January 16, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
I’ve written a few posts about common-good/national conservatism and its challenge to the mainstream conservative movement as it has existed since the 1960s. Two of these posts are basically summaries of presentations in a forum hosted by The New Criterion. Among other things, my posts summarized the lead, anti-common-good conservatism piece by Kim Holmes and a rebuttal by Josh Hammer. Peter Berkowitz covers this ground in an article called “The
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January 16, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
As Scott pointed out earlier today, Washington, D.C. is among the jurisdictions that will now require vaccination cards to enter restaurants, bars, and other public places. In D.C., the requirement is for proof of having received one dose or more of a covid vaccine. Scott alluded to the disparate impact this requirement will have on Blacks. In D.C., the disproportionately adverse impact on Blacks will be pronounced. According to this
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January 15, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Time is finally up for Ralph Northam as governor of Virginia. Today, Glenn Youngkin replaced him. Had Northam been a Republican, his time might have been up two years ago, after it was discovered that he once dressed up in black face and he admitted doing so (Northam later tried to weasel his way out of this admission). And there were, in fact, loud calls from some Democrats for Northam
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January 14, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Mitt Romney, whose 2012 presidential campaign was set back when Candy Crowley sided with Barack Obama in a debate, has denounced the RNC’s proposal to bar Republican presidential candidates from participating in debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Romney calls the proposal “nuts.” The proposal comes from Romney’s niece, Ronna McDaniel. Romney’s argument is this: The American people want to see candidates for president debating issues of
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January 14, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, in a post about Joe Biden’s historically bad speech in Georgia, I invited history-minded readers to tell me about a president’s speech worse than Biden’s. Professor Andrew Busch has cited one for me. Andrew Busch is Crown Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. He reached back to 1948 to find a case of a president rivaling Biden for vitriol and demagoguery. Andy writes:
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January 14, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Marilyn Mosby is the Baltimore prosecutor who gained fame for prosecuting six police officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray in 2015. Gray died in police custody. Mosby failed to obtain a single guilty verdict. However, she did help undermine police morale, which led to a shrinking of the force and a sharp increase in violent crime in Baltimore More recently, Mosby has been under investigation by the Justice
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January 13, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
The Republican Party may bar GOP candidates from participating in debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). A proposal to require candidates to refuse participation in the commission’s debates will be voted on at the RNC winter meeting in February. If adopted the proposal would, I assume, put the CPD out of the presidential debate-running business. Presumably, the debate rules would be established, and the moderators (if any)
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January 13, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court has halted the Biden administration’s vaccination-or-testing requirement on large American employers. The majority doubted the existence of legal authority for the sweeping mandate. The Court’s three liberals — Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan — dissented. The Court did, however, allow to remain in place the administration’s requirement of vaccinations for most health-care workers at facilities that receive Medicaid and Medicare funds. The vote
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January 13, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Has any president in the last 50 years delivered a worse speech than Joe Biden did yesterday in Georgia? The only one that comes immediately to my mind is Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” address of 1979. But impolitic as it was, at least that speech contained a kernel of truth. I invite the distinguished presidential scholars among our readers and my co-bloggers to point to a speech worse than Biden’s. How
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January 12, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Greg Gutfeld has gained smashing ratings for his late-night comedy/commentary show on Fox News. The popularity of an avowedly pro-Trump, anti-woke host triggers this article in the Washington Post. The Post’s report, by Manuel Roig-Franzia, recognizes the threat Gutfeld poses to the left. Roig-Franzia writes: In a matter of months Gutfeld’s new program has made him significantly more influential [than Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson] — well-positioned to aid the
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January 12, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly has been urging Maryland governor Larry Hogan to run for the Senate. So far, according to this report, Hogan has pushed back against the urgings of McConnell and Sen. Rick Scott, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. But McConnell isn’t giving up. He even enlisted his wife, Elaine Chao, to talk to Hogan’s wife, Yumi Hogan, about the matter. Could Hogan defeat Van
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January 12, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Terry McAuliffe probably lost any hope of winning his race for Virginia governor when he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” McAuliffe might well have lost anyway, but some observers thought at the time, and most think now, that he was doomed once he made that remark. In future elections, Democratic candidates will, I assume, avoid making statements like McAuliffe’s. But Stanley Kurtz
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January 11, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
When Joe Biden ran for president, he blamed Donald Trump for the high number of deaths in the U.S. attributed to the Wuhan coronavirus. He also claimed that U.S. deaths per capita were abnormally high compared to those elsewhere in comparable parts of the world. That claim was false. As I showed at the time, per capita U.S. deaths from the virus here were in line with those in the
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January 11, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Of course not. Yet Democrats and their media allies insist that it is. Take for example, the lead article in the Washington Post’s Sunday Outlook section. It’s by Sam Rosenfeld, an associate professor at Colgate University. Rosenfeld claims that democracy is “on the brink of disaster” in America. As evidence, he moans that “in 2021, Republican state legislatures passed new restrictions on voting access.” But these restrictions tend to ensure
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January 11, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Lani Guinier, the law professor and civil rights attorney, died on January 7. The Washington Post’s obituary is here. The Post uses its obituary to settle old scores against Republicans and to make political/ideological points. Accordingly, the obit begins this way: Lani Guinier, a lawyer whose innovative and provocative writings on racial justice and voting rights were used to undermine her nomination to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division
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January 10, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
Many shelves are empty again at the local stores where we shop for food. Last week, my store of choice, part of a big local chain, was devoid of yogurt and only two bottles of orange juice remained. Since then, the shortages have become worse. What’s the cause of this problem? One significant factor appears to be a lack of workers due to illness from the new coronavirus variant. This
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January 10, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
A friend called my attention to a show on YouTube called “Black Conservative Perspective.” It features commentary by Greg Foreman. I enjoyed the two episodes I’ve seen, which can be viewed below. The first is a report that MSNBC might fire Joy Reid, whom Foreman calls a racist, seemingly with good reason (I’ve never seen Reid’s show — just a few clips that support Foreman’s characterization.) The second is Foreman’s
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