Monthly Archives: August 2023
August 31, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Pretty much everyone now agrees that shutting down our schools during the covid epidemic, at the demand of teachers’ unions, was one of the most catastrophic policy decisions of modern times. As I have said before, it is unfortunate that some old and very sick people had their demises hastened by covid, but what government did to our children, for no good reason, was a crime. Having skipped school for
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August 31, 2023 — John Hinderaker
In the Telegraph, Michael Taube writes: “Justin Trudeau’s smug incompetence is making Canada a laughing stock.” First the broad observation, then the specific action that prompted it: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been a mediocre, ineffective leader since coming to power in 2015. Every time you believe he’s reached the lowest depths of political incompetence, he finds a new way to sink even further into the muck. His latest
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August 31, 2023 — Steven Hayward
So Trump is out yesterday with an attack on the Branch COVIDians, as I call them. COVID Tyrants want to take away our Freedom. Hear my words— WE WILL NOT COMPLY. pic.twitter.com/Kql1YaxuO0 — Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) August 30, 2023 Good for him, but let’s not airbrush out Trump’s bad judgment over COVID, unquestionably his single largest failure in office: Shut it all down. Lockdown Don bragged
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August 31, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Lawrence Summers, who passes as an elder statesman among Democratic Party economists and is relatively sane as Democrats go these days, warned in 2021 that Biden’s big spending plans would be inflationary, but no one listened to him. Now he’s back in the Washington Post warning that the recent declines in the inflation rate do not mean it is safe to sound the all-clear. He notes in the chart below
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August 31, 2023 — John Hinderaker
Two years ago, Canada was roiled by claims that hundreds of Indian children had died and been buried in mass graves at residential schools that were established by the Canadian government and in many cases administered by the Catholic Church. This was the blockbuster story: A mass grave filled with the remains of 215 Indigenous children, some as young as three, has been found on the grounds of a former
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August 31, 2023 — John Hinderaker
In recent years, we have heard a lot about racism in law enforcement. Sometimes, those claims have turned out to be false. This one, however, is true: Heather Mac Donald shows that law enforcement in Oakland engages in vicious race discrimination under the leadership of District Attorney Pamela Price. Mac Donald obtained a copy of a Power Point used to train social workers in Oakland’s Victim Services Division. They are
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August 31, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Mark Meadows is one of the defendants in the Georgia state criminal case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against President Trump and a cast of thousands. Meadows is Trump’s former chief of staff and the two crimes with which he is charged arise from his service to Trump. Meadows has sought removal of the charges against him from state to federal court. The 14-page Meadows notice of
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August 30, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Back in high school, I along with a few pals came up with some nonsense doggerel to lampoon the hated word problems in math class: “If it takes a chicken and a half a day and a half to lay an egg and a half, how long does it take a boxcar to get to Milwaukee?” Who knew that this would be the speaking mode of the 46th president of
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August 30, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
Speaking to reporters in Covington, Kentucky, on Wednesday, Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 81, was asked if he plans to run for reelection in 2026. After McConnell failed to respond, an aide repeated the question to him. “I’m sorry you all, we’re going to need a minute,” the aide said, winking at the group as McConnell remained silent. The senator experienced a similar “freeze” in July during a Capitol
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August 30, 2023 — Steven Hayward
There’s an old joke that defines ambivalence as the feeling you have when you see your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac. That’s how any sensible person would feel about the COVID-induced move to allow federal employees to work from home. Most of them still aren’t coming back to the office, which might be some of the best news yet for America. Given that many federal workers
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August 30, 2023 — Steven Hayward
• Feel good headline of the day: CNN — The Environmental Protection Agency and US Army on Tuesday released a new rule that slashes federally protected water by more than half, following a Supreme Court decision in May that rolled back protections for US wetlands. The rule will invalidate an earlier definition of what constitutes the so-called waters of the United States, after the Supreme Court ruled Clean Water Act protections extend
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August 30, 2023 — John Hinderaker
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when a federal agency is politicized. Better we should be surprised to find one that isn’t. Now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (to be fair, the Department of Labor generally) has been enlisted in the Biden/Newsom re-election campaign. ZeroHedge and Kevin Roche have been on this case for a while. Kevin summarizes: For several months I have following, directly in the Bureau of Labor
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August 30, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
In a Tuesday night letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), the Department of Justice denied permission for two subpoenaed FBI special agents to testify before Congress in the GOP investigation of potential Biden family corruption. The letter, obtained by the Washington Examiner, can be viewed below. Jordan issued subpoenas on Aug. 21 to FBI special agents Thomas Sobocinski and Ryeshia Holley of the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office,
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August 30, 2023 — Steven Hayward
This Tweet X-File from Governor Brylcreem is something: First, it highlights a scandalous fact—that California has spent $15 billion to “solve” homelessness. You’d think $15 billion would go a long way, even in high cost California, toward building shelters and treatment facilities. Instead homelessness has grown larger, as any conservative policy wonk would have predicted. But Awesome Newsom notes, second, that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked local
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August 30, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The corruption of every major American institution by the left has picked up speed under the Biden administration. In its morning newsletter, the Washington Free Beacon notes: WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Making plans for a symposium on deterrence, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) decided that a top Iranian official cum Princeton professor, Hussein Mousavian, would make a good keynote speaker. Mousavian last made headlines when he was captured on Iranian television smirking
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August 29, 2023 — John Hinderaker
We are observing the second anniversary of one of America’s worst foreign policy fiascos, the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was on August 26, 2021, when 13 American Marines and at least 170 Afghan civilians were murdered by a Taliban bomber at the Kabul airport. To say that the anniversary has passed quietly is an understatement. A writer for the Atlantic, Franklin Foer, has an upcoming book on the withdrawal
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August 29, 2023 — John Hinderaker
First it was polar bears, now it is emperor penguins. Liberals love to select animals they can anthropomorphize and portray as threatened by “climate change.” Polar bears didn’t work out well for them, since their populations are at record levels. The penguins aren’t promising either, as biologist Susan Crockford explains: Despite the hype last week over the newly published paper by Peter Fretwell and colleagues, there is no plausible ecological
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