Monthly Archives: August 2016

GOP silent on AFFH, as Democrats target House seats in wealthy suburbs

Featured image The conventional wisdom holds that Republicans will maintain control of the House even if Donald Trump loses the presidential election decisively. However, most of those who subscribe to this view believe that the Democrats have some hope of taking the House. How might the Democrats accomplish this? According to the New York Times, the plan is to target seats held by Republicans in affluent suburbs of big cities. The Times »

Do Liberal Policies Produce Economic Growth? No

Featured image That might seem obvious. But liberals don’t admit that their policies are the path to poverty. Rather, they claim that the bluest states are the most prosperous. In that regard, Minnesota is often Exhibit A. Minnesota’s well-educated, healthy, socially conservative, hard-working population, combined with the state’s rich and diverse natural resources, have historically produced a strong economy. Liberals try to take credit for those good qualities, attributing whatever success the »

A tale of two conferences

Featured image Bill Otis at Crime and Consequences calls attention to a Washington Post story that I think demonstrates the bankruptcy of the Justice Department’s desired approach to policing Baltimore and other big cities. The story tells of two conferences that occurred simultaneously in a Baltimore church. In one room, concerned black residents of crime-ridden neighborhoods desperately called on the police to clear the streets of drug dealers and other thugs. Meanwhile, »

Remy Does CNN

Featured image Given that CNN stands for “Clinton News Network” (and ABC stands for “All Behind Clinton” and NBC stands for “Nobody But Clinton,” etc), it was only a matter of time before Remy Munasifi turned his satirical gaze in their direction. Herewith “This Is CNN,” just out this morning: »

Trump is gaining on Clinton

Featured image While Hillary Clinton reportedly is trying to “run out the clock,” Donald Trump is improving his status in the polls. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight puts Clinton’s national lead at 6.5 percentage points as of Sunday evening, down from 8.5 two weeks ago. He estimates Trump’s chances of winning at around one-fifth to one-fourth, also an improvement. A 6.5 point lead is still pretty substantial. However, we’re ten weeks away from »

In Re: Kaepernick’s Caper

Featured image John has already noted the silliness of Colin Kaepernick’s stunt of refusing to stand for the national anthem, as though everyone who does somehow thinks the United States is perfect. Here’s a practical suggestion: the 49ers should include a small American flag on team helmets. Kaepernick clearly doesn’t need one anyway, since he has very little brain to protect. I’m also guessing there are a lot of NFL defensive linemen »

Academic Woo-Hoo of the Week: Ruining Porn

Featured image Warning: This post can’t achieve a PG-13 MPAA rating even with a heavy use of asterisks. As regular readers know, we have some regulations informal guidelines about content here, but sometimes the news, like the latest junk about Anthony Weiner’s junk, compels testing the outer limits. The whole thing reminds of the scene in Ghostbusters—the classic original, not the unfunny, estrogen-fueled remake—where Dr. Stantz (Dan Ackroyd) objects to Dr. Venkman »

Secrets of the Iran ransom (2)

Featured image Following up on Andy McCarthy’s NRO column on the $1.31 billion in ransom payments to Iran (apart from the $400 million in cash) and on my related post, a reader with background in federal law enforcement writes: I saw your post regarding the suspicious transactions totaling $1.31 billion to Iran and thought I could explain part of it but with more questions. The reason for the 13 structured payments is »

Lies of “Truth” revisited

Featured image This past October 16 the Rathergate film Truth opened in more than a thousand theaters around the country. John and I warned viewers not to take the film at face value in the Weekly Standard article “Rather shameful.” On the film’s opening weekend the Star Tribune also carried my column reminding readers of the film’s factual background. The column was published as “Lies upon lies: The sad state of the »

Major Clinton Foundation donor denied entry into U.S. due to terror ties

Featured image The name Gilbert Chagoury will be familiar to many readers. He’s a friend of Bill Clinton and a major donor to the Clinton Foundation. According to Judicial Watch, which cites Clinton Foundation documents, Chagoury has appeared near the top of the Foundation’s donor list as a $1 million to $5 million contributor. Chagoury’s name came up recently in a newly released 2009 email from Clinton Foundation official Doug Band to »

Yet more evidence of our under-incarceration problem

Featured image We’ve written from time to time about America’s under-incarceration problem — the fact that criminals whose records clearly show they should be in jail are instead free and on the streets committing violent crimes, including some very bloody, high-profile ones. Here’s the latest example. Two brothers have been charged with the murder of 32-year-old Nykea Aldridge in Chicago. Aldridge, the cousin of basketball star Dwayne Wade, was shot to death »

Warmest Temperatures *Ever*?

Featured image We are bombarded with claims that some month or year (e.g., 2016) is the “warmest ever.” But what does that mean? We are living in a relatively cool era. Temperatures today are lower than they have been something like 90% of the time since the last Ice Age ended 12,000 or so years ago. In fact, “ever” means since approximately the 1880s, when thermometer records became widespread. As it happens, »

Media Alert

Featured image I will guest host the Laura Ingraham radio show tomorrow from 9 to 12 Eastern time. I think Laura may be off prepping Donald Trump for the debates, but I am not sure about that. We will have some excellent guests, including Larry Kudlow, Michael Barone, Kelli Ward and Niger Innis. And I am still hoping to book one of radio’s premier guests, Steve Hayward. You can go here to »

Of EpiPens and Weasels

Featured image Mylan NV has been taking a lot of abuse for sharply raising the price of its popular EpiPen. The Wall Street Journal explains the background on the price increase. It isn’t, as I would have assumed, a case of patent protection. The patent on epinephrine ran out years ago. Rather, it turns out that keeping the anti-allergy dose sterile is difficult and expensive. Mylan’s competitors have had a hard time »

Annals of Government Medicine

Featured image At the Telegraph, Simon Heffer reviews the condition of Britain’s National Health Service after 68 years and finds: “The NHS will simply collapse unless politicians have the courage to reform it.” According to Government figures, the £437 million spent in the first year of the NHS’s existence in 1948-49 is equivalent to £15 billion today. Yet the UK total spent on the NHS is now £116.4 billion, £101.3 billion of which is spent »

Secrets of the Iran ransom

Featured image At the New York Sun last week, Claudia Rosett tentatively reported the mechanics of the Obama administration’s payment of the $1.3 billion tranche of the ransom to Iran. She discovered what Andy McCarthy calls “a bizarre string” of 13 identical money transfers of $99,999,999.99 each — all of them one cent less than $100 million — paid out of an obscure Treasury Department stash known as the “Judgment Fund.” In »

Sunday morning coming down

Featured image When Don McLean came to Dartmouth in the spring of 1972 or so, he might have been the last man on the circuit I wanted to see. I was done with folk music, so I thought. I had moved on to the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane and Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. So when a classmate gave me his ticket to see McLean in Spaulding Auditorium on a »