Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland has charged former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh with 11 counts of Wire Fraud and Tax charges related to the selling of her children’s book series Healthy Holly. “Our elected officials must place the interests of the citizens above their own,” said United States Attorney Robert … Read more
One Child Nation – Official Trailer | Amazon Studios Anyone drawn to the now-resurgent notion that collectivism is kind of cool would benefit from a viewing of One Child Nation, a documentary that demonstrates what can happen when state bureaucrats are allowed to fundamentally re-order their country’s most intimate cultural customs. The film’s … Read more
According to tradition the Four Crowned Martyrs (d. 305 A.D.) were renowned sculptors living in what is today Austria-Hungary. They were commissioned by Roman Emperor Diocletian to make several sculptures; however, when he requested a sculpture of the pagan god Aesculapius for a heathen temple, they refused to carve it. Their refusal exposed them as … Read more
Citizens Fighting Back Against Speed Traps and Tickets Ridgetop [TN] Police Chief Bryan Morris submitted his resignation on Friday. The Tennessee city is now without a police force and it’s all due to a disagreement over illegal ticket quotas. In January, FOX 17 released explosive reports that implicated Ridgetop Mayor Tony Reasoner and … Read more
Soviet’s Crimes Against Humanity In 1921, the Lenin-led Soviet Union faced one of the worst famines in history. A new book details its horrors and the American effort to combat cannibalism. The stories began to appear in the Soviet press in the autumn of 1921, each one more gruesome than the last. There … Read more
A danger to which man is ever susceptible is “to forget first principles and instead to be guided by the surging passions of politics, one of the worst forms of enthusiasm that can afflict mankind.” Anthony Esolen, “The Elder Statesman” Guard against anger. But if it cannot be averted, let it be kept within bounds. … Read more
Why progressivism can never stop . . . Warren is emblematic (not alone but in the forefront) of the left wing of the Democratic party’s revelatory shift in self-description: Onetime liberals are now progressives. Liberals believe in the capacity of government to do good. Progressives believe that government’s job is to push society forward toward … Read more
I’m reminded of Hitler’s novel “Final Solution” for curing his Third Reich’s “Jewish problem.” Here, too, we see Iceland’s Final Solution for Down Syndrome: death. Actually, maybe a better analogy is to Stalin, who infamously stated: “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.” Iceland’s modern twist: “Death solves all Down Syndrome. No child, no … Read more
Salena Zito, National Political Reporter Here is what most of Trump’s critics do not understand about why this new conservative populist coalition voted for Trump over not just Clinton but also over 17 very qualified, distinguished, mostly establishment Republican candidates in the party’s primary battle. It was never about Trump. It was always … Read more
For many children in Chicago public schools, the classroom is quite jail-like, with metal detectors and armed security officers on campus, and school performance measures that should make us cringe. According to Chalkbeat, “nearly half of Chicago schools failed to meet the state’s threshold for performance on its new accountability system,” as evaluated by the … Read more
Presidential aspirant Beto O’Rourke, thrashing about in an attempt to be noticed, says tax exemptions should be denied to churches and other institutions that oppose same-sex marriage. O’Rourke’s suggestion, and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan to tax the “excessive” exercise of a First Amendment right, and the NBA’s painful lesson about the perils of moral … Read more
Why do those so concerned with economic justice sneer at the country’s poorest region? In polite company among the technocratic elite, it’s acceptable to ridicule the South, Southern culture, and Southern politics. The Left has especially skewered Southern states for seeking to restrict abortion “rights.” Before that, North Carolina suffered ridicule—and punishment at the hands … Read more
Imagine one vast airport that you cannot leave. With apologies to Margaret Atwood and a thousand other dystopian novelists, we do not have to theorize about what an American police state would look like, because we know what it looks like: the airport, that familiar totalitarian environment where Americans are disarmed, stripped of their privacy, … Read more
Mao Tortures His Way to Power The embattled Chinese Communists break through Nationalist enemy lines and begin an epic flight from their encircled headquarters in southwest China. Known as Ch’ang Cheng—the “Long March”—the retreat lasted 368 days and covered 6,000 miles, more than twice the distance from New York to San Francisco. Civil … Read more
One thing is now as obvious as a brick through a window: politics is the new comedy. Who in America believes that the road to 2020 will be paved with prudence, solemnity and fair campaigning? Nobody does. This election season will be defined by below-the-belt hits, salty jokes and juvenile comebacks, all delivered with the … Read more
Speed and red-light cameras are the bane of many motorists. A modern idea made possible by technology, they have been installed in at least 24 states. Although these cameras are a revenue boon for governments across the nation, their intrusion into daily life is disturbing, and their constitutionality is dubious. Specifically, use of these cameras … Read more
More concretely, you don’t get white supremacy if you believe that every human being has a soul fashioned in God’s image. Neither do you get far-left racial and ethnic identitarianism. Both are symptoms of a metaphysical deficit. It’s very easy to start dividing people up into tribal categories; after all, humans vary massively in just … Read more