Monthly Archives: April 2016
April 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
H.A. Goodman is an immoderate supporter of Bernie Sanders for president. He is also a Huffington Post blogger. In his most recent column, republished at Salon, Goodman returns to the matter of Hillary Clinton’s private email set-up to conduct official business as Secretary of State. Goodman frames the column as an open letter to FBI Director James Comey. Apart from the expressions of support for Sanders, I would change only
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April 29, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll is thinking about metaphorical ONE WAY STREETS. She writes: Let’s begin with Dimwit Street. It is One-Way. Let’s say a Republican Vice President is having one of those photo op, Feel-Good visits to a classroom. The little children are having a spelling bee. A boy spells “potato.” As it happens, the teacher has handed said Vice President a flashcard with her spelling of “potato” upon it. Except it
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April 28, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Team Leniency for Drug Felons, the bipartisan group of Senators that wants, among other things, to let thousands of federal drug felons out of jail, held a press conference today to announce its revised leniency legislation. The changes to the Senate bill that stalled late last year do little to improve it. As Senator David Perdue, one of the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who stood tall against
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April 28, 2016 — Steven Hayward
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story out today about the experiment I began at the University of Colorado at Boulder two years ago, now that the smoke (what kind of smoke you ask?) has cleared. The story is behind a subscriber paywall, but here’s the lede and a few fun parts plus some additional commentary from me: After 3 Years, U. of Colorado Deems Its Conservative-Scholars Program a
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April 28, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
A reader-activist offers the following thought on the GOP primary in Indiana: Where the hell are Daniels and Pence!? They want Trump???? Bunch of COWARDS. They should be leading and instead they are under the bed. People like that will leave us with Trump as the candidate! I agree. Trump’s big loss in Wisconsin was due in significant part to the vigorous opposition of Scott Walker and other Republican leaders
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April 28, 2016 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been wanting to revisit the whole Volkswagen emissions testing scandal for a while now, but haven’t had the chance yet. But Volkswagen’s announcement earlier this week that it will buy back diesel cars from unhappy owners is a perfect moment to wade back into this. While everyone is “outraged” about Volkswagen gaming the emission testing system, keep two things in mind. First, anyone still driving a car that is
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April 28, 2016 — John Hinderaker
A few months ago I asked a Washington insider for the scoop on Ted Cruz. His first words were, “No one likes Ted.” Well, John Boehner certainly doesn’t: The longtime Ohio powerhouse had not been very outspoken on the race since retiring last year, but he held little back when asked about the Texas senator and underdog GOP presidential candidate during a forum at Stanford University. “I have Democrat friends
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April 28, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Any honest assessment of Will Ferrell comedies would have to say they are uneven. The first Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby are classics; Get Hard, Step Brothers, and Blades of Glory, not so much. The best you can say about the next Ferrell vehicle announced yesterday, in which he will portray an Alzheimer-impaired President Reagan being manipulated by his staff, is
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April 28, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
According to a survey by Clout Research, Donald Trump holds only a two point lead over Ted Cruz in Indiana. It’s Trump 37, Cruz 35, and Kasich 16. I’m not familiar with Clout Research. However, FiveThirtyEight, which obsesses over pollster reliability, gives good weight to Clout’s Indiana poll. In addition, my look at its polls during this election season did not indicate that Clout shouldn’t be taken seriously. For example,
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April 28, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Dan Henninger reminds us in the Wall Street Journal this morning of the great Clintonian talent at “triangulation,” and notes the subtle “pivot” Hillary is starting to make against the sorry Obama economic record: Watching this, one thought: Is the presumed extender of Barack Obama’s third term explicitly separating herself from the economy under his watch for 7 1/2 years? . . . The Clinton campaign is bending to the obvious:
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April 28, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Yale University President Peter Salovey solemnly addressed “the Yale community” by email in the early evening hours last night. He had a portentous announcement. Among other things, Yale has reached a decision on whether to retain the title “master” to refer to the teachers taking up the mantle at Yale’s residential colleges. You can feel the brain cells sloughing off as you read the deliberation that went into taking the
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April 28, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Ten Somali Minnesotans (a/k/a “Minnesota men,” as they are called in the headlines) were charged with seeking to join ISIS in April 2015. The case is of national interest and obvious importance. In the Weekly Standard articles “The threat from ‘Minnesota men'” and “Judging the ‘Minnesota men'” I tried to persuade readers that attention must be paid. The cases open a window onto the evolving security threat facing the United
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April 28, 2016 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times reports that “Minnesota TSA manager says he was told to target Somali Americans.” Let me say at the outset I find the story incomprehensible. The TSA manager referred to in the headline was allegedly asked to do something that he declined to do. Nothing happened. To borrow the title of the Bob Dylan song, nothing was delivered. The term “profiling” is thrown around without definition. The
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April 28, 2016 — Steven Hayward
How can you tell the climatistas are getting desperate? When they enlist the “Funny or Die” folks to do this pathetic attempt at reverse psychology entitled “Old people don’t care about climate change”: You know what people really don’t care about? Ed Asner’s opinion about anything. Funny or Die used to be funny. Too bad this had to happen to them. (Actually I didn’t know Cloris Leachman was still alive.
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April 27, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Team Leniency for Drug Felons, the bipartisan group of Senators that wants, among other things, to let thousands of federal drug felons out of jail, is making another run at its vision of “sentencing reform.” Senators Grassley, Durbin, Cornyn, Leahy, Lee, Whitehouse, Graham, Booker, Scott, and Schumer will hold a press conference tomorrow to announce new provisions to the legislation proposed last October. They will also showcase new cosponsors. Mark
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April 27, 2016 — John Hinderaker
In my new capacity as President of Minnesota’s think tank, I am paying close attention to the state’s economy. Historically strong and diverse, our economy has been badly weakened by decades of mostly-left-wing governance. Small business has been especially hurt, which is one reason why in 2014, families with household incomes of nearly a billion dollars on net left Minnesota for lower-tax states. An outfit called Thumbtack conducted a nationwide
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April 27, 2016 — John Hinderaker
I agree with Paul’s assessment of Ted Cruz announcing Carly Fiorina as his running mate. But I would go farther: the move is widely seen as one of desperation, and tends to cement the perception that Cruz’s chance of winning the nomination is slipping away. Fortune’s take was typical. The magazine first headlined, “A Desperate Ted Cruz Tosses a Hail Carly,” which was then softened–a little–to “A Fading Ted Cruz
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