Search Results for: ransom
August 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. He is a veteran reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor for the New York Times and other publications. Cliff’s most recent column is “Israel’s long, hot summer” (at FDD, where it is posted with links). Cliff has kindly given us his permission to post his column on Power Line.
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August 14, 2023 — Steven Hayward
On Friday we noted here one of the signs of severe economic distress in China—the rising unemployment among young Chinese. Over the weekend a number of other data indicators came across the transom, starting with this series on deflation in China from Semafor: The second theme to take up is the ongoing “decoupling” of the U.S. and China. The Wall Street Journal did a chart feature (how handy for us!)
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February 15, 2023 — Steven Hayward
It is slowly dawning on the left that hispanics hate the campus cult term “Latinx,” so much so that in Connecticut several hispanic state legislators have introduced a bill to prohibit the use of the term by state government agencies: Rep. Geraldo Reyes, one of the primary sponsors of the bill, told CNN on Thursday that he and his colleagues behind the bill are Puerto Rican and consider the term
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January 30, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Hating Bill Clinton was thought to have been an obsession of the right, but as I have been tracking for a while, the left has been turning against him for a long time now. And over the transom from Princeton University Press comes the galleys to a forthcoming book, A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism, written by two professors who lean to the left (is
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December 21, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Seeking to provide a perspective other that might contribute to an understanding of the massive omnibus spending bill Congress is about to pass, I asked a knowledgeable source about the dynamics underlying Republican support for it. This is what I understand to be the Republican case for the bill on the Senate side. I pass it on for the sake of those trying to gain some perspective on what we
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August 15, 2022 — Scott Johnson
TCM is in the middle of its annual Summer Under the Stars festival featuring blocs of films with favorite actors and actresses. At the moment they are running films starring Randolph Scott that continue through tomorrow morning. You may want to set your DVR tonight for Ride the High Country (1962, directed by Sam Peckinpah). Regardless of the star, every film played this month demonstrates the superiority of the old
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August 13, 2022 — Steven Hayward
We’re not really going to start a Videos of the Week to go with TWiP, but now and then a few videos cross the transom that deserve notice by our readership. A reader calls to our attention the awesome satirists at the Babylon Bee offering up Law and Order: Microaggressions Victim Unit (just 3 min. long): Next, Kamala strikes again: KAMALA HARRIS: "Equity as a concept says recognize that everyone has
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October 16, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Brandon is still trending yuuuge, but this week definitely belongs to Shatner. Brandon will be around for a while, but really, how often do we get to indulge a full on Kirkasm? Meanwhile, Biden and Harris continue to be the ghost ship White House. How’s that reconciliation package coming? Maybe Southwest Airlines can help them land it. Oh, wait. Headlines of the week: And finally. . .
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August 20, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Taliban leaders claim to have moderated their conduct, if not their beliefs, since they last ruled most of Afghanistan. The Biden administration would like to take them at their word, since thousands of Americans are now at the mercy of the terrorist group. But views of the Taliban being expressed in other countries are not so sanguine. Take Germany, which had a vastly smaller footprint in Afghanistan than we did.
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June 17, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is no one’s idea of a hardliner. For example, he’s leading the charge to appease Iran in the hope that, with the pot sweetened, the mullahs will permit the U.S. to reenter the nuclear deal. But Blinken is what passes for a hardliner in the feckless Biden administration. Reportedly, he strongly urged Joe Biden to sanction the company and the CEO behind the Nord Stream
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June 17, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Whatever President Biden had to say at his press conference after his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Geneva yesterday, it wasn’t worth the price. The price, that is, of giving Putin a stage on which to disparage the United States with a variety of left-wing talking points. Moreover, if Biden said to Putin what he said he said — the White House has posted the text of Biden’s comments here
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June 16, 2021 — Steven Hayward
There are several notable things already apparent beyond John’s observation on the slobbering media coverage of the Biden-Putin midget-summit just below. It may be some time before we get any documentary evidence of what took place, such as the cursory State Department summaries kept by note-takers in the room that are usually declassified and released after 15 or 20 years, so we’ll have to go from selective leaks and public statements.
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May 15, 2021 — Steven Hayward
This “mission to Moscow” is not to be confused with the infamous Joseph Davies 1941 book, Mission to Moscow, which I call a “novel” at the opening of this episode, because its pro-Stalinist viewpoint was fiction indeed. Our use of “mission to Moscow” serves a dual-use purpose today: while it isn’t clear whether there was Russian involvement in the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, we lean on Lucretia’s cyber-expertise
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May 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Bloomberg News reported yesterday that Colonial Pipeline paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers last week. Bloomberg’s story contradicted reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline (“according to two people familiar with the transaction”): The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, underscoring the immense pressure faced
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April 6, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I thought surely this comic book cover that came to me over the transom was a joke or satire of some kind, but no—it’s real! Here is some of the description from the publisher: Dr. Jill Biden is the First Lady of the United States of America, and she’s defining that role in a way no other First Lady has before her. A mother, grandmother, and lifelong educator, Dr. Biden
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April 1, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Toshiro Mifune. Mifune was, most famously, one of Akira Kurosawa’s favorite actors. TCM is paying tribute to Mifune today by showing 10 films that amount to a kind of Kurosawa film festival. Here is the lineup, beginning at 6:00 a.m. (Eastern) this morning: Drunken Angel (1948), the first of Mifune’s 16 films for Kurosawa, casts him as a small-time hoodlum who
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January 15, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Democrats can’t wait to realign American policy on Iran consistent with the inclinations of the mullahcracy. It is a bloody disgrace. Lee Smith performs a great service reminding us of the essential elements of Obama’s policy in the Tablet column “Obama passed the buck.” I had forgotten some of the details. I strongly recommend Lee’s refresher course. The cash and other financial resources made available to Iran in part
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