to elect him President. But any criticism I might make of him begins and ends with his public life: his opinions and intentions regarding government policy. Not so for liberal water-carriers Alan [...]
January 6, 2012 – 10:55 pm
Peter Kirsanow comments, here, on President Obama’s scorched-earth “recess” appointments. I look forward to an adjudication in the courts. This year’s presidential campaign is going to make Iwo Jima look like a pillow-fight. And if you thought U.S. politics were already polarized to the point of total dysfunction, Pat Buchanan argues here, just wait until [...]
January 4, 2012 – 11:19 pm
Here’s something I meant to post a few weeks ago, when President Obama was delivering that Osawatomie speech. It’s an essay by Walter Russell Mead, in which he examines the persistent Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian threads in American political history, and argues that after a long period of Hamiltonian ascendancy, the time is right for the [...]
December 23, 2011 – 11:40 am
Well, there you have it: a bumbling, humiliating performance by the House GOP on the ridiculous two-month payroll-tax moratorium (which, among its other shortcomings, is so idiotically brief that it presents costly problems to payroll processors). Nice work, guys. Charles Krauthammer offers a scathing summary here.
December 22, 2011 – 12:19 pm
I’ve been getting robocalls over the past few days for a “Draft Hillary” campaign. Mounting a primary opposition to the President would be a smart move for the Democrats, I think, given how deeply Mr. Obama has disappointed so many of his supporters. I have a feeling Hillary would be a lot harder to beat [...]
December 21, 2011 – 2:07 pm
Via Drudge: According to an investigation by one James Hohman, of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Chevy Volt bakes in up to a quarter of a million dollars of government subsidies per vehicle. Meanwhile, sales of the Volt for 2011 had reached just over 6,100 by the end of November, which looks to [...]
December 18, 2011 – 12:40 pm
Horrifying images and video from Egypt, here. One of the consistent lessons of history, from Aristagoras to Gorbachev, is that authoritarian systems place themselves at great risk when they attempt to liberalize. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is learning this lesson today; they have unleashed forces that they have no idea how to [...]
December 17, 2011 – 5:56 pm
The Senate has passed their stopgap spending bill, which included a rider that annuls, temporarily at least, what would effectively have been a ban on incandescent bulbs beginning this year. The intrusive legislation had made an awful lot of people hopping mad — but looking on the bright side (especially now that it has been [...]
December 7, 2011 – 5:55 pm
President Obama gave a rousing speech for his base yesterday in Osawatomie, Kansas: a collectivist stem-winder in which he invoked the rough-riding spirit of Teddy Roosevelt to call for more leveling, more government regulation of everything, and more central planning — in general, more “tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro [...]
November 21, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Here’s a summary of the prospects for the Obamacare case coming up at SCOTUS. This one’s a biggie: it’s the last line of defense for those who believe that the idea of “enumerated powers” has any meaning at all.
November 20, 2011 – 7:08 pm
Well, it looks as if the deficit-reduction “supercommittee” is about to fail. Political analyst Larry Sabato tweeted: Could it really be that 12 able legislators will fail utterly at the most important task they’ll ever be asked to do? Yeah, I’m sure he’s shocked, along with the rest of us. U.S. government spending is an [...]
November 18, 2011 – 11:03 pm
Here’s a dark item by Victor Hanson on the supple reality inhabited by our chief executive.
November 9, 2011 – 12:06 pm
…15¢ to pay for “a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees”. Story here. (Or maybe here.) (HT: Drudge.) – Update! No doubt due to the uproar generated by this post, the administration is now reconsidering.
November 5, 2011 – 1:13 pm
Here’s Juan Williams, formerly of NPR, responding to the storm of criticism that Herman Cain has faced from liberal black commentators. Everybody’s wondering who was behind the airing of the sexual-harassment allegations against Mr. Cain. I’m inclined to doubt that Barack Obama’s organization is responsible, because it would serve their cause far better to wait [...]
October 31, 2011 – 10:03 pm
The Social Security system is now cash-negative, as reported today in the Washington Post. The shortfall will henceforward steepen sharply, as hordes of my own demographic cohort enter the twilight decades of unproductive geezerdom. Rick Perry was bastinadoed in the press for calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme”, but it’s hard to see in what [...]
October 30, 2011 – 1:32 pm
Are you a bluestocking conservative appalled by the ill-bred riff-raff on the GOP ticket? Worried that those Tea Party rabble are steering dangerously close to the wind, with too much sail and too little keel? You’re not alone — the same concerns have darkened cocktail-hour chats from Amagansett to Edgartown, from Princeton to Pawling to [...]
October 27, 2011 – 11:28 am
Over at the AEI blog, a new piece by Jim Pethokoukis calls into question some received wisdom about income inequality. Disappointingly, it carries a provocative title — 7 Reasons Why Obama Is Wrong About Income Inequality — but then, as one reader points out in the the comment thread, completely neglects to cite the particular [...]