April 4, 2020 — Steven Hayward
My guest this week is Jeremy Carl, currently a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and formerly a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where he directed the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy. His political writing and commentary has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, National Review, Politico, the Economist, and many other leading newspapers and magazines. Of special interest to me, however, is Jeremy’s personal story
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April 4, 2020 — Steven Hayward
April is going to seem even longer than March. How do I know? Simple: SiriusXM satellite radio has added the Billy Joel Channel back into rotation. Maybe someone—Al Yankovic perhaps—can offer some modifications, such as “We Didn’t Start the Fire—China Did!” Or “The Great Suburban Showdown in the Paper Products Aisle.” Or, “Joe Biden Is Proof That Only the Good Die Young.” And for Congress, “Last of the Big Time
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April 2, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Save up for this! The Hulu streaming channel is debuting a nine-part series called “Mrs. America” on the 1970s-era clash between Gloria Steinem and Phyllis Schlafly chiefly over the Equal Rights Amendment, and given that it’s Hollywood’s take you can be sure it is fully “nuanced.” You know you are in trouble when the very first sentence of the review of the show in the Hollywood Reporter today runs as follows:
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April 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
As promised (or threatened, depending in your point of view), another bonus episode of our podcast. Conrad Black argued this week that Franklin Roosevelt deserves to be regarded as a conservative champion, or at least that conservatives should steal him away from Democrats. FDR himself argued that Democrats should steal Lincoln from Republicans, so why not return the favor? I take up this exotic perspective with Power Line’s International Woman
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April 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
People are rightly wondering about the legal and constitutional authority to impose strict lockdowns on both the population and the economy, and more broadly wondering whether, like “emergencies” in the past, our current response will lead to a permanent expansion certain kinds of government power (and spending!), and thus yet another ratchet to larger government and a further diminution of individual liberty. Many “temporary” measures and policies seem to have
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April 1, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Well thank God March is finally over. It only lasted longer than the Thirty Years War. And now April, T.S. Eliot’s “cruelest month,” which will likely seem longer than the Hundred Years War. Where is our Marlborough, who led the War of the Spanish Succession? A Marlborough is obviously what we need for the War of the Spanish Flu Succession. (Thanks, I’ll be here all month. Try the roast beef.)
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March 31, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The reaction of the media and the left (but I repeat myself) to Mike Lindell’s public profession of piety at the White House this week is one more vivid reminder that liberals are the most intolerant people around today. No wonder they talk about “tolerance” so much: they are compensating for their obvious lack of it. I have an idea for Trump. As the coronavirus crisis continues, and especially as
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March 31, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Readers: As promised, I’m going to step up the frequency of podcasts for the duration of the COVID-19 martial law, and I’ve got several guests lined up for conversations over the next few days. But tomorrow (Wednesday) I’ll be hooking up with “Lucretia,” Power Line’s International Woman of Mystery, to catch up and kick things around. We’re both really desperate to talk about anything besides the coronavirus, and we’ve decided
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March 31, 2020 — Steven Hayward
A lot of people are making the usual red-versus-blue points out of this survey data reported in the New York Times, showing Democrats more alarmed by the risk of COVID-19 than Republicans: The left, and the media, say this is proof of the insensitivity or “science denial” of Republicans or something, though I say it reflects the superior ability of Republicans to calculate risk tradeoffs better than Democrats. More on
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March 30, 2020 — Steven Hayward
• You want to know how long the month of March has been? It was still this month that Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, and Michael Bloomberg were running for president. Remember impeachment? Seems as long ago as Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. How long is April—T.S. Eliot’s “cruelest month”—going to be? By the way, in retrospect does anyone think the frivolous impeachment whose outcome was foreordained might have distracted the
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March 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
• The emphasis is on “social distancing.” Wouldn’t “anti-social distancing” work better? Asking for a friend curmudgeonly neighbor. • If this is a war, why aren’t we hearing calls for negotiations, and interventions by conflict resolution specialists? Where are the people asking, “Why does the virus hate us?” Why isn’t Congress invoking the War Powers Act to exercise oversight over Trump’s incipient fascism overdue executive action? (Don’t worry, if Trump does indeed declare an
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March 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Our parochial news media seem only interested in reporting on the state of things here in the U.S. and in their favorite European vacation spots like France and Italy, but of course the COVID-19 pandemic extends into Eastern Europe as well, where most countries are also on some degree of quarantine or lockdown. I decided to check in with Clifford Angell Bates, a friend based in Warsaw who teaches political
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March 28, 2020 — Steven Hayward
I remember when I was a kid we were promised flying cars and videophones. Well, we finally got the videophones, and how do we like living the life of Zoom? And why do have this uncontrollable urge to put Kleenex boxes on my feet like Howard Hughes? Maybe it has something to do with solitary confinement. And flying cars would come in handy now to enforce “social distancing.” Incidentally, why
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March 27, 2020 — Steven Hayward
• I am sure everyone heard the startling unemployment claim numbers yesterday (over 3 million in one week), but the magnitude of it is even more dramatic when presented in a time-series graph going back over 50 years: • I’m still wondering whether a very nasty bug I had back in late November/early December, with unusual, persistent symptoms that sound like COVID-19, could have in fact been COVID-19. It did
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March 25, 2020 — Steven Hayward
Another bonus coronavirus martial law edition. There’s gonzo, and then there’s Sarah Hunt. Hunt is the humorist/policy activist who came up with the moniker “Green Nude Eel” in response to the preposterous extravagances of the utopian environmental left and in particular a certain freshperson congresscritter whose name shall not be uttered here. But Hunt, the founder of the Joseph Rainey Center, a boutique Washington think tank, is an environmentalist herself,
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March 25, 2020 — Steven Hayward
The coronavirus martial law lockdown has turned into a real-life version of Groundhog Day, as we’re stuck inside and hearing pretty much the same news every day. Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face! Orange man bad! Anthony Fauci for president! ESPN hosts getting ready to stab each other for lack of any sports news to talk about. Meanwhile, I hear rumors that there are supertankers full of toilet paper
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March 24, 2020 — Steven Hayward
We noted here a couple days ago how the New York Times actually appeared to be reporting the truth about congressional Democrats for a change. Well, it didn’t last long, as this progression makes clear. They must have got the memo from Nancy. Time to amend the old joke: How do you tell when the New York Times editors are lying? When their lips move.
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