Author: The Archive (The Archive)

On New Year’s Day, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki issued an ultimatum to the West: Accept a swap of part of our 2 ton stockpile of low-enriched uranium for your higher-enriched uranium for our U.S.-built reactor, or we start enriching to 20 percent ourselves. Though the White House is on the defensive for its initial...

On Christmas Eve, when Christians were celebrating the Prince of Peace, THE New York Times delivered forth a call for war. “There’s only one way to stop Iran,” declared Alan J. Kuperman, and that is “military air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.” Kuperman is described as the “director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program at...

Here’s what we can look for as the federal government implements new rules meant to thwart the likes of Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalib, the would-be pants bomber: —Sharp drop-offs in beverage sales as passengers find themselves barred from restrooms during the last 60 minutes of international flights. —Airport check-in times longer than airplane flight times. —An...

“The true meaning of Christmas gets lost when we believe contrary worldviews,” the prisoner writes.  “Our beliefs determine our views in a world where absolutes are fading away.”  The prisoner is dictating this for his newsletter.Come-to-Jesus (or -Allah) experiences abound in prisons, so it’s always wise to take conversion stories with a grain of salt....

Americans sick over Congress’ “health care” outrage should be glad to sniff the generally unpolluted air of Christmas Eve in order, at last, to hear the angels sing. Because if anyone ever took a political vote-counter for one of the heavenly host, it had to be a long time ago: not in the eight or...

A Tender Unitarian Christmas II: Yankees and Jews Slapping NorwegiansThis [insert preference] Season, the message from the Chicago Tribune to Garrison Keillor is clear: Feel free to slap around Unitarians all you want, but leave the Jews alone.I like Garrison Keillor.  There, I said it.  (We fellow-ex-fundamentalists-turned-Lutherans must stick together.)  Not everyone on the Chronicles...

For Democrats like Harry Reid, who called them “evil-mongers,” and Nancy Pelosi, who called them “un-American,” the NBC News poll must have hit like a sucker punch at a Georgetown wine-and-cheese. The Tea Party movement, those folks rallying against spending last spring and Obamacare in the summer town halls, are viewed more favorably than the...

It was a cold and dreary New York that Ebenezer Scrooge V looked at from the window of his Upper East Side office.    The sun was setting, but his long day was not over yet. His secretary, Mrs. Cratchit buzzed to ask if he was ready for his appointment with the representatives of  UNESCO’s International...

As someone who has written on the War Against Christmas for both Chronicles and VDARE.COM since 2001, it should come as no surprise that my perspective is different from Thomas Fleming’s.  I welcome anyone, Christian or non-Christian, who is willing to defend this matchless holiday, and look with suspicion on all those who are hostile...

“Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books” was a London Times headline on Dec. 11, 2009. These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of Palestinians’ olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work and medical care, the Israeli wall that denies Palestinians access to...

Possibly the best reason for not understanding what’s in the Senate health care bill is that no senator knows for sure, not even Harry Reid, without whose subservience to the Obama White House we might have some idea what’s up; but let that go . . . Few legislative spectacles of our time, and there...

“It’s time to stop worrying about the deficit—and start panicking about the debt,” the Washington Post editorial began. “The fiscal situation was serious before the recession. It is now dire.” The editorial continued: “In the space of a single fiscal year, 2009, the debt soared from 41 percent of the gross domestic product to 53...

As if policy “experts” were not growing almost daily in disrepute, along came the Environmental Protection Agency Monday to fortify, in a backward way, the case for just plain old, you know, common sense in public policy. No 2,000-page congressional bills; no international conferences; just homely intuition, leading to the conclusion that, Pa, this whole...

At last week’s Job Summit, there was talk of a second stimulus package, of tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers, of an Infrastructure Bank to select national priority pubic works projects like the Hoover Dam and TVA of yesteryear. But no one, it seems, advanced the one obvious idea that would have...

Goldman Sachs senior executives are arming themselves with New York gun permits, according to Alice Schroeder on Bloomberg.com. The banksters “are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.” One can understand why the banksters are worried. The company, now known as Gold Sachs, has a large responsibility for...

If actions speak louder than words, President Obama is cutting America free of George Bush’s wars and coming home. For his bottom line Tuesday night was that all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq by mid-2011 and the U.S. footprint in Afghanistan will, on that date, begin to get smaller and smaller. Yet the...

Ritual trumphalism about America’s righteous mission in the closing sentences of his speech did not dispel the distinct impression during President Obama’s 33-minute address to cadets at West Point Tuesday night that we were listening to a man defeated by the challenge of justifying the dispatch of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Obama didn’t make...

In the great 1947 Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street, Judge Harper (played by Gene Lockhart) is all set to rule that there is no Santa Claus, until his shrewd political adviser Charlie Halloran (played by William Frawley) convinces him that such a ruling would be political suicide.  Obama could have used a Charlie Halloran...

Led by a conflicted president of a divided party and nation, America is deepening her involvement in a war in its ninth year with no end in sight. Only one parallel to Barack Obama’s troop decision comes to mind: the 2007 decision by George W. Bush to ignore the Baker Commission and put Gen. David...

If government would just stop trying to do everything in the world . . . Well, wait. Let’s review what the U.S. government is currently up to: 1. Overhauling health care, or, if not actually overhauling it, talking endlessly about how government should do it. 2. Reconfiguring the way Americans use energy. 3. Rejiggering financial...

Republican members of Congress and what masquerades as a “conservative” media are outraged that the Obama administration intends to try in federal court Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, and four alleged co-conspirators. The Republican and right wing ranting that a trial is too good for these people proves what I have...

As George W. Bush famously asked, “Is our children learning?” Apparently not in the twin capitals of liberalism, D.C. and New York. In a ranking of 50 states and D.C. by how much each spent per pupil in public schools in 2005, New York ranked first; D.C. third. The state spent $14,100, and New York...

No one can accuse Mandolyna Theodoracopulos of not being provocative, and I read her recent post “Jon and Kate Plus Hate” with interest.  I entirely agree with her criticisms of in vitro fertilization, and indeed would go well beyond them: Just because science allows us to do something does not mean that we should, and...

PERSPECTIVE Something to Remember by Thomas Fleming VIEWS Race and Racism by Tom Landess A brief history. Saving French in Quebec by Luc Gagnon Why language isn’t enough. NEWS Social Security’s Coming Crash by Doug Bandow The certain end of entitlement. REVIEWS It’s the Culture, Stupid! by Tom Piatak Paul M. Weyrich: The Next Conservatism plus William J. Quirk on Theresa Amato’s Grand Illusion: ...

PERSPECTIVE Going Through the Motionsby Thomas Fleming VIEWS Recovering the Dignity of Truthby William MurchisonEpiscopalians and/or Anglicans. Fighting for Orthodoxy Among the Methodistsby Mark TooleySome good news. A Tale of Two Subversivesby Srdja TrifkovicBattling Christophobia in California and Serbia. NEWS Government-Managed Businessby Stephen B. PresserAs Silent Cal spins . . . REVIEWS Waiting for Charles...

It did not take the Israel lobby long to make mincemeat out of the Obama administration’s “no new settlements” position. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is bragging about Israel’s latest victory over the U.S. government as Israel continues to build illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. In May, President Obama read the Israelis the riot act,...

For the Blue Dogs, Tuesday was a fire bell in the night. Virginia Republicans led by Robert McDonnell crushed the most conservative Democrat nominee in decades, rolling up a victory that rivaled Ronald Reagan’s rout of Walter Mondale. New Jersey GOP nominee Chris Christie, whose campaign had been the despair of its backers, won a...

My two earlier commentaries on resistance films—movies that portray the heroism of outnumbered people under brutal invasion by great powers—brought forth a good deal of attention and discussion.  It might be worth continuing the theme a little longer.  For me it is a high priority of  faith that every genuine nation, no matter how small...

When America is about to throw an ally to the wolves, we follow an established ritual. We discover that the man we supported was never really morally fit to be a friend or partner of the United States. When Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the Japanese for four years before Pearl Harbor, began losing to Mao’s...

A review of The Informant! (produced and distributed by Warner Brothers; directed by Steven Soderbergh; screenplay by Scott Z. Burns based on Kirt Eichenwald’s book) “Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas,” Chaucer’s pardoner warned his guilt-ridden audiences: The root of all evil is greed.  Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! serves as a latter-day illustration of this admonition....

If we had it to do over, would we send an army into Afghanistan to build a nation? Would we invade Iraq? While these two wars have cost 5,200 dead, a trillion dollars and a divided America facing an endless war, what have we won? Gen. Stanley McChrystal needs 40,000 to 80,000 more troops, or...

“Sometimes party loyalty asks too much,” said JFK. For Sarah Palin, party loyalty in New York’s 23rd congressional district asks too much. Going rogue, Palin endorsed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over Republican Dede Scozzafava. On Oct. 1, Scozzafava was leading. Today, she trails Democrat Bill Owens and is only a few points ahead of...

Across the country last weekend, there were antiwar demonstrations, modest in turnout, but hopefully a warning to Obama that war without end or reason in Afghanistan, plus 40,000 more troops to Kabul, is not why people voted for him. I spoke at our own little rally in my local town of Eureka, Calif. My neighbor...

The U.S. has every characteristic of a failed state. The U.S. government’s current operating budget is dependent on foreign financing and money creation. Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through diplomacy, the U.S. relies on terrorism and military aggression. Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in the interest...

In the brief age of Obama, we have had “truthers,” “birthers,” Tea Party activists and town-hall dissenters. Comes now, the “Oath Keepers.” And who might they be? Writes Alan Maimon in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oath Keepers, depending on where one stands, are “either strident defenders of liberty or dangerous peddlers of paranoia.” Formed in...

Bloomberg reports that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other Wall Street firms. Bloomberg reports that none of these aides faced Senate confirmation. Yet, they are overseeing the handout of hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to their former employers. The...

Before President Obama even landed at Andrews Air Force Base, returning from his mission to Copenhagen to win the 2016 Olympic Games, Chicago had been voted off the island. Many shared the lamentation of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, “What has become of America, when Chicago can’t steal an election?” A second and more serious battle...

The double standard under which the Israeli government operates is too much for everyone except the brainwashed Americans. Even the very Israeli Jerusalem Post can see the double standard displayed by “all of Israel now speaking in one voice against the Goldstone report”: This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We’re entitled to...

September’s unemployment figures were not only disappointing—they were grim. For the 21st straight month, Americans lost jobs. Fifteen million are out of work—5 million for more than six months. But as the Washington Times asserts, “America’s jobless crisis is much worse than the 9.8 percent unemployment rate.” The U.S. economy actually lost 785,000 jobs in...

“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”—Karl Marx If Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin were alive today, they would be leading contenders for the Nobel Prize in economics. Marx predicted the growing misery of working people, and Lenin foresaw the subordination...

Jonah Goldberg has a piece in yesterday’s USA Today defending television loudmouth Glenn Beck from his critics.  In the course of his piece, Goldberg takes a swipe at Pat Buchanan for not being a Republican and for writing a revisionist history of the start of World War II, making the same sort of arguments that...

The Institute for American Values gives us the news that—all right, they don’t say it in so many words, but two and two are easy to add, and there seems no way not to understand that David Letterman didn’t inadvertently become a cad and a bounder and Roman Polanski a rapist on the run. Our...

The Pentagon’s pre-emptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s confidential review of the Afghan war to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. McChrystal’s painting of the military picture was grim. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)—while Afghan security capacity matures—risks an outcome where...