I know, I’ve been trying to swear off this overdone genre, but really, how can you resist applying it to the collective meltdown of Harvey Weinstein and Democratic Hollywood? »
To offer a benign variation on one of Scott’s themes, this morning two “Minnesota men” and a California man released a new study showing what total bosh Minnesota’s state energy policy is. The “Minnesota men” were John and his colleague Peter Nelson, and I was the “California man.” The study, “Energy Policy in Minnesota: The High Cost of Failure,” now up on the Center of the American Experiment’s website. Minnesota, »
California Senator Dianne Feinstein has announced today that she will seek re-election to the Senate next year, when she will be 84. And the left is not happy about it. Feinstein is too moderate for California! (Which, sadly, is probably true.) The JuiceVoxers note: Her reelection bid comes amid some criticism of her record from the left wing of the Democratic Party. As Emma Roller wrote in a profile at »
Harvey Weinstein’s pledge to attack the NRA and champion women’s rights in the aftermath of his scandal is such a transparent appeal to ideological partisanship that even liberal ideological partisans are embarrassed (and not buying it). Weinstein might be better off doing a remake of the old Phil Ochs tune, “Love Me, I’m a Liberal.” Here are my suggested lyrics for Harvey: I cried when they shot Pretty Woman Tears »
If we recur to the older definition of a neoconservative as a liberal mugged by reality, we have to be open to the possibility that lefty comedian Bill Maher is on his way to becoming a neoconservative. In a rant on his last show, he takes after the impulse of liberalism to regulate everything. Of course, he doesn’t understand that this is the telos of modern liberalism, but sooner or »
It isn’t enough for California to contemplate its own state-run single payer health care system that would require, at a minimum, tripling the state budget. Now a lawmaker wants to have the state ban gasoline-powered cars by the year 2040. I certainly hope California follows through and tries this. If nothing else, it will provide wonderful black market opportunities. Think of all the meth labs that will convert to mini-refineries, »
No matter how often we pile on the fraud that is Germany’s energiewende (for “energy transition”), it never gets old pointing out that it should really be called energiefehler—”energy failure.” Today the New York Times acknowledges it as such: Germany’s Shift to Green Power Stalls, Despite Huge Investments A de facto class system has emerged, saddling a group of have-nots with higher electricity bills that help subsidize the installation of »
Wandering around the Berkeley campus is a source of endless amusement, like spotting the old fossils pictured nearby advocating our celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution that rolls around in another few days. Even at Berzerkeley, there were few takers. No one was stopping at their table to pick up any flyers. And then there’s the things you overhear. A speaker at a conference on campus this »
We could, of course, lead off with some choice observations about the moral preening of Hollywood, except that everyone is tired of Jimmy Kimmel by now. Or the Harvey Weinstein revelations. (Schadenfreude alert. But still a yawn. Big news: Hollywood casting couches still exist! Film at 11! From Weinstein productions!) Or the NFL’s continuing meltdown. Or the usual liberal media ignorance about guns. But no: tis the season for the »
Yesterday provided a case study of why public regard for the news media has plummeted. The frenzy over whether Secretary of State Tillerson called President Trump a moron became a centerpiece of the day’s news cycle because it enabled what my late mentor M. Stanton Evans called “ventriloquist journalism”—reporters finding a way to use a quotation or action of a public figure to back up their favored narrative, and calling »
The ACLU began equivocating lately about their categorical, content neutral defense of free speech, saying they might not defend the speech of hate groups that incite violence or force. I guess they’ll have to cross Black Lives Matter off their list of groups they will defend, then. Reason‘s Robbie Soave reports: Black Lives Matter Students Shut Down the ACLU’s Campus Free Speech Event Because ‘Liberalism Is White Supremacy’ Students affiliated »
I thought about filing this item under my “Academic Absurdity of the Week” category, which I’ve let slip into disuse lately because there’s a fresh academic absurdity committed every five minutes, and I don’t want this item to become a full time job. But it occurs to me that perhaps there ought to be a “Dumb Book of the Month Club,” with regular selections just like the old Book of »
I think it was Charles Murray who first described the pretentious wedding announcements in the New York Times as the “mergers and acquisitions page,” and certainly the typical mix of Stanford MBA working at an investment bank marries Harvard lawyer working at Steptoe and Johnson underlines a phenomenon that Mickey Kaus flagged in his 1992 book The End of Equality, namely, that the higher rates of intermarriage of highly educated »
Whenever there is a mass shooting incident I tend to “go dark” and not comment here or anywhere until some verified facts emerge. One thing I’m awaiting most is whatever timeline the investigation can put together based on the video surveillance footage that the Mandalay Bay ought to have in abundance. Yesterday David French offered a cautious note about how odd and unlike most mass shootings this was. Just now »
One of the favorite energy ideas of the thermageddonites is that we can meet a large portion of our energy needs through energy conservation, sometimes called “negawatts.” You don’t need to supply energy you don’t consume! In California, the shutdown of our last nuclear power plant in five years, which currently supplies more electricity than all of the solar panels in the state, will supposedly be replaced by new renewable »
Arizona radio talk show host and Power Line friend Seth Leibsohn has decided to run for Congress in Arizona’s 9th district. The Democratic incumbent, Krysten Sinema, is stepping down to run against Jeff Flake for the Senate, so it is an open seat. The 9th district, centered in Maricopa County, has a fairly close partisan balance among registered voters, and thus ought to be winnable by a strong candidate like »
We could use a little comic relief on a day of such grim news, so it’s worth taking in how Saturday Night Live once again skewers the political correctness of the left with their offering of “Woke Jeans.” Memo to campus crazies: when the pinnacle of liberal pop culture thinks you’re making a silly ass of yourself, you’re making a silly ass of yourself. Bonus flashback: This isn’t the first »
“Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.” Winston Churchill
“Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” Inscription on the Liberty Bell
