Monthly Archives: January 2021
January 31, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
It’s an article of faith among Democrats that the Trump administration did not enforce America’s civil rights laws. It’s also nonsense. As I have demonstrated, under President Trump the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, led by Eric Dreiband, vigorously enforced federal civil rights laws on behalf of all groups protected by these laws. The evidence is here. The beef of left-liberals against the Trump DOJ’s enforcement effort has nothing to do
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January 31, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Our friend David Horowitz makes the case that our present political crisis is not the result of polarized views on policy, but rather is caused by the Left’s outpouring of vicious hate and determination to crush all opposition. Everybody agrees that our country is in crisis – and agrees that it is the worst crisis since the Civil War. But at the same time, we tell ourselves a comforting tale
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January 31, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Joe Biden has selected Robert Malley to be his envoy to Iran. There could no clearer sign that Biden’s foreign policy (or that of whoever is running the show) will be pro-appeasing the mullahs and anti-Israel. We have written about Malley from time to time. This post (via Ed Lasky) collected some of Malley’s greatest anti-Israel hits (most of which apparently are no longer available on the internet): Playing Into
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January 31, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Critical Race Theory is a poisonous, racist, anti-American set of doctrines, but we are all supposed to pretend we don’t understand that. Criticism of CRT is forbidden, or will be if the Left gets its way. Take the case of Georgia, where a state representative has questions about the institutions that his constituents support with their taxes: A Georgia lawmaker is trying to find out whether any of the state’s
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January 31, 2021 — Steven Hayward
For the longest while I have been asking, “Where do environmentalists and Democrats think all these batteries for our oil-free transportation fleet are going to come from?” It seems they think there is a Battery Fairy out there somewhere who will magically supply the ginormous battery capacity, and additional supply of electricity to charge them, in order to deliver us to our blessed fossil-fuel-free future. So kudos to Wired magazine
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January 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
In an American Thinker post Tom Lifson poses the question “Is karma coming calling for Killer Cuomo?” Tom notes: Disgraceful as was Cuomo’s sending thousands to death, his lies and excuses blaming everyone but himself for the carnage are even more repulsive, at least on a rhetorical level. In an epic Twitter thread, Tom Elliott chronicles the cowardly and mendacious antics of the son of a guv. Read the whole
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January 31, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal editorial “A pass for Kevin Clinesmith” refers in passing to the sentencing memorandum filed by the government (i.e., the office of John Durham) in the case: Federal Judge James Boasberg spared Mr. Clinesmith prison in favor of 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service. The judge said the evidence persuaded him that “Mr. Clinesmith likely believed that what he said about Mr. Page was
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January 30, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Big Tech companies, including Google and Twitter, are pulling the plug on disfavored posts, websites, and even people. They rely on section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act to justify censorship. One way around section 230 is to enact state laws that ban viewpoint discrimination by tech companies. I discussed that project here and here. John followed up with this post about his efforts to advance such legislation in
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January 30, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Statue toppling continues apace. This is from a Davis, California newspaper: The statue in Davis’ Central Park of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Indian lawyer and independence leader, was found Wednesday morning toppled and lying on the grass next to its plinth. The 6-foot-tall, 950-pound bronze likeness appeared to have been sawed off at the ankles and half its face was severed and missing. The Gandhi statue was somewhat controversial when
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January 30, 2021 — John Hinderaker
The murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games was one of the most infuriating terrorist acts in modern history. But that isn’t how it is recalled by most Palestinians; rather, it is remembered fondly: As the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Palestinian Authority made note to praise the efforts of the Black September terrorists who murdered nine Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972…. In a
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January 30, 2021 — John Hinderaker
My favorite media appearances these days are on Australian television. Sky News has several excellent hosts, one of whom is Rowan Dean. I was on the air with Rowan Tuesday night, talking about Joe Biden’s inauguration, leaks from the White House about Biden’s mental capacity, the new administration’s blizzard of executive orders, and the Democrats’ second impeachment of Donald Trump. The segment is just six minutes long, but contains plenty
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January 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
What episode offers you “spice that ramps up the palate, carried forward by the full body, hearty proof, and mouth-coating texture”? This edition of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, if the latest reviews of our choices in the Whisky Advocate are any indication. Alas, we remain unable to resolve our “peat-versus-sweet” single malt debate. In any case, we know the magazine is just a shill for Big Whisky, and we
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January 30, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The greatest political scandal in American history is going to be swept under the rug. That is the moral I extract from the story that former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to altering a key document supporting one of the government’s FISA renewal applications on the warrant taken out on Carter Page, who must be the cleanest man in the United States. Among
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January 30, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The New York Post reports Governor Andrew Cuomo’s memorable response to “the damning state attorney general’s report that revealed his administration downplayed the total number of nursing home residents killed by COVID-19” (video in tweet below). Cuomo explained, “A third of all deaths in this nation are from nursing homes,” Cuomo said. “New York state, we’re only about 28 percent — only — but we’re below the national average in
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January 30, 2021 — Scott Johnson
In the settlement of my lawsuit against them last year, the authorities at the Minnesota Department of Health agreed to respond to three questions a week from me in the same fashion that they respond to questions submitted by other reporters. My lawsuit stood at the intersection of politics, public policy, and First Amendment/free press that on which this series has centered. MDH’s handling of my questions is located at
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January 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
This is the week that Reddit became a greater menace to the modern world than Donald Trump’s defunct Twitter feed. Or at least that’s what the major media trying to hold on to their three readers would have you think. Hasn’t President Biden come up with an executive order that will make everyone come out even, and deliver cute free puppies while we’re at it? If only GameStop made solar
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January 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I wrote about how, at the urging of Nancy ( “the enemy is within”) Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the Biden administration placed Michael Ellis, the National Security Administration General Counsel, on administrative leave. I showed that Ellis, a family friend, is superbly qualified for the position; that there is nothing exceptional about the NSA GC having served in government in political roles prior to his appointment; and that there
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