by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Many Republicans are excited about the midterm elections. They see a good chance of taking over the Senate, which means they can neutralize Obama’s last few years in office. Many also are hopeful about the presidential election in 2016, though Hillary Clinton will enter that race with decided […]
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine Barack Obama’s address to the U.N. General Assembly was so insubstantial, so full of airy platitudes, and so adulterated with the gaseous clichés of bankrupt internationalism and progressive bromides that I thought at any minute he might just float away. First was the obligatory call “to renew the
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The William F. Buckley Program at Yale University lately showed bravery unusual for an academic institution. It has refused to be bullied by the Muslim Students Association and its demand that the Buckley Program rescind an invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali to speak on campus September 15. Hirsi Ali
by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas For four decades genetically modified organisms (GMO) have been vilified and caricatured as “Frankenfoods,” the abominations of mad scientists meddling with nature and putting the human race at risk. Currently, over sixty bills have been introduced in over twenty states
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine In 1902 Theodore Roosevelt intervened in a strike by Pennsylvania coal miners, exceeding his Constitutional authority as president. When this was pointed out to him by Republican House whip James E. Watson, Roosevelt allegedly yelled, “To hell with the Constitution when the people want coal!” This outburst reflected
“When force threatens, talk is no good.” by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine That line from John Ford’s classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance contains wisdom everyone from peasant to king knew before our modern age and its smug illusions. Go back 2,400 years, and you can hear it from the Athenian orator Demosthenes
by Bruce Thornton // FrontPage Magazine To read Part I, click here. In his comments on the jihad being waged by the Islamic State in northern Iraq (ISIL), President Obama recycled yet again the shopworn false knowledge about Islam that continues to compromise our response to Muslim violence: “So ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine The war against jihadism has been chronically misunderstood because of our failure to acknowledge the religious motives of Muslim jihadists. This failure began in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Trapped in our Western secularist paradigms, we interpreted the uprising against the Shah as an anti-colonial revolt against a
Thornton reviews the book Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures, and Innovations, by Mary Beard. New York: Liverwright, 2013, 320 pp., $28.95 hardbound. by Bruce S. Thornton // NAS This piece originally appeared in the Fall 2014 issue of Academic Questions (Volume 27, Number 3). Once the heart of liberal education, the study of Greek and Latin languages and literatures has unfortunately
by Bruce S. Thorton // FrontPage Magazine President Obama has been rightly chastised for his proposed cuts to our military budget. Critics have gone after his Quadrennial Defense Review and its plan to shrink the armed forces, not to mention the clumsy optics of issuing pink slips to thousands of officers still serving in Afghanistan.