Author Archives: Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: COVIDiocy Confirmed

Featured image 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 »

Annals of Failed Intelligence

Featured image 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 »

The Liberal Arts Are a Right-Wing Plot!

Featured image 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 »

Are Dems Heading for Extinction-Level Election?

Featured image 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 »

God Save Us From Altruistic Billionaires

Featured image There are days when I’m tempted to join the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders/Joe Biden crusade to impose confiscatory taxes on billionaires. Not for economic or fiscal grounds, or even less for making billionaires “pay their fair share” (“fair share” in liberal speak just means “more”). To the contrary, I’m starting to think we should take the fortunes from many billionaires to stop them from doing more harm than the government does »

The Week in Pictures: Fani Pack Edition

Featured image We learned a useful lesson this week: you’re not in any legal jeopardy if your name is Joe Biden or Fani Willis. But just change your name to Trump and see what happens! Meanwhile, inflation is proving to be super-transitory! And Biden’s Blowout Budget offers a middle finger to middle America. At least we found out the valuable information that the media is alert to fake photos—at least when they »

Podcast: The 3WHH, Extra Fiery Edition

Featured image We had to record a day earlier than normal this week because of travel schedules and other complications, so we’re posting up Friday night instead of Saturday morning as usual. Move over “Republicans pounce” as the favorite media deflection. We now know that when an old man yells at clouds—or members of Congress—the media fall in line and declare it “fiery.” Well the 3WHH is authentically fiery! Four habanero spicy! »

The Daily Chart: Another Corner of the Diversity Racket?

Featured image These data, albeit a decade old, are a real head-scratcher. I am not sure how to explain it. It has been subject to some vigorous discussion lately on the social media site Formerly Known as Prince (as I have decided to call it). Ron Unz took a whack at it in The American Conservative ten years ago. One excerpt: But before we conclude that our elite media organs are engaging »

The Daily Chart: Framing Air Frames

Featured image Right now it seems the airlines (and especially Boeing aircraft) are suffering an epidemic of equipment failures and mishaps. Count me somewhat skeptical. I suspect the Alaska Air door frame blow out a few weeks ago, along with the tire falling off a United 777 the other day, has put the media on high alert, and now many episodes of mishaps and irregularities that might have gone unnoticed or unreported »

A Hundred Billion Here . . .

Featured image Everett Dirksen, the Republican Senate leader back in the 1960s, is famous for saying, “A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. . .” That was in the days before multi-trillion dollar deficits. A billion dollars is hardly a rounding error in a federal program these days, and $1 billion is usually considered the entry fee for any proposed new program. A program »

The Daily Chart: Haiti—Less Violent Than Chicago?

Featured image So Haiti is back in the news. As I mentioned yesterday, I thought the Clinton Foundation had fixed the place! Or Colin Powell in the 1990s. Or something. How soon until Biden sends in American troops? Or lets 500,000 Haitians come to America? Anyway, Haiti is in the state of nature right now, with gangs and mobs rampaging. And yet, as a smart left-leaning friend of mine (I do have »

The Daily Chart: A Different Kind of Femme Fatale

Featured image Our pal Mark Perry reminds is that today, March 12, is “Equal Pay Day” that falsely assumes how far into 2024 the typical woman has to work to earn what her alleged male counterpart earned in 2023. Funny how feminists never consider something like “Equal Job Safety” or “Job Risk” day (Mark proposes “Occupational Fatality Day”), because the data looks like this and the “gap” would take years, not months, »

Loose Ends (247)

Featured image • I don’t get it. I thought the Clinton Foundation had fixed all of the problems in Haiti. Maybe they should just bring back Voodoo economics. • I did not have John Fetterman as a robust champion for Israel on my Bingo card: I’m starting to believe that on this issue at least, Fetterman is a better Senator than Oz would have been. • Apparently Middlebury, the college that allowed »

The Daily Chart: Why We Have a Border Problem

Featured image As mentioned here before, Democrats used to be fairly robust in their opposition to open borders and unchecked illegal immigration, as recently as the Clinton years. But then someone got the bright idea that since immigration had helped to flip California from a red state in presidential elections to a blue state across the board, imagine how much power Democrats could grasp if the California story was repeated across the »

Podcast: The 3WHH, Normalizing Dishonesty Edition

Featured image Lucretia hosts this week’s episode, which we recorded in the morning over coffee instead of whisky because travel schedules prevented the normal and proper Friday evening happy hour, and guess what? We’re even worse without whisky! Among the news and issues treated this week: Why Biden isn’t FDR (he’s not even Harry Truman); why this was the worst SOTU (Lucretia offers a different acronym) speech ever; whether there are signs »

The Week in Pictures: Bang-Pop Edition

Featured image The week began with a big bang—the Supreme Court ruling 9 – 0 that Trump had to stay on the ballot, which caused liberal heads to explode and enough tears to irrigate California for a month. One of the heads (or what’s left of it) that exploded was Joe Biden’s, who popped off in a speech that left the impression he must have dipped deeply into Hunter’s stash. Headlines of »

The Daily Chart: Sick Transit Gloria Mundi?

Featured image I am sure many readers have noticed how bike lanes are taking over American urban roadways, especially downtowns, often killing a lane for cars, and reducing streetside parking. And I almost never see anyone biking in the lanes. How did this come about? Has there been a massive populist campaign for bike lanes? Has “we need more bike lanes everywhere” been popping up in public opinion polls of top issues »