January 22, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Scott Gillespie is the editorial editor and vice president of the Star Tribune. He is in charge of the opinion side of the newspaper. In his daily email newsletter yesterday, Scott discussed the paper’s coverage of Rep. Ilhan Omar under the subject heading “Opining on Ilhan Omar.” I think it’s fair to say that Scott is proud of the paper’s coverage of Omar. I wrote Scott to say that I
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January 21, 2019 — Scott Johnson
A reader writes from China to lend a hand to attorneys who may represent the MAGA hat-wearing Catholic high school studentsin their potential libel lawsuits. According to the AP and other outlets, these students allegedly mocked a Native American after they participated in the pro-life rally in DC on Friday. John posted a screenshot of the principal AP story by Adam Beam and Brian Melley here yesterday. The story has
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January 21, 2019 — Scott Johnson
When Martin Luther King, Jr., brought his nonviolent campaign against segregation to Bull Connor’s Birmingham, he laid siege to the bastion of Jim Crow. In Birmingham between 1957 and 1962, black homes and churches had been subjected to a series of horrific bombings intended to terrorize the community. In April 1963 King answered the call to bring his campaign to Birmingham. When King landed in jail on Good Friday for
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January 20, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I think if Rep. Ilhan Omar were a Republican, her hometown newspaper would be ferreting out fellow Republicans for their response to her frankly expressed deep thoughts on Israel. As it is, the Star Tribune fails even to report them. I tried to do the work that the Star Tribune won’t do in the City Journal column “A question for Democrats.” Omar was in the national news last week with
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January 20, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the birth of singer/songwriter Richie Havens. Richie died in 2013 at the age of 72. I want to take a walk down memory lane with a few videos and a fan’s notes this morning. Richie grew up in Brooklyn singing with a choir in church and with doo wop groups on street corners. He crossed the river to figure out how to make a go
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January 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon has compiled a classic supercuts video (below) contrasting the media treatment of Nancy Pelosi’s letter to President Trump rescheduling his State of the Union address with Trump’s retaliatory letter grounding Pelosi’s scheduled takeoff on an international trip using a government aircraft. Andrew Kugle’s accompanying Free Beacon story is “A tale of two letters.” Long story short, in unison: Pelosi good, Trump bad. It’s almost funny.
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January 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I am shocked and saddened to learn this morning of the accidental death of Rob Woutat on January 11. I was a student of Rob’s over a period of five years at St Paul Academy in St Paul, from the first year he taught English. In addition to English classes with him I was in six plays he directed over my last three years in high school. He wrote me
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January 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Lo these many years since the Russian Revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the New York Times is still doing public relations for Communism. The most recent example — I find it almost unbelievable — is Nicholas Kristof’s January 18 Times column “Why Infants May Be More Likely to Die in America Than Cuba” (accessible here on Outline). Kristof writes: Cuba has the Medicare for All that many
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January 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
On Thursday evening BuzzFeed posted a story with the attention-grabbing headline “President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project.” CNN ran with the story essentially nonstop yesterday. Below is CNN New Day’s tweet with a video clip of the show’s interview with BuzzFeed reporter Anthony Cormier discussing his story yesterday morning. The excitement was palpable. “If true,” Trump was toast. Democrats couldn’t
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January 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
House sources leaked the testimony of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr to Congress last year. Ohr himself was a conduit for the Steele Dossier and Russian meddling in the presidential election of 2016 if the dossier is taken at face value, as the FBI purported to take it. John Solomon broke the story of Ohr’s testimony here. Sara Carter had more here. Kim Strassel devoted her weekly Wall Street
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January 18, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Rep. Ilhan Omar is in the news this week and our friend Seth Liebsohn has followed our coverage of her over the past two-and-a-half years. Seth invited me on his show to discuss Omar this afternoon. The audio clip is below, courtesy of Seth. I thought some readers might find it of interest. I made a few inadvertent misstatements in the course of my remarks, although I correctly cited my
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January 18, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Ilhan Omar hasn’t even been in office a month and decent people everywhere must be sick of her. In one of her latest pronouncements, she has declared (on Twitter — where else?) that Senator Lindsey Graham’s frequent support of President Trump reflects the (alleged) fact that “They got to him, he is compromised!” CNN subsequently followed up with a few questions asking Omar to state the
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January 18, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll announces GOOD ORAL HYGIENE & OTHER GOOD NEWS. She writes: In an amazing coincidence, I was having MY teeth cleaned the same week as Beto O’Rourke! Dental Mania! I did not think to livestream the event for my tens of fans. My hygienist is Laura, not Diana, like Beto’s. And I knew you’d want to know that. By the way, my actual real middle name is Marie, so
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January 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has responded to my post “It started in January 2017” with the following message, which I am pleased to post essentially verbatim: Dear Scott, I noticed your piece based on my interview with Gadi Eisenkot. Your entire premise is mistaken. I asked him directly if Trump’s election had anything to do with the change in policy. He categorically denied it. The change in strategy
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January 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared on CNN for a little roughhousing with Chris Cuomo yesterday. All over the news is Giuliani’s failure to deny that some on the Trump presidential campaign may have “colluded” with the friends of Vladimir Putin. I have posted Cuomo’s tweet with the video excerpt below. Cuomo to the contrary notwithstanding, I believe that Trump himself has acknowledged the possibility while denying that he himself committed
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January 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee held its second confirmation hearing on the nomination of William Barr to serve as Attorney General. The hearing took the form of a panel of nine character witnesses making statements and fielding questions from the members of the committee. C-SPAN has posted video of the entire three-and-a-half hour hearing here. Former federal judge and Attorney General Michael Mukasey appeared to testify as a character witness.
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January 16, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Judge Jesse Furman went a fur piece — over a 277-page decision (embedded below) — in ruling yesterday that the Trump administration cannot lawfully add its proposed citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Judge Furman, by the way, is an Obama appointee to the busy bench of the Southern District of New York who presided over an eight-day trial of the case. I am tuning in to the case late
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