May 31, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Another Officer Down

Featured image A week ago, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Post on the condition of Minneapolis, four years after the death of George Floyd. My assessment was not very positive. It included this, on crime: Crime spiked throughout Minneapolis beginning with the [2020] riots. While violent crime has declined somewhat since 2021, it remains elevated far above pre-George Floyd levels. This is due largely to the fact that the »
May 31, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: What Terrifies Democrats About the Election

Featured imagePolitical consultant Ken Mehlman’s latest weekly update includes this chart, which has got to be adding to Democrats’ panic over Joe Biden: Chaser—it’s not just minorities; young voters are also trending away from the Dems: »
May 31, 2024 — Steven Hayward

Podcast: Ricochet Again, with Glenn Loury

Featured imageNot sure if there is going to be a regular episode of the Three Whisky Happy Hour this weekend. John is now in Venice, while I am still in Budapest (hanging out this rainy day in Cafe Scruton), while Lucretia is nine time zones behind us in her bunker, no doubt lockin’ and loadin.’ And I am sure regular listeners want to know whether she is spitting mad, or megaton-level »
May 31, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Where Do We Go From Here?

Featured imageFor the second time in their ignoble history, the Democrats have fired on Fort Sumter. Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? I wrote my initial thoughts on the Trump verdict yesterday afternoon. I want to add to them here. If Joe Biden is re-elected following this outrage, he will be an illegitimate president. What does that mean? It means, I think, that no one »
May 31, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Implications of conviction

Featured imageThe trial of Donald Trump on jerry-rigged charges produced the foreordained outcome. Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury of 34 felony charges. It couldn’t have been otherwise. This was a show trial. It would have been more efficient — it would have saved a day or two in show time — if Judge Merchan had simply directed a verdict of guilt and sent the jury home when the »
May 31, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Thoughts from the ammo line

Featured imageAmmo Grrrll recounts SUSAN’S VERY BAD, NO GOOD, TERRIBLE DAY. She writes: Why does it seem that when one thing goes to heck, that a clump totaling three will follow? I have written about bad days before – one during my first year of columnizing included rinsing out the pitcher part of my blender without realizing that with the bottom off, it makes a perfect funnel. Sadly, pointed directly at »
May 30, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: Abolish the Ivy League?

Featured imageGlenn Reynolds has long liked to post the provocation “Abolish the Ivy League” over at Instapundit, and now we have some data to back up the idea (as if we didn’t have plenty of good reason before now). The Washington Monthly notes that most of the pro-Hamas campus protests are happening at our most elite (and most expensive) universities, and it has the receipts: Using data from Harvard’s Crowd Counting »
May 30, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Choose one from column A

Featured imageA footnote to John’s post awaiting the verdict: Alvin Bragg’s case against President Trump is a Stalinist joke. It is fundamentally lacking in due process. One glaring element of this is the failure to identify the second crime that revives the otherwise time-barred misdemeanor charges and turns them into a viable felony. What is the second crime and what are its elements? Like ordering from the menu in a Chinese »
May 30, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley

When Bill Threw Down a Monster Dunk

Featured imageIn the wake of his passing on Monday, Bill Walton’s basketball exploits have been extolled far and wide. But check out the UCLA and NBA great last year throwing down on San Diego mayor Todd Gloria, “a liar and a fraud” and the “worst mayor” in the city’s history. What Bill had to say about San Diego may apply in your city, your state, or the entire country. This video »
May 29, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Texas Turns Right

Featured imageThere are a number of states that we think of as conservative, and that are dominated politically by Republicans, but that are not, in policy terms, as much to the right as one might expect. For quite a while, Texas has been on that list. It has been effectively governed by a handful of political insiders who are not, for the most part, particularly conservative. But that appears to be »
May 29, 2024 — Steven Hayward

The Daily Chart: White-Out

Featured imageWe recently spoke on the podcast with Jeremy Carl, author of The Unprotected Class: How Anti-White Racism Is Tearing America Apart. Please buy a copy if you haven’t already! Anyway, fresh evidence for Jeremy’s thesis that “anti-whiteness” is now the ruling ideology of America is offered this week by, of all sources, Bloomberg news: Corporate America Promised to Hire a Lot More People of Color. It Actually Did. . . . The »
May 30, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Guilty [Updated]

Featured imageA grotesquely biased jury of Trump-haters, led by a judge who put service to his party above his judicial responsibilities, has returned guilty verdicts against Donald Trump on all 34 counts with which he was–absurdly–charged. What this shows is that the most important variable in any case is who decides it. Here, the Democrats knew that they could impanel a rabidly anti-Trump jury in Manhattan, so they did so. It »
May 30, 2024 — Scott Johnson

At the Feeding Our Fraud trial

Featured imageAttorney Steve Schleicher is a partner at Minneapolis’s venerable Maslon firm. He is the firm’s Chair of Investigations and White Collar Defense Group. His colleagues obviously think highly of him. Schleicher represented the State of Minnesota pro bono in the prosecution of Derek Chauvin. Attorney General Keith Ellison personally recruited him and was thrilled when he consented (as I found in the emails supplied by the AG’s office in response »
May 30, 2024 — Scott Johnson

Quotations from Chairman Joe

Featured imageIn the video below Chairman Joe hobbles over to respond to a reporter who asks him about the Democrats’ discontent with him. He’s defensive and angry in his familiar fashion about the question and the discontent — “Read the polls, Jack” — but reassured by the Democrats’ support for him versus Trump. Biden could have noted that, if the reporter thinks Democrats might prefer another nominee to him, he seems »
May 29, 2024 — John Hinderaker

As We Await the Verdict

Featured imageThe jury is out in the Democratic Party’s New York prosecution of Donald Trump. We should have a verdict by the weekend. In the meantime, here are some thoughts. This prosecution is a political act, intended to disable Donald Trump and help win the 2024 election for Joe Biden. It is not even in the ballpark of being legitimate law enforcement. I think that most pundits who have commented on »
May 29, 2024 — John Hinderaker

Hurray for Haley

Featured imageI am not as big a fan of Nikki Haley as a lot of Republicans, but this was well done: Nikki Haley wrote “finish them!” on the side of a fresh Israeli artillery shell during a visit to Israel. *** Despite other politicians from both sides denouncing the country’s aggressive offensive in Gaza, including democrat and fellow Israel supporter Chuck Schumer, Ms Haley has repeatedly rushed to Israel’s defence. On »
May 29, 2024 — Steven Hayward

A Working Writer in a Working Library

Featured imageAs a handful of readers or podcast listeners know, I have finally finished a very long wholesale renovation of my house, which only took about three years longer than planned (Covid had a lot to do with that). During this time most of my library was packed away in storage, while some of my library has been packed away in storage for more than a decade. By a circuitous route »