Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
But Santos’s continued presence in the House is a permanent stain on Congress. The fact that he gets to sit in the House chamber and vote on public policy should horrify anyone with even a tiny bit of respect for the American system of government. (In fact, Santos doesn’t even take these duties seriously. After … Read more
Biden spent 12 minutes on the UAW picket line. “You guys, the UAW, you saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before,” he told the striking automotive workers. “Wall Street didn’t build the country. The middle class built the country.” And then he flew off to San Francisco for a fundraiser at Atherton, California, … Read more
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) knows how utterly unfit Donald Trump is for the presidency, yet he continuously genuflected to the man. Now McCarthy has been removed from the speakership by the Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) (together with the Democratic Party), and Trump took not the slightest action to save McCarthy from … Read more
To reiterate, Donald Trump is not facing jail time for the fraud described above. But his current run for the White House is, among other things, a bid to head off the possibility of incarceration. Not every claim of criminal wrongdoing by Donald Trump is very strong, but some of them are very strong and, … Read more
Lodging is Bad, Multifamily hangs in there, Industrial remains unscathed. As we have found out in the recent episodes of the commercial real estate nightmare, with landlords stiffing their creditors by either walking away from properties or loans and letting lenders take the massive losses: Those lenders have turned out to be mostly investors in … Read more
1. Limit the Steps 2. Go Low Maintenance 3. Make the Kitchen More Convenient 4. Choose Accessible Appliances 5. Boost Bathroom Safety 6. Go Hands-Free 7. Ditch the Throw Rugs 8. Optimize the Stairs 9. Make Your Home Brighter 10. Create a First-Floor Primary Bedroom 11. Add Smart Home Automation 12. Install Visual Safety Alerts … Read more
My parents recently moved out of the house they’d lived in for 50 years. A half-century might sound like quite an accomplishment. But they stayed too long. Their home was a 1940s two-story gray stone house north of Pittsburgh, with a three-quarter acre yard. At the 40-year mark, when my parents were in their mid-to-late … Read more
The loudest Republicans have failed to produce any coherent strategy to rein in deficits. As a federal budget economist, I typically analyze budget fights in the context of competing economic and fiscal approaches, and then define what I consider to be the optimal policy. However, the current government shutdown debate lacks any coherent policy explanation. … Read more
In many respects, the 1973 Yom Kippur War was Act II of the 1967 Six Day War, which ended in a miraculous Israeli victory over Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In 1967, Israel had captured the Sinai, an area almost three times the size of New Jersey, from Egypt in the Six Day War. Israel also … Read more
It’s the start of a new college semester — with leaves starting to turn, football stadiums filling up, and a new generation taking their seats in classrooms all over America. Thus, this is as good a time as any for our nation’s students, parents , and school administrators to ask themselves one crucial question: What … Read more
It’s cold comfort, but it isn’t only in the United States that academic standards are under attack. The same dumbing down and obsessive concern over keeping students happy that we see here is also undermining higher education in other countries. In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Steven Schwartz bemoans that trend in his country, Australia. … Read more
The Clintons are back in Manhattan, baby. Once again random celebrities, Orlando Bloom, Matt Damon, Patrick Dempsey, Karlie Kloss, will rub shoulders with random foreign leaders like Mia Mottlev, the Prime Minister of Barbados, Irfaan Ali, the President of Guyana, Biden administration officials, the heads of nonprofits with made up titles like “intersectional environmentalist”, heads … Read more
“After the statement from the Rome vicariate on Monday announcing a clean bill of health for the Centro Aletti, the only question is: What do you call a whitewash that is also a coverup that is also a snow job?” asks Christopher Altieri, writing in Catholic World Report. He answers his own rhetorical question at … Read more
I never encountered Father William Holt, O.P. — Billy Holt, as some who loved him referred to him — without smiling. His joy was contagious. Even after a Confession, he would make me laugh. Maybe especially then. God’s mercy has a way of lifting our spirits and enabling us to remember things that are most … Read more
All joking aside, the modern Church is utterly feckless against transgenderism and other anti-Catholic isms because of the dangerous isms that have animated the theological and philosophical landscape of the Church for decades. Modernism has infected the Church’s intellectual life root and branch. As a result, the leadership is in no place to effectively combat … Read more
Top 5 Low-Impact Exercises For Seniors BRAD: That’s right. They are our five favorites, I would say. All right, a little introduction to these exercises, a mindset of what I would like you to think about before you get into them. I want you to do all five of the exercises, but if … Read more
Last week, I wrote about the upcoming Palestine Writes Literature Festival, to be held at the University of Pennsylvania from September 22 to 24. Featuring as speakers noted antisemites, running the gamut from Marc Lamont Hill to Roger Waters, the festival promises to be a veritable cornucopia of hatred of Jews: calls for ethnic cleansing … Read more
Thirteen Baltimore City high schools don’t have a single student who has achieved grade-level proficiency in math. High school students took the Maryland state math exam in spring 2023. Of the 32 high schools that issued the exam, 13 produced no students who proved proficient in math, Fox45 News’ Project Baltimore reported this week. In … Read more
Chicago has long been infamous for graft and corruption., but it had a reputation for at least being functional. That’s not the case today. The city already is ranked in the bottom 10 for economic liberty and local politicians seem determined to pass NYC, LA, and Oakland and claim last place. Lori Lightfoot, the previous … Read more
If we want more kids reading, we need fewer MAs. Jill Biden (sorry, Dr. Jill Biden) is just the tip of a giant wasteful iceberg. Schools afloat with MAs and even PhDs on the faculty can’t seem to manage to convey even the most basic skills to their students. Here’s a breakdown at the most … Read more
[H]umans don’t like to be lied to, and that’s a problem for Joe Biden, who lies a great deal. He always has. On his podcast, John Podhoretz floated a useful heuristic for spotting many of Biden’s lies. If Biden begins a story in which someone calls him “Joey,” you can be pretty sure what comes … Read more
Below is my column in The Hill on the impeachment inquiry and one striking pattern among the alleged crimes facing Hunter Biden: they all served to conceal the influence peddling efforts to sell access or influence to his father. The investigation and charging of Hunter Biden has, thus far, been strikingly surgical in avoiding this … Read more
The publication of Melissa Kearney’s book The Two-Parent Privilege is something of an event in policy circles. The economist and polymathic bibliophile Tyler Cowen surmised that it “could be the most important economics and policy book of this year.” Other blurbs from star economists David Autor and Larry Summers are no less admiring. It helps … Read more
Our Lady Of Las Lajas And The Child Brought Back To Life In 1754, an event took place in Colombia that continues to baffle geologists and other scientists. This event was the miraculous appearance of the image of Our Lady of Las Lajas (Our Lady of the Rocks). Have you heard of it? … Read more
When Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) ran for office, he was propelled to victory by a growing socialist movement allied with the Democratic Party. The Socialist movement has elected a record number of socialists in Congress. However, Johnson now has one of the largest American cities to implement such policies with the support of the … Read more