April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The raspberry statement

Featured image Current events at Columbia may call to mind events at Columbia circa 1968. Before matriculating at Dartmouth in the fall of 1969, I joined a group of incoming freshmen who met to discuss Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice and Columbia undergrad James Simon Kunen’s just-published The Strawberry Statement. We didn’t take Cleaver’s book particularly seriously and Eric Hoffer even less so. He caustically mocked it as Soul On Horse Manure. »
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Israel strikes Isfahan

Featured imageReports overnight indicate that Israel struck a military base in Isfahan from which Iran launched drones against Israel in last weekend’s massive Iranian attack. The Times of Israel story is posted here. The attack is described as “limited.” Reliable information about the attack is itself “limited.” There was a message or two or three in the attack. Yonah Jeremy Bob makes this point at the Jerusalem Post in his a »
April 18, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Fauci Flunkie Exposed

Featured imageThe Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has subpoenaed Dr. David Morens, a former senior advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to chairman Brad Wenstrup: Dr. David Morens purposefully evaded FOIA laws to give his “best-friend” EcoHealth Alliance President Dr. Peter Daszak non-public, internal information that had the potential to undermine the operations of the United States government. This is not only highly concerning, but it is also likely illegal. »
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageHey, you, you may or may not want to MIND THE GAP! Ammo Grrrll writes: My dear friend from teenage years on, who was married to a Brit for a considerable period of time, told me that British culture, while generally kind, polite, and tolerant, tends to be much more risk-averse than American culture. The Brits believe it is wholly good to protect their citizens from any and all behaviors »
April 18, 2024 — John Hinderaker

It Isn’t About Israel

Featured imageThe evil that is now running rampant across our country is ostensibly directed at Israel, but Israel is only the pretext, a target of convenience. We have seen in recent months that “anti-Zionism” is merely a cover for anti-Semitism. If Israel disappeared tomorrow, the anti-Semites here, in Western Europe and elsewhere, wouldn’t miss a beat. But it doesn’t stop there. In Iranian and al Qaeda ideology, Israel is only the »
April 18, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

What’s Up Doxx?

Featured imageThe practice of doxxing is “to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.” In 2011, for example, online hackers “claimed responsibility for posting personal information of more than 40 officers, including their home addresses, campaign contributions, property records, and names of family members after they claimed the LAPD oppressed them by shutting down the Occupy L.A. Movement.” California’s doxxing laws, notes »
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Columbia update

Featured imageThe unauthorized pro-Hamas/anti-Israel demonstration continues for a second day at the heart of the Columbia campus. Columbia authorities have called the cops. The pro-terrorist students want to put President Shafik to the test. As I wrote earlier today, Columbia authorities started asserting themselves and taking remedial action in anticipation of yesterday’s House Education Committee hearing. The hearing did some good even before it was held. UPDATE: NYPD have entered the »
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Josh Hawley’s master class

Featured imageC-SPAN has just posted the video clip of Senator Josh Hawley’s beatdown of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the tweet below. This may be the most brutal and relentless interrogation of a senior administration official I have ever seen, certainly in the space of eight minutes. It graphically depicts the madness of the Biden open-door immigration policy in small as well as its utter indefensibility in large. Tense exchange between »
April 18, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

The California Pedo Files

Featured imageAs Katy Grimes of the California Globe reports, Bakersfield Republican Sen. Shannon Grove, and two state senate Democrats, authored Senate Bill 1414, which as Grove explains: states that any individual who solicits, agrees to engage in, or engages in any act of commercial sex with a minor will face felony charges. If passed, this law will hold these offenders accountable under strict liability (meaning buyers can’t just claim they thought »
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Nightmare at Columbia

Featured imageColumbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik skipped the December 5 House Education Committee Hearing on anti-Semitism at their institutions that disgraced the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. President Shafik was invited to the hearing, but she was otherwise engaged. She was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai. Some might say that she sensed stormy weather. Yesterday the committee reconvened to hear from President Shafik and »
April 17, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Biden Cannibalizes Himself

Featured imageI remember when my grandmother reached her mid-90s, and she would tell old stories I had never heard before (and thus had no idea how true they might be), and then immediately repeat them like she was stuck on a tape loop. John notes below that Biden today twice told the story of his uncle’s World War II experience—not previously told that I am aware of—and how he may have »
April 18, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Climatistas Versus the Hamasniks

Featured imageAs I have been half-joking for months now, it must be discouraging for the climatistas to turn out to block a road, deface a museum, or commit some other nihilistic act, only to find the pro-Hamas protestors got up earlier and beat you to the bridge or the airport. That will teach the climatistas to sleep in! So the climatistas have had to step up their game, in today’s case, »
April 18, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: The Tax Burden and Other Scary Things

Featured imageJoe Biden is back doing what Democrats always do—engage in class warfare, demanding that the rich “pay their fair share.” On the very rare occasions a reporters asks a Democrat to offer a precise definition of what “fair share” is, Democrats change the subject, because what “fair share” always means is “more.” (But don’t ever accuse liberals of being greedy for other people’s money, because they think it belongs to »
April 18, 2024 — Steven Hayward

How Folx-sy

Featured imageYesterday we noted the exchange in the House hearing with Columbia University president Minouche Shafik in which she was asked about the use of the term “folx” in Columbia University’s School of Social Work. President Shafik professed ignorance of the term, but this is very likely an outright lie, as the term has been catching on in academia for a long time, like “Latinx.” Here, perhaps, is a clue to »
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Columbia now

Featured imageIlhan Omar elicited the testimony of Columbia President Minouche Shafik at the House Education Committee hearing yesterday that she had seen no “protests” at Columbia “saying we are against Jewish people.” See the video below at 0:40. Omar also regurgitated the canard that students had been attacked by “a toxic chemical substance.” That appears not to be the case. I think it might more accurately be deemed the raspberry statement. »
April 17, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Wisdom from the Book of Samuels

Featured imageOn August 2, 2023, Tablet editor David Samuels interviewed David Garrow, author of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a massive attack on Israel and committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. In light of those events, and the recent attack on Israel directly from Iran, consider some of Samuels’ own statements during “The Obama Factor” interview: I find Barack Obama »
April 17, 2024 — John Hinderaker

How Much Money Does the Government Waste?

Featured imageIt depends on how you define waste, of course. I would define whole branches of government as wasteful or worse. And one can say that all money spent by governments on DEI programs is wasted, regardless of how efficiently the programs are carried out. If you ask taxpayers, they think the government wastes a lot of their money. Our Thinking Minnesota Poll most recently found that, on average, Minnesotans–not known »