October 8, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff

Is war the only alternative to the Iran deal?

Featured image Michael Oren is Israel’s deputy minister for diplomacy and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States. Writing in the New York Times, Oren disputes the argument that “the only alternative to the Iran nuclear deal is war.” Noting that the same argument was made before the Iran deal was reached in 2015, he responds that, now as then, the alternative to the deal isn’t war, but a better deal. »
October 8, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff

Dick Durbin plays dumb on Dreamers

Featured imageWhen President Trump put an end to the illegal DACA program, he placed in jeopardy (though not immediately) approximately 780,000 illegal immigrants who had relied on the program to obtain lawful status. At the same time, Trump signaled that he wants Congress permanently to remove these individuals from jeopardy by passing legislation granting them the status they enjoy under DACA. Given the illegality of DACA, such legislation is, in fact, »
October 8, 2017 — Steven Hayward

Bill Maher, Neocon?

Featured imageIf we recur to the older definition of a neoconservative as a liberal mugged by reality, we have to be open to the possibility that lefty comedian Bill Maher is on his way to becoming a neoconservative. In a rant on his last show, he takes after the impulse of liberalism to regulate everything. Of course, he doesn’t understand that this is the telos of modern liberalism, but sooner or »
October 8, 2017 — John Hinderaker

Shocker: Most Country Musicians Support the Bill of Rights

Featured imageLiberals are obtuse: they really don’t understand why, whenever there is a mass shooting incident, conservatives don’t demand repeal of the 2nd Amendment and gun confiscation. A case in point is today’s Associated Press article titled, “Many in country music mum over gun issues after Vegas deaths.” Yes: that is because many in country music, like Americans generally, don’t think that the depraved actions of a murderer should be seized »
October 8, 2017 — John Hinderaker

Pence Walks Out on NFL Game

Featured imageThe latest on the National Anthem controversy in the National Football League: Vice-President Pence attended the Indianapolis Colts game today to see Peyton Manning’s jersey retired. (Indiana is, of course, Pence’s home state, where he served as governor.) But Pence walked out when a handful of players refused to stand for the Anthem: Vice President Mike Pence has left the 49ers-Colts game after about a dozen San Francisco players took »
October 8, 2017 — Steven Hayward

Ban Gas-Powered Cars? California Is Thinking About It

Featured imageIt isn’t enough for California to contemplate its own state-run single payer health care system that would require, at a minimum, tripling the state budget. Now a lawmaker wants to have the state ban gasoline-powered cars by the year 2040. I certainly hope California follows through and tries this. If nothing else, it will provide wonderful black market opportunities. Think of all the meth labs that will convert to mini-refineries, »
October 8, 2017 — Scott Johnson

Sunday morning coming down

Featured imageBoz Scaggs played with a hot touring band before a packed house last night at the State Theater in downtown Minneapolis. We’ve seen Boz there a few times before, but this performance was special. The appreciation of the audience was so intense you could feel it. Something was different. I couldn’t figure out it was was. Even in the several lesser known blues numbers that he interspersed among the hits »
October 7, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff

Scalise gets standing ovation; some not pleased

Featured imageHouse Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was shot and almost killed while practicing for the annual congressional baseball game, threw out the first pitch at the opening game of the Washington Nationals playoff series last night. Scalise used crutches to make his way onto the field and a walker to set himself for the first pitch. He threw it to David Bailey, the Capitol Police special agent who was also »
October 7, 2017 — Scott Johnson

Notes on the Ken Burns version

Featured imageI want to add a few notes to Paul’s comments as well as my own on the gargantuan Ken Burns/Lynn Novick PBS documentary The Vietnam War. I think it warrants more informed commentary than my own, but let me these offer notes while we wait for knowledgeable observers such as Mackubin Owens, Victor Davis Hanson and James Robbins to weigh in. As of this weekend, we do have George Veith’s »
October 7, 2017 — John Hinderaker

How Leftism Can Ruin a Once-Proud School District

Featured imageEdina is one of the Twin Cities’ wealthiest suburbs. For decades, its public schools have been viewed as among the nation’s finest. But no longer: a leftist political agenda now dominates the Edina school system, and quality of instruction has slipped badly. Edina is not alone. What has happened there is going on in public schools across the country. Edina’s experience should be a warning to all of us. Kathy »
October 6, 2017 — John Hinderaker

The Real St. Nicholas, Discovered?

Featured imageThe Associated Press says that the remains of St. Nicholas may have been discovered in Turkey: Turkish archaeologists believe they may have discovered the remains of St. Nicholas — from whom the legend of Santa Claus emerged — beneath a church at his birthplace in southern Turkey. St. Nicholas was born and served as a bishop of what is now the Turkish Mediterranean town of Demre, near Antalya, in the »
October 8, 2017 — Scott Johnson

A tribute to Rudy Boschwitz

Featured imageFormer Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber helped put together a tribute to former Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz in the Cowles Auditorium of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs last night. The University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance was also on board as a host. Before his election to the Senate, Rudy had made his name as the down to earth retail businessman who had built Plywood »
October 7, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff

Ireland honors Che Guevara

Featured imageThe Irish post office, An Post, will release a stamp commemorating Che Guevara 50 years after the Cuban communist was killed while trying, with no success, to export Castro’s revolution to Bolivia. The Irish government, through its Cabinet, approved this decision. The stamp will cost 1 Euro. The Irish government seems enamored of Guevara, whose grandmother was the daughter of Irish immigrants who left for Argentina during the notorious famine. »
October 7, 2017 — Steven Hayward

Energiefehler in Deutschland

Featured imageNo matter how often we pile on the fraud that is Germany’s energiewende (for “energy transition”), it never gets old pointing out that it should really be called energiefehler—”energy failure.” Today the New York Times acknowledges it as such: Germany’s Shift to Green Power Stalls, Despite Huge Investments A de facto class system has emerged, saddling a group of have-nots with higher electricity bills that help subsidize the installation of »
October 7, 2017 — Steven Hayward

The Things You Overhear

Featured imageWandering around the Berkeley campus is a source of endless amusement, like spotting the old fossils pictured nearby advocating our celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution that rolls around in another few days. Even at Berzerkeley, there were few takers. No one was stopping at their table to pick up any flyers. And then there’s the things you overhear. A speaker at a conference on campus this »
October 7, 2017 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: That Sorry Time of Year Edition

Featured imageWe could, of course, lead off with some choice observations about the moral preening of Hollywood, except that everyone is tired of Jimmy Kimmel by now. Or the Harvey Weinstein revelations. (Schadenfreude alert. But still a yawn. Big news: Hollywood casting couches still exist! Film at 11! From Weinstein productions!) Or the NFL’s continuing meltdown. Or the usual liberal media ignorance about guns. But no: tis the season for the »
October 6, 2017 — John Hinderaker

Our Crazy Legal System

Featured imageThe Associated Press reports on a 3rd Circuit decision involving a movie theater: Federal disability law requires movie theaters to provide specialized interpreters to patrons who are deaf and blind, an appeals court said Friday. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Cinemark, the nation’s third-largest movie chain, in a case involving a Pennsylvania man who wanted to see the 2014 movie “Gone Girl” and asked a »