April 6, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The great Victor Davis Hanson eloquently chronicles the “Corona meltdowns” of Nancy Pelosi, the media, and Joe Biden in his American Greatness column of that name. This is his take on the media circus on we see in the daily White House coronavirus task force briefings: Watching the media deal with the daily White House briefings reminds the country that we have never had journalism of this low character before—not
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April 6, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the Star Tribune featured Jeremy Olson’s 1,300-word page-one story “Minnesota’s COVID-19 response shows promise in helping to slow virus.” Subhead: “Walz said he will be looking this week for updated modeling and any signs of the infection ebbing before deciding on extend his stay-at-home order.” Olson had previously reported on the model underlying the current shutdown ordered by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. I checked in on that story in
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April 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Star Tribune’s Jeremy Olson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering health care. Trained in investigative and computer-assisted reporting, Olson has covered politics, social services, and family issues. I took a critical look at Olson’s first look at the model underlying the current shutdown ordered by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in “Coronavirus in one state (3)” and in “No one here gets out alive.” Olson returns today with the 1,300-word
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April 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
I’ve been watching the daily White House coronavirus task force briefings, but they make for difficult viewing. I don’t think there are more than two reporters seeking to elicit information either from the president, the vice president, or the knowledgeable experts sharing the platform with them at any given briefing. The briefings are on average a disgusting spectacle insofar as the press refuses to play any role other than the
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April 5, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Emmylou Harris celebrated her birthday last week. In the world of the Cosmic American Music, attention must be paid. Skipping over great swaths of her career, I thought I might take the occasion as an excuse to revisit her story along with a few of the videos that reflect her artistry. She is, to say the least, still going strong. In the time of the great hunkering down, this may
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April 4, 2020 — Scott Johnson
With a little help from our friends we started writing about chrloroquine as a possible treatment for the Wuhan virus on March 15. We added discussions of hydroxychloroquine to the mix and kept at it until President Trump himself picked up the cause. Well, that was enough for the media and a few governors to declare the thing a verboten outrage. Gregg Re takes a look back at the madness
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April 4, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday’s announcement of new unemployment claims puts me in mind of the title of the Jim Morrison bio: No One Here Gets Out Alive. Taking Minnesota as an example, I looked at the deep thought behind our current shutdown in “Coronavirus in one state (3).” I may have read Jeremy Olson’s Star Tribune story more closely than Olson wrote it, but one may reasonably infer from it that that we
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April 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
I am sorry to pass on the news that Bill Withers died on Monday at the age of 81. The cause, according to his family, was heart complications. The news will break the hearts of anyone who leaned on his music to get through sad times or celebrate happy occasions. Where were you the first time you heard “Ain’t No Sunshine” in 1971? If you were around at the time,
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April 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Dr. Matthew Meyerson wrote us yesterday to express his disagreement with the gist of a post or two on the site. “I think that you are underestimating the seriousness of this epidemic,” he stated, “and I would like to address this with you.” I asked Dr. Meyerson for permission to post his comments and to identify him as a Power Line reader. He has graciously granted his permission and authorized
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April 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz promulgated his first shutdown order on March 17 before broadening and extending it a week later. The governor promulgated his current shutdown order on the basis of a model that projected in excess of 74,000 deaths due to the Wuhan virus. We have questioned the projection and asked what model it is based on. Today the Star Tribune finally gets around to taking a look —
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April 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Nancy Pelosi is Exhibit A in Kim Strassel’s Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch column “Pols Face a Coronavirus Test.” Subhead: “Who’s leading and who’s seeking political advantage? Here are the answers.” Pelosi is the leading example of what not to do: Crises have a way of separating the leaderlike wheat from the opportunistic chaff. Coronavirus is the crisis of our time, and the political winnowing is something to behold. Example:
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April 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll celebrates another anniversary with us: THE COLUMN TURNS 6. She writes: Well, friends, it’s that time of year again. March has ended. And good riddance to it. Which means I have been writing Thoughts From the Ammo Line for six years. How remarkable that we all look exactly the same as when I started six years ago. At least that’s what your avatars indicate, and what MY mirror
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April 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Further to Paul Mirengoff’s “Don’t let China off the hook,” I want to offer a few resources that I have found to be helpful so far: • First and foremost among those I have saved is Jim Geraghty’s NR Morning Jolt The Comprehensive Timeline of China’s COVID-19 Lies.” Subhead: “A day-by-day, month-by-month breakdown of China’s coronavirus coverup and the irreparable damage it has caused around the globe.” The whole thing
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April 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The economic devastation wrought by the pandemic continues as we see from the news this morning that another 6.6 million Americans filed unemployment compensation claims last week. For those keeping score at home, that brings the two-week total to about 10 million due to the self-imposed economic shutdown. In the spirit of inquiry and concern, and subject to correction, I have put my head together with that of our friend
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April 1, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Eli Lake takes a look at the latest Department of Justice Inspector General report on the rot at the FBI in the Bloomberg column “The FBI Can’t Be Trusted With the Surveillance of Americans.” Subhead: “An inspector general report finds that the bureau has been systematically unscrupulous.” I posted a copy of Horowitz’s OIG “memorandum” here yesterday. It is not hard to believe how pervasive the rot at the FBI
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April 1, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Following up on “Was it something he said?,” I want to note that the FOX Business Channel invited Minnesota’s own Mike Lindell to respond to the media nutters whom he triggered with his remarks at the White House daily coronavirus task force briefing in the Rose Garden on Monday. The Daily Caller’s Scott Morefield embeds Lindell’s appearance on Lou Dobbs Tonight in “‘This Is Evil’: MyPillow’s Mike Lindell Punches Back
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April 1, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Toshiro Mifune. Mifune was, most famously, one of Akira Kurosawa’s favorite actors. TCM is paying tribute to Mifune today by showing 10 films that amount to a kind of Kurosawa film festival. Here is the lineup, beginning at 6:00 a.m. (Eastern) this morning: Drunken Angel (1948), the first of Mifune’s 16 films for Kurosawa, casts him as a small-time hoodlum who
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