November 20, 2011 — Scott Johnson

Occupy mayhem sorted by type

Featured image The Occupy movement has not been entirely useless. By my reckoning, itt has served one good purpose. It has demonstrated the permeable border between the left, represented by the Democratic Party and its media adjunct, and the sick left, represented by the Occupiers. The sickness has been manifested in a variety of phenomena manifested in the Occupations, perhaps most notably the Occupy crime wave. We have done our best to »
November 20, 2011 — Scott Johnson

Don’t throw them all out, take 2

Featured imagePeter Schweizer’s Throw Them All Out was published last week to wide acclaim, left and right. 60 Minutes led off its show on Sunday with a segment based on the book, featuring Steve Kroft’s dramatic confrontation with Nancy Pelosi. Peter Boyer summarized the book’s findings in a Newsweek article that extolled Peter and the book, as did Marc Thiessen in a Washington Post column. In her American Thinker column today »
November 19, 2011 — John Hinderaker

Whose Side Is He On?

Featured imageIn the early days of the movement, Democrats from President Obama on down–Nancy Pelosi was especially prominent–rushed to embrace the Occupiers. Once the Occupiers became known mostly for committing crimes, however, mainstream Democrats scurried for cover. So now, the Occupiers are asking the Democratic Party, wistfully, are you with us? Shepard Fairey, the graffiti artist who designed the famous Obama poster, certainly hopes so. He has produced a new poster, »
November 20, 2011 — Steven Hayward

Sunday Morning Follow Up Notes

Featured imageA few follow ups from posts recent and ancient. . . So Newt did it again last night, saying of Occupy Wall Street that they should “go get a job, right after you take a bath.”  (The build up to this punch line is good too; see the whole video here—it’s short.) »
November 19, 2011 — John Hinderaker

Slandering the Red States, Part VI: Laura Sullivan Responds

Featured imageNPR’s Laura Sullivan did a three-part series on Indian children in South Dakota, and the role of that state’s Department of Social Services in providing foster care for such children. The essence of NPR’s sensationalized account was that the state kidnaps Indian children from their homes for profit. I, in return, have done five posts critiquing the NPR story, the last of which, with links to the earlier posts, is »
November 19, 2011 — Scott Johnson

Debating Obamacare

Featured imageThe Federalist Society — are you now or have you ever been a member? — held its 2011 National Lawyers Convention last week. One of the (many) highlights of the convention must have been the debate on the constitutionalilty of Obamacare between Harvard’s Carl M. Loeb University Professor Laurence Tribe and former United States Solicitor General Paul D. Clement of Bancroft PLLC. This is an excellent debate, must watching straight »
November 19, 2011 — Steven Hayward

Obama to Ohio: Drop Dead

Featured imageJohn beat me to the story of the Obama Administration’s totally explicable decision (that is to say, totally political decision) to delay the leasing of shale gas fields in Ohio.  Obama and his Chu toy seem really to believe the green energy nonsense that we’re only a few years away from scaling up wind and solar and pixie dust and other phantasms to replace fossil fuel.  More importantly, it is »
November 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker

Environmental Injustice at the EPA, Part III

Featured imageIn parts I and II, I wrote about the “environmental justice” initiative in the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency. Briefly, I argued that there is no legislative authority for the EPA to enforce a regimen of “environmental justice,” and there is a danger that the agency will misuse its permitting authority to coerce companies subject to its regulation to comply with extra-legal demands. Voluntarily, of course. In Part II, I »
November 18, 2011 — Scott Johnson

Ms. Jackson, your ride is here

Featured imagePatrick Hynes draws attention to a small item in a larger story about President Obama’s changing position on some EPA regulations in light of his reelection strategy. “It appears,” Hynes writes, “that EPA administrator Lisa Jackson – who as I write this is attempting to push through new regulations in the name of public health that will cost America hundreds of thousands of jobs – was recently driven four blocks »
November 17, 2011 — John Hinderaker

Slandering the Red States, Part V: Why Won’t NPR Tell the Real Story? Help Me Ask!

Featured imageWe are nearing the end of my investigation into NPR’s disgraceful three-part series on South Dakota’s Department of Social Services. NPR alleged that the state agency “kidnaps” Indian children from Indian reservations, and places them in white foster homes because it profits by doing so, and because this kidnapping scheme financially benefits South Dakota’s current governor, Dennis Daugaard. I deconstructed these absurd accusation here, here, here and here. NPR’s story »
November 19, 2011 — Steven Hayward

The New Newt, and Other Observations

Featured imageI’m back in the saddle after my quick out-and-back trip to the Left Coast, which means I spent most of the last two days on airplanes that did not, alas, have live internet up and running yet.  During the last 72 hours Newt Gingrich has jumped into the lead in several polls, which made a nice set-up for the opening of my remarks to the O’Donnell, Clark and Crew annual »
November 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker

Obama’s Job-Destroying Machine Grinds On

Featured imageI can’t figure out whether it is due to malice or incompetence; all I know is, if you wanted to hurt America’s economy, you would do pretty much everything the Obama administration does. Energy policy is the absolute worst. First Obama delayed (and perhaps killed) the Keystone pipeline. Michael Ramirez sums up that decision, which can be explained only as an economically irrational attempt to shore up the president’s liberal »
November 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker

The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood

Featured imageIn September, the Touro Institute and the Hudson Institute co-sponsored a conference in New York that was a counterpoint to the U.N.’s Durban III. One of the speakers was Shelby Steele. His speech, titled The Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood, has now been posted online. It is, I think, excellent. Here are some excerpts: The Durban conferences, the request for UN recognition of a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, and »
November 18, 2011 — John Hinderaker

The Times Does Geography

Featured imageFrom today’s New York Times Corrections section: And a map with the article mislabeled, in some editions, the state in the upper left corner of the contiguous United States that is considered solidly Democratic. It is Washington, not Oregon. (Though the outcome of some races may be in doubt, one thing is for certain: Oregon will always be solidly under Washington.) Scott and I have been critiquing the Times for »
November 17, 2011 — John Hinderaker

The Occupiers Get On TV

Featured imageWhich was, I suppose, their purpose in declaring today a “day of action.” In various cities across the country, Occupiers set out to make trouble. New York was the main center, of course; protesters battled policemen at multiple points around the city, and generally came out on the short end: Hundreds of Occupiers were arrested, some when they tried to block the Brooklyn Bridge: Lots of working New Yorkers pushed »