URLs du Jour

2020-07-14

See if you can pick the bit that made me laugh out loud: Citizen vs. Government (Vol. 3).

But it's mostly uncontrollable sobbing and howls of outrage for me these days

  • Speaking of howls of outrage, National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy looks at the Roger Stone communtation which made… Amnesiac Democrats Howl in Outrage.

    Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the Whitewater scandal for which he and Hillary Clinton were under investigation. And three others convicted in independent counsel Ken Starr’s probe. And Marc Rich, in what was a straight up political payoff. And his CIA director. And his HUD secretary. And eight people convicted in an investigation of his Agriculture Department.

    No surprise there: The Clintons and their supporters then, like Trump and his supporters now, regarded the special-prosecutor probes into the administration as witch hunts.

    Clinton also commuted the sentences of convicted terrorists, some of whom hadn’t even asked for clemency. Shameless as he was, though, even he couldn’t bring himself to pardon Oscar Lopez Rivera, the defiantly unrepentant FALN leader.

    President Obama took care of that.

    Yes, this is "whataboutism". And "Trump is as bad as Clinton"? Not a great campaign ad.

    But for those of us who'd like rules and norms applied equally to both sides…


  • I love state-comparison articles, probably because New Hampshire usually comes off pretty well. If you're the same, check out Daniel J. Mitchell's latest: The State With the Greediest Politicians, Part I.

    When considering which state has the greediest politicians, the flippant (but understandable) answer is to say “all of them.”

    A more serious way of dealing with that question, though, is to look at overall rankings of economic policy.

    According to the Fraser Institute, we can assume that Delaware apparently has the worst politicians and New Hampshire has the best ones.

    According to comprehensive calculations in Freedom in the 50 States, New York’s politicians seem to be the worst and Florida’s are the best.

    But we're number two on that last one. Click through for Tax Foundation's ranking based on income tax rates; NH is a mixed bag there, with its 5% Interest and Dividends Tax.

    Looking forward to Parts 2 through N.


  • At the WSJ, Gerard Baker: Democracy Dies in Darkness, but Don’t Blame Trump.

    Remember the grave warnings when Donald Trump was elected about how his presidency would usher in an unprecedented assault on freedom of expression?

    Ululations of orchestrated hysteria went up from the nation’s media. It was 1933 again. Late Weimar America would succumb to an authoritarian with a distinctive haircut and a penchant for intolerant rhetoric.

    A few weeks before the 2016 election, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a thunderous warning: “A Trump presidency represents a threat to press freedom unknown in modern history.”

    “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” which some have noted sounds like the working title for an inferior James Bond movie, became the daily front-page leitmotif of a major newspaper, its reporters bravely committed to holding aloft the flickering lamp of freedom amid the gathering gloom of tyranny.

    People threatened with job losses (or, in some cases, actually losing their jobs) for speaking unpopular opinions, thanks to… Trump?


  • So it's time for some sorely needed comic relief. John Sexton anylzes the latest brain droppings from AOC. Why the sudden increase in NYC crime, AOC?

    As Treacher said in a comment: "She saw Les Miserables and thought it was a documentary."

    I'm pretty sure that they don't break out "bread theft" in the crime stats, but I'm confident it's not a major problem in NYC, at least not since the seventh season of Seinfeld.