October 10, 2021 — Steven Hayward
“Let’s go Brandon” is bidding to go down in political history as one of the most memorable slogans—and greatest media blunders—of all time. I think it is going to be around through election day 2024 (though whether Joe Biden makes it that long is another story). In this first short clip, enjoy the pranking that took place at Chicago O’Hare airport a couple days ago: And in the event you
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October 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Well this is distressing. A reader who went to the trouble of ordering a hardback copy of my last book, Patriotism Is Not Enough, sends along these pics of his Golden Retriever, Lily, chewing it to bits. This means that Golden Retrievers, one of my favorite breeds, turn out to be Eastern Straussians. But not everything is distressing this fine fall Saturday evening. William Shatner, the greatest living actor and
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October 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
This week’s episode is sans-guests and sans-metaphysics, as Lucretia and I kick around the news of the week, which is a mix of the usual ominous portents from Washington, along with some evidence that Democrats are in free-fall with the public. First up is a look at the egregious Department of Justice letter identifying parents protesting at local school board meetings as a threat to the regime (in an ironic
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October 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
It’s obvious that if Trump runs again in 2024, he should name “Brandon” as his running mate, so rally crowds can yell “Let’s go Brandon!” This is better than shouting the vernacular version, and the media will be totally flummoxed having to explain it over and over again. Meanwhile, did Facebook have the worst week ever, or what? Headlines of the week: And finally. . .
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October 8, 2021 — Steven Hayward
As I survey the current scene, I’m inclined to take the long view, which goes all the way back to Watergate. One of the ignored subtexts of Watergate is that a part of the fury behind the drive to get Nixon is that Nixon had made clear after his 1972 landslide his determination to challenge directly the power of the permanent bureaucracy, and thereby the power base of the Democratic
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October 8, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’m going to have a long piece up here later today or over the weekend with a novel theory explaining the vindictiveness of the left today, but for the moment, let’s take up a sidebar about collapsing public approval of President Biden, Democrats, and the news media. First, the Quinnipiac Poll that reports Biden’s public approval rating collapsing to 38 percent, with respondents finding Biden “not competent.” I can’t remember
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October 6, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I know that Facebook is having a bad week, between the faceplant of an outage on Monday, and then the testimony in the Senate by a “whistleblower” (who appears to be a leftist plant, so conservatives ought to be careful before jumping on that bandwagon), but this afternoon Facebook turned in an inexplicable performance. I saw several entries that showed this image as being concealed as “sensitive content” because it
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October 6, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Throughout my entire adult life, the cause of “women’s rights” has been in the forefront of politics, law, and social thought. But as of 2021, there are no longer any “women.” The Department of Health and Human Services now refers to “birthing persons.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refers to “menstruating people.” Last week, The Lancet, once serious medical journal but increasingly politicized to the far left over the last decade, had a
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October 6, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’ve been arguing for at least a year that we’ll eventually look back on the government handling of COVID (in particular lockdowns) as perhaps the greatest single public policy blunder in decades. And the evidence is starting to accumulate. Like this article—which is a meta-analysis of hundreds of published studies—in the International Journal of Economics and Business, just out a week ago from Douglas Allen of Simon Fraser University in
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October 5, 2021 — Steven Hayward
It used to be that if someone shouted in an alley, “It’s the heat!”, it meant the police were coming. But if the perpetual do-gooders have their way, pretty soon might have actual “heat police.” That’s not exactly what they’re calling it, but how long before a move to formal offices of “heat governance” will entail people in uniforms? From Nature magazine: Cities need heat governance to plan for extreme
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October 5, 2021 — Steven Hayward
There seems to be an inverse correlation between rising inflation and the steady deflation of President Biden’s approval ratings. Who would have predicted it? • Let’s start with commodities: Wonder if there might be a relationship between these trendlines: Biden’s approval ratings: Notice the big slippage among independents: These trends might have something to do with Biden trends, too; retails prices aren’t the only thing showing inflation: Even the New
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October 3, 2021 — Steven Hayward
We’re a day late with this week’s episode because Lucretia and I had the opportunity to catch up live with the Pacific Research Institute’s education expert extraordinaire Lance Izumi in San Francisco, to talk about what’s going on in the world of K-12. Lance is the author of the forthcoming book entitled The Homeschool Boom, but also helpfully fills us in on the backstory of how Japanese whisky originated and came to take
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October 2, 2021 — Steven Hayward
The problem with believing progressive B.S. about the “side of history” is that sometimes “progress” hits a sand bar. Like this week for the Dems. So what do they do? Rage against our constitutional order, as noticed here over and over again. But we may look back on this week as the week when Biden’s presidency hit the rocks and sank. Headlines of the week:
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September 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I was busy with class and other things all day today, so it wasn’t until this evening that I caught up with the news that leftist protestors in San Francisco decided to vent their demands for open borders and amnesty and citizenship for anyone who can cross the border by. . . blocking the the Golden Gate Bridge: I really like “Override the parliamentarian.” There’s a slogan to stir the
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September 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Scott has noted that Sen. Joe Manchin has “named his price point” on the spendapalooza bill: $1.5 trillion. Scott is right that this is still very bad, but it requires the progressives to shrink their wish list by more than half—by a full $2 trillion. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the House Democratic caucus meetings and sub-meetings right now, because if there is no honor
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September 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
This short, Power Line Classic format episode features me in conversation this morning with Mackubin T. Owens, decorated Vietnam War vet, long time friend of Power Line, professor at the Naval War College, and author of numerous articles on books on civilian-military relations. With all the controversy over General Mark Milley’s direct contacts with senior Chinese military leaders, his apparently extensive contacts with journalists, and the confusion or contradictions over
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September 29, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’m running out of popcorn watching liberals in a blind rage at Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema holding up the $3.5 trillion spending blowout bill. And the media is only too happy to go along. This is one of my favorites: Well, in a 50/50 Senate, “median voter theory” in political science would explain this pretty well, but what do I know: I’m not a columnist for The
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