Glass Half Full
July 30, 2015
From today’s e-mail newsletter from NRO’s Jim Geraghty:
From the way conservatives talk, one would never know that Republicans have 54 U.S. Senate seats, 246 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives (a majority that the party could easily hold for the next decade), 31 governors, and 68 out of 98 partisan state legislatures. Republicans control the governorship and both houses in 23 states; Democrats control only seven.
Abortions have dropped 12 percent nationwide since 2010 and are down in almost every state. The divorce rate declined significantly in the past generation and is staying down, while the marriage rate is up a bit. Slate concedes, “Most Americans have given up on achieving meaningful gun control in their lifetimes or in their grandchildren’s lifetimes.”
Beautiful, just beautiful. NRO’s David French:
This month, Ta-Nehisi Coates published Between the World and Me, a powerful collection of essays written in the form of letters to his teenage son. The book is a sensation on the left, and it is full of rage and even hate. Rather than write a conventional review of the book, I thought I’d respond with my own letter, written to my seven-year-old African-American daughter.
Happy 153rd birthday of teacher, journalist, civil-rights activist, Republican, and gun advocate Ida B. Wells!
Google has a “Doodle” today (see below) in honor of this remarkable and courageous woman. You may know she was born a slave before the Civil War and helped found the NAACP in 1909, but here are five interesting things you may not have heard:
1. Ida Wells was the original Rosa Parks.
She refused to move to the back of the train, “71 years before the activist Rosa Parks showed similar resistance on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus.”
Mark Steyn Gets One Wrong
July 10, 2015
I don’t think there’s any doubt I’m a big fan of Mark Steyn. I would never mock Mark (though I would love to be a mock Mark). Given his T-shirt design, you might even call me a Mark St’ist.
But I have to disagree with him today. I think Steyn’s piece about Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders makes good points, but he almost says that Trump is the only one who has raised actual policy issues in the campaigns so far:
Clinton Doubles Down against Guns, Electability
July 10, 2015
You heard it here first. This was Hillary Clinton’s first and second reaction to the shooting in Charleston last month:
Ed Morrissey makes a good point (“Religion: The new Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?”) about the government’s new definition of marriage: As a country, we allowed Quakers and other religious objectors to opt out of military service, even in World War II. The protection extends to non-religious objectors as well. If the government doesn’t force people to act against their principles for national defense and saving the world from Nazis—the most “compelling interest” the government can have—why on earth should it force people to participate (whether by baking cakes, issuing the licenses, or otherwise) in same-sex marriages?
(Insert Joke about ‘Hybrid Vigor’ and Inbred Nazis Here)
July 10, 2015
Hot Air headline: “German thought leaders move to legalize incest”
The German national Ethics Council has taken a vote and is suggesting that it should be legal for brothers and sisters to marry. (From Metro UK)
Two contributors at The Volokh Conspiracy, both of whom support Obergefell’s redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples, nevertheless argue that it was a poor decision that will have unintended consequences.
Ilya Somin: “A great decision on same-sex marriage – but based on dubious reasoning”
Happy Independence Day!
July 4, 2015
For your listening pleasure, the national anthem—think of it as exercising First Amendment rights by exercising Second Amendment rights!
Enjoyment and Contemplation 