by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
A number of commentators have openly sympathized with multi-murderer Christopher Dorner, who shot seven innocent people, killing four of them. Apparently, the late Dorner was a voice in the wilderness crying out against the racist injustice of the “system.” Continue reading “The Tangled Web of Race”
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
Dorner Debacle
It is hard to remember worse coverage of a catastrophe than what we are given about the ex-cop Christopher Dorner’s murdering rampage. Some reprehensible pundits, ever so easily, fall into blaming LAPD and its “history of racism,” in a sorta, kinda contextualizing of Dorner’s brutal killing of innocents by the specter of Rodney King. Continue reading “It’s a Mad, Mad World”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up. Continue reading “Incoherent Immigration Reform”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
We keep trying to understand the enigma of California, mostly why it still breathes for a while longer, given the efforts to destroy the sources of its success. Let’s try to navigate through its sociology and politics to grasp why something that should not survive is surviving quite well — at least in some places. Continue reading “California at Twilight”
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
There is a sort of upbeat New York Timesarticle arguing that California — in part, thanks to passing the highest sales and income taxes in the nation — might be coming back, a sort of recovery that can guide the rest of the US to a renewed faith in the Obama/EU/blue-state way. Continue reading “It’s Hard to Screw Up California–But We Try Our Best”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
The Rich
I confess I never admired John Edwards — and used to argue with the late Christopher Hitchens[1] about the blow-dried lawyer’s suitability for president. I didn’t think much of Al Gore or John Kerry, well before the “he lied!” vein-bulging fits and the wind-surfing spoofs. I was not surprised when Susan Rice just disclosed that she is worth considerably over $30 million[2] — and has money in Keystone[3] no less. Are they all part of the “one percent”? Did they pay “their fair share”? Do they “spread the wealth”? At what point in his life did Al Gore know that he had made enough money (before barreling ahead and making more)? Continue reading “The Confessions of a Confused Misfit”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
Note that Barack Obama is running not on his liberal record, but as a challenger against incumbent Mitt Romney who has done all sorts of terrible things like causing the 2008 meltdown and outsourcing jobs to China. In Obama’s view, given the supposedly tranquil world abroad, we must try nation building at home, and thus concentrate on bold new initiatives like stimulus, infrastructure, green jobs, and federalized healthcare — none of which have been envisioned before, much less funded. And to the extent Obama has a concrete example, he points to efforts of the private oil sector to find more gas and oil despite, rather than because of, his own efforts. Conclusion? Continue reading “Why Liberals Think What They Do”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
Last week, while reading about an insolvent California’s insistence on going ahead with the first leg of a proposed high-speed rail line (total cost of the system: an estimated $100-$300 billion), I heard the following story on a local ABC news affiliate about a nearby low-Sierra lake: Continue reading “Graffiti on Trees, High-Speed Rail to Nowhere: The Wages of Liberalism”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
This winter I watched a new owner of the farm parcel next to mine bring in enormous Caterpillar equipment and land-levelers. He ripped out every living tree and bush. He changed the very contours of the land, flattening even the once rolling hills. Within days, arose a postmodern almond orchard of some 40 acres. Continue reading “When Land Is History”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
Driving across California is like going from Mississippi to Massachusetts without ever crossing a state line. Continue reading “There Is No California”