November 19, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley

Band Men

Featured image Beverly Jean Santamaria, better known as Buffy Sainte Marie, built a career on the false claim that she was a Cree Indian born in Canada. That marks a stark contrast to Robbie Robertson, born Jaime Royal Robertson on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario – same place as Jay Silverheels – on July 5, 1943. Robertson never traded on his heritage and built a career by putting American folklore to »
November 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Can Israel Win the Peace?

Featured imageThat is the question posed by Henry Kopel in this long essay. Israel will win the war with Gaza, but what comes next? The Biden administration is already demanding that Israel not occupy Gaza. What then? Kopel writes (links in original): [M]uch like what faced the victorious World War II allies upon Nazi Germany’s surrender, there will remain the critically important job of expunging from Gaza’s institutions and society, Hamas’s »
November 19, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Thought for the Day: A Reminder About Just War Theory

Featured imageFrom Angelo Codevilla and Paul Seabury’s 1989 classic, War: Ends and Means: Discrimination means that armed forces should fight armed forces and not ravage the enemy’s countryside, cities, or economy. While it is permitted to “starve out” an army, blockades of whole countries, such as the ones that kept food from Germany in World Wars I and II, have traditionally been considered unjust means of warfare because they do not »
November 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Another question answered

Featured imageI greatly admire former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He is my idea of a great public official. Appearing on Fox News Sunday this morning (video below), he nailed each response to the questions posed by Shannon Bream. At one point, Bream asked him (her question begins at 3:35 of the video): You’ve seen the data. You’ve served on the job. We keep hearing about what a problem the border »
November 19, 2023 — John Hinderaker

A Question Answered

Featured imageCommentary on the war between Gaza and Israel has descended to a level of epic cluelessness. As, for example, this headline in the Star Tribune: “Their families wiped out, grieving Palestinians in Gaza ask why.” Why? Because you started a war, dummies. Maybe this will teach you not to do it next time. »
November 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Slow Joe turns 81

Featured imagePresident Biden turns 81 tomorrow. We wish him a happy birthday in the privacy with which he is bound to celebrate it. He doesn’t want to draw attention to his achievement in longevity, though I can’t think of another positive achievement he can claim. Eighty-one might not be too old to be president, but Biden gives evidence in every public appearance that it is, at least in his case. His »
November 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Are EVs a Doomed Technology?

Featured imageElectric vehicles have been around for 100 years or so. They lost out to gasoline powered cars because gasoline powered cars are better. Is that ever going to change? At the Telegraph, Michael Kelly draws an analogy to the Concorde: The man in the street has failed to embrace BEVs for the same reason he failed to embrace Concorde nearly 50 years ago: the extra cost – of order £10,000 »
November 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson

American classic

Featured imageDon McLean appeared in town to perform at the Dakota last night. His show constituted a late leg of his 50th anniversary celebration of American Pie — “I’ve been flogging it for two years,” he said. He celebrates both the song and the album. “It’s one album everything went right on,” he said. Backed by a hot five-piece band, he put on a phenomenal show. He was engaging, funny, and »
November 18, 2023 — Steven Hayward

The Week in Pictures: Deja Vu All Over Again Edition

Featured imageWith each passing week the manifestations of anti-Semitism grow louder, more brazen, and more menacing. And now Tik-Tok is piling on, rehabilitating Osama bin Laden in ways that must make Ward Churchill wonder when he gets his job back. Meanwhile, leave it to the Chinese to figure out how to make San Francisco clean up its streets. Maybe we should hold Xi hostage, and solve two problems at once?   »
November 17, 2023 — Lloyd Billingsley

CDC CCP

Featured imageBack in July, the MidValley Times reported, officials in Reedley, California, discovered an illegal laboratory harboring mice, blood, tissue and bodily fluid samples, along with “thousands of vials that contained unlabeled fluids.” Closer inspection revealed “bacterial and viral agents, including: chlamydia, E. Coli, streptococcus pneumonia, hepatitis B and C, herpes 1 and 5, and rubella” along with “samples of malaria.” An outfit called Prestige Biotech had had been operating the »
November 17, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Where Does the Left Get Its Money?

Featured imageWhen I see hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating, rioting, carrying signs, organized and following some kind of leadership, I always wonder: who paid for this? In the case of the anti-Semitism that currently is sweeping across America, there seems to be a pretty simple answer. At the Free Press, Francesca Block answers the question: The pro-Palestinian protests over the last month, where tens of thousands in the U.S. have »
November 19, 2023 — Scott Johnson

The last line of defense

Featured imageFree Press founder/editor Bari Weiss has posted the text of her Federalist Society Barbara K. Olson lecture “You are the last line of defense” together with video at The Free Press. Weiss’s lecture runs to some 4,000 words, but nothing in it is superfluous. Nothing is expendable. Events have not superseded it. The message remains urgent. Here is an excerpt taken from the top of Weiss’s remarks: Some Israelis were »
November 18, 2023 — John Hinderaker

Calls For Genocide Banned From Twitter

Featured imageControversy has been swirling around Elon Musk and Twitter. Musk issued a tweet that was at best stupid and at worst anti-Semitic: You have said the actual truth — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2023 Musk’s tweet apparently was part of his running battle with the Anti-Defamation League, which you can read about here. A number of companies, including IBM and Apple, have suspended advertising on Twitter, and the Biden »
November 18, 2023 — Scott Johnson

Thought for the day

Featured imagePosted last night, today’s New York Post editorial reports on the Nazis in our midst (the Post uses the more obscure and less accurate term “pogromists”): Pro-Hamas thugs have now targeted The New York Post — and we couldn’t be prouder. Within Our Lifetime, an organization dedicated to the “abolition of Zionism” (a k a the destruction of Israel), on Wednesday posted a map with several physical-address New York targets »
November 18, 2023 — Steven Hayward

Podcast: The 3WHH on Canceling Students for (In)Justice in Palesine

Featured imageIt’s another bonus two-podcast weekend, as I sat in again on the Ricochet podcast this week with James Lileks and Charles C.W. Cooke, with special guest Noah Rothman. You can take it in here. But hoo-boy—pour yourself three-fingers of your favorite high-proof single malt for this week’s episode of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, as John, Lucretia, and I throw down hard on the limits of free speech in theory »
November 17, 2023 — John Hinderaker

They’re Coming For You

Featured imageThe Jews are just a warm-up. Many people have made this observation, but this is a nice data point: earlier this year, Minnesota’s legislature enacted a statute that requires “Ethnic Studies” to be incorporated into every single class from kindergarten through 12th grade. Including math and biology. And Minnesota is not alone. The “Ethnic Studies” dodge started in California, but it is expanding across the country. And “Ethnic Studies” is »
November 17, 2023 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Lumps of Holiday Coal

Featured imageJohn Kerry has been in talks for months—months!—with the Chinese about climate change. Actually I’m sure it was just an hour or so, but to the Chinese it must have seemed like months. Anyway, Kerry says we’ve making great progress! How much progress? Well, here’s one way to judge Kerry’s hot air alongside energy realism: »