With 2016 nearly behind us, take a look back at the most-read articles on City Journal and commentary written by Manhattan Institute scholars at other outlets.
Top 10 — City Journal articles
1. The Real War on Science, by John Tierney, Autumn 2016 Issue
"That's the ultimate casualty in the Left’s war: scientists’ reputations. Bad research can be exposed and discarded, but bad reputations endure. Social scientists are already regarded in Washington as an arm of the Democratic Party, so their research is dismissed as partisan even when it’s not..."
2. America’s Worst President?, by Myron Magnet (July 10, 2016)
"Unlike Lincoln, America’s first black president didn’t bind up the nation’s wounds but scratched them open every time police killed a black man—rightly or sometimes wrongly, because when society arms men with guns and authority, it will inevitably attract some bullies..."
3. Trumped-Up Outrage, by Heather Mac Donald (October 9, 2016)
"The sudden onset of Victorian vapors among the liberal intelligentsia and political class at the revelation of Trump’s locker-room talk is part and parcel of the Left’s hypocrisy when it comes to feminism and sexual liberation."
4. Back to Bedlam, by Heather Mac Donald (April 19, 2016)
"The Shaun King who petitioned Eric Holder to end Broken Windows policing might argue that officers should overlook such outbreaks of disorder in minority neighborhoods, but many of their law-abiding residents desperately want the cops to intervene."
5. The Policeman’s Wife, by Jack Dunphy (July 12, 2016)
"Near the television set are family photographs, some featuring her husband in his uniform: this one on his police academy graduation day; another of the two of them, younger and still childless... She has done so more often lately, but she has shared this only with her closest friends, not with her husband. She trusts—for she must trust—that he will go off to work in the afternoon and come home sometime after midnight..."
6. Chicago on the Brink, by Heather Mac Donald, Summer 2016 Issue
"The 'no-snitch' ethic of refusing to cooperate with the cops is the biggest impediment to solving crime, according to Chicago commanders. But the Black Lives Matter narrative about endemically racist cops has made the street dynamic much worse."
7. Why Milwaukee Burns, by Heather Mac Donald (August 15, 2016)
"The Black Lives Matter riots of the last two years are inseparable from a hatred of what is perceived to be 'white' society and civilization."
8. The Fire Spreads, by Heather Mac Donald (July 17, 2016)
"Sorry, Mr. President, those who tell the truth about crime and policing are not part of the problem and they bear no responsibility for the massacre of cops. The killing of cops is furthered exclusively by those peddling a false narrative that cops harbor lethal bias toward blacks."
9. Hillary’s Debate Lies, by Heather Mac Donald (July 12, 2016)
"To say, as Clinton did last night, that blacks are more likely to be incarcerated for doing the same thing as whites ignores the relevance of a defendant’s criminal history in determining his sentence, among other crucial sentencing factors."
10. Why Are Voters So Angry?, by Myron Magnet, Summer 2016 Issue
"We have lost the government we learned about in civics class... That small government of limited powers that the Founders designed, hedged with checks and balances, hasn’t operated for a century."
Top 5 — MI Commentary
1. The Myths of Black Lives Matter, by Heather Mac Donald, The Wall Street Journal (February 12, 2016)
"To judge from Black Lives Matter protesters and their media and political allies, you would think that killer cops pose the biggest threat to young black men today. But this perception, like almost everything else that many people think they know about fatal police shootings, is wrong."
2. The Public Pension Problem: It's Much Worse Than It Appears. by Steven Malanga, Investor's Business Daily (July 22, 2016)
"Although some state plans remain well funded, the number of retirement systems that now have low levels of funding is worrying, since the failure of even a few of them would likely shake our financial system. At the end of 2014, for instance, 20 states had funding levels at or below 70% of what they need to pay retirees. Most of them made virtually no progress toward fixing their underfunding during the bull market."
3. Russia's Big Worry Is Not What the Pentagon Thinks but What Shale Frackers Will Do to Oil Prices. by Mark Mills, Forbes (February 4, 2016)
"The new world for oil looks very different from the past, with geopolitical implications yet to be felt. It is a world in which oil stays cheap, in which price spikes are embraced and then crushed by high-velocity increases in shale production, and one in which new supply increasingly comes from ever-improving technology deployed by thousands of entrepreneurs making high-velocity decisions on American soil."
4. New Jersey's Pension Apocalypse Is Looming by Nicole Gelinas, New York Post (July 27, 2016)
"Christie wants 'tax fairness' — that is, tax cuts in return for the gas-tax hike. But nothing will be fair in New Jersey for a long time to come. With its unpayable obligations, Jersey’s high taxes and hysterically bad infrastructure are here to stay. And that’s a big reason why the state can’t grow."
5. The Windmills of Bernie's Mind by Robert Bryce, The Wall Street Journal (February 8, 2016)
"Wind-generated electricity in the U.S. has more than tripled since 2008, but opposition to the gigantic turbines, which can stand more than 500 feet, has been growing."
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