Monthly Archives: January 2022
January 31, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Founders envisaged impeachment as an extraordinary remedy, and for almost all of our history it has remained such. But of the last nine presidents preceding Joe Biden, three have been impeached or imminently threatened with impeachment. The Democrats impeached Donald Trump twice, for no particular reason other than the fact that they controlled the House of Representatives. So it is not out of bounds to ask whether Republicans should
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January 31, 2022 — Steven Hayward
I made a disparaging comment here the other day about how I never watch “The View,” because, based on the 10-second clips I’ve seen from time to time by accident, it seems obvious that if you actually attempt to sit through an entire episode you’ll feel your IQ dropping by the minute. Today “View” stalwart Whoopi Goldberg said “the Holocaust wasn’t about race,” and you can see the other panelists
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January 31, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Everton has hired a new manager. He’s one of England all-time great players — one of its five best this century* — and the all-time leading scorer for a massive Premier League team. But that new manager isn’t Wayne Rooney, Manchester United’s all-time scoring leader, who began and ended his Premier League career with Everton. It’s Frank Lampard, the former Chelsea star. Lampard is Chelsea’s career leader in goals. He
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January 31, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Canadian truckers’ protest has turned into a huge event that has gripped not just the political class, but millions of people across that country. As usual, the politicians who claim most vociferously to represent the people–like Justin Trudeau–are horrified when the people actually speak up. I suppose it was inevitable that leftist politicians would denounce the truckers’ protest as racist, although what race has to do with the issues
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January 31, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, John wrote about a study (a study of studies, actually) that says lockdowns have had little to no effect in preventing deaths from covid. I remain unpersuaded of this proposition and will probably explain why before too long. However, I agree that extended lockdowns have imposed significant costs that likely exceed any benefits. In addition, it’s clear to me that schools should have reopened for in-person learning no later
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January 31, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
In writing about Lindsey Graham’s confusion about affirmative action, I discussed Graham’s favorite candidate for the Supreme Court, U.S. District Court Judge J. Michelle Childs. I looked at her credentials compared to those of the current Justices at the time of their nomination and of Judge Sri Srinivasan, a highly qualified Asian-American jurist who has been excluded from consideration because he isn’t a black female. I concluded that, if selected,
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January 31, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Last week I wrote in part 2 of this series: Whenever I write about these cases I am instructed that George Floyd killed himself by a fentanyl overdose. I wasn’t persuaded of that by the evidence introduced at the trial of Derek Chauvin, not even to the level of a reasonable doubt. It is not clear to me that the defendants in this case even raise an issue of fact
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January 31, 2022 — Scott Johnson
My wife is a naturalized American citizen who seethes over illegal immigration. When we see the stories on FOX News that highlight the cancellation of our border under the Biden administration, she always asks why the GOP isn’t doing a blessed thing about it. Drawing on the recent news that we have followed on Power Line, Miranda Devine channels and amplifies my wife’s thoughts in the New York Post column
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January 30, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Sen. Lindsey Graham has long believed that a president’s judicial nominees should receive great deference from the Senate. He has made this clear over and over, both for nominees of Democrats and nominees of Republicans. For example, he defended his vote to confirm Justice Sotomayor on that basis. Graham’s view on the matter used to be shared by the vast majority of Senators. Today, almost no Senator really holds it,
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January 30, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Recent polling shows they do not. However, it also shows that Republicans still like Trump enough to nominate him in 2024. Dan Balz notes that on the eve of the 2020 election, 54 percent of Republicans and independents who lean Republican said they considered themselves more a supporter of Trump than of the Republican Party, compared with 38 percent who said they considered themselves more a supporter of the Republican
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January 30, 2022 — John Hinderaker
You no doubt are aware of the protest being staged by thousands of Canadian truck drivers who have now converged on Ottawa. The truckers began by protesting against a vaccination mandate for truckers crossing the U.S. border, but it has grown into a movement opposing extreme and irrational anti-covid measures, and promoting freedom generally. Naturally, the liberal press is horrified. You likely have seen this bizarre editorial cartoon that appeared
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January 30, 2022 — Steven Hayward
Biden’s pledge to name a black woman—and only a black woman—to the Supreme Court is going down badly with Americans, a majority of whom are growing tired of the left’s relentless identity politics. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll begins its report thus: A new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds that a plurality of Americans view the Supreme Court as motivated by partisanship, while President Joe Biden’s campaign trail vow to select
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January 30, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The effectiveness of lockdown measures by countries and states has been hotly debated for the last two years. Various measures have been tried enough times, in enough places, over a long enough period of time, that we ought to be able to arrive at a reasonably definitive answer. This study, titled “A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality,” published by The Johns Hopkins Institute
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January 30, 2022 — Scott Johnson
The leaked video of Customs and Border Protection agents confronting their boss Raul Ortiz in Laredo turned up on Twitter late Friday night. Misty Severei and Anna Giaritelli promptly followed up on it in the excellent Washington Examiner story “Leaked video shows tense exchange between Border Patrol chief and agents.” The men of CBP are not happy about the position in which they have been put by the Biden administration.
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January 30, 2022 — Scott Johnson
It is difficult to keep up with the many moods of Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan. She vibrates like a tuning fork locked in to the the moment’s wavelength and wishful thinking, occasionally with a little field research courtesy of a friend who repairs shoes on Manhattan’s East Side (featured in one of her classic Pulitzer Prize-winning 2016 columns). What the taxi driver is to New York Times columnist
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January 30, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday I started in on A Terry Teachout Reader over lunch. The Reader begins with his 1995 New York Times review of Dawn Powell’s Diaries cum tribute to Powell’s novels in just under 1,500 words. It is a marvel of concision and appreciation. It ends with his moving 1996 Commentary essay “Mourning Nancy LaMott” (retitled “My Friend Nancy”). “I loved her with all my heart,” he confesses in the introduction.
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January 29, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The virtues of a meritocracy may be lost on Harvard students like that “queer Middle Easterner,” but they come through clearly in this excellent New York Times article by Michael Powell. His piece deals with the subject through the lens of Brooklyn Tech, an elite New York City high school from which one of my cousins graduated in the 1960s. Brooklyn Tech hasn’t yielded to demands that it stop admitting
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