February 20, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Roger Stone, President Trump’s friend and former crony, to serve three years and four months in prison for impeding a congressional investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Prosecutors originally wanted a sentence of seven to nine years. However, the Justice Department backed away from that position. In court today, the prosecution reportedly asked for “a substantial period of incarceration,” but did
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February 20, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Last night’s Democratic debate brought to mind a dysfunctional family into whose midst a stranger barges, claiming to be a relative. The family unites and pummels the stranger. But soon the kids (here, Buttigieg and Klobuchar) are quarreling more vociferously than ever. Here are some additional observations about last night’s session. PARENT ABUSE: Candidates’ kids sometimes play a role in debates, but not in this cycle. Most of the field
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February 19, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
That’s how it looks to me 45 minutes into the debate. He is being hammered by the other five candidates and his answers are neither well delivered nor likely to persuade his audience. He is making Joe Biden, who is much better in attack dog mode than as a putative frontrunner, look sharp by comparison. I’ll have more to say about the debate when it has concluded. Well, the debate
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February 19, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I don’t know what to expect of Michael Bloomberg tonight. The conventional wisdom — that his angry, jealous opponents will carve him up — is plausible. But so is the view that he’s smarter and more skillful than they are. The conventional wisdom might play into Bloomberg’s hands. His rivals want to portray him as an empty suit who has bought his way into the mix. But Bloomberg was a
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February 19, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Michael Bloomberg will participate in his first Democratic presidential debate tonight. The conventional wisdom holds that he’s in for a tough night — a comeuppance, his detractors would say. That’s certainly the Washington Post’s take in this article by Michael Scherer. He writes, seemingly with glee: Wednesday night, Bloomberg will be forced to leave his comfort zone and test his chops as a charismatic politician. When he steps onto the
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February 18, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In a post called “Jeff Sessions: The Open Questions,” Scott critiqued a post I wrote about the demonization of John Bolton. My post was called “It’s John Bolton’s turn.” My post objected to the treatment by some conservatives of Sessions and Bolton. Scott discussed both ex-Trump administration officials. I replied to the portion of Scott’s post pertaining to Sessions here. Now, I will reply to the portion pertaining to Bolton.
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February 17, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The front page of today’s Washington Post exemplifies Steve’s view that there is no longer any distinction between a “news analysis” article (the precious term for “opinion piece on the news page”) and a supposedly straight news piece. The Post’s supposedly straight new pieces consist of an article blaming Trump for school bullying, an article attacking him for saying nice things about Xi Jinping, and a piece claiming that Trump
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February 17, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
In this post, I noted that the Culinary Workers Union, a big player in Nevada Democratic politics, is attacking Bernie Sanders over his “Medicare for All” proposal. I figured that these attacks would harm Sanders’s Nevada caucuses campaign. However, the Union hasn’t endorsed another candidate. Thus, to the extent that its attacks on Sanders dissuade members from supporting the Vermont socialist, these members are likely to split their vote among
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February 17, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
African-Americans and radical feminists are core constituencies of the modern Democratic Party. Mike Bloomberg, who seeks that party’s nomination for president, may soon find himself in hot water with both. However, the circumstances that may land him there vary materially. If Bloomberg finds himself in trouble with African-American voters, it will be because as mayor of New York he used policing policies that help prevent crime, and because videos show
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February 16, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
We have often written about AFFH, which stands for “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.” AFFH gives the federal government a way to re-engineer nearly every American neighborhood. It enables the feds to impose a preferred racial and ethnic composition; densify housing, transportation, and business development in suburb and city alike; and weaken or cast aside the authority of local governments over core responsibilities from zoning to transportation to education. Another way
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February 16, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
For me, the word “thug” brings to mind Richard Widmark in “Kiss of Death” and Jack Lambert in “The Killers” — both of them extremely white. However, African-American race mongers have decided that “thug” is a modern-day racial epithet. This isn’t what one would call self-flattery, but I guess it’s good for the grievance business. The latest such grievance is with West Virginia’s governor, Jim Justice. He coaches girls’ basketball
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February 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I haven’t written much about the Department of Labor since Alex Acosta resigned as Secretary of Labor. However, in this post, written after Gene Scalia became the new Secretary, I complained that the DOL was still pursuing its specious “pay discrimination” case against Oracle. The culprit is the Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). During the Obama administration, OFCCP became a bastion of leftism. It pursued radical theories
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February 15, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
William Barr has received much praise from conservatives and especially from President Trump’s most ardent supporters. The praise is deserved. Among his other virtues, Barr has stood up to his anti-Trump critics in Congress and the mainstream media to promote fair treatment for President Trump. His handling of the Mueller report is a good example. And Barr has done this without compromising the integrity of the Justice Department or running
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February 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Paul Krugman rejects the idea that Bernie Sanders is a socialist. Krugman writes: Bernie Sanders isn’t actually a socialist in any normal sense of the term. He doesn’t want to nationalize our major industries and replace markets with central planning; he has expressed admiration, not for Venezuela, but for Denmark. This made me wonder why Sanders has been calling himself a socialist all these years. Was it a way of
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February 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Scott got a lot off his chest in his post called “Jeff Sessions: The Open Questions,” a critique of my post called “It’s John Bolton’s turn.” That’s good. However, it will take more than one post for me to respond. This first post will focus on matters related to Jeff Sessions and what I take to be the demonizing of him. Scott opens by saying that demonizing anyone other than
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February 13, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
I want to follow up on Steve’s report about alleged sexual harassment by the left-liberal hero, Judge Stephen Reinhardt. You can watch the testimony of Olivia Warren, Reinhardt’s alleged victim, below. As a lawyer, I litigated more than a few sexual harassment cases. I also contributed a chapter to an early case book on the subject. Thus, I have read the factual allegations in many hundreds of sexual harassment cases
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February 13, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Michael Bloomberg has nearly caught up with Joe Biden for second place in national polling of the Democratic race. Bernie Sanders is ahead of both. According to FiveThirtyEight’s latest poll averages, Sanders has the support of 22.7 percent of Democrats. Biden is next with 16.8 percent. Then comes Bloomberg at 15.4 Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg follow at between 11 and 12 percent. Absent those recordings of Bloomberg making common
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