Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Glenn Reynolds, Stacy McCain, Jim Hoft, Lonely Conservative and others continue to point to rather thin evidence that UAH mass murderer Amy Bishop was a “socialist.” She went to Harvard after all. And one kid on a prof rating website called her one. QED! As I’ve previously noted, her politics seem rather irrelevant. Certainly, [...]
Looking for the Colonel Jessup discussion I referenced in my last post, I came across the post “GOOD MOVIE, WRONG LESSON,” written on January 31, 2003 and imported over from the original blogspot site (unfortunately, owing to then-existing vagaries, sans comments). It was the fourth substantive post and fifth total post ever on the site, [...]
Barack Obama has taken things off his campaign site that might be used by opponents to embarrass him, James Gordon Meek reports in the NY Daily News under the headline “Obama Purges Web Critique of Surge.” Why, it’s our Outrage of the Day! Barack Obama’s campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to [...]
In commenting about John McCain’s budget plans, Matthew Yglesias threw out this comment: Given the present circumstances, I can’t think of any good reason for a presidential candidate to be promising to that we’ll be at balanced budgets in four years. It would be nice to see the deficit on a decreasing trajectory rather than [...]
Google Maps is beta testing a new “walking directions” feature, Alex Chitu reports. Apparently, it’s just being tested out on a small number of randomly selected users. Since I wasn’t among those selected, I was a bit dubious since I was unable to personally verify, let alone test, said service. A quick search of another [...]
Jonah Goldberg has sparked a minor blogospheric furor for a recent column in which he castigated Barack Obama, John McCain, and others for promoting a compulsory national service program, which he compared to slavery. There’s a weird irony at work when Sen. Barack Obama, the black presidential candidate who will allegedly scrub the stain of [...]
Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is all but defeated, Marie Colvin reports for The Sunday Times. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured [...]
Barack Obama gave a speech yesterday in which he said there was some flexibility in his plan, touted throughout the Democratic primary season, to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months followed by another speech in which he explained that he meant no such thing. Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny have a solid summary [...]
Shaun Mullen wonders “Why Are Right-of-Center Bloggers So Silent On Torture?” He searched high and low and could find no right-of-center bloggers who made any mention at all, for example, of yesterday’s NYT story “China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo.” I’d note that Andrew Sullivan wrote roughly 600 posts on the subject yesterday, including this one, [...]
The Manufactured Outrage of the Day comes to us from Joe Stephens and his page A3 piece for today’s Washington Post, “Obama Got Discount on Home Loan.” Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To [...]
Rush Limbaugh isn’t going to have any trouble affording good cigars, having just re-upped with Clear Channel through 2016 for $400 million, including a $100 million signing bonus. And you thought pro athetes got paid a lot. Said to be Limbaugh’s most lucrative deal ever by far, the new agreement runs through 2016 and includes [...]
Thomas Schaller, the author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, argues that the notion that Barack Obama has a good chance of winning Southern states because he’ll energize black turnout is based on fallacious reasoning. The first myth is that African-American turnout in the South is low. Black voters are [...]
Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama. He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And [...]
Some Obama supporters are apparently taking advantage of Google’s terms of service to silence anti-Obama blogs, Simon Owens of Bloggasm reports. The company automatically shuts down sites upon receipt of TOS violation claims until they’re able to do a human audit, a rather slow process with given little priority on the free BlogSpot service. After [...]
The latest mini-scandal in Campaign 2008 is that the McCains have apparently not done a good job keeping track of their finances. HuffPo has gotten 1420 Diggs at this writing with a story headlined “McCains Defaulted On Home Taxes For Last Four Years, Newsweek Reports.” It promises “a highly embarrassing report.” Newsweek has delivered with [...]
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . Rodney would’ve preferred Leisure Suit Larry. Wizbang‘s car is being recalled. Wyatt Earp is off to a black-tie event. Willisms is getting a leg up on the competition. Cowboy Blob is taking a little dip Public Pondering only likes one kind of pinball. Right Pundits is looking for one [...]
McCain-Feingold, the signature legislation of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, took another blow yesterday as the Supreme Court struck down the so-called “Millionaire’s Amendment” in yet another 5-4 decision. “Supporters of reasonable campaign finance regulation are now zero for three in the Roberts court,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at Loyola Law School [...]
Nick Gvosdev, the outgoing Editor of The National Interest and soon-to-be professor at the Naval War College makes a point that can’t be emphasized enough: “[T]here is no ‘reset’ button in U.S. foreign policy. . . . [N]o matter who the next president is, there are challenges to be faced that will require adaption to [...]
That’s how Instapundit refers to James Hansen, apparently the most intemperate of the global warming alarmists (yes, he’s worse than Gore because he’s Gore’s science advisor). Here’s Hansen’s latest proposal: James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on [...]
Ezra Klein jumps on a growing meme the home ownership isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that the government should stop subsidizing it. He points to Paul Krugman, who argues in today’s NYT that it’s time to rethink our decades-long bipartisan consensus that home ownership should be encouraged. While everyone stresses the advantages [...]
George Carlin, a comedian known for his combination of raunchy language and intellectual humor, died of heart failure last evening. He was 71. Carlin was an interesting guy, combining brilliant observational humor with political activism. Like too many comics in the HBO era, though, it often seemed that he was vulgar and outrageous simply because [...]
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . Rodney is already swinging from the chandelier Wizbang finally has an answer for Michael Moore. Wyatt Earp is moving to Elbonia. Public Pondering is just starting to ‘kozy up. Cowboy Blob thinks we should let her have the dark chocolate… now. Willisms is just a little dinghy. Right Pundits [...]
If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Barack Obama is a wise man, indeed. He’s changed his mind a lot lately. The latest example is NAFTA. After having campaigned in Ohio and elsewhere on the need to renegotiate our trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and excoriating Hillary Clinton for her long-time [...]
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . Rodney can’t decide between the red or blue pill. Wizbang has stumped the stumper. Wyatt Earp wants fries widdat. Public Pondering has a visit from Barbarella. Cowboy Blob has and idea with a Twist. Willisms has the last prisoners from Gitmo Right Pundits is ready for another take. Blonde [...]
Terrorist suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay (and presumably, anyplace else under American jurisdiction) have the right to file habeus corpus petitions in U.S. civilian courts the Supreme Court ruled today in a 5-4 decision. Further, Congress could not pass a law waiving these protections absent rebellion or invasion. Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in [...]
Senator Jim Webb, touted by many as a vice presidential candidate who would help shore up Barack Obama with Southerners and those uncomfortable with his lack of national security experience, has an “affinity” for the Confederacy, Politico’s David Mark reports breathlessly. He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many [...]
Drea at Business Pundit lists the 10 worst and 10 best states for buying gasoline, i.e., those in which gas is most and least expensive. King Banian finds, not surprisingly, a rather strong correlation between these lists and the rate of taxation imposed by states and localities. I was rather surprised that Georgia didn’t make [...]
One of Barack Obama’s key advantages in building grassroots support, especially among young people usually not apt to vote, has been his innovative use of the latest Web techniques, including the integration of social networking technologies. Not only did he lap the field in getting “friends” on Facebook and MySpace but he actually hired the [...]
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . Rodney is decidin’ on a running mate. Wizbang is activating mysterious powers. Wyatt Earp has s’more Obama drama. (from a new location) Public Pondering is having an epiphany. Cowboy Blob has chaps with chaps. Willisms is comin’s off a cocky mountain high. Right Pundits is back together again. Blonde [...]
Robert Reich, who admits that he used to commute by car rather than public transit because “I’ve never been able to organize myself around their schedules,” is delighted that people are now being forced to do what he wouldn’t by high gas prices. For years, policymakers have wondered just how high gas prices would have [...]
Robert Kaplan describes the heroism that earned SFC Paul Smith a posthumous Medal of Honor and the two years it took his commander to get it through the system. As Colonel Smith told me, “Everyone wants to award a Medal of Honor. But everyone is even more concerned with worthiness, with getting it right.” There [...]
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . Rodney is takin’ out the trash. Wizbang has Wisteria hysteria. Wyatt Earp is takin’ the jump. Public Pondering is matching up to the chief. Cowboy Blob has some high fashion. Willisms makes the catch. Right Pundits is all pumped up. Blonde Sagacity is having a close encounter. The Gone [...]
Aaron Mannes has done an extensive statistical analysis on the effectiveness of decapitation (in the figurative as well as the literal sense) in counter-terrorism. It is conventional wisdom that removing an organization’s leaders is an effective counter-terror strategy, but the quantitative analysis is less clear on the issue. Most of the successes focus on specific [...]
Seen this morning in DC: An advertising poster with the caption, “Married people earn more money.” I thought perhaps someone has been reading Stuart Buck and is seeking to take the romance out of marriage. It turns out that this is a campaign aimed at curbing teen pregnancy: Since 1987, Campaign For Our Children (CFOC) [...]
Stuart Buck observes: Movies and popular culture often celebrate “falling in love.” I’d suggest, however, that outside of physical ailments (including everything from cancer to starvation), “falling in love” is ultimately responsible for maybe half of all the misery experienced by the human race. Just to be clear, I’m not saying this because of any [...]
Ezra Klein‘s long-awaited (a day’s forever in Internet time) American Prospect piece, “Is Jim Webb Too Good for the Vice Presidency?” is out. The lede: In his new book, Virginia Sen. James Webb quotes T.S Eliot and Rudyard Kipling. He alludes to his past as a boxer and marine. He recalls his “four times great-grandfather,” [...]
YahooNews is a leading contender for Headline of the Day honors for “The Era of Big Clintons is Soon Over,” which they’ve appended to an AP piece by Calvin Woodward. The key ‘graph: One quarter of Americans have never known life without a Clinton trying for or having the presidency. Millions have gone from diapers [...]