April 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson
We are given to understand that the Dearbornistan vote has something to do with the Biden administration’s turn toward Hamas. In the category of what’s wrong with this picture?, the invaluable MEMRI tuned in to the International Al Quds Day rally in front of Dearborn’s Henry Ford Centennial Library (perfect!) this past Friday (video below). Chants of “Death to America” were joined with chants of “Death to Israel” among the
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April 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The site formerly known as Twitter covers a lot of news that you won’t easily find anywhere else, if at all. When it comes to the Hamas-Israel conflict, most of it is of the heartbreaking or infuriating variety. The tweet below, for example, falls into both categories — “Hamas Negotiators have reportedly told International Meditators in Cairo that it has No Ability to Release the 40 Hostages in the Humanitarian
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April 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I’m not a fan of the Star Tribune, yet keeping up with it is an occupational necessity for me. The Star Tribune dominates the local news in roughly the same fashion that the New York times dominates the national news. It sets the agenda for other outlets that chase its tail. Over at Alpha News, we seek to fill the void created by the Star Tribune and its uncompetitive competitors.
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April 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I found the oral argument of the case now styled Murthy v. Missouri last month to be utterly demoralizing. As soon as the oral argument concluded I rashly hazarded my assessment that it portends a victory for the massive censorship-industrial complex represented by the Biden administration, probably on procedural grounds (i.e., standing). My assessment was a hot take based on the tenor of the argument. The argument seemed to me
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April 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Merle Haggard died eight years ago yesterday at the age of 79 — to be exact, on his seventy-ninth birthday. Haggard is finally the subject of a full-scale biography — The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard (2022), by Marc Eliot. Mark Pulliam reviewed it at Law and Liberty in the excellent column “Our redneck poet.” He “expand[s] upon Eliot’s respectful (but not hagiographic) treatment of the
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April 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden used the IDF’s accidental killing of the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza to demand that Israel capitulate to Hamas. That’s my translation of the White House readout of Biden’s April 4 phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I posted the crucial excerpt here last week. I also noted that Secretary of State Blinken added a twist in his April 4 press conference. He declared that
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April 6, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I want to strike a Nietzschean note in this comment on the rideshare ordinance enacted by the City of Minneapolis this past month. Under the ordinance, Uber and Lyft would be required to pay drivers a minimum rate of $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute to ensure that they earn the equivalent of local minimum wage of $15.57 per hour — effective May 1. The city council overrode
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April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Douglas Murray has just posted the documentary America’s Drug Crisis on his YouTube channel. I have embedded it below. He writes in the YouTube caption: “As the U.S. has turned away from ‘the war on drugs,’ many cities have sought more ‘humane’ approaches to dealing with addiction. They’re not working. In my new documentary, I explore just how deep-seated America’s Drug Crisis has become – and how the policies we’ve
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April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
We have traced President Biden’s retreat from the public defense of Israel in its war on Hamas to his adoption of the Hamas line. He has now taken up the strategery of Dr. Jill to demand an immediate ceasefire. The White House readout of Biden’s call yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu has Biden demanding Israel’s agreement to Hamas’s terms: [Biden] made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement
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April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Philip Hamburger’s Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (2014) constitutes a pioneering work of intellectual restoration. Provoked by recent developments in administrative law, I have returned to it this week. Just in time for this concluding post, I heard from Professor Hamburger last night. He wrote: Dear Scott, Thank you so much for your kind discussion of my book! Alas, there is still a long way to go in clearing up the
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April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll gets in the spirit of a renowned international day with CELEBRATE NORMIES’ INVISIBILITY DAYS (Days ending in “Y”). She writes: Lordy, how many more “rights” can be found in our Constitution that were never mentioned, intended, or dreamed of by our genius Founding Fathers? Most famously, of course, in the shadows and penumbras and emanations and voodoo portion of that famous document, written in invisible ink, came the
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April 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Rob Montz is CEO of Good Kid Productions (“visual storytellers for the American counter-elite”). Good Kid has released Montz’s mini-documentary It Wasn’t Fauci: How the Deep State Really Played Trump. John Tierney talked with Montz about the documentary in the City Journal podcast posted here, which is where I heard about it. Montz narrates the documentary, but Hoover Institution’s Scott Atlas is its prophetic voice. I have embedded the video
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April 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
John Tierney was a long-time reporter and columnist for the New York Times. He is now a contributing editor to City Journal. Among his book credits is God Is My Broker, written with Christopher Buckley. A parody of self-help books, it tells the story of Brother Ty, a failed Wall Street trader who becomes a monk and rescues his impoverished monastery by receiving receiving stock tips from God. Along the
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April 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the author of Is Administrative Law Unlawful? I thought I would follow up “The case against administrative law” with the interview I conducted with Professor Hamburger back in 2014, after I had reviewed Is Administrative Law Unlawful? for National Review. It may be slightly dated. However, as the song goes, “the fundamental things apply.”
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April 3, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The New York Post has a good editorial on President Biden’s big April 2 phone call with President Xi. It notes that the White House readout of the call fails to align with Beijing’s summary. According to the White House, Biden told Xi that restrictions are necessary “to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment.” According to Beijing, Xi
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April 3, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Every day the news brings word of edicts handed down from on high by rulers whose names we have never heard of or voted for. I mean the heads of the various administrative agencies that control every corner of our lives. Administrative law is not an inherently interesting subject. You may not be interested in administrative law, but administrative law is interested in you. William F. Buckley, Jr. used to
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April 2, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Hunter Biden moved to dismiss the criminal tax charges pending against Hunter Biden in federal court (the Central District of California). Indeed, Biden attorney Abbe Lowell filed eight motions to dismiss the charges. Judge Mark Scarsi — a Trump appointee — denied the motions in an order that is accessible online here. Judge Scarsi writes at page 33: As the Court stated at the hearing, Defendant filed his motion without
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