Monday Morning Briefing

Batten down the hatches; I'm suiting up and going behind enemy lines again

• Announcement: For any readers and old pals in the greater Boulder (CO) area, I’ll be turning up on campus Wednesday and Thursday at the University of Colorado’s annual Conference on World Affairs. If truth in advertising laws applied to university events, this conference should be titled “Conference on Liberal Neuroses.”

Anyway, I’m on a panel Wednesday at 3:30 PM in the UMC Center Ballroom on “Who is Really in Charge? A Conversation on Checks and Balances of Power.” I have a line of attack on the liberals on the panel (everyone but me) that should leave them sputtering.

Then on Thursday at noon (also in the UMC Ballroom) I’ll be on a panel on “Applied History and Contemporary Policymaking: How We Can Learn from Our Past to Improve Our Future?” Actually this panel was inspired by an article of mine (from an edited book) that I sent to the conference organizers that somehow caught their fancy. I suspect the three other liberals on the panel will offer great comic possibilities for me.

I’m badly outnumbered on both panels, of course, as the ratio of liberal-left to conservative speakers is about 40 to 1 every year. Which means we have them right where we want them. In fact given the force-multiplier of the armor of conservatism, I think I have them outnumbered. In any case, it is always a target-rich environment.

• Your weekly podcast reminder—another two-fer week for me, with a host turn on the Ricochet podcast, where Peter Robinson and I talk with Steve Hilton about his new book Califailure, and then a “man-down” episode of the Three Whisky Happy Hour. (John Yoo was under the weather and in bed, but he’s already up and about and writing an op-ed every hour.) The shocker here is that Lucretia, this week’s host in the regular rotation, was surprisingly . . . well you’ll just have to listen to see what was different!

Lucretia, who is usually busting my chops, did do this mirthful Photoshop from America’s news source of record:

• In re, the left’s weekend “Hands Off” temper tantrum: "I’m so old I can remember the media and the left mocking Tea Party protesters with signs that read, “Hands off our Medicare!” Good times, good times!

Footnote: Given that Social Security is increasingly a wealth transfer scheme from the young to the old, not surprising that the protester demographic right now skews old.

Also, I’m even older enough to recall when liberals were outraged by $800 toilet seats at the Pentagon. Musk and DOGE have deepened the left’s neurosis.

• A Wall Street friend of mine, noting last night that stock market futures were tanking big for the third consecutive trading day since the New Tariff arrived in town, said, “Looks like another day of Wumba.” I asked, “What’s the ticker symbol for Wumba? I want to buy at the open.” (This assumes that you know the old joke that ends “Death by Wumba.”) Anyway, this seems right:

• So let’s have some memes to send us off into the week: