Public confidence in Congress has plummeted to the lowest level of any institution since Gallup began asking the question in 1973. One-half of all Americans have little or no confidence in the Congress. Only 11 percent have a

perspective Looking Backwards by Thomas Fleming views Authentic Communities by Claude Polin Where the Demons Dwell: The Antichrist Right by Jerry D. Salyer news California Ecclesiazusae by John C. Seiler, Jr. reviews The Creaturely Myth by James O. Tate [Karl Rove, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight] The Path to Modernity by Srdja Trifkovic [Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years ...

It almost seems like a dream, after all these years. Long before Barack Obama nationalized General Motors and enrolled the American people in involuntary servitude to Big Insurance and Big Pharma; before George W. Bush bankrupted the United States in a quixotic attempt to stamp out all evil and ...

The Beltway Right is a comical farce. But like the blind squirrel that occasionally finds an acorn, it is right about one thing: Liberal Democrats simply cannot be trusted on national security. That truth was no more apparent than in early April, when an A-list of Virginia Democrats ...

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 ...

Can you imagine the FDA approving a drug that, say, increased the risk of blood clots, hypertension, stroke, heart attacks, breast cancer, and migraines for women? And fathom, if you will, the absurd notion that such a drug could be approved for the treatment of something that isn’t even ...

Back in ye olden tyme, when graybeards would dismiss supposed ephemera like safety razors and indoor plumbing, the wise and knowing liked to dismiss the dismissers. They would recollect the days when urchins barked,

A new study of admissions at elite colleges by Princeton sociologists Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Radford is attracting a lot of attention at Steve Sailer’s website and elsewhere on the internet.  Deservedly so, since the study clearly shows that “diversity” in college admissions is nothing more than a code word for systematic discrimination against whites. ...

After 16 months, perhaps the best one can say for the Tea Party is that the contempt it originally provoked within the American establishment has turned to consternation. If the Tea Party were composed of real Indians, the elite would be understanding, if not exactly encouraging, and not in the least alarmed or offended. Since,...

The man who seized the White House by fomenting a mood of irrational expectation is now facing the bitter price exacted by reality. The reality is that there can be no “good” American president. It’s an impossible hand to play. Obama is close to being finished. The nation’s first black president promised change, at the...

If the state is to protect life at any cost, doesn't this imply a financial obligation to preserve the life of any child, no matter how deformed or hopeless, no matter what it takes?  That means a considerable outlay of tax money, and in parallel cases, when the state assumes ...

The redoubtable John Derbyshire had a piece at NRO this morning on how mass immigration is causing summer jobs for teenagers to disappear, and why our feckless elites think this is a good thing.  The piece is well worth the read, and it may be found here. Add to Favorites

David Frum has now praised Barack Obama for urging Congress to ratify free-trade pacts with Colombia, South Korea, and Panama, saying this represents “an amazing turnabout for President Obama.”  Actually, Obama’s support for free trade is quite predictable, despite the occasional protectionist noises he uttered to win over gullible voters in manufacturing states.  Obama’s true...

(A review of The Last Confederate; produced by Strongbow Pictures; directed by A. Blaine Miller and Julian Adams; written by Julian Adams and Weston Adams; and Firetrail; produced by Forbesfilm; written and directed by Christopher Forbes.) Like it or not, movies are the main art form of our time, the storytelling medium that reaches the...

Authentic conservatives and their libertarian allies have long been a small minority in a larger movement that, for the most part, rejected their radical critique of the managerial state. The “paleos” were singled out for attack by the neoconservatives, that exotic sect of ex-leftists prophetically described by Russell Kirk ...

Tee-hee. Such is the line in liberal circles concerning the federal district court decision striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act on, among other grounds, those of “States Rights.” Including Massachusetts’ right to allow gay marriage without prejudice to the partners’ right to federal benefits. Congress, a decade and a half ago, voted that...

Not since President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock and JFK sent U.S. marshals to the University of Alabama has the federal government seemed so at war with a state of the union. Arkansas and Alabama were defying U.S. court orders to desegregate. But Barack Obama's war on Arizona is ...

For too long now I have heard that illegal immigrants are not criminals and that they have come to America only to work. Not really. Whether or not they want to work, they have already committed a crime by illegally entering the United States. I am still ...

With the disintegration of the Soviet Empire and the Soviet Union, and Beijing's abandonment of Maoism, anti-communism necessarily ceased to be the polestar of U.S. foreign policy. For many, our triumph fairly cried out for a bottom-up review of all the alliances created to fight that Cold War and a return ...

A review of Vincere, written and directed by Marco Bellocchio; produced by Offside and Celluloid Dreams; distributed in America by IFC Films. Feminists began proclaiming that the personal is the political during those dreamy 70’s of the last century. This, as I’ve noted elsewhere, is a proposition that every sane ...

In these days of political correctness and multiculturalism, the surprising thing is that there was so little controversy when the board of School District 205 awarded a $40,000 contract to revisionist historian Michael Hoffman, author of They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of ...

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

As I write, April 15 is still fresh in the mind, and the sting of death remains, combining the current pangs of tax extraction with the promise of a greater burden to come, thanks to the Barack­i­fi­cation of heathcare. So imagine my delight when I read in a back issue of ...

If I could ask our young President a few questions, they would run something like this: “At what point would you say, ‘There. We finally have as much government as we need. To give it any more power would be tyrannous and would diminish our God-given rights’? I sense that you have never asked yourself...

perspective Lighting a Candleby Thomas Fleming views The Tea Party: A Mixed Bagby W. James Antle III The New American Mobby Chilton Williamson, Jr. news Democrats and Jihadists: A Love Affairby R. Cort Kirkwood reviews Who Won the Cold War?by Wayne Allensworth [David Priestland, The Red Flag: A History of Communism] Chorus Linesby Clark Stooksbury...

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.  ...

For those who can yet recall the backyard blast furnaces of Mao's China in the 1950s and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to re-instill peasant values in the 1970s, the news was jarring. In 2011, said the Financial Times, China will surpass the United States as first manufacturing power, a title ...

It was another episode in a series of shocking crimes against children. Little Sasha, just three years old, was pulled from the frigid waters of the Pekhorka River in January 2009. He was bound to a car battery with adhesive tape, his body battered and bearing the marks ...

It is hard to see that much good has ever come from any of the various declarations of the rights of man.  Such a declaration did not save the French from either Robespierre or Napoleon, and the constitution of the defunct USSR practically glows with liberal enthusiasm for human rights. For some strange reason, though,...

Andy Grove, one of the founders of Intel, has a thought-provoking piece today on “How to Make an American Job Before It’s Too Late.”  The article contains lots of interesting detail on how the loss of manufacturing jobs has hurt our country, as well as policy recommendations similar to those found in Alexander Hamilton’s Report...

Yesterday brought the news that Christopher Hitchens has cancer.  Of course, the Christian response to that news is prayer for Hitchens’ recovery and conversion, just as it would be to the news of anyone’s serious illness.  But I wanted to highlight some of the gushing tributes to Hitchens that continue to pour forth, such as...

In debate, it is always possible to be right for the wrong reason. For instance, in supporting the proposition that cannibalism is immoral, I might argue that, historically, cannibalism encouraged the killing of human beings who might otherwise have been kidnapped by Arabs or rival African tribesmen and sold ...

Goldman Sachs buys and sells securities for customers and also trades for its own book. It’s the world’s biggest derivatives dealer. CEO Lloyd Blankfein told a British magazine in late 2009 that they were “doing God’s work.” Now we know what that entails. At an April 27 Senate subcommittee hearing, Carl Levin (D-MI) quoted from...

perspective Cursing the Darknessby Thomas Fleming views Immigration: A History Lessonby John Willson Cannibal Statisticsby Chilton Williamson, Jr. news Double Down: Illegal Aliens and Crimeby Roger D. McGrath reviews Great Cooptationsby W. James Antle III [Edward M. Kennedy, True Compass: A Memoir andSarah Palin, Going Rogue: An American Life] Past, Present, and Futureby Darío Fernández-Morera...

Two small additions. First, the powers-that-be insisted upon Islamist as a negative term to distinguish real Muslims who want to kill us for the sake of religion from people who pretend to be Muslims without really having firm convictions. Perhaps we should call them Methodist Muslims or, for AW's sake, ...

I agree entirely with Aaron Wolf both on the constitutional argument but also on the deeper political question of the centralization of power.  The problem is that we are all tempted to use the court when it suits our purpose, and in this case if I lived in Chicago I'd ...

Ali Mir of the USC Muslim Student Union is upset about the media's usage of such terms as Islamist and extremist. (They are

“The Former Klansman Who Backed Obama,” was the Huffington Post’s hook for its account of Sen. Robert Byrd’s demise. The New York Times‘ website came closer to the mark: “Elected a record nine times to the Senate, Mr. Byrd, 92, championed the legislative branch and brought huge amounts of federal dollars to West Virginia.” The...

Here's the bottom line of today's SCOTUS decision regarding the incorporation of the Second Amendment, which amounts to an explicit rejection of traditional federalism on the part of the conservative majority. (Full disclosure: I'm of the Hestonian

Charity. Old version:  Open-handedness toward our neighbour in need. New version:  Getting the government to spend other people’s money on politically favoured groups, at home and abroad. All Men are Created Equal OV:  We are all made in the image of God and deserve respect.  (Besides, an Englishman over here is just ...

President Obama is being hailed for toughness in his firing of Gen. McChrystal and brilliance in his replacing him as Afghan field commander with Gen. David Petraeus, who managed the George W. Bush “surge” in Iraq that saved this nation from an ignominious defeat. Herewith, a dissent. By firing a fighting general, beloved of his...

ABORTION AS SELF-DENIAL In a rationalist system of ethics, every basic principle must be stated in universal terms in which “I” am denied a privileged perspective.  I may not, for example, make rules that apply to everyone but me–only the Congress of the United States is free to do that.  If I advocate an unrestricted...

Ah, glorious soccer.  The sport where fat and tall and tough guys don't get a pass, unlike those other statistic-driven, 'roid marinated, jingoistic sports Americans love on a more regular basis.  But what really makes FIFAball the sport of conservative spectators is that it combines the Grecian ideal ...

This came from C Bowen, as we were working the bugs out: Fallon pulled the same stunt with Esquire but he at least gives the appearance of respect.  Gen. McChrystal may well be one of the best and at least he has no Waco in his past like that Boykin character, but he has the...

If you're the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and you're asked to preach at the C of E's Southwark Cathedral, and Archbishop Rowan Williams asks you not to wear your mitre, what do you do?  Answer: You carry it defiantly by your side and bring the fire about how ...

Recently, VDARE.com published Hans Hermann Hoppe’s 2010 address to his Property and Freedom Society in Turkey. Hoppe’s speech included his account of the 1996 meeting of the John Randolph Club, the last at which there was an organized libertarian presence, and a broader attack on the ideas of Pat Buchanan and Sam Francis. Hoppe’s account...

A skillful political leader, faced with embarrassing statements made by a general or political subordinate, has two moves that can work:  He can take the high ground and declare.  ”It sounds as if General McChrystal has lost his faith in my administration.  We haven’t lost our faith in him.  He’s the best man for the...

A military friend told me that General McChrystal was among the most highly regarded senior officers in the American military.  Now, according to a Washington Post story, it seems he has to play McClellan to Obama’s Lincoln, that is, an intelligent and effective officer forced to work with immoral and incapable political leaders. Our esteemed...

Say it's not so, Joe—that you're actually sorry for mussing up the Obama administration over its treatment of BP. Congressman Barton, sir, never mind what the party leaders made you say in riposte to your own verbal thrust last week. You were right the first time—right to call out the White ...

He knew that he was destined for greatness. The son of uneducated manual laborers, immigrants to Illinois, he was never much of a student, but he would become a successful lawyer. From a young age, though, his sights were set on political power. Through his political connections, ...