D-Day remembered

Featured image My college classmate John Floberg retired after a distinguished career in neurology. We took Professor Peter Bien’s freshman seminar on Politics and the Novel together during our first term. John is originally from Chicago but we reconnected in the Twin Cities through Power Line 40 years after our studies with Professor Bien. Last year John wrote “Doorstops” for us. Following in a family tradition, John served as a commissioned Navy »

The Week in Pictures: Pulling Pelley Edition

Featured imageOn the whole, it’s been a good week. It’s not every week that serves up the kind of supreme schadenfreudey goodness that comes from the firing of the pompous CBS News blowhard Scott Pelley, with more to follow. Less noticed was that NPR laid off most of its climate change reporters this week, too. If NPR is giving up on the climate crusade, it is well and truly over. The »

Minnesota’s most wanted

Featured imageThe feds are offering a $150,000 reward for one of the international fugitives in the Feeding Our Future scandal. A post from the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, Mr. Ereg is defendant No. 61 (out of 80 or so) in the sprawling $500 million Feeding Our Future fraud scandal. He was indicted, along with his wife (Najmo Ahmed, No. 62), back in January 2024 on charges of stealing more than $4 »

The shrinking federal workforce

Featured imageThe trend is your friend. John had already covered earlier today the big news on the blowout May jobs report and the upward revisions on past months’ data. I like to dig into the report each month for certain numbers that reinforce helpful trends within the bigger trends. In May, the federal government workforce shrunk by another 2,600 for the month. The post office made up for that with more »

On Platner, Fetterman Breaks Ranks

Featured imageAs one scandal after another befalls Graham Platner, national Democrats have closed ranks behind him. No doubt they are privately calculating whether they need to dump him, and if so, whether it can realistically be done. But in public, they are with Platner 100%. With one exception: as in so many other instances, John Fetterman dissents: “Every Democrat knows P-Hustle has Nazi ink, was Captain D–k-Pic on Kik, abusive towards »

Jobs Boom

Featured imageMore good economic news: The BLS number of jobs reported this morning for the month of May was close to 265,000 – when including the upward revisions from previous months. This is a phenomenal number given the declining workforce. The workforce is declining due to illegal aliens self-deporting or, in a smaller number of cases, being deported. This chart shows the numbers: At the same time, the financial markets are »

The KKK, Rubio’s Shoes and 60 Minutes

Featured imageLast night, I was on the Sky News U.S. Report with host James Morrow. It was an excellent conversation that covered the latest allegations in the prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the clown show that Democrats have made out of Congressional committee hearings, and the collapse of 60 Minutes. There is a harkening back to Rathergate, and discussion of the Ku Klux Klan–a group that, years ago, I »

Who’s Obsessed With Race?

Featured imageLiberals like to denounce the rest of us as racists, but the truth is that they are the ones who are obsessed with race. This is a classic example: “BBC apologises for misquoting Farage on Nowak murder.” The BBC has apologised to Nigel Farage after one of its presenters misquoted his comments about the killing of Henry Nowak. During Tuesday’s Newsnight programme, Matt Chorley, the presenter, said that the Reform »

Bolton to Plead Guilty

Featured imageJohn Bolton reportedly will plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information, and will pay a $2.25 million fine to avoid jail time. From the indictment that gave rise to the current plea: “From on or about April 9, 2018, through at least on or about August 22, 2025, BOLTON abused his position as National Security Advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his »

Henry Nowak: Starmer blames Musk

Featured imageFrom the BBC, Starmer accuses Musk of trying to whip up division over Henry Nowak murder. In this context, “division” means any criticism of the government. I must say that I had never heard about the Nowak case before seeing it mentioned on Twitter (X) last month, as commentary was posted regarding the trial of Nowak’s murderer, Vickrum Digwa, age 23. Didgwa has since been convicted of murder and sentenced »

Henry Nowak: the call for calm

Featured imageIt has been decreed by official Britain: the unprovoked, brutal murder of Henry Nowak shall not be “politicized,” lest the wishes of Henry’s surviving family be dishonored. In practice, to avoid politicization, one must refrain from any criticizing or questioning any errors or omissions by anyone in government. How dare you. The 0nly prominent political figure to not go along with the Omerta is Reform leader Nigel Farage. For this »

A New $250 Bill?

Featured imageDemocrats are outraged over the news that the administration is considering issuing a $250 bill in commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, with President Trump’s picture on it. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent displayed a mockup of the hypothetical bill: I think this is a marvelous troll on the part of President Trump. Trump has a sense of humor, and his critics generally don’t. Thus, they often fail to understand when »

Personal and confidential: Berney Strauss

Featured imageI am traveling early this morning and most of the day to the wedding of John Hammel Strauss, the son of Berney Strauss, in upstate New York. Berney was my best college friend. After college we went to graduate school together pursuing our interest in literature before shifting our attention elsewhere. In lieu of my usual deliberations over the news of the day, I want to invoke Berney’s memory while »

Gen. Keane on the Iran status quo

Featured imageJack Keane is the retired four-star General, former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and chairman of the Institute for the Study of War. He is smart and well-informed. He discusses where we are and whither we are tending in the conflict with Iran. His observations on the status quo help to arbitrate the differences between John and me. He is the guest on the current What the Hell »

A More Optimistic View on Iran

Featured imageI have often expressed puzzlement over the Trump administration’s cease fire in Iran and its strategy going forward. In general, my views align with Scott’s, as expressed earlier today. However, for a more optimistic view, check out Condoleezza Rice’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal: The war against Iran has been a limited war, and its outcome is likely to be inconclusive. But it has achieved enough to produce a »

Waiting for the end

Featured imageOnce upon a time during the heyday of the Vietnam War, Johnny Carson had William F. Buckley on the Tonight Show as a guest. For his opening question, Johnny asked Buckley something to this effect. United States Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge says that the war may not come to a defintive conclusion, but that it may just fade away. What do you think? In his slowest British drawl, »

Scott Pelley, Dishonest Hack

Featured imageCBS News has fired Scott Pelley. The new regime at CBS News is praising Pelley, probably disingenuously: [New CBS News head Bari] Weiss nevertheless praised Pelley’s body of work and highlighted several of his recent reports for “60 Minutes.” “That unfortunate outcome does not discount from the amazing contributions and work that Scott Pelley has done for CBS and for ‘60 Minutes’ over the course of his career,” Weiss said. »