May 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: The Kids Are Only Half-Whacked

Featured image Good news and bad news from a recent survey of college students about what issues are most important to them. The good news is that the conflagration in the Middle East is not exciting very many of them. The bad news is that a lot of other lefty crap—especially gun control, climate change, and “racial justice”—still commands a hefty plurality. One caveat is that this survey apparently doesn’t ask students »
May 8, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Jews at Columbia Speak Out

Featured imageAn open letter from Jewish students at Columbia University needs to be shared in full, on account of its lucidity and moral clarity: In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University To the Columbia Community: Over the past six months, many have spoken in our name. Some are well-meaning alumni or non-affiliates who show up to wave the Israeli flag outside Columbia’s gates. Some are politicians looking »
May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The campus seen

Featured imageI want to note a few reports on the campus scene. Attention must be paid. The scene should not be unseen. I have been asking who is behind the kill the Jews crowd on campus. Park MacDougald takes a comprehensive look in his May 6 Tablet column “The People Setting America on Fire.” It is the best effort yet to turn over the rocks and look underneath. Park, by the »
May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The campus seen: A footnote

Featured imageI want to add this footnote to my adjacent post on “The campus seen.” We can’t understand what’s happening in the current eruption of anti-Semitism on campus without understanding what has happened at Columbia University. Columbia University is ground zero of the intifada revolution. The video below features the deep thoughts of Columbia president Minouche Shafik in the satirical context afforded by reality. Want a good laugh this morning? Watch »
May 8, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Biden indicts himself

Featured imagePresident Biden chose to revise and extend his mealymouthed comments on anti-Semitism with a 1600-word speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance Ceremony yesterday. The White House has posted the text of his remarks here. The speech seems to me late and wanting. Revisiting the history of the Holocaust, Biden referred to “the perils of indifference, the complicity of silence in the face of evil that »
May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Will Argentina Save the West?

Featured imageThat’s not a headline I ever expected to write, even in satire. But the current experiment in Argentina, under the presidency of Javier Milei, is perhaps grounds for hope that at some point when things get so bad, voters return to their senses. (I’m looking at you, California and Minnesota.) He may not succeed, but the attempt is certainly inspiring. Milei gave a speech a few days ago at the »
May 7, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Italy Goes Nuclear

Featured imageIt has been a very long time since anyone held up Italy as a model of a well-governed country. Not since Roman times, perhaps. But Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has Italy moving in a good direction. That applies to energy along with many other issues. Thus: In a decisive shift from its past policies, Italy, under the leadership of Premier Giorgia Meloni and Environment and Energy Security Minister Gilberto Pichetto, »
May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Time to Unskew Elite Colleges?

Featured imageFurther to the argument made last week that college admissions offices should be fired wholesale because they bear responsibility for admitted so many deranged students, note what appears to be evidence that elite college admissions actively favor composing their classes of leftists. And then act surprised when they sack buildings and grandstand at commencement ceremonies. From Nate Silver: Chaser—You can include elite graduate fellowships, too:   »
May 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Reading the readout

Featured imagePresident Biden is confused. Israel appears to have commenced its long-delayed operation to take Hamas’s refuge in Rafah. John noted it here yesterday. With its “ceasefire deal” card Hamas plays the press for willing tools — because they are. They can’t be that stupid. Biden spoke yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu by telephone. The White House has posted its readout of the phone call here. After an exchange of pleasantries, »
May 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Loose Ends (252)

Featured image• Remember when Mitt Romney was dubbed a moral monster for putting his family dog on the roof of his family station wagon? Good times, good times! • But regarding Joe Biden’s vicious rogue dogs Commander and Major (who bit 25 people at the White House before being banished), I demand proof-of-life evidence they are still alive. Maybe we’re going to learn that Gov. Noem’s doggie degringolade is a 3D »
May 6, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Take a Look Around You Boy

Featured image“The song of the sixties is over,” noted Peter Collier back in 2018, “but the melody lingers on.” Consider, for example, Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” from 1965. The “Eastern world” was exploding, and if “the button is pushed” there would be no one to save, so “take a look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you, boy.” That invites a look around America in 2024. China and Russia »
May 7, 2024 — John Hinderaker

What Energy Transition?

Featured imageThe press, and many politicians, constantly assure us that the world is in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to “green” energy, which means wind turbines, solar panels, and mostly fictitious batteries. But is any such transition actually in progress? No. Robert Bryce has the numbers. No such transition is taking place in the U.S.; on the contrary, last year natural gas-fired electricity generation increased 9.5 times as »
May 7, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Biden’s Two-State Solution

Featured imageFor a while now the joke has been going around that Biden’s two-state solution for the Israel-Hamas conflict involves the two states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. The more time passes, the more this seems not a joke at all. Biden is apparently terrified not only of the campus left, but that he could lose Michigan’s substantial Arab voting block, and hence the election, if he doesn’t placate them. Here’s a »
May 7, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Xenojoebic

Featured imageYou know, one of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants. We look to – the reason – look, think about it – why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. That was Joe Biden at a May 1 fundraiser. White »
May 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Meet Mario Torres

Featured imageMario Torres is the Columbia custodian depicted in the viral photograph that I posted via X here. The photo shows him fighting off one of the thugs breaking into Hamilton Hall last week. I commented that he deserves recognition as a man of the year. He is so much better than the pathetic institution he serves. Now Free Press’s Francesca Block has tracked him down for an interview that is »
May 6, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Long-Delayed Gaza Attack Under Way

Featured imageAfter a long delay, apparently caused at least in part by opposition from the Biden Administration, Israel has finally begun to attack the Hamas stronghold of Rafah. The move on Rafah was, or should have been, inevitable: Israel can only win the war if it crushes Hamas, and it can’t do that without attacking the terrorist organization’s final redoubt. To me, it seemed that the delay in going into Rafah »
May 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Bidenflation Compared

Featured imageFrom our friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, some measures of the magnitude and persistence of inflation under President Biden and previous presidents. But remember, Joe told us that “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show any more.” Someone forgot to tell this to inflation. Chaser—Slow Joe might not want to count on a rate cut from the Fed just yet: »