February 2, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this week, I noted that some on the left are turning against lockdowns. More evidence of this development comes in this column by Leana Wen. Wen has become the Washington Post’s go-to analyst of the pandemic. I believe she frequently opines on it for CNN, as well. Here in the D.C. area, many liberals consider her views nearly authoritative. Wen’s latest column argues that “we should lift [covid] restrictions
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February 2, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
ABC has suspended Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks as a result of her unfortunate claim that the Holocaust was not about race, but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man.” The basis for Goldberg’s statement was that both the Nazis and the Jews they exterminated were White. As she put it: This is white people doing it to white people, so y’all going to fight amongst yourselves. How edgy! Goldberg’s take
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February 2, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
That’s the title of a long article in The Atlantic by George Packer about the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Even if you’re already as disgusted as I am by the betrayal — Donald Trump’s decision to turn over the whole country to the Taliban and, especially, Biden’s scandalous handling of the pullout — the article is well worth reading in full. It should be required reading
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February 1, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Tomorrow, the Washington Football Team will announce its new name. The team will do so on NBC’s Today Show. Apparently, those in charge of the team and the network think there’s significant national interest in what the former Redskins will call themselves. I doubt there is. Most fans of the team are interested in the new name, but I’m not among them. I don’t care. Here are my two predictions
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February 1, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The Electoral Count Act (ECA) has become a subject of controversy. There’s a bipartisan movement to amend it. Donald Trump baselessly invokes that movement as support for his claim that Mike Pence could have overturned the 2020 presidential election. The ECA was a response to the election of 1876. In that contest, between Republican Rutherford Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, Congress was presented with two slates of electors by three
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February 1, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
This past weekend, Donald Trump claimed that Mike Pence, as vice president, had the power to change the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump said: “Unfortunately, [Pence] didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election.” This claim is wrong and disturbing. It’s wrong because, as discussed below, once the states submit their slates of electors in compliance with state law and with no alternative slate authorized by an
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January 31, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Everton has hired a new manager. He’s one of England all-time great players — one of its five best this century* — and the all-time leading scorer for a massive Premier League team. But that new manager isn’t Wayne Rooney, Manchester United’s all-time scoring leader, who began and ended his Premier League career with Everton. It’s Frank Lampard, the former Chelsea star. Lampard is Chelsea’s career leader in goals. He
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January 31, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, John wrote about a study (a study of studies, actually) that says lockdowns have had little to no effect in preventing deaths from covid. I remain unpersuaded of this proposition and will probably explain why before too long. However, I agree that extended lockdowns have imposed significant costs that likely exceed any benefits. In addition, it’s clear to me that schools should have reopened for in-person learning no later
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January 31, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
In writing about Lindsey Graham’s confusion about affirmative action, I discussed Graham’s favorite candidate for the Supreme Court, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs. I looked at her credentials compared to those of the current Justices at the time of their nomination and of Judge Sri Srinivasan, a highly qualified Asian-American jurist who has been excluded from consideration because he isn’t a black female. I concluded that, if selected,
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January 30, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Lindsey Graham has long believed that a president’s judicial nominees should receive great deference from the Senate. He has made this clear over and over, both for nominees of Democrats and nominees of Republicans. For example, he defended his vote to confirm Justice Sotomayor on that basis. Graham’s view on the matter used to be shared by the vast majority of Senators. Today, almost no Senator really holds it,
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January 30, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Recent polling shows they do not. However, it also shows that Republicans still like Trump enough to nominate him in 2024. Dan Balz notes that on the eve of the 2020 election, 54 percent of Republicans and independents who lean Republican said they considered themselves more a supporter of Trump than of the Republican Party, compared with 38 percent who said they considered themselves more a supporter of the Republican
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January 29, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The virtues of a meritocracy may be lost on Harvard students like that “queer Middle Easterner,” but they come through clearly in this excellent New York Times article by Michael Powell. His piece deals with the subject through the lens of Brooklyn Tech, an elite New York City high school from which one of my cousins graduated in the 1960s. Brooklyn Tech hasn’t yielded to demands that it stop admitting
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January 28, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
They used to say that 1,000 Frenchmen can’t be wrong. But what about nine “diverse” Harvard students? The Harvard Gazette, a house organ that’s sent to every Harvard alum (including four current Supreme Court Justices), presents an article with the title “Students call ensuring diversity on campus vital.” The piece purports to describe the position of Harvard students regarding their college’s preferential admissions policy, a challenge to which is now
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January 28, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post continues to maintain that Joe Biden has Republicans right where he wants them, thanks to his decision to appoint a black women to the Supreme Court. This article by Mike DeBonis is called (in the paper edition) “Supreme Court battle puts Republicans on the spot.” Dan Balz’s article is called “Breyer’s retirement gives Biden a fresh opportunity for a badly needed victory.” But I continue to believe
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January 27, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
After the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted a policy of “massive resistance” to school desegregation. The resistance was about finding ways to circumvent the Court’s ruling. It included a law forbidding any integrated schools from receiving state funds and authorizing the governor to close any such school. Virginia also adopted tuition grants to enable students to attend private, segregated schools. Now,
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January 27, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The Princeton University Ballet, a student-run ballet company, has gone full woke. So has Princeton’s EDI in the Arts Circuit, which apparently is tied to the University’s administration. Responding to my first post on the subject, a friend called my attention to this passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story “Harris Bergeron.”: THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law.
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January 27, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that Democratic leaders are excited about the prospect of replacing Justice Breyer, and not just because of the opportunity to put a youngish left-liberal on the Supreme Court. According to the Post, Democrats see a political opportunity. They expect, as I do, that Biden will nominate a black female and that she will face considerable opposition from Republican Senators. Dem leaders apparently believe that in this
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