Facts from  Obama’s Energy Department undersecretary for science, Dr. Steven Koonin: Heat waves in the US are now no more common than they were in 1900. The warmest temperatures in the US have not risen in the past fifty years. Quoting from published climate science research by the US government and the UN: Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century. Greenland’s ice sheet (see picture) isn’t shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago. The global area burned by wildfires has declined more than 25% since 2003 and 2020 was one of the lowest years on record. In Koonin’s book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters , he writes his doubts formed after the American Physical Society asked him to review its statement on climate. After he convened a 2014 workshop to “stress test” the state of the science, Koonin “came away .   .   .  shaken by the realization that climate science was...

From the Hoover Institution’s Victor Davis Hanson , quoted without comment:    Is there some rule that says the most vocal “antiracists” of the last two months must live in homes worth over $10 million in value? When the Obamas venture out of their seaside Martha’s Vineyard spread, it is to lecture the country on racial unfairness and “Jim Crow” voting laws.   When Oprah Winfrey compares slights with Meghan Markle, it is one $90 million estate holder chatting with another $14 million estate holder.        When LeBron James with impunity threatens an officer on Twitter (“You’re next”), he does so from his own well-guarded $40 million Beverly Hills enclave.   capture the irony of self-labeled “Marxist” Patrisse Khan-Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter. She is now a proud owner of a $1.4 million Topanga Canyon home, in a nearly all-white neighborhood—and busy using her Marxist market insights to create a mini-real-estate family empire.   ...

If you wish to expel religion from our European civilization you can only do it through another system of doctrines, and from the outset this would take over all the psychological characteristics of religion, the same sanctity, rigidity and intolerance, the same prohibition of thought in self-defense. — Sigmund Freud (1927) From the beginning of civilization, those in power have seen religion as a way to control the powerless. People need hope. The powerful need to manipulate that hope. As Washington displaced town-level power in the hands of local wealthy, the Democratic welfare state used Christianity to support the New Deal, then to back wars against Fascism and Communism, but saw is usefulness wane during the 1960s anti-war social revolution. Now the Green New Deal combined with Anti-racism have emerged as a full-blown new religion, proselytizing to America’s non-white-male majority. John McWhorter Flaw one: the Green New Deal’s anti-capitalist agenda won’t deliver prosperity to a...

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Bari Weiss                  Justice  Thomas Bari Weiss is a woman of courage who quit the New York Times to commit fully to preserving freedom of speech (see earlier post ). Weiss quotes NYU law professor Richard Epstein’s argument that high tech firms Google (including YouTube), Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter need to be treated as public utilities or common carriers. Just as a railroad can’t refuse to transport a person because they believe the Earth is flat, so these firms should not censor political content. Weiss says Google’s Search engine accounts for 90% of market share. Can anyone convincingly argue that an outfit such as DuckDuckGo is a competitor? And if Amazon with 80% of the digital books market blocks the sale of an ebook, does the author have a real alternative?  Weiss and Epstein now have a powerful ally: Justice Clarence Thomas. The thrust of Thomas’s recent written argument:  Today’s digital platforms pr...

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“Dragnet’s" LAPD Detective Joe Friday (played by Jack Webb) tells us what also counts in politics. Here are four facts: 1. Trump's January popularity decline hurt GOP. Gallup reports  49% of adults 18 and older claim Democratic Party affiliation or said they are Democrat-leaning independents. The phone survey covered January-March. Only 40% identified as Republican or Republican-leaning. The 9% gap is the Democrats' largest advantage since late 2012.  Democrats typically hold a 4-6% edge, but late last year, the gap nearly disappeared. Since then, independents increased by 6%, from 38% to 44%. That's the biggest jump in independents since 2013, when they were at 46%. As in 2013, the rise correlated with a Republican Party decline. The survey period covered both President Joe Biden's inauguration and Trump supporters’ January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump ended his presidency with a very low 29% job approval rating. 2. McConnell indicates GOP split wi...

Myra Adams is a media producer and writer with Bush ’04 and McCain experience. Adams documents  that after landslide Republican victories in 1980, 1984, and a sizable win in 1988, youth have helped opponents of five GOP presidential nominees and two incumbents, costing them popular vote victories in seven of the next eight quadrennial elections. While both Bill Clinton (1996) and George W. Bush (2004) won re-election with popular vote triumphs, since 2008, it’s been Democrats 4, Republicans 0.  Beginning with Obama, Democratic strength among incoming young people has overcome Republican strength among seniors. In 2008, youth (18-29) were 18% of the vote, and went for Obama over McCain by a remarkable 34%. Seniors (over 65) were 16% of voters, and voted McCain by only 8%. Four years later, it was youth (19% of voters) +23% for Obama, seniors (16%) + 12% for Romney. Hillary Clinton won youth (19% of vote) by “only” 19% in 2016, but lost to Trump among seniors (16% of voters) by ...

Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr. have written Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It . Their comprehensive study says university affirmative action students often rank low in their class and struggle to finish college or pass professional exams. And whatever their academic achievements, affirmative action arguably  both stigmatizes its beneficiaries and, knowing they have gained preferential treatment, compromises their self-esteem and self-respect. Obama at Harvard Law Barack Obama is America’s Affirmative Action Man. As with lesser known affirmative action beneficiaries, he’ll never know where he’d be if affirmative action hadn’t pushed him forward.   Obama in 1991 became the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review. Six years later, he was an Illinois State Senator, and a further decade on, was running for U.S. President. The honor for 90 years until the 1970s of leading the ...