February 7, 2025 — John Hinderaker

We Are Winning

Featured image Is liberalism a mental disorder, as is often said? There is a great deal of social science research showing that conservatives are happier than liberals, enjoy better mental health than liberals, are more involved in their communities than liberals, are more philanthropic than liberals, and so on. Probably more important, though, is that conservatives are more likely to have children, and to have more children, than liberals. Since the future »
February 7, 2025 — Steven Hayward

Monday in Malibu: Robert Bryce Live!

Featured imageFor any readers in the west LA region, San Fernando Valley, or Thousand Oaks area, next Monday, February 10, I am hosting the great Robert Bryce at Pepperdine for a special screening of his film “Juice: Power, Politics, and the Grid.” It is free and open to the public. The film goes off at 5 pm in the Wilburn Auditorium at the very top of campus, following which Robert will »
February 7, 2025 — Steven Hayward

Meltdown at the NY Times

Featured imageThe poor New York Times is pushing its Trump Derangement Syndrome meltdown well past eleven. Here are just a few opinion section headlines from the last couple days: I doubt most Times writers, let alone their readers, can make it four years. »
February 7, 2025 — John Hinderaker

The Real Constitutional Crisis

Featured imageMore than any other actions of the new Trump administration, Democrats are hysterical over his attacks on administrative agencies, particularly USAID. They say that Trump’s investigations of these agencies, suspension of payments to third parties, and layoffs of agency employees are illegal and unconstitutional. Thus, from today’s New York Times: Constitutional crisis? The president can’t shut down agencies that Congress has funded, yet that’s what Trump did, with Elon Musk’s »
February 7, 2025 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Second Thoughts?

Featured imageAfter the Supreme Court wiped away the marriage laws of all 50 states in its Obergefell decision that legalized same-sex marriage, it was thought the next frontier in “love, liberty and privacy” would be a push to allow polygamy again. Instead, what erupted in just a few weeks was the entire transgender crusade. As CNN’s Harry Entin notes, public opinion has always been against men in women’s sports, but has »
February 7, 2025 — Steven Hayward

In Accordance with the Prophecy

Featured imageI noted here a couple days ago that the Babylon Bee—America’s most trusted news source, partly because it receives no USAID funding—has an astonishing track record of prophecy. You’d almost think they had some Old Testament mojo going or something. Little did I know that the Telegraph would report on yet another Bee prophecy coming true: And the Bee, back in 2021: As someone—maybe Malcom Muggeridge was the first—once said, »
February 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson

“Was it something I said?”

Featured imageThe New York Post cover story documents the progress President Trump made in controlling the border within 24 hours of his inauguration: The new US Border Patrol chief said the number of illegal migrants stopped trying to cross the besieged southern border has dropped an astonishing 90% since January 21 — a day after President Trump’s inauguration. Michael Banks, a longtime former border agent himself, touted the plunge in illegal »
February 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageAmmo Grrrll declares that IT WAS MEANT FOR GOOD! She writes: When I was a very small child, I used to hear my dear Mama say, “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Childhood is a very confusing time. Like the child who drew a chubby man in the manger scene for Sunday School and told his teacher that was “Round John Virgin, Mother and Child,” misinterpretations can »
February 6, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Democrats Pull All-Nighter But Fail Test [Updated]

Featured imageChuck Schumer, who puts cheese on a raw hamburger before grilling it and believes we import most of our beer from Mexico, is perhaps the unlikeliest street fighting man in America. Yet the Democrats are so desperate that they send Schumer into the streets to rouse rabble, inciting violence against Republicans. (Something for which, by the way, he is now coming under investigation.) But more broadly, just as the Trump »
February 6, 2025 — Steven Hayward

Trump Lays Down a Marker

Featured imageAmidst all the ruckus over Trump’s typically glorious “norm-breaking” proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza while the strip is rebuilt in to a glorious resort, complete with some U.S. equity position, few people noticed (and no one in the media asked about) a national security directive released on Tuesday regarding Iran that contains the following language: Iran’s nuclear program, including its enrichment- and reprocessing-related capabilities and nuclear-capable missiles, poses »
February 6, 2025 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Disunited Unions

Featured imageIt has been widely understood going all the way back to the Reagan elections that many union members don’t go along with their union leaders in the voting booth. Here we have some interesting data from the most recent election: Looks like there ought to be more agitation in the wake of the Janus Supreme Court decision for union members to demand more of their dues back. »
February 7, 2025 — Steven Hayward

How About Separation of Media and State?

Featured imageForget separation of church and state: how about we think about instituting the separation of media and state? Rush Limbaugh used to mock what he called our “state-run media” (along with calling it, with equal accuracy, the “drive-by media”), but he turned out to be literally correct, as we learned this week. Not only millions to Politico, but the BBC admitted that it received 8 percent of its revenue from »
February 7, 2025 — Scott Johnson

And at Cooper Union

Featured imageI have noted the Department of Education investigation of five universities including Columbia and the University of Minnesota announced this week. The investigations seek to determine whether the universities have fulfilled their duty under Title VI to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment. JNS now reports on a lawsuit brought by 10 Jewish students alleging that the school has failed them. The case arises out of the pro-Hamas riots around »
February 6, 2025 — Steven Hayward

Trump & Dostoevsky

Featured image“Beauty will save the world,” Dostoevsky tells us in The Idiot, and President Trump—he of the gold-plated bathroom fixtures in Trump Tower and on Trump Force One, his private plane (has there ever been a president for whom Air Force One is a step down from his own plane?)—seems to embrace this. In his first term he issued an EO requiring new federal buildings to be designed in the classical »
February 6, 2025 — John Hinderaker

No Men In Women’s Sports: What Does It Mean?

Featured imagePresident Trump’s executive order banning men from women’s sports has gotten a lot of attention, most of it positive. But, as with many of his orders, I had questions about what exactly it said. Does the president actually have legal authority to “ban men from women’s sports?” No. So what, exactly, did he do? And will it stand up in court? In my view, the order is impressively specific and »
February 6, 2025 — Scott Johnson

Who caved?

Featured imageThe Minnesota Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case raising the question of the constitutional power of the House of Representatives to compel the attendance of members. I have posted the video below. If you have been following events so far, it is at least of theoretical interest. However, that may be its only interest. In my post on where we were as of early this morning, I speculated »
February 6, 2025 — John Hinderaker

Score One For the GOP

Featured imageAs Scott noted earlier, the month-long standoff in Minnesota’s House of Representatives came to an end last night, as the Democrats, who have boycotted the session since it opened on January 14, have agreed under intense pressure to go back to work. Because I disagree with Scott’s evaluation of the outcome, I am writing separately. Absent last night’s agreement, there would not have been a quorum in the House (under »