November 5, 2013 – 9:03 pm
Today was Election Day, and at the top of the ballot here in New York City were the candidates for our next mayor. For the fifteen or twenty of us here in Gotham who would prefer a relatively conservative hand upon the helm, there was a fellow by the name of Joe Lhota — while […]
October 25, 2013 – 6:51 pm
As we all know by now, the good-for-nothing Obamacare website was built, at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of hundreds of millions, on a no-bid contract awarded to a Canadian company called CGI (which stands for Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique). But why CGI? Wouldn’t it have made patriotic sense, at the very least, to […]
October 23, 2013 – 5:05 pm
The indefatigable JK sends along this item, with the comment “Good thing they raised the debt ceiling in time.” This is OUR MONEY, people.
October 22, 2013 – 9:39 pm
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a brief post about an idea, discussed by blogger and IT consultant Bruce Webster, that he calls the “Thermocline of Truth”. Mr. Webster describes it: In many large or even medium-sized IT projects, there exists a thermocline of truth, a line drawn across the organizational chart that represents […]
October 18, 2013 – 12:09 pm
OK, the battle’s over, if not the war, and as we carry the dead from the blood-soaked field, Obamacare is still the “law of the land”. (“Flaw of the land”, according to some, but never mind.) So: how’s it going? Megan McArdle’s been wondering. If you are too, here’s a nifty website to help you […]
October 15, 2013 – 10:23 pm
I have a question for all of you who say insist that the Democrats have played no causal role in this government shutdown and impending default (there’s no reason why the US must cease paying its debt service if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, by the way). (Just to be clear: although I agree with […]
October 8, 2013 – 6:07 pm
I don’t know what’s worse here: the brownshirt tactics of NPS rangers assigned to strong-arm old folks so as to make House Republicans look mean, or the awful fact that someone educated in America could accuse a person of “recreating”. God help us.
October 8, 2013 – 3:54 pm
Over at The New Republic, in an article called Quit Blaming Gerrymandering for the Shutdown, Nate Cohn addresses some fashionable ideas about the effects of Congressional districting.
October 3, 2013 – 11:14 pm
Limpid clarity on the 17th shutdown, from Thomas Sowell. Here.
October 3, 2013 – 11:17 am
A tart item from Bill Vallicella. Here.
October 2, 2013 – 10:32 pm
While the nation keens and writhes over the theatrical Obamacare showdown/shutdown, Kevin D. Williamson, in an essay published earlier today, offers a sobering look at the larger problem: reaching a point where debt service plus “mandatory” entitlement spending exceeds total revenue — which rising interest rates could bring about sooner than you might think. When […]
October 2, 2013 – 10:02 am
Speaking of Washington Monument Syndrome, some memorable political theater is underway at the WWII Veterans Memorial: the completely open-air plaza has now been blocked off by our Executive Branch, in a gesture of sheer petulance, just as a planeload of elderly veterans are arriving for a ceremonial visit. (“Non-essential” workers were actually exempted from their […]
September 30, 2013 – 12:10 pm
This excellent metaphor comes to us (by way of Jim Geraghty) from blogger Bruce Webster, who coined it to describe a phenomenon that he observed, originally, while analyzing the ways in which large-scale software projects can fail. In this post, he notes that it applies also to the slow-motion catastrophe we call “Obamacare”. The post […]
September 13, 2013 – 4:24 pm
A sine qua non for the modern liberal ideologue is a flair for living comfortably in a state of cognitive dissonance. This is made necessary by the internal contradictions of his worldview, and by its frequent, and calamitous, collisions with the social, political, economic, cultural, mathematical, and biological realities of the actual world. The California […]
August 29, 2013 – 12:38 pm
From the Washington Post. Hat tip: Edward Snowden.
August 21, 2013 – 9:15 pm
I’m impressed by a young Oxonian by the name of Charles C. W. Cooke, who writes for National Review and other outlets. Although Mr. Cooke may even still be in his twenties, he is wise (and conservative, but I repeat myself) beyond his years. Here’s a piece that he published today over at NRO, on […]
August 18, 2013 – 10:48 am
My! Even Maureen Dowd has had enough of the Clintons. With luck, by 2016, we all will have.
August 1, 2013 – 12:39 pm
It seems the moderate center of just about everything is vanishing. A decades-long process of political electrophoresis has pulled us all, it seems, to one pole or the other; the mediating layers of civil association that were the heart of American life in Tocqueville’s day are withering, leaving the atomized and deracinated citizen standing alone […]
I’m back from Southern California (always a relief) and will be getting back to normal operation around here shortly. For tonight, here’s a longish excerpt from Jonah Goldbergs’ most recent ‘G-File’ newsletter, in which he looks at the differences between conservative and liberal sex scandals in light of what he considers to be essential differences […]
I’m not one to wallow in salacious gossip, but when it comes to the detestable liberal jackass and odious sexual deviant Anthony Weiner, I’ll make an exception. New examples of his dark obsession have just come to light, in a series of prurient exchanges between the disgraced former Congressman and a 22-year-old woman. You can […]
Here’s a weekend roundup of loosely related items. Mark Steyn’s been dipping his quill in aqua regia as usual this week, and from him we have a pair of items. First up is an NRO piece called The Simulacrum of Self-Government, in which Mr. Steyn describes: …just another day in the life of the republic: […]
A reader writes: If memory serves – never a sure bet – some time ago on your blog, you quoted Winston Churchill saying that “”If you’re not a liberal when you’re twenty-five, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re thirty-five, you have no brain.” I learned today that he […]
With a hat tip to our pal Mangan, here’s why yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling on the Arizona voter-ID law is actually good news for those of us who think that in accordance with the law, only citizens should be able to vote hate-filled, racist xenophobes.
From today’s IRS hearings, we have Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) getting an informative update from FBI Director Robert Mueller on the status of the investigation. It’s good to see the IRS is really taking this seriously. Meanwhile, it seems the NSA’s anti-terrorism surveillance program hasn’t been as frighteningly far-reaching as all those “voices” warning us […]
From the Washington Post: an article by law professor Jonathan Turley on what he calls the “fourth branch” of government — the largely autonomous horde of regulatory and administrative agencies, comprising millions of Federal employees, that run the nation from within the Executive branch. An excerpt: For much of our nation’s history, the federal government […]
In case you missed it: Verizon forced to hand over telephone data Long ago, Charles Dickens wrote this about the United States: I believe that the heaviest blow ever dealt at Liberty’s head will be dealt by this nation in the ultimate failure of its example to the earth.
And here it is: DOJ: Social Media Posts Trashing Muslims May Violate Civil Rights In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S. the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights. The move comes […]
To the tune of 156,000 New York taxpayer dollars annually, plus lavish perks. Here.
Over the transom tonight comes a link to Victor Davis Hanson’s latest: a summary of just how dangerous the bloat and rot and corruption of our Executive Branch has become. We read: Government has become a sort of malignant metastasizing tumor, growing on its own, parasitical on healthy cells, always searching for new sources of […]
So: the rest of the press gets Baghdad Bob Carney in the briefing room, and the ones with the OFA kneepads get a private pow-wow. Duly noted.
In case you needed reminding.
The latest to comment on the Richwine defenestration: Patrick Buchanan, with perhaps the sharpest response yet. Read it at the peril of your soul — or at the very least, of your adjustment to the Matrix. Update, May 15th: adding Charles Murray and Andrew Sullivan.
According to a story in today’s Washington Examiner, the systematic harrying of conservative groups by the federal government was not limited to the IRS. It’s becoming clearer by the day why Barack Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate. More here.
It was quite a day at the Benghazi hearings: sharp contradictions of the Obama administration’s account of events (regarding in particular the YouTube story and the failure to provide both security and relief), as well as clear signs of a coverup. This story is not going away. Meanwhile, the Washington Post — which as, readers […]
Speaking of the Heritage Foundation (see our Sanford post just below), here’s a report they’ve just released: The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer. Spoiler: it’s a lot.
Well! South Carolina’s in the news again. The story this evening is that the swinish philanderer Mark Sanford has defeated the liberal candidate, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, for the vacant House seat left open by Rep. Tim Scott’s ascent to the Senate (which in turn followed Jim DeMint’s abdication of his Senate seat in order to […]
South Carolina’s at it again, this time pushing back against Obamacare. More here. Be sure to watch the embedded video of Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, testifying before a South Carolina House subcommittee on the history of nullification, and the support it draws from the writings of the Framers.
Here’s a link to the latest report from the Congressional inquiry into the Benghazi fiasco and whitewash. A synopsis: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY An ongoing Congressional investigation across five House Committees concerning the events surrounding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya has made several determinations to date, including: — Reductions of […]
April 22, 2013 – 10:56 am
Here’s a real corker from Walter Russell Mead, on the vanity and foolishness of Maureen Dowd. I used to enjoy Ms. Dowd’s columns, long ago; she writes well, with tartness and wit. Gradually the appeal faded. Call it an acquired distaste.
April 21, 2013 – 11:44 pm
“There can be no peace of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for further desires.” – Marcel Proust
April 18, 2013 – 12:00 pm
Yesterday I wrote that gun-control advocates had lost in a “clean sweep” of Senate votes. That’s not quite true. One of the defeated proposals was a requirement that all states reciprocally honor concealed-carry permits. In a rare moment of agreement with Chuck Schumer, I think it’s good that this idea was voted down. It’s anti-federalist, […]
Well! I’ve been traveling all day, but having arrived in the outer Cape I see we extremists (being one of which, I have it on excellent authority, is under the circumstances no vice) made a clean sweep today in Washington. Most gratifying to win a battle every now and again. On to immigration “reform”!
Today we have an excellent piece by Charles C.W. Cooke on the abrogation, by gun-control partisans, of rational deliberation in favor of shameless appeals to emotion. (Mind you, the abrogation itself is very much the product of rational calculation; the politicians and pundits doing this are clearly aware that such vile mawkishness can be a […]
With bills addressing both issues making their way through Congress, here are two fine articles by Thomas Sowell: one on gun control, and the other on “immigration reform”. I wish Sowell weren’t quite so old; such clear thinkers are as valuable as they are rare.
When you abandon reason and due process, and act only upon hysteria, emotion and sensationalism, this is what you get. That such people are in charge of our public affairs — and have the power to revise and abridge our cherished liberties at their whim — is horrifying.
Today’s good news: it looks like Dianne Feinstein’s ban on so-called “assault weapons” is dying on the vine.
I guess we’re all feeling pretty low, now that the Sequester has gone into effect. I haven’t been paying much attention to the news since Friday (been busy arranging the canned goods down in the shelter), but if the predictions I’d been hearing have turned out to be correct, the entire nation is now unemployed, […]