Monthly Archives: February 2019
February 28, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
1956 was my first season as a baseball fan. That year Mickey Mantle had one of the best seasons ever by a hitter. He won the Triple Crown with a batting average of .353, 52 home runs, and 130 RBIs. His on-base average plus slugging percentage was 1.169. I resisted the temptation to become a New York Yankees fan, opting instead for the hometown Washington Senators. Their star, Roy Sievers,
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February 28, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta is under fire from nearly all sides over the sweetheart deal he gave to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein when Acosta was a U.S. Attorney in Florida. The fire is all the more intense because a Florida federal judge has now ruled that, in the process of giving Epstein his deal, Acosta violated federal victims’ rights law. Editorialists of all political stripes have called on Acosta to
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February 28, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Back in 1983, the British Labour Party, traumatized by Margaret Thatcher, contested a general election on a distinctly anti-American platform calling for unilateral disarmament, stepped up socialism, and other crazy ideas that the British press called the longest suicide note any political party had ever proposed. (They also couldn’t help themselves by embracing a offensive slogan about Thatcher, “Ditch the bitch!”) Thatcher crushed Labour, in one of the largest landslides
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February 28, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Like Paul, I am much relieved to see the news today that Neomi Rao’s nomination to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has passed out of the Judiciary Committee, with Sen. Josh Hawley voting yes. I’ve been holding back in commenting on this story. (Also I’m traveling.) I guess I should, in the spirit of disclosure that journalists follow these days, tell my favorite Neomi Rao story, as I do
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February 28, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
This morning, the Senate Judiciary advanced the nomination of Neomi Rao to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The vote in favor of Rao was 12-10, along straight party lines. Both Committee Republicans who had expressed doubts about Rao — Sens. Joni Ernst and Josh Hawley — voted in her favor. Ernst had indicated some time ago that her concern about Rao’s student writings on rape had
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February 28, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has published several papers on what is to be learned from the documents included in Israel’s heist from the Iranian nuclear archive. These papers are by experts on Iran’s nuclear program; they know what they are talking about. In the most recent of these papers — “The Iranian Nuclear Archive: Implications and Recommendations” — David Albright, Olli Heinonen, and Andrea Stricker summarize what is
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February 28, 2019 — Scott Johnson
In the third installment of our preview of the new (Winter) issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here), Algis Valiunas takes up Francis Parkman’s monumental history of the settling of North America and the contest between France and England for control. Parkman’s work has itself receded into history that exists only to be renounced and condemned. In the review/essay “Battle for a continent,” Algis declines to subscribe to
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February 28, 2019 — Scott Johnson
President Trump’s summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un — this one in Hanoi — has concluded with no agreement. I have embedded Trump’s 37-minute press conference with Secretary Pompeo in its entirety below (thank you, MSNBC). It is worth a close look. Kim wanted sanctions lifted in their entirety in exchange for too much of nothing (the dismantling of the Yongbyon nuclear complex). It had always worked for Kim
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February 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that Sen. Tom Cotton is privately raising questions about Neomi Rao, President Trump’s nominee to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Says the Post, “though he hasn’t voiced them publicly, Cotton shares concerns outlined by Sen. Josh Hawley earlier this week about Rao’s judicial philosophy, which Hawley detailed in a letter to Rao earlier Tuesday.” Sen. Cotton is a Harvard
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February 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Earlier this year, I wrote about how the Supreme Court was ducking important issues about the rights of gay and transgender individuals. The questions it has been avoiding are (1) whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual preference and (2) whether it prohibits discrimination based on transgender status. Together, these two questions affect the rights of millions, if not tens of
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February 27, 2019 — Steven Hayward
The media and the Acela corridor are fixated today on the Michael Cohen saga like a hungry kid outside a candy store, looking for a sugar rush to sate their Trump Derangement Syndrome. But it is still rather amazing that even our ego-centric, Beltway-obsessed media is giving almost no attention to the possibility that full scale war may be about to break out between India and Pakistan. I’m having to
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February 27, 2019 — John Hinderaker
We have reached peak absurdity in our public life: CNN says that President Trump is trying to achieve denuclearization of North Korea in order to distract us from its wall to wall coverage of Michael Cohen: I am going to be at CNN’s Washington, D.C. studio in a few hours for an appearance on Sky News in Australia. It’s going to be like venturing into a parallel universe where up
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February 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post tells us that experts at Stanford University chart the degree of risk of war with North Korea, as they perceive it, on a color-coded chart. Bright red indicates high risk. When Barack Obama left office, eight out of 11 boxes were bright red. When President Trump started calling North Korea’s dictator “Little Rocket Man,” the number of such boxes increased to nine. Now, with the diplomatic relations
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February 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The New York Times has posted the prepared testimony of Michael Cohen to the House Oversight Committee this morning. Cohen is of course the former Trump attorney, now disbarred and convicted of sundry crimes including lying to Congress. He is trying to make it up by testifying against Trump. Julian Assange and Wikileaks make a token appearance, as does Trump Tower Moscow. According to Cohen, Trump is a racist, conman
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February 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
We continue our preview of the new (Winter) issue of the Claremont Review of Books hot off the press. It went into the mail on Monday and is accessible online to to subscribers now. Buy an annual subscription including immediate online access here for the modest price of $19.95. It is an invaluable magazine for those of us who love trustworthy essays on, and reviews of books about, politics, history,
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February 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said yesterday that the Justice Department should not reveal information about people it does not charge with a crime. The Washington Post views this as “an ominous sign for those hoping the department will soon disclose the closely held details of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of President Trump and his campaign.” In reality, Rosenstein is unlikely to have any say about what the Justice
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February 26, 2019 — John Hinderaker
I’ll be attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in D.C., starting tomorrow night. I will be representing Center of the American Experiment; we will have a booth, and one of my staffers is coming along (as is my wife). I will try to report periodically. Tomorrow night I will be on Sky News in Australia with Andrew Bolt, talking about the upcoming Mueller report. On Thursday I will do a
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