From Powerline
Dubious Distinction
The Obama administration is shattering all records for spending in its first year:
In fiscal 2009 the federal government spent $3.52 trillion — $2.8 trillion in 2000 dollars, which sets a benchmark for comparison. … [C]ompared with other presidents’ first years in office, Obama is running circles around [...]
From Powerline
Current poll data are brutal for the Democrats. In the Rasmussen survey, President Obama’s approval index, the difference between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove of his performance, has hit a record low of -15. Overall, voters disapprove of Obama by 54-45%. That’s no doubt in part because [...]
From Powerline
We’ve written about the leaked emails and other documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Center here, here and here. Another intensely interesting email thread, which doesn’t seem to have gotten much notice, relates to the fact that the last decade, contrary to the alarmists’ predictions, has [...]
From Powerline
Venezuela is sponsoring an international conference of socialist parties in Caracas, which it pretentiously labels the Fifth International. Socialists from 40 countries, representing 50 political parties, are attending. On Friday, Hugo Chavez addressed the conclave. He praised Carlos the Jackal as a hero, describing him as “one of the [...]
From Powerline
Even congressional Democrats are disgusted with the Obama administration’s phony accounting of what the stimulus plan supposedly is accomplishing. Earlier this week, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey lambasted the government’s flawed data purporting to show that $160 billion in stimulus spending has created or saved at least 640,000 [...]
From Powerline
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Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner appeared before the Joint Economic Committee today. One striking feature of Geithner’s testimony was how partisan it was. In keeping with the Obama administration’s mantra, he repeatedly tried to cast blame on the Bush administration while failing to acknowledge that when the financial crisis developed, [...]
From Powerline
Lindsay Graham frequently drives us crazy, but it can’t be denied that he has his moments. In today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, he took Eric Holder to the woodshed:
Graham is right, of course. Under the Obama administration’s policies, if we capture Osama bin Laden tomorrow, the first thing we [...]
From Powerline
Al Gore has made an enormous amount of money by pretending to know something about science. He is by no means the first such charlatan, but he must be one of the most successful. A week or two ago, when we interviewed National Review’s John Derbyshire on our radio [...]
From Powerline
Speaking at a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania last year during the campaign, Barack Obama addressed the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision granting Guantanamo detainees the right to challenge their confinement through habeas corpus proceedings in federal court. Obama asserted that the “principle of habeas corpus, that a state can’t [...]
From Powerline
We and others have written a lot about the obfuscation surrounding Nidal Malik Hasan’s massacre at Fort Hood. The New York Times chimes in with an article that could have been written by a parodist, titled “Complications Grow for Muslims Serving in U.S. Military.” The source of those “complications” [...]
by Powerline
Hillsdale College Professor Paul Rahe writes on the celebration of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall today from which President Obama has chosen to be absent:
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. To those in my generation, this seemed an [...]
by Powerline
Below John refers to Israel’s seizure of weapons from Iran bound for Syria and Hezbollah on board the Francop. The weapons seized on the ship included some 3,000 rockets of various types, as well as 60-millimeter mortars, 7.62-rifle Kalashnikov-ammunition, F-1 grenades and 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets. The ship’s cache was [...]
Let’s start with Powerline
The question, obviously, is whether it was a terrorist attack, or just a disgruntled soldier who snapped. The gunman who murdered at least eleven people has been identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who has been working at Walter Reed and was scheduled to be [...]
Let’s start with Powerline
The question, obviously, is whether it was a terrorist attack, or just a disgruntled soldier who snapped. The gunman who murdered at least eleven people has been identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who has been working at Walter Reed and was scheduled to be [...]
from Powerline
We noted here that a group led by Michele Bachmann was organizing a protest against the Democrats’ government takeover of health care, to take place at noon today on the Capitol steps. The protest went off as planned, with 10,000 attending, according to one estimate. The Minneapolis Star [...]
Byron York at Powerline analyzes the data and concludes that as an issue, health care was a loser in yesterday’s elections. Most voters didn’t rate it highly as a concern, and those who did were swamped by the vastly greater number who were worried about the economy. I think we [...]
Is This What Obama Thinks, Too?
Jeremiah Wright was Barack Obama’s close friend, spiritual mentor and pastor for twenty years. Obama finally jettisoned Wright during the campaign, but Wright has refused to go away. Now we have a video of Wright giving a speech recently to a group hosted by Monthly [...]
The link is here..
Obama’s Decline
Rasmussen Reports charts the decline in President Obama’s approval index–the difference between those likely voters who strongly approve and who strongly disapprove of his performance–from his inauguration to the present, on a monthly basis. What is striking is how stable the electorate’s views of Obama have [...]
The link is here..
Here We Go Again
If you live in Minnesota, as I do, this story has a depressingly familiar ring: “Democrats Ask New Jersey Secretary of State to Ignore Mismatched Signatures on Absentee Ballot Requests.”
The state received about 150,000 absentee ballot applications this year. On about 2,300 of [...]
It could not happen to a nicer bunch of people.
CNN’s Ratings Falling Faster than Obama’s
from Powerline
CNN, which pioneered cable news, now rates dead last among cable news networks. Prime time ratings are down 68 percent since last year. Of course, much of that is due to 2008 being an election [...]
from Powerline
The Obama administration — no class, bad character
In his speech last night to the Center for Security Policy, former vice president Cheney blew the whistle on some egregious dishonesty by the Obama administration:
Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support [...]
from Powerline
Who’s Dumber, Mike Tyson or Anita Dunn?
White House communications director Anita Dunn, a Democratic Party attack dog, says that Mao Tse-Tung is one of her “favorite political philosophers” and one of the “two people that I turn to most:”
Like so much that we’re seeing from the Obama administration, [...]
from Powerline
Lucky Al
In his Wall Street Journal column titled The Race Card, Football and Me, Rush Limbaugh noted the absurdity of reporters’ seeking comment on his involvement in a potential NFL owners’ group from Al Sharpton:
In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay [...]
