November 16, 2017 – 11:21 pm
Well! No sooner do I write about how Bill Clinton seems to be gliding smoothly across the surface of our latest moral panic, than prominent Democrats seem suddenly to notice that the man is in fact, as so many of his victims had been trying to tell everyone for decades, a loathsome sexual predator. I […]
November 14, 2017 – 4:13 pm
Over at American Greatness, Roger Kimball explains why he’s given up on Trumpism.
November 13, 2017 – 2:29 pm
It seems that hardly a day goes by lately without the ruination of another prominent man by allegations of sexual misconduct. Somehow, though, Bill Clinton sails along. Can there be any doubt that this blackguard is a sexual predator of the first order? Of course not; the allegations are legion, including a highly plausible accusation […]
November 12, 2017 – 12:32 pm
Once again, here’s the indispensable Andrew McCarthy, former Federal prosecutor, on the Mueller investigation. In his latest essay, he compares it to the way the Obama DOJ handled its investigation of Hillary Clinton. The contrast is instructive, and sorely vexing.
October 23, 2017 – 2:27 pm
Here is former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy’s detailed summary of the reeking DOJ/Clinton/Rosatom affair. (The Hill has also been covering the story, for example here.) Corruption and obfuscation at this level should be front-page news, every day. If it had happened under a Republican administration, it would be.
October 8, 2017 – 1:04 pm
With a hat-tip to Bill Vallicella, here’s a long and detailed assessment of the claim that Donald Trump’s voter-base — middle- and working-class Americans — made an irrational choice that was contrary to their own interests. The author demonstrates that this view is unsupportable, and that those who make it are usually applying a standard […]
September 5, 2017 – 8:49 pm
Here’s the mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, quoted in New York Magazine (my emphasis): Q: …Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools? A: What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, […]
August 30, 2017 – 11:44 am
Here’s Hanson again, with some comparative analysis.
August 4, 2017 – 12:54 pm
With a hat-tip to Bill Vallicella, we have an essay by David Gelernter on the “Resistance” to Donald Trump, a term embraced even by some “conservatives”. We read: I’d love for him to be a more eloquent, elegant speaker. But if I had to choose between deeds and delivery, it wouldn’t be hard. Many conservative […]
August 3, 2017 – 11:18 pm
Here’s a savory morsel: a class-action suit, filed by Democratic voters, against the DNC and the gratifyingly beleaguered Debbie Wasserman Schultz for their conspiratorial malfeasance during last year’s primary season. Thanks to our indefatigable JK for the tip.
There was a bit of a ruction today in the White House press room, between Trump adviser Stephen Miller and CNN’s Jim Acosta. Acosta was taking the Trump administration to task for proposed immigration restrictions, in particular the frightful idea that an English-speaking nation might give preference to immigrants who can speak English. (Before I […]
I’ve just spent a few weeks almost entirely offline, paying almost no attention to the news (except for John McCreary’s weekdaily NightWatch digest, that is). Each day’s news being, in general, a reeking bucket of offal, the hiatus was pleasant — but old habits die hard, and I’ve had my nose back in the bucket […]
I’ve just finished an excellent book: The War for Righteousness: Progressive Christianity, the Great War, and the Rise of the Messianic Nation. The author is Richard M. Gamble, who holds the Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Chair in History and Politics at Hillsdale College. The book covers the period leading up to, and immediately following, the […]
With a hat-tip to Nick Land: Anti-Fascist, Trump protesters applaud speech comprised entirely of Hitler quotes. This is the best thing on the internet today😂 pic.twitter.com/HD2CPusckI — Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) July 8, 2017
President Trump gave a fine speech in Poland yesterday, in which he seemed, at times, downright reactionary. He spoke in rousing terms of the great Western heritage, and of the dangers it faces both from within and without. Some exhortatory excerpts: As I stand here today before this incredible crowd, this faithful nation, we can […]
Here’s RamzPaul commenting on CNN’s publicly threatening to dox a meme-creator they don’t like. Normally I wouldn’t pay an awful lot of attention to this sort of thing — it is simply a given that mainstream news outlets like CNN are Cathedral clerisy, and will say and do whatever they believe advances their religious hegemony […]
Donald Trump unbosomed himself of yet another pair of catty and adolescent tweets this morning, resulting in the usual fuss. Yes, Mr. Trump has been the object of relentless personal assault, and the vilest invective, since he became a candidate, but we expect that sort of thing from the spoiled and sullen Left. Would it […]
In case you missed it: according to this item in the Washington Times, millions of noncitizens may indeed have voted in recent elections.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: one would have to have a heart of stone to read of the death of little Jon Ossoff’s Congressional aspirations without laughing. This photo of CNN’s election-night panel as the loss became apparent is pure sunshine: With the hope that springs eternal, however, Dems and their media (perhaps I have […]
A disgruntled Bernie Sanders supporter directed rifle fire at a Congressional baseball-team practice in Alexandria today. The House majority whip, Steve Scalise, was shot in the hip, and several others were injured as well, including two Capitol policemen. The gunman, 66-year-old James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois, was killed. He had apparently asked Rep. Ron DeSantis, […]
We note with satisfaction that President Trump pulled us out of that Paris-Agreement boondoggle yesterday. We never should have been in it in the first place: it was never put to Congress, and we signed up solely on the whim of Barack Obama, as a demonstration of sacerdotal virtue. The “motte-and-bailey” style of the left’s […]
Here‘s a good piece by Victor Davis Hanson on our current political hysteria. And while we’re at it, don’t miss Buchanan’s latest. PS – just saw that our e-pal David Duff had linked the Hanson piece as well. It’s making the rounds.
I haven’t written much about the ongoing siege of the Trump presidency; I haven’t frankly, had much to add. But I should say something, I suppose. It should be obvious to all that a bloodthirsty coalition of the media and members of the United States Government (especially, in the latter category, members of the judiciary […]
I’m busy in the obvious ways this Mothers Day (Mother’s Day? Mothers’ Day?), so I’ll just pass along two articles that are worth your time: Angelo Codevilla on our cold civil war, and Erik Kuehnelt-Leddihn on three ways that democracies become tyrannies (the Tocquevillean model, quoted here just recently, is number three).
According to the Express, Barack Obama is going to be paid $2.5 million dollars for a speech he’s giving in Milan today. This follows on a $400,000 speech he gave on Wall Street a while back, and a $65-million advance he and his wife were given for books they (or someone) will be writing. Mind […]
I just paid a visit to Bill Vallicella’s website — I hadn’t stopped by in a couple of days — and saw that he had mentioned me in a recent post. Bill quoted a remark he had made in a comment-thread back in 2015: We need a broad coalition of the sane which would include […]
Here’s yesterday’s headline from the New York Times, delivered apparently without irony: Syria Strike Puts U.S. Relationship With Russia At Risk The nice thing about propaganda is you can turn on a dime to keep the target in the crosshairs.
This from our e-pal Bill Keezer just now: California Senate OKs statewide illegal immigrant sanctuary bill Educated readers will recall that United States history already includes some examples of such “nullification”; for fans of peace and order, or of the Union as presently constituted, the precedent is not particularly encouraging. Leaving that aside, however, one […]
March 29, 2017 – 10:46 am
Well, there you are, then.
In his latest column, Patrick Buchanan weighs in on the Trump/Russia story. The propaganda war is ablaze: the MSM would have you believe that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere with the election — although nobody has ever produced, or even claimed, that there is any evidence of collusion for this purpose (beyond […]
The political right is aboil over the latest judicial interference with President Trump’s efforts temporarily to restrict immigration from dangerous and unstable Muslim territories. The question is framed in terms of a heated battle for sovereignty in America, with the sense that the judiciary — which is to say, individual judges, with nothing to check […]
There is a fascinating spin war taking place over possible government surveillance of the Trump campaign. According to multiple sources, including the New York Times, there were wiretaps, and there were also at least two applications for surveillance to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts — one in June that was refused, and one […]
We offer a hat-tip to Nick Land for exhuming this two-year-old passage from John Glanton at Social Matter: You have to admire the Left for its clarity of vision. It has identified its enemies, and it does what it can to drive them from the field. The recent fireworks in Indiana are a perfect illustration. […]
In a heartwarming opinion piece today at the New York Times, Thomas Edsall laments the internet’s toxic effect on what it calls “democracy” — a term that, if I understand the piece correctly, is to be defined as a political system in which two political parties, and a few other “dominant organizations” (here, the Times […]
February 24, 2017 – 11:11 pm
By now you’ve probably heard about the flagrantly tendentious decision by the Fourth Circuit in Kolbe v. Hogan, which upheld a flimsy “assault-weapons” ban in Maryland. The ruling is here. Here, here, here, and here are some responses.
February 8, 2017 – 4:14 pm
Here’s tart piece by Porter on Cass Sunstein’s vision of the Constitution. (I always enjoy Porter’s astringent writing, except for those doggone sentence fragments.)
February 8, 2017 – 1:14 pm
It turns out that “Publius Decius Mus”, who wrote the influential essay “The Flight 93 Election” back in September (we commented on it here) is Michael Anton, a former editor of the Journal of American Greatness. He is now a member, I’m glad to say, of the Trump administration. Therefore he is also a Nazi.
February 8, 2017 – 11:53 am
From a scathing editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal (my emphasis): The Senate made history Tuesday when Mike Pence became the first Vice President to cast the deciding vote for a cabinet nominee. The nominee is now Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The vote came after an all-night Senate debate in a futile effort by […]
January 31, 2017 – 12:49 pm
With concatenated hat-tips to our friends Horace Jeffery Hodges and Bill Vallicella, here is a superb essay on the Trumpian assault on the postmodernism that has had a death-grip on Western culture for some time now (and which, I have argued, has its roots in the radical skepsis that was born in the Enlightenment itself). […]
January 29, 2017 – 11:24 pm
In an earlier post, I castigated President Trump for a “blunder”: not exempting green-card holders from his U.S. entry-restriction list. Scott Adams argues that this might not have a blunder at all: that to restrict them first, then exempt them after all hell broke loose, was, perhaps, a carefully considered move. Perhaps he’s right (which […]
January 29, 2017 – 6:50 pm
As I imagined would happen, the Trump team has apparently realized its error, and has added permanent residents to the list of persons exempted from its temporary entry ban. Good, I’m glad that’s sorted out. I do wish they hadn’t made this colossal boo-boo in the first place, but at least they’ve put it right. […]
January 24, 2017 – 6:43 pm
Behold Sally Boynton Brown, an industrial-strength ethno-masochist who wants both to “have a conversation” and “shut other white people down”. (If you’re a student of political language, by the way, and you’re looking for examples of Orwellian phrases that mean exactly the opposite of what they say, it’s hard to beat “have a conversation”.) I […]
January 22, 2017 – 7:07 pm
In this torrid political season, if your sympathies are with the Left, you may have been saying to yourself: “Boy, I’m frustrated! I can’t believe we actually lost!! It’s so unfair!!! Is it OK now if I just go out and assault people I disagree with?” Well, I’ve got good news: the New York Times […]
January 22, 2017 – 6:50 pm
Barack Obama has left office, and in a weepy item called “Obama’s final ride into a wet, foggy California night“, the Washington Post grieves. (The article was written by “Greg Jaffe”, which seems an odd name for a teenage girl. I had to squeegee estrogen off the screen several times to maintain legibility.) This eulogy […]
January 21, 2017 – 12:53 am
Finally, to borrow a phrase from another presidential transition, “our long national nightmare is over.” That was quite a speech Mr. Trump gave today (video here, transcript here). Yes, it had its moments of hyperbole — we will not, for example, be eradicating Islamic terrorism from the face of the Earth any time soon, I […]
January 20, 2017 – 11:16 am
Right, then, today’s the day. The inauguration is about to begin. Mr. Trump can expect to be tested at once. From today’s NightWatch: China-US: On 19 January, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ms. Hua Chunying answered a question about China’s relations with the new US administration. Her reply is China official position regarding the US on the […]
January 18, 2017 – 11:25 pm
Making the rounds today (with a hat-tip to our old e-pal Dennis Mangan): a poem written for Donald Trump’s inauguration. It’s called “Pibroch of the Domnhall” and was written by Joseph Charles MacKenzie (originally published at ClassicalPoets.org). I reproduce the first few stanzas, with prefatory notes: § The refrains at the end of each stanza […]
January 15, 2017 – 1:07 pm
The spat between John Lewis and Donald Trump is all over the news today. It began when Mr. Lewis announced that in his view the Trump presidency was illegitimate, which is no small thing for a member of Congress to say on the eve of a presidential inauguration. If I were Donald Trump, which I […]
January 13, 2017 – 10:32 pm
Here’s something you might be surprised to see: a balanced and reasonable look at the Trump movement in the pages of The New Yorker. It is built upon an interview with the pseudonymous essayist “Publius Decius Mus”, whose anti-Clinton article “The Flight 93 Election” caused a such a stir last September. (We linked to it […]
December 20, 2016 – 6:42 pm
I always have to admire those who present quantitative data in visually compelling ways. With a hat-tip to David Duff, here is a wonderful example: Trumpland and the Clinton Archipelago, from the site Vivid Maps.