Let’s Save California Now!
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Just a handful of legislative acts might still save California. Here are 12 brief examples: 1. The Hetch Hetchy Smelt and Salmon Act This so-called “Skip a Shower, Save a Smelt Act” would transfer control of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir releases from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to the California Department […]
Lessons of World War I
Much of what we think we know is false; what really happened matters desperately to us today. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online This summer will mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, and we should reflect on the “lessons” we have been taught so often on how to avoid another such […]
Aristocratic Sermonizing
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner Secretary of State John Kerry, a veritable billionaire who is not shy about acquiring carbon-consuming luxury boats, cars, and toys, and who leaves an incorrectly large carbon footprint when he engages in private travel, just gave a screed to relatively poor
Obama’s Foreign Policy: Enemy Action
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine It’s often hard to determine whether a series of bad policies results from stupidity or malicious intent. Occam’s razor suggests that the former is the more likely explanation, as conspiracies assume a high degree of intelligence, complex organization, and secrecy among a large number of people, qualities that usually […]
U.S. “Chose to Stay Silent” on Muslim Persecution of Christians: November 2013
by Raymond Ibrahim // Gatestone Institute The endemic rise of Christian persecution in the Middle East was noted in November when Pope Francis declared “We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians” and stressed the importance of “the universal right to lead a dignified life and freely practice one’s own faith” after he met […]
Obama’s Newspeak
The meaning of works, and history itself, are malleable when it comes to our president and his record. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The nightmare societies portrayed in the George Orwell novels 1984 and Animal Farm gave us the word “Orwellian.” That adjective reflects a vast government’s efforts not just to deceive and control the people, but […]
The Pentagon’s Bow to Islamic Extremism
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com “Caving to pressure from Muslim groups, the Pentagon has relaxed uniform rules to allow Islamic beards, turbans and hijabs. It’s a major win for political correctness and a big loss for military unit cohesion,” said a recent report. This new relaxation of rules for Muslims comes at a time when the FBI […]
The Costs of the Environmentalism Cult
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine California is in the third year of a drought, but the problem isn’t a lack of water. The snowfall in the Sierra provides enough to help us ride out the years of drought. All we need to do is store it. But California hasn’t built a new dam in […]
The Value of Putin
Putin ends up existing to warn us in the West of what we are not. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Vladimir Putin has the world’s attention this week. The circumstances will remind everyone that reset with Russia is dead. Its working hypothesis — that it was the George W. Bush administration, not the […]
Republicans Go On an Immigration Reform Bender
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Rather than twisting the political knife in the gaping wound that is Obamacare, House Republicans are off on a “comprehensive immigration reform” toot. The latest news has the Speaker putting off any action for now, and waiting until after the midterm elections in order not to anger the anti-amnesty […]
An Immigration Morality Tale
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media If there are executive orders overriding federal immigration law to extend amnesty to foreign nationals, without legal residence, and to continue their educations, there are also de facto all sorts of un-Dream Acts that simply allow anyone wishing to enter the United States without much audit. In other words, […]
A Tale Of Two Droughts
by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Content Agency Despite recent sporadic rain, California is still in the worst extended drought in its brief recorded history. If more storms do not arrive, the old canard that California could withstand two droughts — but never three — will be tested for the first time in memory. There is little snow in […]
Al Qaeda: The Defender of Christians?
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com Muslim persecution of Christians is the “Achilles Heel” of the global Islamic movement’s image—the surest way of exposing its supremacist and intolerant elements and one of the main reasons the major media and establishment rarely report or address it. The logic (fully explained here) can be summarized as follows: Islamic and […]
Our Icarus-in-Chief
Obama’s global fantasies are falling to earth along with him. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online In the last two weeks, we learned that Bashar Assad has dismantled only 5 percent of his WMD arsenal, despite President Obama’s soaring rhetoric to the contrary. Russia violated a long-observed agreement with the U.S. about testing missiles. Iran’s take on the […]
Executive Tyranny: The Problem’s Bigger Than Obama
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama is threatening to bypass Congress and use executive orders to achieve the policy changes he can’t get through legislation. “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need,” he said […]
A Beat-up, Exhausted, and Terrified Republican Establishment
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media On almost every contemporary issue there is a populist, middle-class argument to be made against elite liberalism. Yet the Republican class in charge seems ossified in its inability to make a counter-argument for the middle class. Never has the liberal agenda been so vulnerable, a logical development when bad […]
Hope and Change: Take VI
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner The anemic retread speech was mostly another yearly pep-talk version of the original “summer of recovery”/“millions of new green jobs” boilerplate, “big bank accounts” bad -ich-guy stuff, and “we’re out of Iraq”/close Guantanamo again.” Been there, done that.
The Poison of Postmodern Lying
by Victor David Hanson // Tribune Content Agency All presidents at one time have fudged on the truth. Most politicians pad their resumes and airbrush away their sins. But what is new about political lying is the present notion that lies are not necessarily lies anymore — a reflection of the relativism that infects our entire […]