March 25, 2024 — Steven Hayward
I came to the conclusion a while ago now that Louisiana Senator John Kennedy may be the greatest Senator since Daniel Webster in terms of oratory and general rhetorical skill. And if I have time I will try to put together a highlight reel of his ritual humiliations of liberal witnesses and nominees in Senate committee hearings. He shreds leftists for breakfast, with no rancor or snark, because he is
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March 25, 2024 — Steven Hayward
At the moment polls look good for Republicans across the board for the November election. But there is one aspect of this year’s cycle where things aren’t looking as good—campaign cash. From Bruce Mehlman’s useful weekly Substack update:
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March 24, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Few things so clearly reveal the innermost ugliness and presumptuousness of our ruling class clustered in and around Washington DC (where eight of the ten highest-income counties in the nation now cluster) than the recent Wall Street Journal news account of a “scandal” in DC-area little league baseball. It seems politically powerful people, especially elite lawyers, rigged the local little league process for creating a level playing field among teams
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March 24, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The Biden Administration’s diplomacy with Israel over its war against Hamas has reached the Animal House “double-secret probation” stage, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah. Is it possible for Israel to be any more “isolated” than it already is in the joke that is called “the diplomatic community”? Dean Wormer could hardly have done
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March 24, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Robert “Beto” O’Rourke—remember him?—appeared on Bill Maher’s comedy show Friday night, and accused Big Retail—”the Walmarts, the Amazons, the Krogers of the world” of price gouging. But it is O’Rourke’s explanation that earns him an entire feature display in the Museum of Leftist Stupidity: “They were jacking prices in the middle of inflation and blaming it on the economy.” Imagine! Raising prices during inflation! Who ever heard of such a
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March 23, 2024 — Steven Hayward
This week’s episode could be mistaken for the Three Martini Happy Hour, because this week’s installment comes with a tangy twist. John Yoo is away this week, so we brought in a ringer to take his place: Prof. Hadley Arkes! Thus this episode become a Positivism-Free Zone, in which we review the deepest ground of the natural law unencumbered by John’s usual alarums, excursions, and errors. The episode comes in
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March 23, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Has there ever been a greater example of media malpractice and malevolence than the way Trump’s mention of a “bloodbath” for the auto industry under Biden (analysis: completely true!) was turned into some kind of MAGA Kristallnacht? I suspect Joe Biden’s new clown shoes are an ironic tribute to this in-kind campaign contribution. Headlines of the week: And finally. . .
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March 22, 2024 — Steven Hayward
We always hear a lot about the expense and difficulty of decommissioning nuclear power plants, but we seldom hear about the cost and difficulty of decommissioning wind mills, which only last half as long (if that much) as nuclear plants. Especially offshore wind, which is much more expensive to begin with. Here’s one estimate of the future problem: JOHN adds: Offshore wind is possibly the stupidest way to generate electricity
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March 21, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The left loves to talk about being “The Resistance.” But the real “resistance” to our domineering leftist cultural and educational institutions can be seen vividly in this chart: And it seems more parents are not placing their children in pre-school, which is where wokism gets a head start (partly through Head Start, a federal program that repeated studies find is ineffective): Chaser—no wonder Democrats are in a panic right now
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March 21, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman keeps demanding to know why the plebs of America don’t appreciate just how awesome the economy is under Joe Biden’s brilliant economic management. In his latest column, “Why Are Americans Still Down on the Economy?,” the Krugster says: It’s true that most Americans have a negative view of the economy. But people don’t directly experience the economy. What they directly experience are their own financial
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March 20, 2024 — Steven Hayward
As you may know, the mainstream media is going through massive layoffs, to which a paraphrase of the great Oscar Wilde line comes to mind—one has to have a heart of stone not to laugh at massive media layoffs, given the increasing partisan mendacity and advancing mediocrity of the mainstream media. So guess what is proposed to reverse this dire situation? Behold The Jacobin (which is certainly an appropriate name
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March 20, 2024 — Steven Hayward
We’ve posted up several times before various measures of the ideological gender gap, all showing women are more liberal than men at just about every age cohort, but especially younger demographics. Another reason to repeal the 19th Amendment if you ask me. Anyway, here’s the latest trans-national comparison of younger people from The Economist. And once again the gender gap is worst in the U.S. (Sigh. At least Australian women
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March 19, 2024 — Steven Hayward
As anyone who suffers the Academy Awards nonsense knows, the new mandate in Tinseltown is “diversity.” There have to be “people of color” in every nomination category now. Meanwhile, no one seems to notice that women keep getting the short end of things when it comes to scripts of Best Picture winners. (I haven’t seen data for the last eight years, but I doubt there’s been much change.)
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March 18, 2024 — Steven Hayward
One of my favorite exchanges from “Yes, Minister” between Jim Hacker and the subversive career bureaucrat Sir Humphrey Appleby is when Hacker, the junior minister for administrative affairs, asks Sir Humphrey about whether he (Sir Humphrey) believes government policy should be carried out “even if it is wrong.” Sir Humphrey responds “Well, almost all government policy is wrong. . . but frightfully well carried out!” This came back to mind
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March 18, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The Wall Street Journal has a feature news story in today’s edition detailing a fact long known about the success Cuban intelligence has enjoyed penetrating American government over the years, in particular their sophisticated and widespread recruitment efforts. “Cuba has ‘the best damn intelligence service in the world’ for cultivating agents, said Brian Latell, a former CIA analyst who led the agency’s Latin America division,” the story notes. There is
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March 17, 2024 — Steven Hayward
In its typically clueless way, The New Yorker is hot on the topic of whether the liberal arts—and especially classical education—have gone conservative. (The article is titled, “Have the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative?”) Better break out the smelling salts. You’d think this is an easy question. The left have attacked or hollowed out the liberal arts on campus, and the only people who take the classics seriously, and on their
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March 17, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Donald Trump has held a narrow but consistent lead in just about every poll for several months now—having never led in the polls in either the 2016 and 2020 election cycles. More significant is where this lead has come from. Trump has not improved his share of white vote at all; his improved standing has come from huge gains in minority votes, as John pointed out recently in drawing our
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