DC

Some ‘community peacekeepers’ championed by Democrats now charged with murder

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Several so-called “community peacekeepers” meant to curb violent crime in major Democrat-led cities are facing murder charges. Democratic officials championed the peacekeepers as a progressive alternative to policing, whose criminal backgrounds purportedly helped provide a compassionate, “culturally sensitive” approach. Each of the arrested violence prevention activists had previous encounters with law enforcement, including past murder … Read more

Merkley’s Marathon Address Decried Trump’s ‘Authoritarian Grip’—But Executive Overreach Didn’t Start With Him

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Trump’s presidency may have amplified executive power, but unless lawmakers roll back those powers—and the bloated government behind them—the next administration will do the same. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.) took to the Senate floor on Tuesday around 6:30 p.m. to “ring the alarm” on what he described as President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on … Read more

The Government Shutdown Is a Distraction—From Our $37 Trillion Debt

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This time, Democrats turned the most basic government housekeeping into hostage drama. The federal government just accumulated an additional $2 trillion in debt over the last 12 months. That’s the kind of debt surge America usually racks up in wartime or during major national emergencies. But today, as Republicans and Democrats engage in another budget-driven … Read more

Trio of Priests: Maryland Family to Welcome Third Ordination

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Eric and Grace Morrison have never pressured their seven children to pursue the priesthood or religious life. Their son Danny, who is a transitional deacon in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., jokingly describes his vocation story as “boring.” There was “no big turnaround moment of conversion, but just this slow call of the Lord throughout … Read more

Republican Sleaze, Democratic Slump

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I want to attempt a sort of bird’s-eye view of both parties as we enter the first summer of the Trump administration. For the Republicans, the headline is moving forward on various Trump policies (immigration, trade, budget) that, in the aggregate, have sparked neither widespread support nor overwhelming alarm. It’s all wait and see. The … Read more

Who Knew?

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“The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized,” Elon Musk, the billionaire dilettante tasked by that other billionaire dilettante with reforming the federal bureaucracy, said earlier this week. “I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least.” The Tesla boss … Read more

Make Sarah and Yaron’s Memory a Blessing

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It’s past time to stand up to the hateful incitement perpetuated by American supporters of Hamas. Sarah Milgrim or Yaron Lischinsky, the young couple who were murdered May 21 in Washington, D.C., outside the Capital Jewish Museum after attending a gathering of the American Jewish Committee. . . . Milgrim and Lischinsky are dead because … Read more

Communist Terrorist Kills Engaged Couple Outside Israeli Embassy

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This was a Communist terrorism attack in support of Muslim terrorists. Elias Rodriguez, reportedly a member of the Communist front Party for Socialism and Liberation, opened fire outside the Israeli Embassy in D.C., killing Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, a pair of staffers who were about to be engaged. The Communist terrorist shouted, “Free Palestine,” … Read more

Pope Don, &c.

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If Obama had said that . . .” “If Obama had done that . . .” We often heard those lines during Donald Trump’s first term as president. The lines had grown tiresome by March 2017 or so (a couple of months into that term). But they regularly applied. I thought of them last week. … Read more

Trump’s sycophants are chosen because of their weaknesses, not in spite of them.

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The genuflecting yellowbellies of the Cowards’ Caucus in Congress—which is to say, Republicans as a whole—have groveled mightily in seeking to curry favor with Donald Trump and have, subsequently and ironically, done Trump no favors. John Thune, the Republican leader in the Senate, seems determined to follow the worst examples set by his predecessor, Mitch … Read more

Tax the Ivies

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Republicans should make universities with big endowments and multibillion-dollar foundations pay more. Republicans looking for new sources of revenue to help finance further tax cuts or reduce the deficit are appropriately looking at university endowments. In so doing, they should raise their sights to include large, grantmaking nonprofit foundations. Large university endowments remain one of … Read more

Americans should feel uneasy about the new Archbishop of Washington

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For an eighty-eight-year-old man who has spent only five days in the United States and doesn’t speak English, Pope Francis is a surprisingly partisan observer of American politics. For most of his life he was, like a typical Argentinean, viscerally but vaguely anti-American. By the time he became pope in 2013, he and the Democratic … Read more

McElroy’s appointment to Washington is a seriously misguided political move

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Catholic America is reeling from the surprise of the new presidency’s political appointments at every level, which are decisively reshaping the political landscape. One of the most unexpected developments has not come from the White House but from the Vatican: the retirement of Cardinal Wilton Gregory as Archbishop of Washington left a vacancy for Rome … Read more

America’s most enduring bipartisan tradition: political hypocrisy

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One of the advantages of finding myself in recent years without a political home is that I feel no temptation, let alone an obligation, to justify or minimize unsavory behavior from either side of the political aisle. My disenchantment with both the Republican and Democratic camps has its drawbacks, but one advantage is that it … Read more

Presidents and Precedents

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“It concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks [at] us as a nation of laws.” So said President-elect Joe Biden in 2020, responding to rumors that Donald Trump planned to issue preemptive pardons of himself, members of his family, Bombay Sapphire Nosferatu Rudy … Read more

A Second Edition of Trump: Three Hopes, Three Fears

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Yesterday, I celebrated Biden’s exit from Washington. We have 50-plus years of evidence showing he is a corrupt, big-government mediocrity. Good riddance. But Biden being bad does not imply Trump being good. Instead, he’s an incoherent mix. Some of his policies are good and some are bad. In today’s column, I’m going to outline my … Read more

McElroy, McCarrick, and the Catholic Left

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There are so many things to be said about the appointment of Cardinal McElroy to be the next Archbishop of Washington, DC that you could break those things down into different categories. There is, first, the politics category. That is, politics seems to be the sole motivation for the appointment. According to the Pillar, Pope … Read more

Jimmy Carter Was Never a Good Man

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And Carter and Biden have a lot in common. Biden and Carter had many things in common, record unpopularity, crooked brothers, and empowering Islamic terrorists, but decency was never one of them. Joe Biden was not a good man. Neither was Jimmy Carter. Carter ran for office promising an administration “that’s turned away from scandal … Read more

Inside the Anti-Israel Congressional Black Caucus Event That Whitewashed Hamas, Rejected Zionism

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An anti-Israel panel event held during a conference hosted by the US Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC on Thursday urged the audience to show “solidarity” with the Palestinian cause while rejecting Zionism and justifying the Hamas terror group’s atrocities against the Israeli people. The event, titled “Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free: The Struggle for … Read more

Kamala Harris’s Anti-Catholic Animus

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The Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee seems downright antagonistic toward Catholic beliefs, institutions, and people. Now that Democratic elites have forced President Biden out of the presidential race and anointed Vice President Kamala Harris as their new candidate, it is worth reminding ourselves just how radical she is — especially when it comes to Catholics in … Read more

Just. Go. Away.

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At this date, it seems futile, if not quaint, to speak of character. A lot of us were writing about it in 2016. And we laid heavy emphasis on it in the Clinton years, of course — by “we,” I mean Republicans and conservatives. But “that ship has sailed.” (This is one of my least … Read more

We are governed by imbeciles and thieves and miscreants and degenerates.

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We are governed by imbeciles and thieves and miscreants and degenerates. But we could really use some damn radical candor. Because we are governed by imbeciles and thieves and miscreants and degenerates and people who are willing to put up with all that imbecility and thievery and miscreance and degeneracy if it gets them even … Read more

Our politicians are largely corrupt. Which of them are going to jail next?

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“The scandal is what’s legal” was a saying in Washington for a long time. Politicians commit blatantly corrupt acts every day, abusing power for their own political benefit or personal enrichment. Nevertheless, almost none of them ever face prosecution — misdemeanor or felony charges. Partly, it’s because proving intent is real difficult. Largely, we don’t … Read more

Stop Calling Trump’s New York Caper a ‘No Harm’ Crime

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Donald Trump cheated the shareholders of the banks that lent him money out of millions of dollars in interest payments and fees. One of the irritating recurrent features of the discussion surrounding Donald Trump’s New York fraud trial is the insistence that this was a “victimless crime.” On a recent episode of National Review’s “The … Read more

Biden: Frail Old Man Selling Woof Tickets

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How does America see President Joe Biden now? They see an angry old man selling wolf (or ‘woof’) tickets to America, a nation that he holds in contempt as a land of Chumbolones, a people he thinks are too stupid to see through his crafty lies. After he barked at his countrymen for an hour … Read more