Zac Spolar found himself running around in a frenzy amid the COVID-19 surge in December, tending to three or four patients at once and laboring late into the night at a Los Angeles hospital. The hardest part of the job, he said, was having to constantly console people who couldn’t be with their loved ones...
“When sorrows come,” said King Claudius, “they come not single spies but in battalions.” As the king found out. So it seems with President Joe Biden, who must be asking himself the question Merle Haggard asked: “Are the good times really over for good?” Consider the critical issue with voters today: the state of the...
Attorney General Merrick Garland recently set his sights on what the federal government considers one of the gravest threats to the political order: parents angry with the promotion of transgender ideology and critical race theory in public schools. “In recent months, there has been a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence...
From government employees to healthcare workers, from professional athletes to school teachers, large numbers of Americans find themselves either having to resign their positions for refusing the COVID-19 jab or being fired. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve already recovered from the virus or whether they have religious objections to the vaccine. The mandate issued by...
Stop the presses: Facebook seeks to maximize profits. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, appeared on “60 Minutes,” where she slammed Facebook, a publicly owned corporation, for “optimizing for content that gets engagement.” In other words, FB tries to keep users on its platform as long as possible to make money, something that a publicly...
In case you hadn’t heard, Vice President Kamala Harris’ venture into government space propaganda for children was a galactic bust. The veep’s smarmy performance in a NASA agitprop video touting World Space Week was universally ridiculed and exposed this weekend after a local Monterey, California, TV station interviewed one of five child actors who auditioned...
Last Friday, in a triumph for transnationalism, 136 nations, including the U.S., agreed to mandate a global corporate income tax for all nations that will not be allowed to fall below 15 percent. “Virtually the entire global economy has decided to end the race to the bottom on corporate taxation,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen,...
The online world is negatively affecting the American dating scene. If you didn’t suspect that already, an experience recorded by Villanova professor Anna Bonta Moreland over at First Things will make that clear. Moreland explains how she gave her students an online discussion assignment to share their dating experiences. The results were very moving and revealed how...
“Santa Claus is comin’ to town,” are the repetitive words to a classic Christmas song. But will those words ring true this holiday season? Perhaps not, if the ongoing backup of ships and supplies at major American ports continues. The Spectator explores this problem in “The Supply Chain Problem Is Here to Stay.”...
Monday, four dozen Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone, climaxing a weekend of provocations that saw nearly 150 sorties of China-based fighters and bombers. The U.S. State Department countered by issuing a stern statement warning Beijing about the adverse effect on regional “stability” of such “provocative military activity.” Yet even as the...
Michelle Avan, a Los Angeles, California, bank executive, was tortured and beaten to death, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend. He faces murder and first-degree robbery charges that, without so-called special circumstances, would allow him, if convicted, to serve less than 10 years. But L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón refuses to permit any special circumstances charges...
Homo Americanus, by Zbigniew Janowski (St. Augustine’s Press; 250 pp., $24.00). Polish American political thinker Zbigniew Janowski examines the reasons that modern American democracy has taken a totalitarian turn. Contrary to the happy talk coming from establishment conservatives about the need to spread America’s so-called liberal democratic values everywhere, Janowski paints a dark but compelling...
For nearly 20 years, I’ve reported on America’s medical welcome mat for chronically sick illegal aliens. Under a 1986 federal law, “unauthorized immigrants” with conditions such as kidney disease and cancer cannot be denied emergency room care, regardless of their immigration status or inability to pay. Open-borders politicians insist health care is a “right” that...
“We’ve got the president of the United States on our side,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Got 96% of the members of the Democratic caucus in the House on our side. We got all but two senators at this point in the Democratic caucus on our side. We’re going to win...
It’s hard to find anyone these days outside National Review’s deluded pages sorry to see Rep. Liz Cheney dragged across the political concrete. Besides rubbing raw the hide of a realigning right with her grating adoration for George W. Bush, Cheney embodies a conservative establishment that has conserved little more than its sinecures and pretensions. The prospect of Donald Trump...
Federal elections rearranged Germany’s 709-seat Bundestag last week in what has been heralded by the mainstream press as the end of an era. In reality, the new governing coalition led by the country’s social democratic and green parities will change little in the country’s foreign and security policy. The new team will remain staunchly opposed to any...
The other day I was sitting in a coffee shop when a rap song began playing in the café. The F-word—you know, the one that rhymes with muck and yuck—featured prominently in the lyrics. I was happy there were no children present. After leaving the café, I went to our library to return some books....
“Unfortunately, Jan. 6 was not an isolated event,” warned FBI Director Christopher Wray last winter: “The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon.” Since he became director in 2017, said Wray, FBI domestic terrorism investigations had doubled in number to...
The billionaire Koch family—long a funder of conservative political causes and favorite whipping boy of the left—recently announced its opposition to government bans on teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, a fact which does not sit well with many on the right. In light of this recent announcement, we present a continuation of a debate on...
It seems that capitalists, woke zealots, and street gangs are joined at the hip right now. This idea is fleshed out by writer Michael Anton in an enlightening interview with IM 1776. Anton offers this chilling thought: Certain folks will howl at this, but if you listen to the woke left, they think it’s not merely fine...
With international tensions high on the eve of the November 2020 election, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng, that he was prepared to frustrate any potential military operation by America’s commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump. “General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If...
For centuries up to and including the 20th, Europe seemed the central pivot of world history. Then came the Great Civil War of the West, our Thirty Years’ War (1914-1945), where all of the great European powers—Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia—along with almost all of the rest, fought some of history’s greatest battles. Result: Europe’s...
Northwestern Europe’s early development owes much to the Carolingian dynasty, which led Germanic society into Christendom from the dead end of paganism. It set the stage for the lush flowering of knightly culture, with its ideals of chivalry, courtesy, and courtly love, which established the Western habit of mind. This Western ethos is rooted in...
“Follow the money!” The old maxim is always sound advice when assessing the motives of those advancing bold agendas for the benefit of mankind. Invariably, the newest progressive idea entails a transfer of wealth from the taxpaying classes of Western nations to our transnational, global, and Third World elites. For the masters of the universe,...
Legislative elections were held over three days in Russia last weekend to elect 450 deputies of the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly. President Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia party won just under 50 percent of the vote and 324 seats in an election accompanied by the customary accusations of vote rigging from the...
A brilliantly orchestrated, seemingly preplanned program of medical tyranny has followed the release of a probable bespoke germ known as SARS-Cov-2, which I call the Faucivirus. A striking feature of this program is the massive effort to frighten, cajole, threaten, and shame the public into taking experimental injections represented as “vaccines.” The whole dystopian spectacle brings to mind something...
In nearly 30 years of covering America’s corrupted immigration and entrance policies, I can tell you definitively that every “border crisis” is a manufactured crisis. Caravans of Latin American illegal immigrants don’t just form out of nowhere. Throngs of Middle Eastern refugees don’t just amass spontaneously. Boatloads of Haitians don’t just wash up on our...
In a diplomatic coup, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a deal last week with the U.K. and U.S. to have those Anglo-American allies help build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia. A $66 billion French deal to provide Canberra with diesel electric-powered submarines, among the largest defense contracts Paris had ever negotiated, was blown off....
Not to Ban, by Walter E. Block: Extirpating Critical Race Theory (CRT) from schools is a hot-button issue for many politicians. While I do not take a position for or against CRT, I would like to assess the propriety of CRT being debated and taught at colleges and universities. Both proponents and opponents say that...
Certain politicians and special interest groups have brought out the pipes and drums to renew the Green New Deal. I recently heard our president on the radio shouting—and he was really shouting—about the perils we face if we don’t spend trillions of dollars fighting climate change. He told his audience that the scientists and our Department...
The California recall election turned out well for the Democrats. With Gov. Gavin Newsom sinking in the summer polls, the party had been staring starkly at the prospect of losing the nation’s largest state and seeing its governor replaced by talk-show host Larry Elder, who had vaulted into the lead among the 46 candidates seeking...
It’s no secret that we live in crazy times. Yet more is involved than just a bunch of crazy people running wild. If this was just individual mental illness, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM) would help. Unfortunately, however, the DSM fails to address today’s political madness. With that deficiency in mind, let me offer an...
Recently I needed to visit the Urgent Care Center here in Front Royal, Virginia. I have gone there two or three times over the past four years, usually waiting around 15 minutes to see a doctor or a nurse. This time the woman at the front desk told me my wait would be between three...
In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, former President George W. Bush’s theme was national unity—and how it has been lost over these past 20 years. “In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks,” said Bush, “I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days...
Homeland Elegies: A Novel, by Ayad Akhtar (Little, Brown & Co.; 368 pp., $28.00). Mark Twain wrote in his 1897 travel book, Following the Equator: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” That saying came in handy as I read this book, described on its jacket as...
Back in December of 2020, then President-elect Biden said that he would not make vaccines against COVID-19 mandatory, nor did he think they should be mandatory. Given the new vaccine mandate by the White House, set to affect nearly 100 million Americans by some estimates, one reasonably conclude that Biden misled the people. However, Biden’s...
We can trace our American penchant for victimhood back decades. Consider the 1957 musical “West Side Story,” which features two New York City gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, warring with each other. At one point, some of the Jets sing “Gee, Officer Krupke,” in which they mock the reasons given by the courts, psychologists,...
When the hijacked planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that first 9/11, the Taliban were in control of Afghanistan and providing sanctuary for al-Qaida. Today, the Taliban are in control of Afghanistan and providing sanctuary to al-Qaida. What then did our longest war accomplish? The Afghan army and...
I told you it was coming. Back in May, on my show, “Sovereign Nation,” I chronicled significant signs of pro-life progress that were driving death-lobby Democrats mad—and I warned of a wave of intolerant tantrums to come as we hurtle into autumn. It’s here. In a 5-4 ruling last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused...
In discussions of World War II, much emphasis and critical attention has been conferred on German forces and actions. What is often overlooked, however, are the Soviet deeds during the same time period. Author Sean McMeekin, a historical studies professor at Bard College, seeks to slay this sacred cow of the historical profession and...
Like childbearing, abortion isn’t just for women anymore. That is the message coming from the LGBT community and what were once thought of as women’s rights groups in response to Texas Senate Bill 8, the new Texas anti-abortion law. These culturally powerful groups are using the new law to promote current gender ideology, which views reproduction...
“He may be an SOB, but he’s our SOB.” So said President Franklin D. Roosevelt of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, and how very American. For, from its first days, America has colluded with autocrats when the national interest demanded it. George Washington danced a jig in 1778 when he learned that our diplomats had effected...
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem became a GOP darling seemingly overnight, captivating conservatives with a pretty smile and the aesthetic of a Western freedom fighter. If the GOP decides to run a woman for the White House, it’ll likely come knocking on her door—and everything she does is calculated to that end. Yet her otherwise...
(Note that what follows is entirely satire, including the quotes from a CDC spokesman, which are invented.) Unnoticed by some in the present upheavals caused by the delta variant of COVID-19 was a quiet announcement from the Center for Disease Control linking the virus and human hair. “Numerous tests have...
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed Congress on Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the country was united behind him. The America First Committee, the largest anti-war movement in our history, which had the backing of President Herbert Hoover and future Presidents John F. Kennedy and Gerald Ford, was...
The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam, by Simon Webb (Pen and Sword History; 208 pp., $39.95). In America, public discussion about slavery—when it doesn’t devolve into BLM activists burning cities or congressmen bending the knee—is premised on important but erroneous assumptions: only blacks have been enslaved; black slavery was racially motivated; discussion...
Sally* has worked as a nurse in an operating room for more than 30 years. She’s seen horrors most of us can only imagine, gunshot victims, patients maimed beyond belief, the dead from failed surgeries carted off to the morgue. Right now, she’s witnessing the decline of American health care....
Shhhhh. The information I’m about to share with you is dangerous and subversive. You cannot publish it on social media platforms without risking scary labels and permanent suspensions. You and anyone you discuss this topic with will be called anti-science “kooks,” “conspiracy theorists” or “quacks.” So be it. I’ve been called every pejorative name in...
Jihad is both an ideology and a global process. It has triumphed in Afghanistan in both forms, and its adherents everywhere will feel emboldened by what they see as a sure sign of Allah’s sanction. If a poorly armed jihadist force could endure for two decades, struggling against the mightiest infidel force the world has...
A newly published medical study found that infection from COVID-19 confers considerably longer-lasting and stronger protection against the Delta variant of the virus than vaccines. “The natural immune protection that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection offers considerably more of a shield against the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus than two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech...