Monthly Archives: November 2017

Will There Ever Be An Accounting On North Korea?

Featured image Today North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that stayed airborne for close to an hour and flew farther than any previously tested by that country. Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters that the Kim regime now has the ability to to hit “everywhere in the world basically.” And, of course, the regime has nuclear weapons. Further: The US believes Pyongyang may be able to put a miniaturized warhead on »

The Inquisition at Laurier University

Featured image I’m late coming to the story about the graduate student instructor, Ms. Lindsay Shepherd, at Wilfred Laurier University in Canada, who ran afoul of the university’s political correctness police for the thoughtcrime of showing in class a short video of Prof. Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto, who objects to legislation requiring the use of the whole visible spectrum of self-generated gender pronouns. A student (or students—the university won’t »

Rep. Gutierrez to retire

Featured image Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the Democrats’ point man in the fight for amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, will announce that he’s retiring after 13 terms in office, according to the Washington Post. The Post reports that Gutierrez has scheduled an afternoon news conference in Chicago to make a “major announcement regarding the March 2018 Democratic Primary election and the national political landscape.” Presumably, he will announce his »

Sexual harassment or hurt feelings?

Featured image Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Houston, is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). These days, he’s crusading to impeach President Trump. The “reckoning” for accused sexual harassers, including CBC founder Rep. John Conyers, thus comes at a bad time for Green. A decade ago, he was an accused sexual harasser. The accuser was the director of his Houston office, Lucinda Daniels. The two had sex together. That’s »

The German Question, Again

Featured image As noted here a few days ago, Chancellor Angela Merkel is having trouble putting together a coalition government in Germany following a terrible showing in the last election. The German result was similar to the recent French election in one respect: it represents a repudiation of the main ruling parties. There is one big difference: while the French economy continues to stagnate, the German economy is arguably the best in »

Charles McCullough speaks

Featured image Paul wrote about Catherine Herridge’s interview with former Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough III here last night. Listening to McCullough discuss the events that thrust him into the Clinton email scandal, we are reminded of the seriousness of Hillary Clinton’s wrongdoing, of Barack Obama’s dishonesty, and of former DNi James Clapper’s political hackery. Herridge’s interview with McCullough in the clip below is followed by Tucker Carlson’s discussion with Clinton »

O’Keefe’s exploding cigar

Featured image James O’Keefe had a brainstorm. He thought he could peddle a fraudulent Roy Moore sex scandal to the reporters of the Washington Post. Instead the reporters scoped out O’Keefe’s fraud and reported that instead. The Post even traced the woman who dealt with its reporters to O’Keefe’s offices in New York (video below). Mediaite’s Ken Meyer has a brief summary here; Hot Air’s Allahpundit reports and comments at some length »

Al Franken regrets

Featured image A stringer for 5 Eyewitness News in the Twin Cities caught up with Al Franken on his apology tour yesterday. It looks like the interview was conducted on outside the house of Franken’s daughter, where he had been holed up over the long Thanksgiving weekend. I have embedded the whole thing below (about 7 minutes). The quality of the interview pales in comparison to that conducted by Esme Murphy on »

Latest from the Electric Slide

Featured image China has built its first all-electric cargo ship: A Chinese company has built a 2,000 metric-ton (2,204 tons) all-electric cargo ship, which was launched from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in mid-November, according to state-run newspaper People’s Daily. The 70-meter long (229 feet) and 14-meter wide (45 feet) ship is equipped with over 1,000 lithium batteries, with a total capacity of 2,400 kilowatt-hours. By comparison, Tesla’s Model X is »

How Democrats turned on Charles McCullough

Featured image In January 2016, in response to an inquiry, Charles McCullough III, the Intelligence Community inspector general, informed the Republican leadership on the Senate intelligence and foreign affairs committees that emails beyond the “Top Secret” level passed through Hillary Clinton’s unsecured personal server. Democrats immediately responded by trying to intimidate McCullough. Scott documented this effort in a January 25, 2016 post that highlighted threatening comments by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff. The »

On Pocahontas, Sarah Sanders Gets the Last Word

Featured image Earlier today, Paul wrote about Elizabeth Warren’s claim that President Trump’s referring to her as “Pocahontas” was a racial slur–a claim that I think is ridiculous, as I said when I added my two cents’ worth to Paul’s post. During today’s White House press briefing, several Democratic Party reporters tried to take up the cudgels on behalf of their party and Sen. “Fauxcahontas” Warren. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders responded admirably. »

Sadly, the Koch Brothers Aren’t Buying Time, Inc.

Featured image Meredith Corporation, a major magazine publisher headquartered in Iowa, has agreed to buy Time, Inc. for a little under $3 billion. The New York Times sheds tears over the transaction, referring to Time, Inc. as “the publisher of once-prestigious magazine titles including Time, Sports Illustrated and People.” Did they suddenly become non-prestigious now that the company is being bought by Meredith? Perhaps so. The Times explains that “Time Inc. is »

Is “Pocahontas” a racial slur? [UPDATED] [With Comment By John]

Featured image Today, President Trump honored the “code talkers,” Native American soldiers who were deployed during the world wars to send messages between units in their native languages — an almost unbreakable code. During World War II, Navajo men were recruited and used for this purpose. Surviving Navajos came to the White House for the event in their honor. After one of the code talkers gave a speech, Trump put aside his »

The left clings to power at the CFPB

Featured image The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the federal agency that’s supposed to protect consumers in the financial sector. It was created by the Dodd-Frank Act. The CFPB’s director heads the agency free from presidential supervision. Given the CFPB’s broad authority over the U.S. economy, the director “enjoys significantly more unilateral power than any single member of any other independent agency.” So said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the »

Today’s News in the Administrative State

Featured image Today may go down in history as one of the crucial turning points in the reversal of the Administrative State. The Supreme Court is hearing Oil States Energy v. Greene’s Energy, where the issue of whether administrative law judges beholden to executive agencies, rather than bona fide Article III judges and juries at trial, can decide whether or not patent property rights deserve protection. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has a »

A Visual Lesson in Energy Density

Featured image I normally try to stay away from posting complicated charts and graphs, for the simple reason that they are hard to decode. But the chart below, from Max Roser, the project director of the terrific “Our World in Data” site housed at Oxford University, is just too brilliant not to pass along. It shows in two panels how pathetic is the energy contribution of wind and solar power, and why »

Franken: Just very, very sorry

Featured image Last night CBS Minnesota broadcast excerpts of the interview Al Franken gave to anchor/reporter Esme Murphy at his daughter’s home in Washington, where he rode out the storm over the long Thanksgiving weekend during which he issued laughable and inconsistent statements on his misconduct. CBS Minnesota has posted the broadcast report (video below, about six minutes) and a companion summary here. It has also posted the entire 33-minute interview. If »