Media
March 22, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Reporters Jonathan Swan and Luke Broadwater profile House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer for readers who get their news from the New York Times. Comer’s investigation of the Biden family business is therefore belittled as a look into “sinister-sounding allegations against Mr. Biden and his family.” Were those “sinister-sounding allegations” formerly known as “Russian disinformation”? Maybe this is a step up. “Sinister-sounding allegations” must be something like George Smathers’s legendary
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March 20, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The state of Minnesota overtaxed us by $17 billion in the last biennium and is sitting on the surplus. The funds should be returned on a pro rata basis to those of us who were compelled to fork over the dough, but that’s not what state Democrats have in mind, even when they couch their proposals in the language of “rebates.” That much I can tell you. The Star Tribune
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March 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I commented on Tucker Carlson’s four segments featuring suppressed January 6 videos last week in posts here (March 9) and here (March 10). Now January 6 defendant Dominic Pezzola has brought a motion seeking dismissal of the case against him “due to recent revelations on the Tucker Carlson show” that purportedly prove that Congress overreacted when members of a mob that had overrun officers, broken windows and doors, and was
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March 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I wrote two posts on Tucker Carlson’s four January 6 segments featuring suppressed video of the Capitol and focused on the case of Jacob Chamsley. I found Tucker’s presentation of the case deficient and misleading. I sought to provide relevant facts that might inform the views of readers who would otherwise take Tucker at face value. All in all, I thought that Tucker’s four segments were a dud. That is
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March 10, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Over the past two evenings Tucker Carlson has devoted segments to the case of Jacob Chansley, the QAnon Shaman. He decries Chansley’s wrongful conviction for his actions on January 6 and asserts that the previously suppressed video he has broadcast establishes Chansley’s innocence. Chansley’s conviction is portrayed as an injustice akin to the Dreyfus case. I have posted video of last night’s segment below. In the introduction to last night’s
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March 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota’s Star Tribune has yet to cover the ridiculous Ramsey County District Court decision requiring USA Powerlifting to allow male trans athlete JayCee Cooper to compete as a woman. The Star Tribune has nevertheless published Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve’s op-ed column celebrating the decision. Reeve omitted any discussion of the possible participation of male trans athletes in the WNBA. She could have made a contribution if she had taken
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March 9, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I have watched Tucker Carlson’s reporting on the previously suppressed January 6 tapes over the past three evenings along with his reconstruction of events. Nauseated by the incessant palaver about the supposed “insurrection,” I can’t help but want to hear the full story. I support his efforts to redress the Democrat/media hysteria. Yet his account seems to me lacking in its own way. Tucker condemns the riot that delayed the
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March 8, 2023 — Scott Johnson
A reader writes to comment on the March 6 Star Tribune editorial throwing stones at FOX News from inside a glass house. He characterizes the editorial as possibly “the greatest example of media hypocrisy in the history of mankind,” which is hyperbolic, but the man has a point. Exploiting the continuing embarrassment of FOX News in the Dominion lawsuit, the editorial is tough to swallow. It’s not just the schadenfreude,
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March 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
You may have heard about the Minnesota state court decision ruling that USA Powerlifting must permit the male trans athlete JayCee Cooper to compete as a woman. The decision has been widely reported in the national press. NRO’s Ari Braff, for example, has a story on it here. It is a story that has been reported in outlets including the New York Post, Fox News, NBC News, and UnHerd. Cooper
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March 5, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In this weekend’s Review section of the Wall Street Journal Barton Swaim reviews “candidate memoirs” by Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Ron DeSantis. It is a graceful and perceptive review. Pompeo’s Never Give an Inch stands out. However, Swaim seems to chide Pompeo for “devot[ing] so much attention to rehearsing the lies, exaggerations and incompetence of his critics in the news media.” Let us consider this anecdote that
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March 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
As we have noted a number of times, the Democrats have taken charge of Minnesota’s political branches and their political id — not id., but Freudian id — rules the roost. The Star Tribune is of course the Democrats’ public relations arm. It is therefore somewhat difficult to deduce the news in the celebratory text of Brianna Bierschbach’s story on the voting rights bill that was signed into law by
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March 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In January 2020 Senator Tom Cotton called for a targeted China travel ban to prevent spread of the Covid virus (letter posted here). Senator Cotton was warning that China was covering up the lethality of the disease and doing little to stop what became a global pandemic. Politico’s Burgess Everett recognized that Senator Cotton’s expression of his concerns gave him “a three-month head start” over his colleagues. In February 2020
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February 28, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I noted the work of Aaron Maté in connection with the Russia hoax in “A Twitter Files footnote (10)” (interviewing former New York Times investigative reporter Jeff Gerth). He writes frequently for the RealClearInvestigations portal of RealClearPolitics, as in “Unchastened by Russiagate, the NY Times Doubles Down in Its Special Counsel Coverage.” Sitting in for the comedian/host of the Jimmy Dore Show, Maté devoted a segment to what I have
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February 27, 2023 — Scott Johnson
I nominate Jonathan Turley for the column of the day in today’s New York Post. Professor Turley documents the confederacy of louts denouncing the Covid lab-leak hypothesis as, well, you know what. This is how he puts it (slightly edited) in what I nominate for quote of the day: For years, the media and government allied to treat anyone raising a lab theory as one of three possibilities: conspiracy theorist
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February 27, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The Wall Street Journal reported this weekend’s big story about the probable origin of the Covid-19 virus in China’s Wuhan lab. In the related editorial this morning the Journal calls its scoop “Another turn in the Covid lab-leak story.” The editorial harks back to the April 2020 op-ed column “Coronavirus and the laboratories in Wuhan” by Senator Tom Cotton. Senator Cotton has posted the column in accessible form here. Today’s
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February 26, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Angela Davis’s ancestors may be of interest, as PBS reported last week, but it’s her own back pages that deserve a deep dive. I don’t think anyone has done so with greater penetration than the historian Ronald Radosh. Ron is the author of books including the invaluable The Rosenberg File (with Joyce Milton) as well as the classic memoir Commies, the critically important Red Star Over Hollywood, and, most recently
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February 23, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Students of ancient history may recall that the campaign of then Democrat Senate candidate John Fetterman released two letters from physicians who vouched for Fetterman’s fitness to serve following the stroke he suffered last year just before the Pennsylvania primary. The first such letter was released on June 3 under the signature of Dr. Ramesh Chandra. The second such letter was released just before the general election in mid-October under
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