April 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Sunday morning coming down

Featured image Merle Haggard died eight years ago yesterday at the age of 79 — to be exact, on his seventy-ninth birthday. Haggard is finally the subject of a full-scale biography — The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard (2022), by Marc Eliot. Mark Pulliam reviewed it at Law and Liberty in the excellent column “Our redneck poet.” He “expand[s] upon Eliot’s respectful (but not hagiographic) treatment of the »
April 7, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Their story

Featured imagePresident Biden used the IDF’s accidental killing of the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza to demand that Israel capitulate to Hamas. That’s my translation of the White House readout of Biden’s April 4 phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I posted the crucial excerpt here last week. I also noted that Secretary of State Blinken added a twist in his April 4 press conference. He declared that »
April 6, 2024 — John Hinderaker

The Peril of Being In a War Zone

Featured imageEarlier this week, an Israeli air strike inadvertently killed seven aid workers in Gaza. The strike was a mistake for which at least two Israeli army officers have been cashiered. It was the occasion for world-wide calumny, including a demand by Joe Biden that the Israelis go along with Hamas’s demand for a cease-fie, i.e., a Hamas victory. But tragedies happen in a war zone–even this one, where Israel has »
April 6, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

It Wasn’t Just Birx

Featured imageIt Wasn’t Fauci: How the Deep State Really Played Trump, the documentary Scott recently posted, outs Deborah Birx as the villain in the Covid drama. The case is strong, but there’s a back story people should know. In 1985, Birx began her career with the Department of Defense as a “military trained clinician in immunology, focusing on HIV/AIDS vaccine research.” That was the project of Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose bio »
April 6, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Rampant Anti-Semitism, and the Democrats

Featured imageOn Thursday evening, a malevolent crowd at a public forum at Rutgers threatened Jewish students and drove the university’s president from the room. The Free Beacon reports: A Rutgers University town hall descended into anarchy Thursday evening as anti-Israel students chanted demands to “globalize the intifada”… “Globalize the intifada” means that no Jew should ever be able to live in safety, anywhere in the world. …hurled anti-Semitic insults at Jewish »
April 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Guest Column by Daniel B. Klein: Libertarians and Civic Virtue

Featured imageI sometimes say that I am a libertarian only on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and April 15) because libertarian purism can be politically frivolous. I was delighted that Daniel B. Klein, professor of economics and JIN Chair at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and editor of the invaluable Econ Journal Watch, sent the following article for our consideration, and I fully agree with it: An interview between two libertarians »
April 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Podcast: The 3WHH on Earthquakes, Physical and Political

Featured imageJohn Yoo takes command of host duties this week, as I was on the road at an academic conference at City University of New York, where a knowledgeable faculty member remarked that he was surprised I didn’t need an armed guard. The conference was largely devoted to the intellectual history of the liberal tradition, and was designed perfectly to induce a scornful snort from Lucretia who disdains all such flim-flummery. »
April 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Earthquake Edition

Featured image“Well,” I said to myself upon arriving from California for three days in New York City, “at least I won’t have to worry about earthquakes.” On the other hand, things are so weird now that walking around in Manhattan, you actually find second-hand cigarette smoke a blessed relief from the dominant second-hand pot smoke, which you pick up almost every block. But right after the “earthquake,” I spotted this on »
April 5, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Reversible? Don’t Count On It

Featured imageThe “trans” industry’s assault on America’s youth includes persuading kids that they “really” are a boy rather than a girl, or vice versa. Sex change operations don’t come immediately; rather, the preferred sequence begins with puberty-blocking drugs. The rationale is that the effects of these drugs are reversible, so they merely buy time to allow the kid to sort out his or her “gender.” But are the effects of puberty-blocking »
April 5, 2024 — John Hinderaker

A Woke Trifecta

Featured imageThis is one of the most niche headlines ever, a grand slam (to mix sports metaphors) of wokeness: I stay up nights worrying about this. pic.twitter.com/f5Zjq4ZBNi — Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) April 4, 2024 Because apparently it never rained in Indonesia until recently. The Left has become impossible to parody. STEVE adds—I dunno John. Seems like this headline from CBS News is a contender: »
April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Biden adopts the Hamas line

Featured imageWe have traced President Biden’s retreat from the public defense of Israel in its war on Hamas to his adoption of the Hamas line. He has now taken up the strategery of Dr. Jill to demand an immediate ceasefire. The White House readout of Biden’s call yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu has Biden demanding Israel’s agreement to Hamas’s terms: [Biden] made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement »
April 6, 2024 — Steven Hayward

No Labels, No Ideas, No Candidates, No Clue

Featured imageIn the most unsurprising announcement of the week, No Labels has given up its plan for a third-party “unity” ticket, proving that generic brand politics has about as much appeal as generic brand consumer products. But at least the generic store brands, with their bland labels, save you money. Just what was the No Labels ticket going to stand for? Was there ever a single idea that No Labels stood »
April 6, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Uber versus Übermensch

Featured imageI want to strike a Nietzschean note in this comment on the rideshare ordinance enacted by the City of Minneapolis this past month. Under the ordinance, Uber and Lyft would be required to pay drivers a minimum rate of $1.40 per mile and 51 cents per minute to ensure that they earn the equivalent of local minimum wage of $15.57 per hour — effective May 1. The city council overrode »
April 5, 2024 — John Hinderaker

About That Jobs Report [Updated]

Featured imageMany are hailing today’s establishment and household job reports, which show 300,000, or as many as 500,000, jobs being added in March. But Steve Moore points out in his Committee to Unleash Prosperity email that the picture is far from rosy: The new job numbers for March were strong with 300,000 jobs added in the establishment survey and 500,000 in the household survey. But those positive headline numbers camouflage a »
April 5, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Where Are the Pronoun Police?

Featured imageTerrific—a new thing for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to police in employment discrimination. A Canadian social scientist (the best kind, no doubt) is out with a paper that finds job applicants who include non-binary pronouns (like “they/them”) on their resumes get fewer call backs than normal people. Who woulda thunk it? Potential employers prefer to avoid hiring dramatists and schizophrenics. The paper is Taryn versus Taryn (she/her) versus »
April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson

America’s drug crisis

Featured imageDouglas Murray has just posted the documentary America’s Drug Crisis on his YouTube channel. I have embedded it below. He writes in the YouTube caption: “As the U.S. has turned away from ‘the war on drugs,’ many cities have sought more ‘humane’ approaches to dealing with addiction. They’re not working. In my new documentary, I explore just how deep-seated America’s Drug Crisis has become – and how the policies we’ve »
April 5, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Administrative law is unlawful

Featured imagePhilip Hamburger’s Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (2014) constitutes a pioneering work of intellectual restoration. Provoked by recent developments in administrative law, I have returned to it this week. Just in time for this concluding post, I heard from Professor Hamburger last night. He wrote: Dear Scott, Thank you so much for your kind discussion of my book! Alas, there is still a long way to go in clearing up the »