Monthly Archives: June 2019
June 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
If you want to understand the current state of the conflict with Iran, I urge you to read Michael Doran’s invaluable Mosaic essay “What Iran is really up to.” The stakes are high and the conflict is complicated. The mainstream media are acting as little more than a vehicle of Iranian/Democratic disinformation and propaganda. This week’s Tikvah podcast features Doran and is posted here at Mosaic. I have embedded it
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June 27, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Amanda Seitz and Beatrice Dupuy purport to straighten out benighted conservatives on the curious case of Ilhan Omar in the current edition of the AP’s “NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week.” The lesson is delivered in this week’s edition of the AP’s “ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories
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June 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I played a different drinking game than the ones Steve recommended for tonight’s Democratic debate. I filled my Power Line mug with tea and took a sip every time one of the candidates said something I agree with. Had it not been for John Delaney, the former Maryland congressman, I would have ended up with a full cup of very cold tea. But the question isn’t whether I agreed with
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June 26, 2019 — Steven Hayward
So I watched. It wasn’t easy, but I had some good help: Who won? That’s easy. Donald Trump. There were lots of take-it-to-the-bank moments, but maybe the best was when one of the candidates—Fidel Castro, or is it Julian Castro? it is hard to tell—said it was essential that the government not only provide abortions for all women, but also for all trans-women. The Saturday Night Live writers must be
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June 26, 2019 — John Hinderaker
First of all, I didn’t watch it. I followed the Twins on Gamecast. They won 6-4 and are now 52-27, best record in the American League. But my wife and daughters watched, and based on their innumerable texts, here are some thoughts: * Before the debate, there was speculation that Elizabeth Warren was the only first-tier candidate, and may dominate. That didn’t happen. The Washington Post counted the words spoken
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June 26, 2019 — John Hinderaker
I wrote here about the explosive Project Veritas report on Google’s left-wing bias, which featured testimony from a whistleblower and surreptitious video of a Google executive, along with some company documents. There was a follow-up, which I wrote about here, involving a Google “transparency and ethics” group that characterized Dennis Prager, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro as “Nazis.” Yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on tech companies’ use
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June 26, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Michael Ramirez used this post by Paul as the premise for today’s cartoon, which features Bernie Sanders. Click to enlarge: It will be interesting to see whether, in tonight’s debate, any of the other candidates call Sanders out for his utterly impractical giveaways, which could be financed only by fairy dust or, perhaps, modern monetary theory. Which, come to think of it, is about the same thing. Finally, let’s hope
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June 26, 2019 — Steven Hayward
I’m behind in a roundup of important signs and signals of the crisis engulfing our colleges and universities right now, but there’s one story out this week that deserves flagging for immediate attention: Two-Thirds of American Employees Regret Their College Degrees A college education is still considered a pathway to higher lifetime earnings and gainful employment for Americans. Nevertheless, two-thirds of employees report having regrets when it comes to their
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June 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Pete Buttigieg’s presidential candidacy interested me for a few days. Then, I realized that he’s just another hack liberal politician. I reached that conclusion based mainly on Buttigieg’s treatment of Mike Pence. When Pence was governor of Indiana, his relations with Mayor Pete of South Bend, were excellent by all credible accounts. Pence’s religious-based view of homosexuality had zero impact on his dealings with Buttigieg. He wanted Buttigieg to succeed
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June 26, 2019 — Steven Hayward
• (Checking inventory): Case of single-malt whisky? Check. Case of red Bordeaux? Check? Keg of beer? Check. Two 55-gallon barrels of popcorn? Check. Pound of Black Rifle Coffee for the morning-after hangover? Check. Okay, I’m ready for the first Democratic debate tonight. • Here are the Dem Debate Drinking Game Rules: —Every time Bernie says “millionaires and billionaires,” take a nice sip of Bordeaux. —Every time Fauxchaontas Warren says “the
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June 26, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Project Veritas has released an email it says it received from a Google whistleblower, following up on the video that we wrote about yesterday. On its face, the email appears to be part of a discussion among members of Google’s “transparency and ethics” group. It describes Prager University, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro as “Nazis” and addresses the question how their influence can be reduced. Click to enlarge: As the
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June 26, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump should be commended for recognizing the bankruptcy of President Obama’s Iran policy and, accordingly, for scrapping it. Obama’s policy did not even purport to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What it did was finance Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East and solidify the mullahs’ hold on the Iranian people. Obama hoped that lifting sanctions and forking over gold to the mullahs would induce Iran to become a
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June 26, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota state representative Steve Drazkowski reminds me of the legendary story of the time Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862. Lincoln is said to have greeted Stowe, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” Rep. Drazkowski is the state representative who filed the complaint against Ilhan Omar with the state campaign finance board. In the course of its investigation the
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June 26, 2019 — Steven Hayward
You want to know how bad things are for leftists right now? In Berkeley, leftists are so despondent over the Trump Tyranny that they’re even giving up on the Soviet Union. Today, strolling through the streets of Berkeley after my mid-day class ended, I picked up this book on a free book table near a lefty bookstore—free!: Just imagine how bad things must be that you’d part with such a treasure,
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June 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I did not expect Elizabeth Warren to be performing as well in the polls as she is right now. However, the logic of her ascent into no worse than third place isn’t hard to discern. Warren is prospering in two key lanes — the radical lane and the female lane. Her competition in the radical lane is Bernie Sanders and, for now, he is doing better than Warren there. But
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June 25, 2019 — Steven Hayward
No sooner do I point out leftist hypocrisy and cluelessness about the minimum wage yesterday than I run across another side-splitting example of liberal hilarity in action. Check out this ad for an “inequality deputy editor” at The New Republic (a former magazine): The highlighted part, 29.5 hours a week, is just short of the 30 hours that under law require you to offer benefits, as the ad makes explicitly
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June 25, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
This column in the Washington Times calls for “aggressive changes” at the Department of Labor. The author is Bill Walton — no, not the world’s tallest Deadhead but rather the chairman of CNP Action, Inc., a sister organization of the Council for National Policy. Walton served as the Trump transition team senior economic policy adviser. Walton rehearses some, though certainly not all, of the areas in which the Acosta Labor
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