Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Remy: Pardon My Son Also see “Joe Biden, corrupt career politician, crawls offstage“ Related PostsChris Arnade on dignity and alienation in America’s working class The Great 2023 Cashout begins with Richard Burr joining lobbying giant DLA Piper Pandemic Security Theater Father Damien ministered to native Hawaiians in a leper colony, now AOC calls … Read more
As if our culture weren’t already coming apart at the seams, there could be a new battle line emerging soon: Blue states seem to be trending toward childlessness while red states are becoming more fecund. A future culture war that pits the parental class against the child-free class will not be pretty. We’re not there … Read more
Vice President Kamala Harris does not believe that the pro-life position is a legitimate one, and she has pledged to bring prosecutorial punishment down on all who disagree with her extremist abortion position. Anyone who warns of Trump’s “authoritarianism” needs to consider what a President Harris would mean for pro-life activists and institutions. The pro-life … Read more
“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
Time magazine has a piece on “the parents who regret having their children.” As you might have guessed from the title, it’s not the most uplifting read. The piece’s author, R. O. Kwon, who has “no plans to be a parent,” reflects on unsolicited advice she’s received over the years from those who suggest she’ll … Read more
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Random House, 400 pp., $30) In 2018’s The Coddling of The American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt contended that kids are inherently “antifragile”—that is, they benefit from adversity. But instead of “preparing the child … Read more
“Freedom, I believe, is fundamental to the promise of America,” Vice President Kamala Harris said in Wisconsin on Tuesday. She was, of course, talking about the freedom to terminate a pregnancy by abortion, but she wanted to frame abortion freedom in a broader panoply of freedoms, which she then listed: “Freedom of speech, freedom of … Read more
In the weeks after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, I noted that one of the tenants at Trump Tower was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a massive state-owned bank that plays a key role in China’s industrial and, thus, geopolitical designs. “In two months, that means, the president of the United States … Read more
Francis Collins, who was the director of the National Institutes of Health during the pandemic, was candid and reflective in his recent public remarks on our government’s responses to COVID. In a video publicized on X by Phil Kerpen, Collins admits that the government health experts in Washington, D.C., “weren’t really thinking about what that … Read more
Rudy Giuliani was once an American hero. Sure, the Democratic Party hated him and the liberal media reviled him, but in many circles, he was revered. Giuliani came into the mayoralty of New York City in 1994, when there were 2,000 murders a year. During his term in office, crime was cut in more than … Read more
The pandemic inspired a lot of institutions to adopt cost-saving processes that make life worse for their customers while reducing their payroll. Hotels cut back on housekeeping as a supposed “safety measure” in 2020 and 2021, and many of them fell so in love with the cost savings that they have tried to come up … Read more
It is good and prudent that Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is dropping out of the Republican presidential race, but it’s a real shame he failed. The South Carolina senator failed not only to poll well or to raise funds, but he also failed to make a strong case for his candidacy — because he failed … Read more
All politicians have bad ideas. Former President Donald Trump’s bad ideas take on a particular character — they lack a conservative disposition in key respects. His proposal for a federally funded, “anti-woke,” free university is rooted in all of these typical Trumpian errors: over-centralization, lack of prudence about the future, and a simplistic concept of … Read more
When a story takes up most of the news, there is room for plenty of commentary on many different angles. In the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians, including children and the elderly, there’s a lot to talk about. We could talk about Israel’s intelligence failures that allowed this … Read more
The Tampa Bay Rays have been eliminated from the baseball playoffs after two losses at home. Not only was the Rays’ offense moribund, but so was their attendance. Tropicana Field’s stands were largely empty in the Rays’ two playoff games — attendance averaged 20,000. It was the worst attendance for a playoff game, basically ever. … 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
Plenty of Democrats online argue that former President Donald Trump poses enough of a threat to democracy that even conservatives such as me should vote for Joe Biden in the 2024 election. I know plenty of right-of-center folks who voted for Biden in 2020 and probably some who would vote for Biden over Trump again … Read more
Here’s a life hack: If you’re always on the lookout, you can often find ways to rip off other people or take stuff that doesn’t belong to you, and not get caught. Such is the wisdom dispensed by influencers on TikTok these days, and it’s darkly fitting amid the current crime wave. People have no … Read more
Public school teachers and other culture warriors on the Left will insist that the symbols of their ascendant movement, such as the rainbow flag, pronouns in bios and introductions, and “HATE HAS NO PLACE” signs, are just simple, unobjectionable statements of tolerance and love. Wearing the rainbow flag ought not to be controversial, they argue. … Read more
We do not live in a just world. Sometimes crime pays. The book of Job shows us that the righteous sometimes suffer for their righteousness. American politics, in particular, seems to reward the worst among us. The 2016 presidential election pitted Hillary Clinton — famous for her thirst for power, self-dealing, and disdain for anyone … Read more
It’s the perfect headline for the major media’s preferred narrative, which means two things: Nearly every outlet will pick it up, and it’s mostly bogus. “So many doctors are being driven away by Idaho abortion ban that this hospital can’t deliver babies anymore,” one headline about Bonner General in Bonner County, Idaho, declared. “Idaho hospital … Read more
There are a lot of different ways to react to the rumors that former President Donald Trump is about to be indicted. Because we have a 24/7 media and endless content, every single possible reaction will be expressed these days, and there is room for all of them. Commentators can and should remark on the … Read more
The good news is that there are fewer teenage drivers on the road these days. The bad news is that the culture that has given us fewer teenage drivers is a disordered culture of screen addiction, safety obsession, and helicopter parenting. Parents everywhere wonder why their high schoolers or college freshmen have no interest in … Read more
“Be not conformed to this age,” St. Paul warned the Romans, implying that Christians ought to fit a bit uncomfortably in this world. This discord shines forth brilliantly in office breakrooms across America on Ash Wednesday every year as someone inevitably brings in a king cake and invites colleagues to join in consuming it. The … Read more
The temptation is eternal to use taxes, regulations, subsidies, and mandates to steer the economy in politically desired directions. Call it the Eternal Urge to Industrial Policy. Democrats, for the past 15 years, have tried to use government power to make corporations chase “green profits”: green energy, electric cars, green building, etc. Both parties seem … Read more