Monthly Archives: July 2017

Light My Fire at 50

Featured image If you are still cruising for news, you probably know that Mooch has been fired and are up to speed on the Awan scandal. If you are looking for something completely different, you have come to the right place. Fifty years ago today, the Doors’ “Light My Fire” topped the rock and roll charts. It was the Doors’ first and biggest hit, and one of the classics of that, or »

By European Standards, Macron Is Courageous

Featured image During the French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron didn’t impress me. He seemed like the mother country’s version of Justin Trudeau. But earlier this month, he scandalized proper opinion in the EU with some straight talk about Africa: At a G20 summit press conference in Hamburg on July 8, French President Emmanuel Macron answered a call for an African “Marshall Plan” from a Cote d’Ivoire journalist. Macron’s stern, clear-eyed rebuff to »

The Day in Pictures: No More Mooching Special Edition

Featured image I was all set this morning to post up my picks for the best tweets of the day, when the news of Scaramucci’s dismissal came across the transom, and upended everything. I am wondering whether Trump is testing to see if he can crash Twitter completely with his daily drama. Still, since he have four more days till the Friday night close for our Week in Pictures gallery, it appears »

Mooch, we hardly knew ye (2)

Featured image In his first day on the job, Trump chief of staff John Kelly has engineered the removal of Anthony Scaramucci from the position of communications director to which Scaramucci himself had been named only 10 days ago. The New York Times reports here, Politico here. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Scaramucci’s departure. “Anthony Scaramucci will be leaving his role as White House Communications Director,” she said in »

The General is in the house [UPDATED]

Featured image When Gen. Kelly took over as President Trump’s chief of staff, the question many asked was what this meant for Anthony Scaramucci, the new communications director. Scaramucci had taken the job with the understanding that he would report directly to Trump, bypassing Reince Priebus who was then chief of staff. It seemed extremely unlikely that Kelly would be willing to labor under such an arrangement. Now we know that he »

Breaking: Mooch, We Hardly Knew Ye

Featured image I was tempted this morning to tweet out something like, “More chaos at the White House, or as they call it in Trump world, Monday.” Just now the news is breaking that Scaramucci is out—already—as White House communications director, apparently at the demand of new White House chief of staff John Kelly. The New York Times says, “It was not clear whether Mr. Scaramucci will remain employed at the White »

Climate Change Article of the Year

Featured image A couple years ago I offered here some totally heretical thoughts on why, from a long-term historical perspective, even radical climate change was not the existential threat to humanity that the Goreacles of the world constantly scream about. It was a very long post, but here are a couple of highlights: Let’s start with a question that no one ever discusses: where do human beings live on this planet? Inuits »

Trump Tells The Truth About Economy, AP Tries to Obfuscate

Featured image The Associated Press purports to fact-check President Trump on just about a daily basis, but anyone who pays attention knows the AP is just pushing the Democratic Party’s line. Today’s “fact check” is a good example: The Latest: Trump’s claims about economy not accurate. Only if you read the article, you find that Trump’s statements were indeed correct: President Donald Trump’s tweet Monday about economic progress under his administration isn’t »

“Trump goes rogue”

Featured image That’s the title of this New York Times op-ed by Matthew Continetti. He cites the firing of Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus, and says it sends the following message: After six months of trying to behave like a conventional Republican president, he’s done. His opponents now include not only the Democrats, but the elites of both political parties. This is a reasonable interpretation of where Trump is. The question is »

A welcome resignation at DHS

Featured image I try to write about both the good and the bad of the Trump administration, as I see things. Here’s an important addition to the good column: George Selim, a prominent Obama administration holdover known for engaging fringe Islamic radicals, has resigned from the Department of Homeland Security. Selim left his post as director of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). . . . A DHS source familiar with the situation. . »

Defense and discrimination

Featured image Reversing a late-breaking change in policy effected by the Obama administration, President Trump announced via Twitter last week that those of the transgender persuasion would be barred from military service. “Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory,” he explained. He added that the military should not be “burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.” Is this an issue that »

David Horowitz: Why the Middle East Is a Disaster

Featured image In recent years, one catastrophe has followed upon another in the Middle East. In a bracing essay authored for Power Line, David Horowitz lays blame where it belongs, at the feet of the Obama administration: During the eight years of the Obama administration, half a million Christians, Yazidis and Muslims were slaughtered in the Middle East by ISIS and other Islamic jihadists, in a genocidal campaign waged in the name »

Princeton to “re-educate” its male students

Featured image Princeton University is looking to hire an “Interpersonal Violence Clinician and Men’s Engagement Manager.” In addition to providing clinical support for the men at Princeton, “[t]he Manager will develop and implement men’s programming initiatives geared toward enhancing awareness and challenging gender stereotypes…” If you want to apply for the job, you had better be a leftist. Two of the “essential qualifications” are: (1) a “Masters or doctorate in social work, »

Are Plastics Forever?

Featured image Plastics are commonly portrayed as environmental villains. It is alleged that they never biodegrade, and therefore persist indefinitely in the environment. A few years ago it was even claimed, absurdly, that there are giant floating islands in the oceans, described in some quarters as “twice the size of Texas,” consisting of plastic. None of that is true. Kip Hansen provides a useful corrective at Watts Up With That: The simple »

Tony the Moocher

Featured image A popular meme that went around immediately after the appointment of Anthony Scaramucci channeled the question from the old Queen hit: Can he do the Fandango? The answer is a plain No: Scaramucci is neither Bohemian nor rhapsodic. Since our new communications director goes by “The Mooch,” perhaps the better pop culture comparison is the classic Cab Calloway tune, “Minnie the Moocher.” So with apologies to Cab Calloway, here’s the »

Civil War on the Left, Part 45: The Banality of Chelsea

Featured image We noted here a couple of months back the obvious truth that Chelsea Clinton is a nitwit. Who knew, however, that a leftist would stumble across this fact? Prof. Corey Robin of Brooklyn College, author of a book popular among leftists called The Reactionary Mind that purports to explain conservatism (gee: I wonder if we can figure out the thesis from the title), got into an argument recently with Chelsea. »

Stand by your Awan

Featured image Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller reports that Debbie Wasserman Schultz seemed prepared to pay cyber-probe suspect and IT aide Imran Awan even while he was living in Pakistan, if the FBI hadn’t stopped him from leaving the U.S. This is only the latest indication of Wasserman Schultz’s immense loyalty to Awan. As we noted here, the IT scandal involving the Awan family broke in February. It centered around the »