Karl Marx's support for Lincoln and condemnation of the South, both during and after the Civil War, create an awkward paradox for establishment conservatives.
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The Cowardly American Corporation
The woke bullies of American capitalism are not really bullies at all. The current corporate aborti-mania is driven by abject fear and quivering compliance with cultural authoritarianism.
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Cracks in the Narrative on Ukraine
Recent statements by Germany's foreign policy adviser, Jens Plotner, have exposed a general weakening of the narrative that asserts a perfectly monolithic Western world, rock-solid in its determination to punish Russia.
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Overturning Roe: A Conservative Legal Triumph and Return to Common Sense
The overruling of Roe v. Wade is a momentous achievement of the conservative legal movement and an act of great courage. The blowback will be fierce, but America is beginning to see a rebirth of the rule of law.
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Red-Flagging Red-Flag Law Abuse
A planned federal "red flag" gun control plan backed by Senate Republicans will make it easy for gun-owning citizens to be labeled "mental health threats" and disarmed by anyone who doesn't like them.
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Are Conservatives Fair Game?
Should members of the political right criticize one another for their faults, or band together out of solidarity against the left? Is it fair to consider a conservative public figure’s personal life when judging his moral pronouncements? I attempt to answer these questions in response to a critic.
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Is There a Western “Plan B” in Ukraine?
If Ukraine's resistance to Russian forces suddenly collapses in the east, the Western alliance will need a "Plan B" for their proxy war, but it is unlikely to escalate to a nuclear exchange.
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What Really Happened to Justin Bieber?
Mainstream media outlets have been quick to provide disinformation about Justin Bieber's sudden facial paralysis and its potential link to COVID vaccines.
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Faux Conservatism at Fox News
Fox News talking heads like Pete Hegseth are engaging in blatant hypocrisy when they blast the Frankfurt School and cultural Marxists as moral radicals. In many cases they are just as bad, or worse, than the people they criticize.
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Ukraine, a Hundred Days Later
Putin is unlikely to take the bold action necessary to salvage Russia's special military operation in Ukraine, a campaign that drags on, undermined by strategic errors and indecisive leadership.
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The Uvalde Massacre Shows the Uselessness of Gun Control and Police Protection
Politicians are trying to use the Uvalde school shooting to introduce new gun control measures, but the horrible event actually shows how useless government is at protecting the vulnerable.
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Letter from Italy: Signs of Hope in Veneto
The popular and fearless Stefano Valdegamberi, of Verona, speaks openly about Italy's corrupted political establishment, which is at odds with the true welfare of Italians.
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U.S. and Ukraine, Goals in Conflict
Zelenskyy desires a Russian defeat, but the war is now generating greater risks and dangers for the U.S. than any additional rewards we might realize from "weakening" Russia with further fighting.
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Are All Men Created Equal?
Forced equality of outcomes is an irrational attempt to save the false assumption that all men are created equal.
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The Bully Versus the Bore: Australia Chooses the Least-Abhorred
Australia's new prime minister Anthony Albanese's best asset is his forgettability: after the COVID crises, mere failure to generate loathing worked to his advantage.
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Will Midterms Be Biden’s Last Hurrah?
Biden's presidency is marked by multiple domestic failures. Those combined with his age and declining cognitive abilities make a second term of his presidency highly unlikely.
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History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes
There are remarkable parallels between French society just before the French Revolution and U.S. society now, as a rereading of Thomas Carlyle's work shows. "The Jacobins are buried; but their work is not."
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Quo Vadis, Mother Russia?
The advance of U.S.-led NATO is shrinking the buffer of neutral territories that were once Russian lands. But if the West continues to isolate Russia, there is only one direction it can go: to the East, and China.
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The Punishment That Europe Imposed on Itself
The hegemonic clique that conducts American foreign policy has managed to bring Europe under control more firmly and radically than at any time during the Cold War. And this is not a temporary, transient phenomenon.
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Affirmative Action’s Destructive Force: An Interview With Amy Wax
Amy Wax talks about issues of race, merit, intelligence, and virtue as well as the discriminatory effects of Affirmative Action.
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Why Would US Give a War Guarantee—to Finland?
The push for Finland to join NATO is the latest provocation in a dangerous game the West is playing against Russia, and by extension, it calls into question once again the sanity of U.S. commitment to NATO countries.
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A Melancholy Parade
Russian President Vladimir Putin had nothing to offer that could be passed off as victory at this year's traditional military parade. His power may be weakening after a long list of failures—but the world may come to regret the consequences if he falls.
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Are All Court-Created Rights Now in Peril?
Progressives are worried that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, all their other agenda-driven, court-created rights will fall as well.
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Leftists Bury Another Norm: Protesters Target Homes of SCOTUS Justices
Threatening protests outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices are the latest example of the left deciding to attack rather than persuade those who disagree.
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The Supreme Court Leaks Common Sense: Justice Alito’s Splendid Opinion
If Justice Alito’s mysteriously leaked draft opinion on the Dobbs case becomes official, it will overrule a whole line of dubiously reasoned federal abortion cases and will be the greatest victory for sensible jurisprudence in at least five decades.
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Is Ukraine’s War Now America’s War?
The U.S. intelligence community bragging publicly about helping to sink a Russian ship raises the possibility of a wider U.S.-Russia war that could escalate into World War III.
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Alito 5 Must Stay the Course
In February, five Supreme Court Justices voted in camera to overturn Roe v. Wade and send the issue of abortion back to the states, where it resided until 1973. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett had all signed on to the majority opinion overturning Roe that had been drafted by...
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Are Biden Democrats Holding a Losing Hand?
“Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand.” In the movie classic Cool Hand Luke, the convict Luke, played by Paul Newman, explains that to his fellow inmates after winning the pot in a hand of poker without even a pair of deuces. President Joe Biden should take notice. For, right now, “nothing” is the...
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Will Putin Submit to U.S.-Imposed ‘Weakening’?
“Once war is forced upon us, there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory—not prolonged indecision.” So said Gen. Douglas MacArthur in his April 1951 address to Congress after being fired by President Harry Truman as commander in chief in the...
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No Capitulation: A Call to Southern Conservatives
The following speech critical of the conservative establishment is one that I did not give at The Charleston Meeting, in Charleston, S.C., whither I was invited by its organizer Gene d’Agostino, as a speaker for the evening of April 14. After espying copies of my book on antifascism for sale on a table in the...
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Orrin Hatch’s Beltway Barnacle Legacy
Seven-term former U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah died last weekend, and accolades came pouring in from both sides of the political spectrum. This is not any kind of testament to his character or ability to “bring both sides together.” It’s really just proof that the toxic Washington Swamp is run by a uniparty of...
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Man of the West: An Interview with Glenn Loury
Glenn Loury has taught economics at numerous universities, including Northwestern, Michigan, Harvard, Boston, and presently Brown, where he has been a professor of economics since 2005. He is the author of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality (2002). The following conversation comes from an interview with Glenn earlier this year. Alex Riley (AR): What are your...
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The French Center Holds—In a World Coming Apart
“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” So wrote William Butler Yeats in the wake of the Great War of 1914-1918 that had ravaged the Christian civilization he had known. In France on Sunday, the center held, as President Emmanuel Macron rolled up a crushing 59 percent to 41 percent victory in the runoff election...
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First Priority—Avoid U.S. War With Russia
Asked if the U.S. should send troops to fight beside the Ukrainians, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said Sunday the time may have come. Russian President Vladimir Putin “will only stop when we stop him,” said Coons. “We are in a very dangerous moment where it is important that … we in Congress and the...
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Radosh’s Rant Against the Old Right
A recent posting on neocon-lite website, Quillette, by its go-to authority on foreign affairs, Ronald Radosh, makes unkind references to Pat Buchanan, Pedro Gonzalez, and me: The current issue of Chronicles, meanwhile, includes an article by Pat Buchanan condemning President Biden’s “vilification” of Putin, while in another, Paul Gottfried cries “Long Live Orbán!” and elsewhere...
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The Ghost of Hitler in the 21st Century
Today marks the 133rd anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler, and this year also coincides with the English-language publication of Hitler’s National Socialism, by Rainer Zitelmann, a distinguished German historian and free market economist. Reprising material from his German scholarship of more than 30 years ago, Zitelmann presents his provocative, well-founded interpretation of the Nazi...
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‘Open Borders’ Biden Is Remaking America
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.” So reads Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. Historically, that constitutional duty—to protect America’s states against invasion—has been the province of the president of the United States, the chief executive,...
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Groomers by Any Other Name
In the wake of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signing the Parental Rights in Education bill into law, the internet has been ablaze with debate as to whether those who advocate for LGBT curricula and policies in public schools should be described as “groomers.” The left is predictably up in arms over this controversy. And although...
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Should We Commit to Fight Russia—for Finland?
The prime ministers of Sweden and Finland, Magdalena Andersson and Sanna Marin, both signaled Wednesday that they will likely be applying for membership in NATO. The “prospect” is most “welcome,” says The Washington Post: “Finland and Sweden Should Join NATO.” The editorial was titled “A Way to Punish Putin.” Before joining the rejoicing in NATO...
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French Presidential Election Déjà Vu
The first round of France’s presidential election on April 10 ended with President Emmanuel Macron coming in first, with just under 28 percent of the vote. As in 2017, his opponent in the second round on April 24 will be Marine Le Pen (“MLP”), the Rassemblement National (“National Rally”) candidate, who won 23.1 percent of...
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Message From Ukraine – Nukes Do Deter
When he arrived at Christ the Savior Cathedral to pay his respects to the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who had died of COVID-19, Russian President Vladimir Putin carried a clutch of red roses. The man beside him was carrying a briefcase. That briefcase appeared to be Russia’s version of the “football” that is carried by a...
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Madeleine Albright: America’s Ribbentrop
In May of 1996, Lesley Stahl, of 60 Minutes, asked the future Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the humanitarian disaster in Iraq, which was caused by U.S.-led sanctions. “We have heard that a half a million children have died,” Stahl said. “I mean that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And—you know, is the...
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Who Wins, Who Loses Gen. Milley’s Long War?
Speaking of the seven-week war in Ukraine ignited by Vladimir Putin, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is warning us to expect a war that lasts for years. “I do think this is a very protracted conflict … measured in years,” Milley told Congress. “I don’t know about a decade,...
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Long Live Orbán!
When Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz-KDNP alliance swept to victory on Sunday, thereby guaranteeing the Hungarian premier a fourth term with a large parliamentary majority, it proved that a national conservative could win in a Western country. It is the greatest victory of national democracy that we may see in our lifetimes and a deserved...
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Is Global ‘Democracy’ America’s Mission?
“In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” said President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address. “This is a real test. It’s going to take time.” Thus did Biden frame the struggle of our time...
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Insult Diplomacy: Does Biden’s Vilification of Putin Help?
Several weeks into the war in Ukraine, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked President Joe Biden if he agreed with those who call Russian President Vladimir Putin “a killer.” “I do,” said Biden. Since calling Putin a killer, Biden has progressed to calling him “a war criminal,” “a murderous dictator,” “a pure thug,” and “a...
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How Neocons Turn “Democracy” Into Grotesque Ideological Imperialism
Senator Lindsey Graham’s recent comments about wishing to see someone assassinate Putin, just as he wished Hitler had been taken out, reminded me of why I would never want neoconservatives like Graham running American foreign policy. And I don’t regard Graham’s remarks as an isolated opinion. I’ve heard numerous Republicans and Fox News celebrities seconding...
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Asia’s Autocrats Are Calling, Mr. Biden
While President Joe Biden was in Brussels and Warsaw showing U.S. solidarity with Ukraine, the 38-year-old autocrat who rules North Korea made a bold bid for the president’s attention. For the first time since 2017, Kim Jong Un test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-17, the largest road-mobile missile ever launched. While it flew 600...
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Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Is Not the Cuban Missile Crisis
Twenty years ago, we traditional conservatives, paleoconservatives, members of the dissident right—whatever you want to call us—had perhaps our finest hour. With the nation still looking to avenge 9/11, a number of powerful people who had been scheming to invade Iraq long before 9/11 used that tragedy to plunge America into a disastrous war of choice. Few...
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Is Victory for Ukraine Worth Risking Nuclear War?
During the 70 years that the Soviet Union existed, Ukraine was an integral part of the nation. Yet this geographic and political reality posed no threat to the United States. A Russia and a Ukraine, both inside the USSR, was an accepted reality that was seen as no threat for the seven decades that they...