Monthly Archives: June 2016

New York Times still peddles narrative Ben Rhodes told the paper is false

Featured image Now that Ben Rhodes has confessed that the Obama administration’s narrative about an Iran in which “moderates” wield significant influence was “largely manufactured” for the purpose of selling the nuclear, you might think that the mainstream media media would stop peddling this narrative. You might think that at least the New York Times, which broke the story of Rhodes confession, would stop doing so. You would be wrong. Cliff Smith »

Trump Holds Big Lead Among White Voters

Featured image You no doubt have heard about the ABC News/Washington Post poll that came out on Sunday. It showed Hillary Clinton pulling out to a 12-point lead over Donald Trump among registered voters, and therefore got a lot of play in the press. The poll is an outlier, and in any event, it is way too early to be losing sleep over presidential polls. One thing is worth pointing out, however: »

Trump’s Declaration of Independence

Featured image Today Donald Trump delivered a major speech on the economy in Pennsylvania, titled “Declaring America’s Economic Independence.” You can read the speech, as prepared for delivery, here. These are my thoughts on it: 1) The fact that it is a prepared speech at all is good. Trump’s speeches during the primary season were generally stream of consciousness riffs, and he often has gotten into trouble while ad libbing. He needs »

What’s next for amnesty?

Featured image The Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision in the executive amnesty case means that the lower court’s ruling invalidating that amnesty is affirmed. Executive amnesty will not be granted while Obama is president. What happens after that? If Donald Trump is elected, presumably there will be no mass amnesty. Trump is unpredictable, but probably not unpredictable enough to do amnesty. In the more likely event that Hillary Clinton is elected, matters will »

Brexit Week in Pictures

Featured image There’s just so much good material on Brexit piling up that it can’t wait for Saturday. So here’s “Brexit Week in Pictures.” Enjoy! And finally (okay, so there’s no gun, but this is close enough for Brexit work, as it explains why Brexit won): »

Liberalism’s All-Purpose, Universal Scam

Featured image You may have missed the story yesterday of the arrest over the weekend of civil rights bit player Walter Fauntroy, who returned over the weekend from what the Washington Post described as a “four-year sojourn in the Persian Gulf,” where he had fled to skip out on a $55,000 tab for an inauguration party he held for Barack Obama back in 2009: In January 2012, Fauntroy left the United States »

Benghazi report details Clinton’s malfeasance and nonfeasance

Featured image The House Select Committee on Benghazi has issued its report. The 800-page document is the result of an investigation that, according to the committee, encompassed 81 new witnesses and 75,000 pages of new documents. The report covers every aspect of the Benghazi scandal — the “before,” the “during,” and multiple phases of the “after.” At Hot Air, Larry O’Connor provides a good summary and Ed Morrissey homes in on the »

Nigel Farage Takes a Victory Lap at the EU

Featured image It has been great fun watching Nigel Farage flay the European Parliament these last few years usually to looks of derision, and here he is today taking a well-earned victory lap in front of his future former colleagues, who are not amused—so much so that the speaker of the parliament has to tell the crowd to settle down. (I especially like “I know that virtually none of you have ever »

For a moment, disparate impact disappears

Featured image The Democrats’ mania for the restriction of Second Amendment rights followed the Orlando massacre committed by a maniacal Muslim devotee of ISIS. The Democrats urgently advocated gun control legislation that would limit the rights of suspected terrorists listed on secret government databases that include more than 1,000,000 individuals, although the Americans on it number in the low thousands depending on the list involved. We don’t know who they all are »

Annals of mewling idiocy

Featured image The Islamic Republic of Iran has taken its $100 billion non-signing bonus on the Iran deal. With the cash in hand, it will ramp up its nuclear program and fund terrorism without financial constraints. The murderous terorist group Hezbollah is a chief beneficiary of Iran’s largesse. As Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah explained late last week: “We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it »

Key backer of Iran deal was on Boeing’s payroll but didn’t disclose it

Featured image Earlier this month, an Iranian official stated that his country had reached a deal to buy planes from Boeing — the first deal of its kind between Iran and a U.S. company since sanctions were lifted pursuant to the Iran nuclear deal. The deal reportedly will be worth $25 billion to Boeing. Not long thereafter, Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast reported that Thomas Pickering, a prominent diplomat and a »

Supreme Court overturns Robert McDonnell’s conviction

Featured image In its final decision of the term, the Supreme Court today unanimously overturned the public corruption conviction of former Virginia governor Robert McDonnell. The court stated that it has no opinion as to whether McDonnell should be retried under the stricter standard (described below) it imposed for these kinds of cases. I have mixed feelings about the outcome, but I agree with the decision. You don’t have to be the »

Democratic Party Hate Kills?

Featured image Omar Mateen was a registered Democrat and a vicious hater of America. Despite those facts, I don’t think the Democratic Party bears primary responsibility for Mateen’s murder of 49 Americans in Orlando. Granted, that is a nuanced view. It would be easy to blame the Democratic Party for a mass murder carried out by one of its own members. The “gay community,” on the other hand, isn’t just un-nuanced. It »

Even al Qaeda Knows Loretta Lynch Is a Dope

Featured image Al Qaeda publishes an English language magazine called “Inspire.” In the current issue, al Qaeda addresses Omar Mateen’s Orlando murders and offers advice to jihadists, as Foreign Desk News reports: While Mateen chose to target what the guide refers to as a “homosexual nightclub,” noting that killing gay people is “the most binding duty and closer to human nature,” it suggests to “avoid targeting places and crowds where minorities are »

Academic Absurdity of the Week: Darth Vader Studies [With Comment by John]

Featured image Just when you thought the Star Wars prequels couldn’t get any worse. You knew something like this was out there (“out there” in both senses of the term) in the journal Communication, Culture, and Critique: Darth Vader Made Me Do It! Anakin Skywalker’s Avoidance of Responsibility and the Gray Areas of Hegemonic Masculinity in the Star Wars Universe Joshua Atkinson (Bowling Green State University) and Bernadette Calafell (University of Denver) In this essay, we »

A Hillary-Elizabeth Warren Ticket? Say It Ain’t So!

Featured image Scuttlebutt these days points toward Hillary Clinton selecting Elizabeth Warren as her running mate. Not long ago, Warren was rather bitterly critical of Hillary, but all is now forgiven–the scourge of Wall Street and the candidate of Wall Street have come to a meeting of the minds. Today Clinton and Warren campaigned together, seemingly trying out their all-woman appeal. All I can say is: please, God, don’t let it happen! »

First They Came for My Commode . . .

Featured image If you want to understand why Brexit passed and why more revolts from us peasants are likely ahead, take in this story from The Telegraph today: EU to launch kettle and toaster crackdown after Brexit vote The EU is poised to ban high-powered appliances such as kettles, toasters, hair-dryers within months of Britain’s referendum vote, despite senior officials admitting the plan has brought them “ridicule”. The European Commission plans to unveil long-delayed »