May 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The Biden betrayal

Featured image President Biden publicly acknowledged his betrayal of Israel’s effort to Israel’s anticipated offensive in Rafah in an interview with Erin Burnett on CNN. The CNN story on the interview is here. As a practical matter, Biden supports Hamas. Biden opposes Israel. Biden’s declaration of “ironclad” support for Israel is “inoperative,” to borrow a term from Watergate. On Tuesday Biden gave a Holocaust remembrance speech decrying those calling for “the annihilation »
May 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson

A benefit for my friend Scottie

Featured imageI wrote about my friend Scott Sansby last year in “My friend Scottie.” We have been friends since my family moved from Moorhead to St. Paul in 1958. In other words, we have been friends since the Eisenhower administration. Scottie has an incredibly wide network of friends and admirers, but we stayed best friends through high school and have remained friends ever since. I share so many memories with Scottie »
May 8, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Is The New York Times Hopeless?

Featured imageWell yes, of course. But at the Wall Street Journal, James Freeman highlights an interview with the Times’s current executive editor, Joseph Kahn. Hope springs eternal, I guess: Regular news consumers may recall Ben Smith as the Buzzfeed editor who helped define post-journalistic coverage of the Trump presidency by publishing the bogus Steele dossier in 2017 while admitting he didn’t know whether it was true or false. Naturally Mr. Smith »
May 8, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Plead the Fifth Dimension

Featured imageBack in 1965, Barry McGuire told fans to “look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you boy.” That is good advice in 2024, and other old songs may provide the same service. For example, as the Buffalo Springfield noticed back in 1967, “there’s something happening here,” and if you stepped out of line “the man” would come and take you away. So “stop, children what’s that sound, everybody look »
May 8, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Sweden Shaken by Crisis of Violence

Featured imageThe Financial Times headlines: “The violent gang crisis shaking Sweden.” Spoiler alert: it all has to do with immigration. Sweden has suffered an extraordinary spate of violence in recent months, particularly in Uppsala and its neighbour to the south, capital Stockholm. At its worst in September and October, barely a day went by without a shooting, bombing or hand grenade attack — sometimes several. The Nordic country has gone from »
May 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Loose Ends (253)

Featured image• Biden suffers another defeat at the hands of his Teleprompter: BIDEN's teleprompter troubles continue 🤦🏽‍♂️ "My theology professor at the Catholic school I went to was a guy named Riley [LAST NAME]…" pic.twitter.com/YkdwO44AVN — Raj Aryal (@rajaryal07) May 8, 2024 • Meanwhile, talk about letting the (Hamas) mask slip: Student at @FIU complains that “Anti-Jewish” protesters aren’t protected on campus. Note that she expressly said “Anti-Jewish” while reading her »
May 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Jews at Columbia Speak Out

Featured imageAn open letter from Jewish students at Columbia University needs to be shared in full, on account of its lucidity and moral clarity: In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University To the Columbia Community: Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking »
May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The campus seen

Featured imageI want to note a few reports on the campus scene. Attention must be paid. The scene should not be unseen. I have been asking who is behind the kill the Jews crowd on campus. Park MacDougald takes a comprehensive look in his May 6 Tablet column “The People Setting America on Fire.” It is the best effort yet to turn over the rocks and look underneath. Park, by the »
May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Will Argentina Save the West?

Featured imageThat’s not a headline I ever expected to write, even in satire. But the current experiment in Argentina, under the presidency of Javier Milei, is perhaps grounds for hope that at some point when things get so bad, voters return to their senses. (I’m looking at you, California and Minnesota.) He may not succeed, but the attempt is certainly inspiring. Milei gave a speech a few days ago at the »
May 7, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Italy Goes Nuclear

Featured imageIt has been a very long time since anyone held up Italy as a model of a well-governed country. Not since Roman times, perhaps. But Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has Italy moving in a good direction. That applies to energy along with many other issues. Thus: In a decisive shift from its past policies, Italy, under the leadership of Premier Giorgia Meloni and Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pichetto, »
May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Time to Unskew Elite Colleges?

Featured imageFurther to the argument made last week that college admissions offices should be fired wholesale because they bear responsibility for admitted so many deranged students, note what appears to be evidence that elite college admissions actively favor composing their classes of leftists. And then act surprised when they sack buildings and grandstand at commencement ceremonies. From Nate Silver: Chaser—You can include elite graduate fellowships, too:   »
May 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: The Kids Are Only Half-Whacked

Featured imageGood news and bad news from a recent survey of college students about what issues are most important to them. The good news is that the conflagration in the Middle East is not exciting very many of them. The bad news is that a lot of other lefty crap—especially gun control, climate change, and “racial justice”—still commands a hefty plurality. One caveat is that this survey apparently doesn’t ask students »
May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The campus seen: A footnote

Featured imageI want to add this footnote to my adjacent post on “The campus seen.” We can’t understand what’s happening in the current eruption of anti-Semitism on campus without understanding what has happened at Columbia University. Columbia University is ground zero of the intifada revolution. The video below features the deep thoughts of Columbia president Minouche Shafik in the satirical context afforded by reality. Want a good laugh this morning? Watch »
May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Biden indicts himself

Featured imagePresident Biden chose to revise and extend his mealymouthed comments on anti-Semitism with a 1600-word speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony yesterday. The White House has posted the text of his remarks here. The speech seems to me late and wanting. Revisiting the history of the Holocaust, Biden referred to “the perils of indifference, the complicity of silence in the face of evil that »
May 7, 2024 — John Hinderaker

What Energy Transition?

Featured imageThe press, and many politicians, constantly assure us that the world is in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to “green” energy, which means wind turbines, solar panels, and mostly fictitious batteries. But is any such transition actually in progress? No. Robert Bryce has the numbers. No such transition is taking place in the U.S.; on the contrary, last year natural gas-fired electricity generation increased 9.5 times as »
May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Biden’s Two-State Solution

Featured imageFor a while now the joke has been going around that Biden’s two-state solution for the Israel-Hamas conflict involves the two states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. The more time passes, the more this seems not a joke at all. Biden is apparently terrified not only of the campus left, but that he could lose Michigan’s substantial Arab voting block, and hence the election, if he doesn’t placate them. Here’s a »
May 7, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Xenojoebic

Featured imageYou know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants. We look to – the reason – look, think about it – why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. That was Joe Biden at a May 1 fundraiser. White »