June 20, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Peter Beinart, a smart center-left writer once affiliated with The New Republic before it went crazy, nowadays is at The Atlantic, and he has a barn-burner of an essay out today on the subject, “How the Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration.” It is a long article, but very much worth reading the whole thing. The point is, Beinart honestly confronts the craven partisan political calculation behind the liberal line
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June 19, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Most climatistas are going to call today “Black Monday,” because today has dealt a double-whammy of what Al Gore would call inconvenient news. • First, an article out today in Nature Geoscience ponders the problem of why observed temperatures in the troposphere are not matching up with what the climate models have predicted. The lead author, Ben Santer, is one of the leading climatistas, so this article can’t be written
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June 18, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I decided to spend Father’s Day on an audacious outing. If you follow west coast news, you may know that some millions of tons of earth slid into the ocean along the famous Hwy. 1 area at Mud Creek south of Big Sur (and about 30 miles north of where I live) on May 20, burying the highway and closing the south end of the road. The north end was
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June 17, 2017 — Steven Hayward
As I have mentioned before, the most satisfying thing about Trump withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord is not that he did it, but that he did it in a way that maximized the outrage from the climatistas and their media toadies. It was a dial-it-to-eleven reprise of the outrage of when President George W. Bush took us out of the Kyoto Protocol, which was the previous treaty that would
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June 17, 2017 — Steven Hayward
There’s been a vigorous debate going on about whether our political divisions can or should be described as a genuine “civil war” as opposed to just a “culture war” or merely “hyperpolarization.” James Hodgkinson’s heinous act this week argues for the full on civil war characterization. But does the left really want open warfare in America? For all their talk of “fighting in the streets,” they might want to think
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June 16, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Michael Moynihan ventured to Evergreen State College for Vice News and produced this seven-minute video that is all you need to see to grasp how fully the place has fallen into the nihilist abyss (as if you needed persuading). Language warning (as if you didn’t know that). But do stick around for the antidote below!
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June 16, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Yesterday we noted the New York Times‘s repulsive and contemptible editorial repeating the leftist talking point that somehow Sarah Palin was indirectly responsible for the 2011 shooting of Gabby Giffords: In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl. At the time, we and others were sharply critical of the heated political rhetoric
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June 16, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Two days ago I mentioned the sacking of Uber board member David Bonderman for the unpardonable sin of making a sexist joke at an Uber meeting: “There’s a lot of data,” Ms. Huffington said, “that shows when there’s one woman on the board it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board.” “Actually,” Mr. Bonderman said, “what it shows is that it’s much more likely
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June 15, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Ten years ago in Air Quality in America: A Dose of Reality on Air Pollution Levels, Trends, and Health Risks, Joel Schwartz and I wrote this: Air pollution affects far fewer people, far less often, and with far less severity than is commonly believed. . . The air pollution-mortality claim deserves even greater skepticism. First, is is based on the same unreliable correlation moderns that have led medical authorities astray
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June 15, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Yesterday on our VIP live webcast, we talked briefly about the sources of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), which I argue predates Trump and would likely be present if any other Republican, even mild-mannered Jeb Bush, were in the White House right now. TDS has its roots in the lazy presumption that liberalism represents “the side of history,” as though “History” is a self-conscious thing with only one direction. This presumption is, in
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June 15, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Naturally the New York Times shows up this morning with an editorial entitled “America’s Lethal Politics,” which includes the following: In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl. At the time, we and others were sharply critical of the heated political rhetoric on the right. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action
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June 14, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Back in January I reported here on social science research that concluded that conservative politicians are better looking than liberal politicians, but do you really need social science to prove this? Here’s one data set: However, while conservative politicians may be better looking, there’s new social science that concludes liberal thinkers and writers are better looking than conservative thinkers and writers. Here’s a news summary: Lönnqvist’s team of researchers looked
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June 14, 2017 — Steven Hayward
I’m a big Uber user and fan, partly because it works rwell, and also partly because the company defies regulators, starting up in many cities without asking permission and then mobilizing their happy (and typically elite) customer base when the taxi cartels try to use the power of government to stifle this innovative competition. The left hates Uber, precisely because it is impossible to unionize and regulate in the customary
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June 13, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Colleges are all about teaching “critical thinking,” though in most places that is a mere euphemism for teaching “critical theory,” which is not the same thing. Quite the opposite: “critical theory” is the highly ideologized core of the academic left. And it shows. News item: Exclusive Test Data: Many Colleges Fail to Improve Critical-Thinking Skills By Douglas Belkin Freshmen and seniors at about 200 colleges across the U.S. take a
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June 13, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Last weekend was the occasion for gay pride parades in many cities around the country. Insofar as gay pride is associated with contemporary liberalism and has enjoyed continuous political triumphs over the last decade or so (including the election last November of our first ever president who took office having public supported gay marriage—heh), you’d think such parades would be matters of celebration. And you’d be wrong. Because never underestimate
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June 13, 2017 — Steven Hayward
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of President Reagan’s famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin that culminated in the famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” I began the second volume of my Age of Reagan political biography with an account of it, and it seems worth repeating today: Most of his senior aides didn’t want him to say it. Indeed, they tried repeatedly to talk him out of
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June 12, 2017 — Steven Hayward
It’s been over two years since I last tortured Power Line’s readership with one of my preposterous excursions in to the greatness of 1970s progressive rock—and especially Gentle Giant, one of the most obscure acts from that period—but the publication of Dave Weigel’s new book on progressive rock, The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock, gives me an excuse to inflict new punishment. In particular,
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