April 16, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Last week the Wall Street Journal‘s James Freeman wrote about the wishful thinking of California elites who waive away any of the sensible causes for the droves of people leaving California (resulting in a sustained net population loss over the last few years for the first time in 170 years) such as high taxes, senseless regulation, rising crime, unaffordable housing etc. Maybe Mr. Newsom is just unlucky. This week in
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April 16, 2024 — Steven Hayward
We noted here last week the withering critique of National Propaganda Radio (NPR) by longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner. Turns out that NPR recently hired as its new head a complete commie, Katherine Mayer. How commie? Nate Hochman has some of the very many receipts: And just as James Damore was cashiered from Google when he questioned leftist orthodoxy, National Review is reporting that Uri Berliner has been suspended without
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April 15, 2024 — Steven Hayward
With everyone’s favorite day (April 15) hard upon us, worth noting how state income tax rates fall out. Pick your home state accordingly:
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April 14, 2024 — Steven Hayward
• Bill Maher has gone off the reservation once again, debunking lefty talking points about the greatness of our neighbors and Scandinavia while ignoring facts: • The late John Von Kannon, one of the founders of The American Spectator back in the 1960s, persuaded me many years ago that professional wrestling was a conservative sport, because it is a melodramatic morality play, with clear good guys and bad guys. (This
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April 14, 2024 — Steven Hayward
I hosted this crisp episode despite having a creaky voice from a springtime bug (and Lucretia is partly hobbled, too) and we cover a lot of ground, starting with a brief recap of the latest (unanimous!) property rights victory at the Supreme Court, but then moving quickly on to initial reactions to the outbreak of World War III yesterday. What to make of Iran’s attack on Israel? Many things are
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April 13, 2024 — Steven Hayward
It is hard to conclude from media accounts exactly what is up between Israel and Iran right now, because for all of the leaked and disclosed information, there is always more going on behind the scenes that we never find out about for a long time. But this news item just breaking a couple hours ago seems possibly significant: Biden Rushes Back to White House as Iran Weighs Attack on
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April 13, 2024 — Steven Hayward
• For the many of you wondering and sending me notes, this week’s 3WHH podcast will post up tomorrow. Complicated schedules have prevented us from finding time this week to record the episode. • This is a sign of civic health: • The Associated Press continues its beclowning process: • You might well think that even with its diminished cognitive capacity, the New York Times would be able to draw
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April 13, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Did everyone survive the eclipse okay? It seems some of the usual suspects (i.e., The View, The Squad, etc) didn’t, but that’s not exactly breaking news. But I am still waiting for a statement from Greta. I’m sure she said something important about the eclipse and climate change, but our media ignored her or something. In any case, let’s start with the real eclipse: Oh: Headlines of the week: Never
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April 12, 2024 — Steven Hayward
As readers will know by now, the mid-week inflation report came in “hot,” such that a June interest rate cut if thought to be off the table. Markets tumbled, and expectations for interest rate cuts tanked as well. Apparently no one has been paying attention to soaring commodity prices, which is usually a bad sign. In any case, here’s a before- and after- shot at why Biden is desperate for
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April 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward
It is hard to know which ivy league university is the most pathetic, but Yale always has a strong entry in the weekly sweepstakes. At first I thought this demand letter from Yale students to the administration was a fine effort at droll satire (it’s the bit about carbon emissions from the Gaza war on page 2 that made me think this was an attempt at comedy writing), but I
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April 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward
So we went and banned plastic straws and plastic bags in much of California and elsewhere because they are made from fossil fuels and a solitary turtle was once found snorting fentanyl through a plastic straw, or something. In any case, Greta/Gaia was displeased, so plastic products had to go. Well guess what: the substitutes for plastic products mostly produce higher greenhouse gas emissions than plastic. Not by just a
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April 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward
This installment mostly offers updates on previous items. • Let’s start with yesterday’s item about National Propaganda Radio (NPR). Today NPR responded. Highlights: NPR’s top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age. . . NPR’s chief
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April 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward
There has been some terrific news on the college front in recent weeks, such as at the University of Texas and University of Florida, where the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) commissars have been summarily sacked and the programs shut down, but it appears to be occurring in the corporate world as well. The Harvard Business Review is out with an article entitled “Why Diversity Programs Fail,” and yes, you
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April 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward
One of the classic articles from 30 years ago that still gets recalled fondly was Glenn Garvin’s “How Do I Hate NPR? Let Me Count the Ways,” which I think first appeared in the late Washington DC City Paper. Even back then I referred to NPR’s two main shows, “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” as “Morning Sedition” and “All Things Distorted.” The very voice tones of Susan Stamberg and
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April 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Ever since Richard Hofstadter published his worst book in 1964, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, it has been a sturdy cliche that conservatives and Republicans are more likely to believe conspiracy theories. This is nonsense to anyone with common sense perception (JFK assassination anyone?), but a new study in the journal Political Behavior (“Are Republicans and Conservatives More Likely to Believe Conspiracy Theories?“) takes the usual deep quantitative dive
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April 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward
Welp, we had earthquakes on both coasts last week, and today a total eclipse in the heartland. Can boiling frogs and locusts be far behind? All caused, of course, by climate change. Because there’s nothing it can’t do. Including make liberal Democrats looks stupid: What about tornados! We know those are getting worse with climate change: Enjoy your eclipse everybody. Just remember to wear your fake-news filtering glasses.
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April 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The ideologically indescribable historian John Patrick Diggins once offered this version of the Declaration of Independence if it had been written by contemporary intellectuals: We hold these truths to be historically conditioned: that all men are created equal and mutually dependent; that from that equal creation they derive rights that are alienable and transferable depending on the larger question of needs, among which are the preservation of life, liberty, and
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