May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Douglas Murray: Choose life, not the death cults

Featured image This past Monday evening our friends at the Manhattan Institute recognized Douglas Murray (“for his unwavering defense of Western values”) and Ross Perot, Jr. (“for representing the best of civic engagement in Dallas and throughout Texas”) at the institute’s annual Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner. In his acceptance speech Murray describes his recent time in Israel and Gaza. He celebrates the spirit and heroism of the living Israelis he met and »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Begin & Bibi v. Biden

Featured imageIn a November 2020 Wall Street Journal column Tevi Troy recalled “When Biden Met Begin” (posted in accessible form on Pundicity). Tevi recounted how Biden and Begin once clashed in a private June 1982 session with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Mr. Biden, 39, lectured the 68-year-old [Israeli Prime Minister Menachem] Begin over Israeli settlements, jabbing his finger at the prime minister and banging his fist on the desk. Mr. »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageBRIDESMAIDS OF HAMAS — not better than brides. Ammo Grrrll writes: Some years ago in the U.K. a 15-year-old ninny decided to run to Syria to become a “Bride of ISIS.” When the reality of that life sank in, of course she demanded to be let BACK IN to the U.K. She even claimed she would be a force to fight terrorism if allowed to come home. By some miracle, »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The Nine-Percent Solution

Featured imageIn his interview with Erin Burnett for CNN, President Biden most notably announced his betrayal of Israel the day after proclaiming his “ironclad” support. We had seen it coming. It wasn’t a surprise. It was obviously top of what is left of his mind. He also unleashed a series of whoppers that suggest he is lost in a senescent fog. The editors of the New York Post tabulate and itemize »
May 9, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Signer of the Times

Featured imageJoe Biden has been called as a waxworks effigy of a president, sock puppet, bobblehead and so forth. Those descriptions are all valid, but there’s a better way to view the Delaware Democrat now occupying the White House. Consider the experience of the composite character president David Garrow charted in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. During Obama’s eulogy of Nelson Mandela on December 10, 2013, South African interpreter »
May 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Who Are the Anti-Semites?

Featured imageThe New York Times, alarmed that its fellow leftists have outed themselves as anti-Semites on campuses and in the streets (not to mention in Congress), has published an interminable article, with four reporters’ bylines, claiming that Republicans are the real anti-Semites. There isn’t much need to read the article, as the headline says it all: “How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel.” The Times purports to use »
May 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Big Mac Bidenflation

Featured imageI still argue that the only good thing that happened during the Obama years was all-day breakfast at McDonalds, and COVID took that away from us. Which is when I started saying that COVID won’t be truly over until we get all-day breakfast at McDonalds back again. And it looks like that isn’t going to happen. One reason might be that consumers can’t afford it: Part of a general pattern »
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 — 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 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Princeton Takes the Cake?

Featured imageThe kill-the-Jews protests at one “elite” university after another have exposed the low level of both information and intelligence of some students, and even some professors. But the Princeton protest has established a milestone of sorts, as one of its leaders complains of “starving,” a condition she apparently blames on the university. She and the others are on a hunger strike. They also, she says, are “immunocompromised,” a weird claim »
May 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The Biden betrayal

Featured imagePresident Biden publicly acknowledged his betrayal of 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 of Israel, the »
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

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 »