Monthly Archives: March 2019
March 29, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Much of what we read in the news is trivial. This isn’t. I have been hearing about the threat posed by electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) for quite a few years. A high altitude EMP can occur if a nuclear device is detonated over the Earth’s surface. It potentially could wipe out all electrical systems, effectively disabling the United States. Some estimate that an EMP attack could kill 90 percent of Americans.
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March 29, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I decided to post up the new episode of our podcast a day or two early, to take advantage of opening day yesterday. Have you had enough of the Mueller Report? Done smoldering over Smollett? Jazzed at opening day for MLB? Then have we got the show for you! This episode features a conversation with Henry Olsen about the lessons of the 2018 midterm, how the Democratic presidential field for 2020
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March 29, 2019 — Steven Hayward
Scott’s two posts on his and Victor Davis Hanson’s treatment by The New Yorker calls to mind one of the first and most important lessons I learned from my mentor in journalism, the great M. Stanton Evans. Most “mainstream” journalists are not merely biased, but have a narrative story line in mind when they begin “reporting,” so that when they call you on the phone, they aren’t looking for actual
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March 29, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and the Trump administration’s nominee for Associate Attorney General, the number three position at the Justice Department. Liu’s nomination concerned me because she was the Vice President of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) when that organization opposed and condemned the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. NAWL stated: [Alito] is not qualified
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March 29, 2019 — Scott Johnson
New Yorker staff writer Benjamin Wallace-Wells defamed me in passing, drive-by style, in his profile of Ilhan Omar on Wednesday. I say I was “Sideswiped by the New Yorker.” I emailed Wallace-Wells on Wednesday afternoon to ask him to state the factual basis for his falsehoods about me. As of this morning, he has not responded. Neither has he responded to my inquiry about the fact-checking apparatus the New Yorker
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March 29, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll is celebrating an anniversary, but I think we are the ones who should be celebrating: THE COLUMN TURNS FIVE. She writes: Historically, March has always meant St. Patrick’s Day, depressing hockey-tournament blizzards in Minnesota just when you thought winter was ending, and the NCAA March Madness tournaments. And now the world must add: the anniversary of my “Thoughts From the Ammo Line” column on Power Line! And this
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March 28, 2019 — John Hinderaker
President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan put liberals in a bind. They didn’t know whether to respond by saying, “America is greater than ever”–after all, Barack Obama had been president for the last eight years–or by saying what they really thought, “America has never been great.” Mostly they just fumed. Yesterday on MSNBC, President Obama’s self-described “wing man,” Eric Holder, came out of the closet: host Ari Melber had
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March 28, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
During the first term of George W. Bush, I attended a Passover Seder. One of the other guests delivered a long riff about some non-Iraq-related conspiracy Bush supposedly had formulated. I deadpanned, “Wow, that guy sounds like an evil genius.” The guest, who did not know my political leanings replied, “I wouldn’t say genius.” More sophisticated Bush-haters solved the problem I raised with my quip through Vice President Cheney. He
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March 28, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Amber Athey of the Daily Caller has compiled a list of the worst offenders among news anchors and reporters who, as she puts it, “gave breathless coverage to the alleged [Russia collusion] scandal and ultimately misled the public.” She names 15 offenders. Naturally, Rachel Maddow heads the list. She built her program around the phony collusion story. Below is a sampling of others singled out by Athey, but do read
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March 28, 2019 — Scott Johnson
On March 11 we received an email from New Yorker staff writer Benjamin Wallace-Walls. With the subject line “Reporter’s query / The New Yorker / Ilhan Omar,” here is the text of his message: Hello, The message is for Scott Johnson. Scott, this is Ben Wallace-Wells – I’m a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine, and I’m working on a small piece about Ilhan Omar. I’m wondering if you
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March 28, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Our current immigration law must be reformed to prevent the “refugee” scam exploited by those crossing illegally from Central America, but it’s not even under discussion. The needed reform is a legal wall that could be erected at no cost, but it is of course a nonstarter with the Democrats. For the Democrats, illegal immigration is a religion that rivals “climate change.” A reader who asks to remain anonymous writes
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March 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Peter Baker, the talented New York Times journalist, frets that Robert Mueller’s investigation has erased a line drawn after Watergate. Baker writes: After Watergate, it was unthinkable that a president would fire an F.B.I. director who was investigating him or his associates. Or force out an attorney general for failing to protect him from an investigation. Or dangle pardons before potential witnesses against him. But the end of the inquiry
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March 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
According to the Daily Caller, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow lost half-a-million viewers in just one week after it became clear that Robert Mueller did not find enough evidence to support a claim of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. The phony Russia collusion story had been good to Maddow. It helped drive her show consistently to first or second place in overall cable news ratings during the past year.
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March 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The CWBChicago site has posted the Chicago Police Department’s redacted investigative file in the Smollett case. Having made a freedom of information request for the file yesterday, the department responded today. That’s an extraordinarily prompt response. The file was to have been deep-sixed by now. I include CWBChicago’s links to the file records as provided in the following explanation: CWBChicago is posting the complete Chicago Police Department investigative file on
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March 27, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Andy McCarthy criticizes Robert Mueller’s for “abdicating” on the issue of obstruction of justice — that is, leaving it to Attorney General Barr to decide whether President Trump committed that criminal offense. I made the same point here. McCarthy highlights the fact that Mueller knew Barr would find no obstruction of justice by Trump. Mueller knew this from Barr’s commentary on the issue as a private citizen. Barr argued that
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March 27, 2019 — John Hinderaker
To say that it has been a tough week for the Democratic Party is an understatement. Yesterday Mitch McConnell obliged grandstanding Democrats by bringing the Green New Deal resolution up for a vote in the Senate. The Democrats regarded this as a dirty trick, evidently because they do not intend their policy proposals to be taken seriously. The Senate vote was 57-0 against the Green New Deal. Almost all Senate
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March 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
NBC imported the idea for the satirical news show That Was The Week That Was from the BBC in 1964. I can’t find a kinescope of the American version on YouTube, but you can come up with an episode of the British original as well as a 2006 BBC documentary about the BBC show. It’s only Wednesday a.m. and yet we already have a week overfilled with news — this
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