April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Listening to Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure channel on Sirius XM yesterday I heard a Motown song I hadn’t heard since I was a teenager — “You Beat Me To the Punch,” a hit single for Mary Wells and a deep track on The Temptations Sing Smokey. The song was written by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Ronnie White. I take it from Nelson George’s Where Did Our Love Go? that
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April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Current events at Columbia may call to mind events at Columbia circa 1968. Before matriculating at Dartmouth in the fall of 1969, I joined a group of incoming freshmen who met to discuss Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice and Columbia undergrad James Simon Kunen’s just-published The Strawberry Statement. We didn’t take Cleaver’s book particularly seriously and Eric Hoffer did even less so. He caustically mocked it as Soul On Horse
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April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Reports overnight indicate that Israel struck a military base in Isfahan from which Iran launched drones against Israel in last weekend’s massive Iranian attack. The Times of Israel story is posted here. The attack is described as “limited.” Reliable information about the attack is itself “limited.” There was a message or two or three in the attack. Yonah Jeremy Bob makes this point at the Jerusalem Post in his a
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April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Hey, you, you may or may not want to MIND THE GAP! Ammo Grrrll writes: My dear friend from teenage years on, who was married to a Brit for a considerable period of time, told me that British culture, while generally kind, polite, and tolerant, tends to be much more risk-averse than American culture. The Brits believe it is wholly good to protect their citizens from any and all behaviors
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April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The unauthorized pro-Hamas/anti-Israel demonstration continues for a second day at the heart of the Columbia campus. Columbia authorities have called the cops. The pro-terrorist students want to put President Shafik to the test. As I wrote earlier today, Columbia authorities started asserting themselves and taking remedial action in anticipation of yesterday’s House Education Committee hearing. The hearing did some good even before it was held. UPDATE: NYPD have entered the
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April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
C-SPAN has just posted the video clip of Senator Josh Hawley’s beatdown of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the tweet below. This may be the most brutal and relentless interrogation of a senior administration official I have ever seen, certainly in the space of eight minutes. It graphically depicts the madness of the Biden open-door immigration policy in small as well as its utter indefensibility in large. Tense exchange between
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April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Ilhan Omar elicited the testimony of Columbia President Minouche Shafik at the House Education Committee hearing yesterday that she had seen no “protests” at Columbia “saying we are against Jewish people.” See the video below at 0:40. Omar also regurgitated the canard that students had been attacked by “a toxic chemical substance.” That appears not to be the case. I think it might more accurately be deemed the raspberry statement.
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April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik skipped the December 5 House Education Committee Hearing on anti-Semitism at their institutions that disgraced the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. President Shafik was invited to the hearing, but she was otherwise engaged. She was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai. Some might say that she sensed stormy weather. Yesterday the committee reconvened to hear from President Shafik and
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April 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
NRO staff reporter James Lynch embedded himself in the New York City edition of the April 15 Kill the Jews rallies staged by A15 around the United States on Monday. I wrote about the rallies yesterday in “From sea to shining sea.” NRO has published Lynch’s story in “‘Israel Is a Terrorist State’: Scenes from New York City’s Disruptive Anti-Israel Rally.” Lynch’s story reflects the hatreds coursing through the mob,
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April 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
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.” Since then the GOP House majority has been dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority to a number
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April 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In a week laden with news, we shouldn’t overlook the oral argument held yesterday by the Supreme Court in Fischer v. United States. The issue before the Court. Fischer is one of some 350 January 6 defendants charged with obstructing an official congressional proceeding allegedly in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (as well as other federal offenses). The question before the Court is whether the
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April 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Not from the river to the sea, but from sea to shining sea the Kill the Jews crowd was out in force blocking bridges and roadways around the United States yesterday. They did their thing in San Francisco, Oakland, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Seattle, and points elsewhere in the United States. In the heart of the country they temporarily shut down travel into Chicago O’Hare International Airport. For
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April 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
When it comes to Iran’s massive missile and drone attack on Israel this past Saturday evening, President Biden has instructed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to let bygones be bygones. I don’t think he cited Sun Tzu in support of the Biden doctrine, but the White House has not released a readout of Biden’s call to Netanyahu following the attack. Rather, the White House released this statement publicly seeking to deter
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April 14, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Iranian regime has been at war with Israel, the United States, and the West roughly since the Ayatollah overthrew the Shah of Iran. It is not a war that Israel has chosen. It is a war that has been thrust upon it by a regime of genocidal maniacs. Thirty years after the fact the Court of Cassation in Buenos Aires issued a ruling blaming Iran for bombing the Asociación
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April 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Would that President Biden had not warned the Iranian regime not to attack Israel with his pitiful “don’t” yesterday. In Bidenspeak, “don’t” is an invitation. It something like the shout-out for contestants to “come on down” on The Price Is Right. And as night follows day, the Iranian regime has launched a large drone attack on Israel from Iranian territory. At the moment the targets are unclear. Among the many
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April 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Abbe Lowell is the attorney for Hunter Biden in the criminal proceedings that have been brought against him. I’ve observed a time or two before that Lowell will say approximately anything on Biden’s behalf in return for his compensation in the cases. Judge Maryellen Noreika asked the question that crushed the sweetheart plea deal arranged for Hunter. She says as much about Lowell as I do above in denying his
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April 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden paid his respects to Al Sharpton and his National Action Network yesterday. In prepared remarks read from his teleprompter (transcript here), Biden spoke virtually at NAN’s annual convention. At the top of his remarks, video below) Biden celebrated Sharpton: “Look, we’ve known each other for a long time. I’m grateful not only for your leadership and partnership but, quite frankly, more importantly for your friendship.” In his remarks
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