Monthly Archives: January 2017

Forget the Temporary Travel Ban, Trump Has Issued a Really Important Order

Featured image The temporary ban on travel from Sudan, Somalia, Libya etc. probably won’t turn out to be one of President Trump’s 20 most important executive orders of his first weeks on the job, despite the liberals’ hysteria over it. He signed a much more significant one today: “Trump wants to scrap two regulations for each new one adopted.” The Washington Post reports: President Trump signed an order Monday aimed at cutting »

It’s Tough When Your Base Is Crazy

Featured image Sometimes you wonder why Democratic politicians are so crazed. But then you see stories like this that make it clear: Protesters shouted down Rhode Island Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse during a community event as they protested his vote in favor of President Donald Trump’s nominee for CIA director and pushed him to vote against other nominees. A video of Sunday’s event posted by the group Resist Hate RI shows »

Identity politics threatens education reform movement

Featured image The drive for education reform brought together an unusual coalition — conservatives who believe in free markets and left-wing community activists who knew little about Milton Friedman but who saw that the public school monopoly was failing children from poor families. For more than 20 years, this coalition has effectively advanced the cause of school choice, often with very beneficial results. But the coalition is fraying thanks, at least in »

Academic Absurdity of the Week: It’s All About Us

Featured image Courtesy of the good people at Real Peer Review, herewith a dissertation from the University of Utah that you won’t want to miss: “Wow, that bitch is crazy!”: Exploring gendered performances in leisure spaces surrounding reality television by Spencer, Callie Cross, Ph.D., THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, 2014, 202 pages Abstract In Reality Bites Back, Jennifer L. Pozner states, “Women are bitches. Women are stupid. Women are incompetent at work and failures at home. Women »

Social Media Refrigerators?

Featured image One of the stranger things in the world of energy is that the Department of Energy does not yet offer an official estimate of how much electricity use is now accounted for by our wireless world. Right now the official statistics only break down energy and electricity use by four broad sectors: residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. But wireless technology—and all the energy-hungry internet server farms, cell towers, and end-use »

All Hysteria, All the Time

Featured image In a way, the Left’s ability to go bonkers in lockstep is impressive. You have to give them credit for message discipline, if nothing else. The idea that a 90-day stay on travel from Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Libya is of any particular significance–let alone the crisis of the age!–is crazy. But on the Left these days, craziness isn’t just permitted, it is required. There are many »

Schumer cries

Featured image Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got all choked up about President Trump’s recent immigration order calling a brief timeout on admissions from seven countries. Well, it must be serious. This sets a high bar indeed for future action taken by President Trump. From now on the question will be whether it prompted Schumer to recite poetry, invoke one of his kids and cry for the cameras. »

Civil War on the Left, Part 36

Featured image How good is President Trump? He not only makes Chuck Schumer cry, but he also has the left spitting mad at Schumer: Chuck Schumer under fire from left-wing activists Left-wing activists have found a collateral target in their efforts to resist President Trump — powerful Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. Enraged that the Senate Minority Leader has voted in favor of several cabinet nominees, a coalition of political, environmental and anti-poverty organizations »

Turning it up to 11

Featured image Paul notes the Washington Post’s solicitation of readers for what he calls “immigration sob stories.” If you can explain how Donald Trump ruined your life and can tie it to the “extreme vetting” executive order, the Post wants to hear from you. But it’s not just the Post. The New York Times is also on the case. If you have been affected (or will soon be affected!) by the executive »

Shooting at Quebec City mosque claims at least five lives [UPDATED]

Featured image At least five people were killed when gunmen opened fire at a mosque in Quebec City during evening prayers. The number of injured victims has not yet been reported. Approximately 40 people are said to have been at the religious service. The police reportedlly have arrested two men in connection with the shooting. According to a local newspaper, one of the arrested suspects was 27 years old and had a »

Washington Post solicits immigration sob stories

Featured image In what might be described as the journalism equivalent of ambulance chasing, the Washington Post is inviting readers to tell it how their lives have been ruined by President Trump’s executive order on immigration. The Post’s main web page includes this: Are you, or someone you know, affected by President Trump’s executive order banning refugees and migrants from the U.S.? Share your story with us. If you follow the link, »

Trump’s immigration order: myths and realities

Featured image Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of the Trump administration’s immigration order [NOTE: And the way it was implemented arguably left much to be desired]. But before agreeing or disagreeing, it’s important understand what the order does and does not do, and how it compares to recent policy. David French does a good job of separating the facts from the hysteria. For the hysteria, French cites the usual suspects: »

The Implausible Donald Trump

Featured image I know we’ve posted this video here once or twice before, but it’s even more fun to take in now that he’s been in office for 10 days and the left is losing its mind. So let’s enjoy an extra thick and delicious helping of schadenfreude once again: »

Is Trump’s Immigration Order the Worst of Both Worlds?

Featured image President Trump is taking a lot of political heat, and therefore expending a considerable amount of political capital, for an immigration order that doesn’t go far enough to be meaningful. Trump has decreed a halt to travel–immigration and otherwise–from seven Muslim-majority countries, for a mere 90 days. This is accompanied by a suspension of refugee admissions (with the exception of Syria) for only 120 days. The idea, supposedly, is to »

The Muslim Brotherhood revisited

Featured image In significant respects the Muslim Brotherhood is the progenitor of the Islamic terrorism that hit us on 9/11. Lawrence Wright therefore began his account of al Qaeda and the road to 9/11 with Sayyid Qutb, the “intellectual godfather” of the Brotherhood. The avowedly genocideal and terrorist group Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood itself is a little cagier, but it takes a case of willful blindness to »

Shedunnit, whoever she is

Featured image At Axios, Jonathan Swan reports that “the person who leaked audio of the closed-door Republican congressional retreat in Philadelphia snuck in by claiming to be the spouse of an elected official. She was at the retreat for 11 hours before escorted out by Capitol Police. The Congressional Institute, which hosts the event, is trying to figure out who she is.” I should add that a local television report on the »

An under-reported fact about the Trump presidency

Featured image The first week of Donald Trump’s presidency received wall-to-wall coverage from the mainstream media. His every word was fact-checked, after a fashion. Nor was the sole concern what Trump said. It also mattered what wall he was standing near when he said it. By “wall-to-wall,” I mean wall-to-wall — from CIA headquarters to the border with Mexico. But on the whole, the mainstream media seems to be missing or under-playing »