February 23, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Democrats Move to Silence Non-Liberal Speech

Featured image On paper, the Democrats have a tenuous hold on power in Washington. Their president is a cipher with severely diminished mental capacities, the Senate is a 50-50 tie, and they hold the narrowest House majority in decades. Nevertheless, the Democrats see what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity, and are pressing forward with their most radical agenda since they seceded in 1861. Among other things, the Democrats are »
February 23, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Discrimination In Vaccine Distribution

Featured imageScott has chronicled the COVID fiasco here in Minnesota in his “Coronavirus In One State” series. Now that the focus has shifted to getting at-risk people vaccinated, our state government is finding new ways to drop the ball, or worse. I got an email today from a guy who said that he had started to fill out the Minnesota Department of Health’s online vaccine sign-up form, but discontinued the effort »
February 23, 2021 — Scott Johnson

Shapes of things (20)

Featured imageYesterday we noted in part 18 that Amazon had silently removed Ryan Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally. Steve has related observations in the adjacent post. Anderson’s book fails to conform to the woke party line now enforced by Big Tech. What does Amazon have to say about what it has done? I thought readers might be interested to know that Amazon isn’t talking — isn’t talking so far, anyway »
February 23, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff

Conditional ethics

Featured imageWe have written about several problematic Biden nominees for high level positions: Neera Tanden (who is probably not going to make it), Xavier Becerra (who might not), and two DOJ nominees, Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke (neither of whom should make it). Vivek Murthy, Biden’s selection for Surgeon General is another nominee to watch. Murthy, whose hearing is on Thursday, served as Surgeon General under President Obama. It’s impossible to »
February 23, 2021 — Steven Hayward

Loose Ends (128—Updated)

Featured image• As Ronald Reagan liked to say, when politicians feel the heat, they see the light. —News item: Looking increasingly likely Gov. Gavin Newsom will have to face a recall election this summer or fall. —News item: Gov. Newsom calls for public schools to reopen “immediately.” Chaser: From a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association back in November: “The decision to close US public primary schools in »
February 23, 2021 — Scott Johnson

Shapes of things (19)

Featured image“Death to me!” is the title of the best column I have read on the sordid ritual of public confessions following the “woke” party line. By David Mikics, the column draws on the history of false confessions by Communists caught up in the purges of the Soviet Union’s Stalin era. It is a history with which every literate American should be familiar, but it appears to be as obscure in »
February 22, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff

Neera Tanden’s nomination is sinking, Xavier Becerra’s should sink too

Featured imageThere is more bad news for Neera Tanden, Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Susan Collins says she won’t vote to confirm Tanden. On Friday, Joe Manchin broke ranks with the Democrats, saying he will not support Tanden. That means the nominee needs the backing of a Republican Senator. Collins was the most likely candidate, or would have been if Tanden hadn’t previously attacked her. »
February 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Fighting Against Big Tech Censorship

Featured imageAmerica’s major tech companies have chosen sides. Thus the news that big tech employees contributed more to Joe Biden’s campaign than any other sector of the economy: Employees at Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, donated at least $15.1 million to President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, according to Open Secrets. The donations eclipsed the amount given from employees in the banking and legal sectors, according to The »
February 22, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff

Biden on China: Sturdy resistance or mush?

Featured imageGeorge Will writes that Joe Biden “is keeping his promise of sturdy resistance to China.” But Will cites only weak evidence for that proposition. Will points to a “sandpapery” first conversation between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi. He also notes that Blinken warned Yang that Washington would hold Beijing “accountable” (whatever that means) for its human rights abuses against the Uighurs. In addition, Will »
February 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson

Half a mind to be president

Featured imageSky News Australia’s Cory Bernardi takes up the question of the cognitive capacity of the gentleman from Madame Tussauds. He doesn’t appear to be firing on all cylinders. Even operating with diminished capacity, however, he was the best candidate the Democrats had to offer this side of Bernie Sanders. My own motto for the Biden campaign was “He’s got a half a mind to be president.” With Biden you get »
February 21, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Is Black Lives Matter Killing People?

Featured imageI assume that everyone knows homicide rates rose substantially in 2020 over prior years. Why did this happen? It seems clear that the anti-police agitation associated with Black Lives Matter and Antifa, and encouraged by almost all Democratic Party politicians, played the decisive role. Steve Sailer has charted the numbers. The homicide rate was flat until the hysteria that surrounded the death of George Floyd, most likely from the fentanyl »
February 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker

It’s Getting Harder Being Green

Featured imageThe truth is, it is harder being normal. The forces of authoritarianism have come for, of all things, the Muppets. I did not speak out, because I wasn’t a Muppet… But seriously: Disney has gone stark, raving mad: Anyone who streams “The Muppet Show” on Disney+ will see a disclaimer first — warning of “offensive content.” *** The disclaimer shown prior to each episode warns viewers that the show features »
February 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker

Masks Today, Masks Tomorrow, Masks Forever!

Featured imageA friend who is a superb doctor sent along this communication from Fairview/University of Minnesota Health Services: Got that? Vaccination changes nothing! Wear masks, wash your hands frequently, socially distance and–above all–stay home! “Until it’s gone,” which is never. My friend comments: From an experienced medical facility, I expect better. It will never be gone, we will have it like every other coronavirus, like every other flu. Unlike smallpox, it »
February 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson

Shapes of things (18)

Featured imageOur friend Roger Kimball is the learned publisher of Encounter Books. He writes to alert us to the statement Encounter has just posted on the suppression of one of its titles by Amazon: Yesterday, we learned that Ryan T. Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, which Encounter Books originally published in 2018, was removed without explanation from Amazon.com and from its subsidiary Audible. Encounter Books is »
February 22, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff

Andrew Cuomo’s legal woes

Featured imageThose who read Power Line faithfully know that Andrew Cuomo may be in legal jeopardy. The Justice Department reportedly is investigating him and some members of his staff for their conduct in response to a DOJ request for information about nursing home deaths in New York. John Daukas was principal deputy to the DOJ’s assistant attorney general for civil rights at the time the Department requested information from Cuomo. Later, »
February 22, 2021 — Scott Johnson

Remembering the indispensable man

Featured imageToday we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of George Washington. Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington’s greatness was the rarest and the most needed. At this remove in time, it is also the hardest to comprehend. Take, for example, Washington’s contribution to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Washington’s mere presence lent the undertaking and its handiwork the legitimacy that »
February 21, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff

The war on standards, Yale Law Journal edition

Featured imageThe Yale Law Journal has been accused of racial bias by some Black students. And it does appear that the Journal is biased — in favor of Blacks. According to the Washington Free Beacon: The conflagration began on Tuesday after a Journal editor, Gavin Jackson, resigned, saying he felt “used and tokenized” in his position. Jackson’s resignation elicited furious statements from a raft of affinity groups at the law school, »