Monthly Archives: November 2016
November 13, 2016 — Steven Hayward
A reader directs my attention to something I posted here back in June, which, because I write too much, I had forgotten about. It was one my speculative posts, intended to provoke thought. I don’t think Trump is the equal of De Gaulle in any respect, but willy-nilly Trump may be embodying some Gaullist politics that are largely forgotten now. So I agree that the post is worth reposting again
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November 13, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Whitman College President Kathleen Murray forwarded her message “to the campus community” to the parents of students who are paying the freight. I’m guessing that the parent who forwarded her message to us isn’t entirely thrilled to be paying for this particular lesson and is in need of a different kind of healing from the one that President Murray has on offer: From: Kathleen Murray [email address deleted] To: [deleted]
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November 13, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Leonard Cohen died this past week at the age of 82. Cohen was a man of many parts, having worked as a poet, novelist, singer and songwriter. Larry Rohter’s New York Times obituary is here. Ruth Wisse’s memorable 1995 Commentary essay/memoir “My life without Leonard Cohen” draws an engaging portrait of the artist as a young man. In 2013 Sylvie Simmons gave Cohen’s life the full-scale biographical treatment. Cohen worked
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November 12, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Some miscellany about the election: • Lefty comedian Bill Maher, on his HBO show last night: “The Democrats, to a lot of Americans, have become the boutique party of fake outrage and social engineering, and they’re not entirely wrong about that.” Maher isn’t going to be invited to many college campuses any time soon. Oh, wait. . . • I had this to say here on September 15: All of the
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November 12, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Donald Trump has been appointing members of his transition team, appointments that presumably foreshadow the ultimate composition of his administration. So far, I have been impressed by his choices. A case in point is Myron Ebell, who will lead Trump’s EPA transition team. The headline says it all: “Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition.” Donald Trump has selected one of the best-known climate skeptics to lead his
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November 12, 2016 — Scott Johnson
I may be mistaken, but I think we can generally count the YMCA/YWCA among the multifarious institutions subservient to the reigning shibboleths and clichés that dictate so much of the way we live now. Consider this message sent out by the YWCA Evanston/North Shore this past Thursday. The reader who forwards the message comments: “It offers both freakout and the sort of political partisanship by nonprofits masquerading as ‘diversity’ and
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November 12, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Today’s New York Times reports that prospective Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backs Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison for Democratic Party Chairman. (Minnesota’s Fifth District covers Minneapolis and its inner-ring suburbs.) In the wake of Clinton’s loss, the Democratic Party seems poised to move directly to the Axis of Sanders/Warren. I have previously argued here that Ellison was a forerunner of President Obama. I’d like to revisit the argument
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November 12, 2016 — Steven Hayward
Really, what else is there to say? Well, lots of course. Just keeping up with the leftist idiocy in the aftermath of The Trumpening is practically a full time job for us right now. More importantly, the occasion calls for a special double-issue of the Week in Pictures, not only with highlights from this week, but some Trumpian highlights from the last 18 months of our regular Saturday feature. Many
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November 11, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
A reader whose insights I value writes: I saw a comment yesterday that Trump’s success is a lot like Schwarzenegger’s in California. . .I suggest that what we are going to see is that Trump moves as did Schwarzenegger, being a basically a Democrat. The Trump victory speech showed this. Trump is going to keep the media liking him — the media is really his core industry. I think that
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November 11, 2016 — John Hinderaker
I heard someone say today that the person we should thank most for Trump’s victory is Jon Stewart. He had a point: support for Trump was, in large part, a rebellion against the smug liberal ignorance that Stewart embodies. Of course, when you think of smug liberal ignorance, the New York Times comes to mind. Today the Times sent the following email to its subscribers: To our readers, When the
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November 11, 2016 — Scott Johnson
Glenn Reynolds posts an email with an important postscript to “Freakout at General Mills.” The email sent to Glenn by an InstaPundit reader elucidates the addressees of the message sent out by General Mills’s Orwellian Vice President for Global Inclusion to employees traumatized by the election of Donald Trump: I worked over 15 years at General Mills, and what’s critical to note is that the addressing of Ken Charles’s note
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November 11, 2016 — Scott Johnson
In a delicious coda to the defeat of Lady Clinton in the election on Tuesday, Minneapolis Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison has emerged as a leading contender to take the helm of the Democratic National Committee. He hasn’t yet announced his bid, but he has won the support of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (from the Senate’s Marxist subcaucus, no surprise) as well as prospective Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
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November 11, 2016 — Steven Hayward
• I had almost forgotten one of the late M. Stanton Evans’s greatest quips, suddenly more salient. Stan, my first professional mentor out of college in 1981, liked to say: “It was really hard for us young conservatives to recover from the Goldwater defeat; it was all the worse because in those days we had no grief counselors.” Behold today’s college campuses. Stan would not have been surprised. And I’m
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November 11, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Melania Trump met yesterday with Michelle Obama at the White House. I doubt that two more physically attractive women have ever met in this context. The meeting went very well, according to all accounts. I suspect that’s what “all accounts” would say regardless of how the meeting actually went. However, I’d be very surprised if Michelle Obama was other than gracious and helpful to Melania Trump. The First Lady has
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November 11, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
From a letter by a Princeton student to the Daily Princetonian: . . .I crawled into bed and cried for reasons I still [can’t] quite put into words, falling asleep before the election was called. In the morning, I woke up to a New York Times news alert and social media feeds filled with disappointment. The United States had democratically elected a man who, among so many other despicable qualities
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November 11, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Fox News reports that Matt Maloney, the CEO of Grubhub, sent a company wide email Wednesday telling employees that if they agree with the views of President-elect Donald Trump, they should resign. Grubhub is an online food delivery service. Maloney, a Hillary Clinton supporterr, said: I absolutely reject the nationalist, anti-immigrant and hateful politics of Donald Trump and will work to shield our community from this movement as best as
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November 11, 2016 — Steven Hayward
The Re-Elect Trump 2020 campaign is off to a great start in the streets of many American cities and college campuses right now. As someone sagely commented, the left’s reaction to Trump’s election is one of the reasons Trump won the election. Rioters in Portland, Oregon, acted out the overdone metaphor of 2016 by setting an actual dumpster fire. Gotta give ‘em style points for that. It’s another great sign
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