What is it with the pissant totalitarians in Colorado? Jack Phillips is a baker. He is also a Christian. He declined to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual couple, who, instead of going to the bakery down the street, brought in the state government to try to force him to. The U.S. Supreme Court

Former Vice President Joe Biden greets diners in Manchester, N.H., June 5, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Former vice president Joe Biden’s decision to abandon his support for a ban on taxpayer funding of abortion may have increased his support among Democratic primary voters, according to a new poll. About 32 percent of those likely to vote

Joe Biden speaks at an event at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, June 11, 2019. (Jordan Gale/Reuters) Yesterday in Iowa Joe Biden declared, “I’ve worked so hard in my career that, I promise you, if I’m elected president, you’re going to see the single most important thing that changes America: We’re going to

Sen. Bernie Sanders in Washington, D.C., April 1, 2019 (Carlos Barria/ Reuters) Senator Bernie Sanders plans to mount a vigorous defense of his brand of democratic socialism Wednesday, arguing that it is not the authoritarian bogeyman Republicans and the Trump administration have attempted to cast it as. By “democratic socialism,” Sanders means that “in the

Joe Biden departs after a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., June 5, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) In an effort to woo leftist primary voters, the former vice president is showing himself to lack principles — and further damaging his party’s 2020 prospects. Nineteen Democrats running for president took the stage in Iowa on Sunday to woo

Joe Biden in September 2018 (Yuri Gripas / Reuters) Joe Biden now believes that “We need to get tough with China. China poses a serious challenge to us, and in some areas a real threat.” That’s nice. That’s also the opposite of what he said last month, when he declared, “China is going to eat our

Sen. Kamala Harris launches her campaign for president in Oakland, Calif., January 27, 2019. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters) The other day Wonkette offered an article with a headline that declares — cleaning it up for your sensitive eyes — “Kamala Harris Doesn’t Have To Explain Herself To Your Dumb [Tushes].” Infuriated by headlines about a Harris speech

Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand at the California Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Calif., June 1, 2019. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Making the click-through worthwhile: A handful of long-shot Democratic presidential candidates reach the inevitable stage of whining about how difficult and unfair everything is, social-media companies are slowly strangling what made their platforms worthwhile, a bit

A new poll from over the weekend in Iowa has Biden leading with 24 percent, followed by Sanders (16), Warren (15), Buttigieg (14), Harris (7), and everyone else. If this was the Iowa polling 10 days before the caucuses, you’d say that Biden was in pretty good shape, but by no means a guaranteed winner

Joe Biden takes questions from the audience at a campaign stop in Concord, N.H., June 4, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Democrats’ enthusiasm for their front-runner wanes, as they worry about his gaffes and blunders. When Joe Biden announced last month, he became the instant Democratic front-runner, based on his stature and huge name ID. But is

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the California Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Calif., June 1, 2019. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Senator Warren embraces dirigisme. In a Democratic field that includes dingbat socialist Bernie Sanders, callow ward heeler Corey Booker, and eternal sophomore-class president Kirsten Gillibrand, it was perhaps inevitable that Elizabeth Warren would come to be known

Senator Cory Booker (D., N.J.) speaks in Newark, N.J., February 1, 2019. (Andrew Kelly/Reuters) From his Medium page: Anyone paying more than 30 percent of their before-tax income would be eligible for the credit, which would cover the difference between 30 percent of a beneficiary’s income and their rent (capped at the neighborhood fair market rent).

Joe Biden speaks at a rally with striking Stop & Shop workers in Boston, Mass., April 18, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) He’s been truly pathetic on the Hyde Amendment over the last few days, finally (for now, I guess) rejecting it and getting fully on board the Democratic party’s pro-abortion extremism. This isn’t a move of

David Koch in 2012 (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the political arm of the billionaire Koch brothers’ sprawling influence network, which has traditionally confined its support to Republicans, plans to pursue a “bipartisan approach” when determining which candidates to back in the 2020 election cycle. In a memo distributed to employees Thursday and obtained

Former Vice President Joe Biden in Manchester, N.H., May 13, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Democratic front-runner Joe Biden has twisted himself in knots on the issue of taxpayer funding of elective abortion over the past few weeks. After four decades of supporting the Hyde amendment, a measure that bans federal funding of abortion under Medicaid except

Joe Biden greets supporters after speaking during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Pa., May 18, 2019. (Mark Makela/Reuters) The former vice president’s change of heart on the Hyde amendment is just the latest evidence that he is not the abortion moderate he wants you to think he is. In a catastrophic failure of moral and

Demonstrators protest against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in front of the office of Sen. Susan Collins on Capitol Hill, September 24, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Needless to say, America is not a country ripe for the imposition of Catholic traditionalism. The most bracing pieces are sometimes the least defensible. So it is with Sohrab Ahmari’s

Kentucky governor Matt Bevin (Bill Clark/Contributor/Getty Images) Not if the public unions can help it Frankfort, Ky. ‘The president just put out a tweet for me,” says Governor Matt Bevin as he climbs aboard the Super King Air 200 that serves as Kentucky’s twin-turboprop version of Air Force One. It’s May 21 — primary day

Joe Biden speaks at a campaign stop in Concord, N.H., June 4, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) A new poll of red-leaning Texas has Joe Biden several points ahead of President Trump in a hypothetical general-election matchup. The former vice president leads Trump 48 to 44 in the Lone Star State, according to the Quinnipiac University poll,

(Pixabay) The natural follow-up to today’s Morning Jolt is, “What can be done about dishonest political-action committees?” First, some of these scam PACs violate the law in the course of soliciting donations and moving money around — setting up dummy pass-through corporations, shell entities that exist only on paper, using fake identities in business correspondence

A motley crew in the House and the Senate has resolved to prohibit former members of Congress from becoming lobbyists. In the bipartisan working group — which was formed ad hoc yesterday, on Twitter — are Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Senator Brian Schatz (D., … Read More

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak (Wikimedia) Nevada governor Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, vetoed legislation on Thursday that would have preemptively committed the state’s presidential electors to whichever candidate won the national popular vote. “After thoughtful deliberation, I have decided to veto Assembly Bill 186,” Sisolak said in a statement. “Once effective, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Special counsel Robert Mueller delivers a statement on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., May 29, 2019. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) If so, why did he do it? What did Robert Mueller know, and when did he know it? This was among the questions that

Joe Biden speaks at the kickoff rally of his 2020 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Pa., May 18, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) The 2020 Democratic front-runner doesn’t carry the same baggage. Is Joe Biden Hillary Clinton — or George W. Bush? The first, most obvious and literal answer is, he’s neither. He’s Joe Biden, one of the

Special counsel Robert Mueller delivers a statement on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., May 29, 2019. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) Mueller invented an extraconstitutional legal standard for his obstruction investigation. In the end, by-the-book Robert Mueller departed wildly from the book. He invented an

California representative Eric Swalwell arrives to speak at the North America’s Building Trades Unions legislative conference in Washington, D.C., April 10, 2019. (Yuri Gripas /Reuters) Representative Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), a long-shot contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, called on his colleagues Friday to impeach Attorney General William Barr and Secretary of the Treasury Steve

Joe Biden speaks at a rally with striking Stop & Shop workers in Boston, Mass., April 18, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) I enjoyed Jonah’s piece on the home page detailing the differences between Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. This paragraph deserves further amplification and explanation: But while Trump’s attacks on Clinton were surely effective at times,

A bird flies over the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant in Goldsboro, Pa., May 30, 2017. (Carlo Allegri/Reuters) Until they embrace nuclear energy as a key to reducing emissions, the party’s many presidential candidates will be hard to take seriously on climate change. Climate change is the No. 1 issue for Democrats, with a

Pete Buttigieg shakes hands as he campaigns with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (at right) in Los Angeles, Calif., May 9, 2019. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters) Everyone who’s anyone has heard of Mayor Pete, right? He had his breakout performance during a CNN townhall in March and drew strong ratings during his Fox News townhall in May.

At the time of the Roe v. Wade decision, I was a college student — an anti-war, mother-earth, feminist, hippie college student. That particular January I was taking a semester off, living in the D.C. area and volunteering at the feminist “underground newspaper” Off Our Backs. As you’d guess, I was … Read More