May 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Digging into our archives I find a previous comment on Rochelle Olson: “Rochelle Olson is a pitiful excuse of a reporter for the Star Tribune. Back in 2006, I called her out as ‘reckless and feckless,’ a judgment I stand by today.” If you run into me around town and have an hour or two to spare, ask me why. Olson covered President Trump’s appearance as the featured speaker at
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May 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez and his wife are charged with corruption the likes of which will serve as fodder for Hollywood at some point. We haven’t kept up with his developing defense. Senator Menendez ungallantly blames his wife, who will stand trial separately. “[S]he took all the bribes, he claims,” the editors of the New York Post point out, “which doesn’t explain why he provided all the pro quos
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May 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg laid out his 34-count indictment of President Trump with links to underlying documents in this press release dated April 4, 2023. The indictment relies on section 175.10 of New York’s criminal law (“Falsifying business records in the first degree”): “A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second degree, and
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May 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Kim Strassel’s weekly Wall Street Journal column argues a tad optimistically that the 2024 election will see “A Hunter Biden debate, finally” (behind the Journal paywall). Somehow I doubt it, but hope can’t be suppressed. The Journal has published Strassel’s column online with the video illustrating the House Oversight Committee’s Fourth Bank Records Memo (November 1, 2023). The Journal posted the explanatory video by Mark Kelly on November 3. It
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May 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In the 2004 Illinois Senate race that launched Barack Obama on the path to political prosperity, only Republican candidate Jack Ryan stood in his way. Ryan appeared to be a formidable candidate. George Will wrote a memorable column — I remember it, anyway — asking whether Ryan was “too good to be true.” He thought Ryan was an impressive and formidable candidate. Once Ryan secured the Republican nomination to oppose
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May 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden has taken to asserting on more than one occasion that inflation stood at 9 percent when he took office. The statement sems to call for a follow-up question on the source of his misinformation, as they put in the Censorship Industrial Complex that he heads. But no, we have been left hanging. Students of ancient history may recall that inflation rate was actually 1.4 percent when Biden took
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May 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
It’s not Ammo Grrrll who is RUINING MOVIES. She writes: Well, friends, the last two Friday columns were pretty serious. It’s time to get back to “narishkeit” – foolishness. And, I hope, a little well-deserved timeout from all the relentless bad news. My own President – installed through no fault of my own — is on the side of Hamas. It doesn’t get any more depressing than that. But, I
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May 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Trump gave our own Liz Collin of Alpha News six minutes of his time for an interview before court this morning. I have posted the video below. The related Alpha News story is posted here. President Trump will be dropping into the Twin Cities tomorrow night to be the featured speaker at our impecunious state party’s Lincoln Reagan dinner. According to the current KSTP-TV/SurveyUSA poll, Biden leads Trump 44-42,
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May 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Mark Judge is a witness with a powerful story to tell about the operation to take down the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He tells the story in his 2022 book The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi. Mark recently returned with his timely review of Christine Blasey Ford’s book (cited below). We offered to publish Mark’s review and I have inserted the editorial
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May 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Donald Trump challenged Joe Biden to debate a while ago. Biden has now seized the initiative and offered to debate Trump. Biden challenged Trump by means of a video that obnoxiously alludes to the lawfare against Trump, as though Biden is an innocent bystander. Biden is a real tough guy. “Make my day, pal,” Biden says on what must be the tenth take of the line spliced into the final
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May 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In an interview with Yahoo Finance yesterday President Biden claimed yet again that inflation stood at 9 percent when he took office: “I think inflation has gone slightly up. It was at 9 percent when I came in and it’s now down around 3 percent.” Washington Post Fact Check artiste Glenn Kessler wanders around Biden’s iterations of this falsehood with astounding verbosity. The verbosity delays his assignment of Four Pinocchios
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May 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Post has reported that the Biden administration is withholding sensitive intelligence from Israel on the location of Hamas leaders in Gaza. This is how the Post puts it: The Biden administration, working urgently to stave off a full-scale Israeli invasion of Rafah, is offering Israel valuable assistance in an effort to persuade it to hold back, including sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of
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May 14, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Along with Victor Davis Hanson and Andrew Roberts, Dominic Green is one of my favorite living historians. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Dominic investigated the evidence bearing on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s marriage to her brother in the June 2019 Spectator column “Ilhan Omar lawyer: Two marriages hard to explain” (the column is attributed to the Spectator’s pseudonymous Cockburn). The Daily Mail republished Dominic’s column under the headline
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May 14, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In a nearby post John writes about the case of Myon Burrell. In the early days of Power Line John and I wrote several columns for the local newspapers decrying the murder of 11-year-old Tyesha Edwards. Tyesha was doing her homework at the dining room table in November 2002 when she was caught in the crossfire of Minneapolis gangbangers. Myon Burrell was convicted twice of Tyesha’s murder and sentenced to
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May 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Quillette has published Ron Radosh’s long review of Benn Steil’s new biography of Henry Wallace as “Misadventures of a Stalinist stooge” (subscribers only). Steil’s new biography is titled The World That Wasn’t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century. You can read the first section of Ron’s review at the link. You can also listen to the whole thing via the reading of the review in the audio
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May 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Jerry Seinfeld delivered the commencement address at Duke University’s 2024 university-wide commencement ceremony in Wallace Wade Stadium yesterday. Seinfeld took the occasion to make the case for comedy and humor, both by example and by advice (starting at about 11:45). Seinfeld is a man not entirely in tune with the times, either in his defense of humor or otherwise. He urged the graduates to take advantage of their privilege. As
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May 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Across Israel at 11:00 a.m. this morning the sirens sounded to mark Israel’s Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron) for the fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. This is the day that Israelis, as a nation, honor the fallen from Israel’s military and those casualties from its wars and victims of terror attacks. Since last Memorial Day, 1594 Israelis have been killed. Out of those, 834 are civilians murdered in terror attacks,
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