Monthly Archives: December 2016

Slow Learner in Germany?

Featured image Looks like Angela Merkel may be starting to get it. From the BBC: Merkel: Islamist terror is ‘greatest threat’ to Germany Islamist terrorism is the biggest challenge facing Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has said in her New Year message. Referring to the deadly truck attack in Berlin by a Tunisian asylum seeker, she said it was “sickening” when acts of terror were carried out by people who had sought protection. »

Books for 2016 and beyond

Featured image Tevi Troy offers his selections for the best books of 2016. At the top of the list is Yuval Levin’s Fractured Republic, which I discussed here (Steve’s podcast with Yuval is here.) It is certainly among the best books I read this year. So is Tevi’s own contribution, Shall We Wake the President?. Ross Douthat of the New York Times offers a different sort of list — “books for the »

Is “Grizzly Steppe” Really a Russian Operation?

Featured image I wrote here about the Obama administration’s underwhelming report, purporting to show that the malware that infected the Democratic National Committee’s email system was planted by Russia. The report is unimpressive in part because it consists mostly of pedestrian advice to IT professionals about computer security. This is the report’s description of the “Grizzly Steppe” malware: Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) IOCs associated with RIS cyber actors are provided within the »

Washington Post Blows Story on Vermont Utility, Russia

Featured image The Washington Post trumpeted a story that initially was headlined “Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont.” The story was obviously intended to contribute to the “election hacking” hysteria that the Democrats have ginned up, arising from the intrusion by persons unknown into Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s email account. But the Post blew the story: it turned out that malware was found on a laptop owned by Burlington »

Why the Left Secretly Loves Trump

Featured image Forget all the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the left. That’s just for show. Remember that the left was never very enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton, and are not sorry to have seen her lose. Trump’s victory, however, provides the left with something much more important that patronage in Washington DC: it provides them with the supposed evidence to bolster their essential hatred and contempt for America, and endless opportunities »

Cops killed less, got killed more in 2016

Featured image The Washington Post declares: “Despite ongoing national scrutiny of police tactics, the number of fatal shootings by officers in 2016 remained virtually unchanged from last year when nearly 1,000 people were killed by police.” There are a few problems with this declaration. First, by the Post’s count, the number of fatal shootings by officers decreased by more than 3 percent this year — down from 991 to 957. Second, the »

Epstein blows the whistle on Snowden

Featured image Edward Jay Epstein’s Wall Street Journal column “The fable of Edward Snowden” (accessible here via Google) blows the whistle on Snowden and his presentation as a whistleblower, both by himself and his media enablers. In the column Ed summarizes the findings in his forthcoming book How America Lost Its Secrets. Ed previews his findings in the video below with the Journal’s Mary Kissel. Ed is in my opinion the foremost »

Whole lotta lyin’ goin’ on

Featured image By just about everyone’s reckoning, the so-called signature achievements of the Obama years are the enactment of Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal. They have a lot in common. Both are ruinous and both were founded on an edifice of bald-faced lies. President Obama is the lyin’ king and these are the lyin’ years. We recall the foundational lies of Obamacare: If you like your insurance plan, you can keep »

The Year in Pictures: From Brexit to Trumpit Edition

Featured image Well, to paraphrase the famous Car Talk sign off, you’ve wasted another perfectly good year making our picture gallery your Saturday morning coffee creamer. Obviously Trump was the big story of 2016, with Brexit running a close second. Both have in common that they drove liberals out of their minds, except that is redundant. Now we get to enjoy President Trump, who I predict will be even more fun to »

Can We Return Our President? Please?!

Featured image It is that time of year, when millions of Americans are returning Christmas gifts. Which makes one wonder: can we return President Obama? Michael Ramirez raises the question. Click to enlarge: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could tell someone, We changed our minds. We want to return President Obama! Well, that is more or less what happened in November. Most Americans are glad to say goodbye to the Obama »

How not to appeal to the white voters Hillary lost

Featured image The Democrats lost the presidential election this year due to a shortage of votes from two main groups: African-Americans and working class Whites in the industrial Midwest. Thus, you might think that in choosing a new DNC chairman, Democrats would select someone with appeal to both groups. After all, the chairman will be the face of the Democratic party for a while. The Democrats, though, likely will select either Keith »

Why Immigration Is a Major Issue

Featured image This isn’t the only reason, but it is an important one: Mexican man charged with raping a 13-year-old girl on a bus had NINETEEN deportations and removals. Liberals don’t ride buses, but the rest of us are horrified: A Mexican man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus that traveled through Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since »

“Grizzly Steppe”: Is This a Joke?

Featured image The Obama administration is retaliating against Russia for hacking into Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s email account. It would have been much better if the administration had reacted when Russia hacked into the White House’s and State Department’s computers in 2014, but, as Glenn Reynolds says, at that time only national security was at stake, while now, it’s something really important: the Democratic Party’s power. So yesterday the administration released its long-anticipated report »

British PM repudiates Kerry’s attack on Israel

Featured image British Prime Minister Theresa May has criticized John Kerry’s oration on the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kerry called Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition “the most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements.” And, of course, he condemned Israeli settlement building as a threat to the “two-state solution.” May responded that her government “[does] not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the »

MSNBC’s Fab Year in Review

Featured image A lot of folks are saying that 2016 was something like the worst years ever, because Trump. Or something. Anyway, the good folks at the Washington Free Beacon have put together this delicious highlight reel of MSNBC’s greatest hits from the year. (Just three minutes long.) »

Got the NFL Blues? [with comment by Paul]

Featured image As has been widely remarked, TV ratings for the NFL are down sharply this year. I don’t have an opinion about whether it is partly to to Colin Kaepernick’s capers, or other defects of the game today, but at least we still have NFL cheerleaders to cheer us up. Unless you’re a Cleveland Browns fan. There, apparently, even the cheerleaders can’t cheer up anyone. That’s the subject of our Video »

Kerry me back

Featured image John Kerry has done a lot of damage in the course of a long public career. As Secretary of State in the Obama administration, the man has met the man. Seth Lipsky takes Kerry’s measure this week in the New York Sun on Kerry’s career. Seth writes that it looks like “Kerry is determined to go out the way he came in — wrapping himself in the flag while betraying »