November 23, 2020 — Steven Hayward

Today’s Biden Blunder

Featured image News item: Biden intends to name John Kerry to be his “climate czar.” News item: Oil and gas stocks soaring on Wall Street today. Coincidence? I think not! I can think of no greater condign punishment for the International Order of Climatistas than sending Mr. Flower-Power Zipper Pull to their annual gabfests. This is the man who puts the goober in “lugubrious.” I hope and expect that he will take »
November 23, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff

School shutdowns border on the irrational

Featured imageI’m not quick to label approaches to dealing with the Wuhan coronavirus irrational. For example, I don’t think it was irrational for Norway to institute a lockdown last Spring or for Sweden not to do so. Both were rational responses to a novel crisis. Similarly, I don’t think it’s irrational now, with the virus spreading again so rapidly, to impose heightened restrictions in some areas for a few months until »
November 23, 2020 — Scott Johnson

Reports: Netanyahu met with crown prince [updated]

Featured imagePresident Trump is one of the most consequential presidents in American history. He accomplished great good under constant attack, including from enemies at the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Council from day 1 of his administration. I am referring to the Russia hoax, of course, and to the related impeachment hoax, but there is much more. It turns out that Trump’s diplomacy has unleashed previously unthinkable progress toward »
November 23, 2020 — Scott Johnson

The DiAngelo factor

Featured imageThe Washington Free Beacon’s Charles Fain Lehman reports on the forum conducted via Zoom by the University of Wisconsin’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Educational Achievement. Doing the work that the mainstream media refuse to do, Lehman draws on documents obtained from the university in response to a freedom-of-information request for this outstanding report. Here is the opening: The prominent diversity consultant Robin DiAngelo raked in $12,750 for a speaking »
November 23, 2020 — Scott Johnson

Exit Sidney Powell

Featured imageWhen Rudy Giuliani took the lectern at his 90-minute press conference last week (video below), he was accompanied by five members of the Trump campaign’s legal team including Sidney Powell. Indeed, the press conference was billed as that of the Trump legal team. After greeting the assembled reporters, Giuliani stated: “This is representative of our legal team. We’re representing President Trump and we’re representing the Trump campaign.” To be clear, »
November 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff

Begin and Biden, compare and contrast

Featured imageLast month, in a guest post for Power Line, Stephen Silbiger wrote about a 1982 confrontation between Joe Biden and Menachem Begin, Israel’s prime minister at the time. When Biden threatened to cut off aid to Israel, Begin looked directly at the young Senator and responded, in part: Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to Israel. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. Tevi »
November 22, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff

The war on standards: Magnet school admissions edition

Featured imageAmerica’s top colleges and universities grant preferential treatment to Blacks applying for admissions. For example, Black applicants need not perform nearly as well as White and Asian applicants on standardized tests in order to gain admission. Admissions data from Yale exemplify the preferential treatment. Thus far, the Supreme Court has found that race-based preferences in college admissions are permissible if granted (or couched) in a certain way. But the Court »
November 22, 2020 — John Hinderaker

Fighting Words, by David Horowitz

Featured imageOur friend David Horowitz wrote this essay, which he titled “Fighting Words.” It is a call for freedom-loving Americans to fight back against the totalitarian Left. By now it should be obvious – even to conservatives – that we are in a war. It is a conflict that began nearly fifty years ago when the street revolutionaries of the Sixties joined the Democrat Party. Their immediate goal was to help »
November 22, 2020 — Scott Johnson

Our garbage media

Featured imageThe Washington Free Beacon’s David Rutz has compiled another of his SuperCuts videos, this one featuring a few illustrative condemnations of President Trump as Hitler. This one-minute video could easily be expanded to an hour or two, and it makes an important point. The brain-killing sages presented to us on a daily basis are highfalutin’ hacks and/or morons. The list extends far beyond the few who make an appearance in »
November 21, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff

Where’s the outrage?

Featured imageThe Washington Post claims that the “Black community” is angry over claims of vote fraud by President Trump and his legal team. It’s true that some of the claims of fraud center on precincts that are populated almost entirely by Blacks. However, I doubt that many Blacks care about the Trump campaign’s allegations of fraud and I suspect that even fewer are outraged by them. The Post cites five Blacks »
November 21, 2020 — John Hinderaker

Shutdown Blues [Updated]

Featured imageToday the latest shutdown order by Governor Tim Walz took effect in Minnesota. COVID cases have been rising across the Upper Midwest, so our “emergency” continues. This time, the shutdown applies to restaurants, bars, gyms and youth sports. Of course, that COVID cases are rising is no mystery, even apart from the fact that vastly expanded testing naturally generates more cases. COVID is a seasonal flu bug. When it declined »
November 22, 2020 — Scott Johnson

A conspiracy less immense

Featured imageAs John notes in a nearby post, Sidney Powell has been separated from President Trump’s legal team. Politico’s Kyle Cheney is one of the first with the story here. John doesn’t do full justice to the vagaries of Powell’s contributions, such as they were. Politico’s Kyle Cheney is one of the first with the story here. I thought that Powell’s “a conspiracy so immense” performance at the big Trump team »
November 22, 2020 — John Hinderaker

Trump Team Disowns Powell

Featured imageSidney Powell’s claim that the presidential election was stolen using Dominion voting machines has dominated post-election controversy over voter fraud, but the Examiner reports that the Trump campaign is distancing itself from that claim: With Trump-allied insiders distancing themselves from massive and unproven election fraud allegations being made by Sidney Powell, the president’s legal team announced on Sunday that the attorney has no direct role in their efforts. Sources close »
November 22, 2020 — Steven Hayward

The Left’s Class War on the Working Class

Featured imageThe left is all about class warfare, but you’d be mistaken if you think the class they want to make war on is the upper class. Quite the contrary: the left is the upper class now, and their longtime critique of “neoliberalism” as a mechanism to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich is ironically accurate, as that is exactly what the left intends to do. Two pieces of »
November 22, 2020 — Scott Johnson

Our insane shutdowns

Featured imageCOVID-19 appears to move with a mind of its own and to strike the elderly, the infirm, and especially the infirm elderly with particular harshness. The shutdowns undertaken by Minnesota and other state governments constitute acts of willful destruction on a monumental scale. On this point, see John Tierney’s City Journal column “Lockdown addicts.” Tierney writes, for example: Instead of reconsidering their policies, local officials are restricting more businesses and »
November 21, 2020 — John Hinderaker

COVID Hypocrisy Is the Least Of It

Featured imageGavin Newsom’s infamous dinner with lobbyists at the French Laundry is the latest example of a political leader who prescribes rules for the rest of us, and then flouts them himself. We have seen this over and over again, as Karol Markowicz reminds us (via InstaPundit.) She cites many examples of our supposed betters who hector us to wear masks, social distance, close down our businesses, avoid restaurants, associate with »
November 21, 2020 — Steven Hayward

Why We Have the Worst “Experts,” Chapter 12,186

Featured imageOur elite betters wonder why we don’t trust their “scientific” authority, but let’s roll back the tape to this May 15 story from NBC News, which they called a “fact check:” Fact check: Coronavirus vaccine could come this year, Trump says. Experts say he needs a ‘miracle’ to be right. President Donald Trump has suggested multiple times that a coronavirus vaccine could come within months, an accelerated timeline that prominent »