April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The trouble with Columbia

Featured image Columbia University presents an extreme case of the rot infesting our major institutions — elite organs of higher education, corporate America, the mainstream media, the entertainment business, the legal profession, the teachers’ unions, and so on. We can learn from Columbia’s extremity. It highlights elements of the phenomenon that otherwise remain beyond our view. The rot at Columbia runs through the students, the administration, and the faculty of the university. »
April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Quotations from Chairman Joe

Featured imageThe silence of President Biden on the eruption of anti-Semitic “protests” on elite college campuses constitutes a disgusting sidebar to the unfolding story. He was asked about them yesterday as he shambled down a sylvan path in Triangle, Virginia. “I condemn the antisemitic protests,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” “Palestinians” widely support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the terrorist forces »
April 22, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Lesser Of Two Evils

Featured imageAm I a fan of Alec Baldwin? No. I am not sure how he got famous, and I don’t think I have ever seen him on screen or on television. And I harshly criticized his careless handling of a firearm that resulted in a death on the set of a movie in which he starred. However. There are worse people. And in this video, you see one of them, as »
April 22, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Did Biden Revoke Title IX?

Featured imageOn Friday, Joe Biden’s Department of Education released its final rule amending the regulations that implement Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. What is it all about? This is how the Department of Education described the changes: The Department therefore issues these final regulations to provide greater clarity regarding: the definition of “sex-based harassment”; the scope of sex discrimination, including recipients’ obligations not to discriminate based on sex »
April 22, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: A Family Affair?

Featured imageOne of the most interesting aspects of the current political scene is the polling evidence showing Donald Trump gaining strength among minority voters, which is causing panic among Democrats. Why is this happening? Explanations run the full spectrum, from inflation to wokery, but here’s some curious evidence (from an Economist/YouGov survey) that it may be as simple as having children: Chaser—while we’re looking at Trump-Biden surveys, this one is fun »
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson

And then the darkness fell

Featured imageToday is the anniversary of Glen Campbell’s birth. Campbell established himself as a brilliant session guitarist with the Wrecking Crew and then proceeded to record some 65 solo albums in the course of a long career that greatly contributed to the beauty of the world. It’s hard to get a handle on his vast body of work, but perhaps most notable was his partnership with songwriter Jimmy Webb. Below is »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Iran Triumphant?

Featured imageAs the dust seems to be settling in the Middle East, who is coming out on top? Perhaps, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh write in the Wall Street Journal, it is Iran. First, some history: Iran’s theocratic regime has to stand as the most successful imperial power in the Middle East since the British Empire. The comparison would offend the mullahs, but both managed to patrol large swaths of »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

The Times Weighs In

Featured imageCheck out this headline from today’s New York Times, on the criminal trial that is under way in Manhattan: “Will a Mountain of Evidence Be Enough to Convict Trump?” I understand that readers of the Times tune in mainly to get their daily dose of Trump-hate, but is the Times even pretending to be a newspaper anymore? The trial, which could brand Mr. Trump a felon as he mounts another »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

The EV Bubble Bursts

Featured imageDoes this quote sound familiar? “The electric automobile will quickly and easily take precedence over all other kinds of motor carriages as soon as an effective battery of light weight is discovered.” That’s the Los Angeles Times in 1901. How about this one? “Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they are within reach of the average family.” That’s the Washington Post, 1915. At Substack, Robert Bryce headlines: »
April 20, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Is It a Crime To Be Openly Jewish?

Featured imageEver since October 7, mobs of Muslims have taken over much of central London for kill-the-Jews rallies. The effect has been to make being Jewish in London increasingly dangerous. Things came to a head last Saturday when a group of Jews leaving a synagogue bumped into the Muslims’ weekly protest. One of that group, Gideon Falter, describes what happened: It was early afternoon, in central London, and I was with »
April 20, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Podcast: The 2WHH, on ‘Will It Get Worse Before It Gets Worse?’

Featured imageThis week’s ad-free episode is probably better thought of as a Two Whisky Happy Hour, because John Yoo is away on a lecture- and Philly-cheesesteak-procurement tour back east, and Lucretia is also out of action this weekend, too, though she appears in this episode by proxy, so to speak. So two whiskies it is. Last weekend, Lucretia and I offered a keynote duo-presentation for Ammo Grrrll’s annual CommenterCon conference in »
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson

What we’ve got here

Featured imageThe Columbia campus appears to have been taken over by the pro-Hamas kill the Jews crowd among the student body. Jessica Costescu rounds up the news in the Washington Free Beacon story “Columbia University Campus Unravels in Face of Escalating Anti-Semitic, Eliminationist Protests.” The New York Post reports “New anti-Israel tent city takes over Columbia University lawn days after NYPD raid as activists vow to stay ‘forever.’” In other words, »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

It Isn’t About Israel (2)

Featured imageNot wanting to be left out, anti-Semites at Yale are camping out to support genocide against Israel. They have made various demands on Yale’s administration. It will be interesting to see the result: it isn’t easy to get to Yale’s left. Here you see a depressingly large number of Yalies demonstrating: The climax came when they tore down the American flag: A mob of Yale students shout "VIVA VIVA PALESTINA" »
April 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson

In the AOC archive

Featured imageIn a recent post Lloyd Billingsley returns to David Garrow and holds out the prospect of more. I thought I would repeat my own observations on Garrow in the context of a review he wrote for the Washington Free Beacon today (quoted below). Bear with me while I work my way back to it. I think you will find it worth waiting for. I greatly respect David Garrow’s integrity as »
April 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Columbia then and now

Featured imageWorking for then Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale in the summer of 1969, I went to hear the late Allard Lowenstein speak to a large group of interns. Lowenstein was serving his only term in Congress before he was gerrymandered out of his district. Lowenstein asked us to go back to our campuses, do our thing in opposition to the Vietnam war, and “eschew violence.” He said the word “eschew” several »
April 20, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Bill Maher on Hollywood Pedophilia

Featured imageSo I’m just going to come right out and say it: in the privacy of the voting booth in November, Bill Maher is going to vote for Trump. The only question is whether he will admit it directly, or continue, between rote Trump denunciations, to provide strong hints week after week, like yesterday’s rant about pedophilia in Hollywood. Along the way he says, “Governor DeSantis was right” about Disney. C’mon »
April 20, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

Come and Get these (Motown) Memories

Featured imageAs Scott notes, “You Beat Me to the Punch,” performed by Mary Wells, was written by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Ronny White. There’s a back story here fans should know. “There was a guy who lived in Detroit and had a group called the Diablos,” Smokey recalled. “His name was Nolan Strong. They were my favorite vocalists at that time.” Strong was with Fortune Records and his “Mind Over »