September 21, 2016 – 4:24 pm
I do enjoy a good polemic every now and then, and Kevin D. Williamson has “the knack”. Here he is today on IRS commisioner John Koskinen: Every day this crime-enabling, justice-obstructing, lying, craven, tinpot totalitarian walks around in the sunshine is a day we should be ashamed to be Americans. More here.
September 19, 2016 – 1:16 pm
With a hat-tip to our e-pal Bill Keezer, here’s an old piece by the late Christopher Hitchens, in which he recounts his filing of an affidavit swearing that the Clintons had sought to smear and discredit Monica Lewinski. It’s a fine example of Hitchens’ style — how I miss him! — and is well worth […]
September 14, 2016 – 10:38 pm
Well, I’m back from Star Island. The musical weekend was a blast, even though a few of us — for example, our keyboard whiz Ray — had last-minute conflicts that kept them from coming. We carried on undaunted, nevertheless, and had a splendid time. I must say that after having had, what with our Vienna […]
September 7, 2016 – 2:41 pm
One thing that should be clear to all in this election cycle: either Hillary Clinton is going to win this election, or Donald Trump is. The chance of any other outcome is effectively zero. If you are any sort of conservative — and if you believe, as I and millions of others do, that the […]
September 1, 2016 – 6:28 pm
Our reader Robert, a.k.a. Whitewall, posted in the comment-thread to our previous post a link to an editorial piece from The New Criterion (by way of Instapundit; the original is here). It deserves promotion from comment to post. The piece, which is presumably by Roger Kimball, the editor of New Criterion, uses a beautiful phrase […]
August 30, 2016 – 5:27 pm
Here are some trenchant remarks on the Alternative Right from Paul Gottfried, the man who coined the name. I have spent the evening with Professor Gottfried on a couple of occasions, and I can assure you that he is the farthest thing imaginable from the sort of neo-Nazi hothead that the mainstream media would have […]
August 24, 2016 – 9:56 pm
Well! It looks as if Hillary Clinton is, with a big speech tomorrow evening, about to put the “Alt-Right” front and center in national politics (and into the minds of millions of Americans who previously had no inkling of it). I wonder what she imagines is going to happen. Pass the popcorn!
August 13, 2016 – 12:48 pm
We’re still on summer break for a few more weeks, and I’ve been paying little attention to the news. One thing that did catch my eye, though, was the emerging story of the Obama administration’s $400-million ransom payment to Iran a while back — paid in a great pile of foreign currency, and brought in […]
Well, it’s nice to be back home, except for the fact that this grotesque presidential campaign is still going on. Donald Trump finds new ways every day to let the Democrats and the press distract the nation’s attention from the oozing, Lovecraftian horror that is Hillary Clinton; today, apparently, was no exception. How easily she […]
August 6, 2016 – 10:00 am
We’re on our way back to the States — between flights at the moment, in Dusseldorf. I’ve been almost completely out of touch, but even over here the coming U.S. election seems to be attracting a lot of attention. With that in mind, then, here are a couple of interesting links that have come my […]
Absolutely shameless race-baiting and anti-gun demagoguery by Barack Obama today as he spoke in Dallas, ostensibly to mourn the racially motivated murder of five white police officers by a black assassin. What a crabbed and venomous man he is. What a pestilence he is on the nation he despises.
I watched with considerable interest James Comey’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. The reason, of course was his recent recommendation not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for: knowingly and intentionally using a private and unsecure email server to conduct State Department business, putting classified information on it (some of which was […]
FBI director Comey has just given a statement on his agency’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified email. We read (my emphasis): Our investigation looked at whether there is evidence classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on that personal system, in violation of a federal statute making it a felony to mishandle classified […]
Time to stick a fork in, America. Today we have a sit-in in the House of Representatives. A sit-in. (Next they will hold their breaths until they die, and then we’ll be sorry!) Maybe they should have been given a trigger warning.
Donald Trump just gave a corking good speech. Say what you will about the man — and I’d probably agree with much of it — this is invigorating stuff, and refreshing to hear. Perhaps most importantly, he has Hillary Clinton dead to rights. Read it here.
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today calling (unsurprisingly, given that it is the globalist WSJ we are talking about here) for the United Kingdom to stay in the European Union. The reasons they give are mostly to do with interests other than those of the U.K. itself: While we hope Britain votes to […]
Here’s the latest from John Schindler on the Clinton email investigation. The skulduggery and conflicts of interest at the highest level of government is — well, I was about to say “astonishing”, but it really isn’t that at all. Dispiriting, at the very least. That President Obama actually saw fit to endorse this woman, given […]
Here’s a good summary of the Clinton email skulduggery. Can we have an indictment, please? That convention’s getting closer and closer, and I want my whisky.
From the mail, yesterday: Not quite what the Framers had in mind, I think.
Ah, what a lovely morning. Why? Well, it’s a balmy spring day here in the Outer Cape, where the air is fresh and fragrant, the little birds are singing, and the trees are stretching their new leaves in the golden May sunshine. Even better, though, a new report from the State Department’s Office of the […]
An entertaining item by Milo Yiannopoulis, here. My own feeling about this: Facebook can do what it likes, and anyone on the Right who expects fair treatment from Mark Zuckerberg is a fool.
Bernie Sanders has suggested that Hillary Clinton is unqualified for the Presidency. As you might imagine, I didn’t need much persuading, but after seeing this tweet, I’d say the case is closed:
When you are spending other people’s money, there’s very little incentive to cut costs. With a hat-tip to Michelle Malkin, here’s a splendid example: a million-dollar coin-toss. If ever there was a huge, complex, brittle, and unstable system in need of a reboot, well, folks, you’re living in it.
April 13, 2016 – 12:03 pm
Over the transom today came a link (thank you, Bill K.) to Diplomad’s latest salvo: At War with the History of Mankind. Dip makes the point that a central tenet of modern Leftist ideology (which is, as I and others have argued at length, essentially a cryptoreligious belief-system) is to make Nature sacred, and mankind […]
Dennis Prager published an insightful item yesterday, entitled “A Note to Conservatives Who Are Secular”. We read: The vast majority of leading conservative writers, just like their liberal colleagues, have a secular outlook on life. With few exceptions, the conservative political and intellectual worlds are oblivious to the consequences of secularism. They are unaware of […]
In 1968, the Fair Housing Act made it the law of the land that owners of property could not refuse to sell or rent it on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. In 1988 the list was expanded to include family status and disabilities. Absent from this list of criteria was […]
In the excerpt we posted the other day from Sir Henry Maine’s Popular Government, the author explains that the chief feature of what we call Democracy is that it is an upside-down monarchy, in which, somehow, the multitude is sovereign. But how, wonders Sir Henry, can a multitude express its will? In what sense can […]
I’ve had absolutely nothing interesting or original to say for several days now. (This happens sometimes; even Rachmaninoff had almost nothing at all to say from 1897 to 1901.) So tonight I’m offering some excerpts from Sir Henry Sumner Maine’s Popular Government, published in 1885. I’ve mentioned this book several times before. As “red pills” […]
March 20, 2016 – 10:15 pm
Here’s a good one that’s been making the rounds today: Glenn Harlan Reynolds on How David Brooks Created Donald Trump. Money quote: When politeness and orderliness are met with contempt and betrayal, do not be surprised if the response is something less polite, and less orderly. Also, you may have noticed that our current president […]
“Coming down the stretch, it’s Cankles out in front — but wait, here comes Rule Of Law! Rule of Law pouring it on now! It’s anybody’s race!…” “Come on, Rule of Law! Move yer bloomin’ arse!!” With thanks to the indefatigable JK, here’s more on the Clinton investigation.
March 19, 2016 – 12:58 pm
With a hat-tip to several readers who emailed me with the link, here’s a thoughtful essay by Lewis Amselem.
The big thing about this election is how strongly both the Democrat and Republican bases have pulled to the outside of their respective parties. On the Democrat side we have Bernie Sanders threatening to block the party’s coronation of Hillary Clinton (if the FBI, or her poor health, doesn’t get there first). Heading into today’s […]
With yet another hat-tip to hbd*chick, here’s a very interesting item from “Jayman” on Trump, democracy and demographics.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: People are not voting for Trump (or Sanders). People are just voting, finally, to destroy the establishment. Why is this so hard for so many people to understand?
March 13, 2016 – 11:35 am
The Washington Post asks: Trump has lit a fire. Can it be contained? This isn’t arson. It is the inevitable combustion of an oil-soaked pyre exposed to a continuous shower of sparks. The Post should be asking: who built that pyre? It’s been long in the making, and its existence is due neither to accident […]
Gates of Vienna has posted two video clips taken from a discussion panel at the latest CPAC conference. The subject was the fate of Europe. (At this point it might well be a post-mortem; Europe has already gone far beyond the “tipping point”, and is now, barring a full-on revolt by its indigenous peoples, nothing […]
February 24, 2016 – 12:45 am
The results are still coming in as I write, but it seems Donald Trump has scored another crushing victory, this time in Nevada. It is becoming increasingly apparent that his campaign is, if anything, gaining momentum, and that he will likely be the one to take the field against whichever champion the Democrats put up […]
February 17, 2016 – 8:48 pm
His column begins: Amid the petty bickering, loud rhetoric and sordid attack ads in this year’s primary election campaigns, the death of a giant — Justice Antonin Scalia — suddenly overshadows all of that. The vacancy created on the Supreme Court makes painfully clear the huge stakes involved when we choose a President of the […]
February 15, 2016 – 5:37 pm
Jonah Goldberg (with whom I agree about some things and not about others, as I do with pretty much everyone else on whatever we might very broadly call “the Right”) has posted some thoughtful remarks about the death of Antonin Scalia. You can read them here. This in particular stood out: The division of blame […]
February 10, 2016 – 5:16 pm
With the presidential campaign now at cruising speed, I thought it might be helpful to offer some readings and reflections on the nature of democracy itself: what it really is, what it isn’t, and how it really works. Really, if you want to understand this contraption, what you ought to read is a book that […]
February 9, 2016 – 7:35 pm
Here’s a heartening item: Supreme Court freezes Obama plan to limit carbon emissions We read: The court granted a stay request from more than two dozen states, utilities and coal miners who said the Environmental Protection Agency was overstepping its powers… The stay means that questions about the legality of the program will remain after […]
February 9, 2016 – 7:16 pm
About three years ago I wrote a brief item about Toxoplasma gondii, which is a cat-borne parasite that causes behavioral aberrations in mice — and appears to do the same in humans too. The article I originally linked to is here, and today I’ll add a link to another article, here. At the time, however, […]
February 5, 2016 – 8:16 pm
The other day our President, Barack Hussein Obama, took time out of his busy schedule to visit a Baltimore mosque. There he delivered an obsequious panegyric about the glorious role of Islam in America’s history. (If there is a major, or even mid-tier, religion that has in fact played a lesser role in America’s founding, […]
January 22, 2016 – 8:00 pm
I have to say: it would be hard to imagine a livelier political season, or one more fitting for these times. Over on the left, Hillary Clinton is watching it all slip away all over again — this time to a pallid, septuagenarian Marxist from Vermont. (I’ve had many wonderful blessings in my life, but […]
January 19, 2016 – 3:19 pm
You just might have to watch this more than once.
December 16, 2015 – 11:43 pm
During last night’s debate Carly Fiorina, whose chances are roughly equal for the Republican nomination and Prva HNL Player of the Year, suggested that we ought to make her President because she’s a woman. Let’s leave aside the reaction were a male candidate to try such a thing, and try to get the gist of […]
December 9, 2015 – 10:59 pm
Yesterday the United States Senate held a hearing on the magnitude of human impact on climate change. Giving testimony were some Actual Climate Scientists. I would like very much for you to read and carefully digest their testimony. I will excerpt some of it here, in what will be a longish post — but please, […]
December 8, 2015 – 1:18 pm
With a hat tip to our reader Henry, here’s a good piece from Thomas Sowell on Barack Obama’s recent speech from the Oval Office. Excerpt (my emphasis): The first responsibility of any government is to protect the people already in the country. Even in this age of an entitlement mentality, no one in a foreign […]
November 25, 2015 – 3:29 pm
Wow, this is great: the Democratic National Committee has put out a list of officially approved talking points for denouncing thoughtcrime at Thanksgiving dinner. The site is called “Your Republican Uncle“. Leaving aside what fun this will make Thanksgiving for everyone, and the DNC’s presumption that Democrats young enough to have living uncles can’t defend […]