Last Friday, in a triumph for transnationalism, 136 nations, including the U.S., agreed to mandate a global corporate income tax for all nations that will not be allowed to fall below 15 percent. “Virtually the entire global economy has decided to end the race to the bottom on corporate taxation,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen,...
The online world is negatively affecting the American dating scene. If you didn’t suspect that already, an experience recorded by Villanova professor Anna Bonta Moreland over at First Things will make that clear. Moreland explains how she gave her students an online discussion assignment to share their dating experiences. The results were very moving and revealed how...
Monday, four dozen Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone, climaxing a weekend of provocations that saw nearly 150 sorties of China-based fighters and bombers. The U.S. State Department countered by issuing a stern statement warning Beijing about the adverse effect on regional “stability” of such “provocative military activity.” Yet even as the...
“Santa Claus is comin’ to town,” are the repetitive words to a classic Christmas song. But will those words ring true this holiday season? Perhaps not, if the ongoing backup of ships and supplies at major American ports continues. The Spectator explores this problem in “The Supply Chain Problem Is Here to Stay.”...
Homo Americanus, by Zbigniew Janowski (St. Augustine’s Press; 250 pp., $24.00). Polish American political thinker Zbigniew Janowski examines the reasons that modern American democracy has taken a totalitarian turn. Contrary to the happy talk coming from establishment conservatives about the need to spread America’s so-called liberal democratic values everywhere, Janowski paints a dark but compelling...
Michelle Avan, a Los Angeles, California, bank executive, was tortured and beaten to death, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend. He faces murder and first-degree robbery charges that, without so-called special circumstances, would allow him, if convicted, to serve less than 10 years. But L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón refuses to permit any special circumstances charges...
For nearly 20 years, I’ve reported on America’s medical welcome mat for chronically sick illegal aliens. Under a 1986 federal law, “unauthorized immigrants” with conditions such as kidney disease and cancer cannot be denied emergency room care, regardless of their immigration status or inability to pay. Open-borders politicians insist health care is a “right” that...
It’s hard to find anyone these days outside National Review’s deluded pages sorry to see Rep. Liz Cheney dragged across the political concrete. Besides rubbing raw the hide of a realigning right with her grating adoration for George W. Bush, Cheney embodies a conservative establishment that has conserved little more than its sinecures and pretensions. The prospect of Donald Trump...
“We’ve got the president of the United States on our side,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Got 96% of the members of the Democratic caucus in the House on our side. We got all but two senators at this point in the Democratic caucus on our side. We’re going to win...
Federal elections rearranged Germany’s 709-seat Bundestag last week in what has been heralded by the mainstream press as the end of an era. In reality, the new governing coalition led by the country’s social democratic and green parities will change little in the country’s foreign and security policy. The new team will remain staunchly opposed to any...
William Appleman Williams (1921-1990) was dean of the New Left School of American diplomatic history. As one of the most influential American historians in the ’60s and ’70s, he gained a national audience for his anti-war, anti-globalist, and anti-imperial views. Odd as it might seem, it would be more likely these days that Patrick Buchanan...
Eleven months after the 2020 American presidential election, the official results remain so incongruous, they merit an empirical exegesis. The political establishment’s narrative is that Biden won an unexpectedly close race, and the outcome requires no further examination. Yet, Biden’s victory is so statistically suspicious, so riddled with ahistorical outcomes, that a detailed data examination...
“Unfortunately, Jan. 6 was not an isolated event,” warned FBI Director Christopher Wray last winter: “The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon.” Since he became director in 2017, said Wray, FBI domestic terrorism investigations had doubled in number to...
Homo Americanus, by Zbigniew Janowski (St. Augustine’s Press; 250 pp., $24.00). Polish American political thinker Zbigniew Janowski examines the reasons that modern American democracy has taken a totalitarian turn. Contrary to the happy talk coming from establishment conservatives about the need to spread America’s so-called liberal democratic values everywhere, Janowski paints a dark but compelling...
Vladimir Lenin observed in State and Revolution (1917) that “all previous revolutions perfected the state machine, whereas it must be broken, smashed.” He meant, as Marx had written in The Civil War in France (1871), that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.” Power,...
It’s difficult to characterize President Biden’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan as anything but a shameful debacle. It’s also difficult to determine who was responsible for the lack of a strategic withdrawal plan. Can the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff be that incompetent or feckless if an immediate and unconditional...
Ainuddin Khudairaham held down the trigger of his Kalashnikov and kept firing on unarmed U.S. Marines until the rifle’s magazine was empty, murdering three and wounding one. The Americans had been working out at a gym on Forward Operating Base Delhi in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province when the teenaged boy attacked on Aug. 10, 2012. “I...
Prick up your ears and listen to the violins: beyond the dreamy adagios and thrilling arpeggios the fat lady has sung. On stage Uncle Sam has been laid to rest, but unlike Don Giovanni, the good uncle’s corpse has not descended into hell. European pundits are lesser liars and hypocrites than American ones, yet they...
Peruse left-wing media reports and Twitter trends and one will discover that claims that “Trump won” are labeled as misinformation. Polling numbers, however, show that many Americans hold exactly the opposite view, and think that Biden’s claim to the presidency is questionable. Underlying such contention is the thorny question of who is and who...
I commend Taki for his courageous article in the July Chronicles, “Nothing’s Easy About Israel.” Taki mentioned “the irony in my case is that I am a man of the right siding with a pro-leftist cause, that of the Palestinians.” Well, I feel the same way, but my case is even more ironic or strange...
That Donald Trump bothered to challenge the official outcome of the November 2020 election was an annoyance to a number of congressional Republicans, representatives and senators alike. Remarks issued on Jan. 6 by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as the Senate was about to confirm the election of Joe Biden reflect these views: We cannot...
American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War by D. G. Hart Cornell University Press 280 pp., $29.95 “What the hell is an encyclical?” is probably the most honest and articulate response ever uttered by a Catholic politician in the United States. It was mouthed by New York’s first Catholic governor, Al...
Though John C. Calhoun was a distinguished American statesman and thinker, he is little appreciated in his own country. Calhoun rose to prominence on the eve of the War of 1812 as a “war hawk” in the House of Representatives and was the Hercules who labored untiringly in the war effort. While still a congressman,...
The latest episode in an ironic reversal of the roles of the foreign powers that have tried their luck in Afghanistan is unfolding before our eyes. Britain’s profitless involvement (1839-1919) is ancient history, but more recently the Soviet intervention (1979-1989) and America’s subsequent “longest war” (2001-2021) have both ended in strategic failures. Because the United...
Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson Portfolio 432 pp., Hardcover $29.00 The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad Regnery Publishing 235 pp., $28.99 Walmart is for deplorables, the left tells us. If that is so, then Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad must...
The death of the sainted George Floyd has proven to be the ideal pretext for the left to accelerate its campaign of dismantling the markers of American historical identity. With lavish corporate and philanthropic support, radical activists are “resetting” America. This means mandating the instruction of Critical Race Theory in public schools; replacing the American...
The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams by Davis S. Brown Scribner 464 pp., $30.00 Henry Adams (1838-1918) was born in the waning years of the early Republic. As he entered into adulthood after the Civil War, the country he saw emerging did not please him. The new...
The Tale of Joe Biden’s Election Night Spike In the early morning hours of election night, the release of final vote counts was delayed in some battleground states. There were various reasons for the delays, including a suspicious report of a burst water pipe in an Atlanta polling site, but generally the reason given...
Although H. L. Mencken could discern “no plot whatever” in Sinclair Lewis’ Babbitt, he still praised the novel as “a social document of a high order.” The 1922 classic mordantly sketches a bygone America and the paladins who made it run. Even today, the title character’s surname still mocks guileless Americans who conform unthinkingly to...
The Green Knight Directed and written by David Lowery ◆ Produced by Ley Line Entertainment ◆ Distributed by A24 In a world where chivalry is an alleged tool of the patriarchy, it seems odd that the story of the Green Knight, one of the most famous tales of the Arthurian legend, remains popular today....
The other day I was sitting in a coffee shop when a rap song began playing in the café. The F-word—you know, the one that rhymes with muck and yuck—featured prominently in the lyrics. I was happy there were no children present. After leaving the café, I went to our library to return some books....
The billionaire Koch family—long a funder of conservative political causes and favorite whipping boy of the left—recently announced its opposition to government bans on teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, a fact which does not sit well with many on the right. In light of this recent announcement, we present a continuation of a debate on...
It seems that capitalists, woke zealots, and street gangs are joined at the hip right now. This idea is fleshed out by writer Michael Anton in an enlightening interview with IM 1776. Anton offers this chilling thought: Certain folks will howl at this, but if you listen to the woke left, they think it’s not merely fine...
With international tensions high on the eve of the November 2020 election, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, that he was prepared to frustrate any potential military operation by America’s commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If...
For centuries up to and including the 20th, Europe seemed the central pivot of world history. Then came the Great Civil War of the West, our Thirty Years’ War (1914-1945), where all of the great European powers—Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia—along with almost all of the rest, fought some of history’s greatest battles. Result: Europe’s...
Northwestern Europe’s early development owes much to the Carolingian dynasty, which led Germanic society into Christendom from the dead end of paganism. It set the stage for the lush flowering of knightly culture, with its ideals of chivalry, courtesy, and courtly love, which established the Western habit of mind. This Western ethos is rooted in...
“Follow the money!” The old maxim is always sound advice when assessing the motives of those advancing bold agendas for the benefit of mankind. Invariably, the newest progressive idea entails a transfer of wealth from the taxpaying classes of Western nations to our transnational, global, and Third World elites. For the masters of the universe,...
Legislative elections were held over three days in Russia last weekend to elect 450 deputies of the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. President Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party won just under 50 percent of the vote and 324 seats in an election accompanied by the customary accusations of vote rigging from the...
A brilliantly orchestrated, seemingly preplanned program of medical tyranny has followed the release of a probable bespoke germ known as SARS-Cov-2, which I call the Faucivirus. A striking feature of this program is the massive effort to frighten, cajole, threaten, and shame the public into taking experimental injections represented as “vaccines.” The whole dystopian spectacle brings to mind something...
In nearly 30 years of covering America’s corrupted immigration and entrance policies, I can tell you definitively that every “border crisis” is a manufactured crisis. Caravans of Latin American illegal immigrants don’t just form out of nowhere. Throngs of Middle Eastern refugees don’t just amass spontaneously. Boatloads of Haitians don’t just wash up on our...
In a diplomatic coup, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a deal last week with the U.K. and U.S. to have those Anglo-American allies help build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia. A $66 billion French deal to provide Canberra with diesel electric-powered submarines, among the largest defense contracts Paris had ever negotiated, was blown off....
Not to Ban, by Walter E. Block: Extirpating Critical Race Theory (CRT) from schools is a hot-button issue for many politicians. While I do not take a position for or against CRT, I would like to assess the propriety of CRT being debated and taught at colleges and universities. Both proponents and opponents say that...
Certain politicians and special interest groups have brought out the pipes and drums to renew the Green New Deal. I recently heard our president on the radio shouting—and he was really shouting—about the perils we face if we don’t spend trillions of dollars fighting climate change. He told his audience that the scientists and our Department...
The California recall election turned out well for the Democrats. With Gov. Gavin Newsom sinking in the summer polls, the party had been staring starkly at the prospect of losing the nation’s largest state and seeing its governor replaced by talk-show host Larry Elder, who had vaulted into the lead among the 46 candidates seeking...
It’s no secret that we live in crazy times. Yet more is involved than just a bunch of crazy people running wild. If this was just individual mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) would help. Unfortunately, however, the DSM fails to address today’s political madness. With that deficiency in mind, let me offer an...
Recently I needed to visit the Urgent Care Center here in Front Royal, Virginia. I have gone there two or three times over the past four years, usually waiting around 15 minutes to see a doctor or a nurse. This time the woman at the front desk told me my wait would be between three...
In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, former President George W. Bush’s theme was national unity—and how it has been lost over these past 20 years. “In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks,” said Bush, “I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days...
Homeland Elegies: A Novel, by Ayad Akhtar (Little, Brown & Co.; 368 pp., $28.00). Mark Twain wrote in his 1897 travel book, Following the Equator: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” That saying came in handy as I read this book, described on its jacket as...
Back in December of 2020, then President-elect Biden said that he would not make vaccines against COVID-19 mandatory, nor did he think they should be mandatory. Given the new vaccine mandate by the White House, set to affect nearly 100 million Americans by some estimates, one reasonably conclude that Biden misled the people. However, Biden’s...