Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
A gold bar and a Rolex—where have I heard that story before? Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey accepted bribes in the form of gold bars and received photos of watches he might fancy from his benefactors: “How about one of those?” one message read. Subtle! Rolex watches are a particularly popular currency of bribery: … Read more
Good news, readers: My muse is finally free. Yes, once again butterflies are free to fly away, high away, as former Representative George Santos — once a Republican from a Long Island swing seat in New York, later a jailbird — has today had his sentence commuted by President Donald Trump: George Santos was somewhat … Read more
There is the Graham Platner that the media wants you to see: Maine oysterman, veteran and gun owner, a working class type who could easily be MAGA, but is running as a Democrat. Then there’s the real Graham Platner, son of a prominent local attorney, grandson of a major modernist architect, whose business was funded … Read more
I am against it. Here is my Free Press column, and an excerpt: This won’t be the last government takeover—or at least that’s what Trump is promising. Trump says he wants to do more of this with other companies, with TSMC, Micron, and Samsung as other potential targets. Over the longer run, who is to … Read more
In the advertising world, there is an old adage that there are times when you take a pitch and “run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.” That expression came to mind yesterday when President Donald Trump signed an order to punish flag burning. The President may be hoping that the Supreme Court might … Read more
Big city mayors’ progressive ambitions are on a collision course with fiscal reality. Progressives were elated when Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani won an upset victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democrats’ New York mayoral primary this past June. The 33-year-old self-described socialist’s win “sends a clear message,” gushed Jared Abbott in Jacobin. “A bold … Read more
Perónism: the one import that Trump likes. When economist Javier Milei won the Argentine presidency in 2023, the international media portrayed his victory in the light of America’s burgeoning populist movement. “Who is Javier Milei?” asked The Guardian. Describing him as the country’s “new far-right president,” the publication compared him to “his fellow right-wing populists … Read more
JB Pritzker is progressives’ walking ATM. It is impossible to contemplate the political career of Illinois Governor Jay Robert (JB) Pritzker, one of America’s wealthiest politicians, without the starting point of a ten-figure net worth. He’s not a particularly gifted orator or a policy innovator, and his state is limping along economically. Yet, when Forbes … Read more
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
Clinton might want to think twice before proposing prosecutions for spreading Russian propaganda. No one has done that more than she has. Hillary Clinton went on MSNBC this week and told Rachel Maddow that she thinks Americans who spread “misinformation” and Russia propaganda should be prosecuted. In a conversation about the recent Justice Department indictment … Read more
Bowing to overwhelming evidence and political reality, Hunter Biden finally pleaded guilty to tax charges on the day his trial was to begin with jury selection in Los Angeles federal court. Even now, already scheduled for sentencing for federal firearms felonies of which a Delaware jury found him guilty, the president’s 54-year-old son exhibited the … Read more
On Trump’s Arlington photo op. A wise man once said that the business of punditry is persuasion. Assuming that’s true, we won’t be conducting any business today. That’s because the subject of Donald Trump’s toothy thumbs-up photo op amid the fallen at Arlington National Cemetery is persuasion-proof. There are already a thousand reasons to despise … Read more
House Republicans have concluded their impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden after finding that the president engaged in “impeachable conduct” to further his family’s years-long influence-peddling campaign, which racked up more than $27 million from foreign sources made to believe they could influence the operations of American government through their access to the Biden family. Foreign … Read more
After learning that Joe Biden would not seek a second presidential term, his son Hunter took it upon himself to advise all the foreign governments that had previously sent him bribe money that there would be no refunds. “Sorry, no refunds!” Hunter informed members of the Chinese government. “I believe I made that very clear … Read more
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