April 20, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Catch Me On Laura Ingraham Tonight

Featured image I will be on the Laura Ingraham show on Fox News tonight at 10 Eastern, 9 Central, talking about the Chauvin verdict. Alan Dershowitz and I will be on at the top of the hour. I think the focus will be on Chauvin’s chance of a successful appeal, but that could change by show time. The only way to know for sure is to tune in! I will post my »
April 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson

A personal note on Walter Mondale

Featured imageFormer Vice President Walter Mondale died on Monday at the age of 93. His death brought back a flood of memories to me. I want to offer these personal notes on the occasion of his death. I talked my way into an internship in then Minnesota Senator Mondale’s Washington office in the summer of 1969, just after I graduated from high school in St. Paul. I had gone to hear »
April 20, 2021 — Steven Hayward

This Week in Cancel Culture

Featured imageIt has been suggested that “cancel culture” won’t end until it comes for enough liberals, though I am doubtful. In any case, it is bemusing to see that the latest victim of cancel culture is the aggressively atheist and hyper-Darwinian Richard Dawkins, who has had his “Humanist of the Year Award” from 1996 rescinded by the American Humanist Association. Why, you ask? Here’s the AHA statement: Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has »
April 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson

The Chauvin verdict

Featured imageThe jury rendered guilty verdicts on all three charges against former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin a few minutes ago. The charges were brought in an atmosphere of mob justice on May 29 and June 3, within days of the death of George Floyd this past May 25. He will be sentenced on the second-degree murder charge that was the most serious of the three. Chauvin was repeatedly declared guilty »
April 20, 2021 — Steven Hayward

The Declining Relevance of Legal Scholarship

Featured imageIt has been a long-running theme of mine that academic social science, which at its birth promised to bring “scientific” research to bear on solving practical human problems, is increasingly detached from the real world and of almost no use to the larger world. Partly this is because of defects or limitations of positivist social science, the overwhelming leftist bias of most academic social scientists, and the deliberate aloofness of »
April 20, 2021 — Scott Johnson

Sean McMeekin: The story behind “Stalin’s War”

Featured imageSean McMeekin is Francis Flournoy Professor of European History and Culture at Bard College and the author of Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, officially published by Basic Books today. Professor McMeekin is one of the most prominent of the younger generation of historians of the Soviet Union. His first book — The Red Millionaire — is a personal favorite of mine. He graciously accepted my invitation »
April 19, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Fighting Covid? It Just Didn’t Matter

Featured imagePrior to 2020, I don’t believe it had ever been suggested that a government could “fight” a virus. But in 2020, lots of governments tried–the feds and every state, in one way or another. We saw catastrophically destructive shutdowns, as governments around the world and here in the U.S. claimed that they could fine-tune virus transmission by destroying businesses and ordering citizens to stay home or congregate only in small »
April 19, 2021 — Steven Hayward

Who Will Be the Next Neoconservatives?

Featured imageAs the country going through a cycle of leftist madness last seen in the 1960s, we can recall that a number of liberals woke up to the defects of their creed, and became the founding generation of “neoconservatives,” that is, liberals who had been “mugged by reality.” That original generation were mostly academic social scientists of one stripe or another. Will we see a new generation of “neoconservatives” arising out »
April 19, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Take the Damn Mask Off!

Featured imageIn the New York Times, David Leonhardt writes about “Irrational COVID Fears.” The subhead: “Why do so many vaccinated people remain fearful?” Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because of constant media hysteria, and the insistence by Dr. Fauci and others that vaccinated people continue to wear masks? That isn’t where Leonhardt is going, of course. He begins with the fact that most people are terrible at objectively assessing risk. That »
April 19, 2021 — Scott Johnson

From the bizarre Twin Cities hellworld (6)

Featured imageIn part 5 of this series, John Hinderaker picked up the story of the carjacking yesterday in Burnsville, Minnesota. The authorities gunned down the carjacker as he shot at authorities and sought a second vehicle to carjack. John held out hope that the carjacker was white and therefore that the incident might not give rise to another week of riots. The Star Tribune story on the incident fails to get »
April 18, 2021 — John Hinderaker

From the Bizarre Twin Cities Hellworld (5)

Featured imageA little while ago, a man carjacked a vehicle on a major road in a suburb adjacent to mine. Police gave chase, and he fired at them out of a window of the vehicle. With the police closing in, he rolled out of the moving car and ran onto an adjoining highway, trying to carjack a second vehicle. At some point he was shot by police officers: GRAPHIC VIDEO WARNING »
April 19, 2021 — Steven Hayward

Walter Mondale, RIP

Featured imageThe news that Walter Mondale was in extremis had circulated a few days ago, and blurted out, predictably, by Jimmy Carter, about whom Mondale said on many occasions after 1980, “I never understood how Carter’s political mind worked. Carter’s got the coldest political nose of any politician I ever met.” It is still not well known that Mondale considered resigning as Vice President during Carter’s infamous navel-gazing Camp David retreat in »
April 19, 2021 — Scott Johnson

From the bizarre Twin Cities hellworld (7)

Featured imageAt the heart of the bizarre Twin Cities hellworld is Minnesota Governor Tim “tear down this” Walz. Today Tim is tearful. He called a press conference this afternoon to display his emotions and offer his characteristic deference to the mob throwing its weight around in the Twin Cities. Walz mouths the obligatory platitudes about “systemic racism.” He asserts that Daunte Wright died “for a simple traffic violation.” He even calls »
April 19, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Mob Rule In Minnesota

Featured imageThe murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin is wrapping up today with closing arguments and jury instructions. The National Guard is standing by to deal with the expected riots when the jury returns its verdict later this week, along with law enforcement from several local agencies as well as other states. Downtown Minneapolis resembles a fortress, only with fewer people. Both Scott and I have questioned whether Chauvin »
April 19, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Saturday Night With the Outsiders

Featured imageOutsiders is an excellent program on Australia’s Sky News, hosted by Rowan Dean, Rita Panahi and James Morrow. I was on the show Saturday night, talking about the Derek Chauvin trial, the lawlessness that reigns in Minnesota, and who is really running the “Biden administration.” The segment is just six minutes long, and I think is entertaining. It has already racked up an impressive 314,000 views on YouTube: There is, »
April 18, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff

Spring break

Featured imageWe didn’t take a winter vacation this year because of the pandemic. But now that we’re vaccinated and pretty confident about our immunity, we’re going to take a spring break. We’ll be gone for about a week and I don’t plan on posting during that time. If Minneapolis burns this week, John and Scott will be on hand to cover it. »
April 18, 2021 — Steven Hayward

Immigration and the Essential Cravenness of Joe Biden

Featured imageNothing so surely signals the essential emptiness of Joe Biden than his rapid flip-flop Friday on raising the cap on the number of asylum seekers the United States will accept. At first the Biden Administration announced that they would not lift the relatively low cap that Trump had adopted, but following “outcry” from “Progressives,” Biden did a pirouette worthy of Bolshie ballerina and said he’d now lift the cap. One reason »