March 20, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Thought for the Day: The Best DEI Rant

Featured image I hereby nominate Dov Fischer of the American Spectator for the most succinct takedown of the diversity, equity, and inclusion racket: These DEI deans are malignancies on the body academic, absolute poison. They get paid boatloads of money collected from overblown tuition, which saddles students and their parents with debt for life, to provide an ostensibly valuable service that my law degree, rabbinical degree, advanced history degree, and other educational »
March 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Sitting on $17 billion

Featured imageThe state of Minnesota overtaxed us by $17 billion in the last biennium and is sitting on the surplus. The funds should be returned on a pro rata basis to those of us who were compelled to fork over the dough, but that’s not what state Democrats have in mind, even when they couch their proposals in the language of “rebates.” That much I can tell you. The Star Tribune »
March 20, 2023 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: You Can Bank on It?

Featured imageStrap in for another roller-coaster week on Mr. Powell’s Wild Ride, as we wonder whether our banking system is in a crisis. It does appear from this chart, however, that Silicon Valley Bank was an outlier for having such a high proportion of deposits above the FDIC insurance limit (that the Biden Administration has effectively blown up). And this chart is possibly misleading—while SVB was the 15th largest bank in »
March 20, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer

DeSantis Takes a Swipe at Trump in Response to His Possible Indictment [Updated: Trump Swipes Back]

Featured imageGov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has taken fire over the last two days for his silence regarding rumors that former President Donald Trump might be indicted by New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg for alleged hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, in 2016. His response managed to upset both Trump supporters and critics alike. Asked to weigh in at a Monday morning event, the Florida governor replied: »
March 20, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Loose Ends (214)

Featured image• Recent political history in one sentence: the Democratic Party gave up the working class for the woking class. • Update on the Dutch election that John and I noted over the weekend: when all the votes were counted, the farmers protest party captured 17 seats in the 75-seat Senate, up from 15 as originally results suggested. The previous four-party ruling coalition can’t survive, and it would seem to be »
March 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson

The three percent fabrication

Featured imageNicholas Meyer had Sherlock Holmes overcoming The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Last week President Biden fabricated the billionaires’ three percent solution to the federal income tax burden. Citing an incredibly misleading release from the Biden administration, I found Biden’s three percent solution to be “Biden’s lie of the day.” Elon Musk has now responded to Biden’s lie of the day on Twitter and readers “have added context they thought people might want »
March 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Veep thoughts with Kamala Harris

Featured imageThe Washington Free Beacon has posted volume 8 of Veep Thoughts with Kamala Harris (video below). In this installment we learn, among other things, that Harris is the kind of overeducated dolt who confuses “exasperate” for “exacerbate.” In this edition Harris wrestles with water policy and, alone against the free world, finds herself a source of great amusement. »
March 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Who Killed English Literature?

Featured imageEnglish majors are fast disappearing from our colleges and universities, and with good reason. Here’s a current summer course offering from Johns Hopkins University: Climate Fiction and Capitalist Accumulation – AS.060.186 This course will examine the relationship between capitalist accumulation, the climate crisis, and contemporary climate fiction. What is capitalist accumulation? How has this process led to the contemporary climate crisis? What ideas constitute its ideological apparatus? How do contemporary »
March 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Miss Iraq Runs for Office

Featured imageWe last saw Sarah Idan when she was Miss Iraq in the 2017 Miss Universe pageant. She made international news when Miss Israel posted a photo of the two of them on Instagram, with kind words about Ms. Idan. That caused predictable blowback in the Arab world, causing Idan to issue an apology in Arabic. It wasn’t enough; her Iraqi citizenship was revoked and her family fled to another country. »
March 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson

A boneless wonder

Featured imageSpeaking in Parliament in 1931 Winston Churchill brutally disparaged the Labor Prime Minister as “a boneless wonder”: I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as “The Boneless Wonder.” My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and »
March 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker

A Failed Presidency In 20 Seconds

Featured imageYesterday Joe Biden made the mistake of listening to a question from a reporter at the White House, and briefly trying to answer. I understand that the reporter was from another country; I don’t suppose a liberal American “reporter” would be so bold as to question Slow Joe on the subject of his China connections: Two points to note. First, even in this very brief clip, Biden’s mental and physical »
March 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Notes on the Twitter Files (19)

Featured imageIn the nineteenth installment of the Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi has posted a 45-part thread. It can be accessed via the first tweet in the thread below. 1.TWITTER FILES #19The Great Covid-19 Lie MachineStanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories” pic.twitter.com/v41dyC26ZR — Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 17, 2023 In this installment the authorities confront a crisis of disbelief in the teachings of Lord Anthony Fauci. As President »
March 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most

Featured imageI’m taking the liberty of reposting this tribute to a great song with an unusual story behind it as a break from the news of the day. Since I first wrote this 17 years ago, YouTube has become a rich musical resource that allows me to fill out the story. Stretching from Ella Fitzgerald to Fran Landesman to T.S. Eliot and Geoffrey Chaucer, this is the bare-bones version of the »
March 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Why Wind and Solar Will Never Work

Featured imageEnormous amounts of money are being made by “green” fraudsters, utilities and politicians who tell us we are in the midst of a transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. In fact, no such transition is underway; fossil fuel consumption is higher than ever. And no such transition will take place, ever, either in America or anywhere else in the world. Why? Because wind and solar are both »
March 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward

The Conservative Case for San Francisco’s Reparations Plan

Featured imageWhen you see something as facially absurd as San Francisco’s proposal to pay $5 million in reparations to every black person whether they were descendants of slaves or not, which is only a down payment since the proposal also calls for a guaranteed income of $97,000 per year thereafter, one question to ask is: What would Rush Limbaugh say about this? I think he’d say: conservatives should support San Francisco »
March 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Sunday morning coming down

Featured imageSinger/songwriter John Sebastian celebrated his 79th birthday on Friday. Sebastian grew up in Greenwich Village in a musical family. He is saturated in American music — a multi instrumentalist whose best instrument may well be harmonica. I can pick out his distinctive harmonica sound as an uncredited session player on tracks by Tim Hardin, Tom Rush, and other mainstays of the ’60’s folk scene. Sebastian was the front man and »
March 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Is Ukraine DeSantis’s First Big Mistake?

Featured imageRon DeSantis struck a moderate note in his recent comments on the war in Ukraine, drawing criticism from many Republicans. The Wall Street Journal headlines: “Pence and Other Potential GOP 2024 Rivals Pounce on DeSantis Over Ukraine Aid.” Former Vice President Mike Pence, without mentioning Ron DeSantis by name, rebuked the Florida governor Saturday for his isolationist approach to the war in Ukraine. Isolationist approach? Seriously? A sharp divide inside »