May 4, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Yale Sterling Professor Donald Kagan retires from the faculty at the end of this academic year. The author of a classic four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War and other formidable works of learning, he is an old-fashioned scholar and teacher. To say he has had a long and distinguished career at Yale understates matters considerably. On April 25 he gave his farewell lecture to a packed audience assembled by the
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May 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
National Review helped launch Marco Rubio to prominence in his seemingly quixotic quest for the GOP Senatorial nomination against Charlie Crist and National Review has now declared the Gang of Eight immigration bill of which Rubio is a chief sponsor to be Rubio’s Folly (cover below). NR senior editor Jay Nordlinger appeared on Morning Joe briefly this morning to explain why, and Jay’s critique of the bill on the show
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May 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama is at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, where he spoke today to Future Democrats of America (i.e., young Mexicans) about American immigration reform, among other pressing subjects such as gun control. Speaking to the FDA, Obama didn’t directly address Operation Fast & Furious, but he did explain the rationale behind his refusal to enforce current immigration law (though he didn’t put it quite that way).
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May 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Weekly Standard has posted an advance online copy of Steve Hayes’s “The Benghazi talking points” from the new issue, and Bill Kristol has sent out an email alerting us to the article. Steve reports: Even as the White House strove last week to move beyond questions about the Benghazi attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2012, fresh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what
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May 3, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I’ve struggled with my weight ever since I quit smoking thirty years ago, going up and down 30 pounds several times. All I can tell you is that it’s a helluva lot easier going up than it is coming down, though you probably already knew that. Five months ago I took up the cues offered occasionally by Glenn Reynolds to the work of science writer Gary Taubes. Glenn had linked
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May 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the FBI posted images of three suspects captured by surveillance cameras on the grounds of the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, when it was attacked on September 11, 2012 — the attack that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Why has it taken the FBI eight months to get around to releasing the images if they need the help? That’s
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May 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Glenn Reynolds not only teaches law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he is the Beauchamp Brogan Professor of Law, he writes regular newspaper columns and books of general interest, conducts interviews for InstaVision, and scours the Web for material of interest to flag on InstaPundit, which looks like it would have to be a full-time job all by itself. And he also publishes readable law review
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May 2, 2013 — Scott Johnson
When I heard that Barack Obama had rededicated himself to closing Gitmo in his press conference on Tuesday (transcript here), the adage about insanity and repetition came to mind. James Taranto quotes Obama’s statement and notes how Obama agrees with the assumption regarding the Gitmo detainee hunger strike that was embedded in the question by CBS’s Bill Plante. Sounding like he’s speaking on behalf of the Gitmo detainees — is
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May 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Byron York reports that Senator Rubio has opened a new page on his Senate website asking for help from the public. “Visit our website and submit your ideas to ‘Help Us Improve the Bill,’” says an announcement from Rubio’s office this past Friday. “Since the immigration legislation was introduced, Rubio has received over 1,100 suggestions for how to improve the bill. Rubio encourages the public to continue reviewing the bill
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May 1, 2013 — Scott Johnson
My introduction to the concept of the low information voter came in my capacity as Treasurer of Rudy Boschwitz’s 1996 campaign against then incumbent Paul Wellstone. Rudy had engaged the services of a prominent political consultant who had polled Minnesota voters on issues relevant to the race. The poll resulted in a briefly book that was a couple of inches thick, slicing and dicing the electorate with great sophisticatoin. According
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April 30, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Victor Davis Hanson borrows the concept of the Borg from Star Trek (“the fictional alien race that appears as recurring antagonists in various incarnations”) to capture the Obama administration’s groupthink reformulating the war on terror. The Obama Borg, as Hanson dubs it, dissociate Islam from terrorism. The denial has reached absurd proportions with results that would be laughable if they weren’t so serious and pathetic. We are all familiar with
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April 29, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Country singer George Jones died this past Friday at the age of 81. I think the consensus is that Jones was the best country singer of the era. You can certainly hear his influence in just about every younger country artist worth listening to. Jon Pareles gives Jones his due in the New York Times obit “His life was a country song.” Pareles renders a fine appreciation of Jones’s life
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April 29, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Journalist J.D. Mullane appeared on FNC’s Huckabee show over the weekend for an excellent interview on the Gosnell trial. Mullane spoke in moving terms of his attendance at the trial as a transformative experience. The interview essentially updated and amplified on his column “What I saw at the Gosnell trial.” Someone should cut a video of the interview and get it online. In the meantime, I want to draw attention
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April 28, 2013 — Scott Johnson
The Gang of Eight immigration bill shares several unlovely characteristics of the Obamacare legislation. Its supporters haven’t yet claimed that we might have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it (or what’s not in it), but that seems to be the case. The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro reports: The Senate’s complex immigration bill would instantly gut the popular E-Verify system that is widely used to exclude illegal
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April 28, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Rep. Hank Johnson is, as they say in presidential nominating speeches, “the man who.” Rep. Johnson is the man who worried that the island of Guam might capsize. In 2010 Johnson expressed concern at a hearing that the planned military buildup on the island of Guam might cause the island “to tip over and capsize.” The testifying naval officer struggled manfully to reassure Rep. Johnson that the island would survive.
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April 28, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In my tribute to Ella Fitzgerald on her birthday last week, I mentioned mentioned that, after he sold the Verve label, Norman Granz founded the Pablo label to continue recording Ella. To test the market for a new label, Granz put together an all-star concert featuring Ella and the Count Basie Band at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in June 1972 that was to be recorded and released (unsuccessfully, with
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April 27, 2013 — Scott Johnson
President Obama really poured it on in his speech to Planned Parenthood yesterday (video below). Taken together with the introduction by Planned Parenthood’s president, we get a full airing of the sacramental view of abortion that underlies the Democrats’ mania on behalf of the practice. Obama’s speech begins at about 6:30. In the gospel according to Barry, we now have the blessing for the abortionist: “As long as we’ve got
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