Author Archives: Scott Johnson

Sorry, wrong number

Featured image Karine Jean-Pierre dropped in for an outside-the-beltway visit on local radio in advance of President Biden’s rare joint appearance yesterday with Vice President Harris in Raleigh (White House text of their remarks here). In the audio clip below, KJP’s radio hosts ask about Biden’s mental decline and the obvious effects of Bidenomics. KJP treats the hosts with indignant incredulity before she abruptly hangs up. Was it something they said? Wow. »

The Todd connection

Featured image The public shaming and termination of Ronna McDaniel by NBC/MSNBC’s partisan talent represents an almost unbelievable failure of self-knowledge. One wants to shout Look in the mirror, you fools! The mob in this case was led by Chuck Todd, who is himself a pathetic excuse of a journalist. Todd’s role in this episode rankles. He was among the many of his tribe who promoted the Steele Dossier and the Russia »

Invasion of the porn snatchers (UPDATED)

Featured image Thanks to the many readers who have written us, we are aware of the graphic pornographic ads that have invaded the top of our comments. We have asked our publisher to help us remove and block them, but it remains a work in progress. So long as the problem persists I can only ask readers to avoid clicking on comments. Don’t do it! We will let you know when we »

Corn Pop, call your office

Featured image It would be out of character for President Biden to have predicated his political origin story on a factual basis. Without even hearing what it is, you know it must have been fabricated. Washington Free Beacon reporters Joe Simonson and Andrew Kerr find this old fabulation regurgitated in the transcript of Biden’s interview by Special Counsel Robert Hur: Fresh out of law school and working as a clerk at a »

Biden’s abstention

Featured image We’ve traced the drift of President Biden and his team away from Israel toward the side of Hamas in the current war. You might say they’re selling Israel out, but it’s not clear what they’re getting in return. You might say they don’t know what they’re doing, but one fears that they do. They seek the survival of Hamas as Israel seeks to complete its campaign to eliminate it as »

A life and death issue

Featured image Professor Jonathan Turley has concerns about the fate of the First Amendment based in part on the oral argument in Murthy v. Missouri. He writes: In Murthy v. Missouri, the court is considering a massive censorship system coordinated by federal agencies and social media companies. This effort was ramped up under President Joe Biden, who is arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. Biden has accused companies of »

The incredible shrinking majority, WSJ edition

Featured image Let us continue to deliberate over the political genius of Matt Gaetz and his allies as they leads House Republicans into the minority. The Wall Street Journal comments in the editorial “Honey, we shrunk the majority” further to my own thoughts: [T]he same Members who undercut the majority boast on the House floor and social media that they are the only honest conservatives in Washington. They’re posers masquerading as principled, »

Return to Shifa, cont’d

Featured image Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari is the IDF spokesman. I posted his briefing on the current IDF operation at Gaza’s Shifa Hospital last week. The operation continues. Yesterday Hagari provided a three-minute update on the operation (video below). This is what he said: Today is day 6 of the IDF’s operation against Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Shifa Hospital. 170 terrorists were neutralized in or around the Shifa Hospital compound while »

One survivor remembers

Featured image Watching the Netflix documentary World War II: From the Front Lines, I was riveted by the interviews with Gerda Weissmann Klein and Kurt Klein in the sixth episode of the series. Mrs. Klein lost her family and closest friends in the Holocaust. She worked as a slave laborer until the SS put her on a 350-mile death march with other women survivors of her work camp at the end of »

What’s wrong with this picture?

Featured image The Times of Israel provides updates on Palestinian casualties according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, but suggests that skepticism is warranted. Indeed, the Ministry of Health is best understood as the functional equivalent of the Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”) conceived by George Orwell in 1984, i.e., the ministry of propaganda. In its update on Palestinian casualties in Gaza today, the Times of Israel states the numbers of dead and wounded »

The incredible shrinking majority

Featured image John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.” It is at least worth noting that the GOP majority is dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority »

Tools of jihad, then and now

Featured image Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute. He took issue with the December 2 Washington Post story “Israel’s assault forced a nurse to leave babies behind. They were found decomposing.” Satloff deconstructed the Post story in the 5,000-word critique “Once Again, a ‘Palestinian Babies Story Merits a Washington Post Apology.” Satloff’s critique elicited a response from Post executive editor Sally Buzbee. She stands by the Post’s story and »

Bobbing along

Featured image In his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee earlier this week, the glorious Mr. Tony Bobulinski torched Reps. Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin: We keep hearing from certain corners that our “democracy is at risk” and that “democracy is on the ballot in 2024,” yet the same people preaching this mantra, who know better, continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation or remorse. Representatives Dan Goldman »

Ramirez speaks

Featured image The Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez posts his daily cartoons on Substack at the Michael Ramirez Newsletter. He is a conservative whose genius cannot be denied. Thus the Pulitzer. Readers can subscribe here. Michael has also been writing weekly essays for his newsletter that I have posted in our Picks as each one was made freely accessible. Today Michael has posted an 18-minute video essay that is keyed to his »

Return to Shifa

Featured image President Biden has turned on Israel. He and his brain trust support the survival of Hamas. It’s a big-time sell-out. The cover of the current issue of England’s Economist depicts Israel Alone (cover story here behind the Economist paywall). It reminded me of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac — alone against “the insane tyrant,” as Leo Strauss referred to Hitler in his tribute to Churchill »

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured image Ammo Grrrll looks into the future: I THINK THAT I SHALL NEVER SEE…quite a few things! Joyce Kilmer, author of the beloved and universally known American poem “Trees,” declared that he thought that he would “never see / A poem as lovely as a tree.” Soon I shall list some things that we cannot BELIEVE we HAVE seen. And then several things that, like Mr. Kilmer, we will never see. »

“Migrants” on parade

Featured image Here we have the video of the day. It depicts a horde of illegal aliens breaking through the razor wire (mounted, I assume, by Texas authorities) and overrunning Texas National Guard soldiers seeking to resist them in El Paso. The video raises many questions, among them how many many “migrants” does it take to mount used to be known as an “invasion”? We have now entered year four President Biden’s »