Year: 2018

According to the indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Russian trolls, operating out of St. Petersburg, took American identities on social media and became players in our 2016 election. On divisive racial and religious issues, the trolls took both sides. In the presidential election, the trolls favored Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein and Donald Trump, and...

For years, National Review has been relentless in its criticism of conservatives who questioned the benefits of free trade, even though the conservative tradition in America has historically been skeptical of free trade. “Protectionist” was one of the most common epithets the magazine hurled at Pat Buchanan during his runs for the White House. In...

“For thousands of years, the land that carried the mountains of Lebanon and hugged the Mediterranean Sea was restless,” says painter Antoine G. Faddoul of his Phoenix as a metaphor for his native land. “Those who inhabited the very first civilized cities suffered numerous invasions destroying their cities time and again [but] the survivors always...

“Enough is enough!” “This can’t go on!” “This has to stop!” These were among the comments that came through the blizzard of commentary after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County. We have heard these words before. Unfortunately, such atrocities are not going to stop. For the ingredients that produce such...

Candidate Donald Trump may have promised to extricate us from Middle East wars, once ISIS and al-Qaida were routed, yet events and people seem to be conspiring to keep us endlessly enmeshed. Friday night, a drone, apparently modeled on a U.S. drone that fell into Iran’s hands, intruded briefly into Israeli airspace over the Golan...

In his latest interview with the Iranian English-language Press TV network, Srdja Trifkovic discusses the latest developments on the Korean Peninsula. The first question was whether we are seeing a positive development in the relations between the North and the South, in the aftermath of the visit of Kim Jong Un’s sister to the Winter Olympics and...

President Trump is the leader of America’s conservative party. Yet not even his allies would describe him as a conservative in the tradition of Robert Taft, Russell Kirk or William F. Buckley. In the primaries of 2016, all his rivals claimed the mantle of Mr. Conservative, Ronald Reagan. Yet Trump captured the party’s heart. Who,...

Since there are no pressing global issues that cannot wait until next week, I’ll devote my column to a book I’ve just finished reading. Its title, Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans (Penguin, 2017), and the reputation of its author—retired admiral James George Stavridis, who ended his career as NATO Supreme...

From the December 1993 issue of Chronicles. “Modern liberty begins in revolt.” —H.M. Kallen In 1943, in the midst of the dark years of World War II when collectivism seemed to be sweeping all before it at home and abroad, three fiercely independent and feisty women, all of them friends and libertarians devoted to what...

That memo worked up in the Intel Committee of Chairman Devin Nunes may not have sunk the Mueller investigation, but from the sound of the secondary explosions, this torpedo was no dud. The critical charge: To persuade a FISA court to issue a warrant to spy on Trump aide Carter Page, the FBI relied on...

Whether the rationale is the need to wage a war on terror involving 76 countries or renewed preparations for a struggle against peer competitors Russia and China (as Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested recently while introducing America’s new National Defense Strategy), the U.S. military is engaged globally. A network of 800 military bases spread across...

“All the News That’s Fit to Print” proclaims the masthead of the New York Times. “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” echoes the Washington Post. “The people have a right to know,” the professors at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism hammered into us in 1962. “Trust the people,” we were admonished. Explain then this hysteria, this...

For Part I of “The Klondike Stampede,” see Sins of Omission in the December 2017 issue. The 250 Indians who inhabited Dyea on the eve of the gold rush were Chilkats, members of the Tlingit tribe.  They were short and stocky, and excellent packers.  They commonly carried packs of 100 pounds or more.  They charged...

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Produced by Blueprint Pictures  Written and directed by Martin McDonagh  Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures Lady Bird Produced by Scott Rudin Productions  Written and directed by Greta Gerwig  Distributed by A24  Three Billboards is hilarious; yet it could hardly be sadder.  How can it be both at once?  That’s director...

Devising a great power’s national-security strategy is serious business.  When external challenges are properly evaluated, tasks prioritized, and resources allocated, the results can be impressive.  The Roman Empire from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 96-180) provides one example; Britain from Napoleon to the Great War another.  The rise of Prussia and unification of Germany during...

Had she claimed to be 100-percent African-American, or to be a lesbian, transgender, or simply bisexual, the adoration would have been even more pronounced.  If she had a criminal record, the perverse New York Times would have gone bananas, praising her to the skies.  Not to mention the British politically correct media, like the BBC,...

After Roy Moore secured the Republican nomination to fill Jeff Sessions’ seat in the U.S. Senate, the Washington Post ran an article claiming that, roughly four decades ago, Moore had dated two teenage girls and asked out a third in front of her mother, who did not approve.  These girls were over the age of...

In June 2017, the European Union fined Google a record-breaking €2.42 billion for abusing the dominance of its popular search engine while building its online shopping service.  Brussels found that Google illegally and artificially endorsed its own price-comparison service in searches.  (In plain English, Google’s search results were biased in favor of its own services.) ...

For many Americans at or near the mid-century mark of their lives, Frank Capra has shaped their understanding of the meaning of Christmas in a way that only Charles Dickens could possibly rival.  Of all of his films, It’s a Wonderful Life was Capra’s personal favorite, but even though it was nominated for Best Picture...

From the July 2014 issue of Chronicles. William Ball was just shy of 19 and living in the town of Souris on the prairies of Canada when war erupted in Europe in August 1914.  The region was still something of a frontier, devoted to trapping and trading with Indians, and inhabited by hearty, adventurous types,...

The Church of England is now a citadel of advanced liberalism.  It went over to secularism long ago, and its zealots intensify their hold upon doctrine and practice.  The charge sheet includes, but is not confined to, support for the transgender lobby, for illegal immigrants, and for pandenominational movements.  The Church smiles upon the “marriage”...

Aside from its sheer incomprehensibility, the U.S. federal tax code is immoral, by design.  Its 75,000 pages exceed its 1917 length 187-fold.  Paradoxically, even though the tax code contains more than four million words, the United States effectively has no tax code.  At that absurd immensity the tax code says whatever your team of lawyers...

Following the 1862 battle at Perryville, the angry Unionists who held the Kentucky town declined to bury their slain foes.  When the stench and sight of wild hogs gorging themselves on corpses finally proved unbearable, the task of laying the dead to rest fell upon one Henry P. Bottom, the secessionist upon whose once-prosperous farm...

As we gathered in the gazebo, sitting on the hard white benches with the paint peeling off in strips, nursing Marlboros—the girls wielding cigarette-holders, like scepters—we decided then and there who and what was the main obstacle to our goal.  Sheryl called it the “Marshmallow Conspiracy,” and of course we didn’t need a translation, although...

On this month’s form, 2018 will be an interesting year. So far it has brought rich rewards to us world affairs aficionados. The overall global tempo is accelerating, affrettando, like de Falla’s Danza Ritual del Fuego. What would have been considered bizarre if not outright insane but a few years ago is now commonplace. Take...

If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria, could be under fire by week’s end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history. Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his troops will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom U.S. troops are embedded. Erdogan’s foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the U.S....

President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs of up to 50% on Asian washing machines being dumped into the United States in response to a trade case brought by Whirlpool prompted howls of outrage among Trump opponents everywhere, especially among Trump opponents who used to masquerade as conservatives. The most revealing howl came from National Review‘s...

Asked if he would agree to be interviewed by Robert Mueller’s team, President Donald Trump told the White House press corps, “I would love to do it . . . as soon as possible. . . . under oath, absolutely.” On hearing this, the special counsel’s office must have looked like the Eagles’ locker room...

From the February 2014 issue of Chronicles. The elegant duplex maisonette at 73 East 73rd Street in Manhattan, formerly the residence of the late Mr. and Mrs. William F. Buckley, Jr., was recently bought by Mr. and Mrs. Mark Rockefeller, son and daughter-in-law of the late Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.  A writer for the New York...

From the October 1995 issue of Chronicles. “The question is,” Humpty Dumpty tells Alice in Through the Looking Glass, “which is to be master—that’s all.” As overused as the quotation may be, it nevertheless communicates a perennial truth that most people forget when it comes to understanding not only the answer but also the question...

“The Western democratic system is hailed by the developed world as near perfect and the most superior political system to run a country,” mocked China’s official new agency. “However, what’s happening in the United States today will make more people worldwide reflect on the viability and legitimacy of such a chaotic political system.” There is...

As I write this, the federal government remains “shut down” because congressional Democrats have committed themselves en masse to open borders. The Democrats know that they can secure congressional approval of President Obama’s unilateral DACA amnesty if they give President Trump funding for a wall on our southern border. But the Democrats are unwilling to...

According to a poll conducted in the late summer of 2017, 56 percent of respondents agreed that President Trump was “tearing the country apart.” We consistently read reports and see on the news the accusation that Trump, and others, are being “divisive” when what we really need is “unity.” We are repeatedly told we need...

The war for dominance in the Middle East, following the crushing of ISIS, appears about to commence in Syria—with NATO allies America and Turkey on opposing sides. Turkey is moving armor and troops south to Syria’s border enclave of Afrin, occupied by Kurds, to drive them out, and then drive the Syrian Kurds out of...