November 1, 2018 – 11:12 pm
The next skirmish in the war for religious rights and freedom of association might be the case of the Hope Center, of Anchorage Alaska, a Christian charitable organization that provides succor for the poor and downtrodden. Among the services it provides is a women’s shelter. The shelter’s clients are typically victims of domestic and sexual […]
October 30, 2018 – 2:27 pm
This is promising: it appears that President Trump is going to declare, by executive order, an end to birthright citizenship for all but legal residents. The question of whether he has the power to do this, and whether birthright citizenship as currently understood is in accord with the Fourteenth Amendment, will then be taken up […]
October 27, 2018 – 12:13 am
Whelp, it appears that I got that one wrong. The “bomber” (to the extent that what he sent can be called “bombs”) now seems to be a Trump-loving loonie. (“With friends like that…”) I thought William of Ockham was on my side on this one, for all the reasons I laid out in my earlier […]
October 24, 2018 – 8:30 pm
Replying to our recent post about the “caravan” approaching our southern border, commenter Jason asks: From what I have read, there seems to be an honest albeit contentious difference of interpretation within the Trump administration over whether we can prevent South Americans from seeking asylum at the border, versus at various consulates throughout Mexico (and […]
October 24, 2018 – 3:51 pm
OK, by now we’ve all heard today’s top story: suspicious devices delivered to prominent Democrats. I’ll join the chorus of people saying this is a “false flag” operation. The whole thing is just so fishy, in so many ways: 1) Why would anyone bother sending bombs to Obama or the Clintons? They aren’t in power […]
October 23, 2018 – 12:12 pm
Judicial Watch reports on the “refugee” caravan snaking toward our border, and paints rather a different picture than our major news media: Besides gang members and mobs of young angry men, the Central American caravan making its way into the United States also consists of Africans, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Indians. Judicial Watch is covering […]
October 22, 2018 – 10:11 pm
Back in May I offered a post linking to Spandrell’s essays on what he calls “Bioleninism”: the enormous political power that becomes available to elites who are able to create durable coalitions of naturally low-status members of society. If you haven’t read these yet, you really must do so; it’s all going to be on […]
October 22, 2018 – 12:51 pm
As I write, a column of foreign invaders is marching toward our border, intent on breaching it to enter the sovereign territory of the United States. Given that our Republic has a government in place that controls the world’s most powerful military, this is a thing that we should have ample resources to prevent. (As […]
October 17, 2018 – 2:02 pm
I so dislike Elizabeth Warren, and would so like to see her drummed out of public life, that I’ll pile on a bit here. Not only is she a race-hustling fraud, as she has in these last days kindly demonstrated for all to see, but she is also a plagiarist. Some time ago she contributed […]
October 16, 2018 – 7:59 pm
It’s been a gratifying few days for Mr. Trump: he swatted aside a hostile 60 Minutes interviewer on Sunday night, then had a judge throw out Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit (and award him court costs). But best of all has to have been Elizabeth Warren’s foolish broadcasting of a DNA result that shows that she might […]
October 9, 2018 – 10:45 am
On Saturday, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Alexis Grenell, a Democrat strategist. Had it run even a few years ago, the language it contains would have been shocking; now the piece is only another example of how far that paper (and with it, American culture) has declined. The essay, written under […]
October 6, 2018 – 9:43 pm
We won. Not the war, which is just beginning. But we won this battle. Take a moment to savor the victory. Let us also praise two unlikely heroes of this campaign: Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham. Who knew? War brings out the best and the worst in men. I commend them for their valor.
October 5, 2018 – 1:34 pm
There’s been a lot of excellent commentary on the Kavanaugh carnage from, to hijack a phrase from an erstwhile commenter of ours, “the adults in the room”. Here’s a sampling (with a hat-tip to Bill Keezer for sme of these links): First up, we have former senator Tom Coburn, who identifies as a root of […]
October 4, 2018 – 11:36 pm
Well, the FBI report is in. Unsurprisingly, it contains nothing new. (If it had contained any damaging evidence against Brett Kavanaugh, the Democrats would have leaked it. If, on the other hand, it had contained some exculpatory evidence — which, given the lack of any specifics in the Ford allegation as regards time and place, […]
September 28, 2018 – 3:46 pm
Things are moving more quickly now. Let’s review the status of our three branches of government: After Donald Trump’s shocking defeat of Hillary Clinton, the losing side has done everything in its power to delegitimize his administration — from trying to co-opt the Electoral College in the early weeks, to a ginned-up story about Russian […]
September 27, 2018 – 6:57 pm
You’ve probably seen it by now, but here’s Lindsey Graham at today’s hearing. I’ve never been much of a fan of the man, to put it mildly — but this new, red-pilled Lindsey Graham is something else again.
September 23, 2018 – 10:46 pm
This is war. Vote. — Malcolm Pollack (@mtpollack) September 24, 2018
September 19, 2018 – 5:09 pm
In the latest ploy to stall the Kavanaugh appointment until after the midterm elections, the Democrats have arranged for Mr. Kavanuagh’s accuser, Christine Ford, to demand that the FBI investigate her claim before she will consent to provide any testimony. This is ridiculous, of course: the FBI exists to investigate federal crimes, not decades-old recovered […]
September 17, 2018 – 10:54 pm
As the Democrats launch a desperate last-ditch offensive against Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, the president, in a flanking maneuver, has declassified an assortment of records — FISA applications, Strzok-Page texts, and whole lot more — that may be of considerable importance in exposing the real scandal in Washington: the weaponization of government agencies, by […]
September 6, 2018 – 2:08 pm
Returning from a month of happy isolation and indifference to the news, I see that we’ve been slipping ever deeper into bitter factional strife, if not yet (quite) outright war. The Kavanaugh hearings, which I had on in the background as I worked these past two days, are an obvious and dispiriting example. A steady […]
Once again we call your attention to the ongoing conversation between John Batchelor and historian Michael Vlahos on the darkening clouds of civil war. You can find all of these podcast episodes here.
With a hat-tip to the Maverick Philosopher, here’s an essay by Bruce Thornton arguing that we might as well give up on political debate with the cryptoreligious Left. The best recourse, he tells us, is ridicule. (Hume was right: reason is the slave of the passions.) I agree with Professor Thornton about the futility of […]
Sorry about the scanty output: it’s summer, and I’m on a reduced schedule. I have begun reading The Political Theory of the American Founding, which you may recall from our link to, and subsequent discussion of, Michael Anton’s review. The book directly addresses several questions I have been stewing over for a long time now, […]
With a hat-tip to Bill Vallicella, here’s a survey of the blood-soaked political battlefield from Victor Davis Hanson.
John Batchelor discusses, with former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, the FISA-court application that got the Mueller investigation started. (The redacted application was finally released this weekend in response to persistent FOIA pressure by Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch.) The interview is in two parts, here and here. Mr. McCarthy writes about the release in his […]
An injunction blocking a California law that threatens gun owners with fines or imprisonment if they don’t surrender or otherwise dispose of “high-capacity” magazines (the term refers to anything over ten rounds) has been upheld by, if you can believe it, the Ninth Circuit. David French has the details in a column published yesterday. He […]
Following on our previous post, today we bring you a column by Angelo Codevilla about Monday’s conference in Helsinki. It begins: The high professional quality of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin’s performance at their Monday press conference in Helsinki contrasts sharply with the obloquy by which the bipartisan U.S. ruling class showcases its willful incompetence. […]
How wearying it is to watch the reaction of the press, and of his political enemies, to President Trump’s press conference with Vladimir Putin. The hyperbole — “Treason! Pearl Harbor! Kristallnacht!” — would be comical if we weren’t already at about the halfway point on the road to civil war. (This is the same crowd, […]
If you are as fatigued as I am by that false and flyblown “nation of immigrants” propagandum, you will read with appreciation this item, by Pedro Gonzalez, at American Greatness.
Yesterday, on the nation’s 242nd birthday, I asked if we could set strife aside for a day, and just be grateful to live in such a remarkable nation. It occurred to me immediately after writing that line, though, that simple gratitude for the nation we have is itself a deeply conservative disposition. Joseph Sobran described […]
Here’s a peppery little post by one Anne Carter on the state of public discourse: Shrieking Monkeys. Ms. Carter is a Southerner, and so, not having been farm-raised in the Yankee waters that our ruling classes have swum in all their lives, she is in a position to notice the moralizing and missionary zeal that […]
Bernie Sanders Is Not the Left
I’ve just read a good item, by Joel Kotkin at City Journal, about a conference in Normandy on the future of Western democracy. It is appropriately gloomy, and savvy readers will catch a whiff of the Iron Law of Oligarchy in the extent to which democratic rule in Europe is anything but representative, and proceeds […]
Bill Vallicella weighs in on the natural-rights question we’ve been discussing, here. We read: The problem is that the notion of a natural right is less than perspicuous. Part of what it means to say that a right is natural is that it is not conventional. We don’t have rights to life, liberty, and property […]
The title, of course, is a reference to the oft-heard quip that there are three branches of government in the contemporary United States: the Executive Branch, The Legislative Branch, and Anthony Kennedy. Justice Kennedy has announced that he is retiring. This is huge news, and a wonderful opportunity. May RBG be next, and soon. Update: […]
Two posts ago we read Michael Anton’s emailed reply to a collection of questions I’d posted in Part 1 of this series. I mailed back a response, and received another reply in return. (There the correspondence stands, for the moment, as I’ve been traveling and working the past couple of days. I’d also like to […]
Our commenter Jacques has replied, in an email to me, to Michael Anton’s response (published in our previous post). I am posting it below. Michael Anton (on the question of “natural rulers”): “One can raise all sorts of objections to this. For instance, if Trump is such a natural ruler, why did he lose the […]
My last two posts (here and here) were in response to an extensive review, by Michael Anton, of Thomas West’s new book on the American Founding, and to a comment by our reader Jacques. In Saturday’s post I laid out some questions that I thought the review, and Jacques’ comment, had raised. I did not […]
In my previous post I linked to a review, by Michael Anton, of a new book on the American Founding by Thomas G. West of Hillsdale College. I have a keen interest in the Founding, and in particular I am, like nearly everyone in the “neoreactionary” community, dogged by the question of just where things […]
I’ve just read a remarkable review, by Michael Anton, of a new book by Thomas G. West, who is a professor at Hillsdale College. (You may know Michael Anton as ‘Publius Decius Mus’, the author of the celebrated essay “The Flight 93 Election” that argued for the necessity of electing Donald Trump in 2016.) Professor […]
Well, the long-awaited Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation came out on Thursday. I’m interested enough to read it, but haven’t had the time. Mollie Hemingway has, however, and she gives us a helpful summary of it over at The Federalist. Key points: The philandering Peter Strzok, who was […]
It’s a busy stretch for me, with little time for writing (sorry about the lack of substantial posts here lately), but I’ll get back to logorrheic bloviation as soon as I can. Meanwhile, I have to post a picture I just ran across: Donald Trump at the G7 meeting, resolutely staring down a hectoring Angela […]
It’s fifty years since Robert Kennedy was shot dead, and the press is gushing in fond remembrance. Not so Boston’s own Howie Carr, though.
According to a new report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the Obama administration, having repeatedly assured Congress that under the JCPOA Iran would have no access to U.S. financial markets for asset conversion, nevertheless clandestinely issued a license permitting Iran to do exactly that. Apparently the effort failed because the banks themselves, showing more […]
In a recent interview, Bill Clinton expressed sympathy for the #MeToo movement (which, as various wags have pointed out, can be read off as “Pound Me Too”), and said it was “overdue”. I try not to write much about the Clintons anymore — they are perhaps the vilest and most contemptible public officials to have […]
With yet another hat-tip to Bill Keezer, here’s a tart little item, by Don Surber, about the nation’s gradual recovery from Barack Obama’s years of control. Perhaps one day it will all seem like it was just a bad dream.
Tommy Robinson, the patriotic English gadfly who has had the audacity to advocate, over the past several years, the preservation of the British Isles as an ethnic homeland for the British people, has been arrested for standing outside an English courthouse to live-stream the trial of a Pakistani child-grooming operation. The government, not content with […]
National Review is essentially the official organ of what is often called “Conservatism Inc.” these days, but there are still worthwhile things to read over there. Here are two. First, Charles Cooke, who has been consistently excellent on gun-control topics, rebuts an Op-Ed in the New York Times that tries to tie the Second Amendment […]
From Spandrell: here, here, and here are three posts outlining an idea — “Bioleninism” — that seeks to explain the steady movement leftward of political systems, and the shift, beginning in the 1960s or so, from economic to cultural Marxism as the vehicle for that movement. The model seems coherent and plausible. It also has […]