George Orwell, call your office. That's my initial and slightly out-of-date response to news stories about the Biden administration's efforts to stamp out "misinformation." It's an interesting irony that covert censorship should be
undertaken enthusiastically by those who call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and who claim the opposition would threaten the survival of liberal democracy.
In the nauseating demonstrations celebrating Hamas' slaughter of Israelis, one hears repeated, again and again, the refrain that Israelis are "settlers" and "colonists" -- and therefore, in the catechism inculcated in universities in recent decades,
oppressors not deserving of mercy or sympathy when tortured and murdered by those who deemed themselves the oppressed.
What's with young voters? It's a question prompted by two surprising and perhaps contradictory developments that are out of line with conventional wisdom and prevailing expectations among political observers.
Is it inevitable that Donald Trump will be the second person in history -- Richard Nixon was the first -- to win the Republican Party's nomination for president three times? Many thoughtful observers, and others as well, think so.
After a little more than three weeks, House Republicans have finally elected a speaker. He's Mike Johnson, first elected to the House in 2016 from a district in northwest Louisiana. He's almost unknown to the public, has a right-wing voting record, and has been a supporter of Donald Trump. He grills witnesses effectively but calmly, with no visible anger.
The 2020s are starting to look like the 1930s, as I wrote last week in the wake of Hamas' unprecedentedly vicious attack on Israel.
Russia has been attacking Ukraine for 20 months now. Iran, through its terrorism partner Hamas, attacked Israel this weekend. China has been threatening to attack Taiwan.
"The World Turned Upside Down." That's the song, or so longstanding legend would have it, that the British army band played after surrendering to American and French forces at Yorktown, 242 years ago. You can understand, even while not sympathizing, with the choice of ditty.
Net zero is in trouble. In utterly predictable trouble, in the king's-wearing-no-clothes trouble.
"Populist politicians and parties," writes the Ethics and Public Policy Center's Henry Olsen in The Spectator, are "rapidly gaining strength and power across the developed world."
Are non-white voters really moving away from the Democratic Party? To partisan Democrats confronting this question on Twitter (sorry, X), it seems preposterous that the party of former President Donald Trump, whom they routinely call a racist, could be gaining support from blacks, Hispanics and Asians.
You could blame Victor Hugo. In 1846, the French novelist observed a young man being arrested for holding a loaf of bread he stole.
"These rich men north of Richmond, Lord knows they just wanna have total control." So goes the refrain of singer and songwriter Oliver Anthony's suddenly famous song. "Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do, and they don't think you know, but I know that you do."
Having completed the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign cycle, it's tempting to focus on minor but perhaps momentarily decisive details, such as whether Ron DeSantis was wise to outsource strategy to a committee that he's legally barred from communicating with or whether it was wise for Trump campaign spokesmen to not be allowed in the Fox News spin room.
America's political parties are the oldest and third-oldest in the world, and they have competed for votes among a population that has been diverse since colonial times.
Let's take a time out from reports of indictments and threats of impeachment, from nostalgia for the 1940s days of American scientific creativity and ability to get big things done fast ("Oppenheimer") and the 1950s days of American popular culture appealing to every cultural subgroup without the trigger warnings and apologies for past national misdeeds.
"We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."
Have we gotten to the point that it's politically necessary to defend the principle of free speech? Apparently so.
News stories have reported that despite the Supreme Court's decision in cases brought against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, those and other selective schools still want to employ racial quotas and preferences in admissions.
"This is not a normal court." So said President Joe Biden last week as the Supreme Court was handing down its rulings in big cases decided since its current term began last October.
