Good News From Voter Registration Data

Featured image It is always fun to get good news from the New York Times, which always try to spin the data so it doesn’t look too bad for Democrats. A case in point: “Share of Democratic Registrations Is Declining, but What Does It Mean? Virtually every group of voters under 70 has become less likely to register as Democrats compared with Republicans since 2019.” The heading and subhed pretty much tell »

God Save Us From Altruistic Billionaires

Featured imageThere 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 Tao of Joe

Featured imageYou may recall Benjamin Hoff’s popular book Tbe Tao of Pooh (“[i]n which it is revealed that one of the world’s great Taoist masters isn’t Chinese–or a venerable philosopher–but is in fact none other than that effortlessly calm, still, reflective bear”). When President Biden welcomed the Irish Prime Minister (“Taoiseach” Leo Varadkar) to the White House yesterday, the president displayed the Tao of Joe. It is the Tao of a »

What’s wrong with this picture?

Featured imageThe Biden administration conveys a pathetic weakness for which the physical person of President Biden serves as an apt metaphor. In its current story on administration negotiations with Iran that date back to January, the New York Times reports: Two Iranian officials, one with the foreign ministry, said that Iran had maintained in the talks that it did not control the activity of the militia [targeting Americans], particularly the Houthis, »

Understanding Israel’s war

Featured imageJohn Spencer is chairman of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. His profile is posted here. His X feed can be found here. He has been in Israel and Gaza to see what he could learn from the current war. Yesterday he uploaded the video of his February 27 interview with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu (below). This is an intensely interesting discussion of “everything from »

The Week in Pictures: Fani Pack Edition

Featured imageWe 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 »

The Dark Side of Art?

Featured imageCambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum has an excellent collection that includes, among others, paintings by John Constable, one of my favorite artists. Like this one: A lovely image of the British countryside, right? Not according to the museum. It now comes with a warning: The Fitzwilliam Museum has suggested that paintings of the British countryside evoke dark “nationalist feelings”. You might think England is a pretty country–I do–but how is that »

Biden Endorses Schumer’s Attack On Israel

Featured imageYesterday, Chuck Schumer took the Senate floor to deliver a ringing condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and of Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas. Schumer’s speech represented a naked effort to interfere in Israeli politics by seeking to overturn that country’s government. Today a reporter asked Joe Biden about Schumer’s speech. Biden endorsed it: President Biden hailed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday for calling on »

Fani Can Stay

Featured imageThis morning, Judge Scott McAfee issued his ruling on the motion to disqualify Fani Willis from the Atlanta prosecution of Donald Trump. McAfee ruled that Willis’s romantic relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade did not give rise to an actual financial conflict, but there was an appearance of impropriety that demands a remedy. He was harshly critical of Willis and Wade: This finding is by no means an indication that »

A personal note on the Ides of March

Featured imageI ask readers to forgive me for repeating this personal note from last year. It is meant to pay tribute to my high school, my high school teachers — Latin teachers Lyman Hawbaker (who also taught ancient history) and Dave Sims in particular — and to my classmates. In the course of our high school years we were required to study Latin and dip our toes into Caesars’s Gallic Wars, »

A New Plan for Voter Fraud

Featured imageSen. Alex Padilla, the California Democrat appointed to fill Kamala Harris’s Senate seat after she became vice president, wants Americans to be more certain to register to vote by linking it with free tax preparation. Padilla is leading a push for the U.S. Treasury Department to provide voter registration services at federally funded centers that prepare taxes for low- to moderate-income people, disabled people and people with limited English at »

Podcast: The 3WHH, Extra Fiery Edition

Featured imageWe 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 imageThese 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 »

An odor of mendacity

Featured imageAt page 16 of his opinion ruling on the conflict of interest issues raised by defendants’ in the Georgia “conspiracy so immense” prosecution brought by Fani Willis, Judge McAfee states that “an odor of mendacity remains.” He is referring to the acrid smell left by the testimony of Willis and her former lover, Special Assistant District Attorney Nathan Wade. I believe that Judge McAfee is alluding to Big Daddy’s classic »

Doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola

Featured imageIn a long speech on the floor yesterday Senate Majority Chuck Schumer called for the replacement of the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Times of Israel has posted the full text of Schumer’s remarks here. According to Schumer, Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, the two-state final solution, and the Big Rock Candy Mountain. We must popularize the phrase “He doesn’t know Schumer from Shinola.” Jonathan »

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageAmmo Grrrll has seasonal thoughts on WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM PROFESSIONAL SPORTS – especially BASEBALL. She wants commenters to know that she “will be slightly less interactive today as her son is here and we will be at a Spring Training game. It is just a coincidence (honest!) that this column was next up in the pipeline.” She writes: Unless you are very lucky, the first thing you learn »

Don’t RIP, Karl

Featured imageVia InstaPundit, I learn that Karl Marx died on this day in 1883. I concur with Glenn Reynolds’ suggestion that March 14 should therefore be a holiday: Marx performed the difficult feat of being wrong about everything. Most people are right about some things and wrong about others; the law of averages sets in. But if you are an ideologue, like Marx, and if your ideology is stupid, you can »