April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Columbia University presents an extreme case of the rot infesting our major institutions — elite organs of higher education, corporate America, the mainstream media, the entertainment business, the legal profession, the teachers’ unions, and so on. We can learn from Columbia’s extremity. It highlights elements of the phenomenon that otherwise remain beyond our view. The rot at Columbia runs through the students, the administration, and the faculty of the university.
»
April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The silence of President Biden on the eruption of anti-Semitic “protests” on elite college campuses constitutes a disgusting sidebar to the unfolding story. He was asked about them yesterday as he shambled down a sylvan path in Triangle, Virginia. “I condemn the antisemitic protests,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” “Palestinians” widely support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the terrorist forces
»
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Today is the anniversary of Glen Campbell’s birth. Campbell established himself as a brilliant session guitarist with the Wrecking Crew and then proceeded to record some 65 solo albums in the course of a long career that greatly contributed to the beauty of the world. It’s hard to get a handle on his vast body of work, but perhaps most notable was his partnership with songwriter Jimmy Webb. Below is
»
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Columbia campus appears to have been taken over by the pro-Hamas kill the Jews crowd among the student body. Jessica Costescu rounds up the news in the Washington Free Beacon story “Columbia University Campus Unravels in Face of Escalating Anti-Semitic, Eliminationist Protests.” The New York Post reports “New anti-Israel tent city takes over Columbia University lawn days after NYPD raid as activists vow to stay ‘forever.’” In other words,
»
April 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson
In a recent post Lloyd Billingsley returns to David Garrow and holds out the prospect of more. I thought I would repeat my own observations on Garrow in the context of a review he wrote for the Washington Free Beacon today (quoted below). Bear with me while I work my way back to it. I think you will find it worth waiting for. I greatly respect David Garrow’s integrity as
»
April 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Working for then Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale in the summer of 1969, I went to hear the late Allard Lowenstein speak to a large group of interns. Lowenstein was serving his only term in Congress before he was gerrymandered out of his district. Lowenstein asked us to go back to our campuses, do our thing in opposition to the Vietnam war, and “eschew violence.” He said the word “eschew” several
»
April 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
It looks like the mob has taken control of Columbia University, SA style. The Columbia Spectator reports on the suspensions issued for for participation in Wednesday’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” One of Ilhan Omar’s daughters (Isra Hirsi) is among the suspended students. The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the rotten tree. The Spectator quotes Columbia undergrad Maryam Alwan, another one of the suspended students. Alwan told the Spectator that she
»
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Listening to Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure channel on Sirius XM yesterday I heard a Motown song I hadn’t heard since I was a teenager — “You Beat Me To the Punch,” a hit single for Mary Wells and a deep track on The Temptations Sing Smokey. The song was written by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ Ronnie White. I take it from Nelson George’s Where Did Our Love Go? that
»
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Current events at Columbia may call to mind events at Columbia circa 1968. Before matriculating at Dartmouth in the fall of 1969, I joined a group of incoming freshmen who met to discuss Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice and Columbia undergrad James Simon Kunen’s just-published The Strawberry Statement. We didn’t take Cleaver’s book particularly seriously and Eric Hoffer did even less so. He caustically mocked it as Soul On Horse
»
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Reports overnight indicate that Israel struck a military base in Isfahan from which Iran launched drones against Israel in last weekend’s massive Iranian attack. The Times of Israel story is posted here. The attack is described as “limited.” Reliable information about the attack is itself “limited.” There was a message or two or three in the attack. Yonah Jeremy Bob makes this point at the Jerusalem Post in his a
»
April 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Hey, you, you may or may not want to MIND THE GAP! Ammo Grrrll writes: My dear friend from teenage years on, who was married to a Brit for a considerable period of time, told me that British culture, while generally kind, polite, and tolerant, tends to be much more risk-averse than American culture. The Brits believe it is wholly good to protect their citizens from any and all behaviors
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The unauthorized pro-Hamas/anti-Israel demonstration continues for a second day at the heart of the Columbia campus. Columbia authorities have called the cops. The pro-terrorist students want to put President Shafik to the test. As I wrote earlier today, Columbia authorities started asserting themselves and taking remedial action in anticipation of yesterday’s House Education Committee hearing. The hearing did some good even before it was held. UPDATE: NYPD have entered the
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
C-SPAN has just posted the video clip of Senator Josh Hawley’s beatdown of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the tweet below. This may be the most brutal and relentless interrogation of a senior administration official I have ever seen, certainly in the space of eight minutes. It graphically depicts the madness of the Biden open-door immigration policy in small as well as its utter indefensibility in large. Tense exchange between
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Ilhan Omar elicited the testimony of Columbia President Minouche Shafik at the House Education Committee hearing yesterday that she had seen no “protests” at Columbia “saying we are against Jewish people.” See the video below at 0:40. Omar also regurgitated the canard that students had been attacked by “a toxic chemical substance.” That appears not to be the case. I think it might more accurately be deemed the raspberry statement.
»
April 18, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik skipped the December 5 House Education Committee Hearing on anti-Semitism at their institutions that disgraced the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT. President Shafik was invited to the hearing, but she was otherwise engaged. She was speaking at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai. Some might say that she sensed stormy weather. Yesterday the committee reconvened to hear from President Shafik and
»
April 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
NRO staff reporter James Lynch embedded himself in the New York City edition of the April 15 Kill the Jews rallies staged by A15 around the United States on Monday. I wrote about the rallies yesterday in “From sea to shining sea.” NRO has published Lynch’s story in “‘Israel Is a Terrorist State’: Scenes from New York City’s Disruptive Anti-Israel Rally.” Lynch’s story reflects the hatreds coursing through the mob,
»
April 17, 2024 — Scott Johnson
John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.” Since then the GOP House majority has been dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority to a number
»
