Ben Sasse Interviewed by Peter Robinson

In the video below Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution interviews Senator Ben Sasse (R,NE) about his latest book, entitled “The Vanishing American Adult”.  In 2016 Sasse announced that he would not support Donald Trump for President if he won the Republican nomination. Well, Trump won the nomination and Sasse refused to support him. As Wikipedia puts it, Sasse “questioned Trump’s commitment to the U.S. Constitution, in particular accusing him of attacking the First Amendment; stated that Trump had refused to condemn the Ku Klux Klan; and suggested that Trump “thinks he’s running for King”.[46] “

Sasse has remained one of Trump’s harshest critics. Although Sasse’s detractors complain that he votes with Trump most of the time, it is clear (or ought to be) that Sasse understands that the supporting good policy should not be sacrificed for the sake of personal pique. 

In the 2016 Presidential election I wrote in the name of Ben Sasse. Unfortunately, he fell about 65 million votes short. Undaunted, I will vote for him again in 2020. If you watch the interview below, it will be clear why I did and will do so again. Maybe you will too. 

JFB

Ben Sasse Interviewed by Peter Robinson

Kim Strassel on the Coronavirus, the Media and Donald Trump

Kim Strassel, an unapologetic defender of capitalism, is a Princeton educated author and  journalist who writes for the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. In the video below she is interviewed by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution. It is certainly worth watching.

Kim Strassel interviewed by Peter Robinson

JFB

A Conversation with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. He is also a PhD economist and research associate at at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. In the video below he is interviewed by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution at Stanford. 

JFB

Joe Biden: Super Hero

It is hard to imagine that anyone could figure out a way to be more juvenile and petty than Donald J. Trump. But the Democrats have managed to do it. They are going to blame the COVID19 crisis on Donald Trump. And Joe Biden is slated to be the messenger. His job is to read the teleprompter and avoid extemporizing. 

I can hear the wail of protest now. The Democrats will argue that they are not blaming the virus on Trump; only that his belated response caused the virus to get out of hand. And we are meant to believe that the Democratic Party’s standard bearer would have done much, much better. 

If, for some reason, you ignore (1) who the standard bearer is actually likely to be, and (2) the time line of what actually happened, the argument has surface plausibility. But then reality sets in. The Party is poised nominate Joe Biden, a 78 year old with mental faculties obviously in decline. Not that they were anything to write home about to begin with.

So let’s look at the time line.

January 14, 2020—The World Health Organization (WHO) voiced the Chinese government’s party line. WHO said “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China.” (See the Federalist). 

January 30, 2020—WHO declares a public health emergency of international concern and confirms person-to-person spread of the virus. 

January 31, 2020—President Trump declares a U.S. public health emergency and issues a ban on travel between the U.S. and China. That decision was endorsed by Dr. Anthony Fauci who later in an interview with Lester Holt, said “One of the things we did right was very early cut off travel from China to the United States…outside of China, where it originated, the countries in the world who have it are through travel.”

What was Joe Biden’s reaction?  Joe Biden reacted that day on the campaign trail in Iowa by saying “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia.” 

And what has Joe Biden proposed to handle the crisis? Well, he has called for “a decisive public-health response.” This is a pretty typical Biden non-response, on par with his penchant for referring to working with “the international community” whenever a foreign policy dilemma makes an appearance. And believe it or not, on the campaign trail he promised that if he is elected President, “Were gonna cure cancer.”

Really. He actually said that. 

And we are supposed to take Joe Biden seriously?   Why?

JFB