April 24, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: The University Abyss

Featured image As we watch our most elite universities circle the drain by capitulating to a mob indistinguishable from the German professoriate that cheered on the Nazi Party in the 1920s and 1930s, I offer our quote for the day from our friend Inez Feltscher Stepman: “Sorry I have no patience for people continually surprised by what’s going on in Columbia and across university campuses like what did you think would happen »
April 24, 2024 — Scott Johnson

A word from Obama’s wingman

Featured imageWe haven’t heard much from Barack Obama about the 10/7 massacre or Iran’s missile assault on Israel. Former Obama wingman Eric Holder gives us a taste of what we are missing in the Washington Free Beacon story “Eric Holder Says Columbia’s Campus Agitators Have ‘Legitimate Concerns.'” Both Obama and Holder are Columbia alumni. Collin notes the contradiction between Holder’s defense of the pro-Hamas campers at Columbia and the stated position »
April 23, 2024 — John Hinderaker

A Prosecution In Search of a Crime

Featured imageDonald Trump is undergoing a criminal trial in Manhattan. He is charged with filing corporate records that included a false statement; namely, that payments to Michael Cohen that were described as being for legal services were, in fact, to reimburse Cohen for making one or more payments to Stormy Daniels in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement. But those payments to Daniels were perfectly legal, and filing a false corporate document »
April 24, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Extension, Columbia style

Featured imageThe pro-Hamas kill the Jews crowd in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the heart of campus has received an extension. Not to get the campers’ term papers in, of course, but rather to vacate the encampment at the heart of the campus. The encampment is unauthorized and was supposed to be removed days ago. Columbia President Minouche Shafik then set a deadline of this morning at 8:00 a.m. She has »
April 23, 2024 — John Hinderaker

“I know I did something bad”

Featured imageThe Democrats hold a one-vote majority in Minnesota’s state Senate. They used that advantage to pass an unprecedented barrage of far-left legislation in the 2023 session. Their skinny majority is now in jeopardy, however, because a DFL senator has been arrested for burglary. This account is from a local news outlet in Alexandria, Minnesota: A state senator from Woodbury, Minnesota has now been charged with burglary for breaking into her »
April 23, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

More Wisdom from the Book of Garrow

Featured imageOn August 2, 2023, Tablet editor David Samuels interviewed David Garrow, author of Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama, a massive work that, as Scott explains, “puts every other biographer of Obama to shame.” This post reviewed Samuels’ statements in light of 10/7 and Iran’s more recent attack on Israel. In that context, Garrow’s comments are also of interest, particularly his outing of Dreams from My Father as a work of fiction. »
April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson

The trouble with Columbia

Featured imageColumbia University presents an extreme case of the rot infesting our major institutions — elite organs of higher education, corporate America, the mainstream media, the entertainment business, the legal profession, the teachers’ unions, and so on. We can learn from Columbia’s extremity. It highlights elements of the phenomenon that otherwise remain beyond our view. The rot at Columbia runs through the students, the administration, and the faculty of the university. »
April 22, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Did Biden Revoke Title IX?

Featured imageOn Friday, Joe Biden’s Department of Education released its final rule amending the regulations that implement Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. What is it all about? This is how the Department of Education described the changes: The Department therefore issues these final regulations to provide greater clarity regarding: the definition of “sex-based harassment”; the scope of sex discrimination, including recipients’ obligations not to discriminate based on sex »
April 22, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: A Family Affair?

Featured imageOne of the most interesting aspects of the current political scene is the polling evidence showing Donald Trump gaining strength among minority voters, which is causing panic among Democrats. Why is this happening? Explanations run the full spectrum, from inflation to wokery, but here’s some curious evidence (from an Economist/YouGov survey) that it may be as simple as having children: Chaser—while we’re looking at Trump-Biden surveys, this one is fun »
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson

What we’ve got here

Featured imageThe Columbia campus appears to have been taken over by the pro-Hamas kill the Jews crowd among the student body. Jessica Costescu rounds up the news in the Washington Free Beacon story “Columbia University Campus Unravels in Face of Escalating Anti-Semitic, Eliminationist Protests.” The New York Post reports “New anti-Israel tent city takes over Columbia University lawn days after NYPD raid as activists vow to stay ‘forever.’” In other words, »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

It Isn’t About Israel (2)

Featured imageNot wanting to be left out, anti-Semites at Yale are camping out to support genocide against Israel. They have made various demands on Yale’s administration. It will be interesting to see the result: it isn’t easy to get to Yale’s left. Here you see a depressingly large number of Yalies demonstrating: The climax came when they tore down the American flag: A mob of Yale students shout "VIVA VIVA PALESTINA" »
April 23, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Stagnating Regulation

Featured imageAs you may know, the supposed slow-growth of wages since the early 1970s has long been a cause-celebre among the left’s equity crowd. It is usually attributed to lower income tax rates, or the demonic powers of “neoliberalism.” One factor that is seldom considered, at least by the mainstream media and the celebrated egalitarian academics like Thomas Piketty, is the role the sharp rise of economy-wide government regulation that began »
April 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Quotations from Chairman Joe

Featured imageThe silence of President Biden on the eruption of anti-Semitic “protests” on elite college campuses constitutes a disgusting sidebar to the unfolding story. He was asked about them yesterday as he shambled down a sylvan path in Triangle, Virginia. “I condemn the antisemitic protests,” Biden told reporters. “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.” “Palestinians” widely support Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the terrorist forces »
April 22, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Lesser Of Two Evils

Featured imageAm I a fan of Alec Baldwin? No. I am not sure how he got famous, and I don’t think I have ever seen him on screen or on television. And I harshly criticized his careless handling of a firearm that resulted in a death on the set of a movie in which he starred. However. There are worse people. And in this video, you see one of them, as »
April 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson

And then the darkness fell

Featured imageToday is the anniversary of Glen Campbell’s birth. Campbell established himself as a brilliant session guitarist with the Wrecking Crew and then proceeded to record some 65 solo albums in the course of a long career that greatly contributed to the beauty of the world. It’s hard to get a handle on his vast body of work, but perhaps most notable was his partnership with songwriter Jimmy Webb. Below is »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Iran Triumphant?

Featured imageAs the dust seems to be settling in the Middle East, who is coming out on top? Perhaps, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh write in the Wall Street Journal, it is Iran. First, some history: Iran’s theocratic regime has to stand as the most successful imperial power in the Middle East since the British Empire. The comparison would offend the mullahs, but both managed to patrol large swaths of »
April 21, 2024 — John Hinderaker

The Times Weighs In

Featured imageCheck out this headline from today’s New York Times, on the criminal trial that is under way in Manhattan: “Will a Mountain of Evidence Be Enough to Convict Trump?” I understand that readers of the Times tune in mainly to get their daily dose of Trump-hate, but is the Times even pretending to be a newspaper anymore? The trial, which could brand Mr. Trump a felon as he mounts another »