May 2, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Vaxxing Questions

Featured image Life must be lived forward, Soren Kierkegaard contended, but can only be understood backwards. That invites a glance at “CDC Found Evidence COVID-19 Vaccines Caused Deaths,” by Zachary Steiber in the May 1 Epoch Times. As the author discovered: CDC employees worked to track down information on reported post-vaccination deaths and learned that myocarditis—or heart inflammation, a confirmed side effect of the vaccines—was listed on death certificates and in autopsies »
May 2, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Counterrevolution at Chapel Hill

Featured imageThe gentlemen of Pi Kappa Phi at UNC Chapel Hill have given us a morale booster by protecting the American flag from the kill-the-Jews crowd on campus. They join the Columbia night-shift custodian fighting off the Hamilton Hall Hamasniks in an early bid for man-of-the-year recognition. See the photo below depicting them standing guard. One of the best photos of 2024 so far: Fraternity brothers are pelted by anti-Israel protesters »
May 2, 2024 — John Hinderaker

It Didn’t Start In College

Featured imageMany Americans have been shocked at the spectacle of thousands of college students, along with thousands more non-college students, engaging in kill-the-Jews riots. These people are demonstrating in favor of Hamas, which means in favor of gang rape and mass murder. How could this possibly have happened? I have seen suggestions that left-wing professors have led students astray, and no doubt that is true. We have seen many professors participating »
May 2, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Trump To Be Fined Again? Then What?

Featured imageJudge Juan Merchan is considering a motion by Alvin Bragg’s office to fine Donald Trump an additional amount for further violations of Merchan’s unconstitutional gag order. Merchan has also threatened to throw Trump in jail. So what did Trump do to merit such a response? The four new alleged violations are quoted here. Trump criticized the Manhattan venue and expressed concern that the jury would be unfair: “That jury was »
May 2, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Finding the Rot at Columbia

Featured imageMy pal David Bernstein of Scalia Law School at George Mason University notes the following on Twitter: One thing that hasn’t received enough attention is that major unviersities see themselves today not as American, but as global, institutions. American institutions are strongly opposed to antisemitism and support Israel’s existence. Globally, institutions ranging from the UN to the NGO establishment at best give lip service to antisemitism, and range from tolerant »
May 2, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

From Munich in 1972 to America in 2024

Featured image  Christopher Scalia recently tweeted side-by-side photos of a masked pro-Hamas protester and a masked terrorist captioned “Manhattan 2024 meets Munich 1972,” a reference some readers might not recognize. On September 5, 1972, at the Olympics in Munich, Palestinian terrorists of the Black September faction forced their way into the quarters of the Israeli team. The terrorists shot dead and castrated weightlifter Yossef Romano, a mutilation not revealed until 2015. The carnage continued »
May 1, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Campus Appeasement Sweepstakes

Featured imageIt is hard to single out the worst appeaser among the university presidents currently cowering before anti-Semitic mobs on campus, and trying to defuse the situation through negotiations with people who have no interest in negotiating. But I think we have a winner. Yesterday, Carol Folt, president of the University of Southern California, tweeted out this: I had a second meeting today with the same group from the encampment. We »
May 1, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Consumers Aren’t Buying Bidenomics

Featured imageFrom our friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a note about how the main gauge of consumer confidence continues to slip: “Confidence retreated further in April, reaching its lowest level since July 2022 as consumers became less positive about the current labor market situation, and more concerned about future business conditions, job availability, and income,” said Dana M. Peterson, Chief Economist at The Conference Board. »
May 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Poisoning American campuses

Featured imageCliff May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. He is a veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor for the New York Times and other publications. Cliff’s current column is “The ideological cocktail poisoning American campuses” (at FDD, where it is posted with its many links). Cliff has kindly given us his permission to post his columns on »
May 1, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Fire the Admissions Office

Featured imageI keep getting ads like these turning up in my social media feeds: I especially like the Yale person saying they read applicant essays “very carefully.” Probably almost as carefully as Stanford: Student gets into Stanford after writing #BlackLivesMatter on application 100 times CNN — If you’re applying to college, you can spend hours crafting the perfect admissions essay. Or you can just write the same word 100 times. It worked for »
May 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Rather not

Featured imageThe documentary Rather airs on Netflix this evening. It celebrates the career of the disgraced former CBS News anchor. I have been warming up for the big show this evening by reviewing the historical record of Rathergate here and here. After the 12 days of Rathergate I joked to John that if they ever made a movie about it, Robert Redford should play John and Dustin Hoffman should play me. »
May 2, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Rather full of it

Featured imageThe documentary Rather made its appearance yesterday on Netflix. Directed by Frank Marshall, the film premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival. It now becomes generally available via the streaming service. I watched the documentary twice yesterday in order to comment on it here. As it turns out, Star Tribune media critic Neal Justin fairly describes it and nails its shortcomings in 114 words, but there is more to »
May 1, 2024 — John Hinderaker

A Sign of the Times

Featured imageEurovision is the annual European (and beyond) popular music contest that has become a giant cultural event. Each country is represented by a single singer or group, and the competition is intense. This year’s contest will begin on Tuesday in Malmo, Sweden. Israel has won the competition four times, most recently in 2018. This year it is represented by a 20-year-old woman named Eden Golan. But the contest will not »
May 1, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Podcast: Classic Format Edition on Victims of Communism Memorial Day

Featured imageToday is May Day, but also the Victims of Communism Memorial Day, and as such today is the prefect day for this classic-hybrid format edition, featuring me in conversation with Elizabeth Spalding, chair of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. (Elizabeth is also Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and Visiting Fellow at the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College.) The Foundation has »
May 1, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Bontasaurus Blocks Parents

Featured imageCalifornia’s government school monopoly is imposing trans ideology on students and keeping it secret from parents. When the Chino Valley School District established a policy of notifying parents, Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the district, charging that the district “placed students in danger of imminent, irreparable harm from the consequences of forced disclosures,” and so on. Parents across the state pushed back with the “Protect Kids of California Act of »
May 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The action at Columbia

Featured imageThe police were finally requested to enter Columbia and begin to restore order last night. The Washington Free Beacon’s Jessica Costescu was on the scene and has filed this story that was updated at 7:20 (EDT) this morning. It is difficult to absorb the ant-Semitic enormity of what has transpired at Columbia and elsewhere in support of Hamas over the past weeks. Where is the FBI?? We need to know »
May 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Judy Collins turns 85

Featured imageWhen the Dakota announced a few months ago that Judy Collins would be appearing on April 30, I jumped on the tickets to get a table up against the front of the stage. Tickets for the first show sold out quickly. The Dakota then arranged for a second show, this one on April 29. Tickets again sold out quickly. We bought tickets for the April 29 show as well, up »