January 18, 2021 — Steven Hayward
For readers (especially our homebound readers with flexible schedules), tomorrow from 12:50 – 2 pm Pacific time (3:50- 5 Eastern) I’ll once again be sparring with political scientist Thomas Mann on the general topic, “How Will Biden Govern?” on a webinar that is free and open to the public. Prof. Terri Bimes, who teaches the presidency at Berkeley, will moderate the discussion. We plan on taking audience questions, though Tom
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January 18, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Word is out today that Joe Biden plans to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline on Day One in office. Leaving aside potential legal difficulties (I can imagine that, depending on the exact status of the permit, Trans-Canada may have a strong case for damages before the U.S. Federal Court of Claims), this is pure symbolism, as it will not reduce the amount of oil consumed in the
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January 17, 2021 — Steven Hayward
• With near-President Biden proposing to spend $1.9 trillion out of the gate in what will likely be just a down payment on the next wave of the liberal agenda, worth thinking about what could possibly go wrong. Well, maybe inflation, or a crash (or both). Right now we aren’t seeing much inflation, even though the Federal Reserve is goosing the money supply like it’s 2009 on steroids. That’s the
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January 16, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Settle in with your favorite single malt for this extra-long episode that offers a deep dive into the election results with Henry Olsen, the Trump-sympathetic analyst who concludes that Democrat voter fraud did not determine the outcome of the election. He fields a lot of fastballs and curveballs from me and “Lucretia” about why so many Americans can harbor reasonable doubts that the election was run fairly—about why this election
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January 16, 2021 — Steven Hayward
MIGA! Make impeachment great again! Like any other Democratic policy initiative these days, it is going to be a complete fiasco. I’ll bet the website—Impeachment.gov—works about as well as the launch of the Obamacare websites in 2013. I’m sure incoming Senate Majority Leader Schumer will be delighted to get the article of impeachment sent over from the House. And if Speaker Pelosi doesn’t send it, Republican Senators should demand every
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January 15, 2021 — Steven Hayward
California’s rapid descent is starting to remind me of the old Hemingway line about how someone went bankrupt: “Gradually and then suddenly.” The New York Times noticed yesterday: They Can’t Leave the Bay Area Fast Enough The migration from the Bay Area appears real. Residential rents in San Francisco are down 27 percent from a year ago, and the office vacancy rate has spiked to 16.7 percent, a number not
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January 12, 2021 — Steven Hayward
The merry pranksters of Project Veritas captured a (no ex-) PBS attorney, Michael Beller, saying the following (video below): Michael Beller: “We go for all the Republican voters and Homeland Security will take their children away…we’ll put them into the re-education camps.” “Enlightenment camps. They’re nice, they have Sesame Street characters in the classrooms, and they watch PBS all day.” “Americans are so f*cking dumb. You know, most people are
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January 12, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’m away much of this week with my nose in some archives for my book project. So a few random things. • A friend emails: “I just performed a test of Facebook censorship. I posted the iconic photo of Jackie Robinson stealing home, with the caption, ‘Stop the Steal.’ Gone in under 30 seconds. Twice.” (It did finally stick on the third try, though.) I’ll bet if enough people post
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January 11, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I had a conversation over the weekend with a senior career lawyer (who is a Trump supporter) with a federal agency who passed along some interesting information. He said career federal officials in Washington he spoke with on Thursday and Friday are seriously rattled by last Wednesday’s events. Among other things, the fact that apparently some Capitol Police were friendly with the protestors who entered the building have federal bureaucrats wondering
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January 10, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I was caught up short yesterday when I spotted, on the generally very pro-Trump American Greatness website, William B. Allen’s article entitled “Let Us Impeach Him.” It pays to read past the headline of this article, because the argument is not what you think: it’s not a “get-him-out-office-as-fast-as-we-can” manifesto. Rather, Prof. Allen argues that we should take our time and impeach Trump after he leaves office, thereby allowing scope for
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January 10, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Another periodic installment of a look at the world through charts and graphs. • We keep hearing that “the world is on fire,” but a recent study shows a slightly declining trend in carbon emissions from wildfires over the last 20 years: While we’re on the subject. . . • Modern love—the chart version: Good to see that bars and restaurants are stepping up their game. • More in the
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January 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Lucretia and I decided to pour triple shots and host an open bar episode of our regular whisky-drenched dialogue with special guests John Hinderaker and Charles Lipson, frequent contributor to The Spectator and other publications. Partly this is because I wanted some company in the weekly “getting-thrashed-by-Lucretia” moments. And also because we taped this episode with a live virtual Zoom audience of Power Line VIP members, which kind of made
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January 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Yeah, the “2020—Miss Me Yet?” memes kinda write themselves this week. It was only 72 hours ago that it seemed the chief absurdity of the week—and hence today’s lede theme—was the goofy “amen and awoman” prayer in the House of Representatives. That now seems like five years ago. I’ve always said Trump years seem like dog years. Headlines of the week: And finally. . . Tanya Roberts, RIP?:
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January 8, 2021 — Steven Hayward
There remains a lot more to be said about the events of the week and the new circumstances now facing us. Herewith a few observations that I may expand into longer treatments at some point. • The events of the week have emboldened the vindictive and radical spirit of the Democrats and their allies in the media-academic-cultural complex—not that they weren’t radical enough already. You can see this in things
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January 8, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Growing up in the LA area in the 1970s, I bled Dodger blue and loved Tommy Lasorda, who was a welcome upgrade in enthusiasm over the somnambulistic Walter Alston (though I gather Alston is considered to have been a great baseball manager—I’ll leave it to Paul for the final verdict). That was back when baseball offered continuity from season to season before free agency ran wild and scrambled lineups every
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January 7, 2021 — Steven Hayward
All right, by what should perhaps be described as “unpopular” demand, we’re arranging a last-minute VIP webcast tomorrow afternoon at 6 pm Eastern (3 pm Pacific), with a twist: It will be a modified form of the Three Whisky Happy Hour podcast taping, in which I’ve invited Charles Lipson of the University of Chicago to team up with me. (His latest article on the state of things is in The
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January 7, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I imagine about now many readers may be looking for some comic relief from the dreadful scenes of this week. Well, here is the episode for you! M. Stanton Evans As a few select people know, I am currently writing a biography of the late, great M. Stanton Evans, who passed away in 2015. Stan was one of the key figures in the conservative movement from the late 1950s (he
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