May 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Another stab in the back

Featured image In February President Biden promulgated National Security Memorandum 20. NSM-20 directs the State Department to “obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments receiving [U.S.] defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services” that they will abide by U.S. and international law. NSM-20 also requires the Departments of State and Defense to report to Congress within 90 days on the extent to which these governments and services are abiding »
May 11, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Dog Days of the 2024 Campaign

Featured imageGreat moments in presidential campaign immolation: George Romney confessing to being brainwashed; Howard Dean screaming like deranged Burlington street person; Hillary Clinton declaring half of America to be “deplorable;” Rick Perry saying “oops.” And now Kristi Noem shooting a dog—and maybe RFK Jr. confessing having his brain eaten by a worm, though I thought Kennedys preferred whisky to tequila. Speaking of dogs, over at the Trump trial this week. . »
May 10, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Eurovision, Take 2 [Updated Again]

Featured imageI wrote here about how Israel’s presence has roiled Eurovision, the big European pop music competition. Each country is represented by an artist, either an individual or a group. After two semifinals, the lineup for the final evening is now set. Somewhat remarkably, the Israeli contestant passed through the semifinal round and will compete in the finals. The result is predictable; the London Times reports: “Thousands protest over Gaza as »
May 10, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Oil Companies: Please Support Trump!

Featured imageA person could make it his life’s work to respond to all of the ignorant, unfair and dishonest attacks that liberals make on Donald Trump. I don’t want to do that. But I do want to comment briefly on the latest Trump “scandal”: At a Dinner, Trump Assailed Climate Rules and Asked $1 Billion From Big Oil.* Many outlets tried to make it sound like Trump was soliciting a bribe: »
May 10, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Peak Climatism?

Featured imageMatthew Yglesias, a progressive-leaning writer with a popular Substack site, reflected recently on how his views about climate change have departed from progressive orthodoxy. He writes: “I’ve come to see the mainstreaming of this fairly extreme approach to climate change as probably the central error of the contemporary progressive movement. . . Voters don’t care that much about the Democrats’ top priority.” Maybe, just maybe, we have reached and passed »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Douglas Murray: Choose life, not the death cults

Featured imageThis past Monday evening our friends at the Manhattan Institute recognized Douglas Murray (“for his unwavering defense of Western values”) and Ross Perot, Jr. (“for representing the best of civic engagement in Dallas and throughout Texas”) at the institute’s annual Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner. In his acceptance speech Murray describes his recent time in Israel and Gaza. He celebrates the spirit and heroism of the living Israelis he met and »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The Nine-Percent Solution

Featured imageIn his interview with Erin Burnett for CNN, President Biden most notably announced his betrayal of Israel the day after proclaiming his “ironclad” support. We had seen it coming. It wasn’t a surprise. It was obviously top of what is left of his mind. He also unleashed a series of whoppers that suggest he is lost in a senescent fog. The editors of the New York Post tabulate and itemize »
May 9, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Signer of the Times

Featured imageJoe Biden has been called as a waxworks effigy of a president, sock puppet, bobblehead and so forth. Those descriptions are all valid, but there’s a better way to view the Delaware Democrat now occupying the White House. Consider the experience of the composite character president David Garrow charted in Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. During Obama’s eulogy of Nelson Mandela on December 10, 2013, South African interpreter »
May 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Princeton Takes the Cake?

Featured imageThe kill-the-Jews protests at one “elite” university after another have exposed the low level of both information and intelligence of some students, and even some professors. But the Princeton protest has established a milestone of sorts, as one of its leaders complains of “starving,” a condition she apparently blames on the university. She and the others are on a hunger strike. They also, she says, are “immunocompromised,” a weird claim »
May 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The Biden betrayal

Featured imagePresident Biden publicly acknowledged his betrayal of Israel’s anticipated offensive in Rafah in an interview with Erin Burnett on CNN. The CNN story on the interview is here. As a practical matter, Biden supports Hamas. Biden opposes Israel. Biden’s declaration of “ironclad” support for Israel is “inoperative,” to borrow a term from Watergate. On Tuesday Biden gave a Holocaust remembrance speech decrying those calling for “the annihilation of Israel, the »
May 8, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Plead the Fifth Dimension

Featured imageBack in 1965, Barry McGuire told fans to “look around you boy, it’s bound to scare you boy.” That is good advice in 2024, and other old songs may provide the same service. For example, as the Buffalo Springfield noticed back in 1967, “there’s something happening here,” and if you stepped out of line “the man” would come and take you away. So “stop, children what’s that sound, everybody look »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Begin & Bibi v. Biden

Featured imageIn a November 2020 Wall Street Journal column Tevi Troy recalled “When Biden Met Begin” (posted in accessible form on Pundicity). Tevi recounted how Biden and Begin once clashed in a private June 1982 session with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Mr. Biden, 39, lectured the 68-year-old [Israeli Prime Minister Menachem] Begin over Israeli settlements, jabbing his finger at the prime minister and banging his fist on the desk. Mr. »
May 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageBRIDESMAIDS OF HAMAS — not better than brides. Ammo Grrrll writes: Some years ago in the U.K. a 15-year-old ninny decided to run to Syria to become a “Bride of ISIS.” When the reality of that life sank in, of course she demanded to be let BACK IN to the U.K. She even claimed she would be a force to fight terrorism if allowed to come home. By some miracle, »
May 9, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Who Are the Anti-Semites?

Featured imageThe New York Times, alarmed that its fellow leftists have outed themselves as anti-Semites on campuses and in the streets (not to mention in Congress), has published an interminable article, with four reporters’ bylines, claiming that Republicans are the real anti-Semites. There isn’t much need to read the article, as the headline says it all: “How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel.” The Times purports to use »
May 9, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Big Mac Bidenflation

Featured imageI still argue that the only good thing that happened during the Obama years was all-day breakfast at McDonalds, and COVID took that away from us. Which is when I started saying that COVID won’t be truly over until we get all-day breakfast at McDonalds back again. And it looks like that isn’t going to happen. One reason might be that consumers can’t afford it: Part of a general pattern »
May 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson

A benefit for my friend Scottie

Featured imageI wrote about my friend Scott Sansby last year in “My friend Scottie.” We have been friends since my family moved from Moorhead to St. Paul in 1958. In other words, we have been friends since the Eisenhower administration. Scottie has an incredibly wide network of friends and admirers, but we stayed best friends through high school and have remained friends ever since. I share so many memories with Scottie »
May 8, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Is The New York Times Hopeless?

Featured imageWell yes, of course. But at the Wall Street Journal, James Freeman highlights an interview with the Times’s current executive editor, Joseph Kahn. Hope springs eternal, I guess: Regular news consumers may recall Ben Smith as the Buzzfeed editor who helped define post-journalistic coverage of the Trump presidency by publishing the bogus Steele dossier in 2017 while admitting he didn’t know whether it was true or false. Naturally Mr. Smith »