Monthly Archives: March 2017
March 27, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I don’t mean “is time dead?” in the Einstein/quantum mechanics sense of special relativity, but rather, “Is Time magazine dead?” Time has shown up this week with an homage of sorts to one of its most famous covers from 1967, “Is God Dead?” While the cover designs are identical, it is worth mentioning a third in Time‘s “Is [something] dead?” series: in 1989, Time ran a cover wondering, “Is Government
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March 27, 2017 — John Hinderaker
This lengthy New York Times story is unintentionally hilarious. Here is the headline: “Amid ‘Trump Effect’ Fear, 40% of Colleges See Dip in Foreign Applicants.” Just for fun, a screen shot: Note that the headline doesn’t say there has been a 40% drop in foreign applications, but rather that 40% of institutions have seen a drop. Meaning that 60% haven’t. But the article is all about how Donald Trump is
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March 27, 2017 — John Hinderaker
As we have written several times, Senate Democrats made fools of themselves during the Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. That won’t deter them, apparently, from a filibuster that will embarrass them once more. As Senator Chuck Grassley said, “If you’ll filibuster Neil Gorsuch, you’d filibuster anyone.” Anyone nominated by a Republican president, that is. Michael Ramirez sums up the proceedings beautifully. Click
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March 27, 2017 — Scott Johnson
PolitiFact has updated its post rating Hugh Hewitt’s assertion of the Obamacare death spiral False. PolitiFact continues the argument by addressing Hugh’s tweets and reiterates its rating of his statement as False. As Hugh indicated to us, PolitiFact says it contacted Hugh yesterday at noon by email to Hugh’s booker. PolitiFact posts a screenshot of the email to Hugh’s booker in the update. Hugh responds: Glad to see they covered
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March 27, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
From the Washington Post: President Trump cast blame Sunday for the collapse of his effort to overhaul the health-care system on conservative interest groups and far-right Republican lawmakers, shifting culpability to his own party after initially faulting Democratic intransigence. His attack — starting with a tweet that singled out the House Freedom Caucus as well as the influential Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America — marked a new
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March 27, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Michael Ledeen wonders whether President Trump has “a strategy to win the global war.” Michael discerns none. Instead, he sees our enemies and adversaries making inroads, while the U.S. counters mostly with words and, in the case of Russia, “the usual sanctions.” What is our policy? It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. We say we want Iran out of Syria, but we’re in league with the Iranians in some
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March 27, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Our friend Hugh Hewitt appeared on the Meet the Press panel of pundits yesterday. They naturally addressed the failure of the repeal-and-replace Obamacare bill in the House. In the course of the discussion Hugh asserted that Obamacare is in a death spiral. This is a point that conservatives and Republicans have frequently made. President Trump himself made it in his own way on Saturday morning. ObamaCare will explode and we
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March 26, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
A “Make America Great Again” march today in Huntington Beach, California turned violent when anti-Trump protesters, who were trying to block the march, used pepper spray against march participants. According to this report from the Orange County Register: As the marchers, many in MAGA hats or carrying American flags, walked down the bike path from Pacific Coast Highway and Warner Avenue, about a dozen protesters wearing black masks formed a
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March 26, 2017 — John Hinderaker
On February 28, the New York Times magazine published a long, dark essay by left-winger Emily Bazelon on the prospects for President Trump’s Department of Justice–or, as the Times headline put it, “Department of Justification.” The article, which focuses on Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, isn’t worth reading. It exemplifies the far-left hysteria with which we are all too familiar. A prominent theme is that Republicans don’t care
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March 26, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Six years ago, retired Air Force officer Arnold Davis, a resident of Guam, tried to register to vote on a plebiscite regarding Guam’s future. His application was rejected and marked as “void” by the Guam Election Commission Why? Because Guam banned residents from registering or voting unless they are Chamorro “natives,” which to the territorial government means people whose ancestors were original inhabitants of Guam. Chamorros constitute only about 36
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March 26, 2017 — John Hinderaker
This is an excellent example of why it is important to have the presidency in sane hands: EPA chief: Trump to undo Obama plan to curb global warming. President Donald Trump in the coming days will sign a new executive order that unravels his predecessor’s sweeping plan to curb global warming, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday. EPA chief Scott Pruitt said the executive order to be
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March 26, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Liberals are gloating that the defeat of the American Health Care Act means that Trump’s presidency is over. “The stunning collapse of the Republican health-care bill now imperils the rest of President Trump’s ambitious congressional agenda,” the Washington Post says this morning. It was surely a blunder to unveil a hastily-prepared health care bill that the Republican leadership thought could be simply rammed through, and this raises questions about whether
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March 26, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The Southern Poverty Law Center has become a scam operating as a left-wing hate cult. A 2014 Washington Times editorial nails it. I don’t think the SPLC has made a constructive contribution to anything in a long time, but it has played a particularly malign and malicious role in the case of Charles Murray. He has let it go until now; now he talks back. As he explains: For years,
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March 26, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The Senate Judiciary Committee held the confirmation hearing on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court last week. Democratic members distinguished themselves with the vacuity of their attacks on Gorsuch. The Washington Free Beacon performs a public service in compiling the video below; the video condenses the lowlights into a one-minute reel. Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken earn their pride of place here. What is to
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March 26, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Aretha Franklin — the Queen of Soul, as Steely Dan reminded the “sweet young thing” in “Hey Nineteen” — turned 75 yesterday. The metaphor of royal lineage is not entirely amiss in her case. Her father, the Reverend C.L. Franklin, was the renowned Detroit preacher whose New Bethel Baptist Church provided the original venue for Aretha and her sisters, Erma and Carolyn. She became a child star as a gospel
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March 25, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
My take on the political implications of the House’s failure to pass the GOP’s repeal-and-replace bill differs a little bit from John’s. In my view, the Democrats have good reason to be pleased by that failure, as things stand now. The Democrats’ argument is straightforward. As Scott says, Republicans have been running against Obamacare for years — promising to repeal and replace it. Yet, with a big majority in House
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March 25, 2017 — John Hinderaker
England has been shaken by the terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge and Parliament that was carried out last Wednesday by Khalid Masood, whose real name was Adrian Elms or Adrian Ajao. As more information has come out about the terrorist, a number of observations can be made. 1) Masood/Elms/Ajao was an unusual terrorist in some ways, and typical in others. Like nearly all Islamic terrorists, he had a middle-class upbringing
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