he U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Bostock imposes on Americans a rule of greater import than any ever asserted by any government. Its adoption into law of a meaning of the word “sex” that is at war with that of the dictionary, of biology, and of common use, and enlists the U.S. legal […]
s Georgia Governor Brian Kemp announced plans this week to let restaurants and other businesses reopen, President Trump told a national TV audience that he “strongly disagreed,” and as ordinary folks around the country were being vilified and arrested for protesting mayors’ and governors’ orders to stay indoors, the president remained silent. On April 7, […]
s panic over the COVID-19 virus has gripped the country, the alarm has made it possible for many government officials to advance agendas that portend permanent accretions of power to themselves and diminution of others’ freedoms. There is nothing new about claims that ordinary people must surrender their goods and freedoms in exchange for salvation […]
n times of confusion, it is best to focus on fundamentals. What follows is an invitation to do so. Americans elected Donald Trump—his negatives notwithstanding—because they disliked what the ruling class had been doing to the country, because they distrusted its pretense of wisdom, and because he promised to rule by a sense that defies […]
he New York Times on Tuesday reported: “The numbers the health officials showed President Trump were overwhelming. With the peak of the coronavirus pandemic still weeks away, he was told, hundreds of thousands of Americans could face death if the country reopened too soon.” These numbers, many millions of infections, hundreds of thousands of deaths, […]
resident Trump on Monday told the nation that the cure for the coronavirus epidemic will not be “worse than the disease” and that ours is not a country that was “built to be shut down.” This is a step in the right direction, but the president could go so much further. Here is what he […]
on’t panic is rotten advice,” Peggy Noonan advised in her column in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal. A stream of similar opinions in the New York Times and from CNN, reminded me of Machiavelli’s historical observation that “whoever controls the people’s fears becomes master of their souls.” The formula for achieving such mastery has not […]
When Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December 9 report did not challenge the claim by the FBI (and the CIA) that its surveillance and investigation of all things Trump were properly “premised”; when it failed to address the illegality of officials’ trafficking to the media information from said surveillance; when it downgraded the FBI’s […]
The Justice Department’s inspector general has concluded that, although officials of the FBI, the Justice Department, and the CIA made copious “mistakes” in their four requests to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency, those officials did nothing that warrants punishment. They mostly followed procedures and, after all, the […]
Regardless of who wins in 2020, the mega-issue that drove the 2016 elections will grip the country more intensely than ever. From President Obama on down, the political, educational, media, and corporate establishment had long since taken for granted that placing the opinions, interests, tastes, and the rights of the rest of America on the […]
The Justice Department’s inspector general this month reprimanded the FBI for the manner in which it recruits and supervises its “confidential human sources.” To the layman, this seems about technicalities. In fact, it shows that one of the CIA’s deadliest dysfunctions now infects the FBI as well. This disease consists of choosing and rejecting sources […]