Author Archives: Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured image 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 »

Give Birx the works

Featured image 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 »

WHO’s next

Featured image 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 »

Is administrative law unlawful?

Featured image 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.” »

Xi bullies, Biden blathers

Featured image 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 »

The case against administrative law

Featured image 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 »

In the Hunter Biden case

Featured image 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 »

The mystery of your “fair share”

Featured image President Biden revived one of the Democrat/left’s greatest hits in his shoutfest that passed for a State of the Union address last month: And now it’s my goal to cut the federal deficit $3 trillion more by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their fair share. Look, I’m a capitalist. If you want to make a million bucks – great! Just pay your fair share in taxes. »

Israel strikes Iran in Damascus

Featured image The IDF has struck the IRGC’s Syria/Lebanon leadership inside the building next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus. The strike reportedly killed seven members of the IRGC including the top Iranian commander in Syria. If so, that would be seven for the price of one. The Times of Israel reports the story here. The Israelis have awesome intelligence. Israel cannot live with the daily attacks from Hezbollah across its northern border. »

A bus too far

Featured image In a holiday weekend news dump this past Friday, the EPA promulgated a rule mandating the displacement of gas-powered trucks and buses with electric simulacra. The EPA gives its press release the unwieldy heading “Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes Strongest Ever Greenhouse Gas Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles to Protect Public Health and Address the Climate Crisis While Keeping the American Economy Moving.” If you want a picture of the future, imagine a »

In the spirit of the day

Featured image In the spirit of the day, the Washington Free Beacon’s Thaleigha Rampersad has compiled the video below for the Biden 2024 presidential campaign. It is posted here at the Free Beacon. Four more years! (or fewer, as the case may be). It only hurts when I laugh, but our enemies laugh pain-free. That much I can tell you. On a related not, the Free Beacon also breaks the news that »

Maybe it was Memphis

Featured image It’s April Fool’s Day and perhaps not inappropriate to take a straightforward frolic and detour from the news of the day. We went to see country star Pam Tillis perform at the Dakota before a full house of fans this past Saturday evening. Among other things, she made me wish that I’d been listening to country radio in the 90’s when she broke through to become a star. She is »

The AP photo of Shani Louk

Featured image The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri awarded the Associated Press with a Pictures of the Year award for photos including Hamas savages absconding in a pickup truck with the corpse of Israeli/German victim Shani Louk (below, in the Team Picture Story of the Year category). The citation accompanying the award is itself a piece of work, but never mind that. (Credit: Ali Mahmud/Associated Press) Controversy »

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility

Featured image Let me be the first to wish you a Happy Transgender Day of Visibility. I understand that Easter is the holiest day of the year for Christians. The spirit of transgression moved Papa Joe. In honor of the day he formally added a new canon to the Democrat orthodoxy. On Good Friday Papa Joe issued A Proclamation on Transgender Day of Visibility, 2024 — so it shall be written, so »

When Sunny gets shrew

Featured image Coleman Hughes was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of MI’s City Journal. MI has compiled his City Journal publications online here. He is the author of the book The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, published last month by Penguin Random House. Hughes was invited to talk about the subject of his book on The View this week. I have posted the video »

Stories of censorship

Featured image RealClearPolitics has posted the video (below) of Dave Rubin’s panel session earlier this month with the winners of the first RealClearPolitics Samizdat Prize — Twitter Files reporter Matt Taibbi, Great Barrington Declaration co-author Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and New York Post reporter and Laptop From Hell author Miranda Devine. RCP has also posted transcribed excerpts along with the video here. It’s hard to keep up with the news of the day, »

At Biden’s $25M bash

Featured image The Washington Free Beacon devotes The Stiles Section to the work of senior writer Andrew Stiles. Stiles previewed last night’s Million Dollar Bash in New York City in “Liberal Celebs Host ‘Fundraiser From Hell’ for Joe Biden.” This morning in his companion weekly newsletter (readers can subscribe to it here) Stiles ran it down this way: Worst party we weren’t invited to: Rich liberals shelled out as much as $500,000 »