April 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Plastic Madness

Featured image 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 »
April 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Is administrative law still unlawful?

Featured imageOver the weekend I received an invitation to attend the New Civil Liberties Alliance conference hosted by George Washington University Law School yesterday: “Is administrative law still unlawful?” (Plot spoiler: the answer is “yes.”) Luckily for me, I am in Washington visiting family this week and was able to attend the conference. The conference celebrated the tenth anniversary of the publication of Professor Philip Hamburger’s monumental treatise Is Administrative Law »
April 10, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

NPR: Gross Distortions

Featured imageTom Ashbrook treated him fairly but Steve slams NPR’s Susan Stamberg and Noah Adams in fine style. Consider also NPR host Terry Gross, who conducts fascinating interviews with writers, musicians and artists. With guests on the political side, on the other hand, the critical skills and background knowledge seem to disappear. In February of 2019, Gross interviewed former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, author of The Threat: How the FBI »
April 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson

What about Tucker?

Featured imageTucker Carlson must be one of the most popular conservative commentators in the country. His show on X attracts clicks by the hundreds of thousands. This week he sought falsely to blacken Israel’s reputation by promoting the views of a Bethlehem pastor that Israel mistreats Christiand. In so doing, he obviously seeks to drive wedge between Israel and Christian supporters of Israel. While Israel is engaged in a fight for »
April 10, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Abortion 2.0

Featured imageThe Biden re-election campaign should be dead in the water. Inflation is surging again, wokeness is deeply unpopular with most Americans, bills are beginning to come due for the Left’s “green” initiatives, and, most of all, Biden himself is so far gone in dementia as to be dysfunctional. How can he possibly win in November? By running on abortion. We saw it in many areas of the country in 2022. »
April 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Loose Ends (249)

Featured imageThis 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 »
April 10, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Sympathy For the Devil

Featured imageAmnesty International, like the American Civil Liberties Union, is a once-good organization that was taken over by leftists and no longer stands for any worthwhile principles. Thus: Even by “human rights group” standards, this is scandalous. Does tell you what Amnesty et al. think of Jewish lives, though. Walid Daqqa led a PFLP cell that abducted a young IDF soldier, Moshe Tamam, in 1984, gouged his eyes out, castrated him, »
April 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

There’s something about Tucker

Featured imageTucker Carlson devoted the October 9 episode of his X show to the Hamas/Israel war. He opened by searching for “the wise path forward” and asking what we should “do next in this chaotic moment.” For some reason, he didn’t directly answer his own question. We were to infer, however, that it’s none of our business. It might be best to avert our eyes. “War begets more war,” he advised. »
April 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward

NPR: National Propaganda Radio

Featured imageOne 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 »
April 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Hurricanes Down

Featured imageNowadays, all unfortunate weather events–and even, in some quarters, earthquakes!–are blamed on “climate change.” Reporters who probably don’t know better often recite as a fact that extreme weather events have been increasing as a result of global warming. But it isn’t true. Actually, if anything weather has been getting more benign. Take hurricanes. John Shewchuk undertakes to explain the long-term trend toward less hurricane activity. I am not sure whether »
April 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

A Human Right To Be Cool

Featured imageThe European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Switzerland is liable to its citizens for its alleged failure to do enough about “climate change”: A group of 2,000 Swiss women have won a climate change case against Switzerland at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in a ruling hailed as “monumental” by experts. The court agreed with the KlimaSeniorinnen, or Senior Women for Climate Protection, that the Swiss »
April 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: DEI is DIE-ing

Featured imageThere 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 »
April 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

What friends aren’t for

Featured imageIn an interview that was recorded last week but aired last night on Univision — transcript and video here — President Biden criticized Israel’s conduct of the war and called for a ceasefire without tying the demand to the release of the hostages held by Hamas. Indeed, the name “Hamas” does not appear in the interview. “Well, I will tell you, I think what [Prime Minister Netanyahu is] doing is »
April 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

“The NHS is killing us”

Featured imageBritain’s National Health Service is the great symbol of that nation’s leftward turn following World War II. Historically, it has enjoyed broad popularity, even as the quality of health care actually delivered has fallen lower and lower. But now, the NHS has reached such a crisis that a return to private health care seems inevitable if not imminent. In the Telegraph, Allison Pearson writes: “The NHS is killing us – »
April 9, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

So Wise in the Ways of Science?

Featured imageAs Steve notes, a Canadian social scientist is out with “a paper that finds job applicants who include non-binary pronouns (like “they/them”) on their resumes get fewer call backs than normal people.” That is hard to top, but consider COVID Vaccine Hesitancy and Risk of a Traffic Crash, published by the American Journal of Medicine but authored by a trio in Canada. As Sir Bedivere (Terry Jones) might say, who are these »
April 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: A Conspiracy So Vast. . . [With Comment by John]

Featured imageEver 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 »
April 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Tariq speaks

Featured imageThe IDF has released video of the highlights of its interrogation of Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman Tariq Salami Otha Abu Shoulf. As IDF Lt. Col. (reserve) Peter Lerner puts it, “In his interrogation he reveals in simple terms how they organize the mass manipulation of the media.” As we have all seen over the years, it’s not too difficult. The terrorists and their allies have had it worked out for »