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 […]
October 26, 2011 – 9:27 am
Just in from ABC News: Obama warns us that if he loses in 2012 the US could be facing a “painful era of self-reliance”, and that we Americans would be “on our own”. If that frightens more people than it elates, this nation is doomed. * * * Update: In this afternoon’s Best of the Web, james […]
October 19, 2011 – 6:43 pm
The Texan pastor Robert Jeffress caused quite a ruction last week with his endorsement of Rick Perry for the GOP nod. Mr. Jeffress said that he thought all good Christians should prefer a Christian as their president, and that in his opinion this disqualified Mitt Romney — because the “cult” of Mormonism is something other […]
October 19, 2011 – 6:00 pm
Despite his strong position in the polls, Herman Cain may suddenly have a real problem on his hands. According to this item in the New York Times, his behavior has clearly strayed beyond what is approved and permitted for a member of his race. (Even beyond running as a Republican, I mean, which is of […]
October 7, 2011 – 10:59 pm
In our previous post about OWS, we linked to an item that’s been making the rounds today: this Huffington Post grumble from lesbian “electronic punk” musician JD Samson, who has become dissatisfied with how things are working out for her, affluence-wise. NRO’s Daniel Foster has add some pointed commentary over at the Corner. An excerpt: […]
October 7, 2011 – 3:10 pm
The weather being particularly fine here in New York this week, with Gotham’s hibernal sleet and snow still well over the horizon, the occupation of Wall Street is humming along nicely, and has the attention of everyone in the chattering classes. (Including, obviously, my own.) As longtime readers will know, the lovely Nina and I […]
September 30, 2011 – 9:27 pm
What’s the worst thing a person can be? No, no, not that. Way worse than that. Oh, that? Not even close. Once upon a time, maybe… What, that??? You’ve got to be kidding. That’s about the best thing you could be, these days. Want to get into college? Want a government job? Want to be […]
September 27, 2011 – 11:15 pm
Chris Christie made a speech today at the Reagan Library. Mr. Christie has until now made it quite clear that he will not be running for president in 2012, saying that he isn’t ready yet, and also that he owes it to the electorate in New Jersey to do the job they gave him. Now […]
September 20, 2011 – 10:18 pm
For tonight, here’s a pair of caustic items: Barry Rubin on the Palestinian gambit at the U.N., and a scathing editorial from the National Review on the President’s tax proposal. Comments are open, and readers may rant if they feel the need to, but I’m headed into a busy couple of days and am unlikely […]
September 8, 2011 – 11:08 pm
It was the first of two long days for me, and I didn’t get home in time to watch the Speech. I did read it, though. If I understand it correctly, there’s a bill Mr. Obama wants Congress to pass. Right away. If for any reason you don’t think that’s a good idea, you are […]
August 11, 2011 – 4:18 pm
What’s the biggest problem facing America today? What’s the Obama administration’s top priority? Jobs, you say? The economy? Of course not, silly! It’s carbon.
Winston Churchill was, in my opinion, the greatest statesman and wartime leader of the 20th century, and America’s surest friend since Lafayette. In the aftermath of 9/11, the UK sent a bust of Churchill to the President, as token of enduring solidarity from our closest and most natural ally among all the nations of the […]
Well, we got our debt-limit increase. It’s a fantastic piece of legislation: it starts right off by “saving” almost a trillion dollars over the next ten years. (We’ll borrow that much in the next nine months, but hey: politics is the “art of the possible”.) Next, I think we should take care of the drunk-driving […]
Here’s Paul Krugman talking to Christine Amanpour this morning about spending cuts: “From the perspective of a rational person — in other words a progressive…” If you want to foreclose on civil discourse, to go beyond argument to mere polemic, to whip up bitter factional antipathies, to make the process of democratic government little more […]
Blogger Iowahawk tweets: Instead of car that gets 55 miles per gallon, how about a govt that gets 180 minutes per billion? I like that: minutes per billion as a measure of government bloat. Currently we get about 137 MPB.
Dear Mayor Bloomberg: According to Scientific American, a meta-analysis of seven studies of the effects of salt consumption finds little or no health benefit from reduced-sodium diets. Would you mind calling off the mutaween?
The investing website Seeking Alpha has published a transcript of CEO Steve Wynn’s remarks during the Q&A portion of Wynn Resorts’s Q2 conference call yesterday. A notable excerpt: Well, here’s our problem. There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in […]
Sadly, the BULB Act, H.R. 2417 (see our earlier post here) died in the House the other day. Due to some procedural maneuvering the only way to bring it to the floor for a vote was in such a way as to require a two-thirds majority, and it fell slightly short. (This was in part […]
I haven’t said much about the debt-limit squabble, for at least two reasons: First, what’s the point of having a debt limit anyway, if it just gets raised whenever we approach it? Second, in the real world, as Kevin Williamson points out here, the only meaningful debt limit isn’t one that you impose upon yourself; […]
I’m happy to report that the BULB Act — a cheeky little bill that would have preserved for Americans the freedom to buy whatever kind of light bulbs they like for use in their own homes — now appears unlikely to pass. Well, good. It was a dumb move anyway. After all, our leaders have […]
As you probably know, President Obama hosted a Q&A session on Twitter yesterday. The acerbic blogger Iowahawk presented a list of questions, none of which were presented to POTUS, which is a shame, because some of them are awfully good. Go and read them here.
Today brings another provocative essay by Victor Davis Hanson, this time on the hypocrisy of socialist elites. (I know I’ve been reposting a lot of VDH lately, but he’s been on rather a tear, I think.) Excerpts: This discussion is, of course, a belabored example of why and how socialists do not like socialism. Indeed, […]
Here, for once, is a sensible piece of legislation. It has no chance of passing.
Here’s a pungent partisan punchline, from a president who could actually tell a joke.