Monthly Archives: June 2016

This week’s polls show improvement for Trump

Featured image This week saw the release of six major surveys of a Clinton-Trump head-to-head race. Five of them have Clinton in the lead. They are IBD/TIPP (Clinton +4), Fox News (Clinton +6), PPP, a Democratic firm (Clinton +4), Quinnipiac (Clinton +2), and Reuters/Ipsos (Clinton +10). One poll, by Rasmussen, has Trump ahead (+4). Quinnipiac and Reuters had the largest sample sizes. The margin of error (MOE) for these two polls is »

Dereliction of duty in the Persian Gulf

Featured image On the evening in which the capture by Iran of the crews of two U.S. Navy boats hit the news, I happened to be in the company of three retired high ranking military officials. The reaction of all three was the same: the crews were derelict in their duty; heads should roll. The Navy, having wrapped up its investigation of the matter, has reached the same conclusion. Its report finds »

No jailbreak legislation this year

Featured image The bipartisan jailbreak legislation — known as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act — is dead in this session of Congress. Sens. Dick Durbin and John Cornyn, key backers of the Act, have basically conceded defeat. Cornyn said he had hoped the House would move more quickly and provide momentum for the legislation in the Senate. But, he added, “apparently we ran out of time.” In reality, the demise of »

Grotesque Anti-Semitism of the Labour Party

Featured image The world’s press has portrayed Brexit as a disaster and the Conservatives as a party in disarray. But the real fiasco is going on in the Labour Party, where Jeremy Corbyn lost a no-confidence vote within his party by 172 to 40, but refuses to resign. Corbyn is a buffoon, a hard left winger who never met a terrorist group for which he didn’t have a sneaking fondness. Meanwhile, Labour »

Energiewoopsie, Or, What Happens When You Dump Nuclear Power

Featured image The greens have been aflutter for years about Germany’s energiewende, or “energy revolution,” partly because it involves a lot of their sacred windmills and solar panels and partly because it’s a revolution man, so dig it! Better put the patchouli-infused hemp robes away for the moment, because Germany is backpedalling fast. From Reuters yesterday: Germany waters down climate protection plan Germany has abandoned plans to set out a timetable to »

Sir Roger Scruton on Brexit

Featured image I don’t know why I didn’t think of looking weeks or months ago to see what SIR Roger Scruton had to say about the Brexit question, but naturally it turns out he said quite a lot, and all of  it sensible. This video from last December is very short, obviously on a continental TV show, and he explains that the Brexit question is much less economical than political and cultural: »

Do You Feel the Johnson?

Featured image Forget “Feel the Bern.” Do you “Feel the Johnson”? As in Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate for president? The Johnson-Weld ticket is the most serious ticket the Libertarian Party has ever nominated, which to be sure is like being the tallest building in Wichita, but still, if ever the Libertarian ticket might actually contend it is this year. I’ve been saying for a while that if Johnson, who can »

Savoring the Brexit Freakout

Featured image The collective freakout by the elites finds no better expression than in the indignation of CNN’s execrable Christiane Amanpour, who gets smacked back quite effectively by the impressive Daniel Hannan: »

What Huma Really Said

Featured image I spent much of last evening reading Huma Abedin’s deposition in Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit, which has raised questions about Hillary Clinton’s email practices. Having taken many depositions myself, I enjoy reading transcripts and evaluating the witnesses and lawyers. I wrote here about seeing the documentary Weiner, and said that I found Abedin to be more likable than I had expected. She came across well in her deposition, too. She »

Follow the Science, They Say

Featured image When it comes to the climate uber alles crowd, environmentalists insist we “follow the science.” Well let’s see whether Greenpeace follows this science. This morning in Washington DC there will be a press conference where a petition by 107 Nobel laureate scientists will call on Greenpeace to cease its reactionary opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The Washington Post reports: 107 Nobel laureates sign letter blasting Greenpeace over GMOs By »

Ted Cruz exposes administration’s willful blindness to jihad

Featured image On Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz held a hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, which he chairs. The subject was the Obama administration’s willful blindness when it comes to radical Islamic terrorism. You can view the hearing below, and I encourage you to watch as much of it as you can. Sen. Cruz’s opening statement is here. Andy McCarthy’s testimony is here. Another of »

Getting it right at Euro 2016 — better late than never

Featured image For me, the most fascinating aspect of big international soccer tournaments is the quest of team managers to determine their best team. It seems odd that a manager wouldn’t know his best team going in, but remember that international teams — e.g., Italy and England — don’t really exist as a unit of players until around three weeks before a big tournament. During the rest of the year, a collection »

Is Hillary to blame for the lack of a military response in Benghazi?

Featured image Yesterday, I linked to the additional views that Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo presented in connection with the report of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. I’m told that a major reason for submitting additional views was the unwillingness of Trey Gowdy, chairman of the committee, to present any conclusions in his report. Gowdy and the chief investigator decided just to present the facts — no conclusions. If they »

The FBI Investigation of Hillary: Is the Fix In?

Featured image Now I know what you’re thinking based on this headline: Of course the fix is in, you idiot! What makes you think the Obama Administration will allow the First Woman President to be indicted for mere sloppiness about emails? And then there’s this breaking story out of Arizona this morning: Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton meet privately in Phoenix PHOENIX – Amid an ongoing investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of email and »

The European Union: What Went Wrong

Featured image The migrant crisis is thought to be the chief precipitating event behind the shocking UK Brexit vote outcome, along with the general sense that the European Union and its ever expanding bureaucracy and high-handed intrusiveness is becoming intolerable. But remember that the decision to hold a referendum in Britain was made three years ago, after several years of agitation by EU critics, who are not limited to just the UK. »

Chronicle of Higher Education Beclowns Itself

Featured image A few days back I reported here on the Chronicle of Higher Education symposium to which I contributed on what a “Trump 101” course syllabus might look like, noting that some of the commenters complained that there was  “Not much diversity in the faculty or the authors of the readings,” and adding that “I’m not sure how much more diverse in ideology you can get than [Harvey] Mansfield and Alan »

ISIS in the Twin Cities, &c.

Featured image I found attending the trial of the three ISIS wannabes of the ten charged last year to be an incredibly rich experience. I’m still chewing it over. I take another look at the trial and at the national media’s pitiful coverage of it at City Journal in “ISIS in the Twin Cities.” I also touch on the related immigration issue implicit in the case. In light of the massacre in »