Black Lives Matter
June 21, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Last August, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, an African-American police officer in Milwaukee, shot and killed Sylville Smith, an African-American suspect with a lengthy record who was armed and fleeing the police. Anti-police rioting ensued. Four officers were injured. It was clear from the beginning that the African-American policeman did not shoot Smith for reasons having anything to do with race. But this didn’t matter to the local rioters or to Black Lives
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April 16, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Elliot Kaufman is a Stanford junior who writes with great intelligence from inside the asylum. National Review has posted his several pieces for the site here, but he saved his best yet for the Wall Street Journal in “For a Stanford applicant, perseveration pays off” (behind the Journal’s subscription paywall). Following in the footsteps of the late John Updike, Kaufman makes good use of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Kaufman
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April 6, 2017 — John Hinderaker
Heather Mac Donald is the nation’s leading expert on policing and race. Her book The War On Cops is a classic of social science. In December my think tank, Center of the American Experiment, hosted Heather for a speech in Minneapolis that was attended by more than 400, including over 150 law enforcement officers. That was a great crowd. But when Heather spoke at UCLA last night, at the invitation
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April 5, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The Minnesota House of Representatives has passed a bill with a provision increasing the penalties on protesters who shut down highways or block access to the airport. Among others, that would be the Black Lives Matter crowd. The Democrats hauled out their big guns to oppose the provision, one of whom was newly elected Rep. Ilhan Omar. Omar is not a compelling public speaker. Her speech opposing the provision droned
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March 12, 2017 — John Hinderaker
The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri sparked the Black Lives Matter movement and put the Obama administration firmly on the anti-police side. Two subsequent investigations found that the officer who shot Brown, Darren Wilson, acted in self-defense. But the Associated Press can’t let the narrative go, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, for one, thinks the story is significant enough to pick up: A convenience store is disputing a
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January 30, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The drive for education reform brought together an unusual coalition — conservatives who believe in free markets and left-wing community activists who knew little about Milton Friedman but who saw that the public school monopoly was failing children from poor families. For more than 20 years, this coalition has effectively advanced the cause of school choice, often with very beneficial results. But the coalition is fraying thanks, at least in
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January 7, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The criminal cases brought by Marilyn Mosby in the Freddy Gray matter have all been dismissed. Not one was successful. Now Mosby is in the dock. She is the defendant in a civil action brought by five of the six accused police officers. Casear Goodson, driver of the police van in which Gray was injured and the only defendant to be charged with homicide, did not join the case. Yesterday,
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January 5, 2017 — John Hinderaker
I wrote last night about the horrific crime in Chicago, where four young African-Americans kidnapped a mentally challenged white youth and tortured him for somewhere between 24 and 48 hours, while unaccountably documenting a portion of their vicious assault on Facebook Live. On the video the perpetrators can be heard shouting “F*** white people!” and “F*** Trump!.” I pointed out that the Associated Press’s account of the crime completely failed
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December 22, 2016 — John Hinderaker
Are all liberals crazy? Probably not, but it seems that way these days. Pretty much every post I write is about liberals behaving not just badly, but bizarrely. Perhaps that is good, if, like me, you want leftism to be discredited forever. But the process is painful. There is a garden store in Minnesota called Gertens. Its hallmark is that it is really, really big. This time of year, the
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December 2, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Black Lives Matter is mourning the death of “El Commandante,” known to the rest of us as Fidel Castro. BLM feels “an overwhelming sense of loss” at the passing of the communist dictator. And well it should. BLM is a Marxist revolutionary movement — if you don’t believe me, read its sickening eulogy of Castro. Naturally, it views “El Commandante” as a hero to be mourned. BLM praises Castro for
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November 30, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
In September, rioting broke out in Charlotte, North Carolina after a black police officer shot and killed Kenneth Lamont Scott. Mr. Scott was an African-American who, according to the police, pulled a gun and refused to drop it. From the beginning, the shooting looked justified, but we couldn’t tell for sure until the matter was thoroughly investigated. Now, with the investigation complete, it is clear that there was no wrongdoing
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September 28, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Newly released figures show that murders increased by 11 percent in the U.S. in 2015. 1,532 more people were murdered last year than the year before. The murder rate (murders per 100,000 population) rose by 10 percent. According to Kent Scheidegger of the Crime and Consequences blog, only twice in more than a half century has the rate jumped double digits in one year. In one other year, the increase
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September 25, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
It will be a cold day in hell before I root for the New York Giants to beat the Washington Redskins (or any other team not named the Cowboys). But after today’s game between New York and Washington (won, somehow, by the Redskins), I have a strange new respect for the football Giants. Why? Because every member of the team stood with respect during the playing of our National Anthem.
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September 24, 2016 — Scott Johnson
As rioters and looters went on the rampage in Charlotte on Wednesday evening, WBTV News reported live via Twitter that “protesters” (my quotes, not WBTV’s) on I277 were “stopping traffic and surrounding vehicles. AVOID.” Glenn Reynolds retweeted the item and commented: “Run them down.” Falling into the category of “What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d,” I found that cathartic. The powers-that-be at Twitter, however, were having none
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September 22, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday afternoon, a small group of black professionals stood silently in front of the Bank of America Tower in Charlotte, North Carolina holding signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Stop Killing Us.” One of the protesters told the Charlotte Observer, “What we want to do is show we’re not dangerous; we want to show the world it’s not thugs out here.” Presumably, this man and his fellow silent protesters are
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September 22, 2016 — Scott Johnson
The aggravation of racial tensions has proved to be a leading feature of the Age of Obama. The protests/riots/lawlessness in Charlotte last night are illustrative. The Charlotte Observer covers them today here and here. Drudge links to a video of a racist assault posted on Twitter here. Who will speak out against the civic dissolution? I thought it might be worth revisiting what I wrote in November 2014 with respect
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September 21, 2016 — Paul Mirengoff
Protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina have engaged in violence on a large scale following the lethal shooting by police of an African-American. According to the Charlotte Observer, 16 police officers were injured last night in a series of clashes. In addition, there are reports of motorists on Interstate 85 being hurt and their vehicles damaged by rocks, bottles, and traffic cones hurled by protesters off interstate overpasses. Even if the
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