I hate to disagree with Rick Oliver, but I think he is too optimistic about John Roberts. What Roberts’ decision today tells us is that he is unlikely to ever cast a decisive vote against the consensus of the Washington elite. This means that the Roberts court will never overturn Roe v. Wade, because such a...
Author: Tom Piatak (Tom Piatak)
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Globalism Is Not A Conservative Value
Barack Obama’s recent concern over sending American jobs overseas is as phony as his broken promise, made during the Ohio Democratic primary in 2008, to renegotiate NAFTA, but there is little doubt that his attack on Mitt Romney’s record of outsourcing American jobs during Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital is politically potent. The elites who favor free trade...
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Mitt Romney Promises to Expand Immigration
President Obama’s announcement of a de facto amnesty for illegal immigrants by administrative fiat offered a chance for Mitt Romney to appeal to the majority of Americans who consistently tell pollsters that they want to see immigration reduced. Instead, Romney told a gathering of Hispanic politicians that he will increase immigration, by raising the caps for...
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A Quiet Man
I recently had the chance to visit the village of Annascaul on the stunningly beautiful Dingle Peninsula in Ireland. The attraction in Annascaul was the South Pole Inn, opened by Annascaul native Tom Crean after his retirement from the Royal Navy. Crean was, by all accounts, a modest man reluctant to draw attention to himself, but...
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Insulting Poland, Cont.
It turns out that Barack Obama had managed to insult Poland before he ever talked about a “Polish death camp.” The Polish Government had asked that Lech Walesa be allowed to receive the posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom being bestowed on Jan Karski. The Obama White House said no, claiming that Walesa was “too political.” ...
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Sam Francis Was Right
It has been seven years since Sam Francis died. But the years since his untimely death merely show the accuracy of his insights. Francis’s writing was marked not only by loyalty to the people from whom he came but by an unswerving devotion to telling the truth about the way the world really is, not...
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Barack Obama, Culture Warrior
One of the sillier stories told to garner support for Barack Obama in 2008 was that he would help bring Americans together by peacefully ending the culture war, a culture war most Americans found tiresome. There was never any reason to believe that Obama would unite Americans, since Obama has always been far to the left...
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Insulting Poland
American presidents seem to have a habit of insulting Poland. Gerald Ford probably lost the 1976 election when he maintained in a presidential debate that Poland was not dominated by the Soviets and never would be under a Ford Administration. (The Poles, who were in fact dominated by the Soviets, weren’t able to register...
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For Greater Glory
The story of the Mexican Left’s murderous persecution of the Church is not well known, even though it inspired one of the great novels of the 20th century, The Power and the Glory. The story of the Cristero uprising intended to end that persecution is even less well known. But that uprising has now inspired a...
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Cheer, Cheer for Old Notre Dame
Just three days after Georgetown University had Kathleen Sebelius on campus to address an awards ceremony during commencement week, another prominent Catholic university found a better way of dealing with Sebelius: the University of Notre Dame filed suit against Sebelius in federal court, asking the court to enjoin and then vacate the Obama Administration’s mandate requiring...
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Georgetown Needs An Exorcist
Today brings news that Georgetown alumnus and author of The Exorcist William Peter Blatty intends to pursue a canon law lawsuit against his alma mater that may possibly result in Georgetown’s not being able to call itself a Catholic university any longer. Not coincidentally, today also marked the appearance at Georgetown of Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius,...
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Brideshead Revisited in 2012
Brideshead, Reuters: The funeral of the Marquess of Marchmain was marred by the refusal of the parish priest, Father Mackay, to give Communion to two of the mourners, Lady Julia Mottram, the Marquess’ daughter, and her partner, the artist Charles Ryder. According to Ms. Mottram, the priest refused to give her Communion after he learned that...
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A Warring Visionary
British scholar Timothy Stanley has produced the first significant biography of Patrick J. Buchanan, describing his life from his boyhood in Washington, D.C., up to the present. Stanley’s book is written in a breezy, informal manner—Buchanan is referred to as “Pat” throughout—and it makes for quick and generally enjoyable reading. Stanley gets much right in...
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hitch Is Not Great
In August 1997, Princess Diana died in a car accident. A few days later, Mother Teresa died. The death of Diana prompted an enormous outpouring of emotion. One writer, who had delivered a drunken diatribe against Mother Teresa during ABC’s televised coverage of her funeral, was unmoved, describing Diana as “A simpering Bambi narcissist” and...
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The Evil Party Rides Again
There are many reasons to criticize the the Republicans as the Stupid Party, and I have often done so. But we need to remember that, in Sam Francis’ dichotomy, the other major party is the Evil Party. And some of what the leader of the Evil Party is doing has no real precedent in American...
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The Stupid Party Rides Again
A CBS poll taken in early November showed that only 43 percent of Americans approve of Barack Obama’s performance as President. Obama’s approval rating was even lower on the economy, with 34 percent of Americans approving and 60 percent disapproving. An overwhelming 86 percent said that the economy was in bad shape, and 32 percent...
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Voting in America
I went to vote this morning, at a new polling place. I was directed to the polling place by a sign that was in both Spanish and English. When I was handed the ballot, I saw that it, too, was in both Spanish and English, with both languages appearing together in a confusing jumble....
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The Mob vs. the Statesman
For two decades now, Pat Buchanan has been warning us of the dangers our country faces. When he first started sounding the alarm, at the end of the Cold War, those dangers were hard to perceive. Now, they are hard to ignore. Pointless wars in the Mideast have resulted in thousands of...
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The Jobs Go Out, Like the Tide
The stagnant economy remains the central concern of most Americans. Although the financial crisis of 2008 had repercussions around the world, the brunt of the job loss was felt here: The International Monetary Fund estimates that one out of every four jobs lost as a result of the financial crash of 2008 was lost in...
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The Jobs Go Out Like the Tide, Continued
Wednesday, at a meeting with Hispanic activists, President Obama vowed to keep pushing for what he calls “comprehensive immigration reform.” The “reform” Obama wants is one that will enable illegal immigrants to become legal residents, and that will place no meaningful obstacle in the way of others who want to join them. Obama’s comments...
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The Jobs Go Out, Like the Tide
Mike Dorning of Bloomberg has an interesting article on “The Slow Disappearance of the American Working Man.” The statistics set forth in the article are dire. Only 63.5% of American men have jobs, very near the low recorded in 2009, itself the lowest level of male participation in the labor force since these statistics...
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Today’s Rich Are Different
It used to be that plutocrats felt they were part of the society in which they lived, or at least felt the need to act as if they were part of that society. Thus, when they decided to give away some of their enormous fortunes, their gifts generally reflected a desire to improve the...
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Goodbye to Borders
This morning’s Cleveland Plain Dealer carried a sad headline: Borders, the nation’s second largest bookstore, was liquidating, and its 10700 employees will be unemployed by the end of September. I first became familiar with Borders in law school, when there were only two of them: the first Borders in Ann Arbor, and one other store in...
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Keeping History
Ever since Hugo Black succeeded in incorporating his anti-religious prejudices and Thomas Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation” into Supreme Court jurisprudence, Americans have known how a story like this is supposed to end: A parent who comes into a community objects to expressions of that community’s religious traditions in its schools. There is no indication that...
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The Conservative Movement Raises the White Flag, Again
Unless you live in a cave, you know that New York’s legislature recently passed a bill recognizing homosexual marriage, a bill that was quickly and enthusiastically signed into law by the latest loathsome member of the Cuomo clan to govern the Empire State. The mainstream conservative movement’s reaction to this event was only slightly...
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Music for Today
History contains many tragedies, and one of these is the early death of Mozart. For those of us who enjoy Mozart’s choral music, it is particularly poignant to reflect on the fact that, before his death, he had been appointed assistant Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. Thus, had he lived longer, Mozart would...
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Wages Stagnate, Even Neocons Notice
Farsighted conservatives have warned for decades that globalization was leading to wage stagnation in the United States. This was, for example, a major theme in Pat Buchanan’s The Great Betrayal, published in 1997. The less farsighted are beginning to catch up. Recently, David Frum published a chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on his website, which was then picked up...
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Cardinal Stepinac: Another View
It pains me to disagree with a writer I like and admire, but Srdja Trifkovic’s piece on Cardinal Stepinac makes no attempt to explain, much less understand, why Catholics respect and admire this brave Croatian martyr. Trifkovic takes umbrage at Pope Benedict’s treating Stepinac as a “saintly figure” and of saying this about him: “Precisely because...
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Where Your Tax Dollars Go
Forbes has a list out this morning of America’s five richest counties. Unsurprisingly, four of the five are in the Washington, D.C., area. Washington’s prosperity is completely detached from the fortunes of the rest of the country, since Washington continues to suck in tax dollars even when other parts of America suffer or even decline economically....
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The Bull in the GOP China Shop
There is little in Donald Trump’s record to inspire confidence in conservatives. He supported John Kerry in 2004 and John McCain in 2008, and the list of candidates to whom he has given money—which includes Rudy Giuliani, Charles Schumer, Harry Reid, Newt Gingrich, and Hillary Clinton—contains not a single bona fide conservative. Trump has embraced...
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Of Gods and Men
There are few movies I am still thinking about several days after seeing them. One such movie is Of Gods and Men, the superb French movie about the martyrdom of seven French Cistercians from the small monastery of Notre Dame de l’Atlas in Algeria in 1996, in the midst of the Algerian civil war. This...
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Good Friday, Bad Earth Day
When I turned on my computer this morning, I got reminders from both Yahoo and Google that today was…Earth Day. I didn’t actually expect the lords of Silicon Valley to acknowledge the real significance of today. Still, it is striking that the secular world contrives to ignore a day that inspired music such...
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Good Friday, Bad Earth Day
When I turned on my computer this morning, I got reminders from both Yahoo and Google that today was...Earth Day. I didn't actually expect the lords of Silicon Valley to acknowledge the real significance of today. Still, it is striking that the secular world contrives to ignore a ...
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The Republicans and Abortion
Lucy just pulled the football away from Charlie Brown again. In the budget compromise that averted a government shutdown, it was the Republicans not the Democrats who blinked on the funding of Planned Parenthood, and it was the pro-lifers who look to the GOP and not the abortion supporters who look to the Democrats...
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Trump and Trade
This morning brought the surprising news that, according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Donald Trump is running second among GOP presidential hopefuls, at 17%, behind Mitt Romney’s 21%. I am far from a fan of the obnoxious, egomaniacal Trump, but his rise in the polls could be good news: The issue Trump has...
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Christophobia and Its Discontents
During Pope Benedict’s 2010 visit to Britain, the English philosopher Roger Scruton provided an apt description of the country’s true religion: The official culture, represented by the BBC, the TV chat shows and the opinion pages of the quality press, is neither Christian nor English, but “multicultural”—and even Pope Benedict ended his visit with praise...
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A Reminder of Hope
As our country plunges into yet another foolish war in the Moslem world and teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, it is easy to be focused on the negative. But today’s news also brought a small reminder of hope. The synod of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, meeting in Lvov, just elected 40-year old Sviatoslav Shevchuk,...
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A Modest Proposal for the Eurocrats
Recently, the European Union published a calendar for school children that noted Moslem and Jewish holidays but made no mention of any Christian holiday, including Christmas. The same principle operates here, in the countless public school “winter concerts” that highlight music for Kwanzaa and Hanukkah but feature no Christmas carols. If the Eurocrats wish to achieve...
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Globalism Ascendant
Last week, President Obama named William Daley as White House Chief of Staff and Gene Sperling as the chief White House economic adviser. Last fall, he named Austan Goolsbee as the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. These appointments are significant in part because all three men share a strong commitment to free...
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Merry Christmas to Chronicles Readers
I would like to wish all Chronicles readers a Very Merry and Blessed Christmas. And, as a Christmas present, here is a link to a piece I wrote two Christmases ago for Takimag, about some of the things I like about Christmas, including Polish Christmas carols. Since the piece is two years old, most of the videos...
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Miller and Lennon
Sixty-six years ago, a small plane took off from southern England for Paris. It never made it. On board was a 40 year old Army Air Force major, who before the war had been the most popular musician in America. His music is still listened to and enjoyed today, even though popular music has...
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Nazis in the Strangest Places
Last night, on the recommendation of friends, my wife and I went to see Secretariat. We both thoroughly enjoyed this wholesome, well-made movie, that manages to be suspenseful even though most moviegoers already know that Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973. I should have realized that any movie I enjoyed ...
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Nazis in the Strangest Places
Last night, on the recommendation of friends, my wife and I went to see Secretariat. We both thoroughly enjoyed this wholesome, well-made movie, that manages to be suspenseful even though most moviegoers already know that Secretariat won the Triple Crown in 1973. I should have realized that any movie I enjoyed would make someone else...
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Support for Free Trade Plummets
On October 2, 2010, the Wall Street Journal ran an article detailing the results of the most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The article was entitled “Americans Sour on Trade,” but what Americans are really souring on is free trade: 53% of Americans now say that free trade agreements have hurt the United States, with less than...
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Confessions of a Cleveland Sports Fan
Recently, the national media focused its attention on my hometown. As is generally the case when that happens, the focus was not positive. Here is AP reporter Tom Withers, offering his objective analysis of the event: “New York, Chicago, New Jersey, Los Angeles and ...
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Hitchens and Israel
The print issue of National Review has a very revealing review of Christopher Hitchens' autobiography by Ronald Radosh. It comes as no surprise that Radosh praises the book and its author as a
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The Feds and Arizona
What Hillary promised an Ecuadorean TV interviewer has indeed come to pass: the Obama Justice Department has asked a federal judge to enjoin enforcement of the Arizona immigration law allowing Arizona police to ask for proof of citizenship, on the grounds that federal immigration law has preemptive force. ...
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George Wallace and the Tea Party
Many of those seeking to understand the Tea Party movement have tried to find historical parallels, and one that has been suggested is the George Wallace movement. Both movements have comprised voters feeling that the America they grew up in is being taken from them, and their strength in the electorate is roughly comparable. George...
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Still the Metric System in Short Pants
Yahoo has decided to promote the World Cup by prominently featuring scores to games on its home page. Last night, I saw a World Cup game playing on some of the TVs at a local sports bar. Thus does an event that used to receive as much coverage in America as spelling bees in Uzbekistan...