“Pay the soldiers. The rest do not matter.” This was the deathbed counsel given to his sons by Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in A.D. 211. Nicolas Maduro must today appreciate the emperor’s insight. For the political survival of this former bus driver and union boss hangs now upon whether Venezuela’s armed forces choose to stand...

In his latest interview for Sputnik Radio International, Srdja Trifkovic discusses an unusually revealing performance by George Soros at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. [You can listen to the interview here.] Sputnik: George Soros has launched an attack on China’s President Xi Jinping in his speech at the WEF in Davos, saying that artificial...

The boys from Covington Catholic did a good thing by going to the March for Life. If what the Catholic Church teaches is true, Roe v. Wade marks a death sentence for roughly 1,000,000 innocent human beings every year, year in, year out. As John T. Noonan wrote decades ago, “No plague, no war, has so...

If it was the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that black and white would come together in friendship and peace to do justice, his acolytes in today’s Democratic Party appear to have missed that part of his message. Here is Hakeem Jeffries, fourth-ranked Democrat in Nancy Pelosi’s House, speaking Monday, on the holiday...

From the December 1990 issue of Chronicles. Nathaniel Macon (Dec. 17, 1758- June 29, 1837), “Old Republican” statesman, the foremost public man of North Carolina in the early 19th century, was the sixth child of Gideon and Priscilla (Jones) Macon and was born at his father’s plantation on Shocco Creek in what later became Warren...

“You have delighted us long enough,” said Mr. Bennet, speaking for all of us on the exhausted subject of Theresa May. We had hoped for closure before Christmas, since a Meaningful Vote on May’s Withdrawal Agreement had been promised and this was surely destined for a massive defeat. But the Prime Minister pulled the vote,...

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible . . . make violent revolution inevitable,” said John F. Kennedy. In 2016, the U.S. and Britain were both witness to peaceful revolutions. The British voted 52-48 to sever ties to the European Union, restore their full sovereignty, declare independence and go their own way in the world. Trade...

A word about hats. Now that the vicious media assault on the teens from Covington Catholic has been exposed as a lie, one of the fallback positions is that the boys shouldn’t have been wearing MAGA hats. First of all, I very much doubt that they were wearing the hats during the March. They were...

My “Letter from Egypt,” with a comprehensive analysis of the country’s political, economic and social situation is coming in a few days’ time. For starters, let me present our readers with a few practical tips on how to make the most of this incredible country without spending many thousands of dollars/euros and without being herded...

Every year, on or near the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, hundreds of thousands of Americans go to Washington, D. C., to join the March for Life and protest that infamous decision.  The March for Life is peaceful and orderly, and every year the major media outlets contrive to pretend it doesn’t exist.  Until this...

Collective guilt is an invention of the Left, one of their finest. Guilt is of course of primary concern to the individual. Chambers gives it as “the state of having done wrong; sin, sinfulness, or consciousness of it.” In the law courts guilt is charged against the individual or specific individuals, and it is tried...

10 USC § 2808 gives the President authority to use the military to undertake construction in the event the President declares a national emergency. It has been used, without controversy, to build military facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.  33 USC § 2293 is an even clearer grant of statutory authority to the President to order construction, “without...

Alan Clark, that louche and radio-actively incorrect figure, once caused uproar in Westminster by referring to Africa as “bongo-bongo land.” Volcanic outrage erupted on the Left at this hideously racist remark. But on January 8, 2019, the Daily Telegraph reported that in oil-rich Gabon—which is the re-branded French Equatorial Africa—loyalists had thwarted a coup against...

Last night, President Donald Trump hopefully set the stage for taking measures to protect America’s borders that are long overdue. Though his brief address sometimes lapsed into the sentimental bromides realistic patriots have long grown weary of, Trump, in the end, told us what this struggle is all about. After correctly diagnosing the border crisis...

From the September 1991 issue of Chronicles. “Faith is required of thee, and a sincere life, not loftiness of intellect, nor deepness in the Mysteries of God.” —Thomas à Kempis This is, in fact, a book about two men, since, due to his strong personality and his close relationship to Georges Bernanos, the author plays...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House has more women, persons of color and LGBT members than any House in history—and fewer white males. And Thursday, the day Rashida Tlaib was sworn in, her hand on a Quran, our first Palestinian-American congresswoman showed us what we may expect. As a rally of leftists lustily cheered her on, Tlaib...

If there is a more anti-Trump organ in the American establishment than The Washington Post, it does not readily come to mind. Hence, in choosing to send his op-ed attack on President Donald Trump to the Post, Mitt Romney was collaborating with an adversary of his party and his president. And he knew it, and...

I reviewed Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, for Chronicles (September 2017). I thought it the book of the year, and it stayed on the Sunday Times top 10 non-fiction best-seller lists for almost 20 weeks. There was a precursor, Hasta la Vista Europe! by Col. Walter T. Richmond, which I had also reviewed or Chronicles...

“Assad must go, Obama says.” So read the headline in The Washington Post, Aug. 18, 2011. The story quoted President Barack Obama directly: “The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashar al-Assad is standing in their way. . . . the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”...

France’s ambassador to Poland Pierre Levy has said he was “surprised, even shocked,” by the Polish foreign minister, Jacek Czaputowicz, declaring that “something’s not right” with France, and that was “sad because France is the sick man of Europe, dragging Europe down.” M. Levy went on to make an astonishing statement which only confirmed that...

I expected something quite different than I got when I began reading As A City on a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon, by Daniel T. Rodgers and just released by Basic Books.  I am not yet very far into it, but plan on taking it to read at odd moments on...

When one is tired of London, said Dr. Johnson, one is tired of life.  I spent a week in London last November, a city I have visited many times and know well having lived a year there with my family while I was growing up.  The City of London remains largely intact, save for the...

One Saturday night last summer I found myself sitting on a warm, grassy knoll outside Missoula, Montana, watching a blood-red sun set behind a cup in the hills with the snow-fringed Bitterroot Mountains beyond, while in the foreground an elfin, 70-year-old man dressed entirely in black leather, accompanied by an energetically hair-swinging band, blasted out...

David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, once mocked his fellow Tories for “banging on about Europe.”  He meant that the European Union had become a tedious right-wing obsession—the root of all governmental problems, the enemy without, the reason Britain was going to the dogs. Now, thanks in large part to Mr. Cameron, all the British...

Boy Erased Produced and distributed by Focus Features  Written and directed by Joel Edgerton from a memoir by Garrard Conley  The Miseducation of Cameron Post Produced by Beachside Films  Written and directed by Desiree Akhavan from a novel by Emily Danforth  Distributed by FilmRise  Private Life Produced and distributed by Netflix  Written and directed by...

Alan Walker has insisted, at the very beginning of his massive new biography of Chopin, that the composer has today a unique global reputation and appeal.  And when we consider the evidence that justifies his claims, we must admit that this evidence is most impressive—and also that some of it is the opposite: doubtful and...

We live in a Puritan country, in which self-righteousness is eternally wedded to cheap theatrics.  This explains the dual phenomena of Meryl Streep and Hollywood’s earnest commitment to distributing her films to every country on the planet.  Like all good Puritans, self-righteous Americans are sure to be the most depraved of anyone.  So when Tinseltown,...

Is it really necessary to explain why President Trump’s proposed Space Force would be a boon to humankind?  Do I have to contrast such a noble project with the other possible uses to which our tax dollars would be put?  Perhaps a study of how transsexuals are prone to certain color combinations.  Or one on...

Blame everything on Trump.  Your car won’t start?  It’s Trump’s fault.  Your dog threw up in the living room?  It’s Trump’s fault.  The media have lost their collective mind.  That’s definitely Trump’s fault.  And the blame game seems to get worse by the day.  Every politician who won office this past November won only because...

Events this past week in Paris remind me of my step-sister Amanda, Lady Harlech, who is usually described—much to her chagrin—as the “muse” of the 85-year-old gay kaiser of the fashion world, Karl Lagerfeld. On Thursday—Thanksgiving Day in America—Lagerfeld switched on the Christmas lights in the Champs-Élysées.  He had been invited to do so by...

To the leaders of the Free Speech Movement of the 1960’s, self-censorship—once known as civility and decorum—was as dangerous as the social enforcement of civility by private organizations and by public educational institutions, and those social norms were, in turn, just as destructive as attempts by government to limit the freedom of speech guaranteed by...

The Paris Peace Conference opened at the Palace of Versailles 100 years ago (January 18, 1919).  It was the most ambitious gathering of its kind in history: Leaders and diplomats of 27 nations convened to shape the future, a mere ten weeks after the Armistice.  Far from reestablishing order in Europe and the world after...

If Democrats are optimistic as 2019 begins, it is understandable. Their victory on Nov. 6, adding 40 seats and taking control of the House of Representatives, was impressive. And with the party’s total vote far exceeding the GOP total, in places it became a rout. In the six New England states, Republicans no longer hold...

Project Fear, the code name for the great anti-Brexit counter-offensive, is still under way but lost its attacking force some time ago. It now survives through a few tropes that have lost their rhetorical teeth, and their power to maul minds. Some instances: 1) Brexit as “crashing out.”  Cue: BBC clip of Formula One racing...

“Deck the halls with boughs of holly,” goes the old Christmas carol. “‘Tis the season to be jolly.” Yet if there were a couplet less befitting the mood of this capital city, I am unaware of it. “The wheels are coming off,” was a common commentary on the Trump presidency on Sunday’s talk shows. And...

“We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there,” wrote President Donald Trump, as he ordered the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Syria, stunning the U.S. foreign policy establishment. Trump overruled his secretaries of state and defense, and jolted this city and capitals across NATO Europe and the Middle East. Yet,...

Over the next few weeks President Donald Trump will have to wage the toughest battle of his political career so far. He will be under intense political and bureaucratic pressure to change his mind on the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Trump needs to resist that pressure both because the decision to withdraw is...

The execution of Theresa May has been postponed sine die. It fell to Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Tory rebels (the European Research Group, ERG), to announce the stay of execution. Last week it seemed that she was heading for the firing squad. The 48 letters necessary to trigger a vote of No Confidence...

As Cole Porter slyly reminds us: “In olden days a glimpse of stocking / Was looked on as something shocking / Now heaven knows / Anything goes. . . . “ Well, you know, depending on the state of Puritan politics at a given moment. The Puritan habit of scolding—and gazing sourly upon—others for improper...

Kim Jong Un, angered by the newest U.S. sanctions, is warning that North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization could be imperiled and we could be headed for “exchanges of fire.” Iran, warns Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is testing ballistic missiles that are forbidden to them by the U.N. Security Council. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan...

At this time our thoughts turn to Theresa May’s bunker, which we politely do not name Untergang but cannot put the word out of mind. The scenes from that film are etched on the mind: the soldiers and functionaries are as polite and dutiful as ever, but the Soviet artillery is now creeping up to...

Is it coincidence or contagion, this malady that seems to have suddenly induced paralysis in the leading nations of the West? With lawyer-fixer Michael Cohen’s confession that he colluded with Donald Trump in making hush money payoffs to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, America’s stage is set for a play that will run two years....

Praise, not precision, carries the day when a significant figure dies. But the eulogies extolling George H.W. Bush have so surpassed his performance that we run the risk of distorting historical reality. There is, no doubt, much to praise in the character of the forty-first president. George Bush served courageously in World War II. He...

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Within living memory there was once a Conservative Party. It was led by men who had received their M.C. (Eden, Macmillan) and a woman-warrior Brunhild out of Wagner, Margaret Thatcher. Aristocrats, not ermined placemen, were notable in the Party; I once heard the Marquess...