That’s what best-selling novelist Brad Thor is reporting over at Big Government: Through key intelligence sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I have just learned that reclusive Taliban leader and top Osama bin Laden ally, Mullah Omar has been taken into custody. If Thor’s sources pan out, this is excellent news, and a moment for real vindication for everyone – from the military brass to Republican | Read More »
There’s been an enormous amount of heat and not much light on the new Arizona immigration law. I lose track from time to time of which state the Left is hating at the moment – I believe in the past year or so we’ve been through at least Massachusetts, Louisiana, Texas, Alaska, Virginia and Arizona, but I could be missing a few – but the | Read More »
When Charlie Crist picked his long-time campaign manager and chief of staff George LeMieux to serve out the balance of Mel Martinez’ term in the US Senate, it was a natural selection of a close ally to keep the seat warm without threatening Crist’s own ability to run. But now, Crist is openly contemplating bolting the GOP to stage a kamikaze run as an independent | Read More »
By a directive to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, “President Obama late Thursday ordered most hospitals in the country to grant the same visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners that they do to married heterosexual couples,” an order that applies to “all hospitals getting Medicare and Medicaid money.” Now, as it happens, I’m in agreement on the merits with the idea that | Read More »
Statement from the Bishops: We’ve consulted with legal experts on the specific idea of resolving the abortion funding problems in the Senate bill through executive order. We know Members have been looking into this in good faith, in the hope of limiting the damage done by abortion provisions in the bill. We believe, however, that it would not be fair to withhold what our conclusion | Read More »
If you have been reading or writing blogs for some time, you may recall the early, heady days of the blogosphere back around 2002-03. Many of us old-school bloggers started back then (I started writing baseball on the web in May 2000, and political blogging in August 2002; RedState wouldn’t be founded until the summer of 2004). The blog world was a small town in | Read More »
Meet John Smith. John is a surfer by trade. He dreams of competitive surfing; his walls are decorated with posters of famous surfers. But he has just one problem: here in his home town of Dubuque, Iowa, he can only surf small streams and brooks. “Sometimes, I just stand there on my board, waiting and waiting for some kid to throw a rock so I | Read More »
Should President Obama politicize the Federal Reserve? If so, what would he accomplish? Ezra Klein of the Washington Post seems to think he should, and that this would somehow magically create jobs – but you would look long and hard for an explanation of how this would work.
I’m not taking the Lord’s name in vain in the title here – this is literally the only reaction you can have to reading Matt Labash’s Weekly Standard profile of Father Rick Frechette and his work in Haiti. Labash’s trademark humor and eye for detail are in evidence here, but the power of the story is all Father Rick. You should, must, read the whole | Read More »
A unanimous Supreme Court this morning, in Hertz Corp. v. Friend, No. 08-1107 (U.S. Feb. 23, 2010), held that a corporation’s “principal place of business” under the federal diversity-jurisdiction statute and the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) refers to the place where the corporation’s high level officers direct, control, and coordinate the corporation’s activities. Lower federal courts have often metaphorically called that place the corporation’s | Read More »
Let’s talk just a little about the 2012 presidential election. I’d like to make three related points: (1) Nobody should be touting Scott Brown as a 2012 presidential candidate. (2) The GOP is going to be picking from a bench that is short on candidates with the experience we need. (3) It’s a good thing that Ron Paul won the “straw poll” of 2012 candidates | Read More »
I’ve suspected for some time now that the California Senate race against Barbara Boxer was basically the high-watermark Senate race for the GOP – that is, the toughest race that has a non-trivial chance to be winnable if everything breaks just right. But the recent withdrawal of Evan Bayh from his own re-election race in Indiana (not as “safe” a seat as Boxer’s, given Indiana’s | Read More »
I have not previously followed the work of San Francisco political reporter Benjamin Wachs of SF Weekly; apparently he’s an increasingly cynical and disenchanted liberal following the ever-appalling doings of San Francisco city government. Thanks to the heads-up from Josh Trevino, it’s worth taking a little time to look over Wachs’ uproariously acid farewell to his beat, which practically defines “going out in a blaze | Read More »
I wrote at some length earlier this week on the crucial role of the legislative filibuster in preventing transitory legislative majorities from saddling the nation with permanent legislation of great complexity. As with so many questions of great significance, the Founding Fathers had wise and useful foresight to offer on the dangers of frequent and complex changes in federal law. Let’s go to the words | Read More »
America’s 42nd president, Bill Clinton, was reportedly hospitalized with chest pains this afternoon in New York. Hopefully he’ll be fine, but naturally any threat to his health puts one in mind of the man’s legacy as a two-term president. What struck me is this: when he was president, there was endless debate about Bill Clinton. Was he a liberal at heart who tacked to the | Read More »
One and a half cheers to the NY Times for the article “Skeptics Find Fault With U.N. Climate Panel,” which admits to some of the scientific and ethical problems facing the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri. But the Times being the Times, while it lays out some of the damning facts, it omits key damaging details (especially regarding the | Read More »
In recent weeks we have been deluged by hand-wringing columns from “progressive” pundits bemoaning the filibuster rules in the Senate – which allow a determined and unified minority to block legislation that has fewer than 60 votes – and essentially declaring the filibuster to be proof that American democracy doesn’t work and should change the way it does business. (See Brian Darling’s discussion of one | Read More »
The important practical question following the death today of Congressman John Murtha is what happens to the House seat he held on behalf of the people of Pennsylvania’s 12th District. The good news, so far as I can tell from early reports, is that Ed Rendell won’t get to appoint an interim replacement, but rather the voters will have to choose one in a special | Read More »
Democrats trying to defend their flailing healthcare bills have tried, repeatedly, a two-pronged attack on the mostly united Republican opposition to the various plans floated by the Senate and House Democrats and the Obama White House. One is to suggest that Republicans are criticizing the proposed Democratic solutions without having any of their own – implying that there really is no other choice but to | Read More »
On this dolorous anniversary of Roe v. Wade, there can be no stranger bedfellows for pro-life conservative Republicans than the hard-line pro-abortion group the National Organization for Women (NOW). But as the last Democratic hopes fade for passing Obamacare on a party-line vote by ramming the Senate bill through the House unchanged – the only way, short of rewriting Senate procedures, to avoid another Senate | Read More »
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