April 12, 2024 — John Hinderaker

How Desperate Is the Biden Campaign?

Featured image The stock market was down sharply again today, as a result of fears of resurgent inflation. Inflation is second only to senility as a threat to Joe Biden’s campaign, and the campaign is desperate to find an answer. How desperate? They plan to blame Donald Trump: On Wednesday, after the latest inflation data showed an unexpected acceleration in price gains, Mr. Biden again tried to assure voters that he is »
April 12, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Bidenflation by the Numbers

Featured imageAs 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 »
April 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Is Hamas winning?

Featured imageAaron MacLean is host of the School of War podcast and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Before that, Aaron worked on Capitol Hill as senior foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Senator Tom Cotton and served on active duty as a U.S. Marine for seven years, deploying to Afghanistan as an infantry officer in 2009–2010. Following his time in the operating forces, he was »
April 12, 2024 — John Hinderaker

War With Iran?

Featured imageIran reportedly is considering an attack on Israel that would widen the war in the Middle East. This is from the Wall Street Journal: Israel is preparing for a direct attack from Iran on southern or northern Israel as soon as Friday or Saturday, according to a person familiar with the matter. A person briefed by the Iranian leadership, however, said that while plans to attack are being discussed, no »
April 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageAmmo Grrrll contemplates RENEWAL AND RENAISSANCE. She writes: Every single winter in Minnesota – and several summers here in Arizona – I have looked in dismay at the trees and other dormant, frozen, or parched foliage in my yard and said, “Well, THAT ain’t comin’ back.” And I am always wrong. It feels good to be wrong. That which looks dead and gone springs to life, warms the heart, and »
April 11, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Can Biden Buy the Election?

Featured imageThe Democrats don’t have a candidate, but what they do have is wheelbarrows full of cash. The New York Times checks out the money race and concludes that their candidate is doing very well indeed: President Biden may be down in the polls, but he’s way up on Donald Trump when it comes to campaign funds. Each quarter since the president announced he was running again, Biden has lapped his »
April 11, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

No Wray of Hope

Featured image“Foreign terrorists, including ISIS, al-Qaida and their adherents, have renewed calls for attacks against Jewish communities here in the United States and across the West,” Christopher Wray warned on Tuesday. The FBI boss also cited threats from Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, which is “throwing its whole government at undermining the security and economy of the rule-of-law world.” But it wasn’t just about foreign threats. Wray “blasted House Republicans »
April 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Plastic Madness

Featured imageSo 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

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

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 11, 2024 — John Hinderaker

This Will Be a Doozie of a Correction

Featured imageI don’t really have much of a comment on this. I suppose it reflects the obsession with Donald Trump that has driven most of the traditional media off a cliff. But still, it is weird at best: Quite a mistake. https://t.co/s85xdoVa4T — Byron York (@ByronYork) April 11, 2024 It will be interesting to see whether the Times’ correction tries to explain the error. It would be hard to explain without »
April 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Latest Romper Room Temper Tantrum at Yale

Featured imageIt 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 »
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 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, »