by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online
The next president and Congress will inherit what President Obama left behind. Whether Democrat or Republican, the president will have no choice other than to try to undo much of what Obama has wrought. But can he or she?
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia
Every once in a while, a criminal case — consider the O.J. trial — reflects the immoral course of our current trajectory. Here is an ongoing local criminal case that pretty much sums up what is happening to our culture, laws, and society at large.
Perla Ibeth Vazquez, 27, is now on trial in these parts. On Oct. 21, 2011 (a mere two-and-a-half-years ago?), she was drunk, drove, and killed, according to the Fresno Bee [1], one “Frank Winslow, 54, a family man and truck driver for Foster Farms who was only a few miles from home when he was killed on Highway 168 near Ashlan Avenue.”
Continue reading “The Decline of Western Civilization in a Few Paragraphs”
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media
Adding straws of scandal — Fast and Furious, the Associated Press monitoring, the IRS fiasco, and the NSA spying — on any presidential back except Barack Obama’s would have long ago broken it. Watergate ruined Richard Nixon. Iran-Contra earned a special prosecutor and nearly destroyed the Reagan second term. Katrina’s incompetent local and state reactions, coupled with a tardy federal effort — and the insurgency in postwar Iraq — ended the viability of George W. Bush in his second term. Continue reading “Obama and the Suspension of Disbelief”
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media
I have been reading both new and classic books this week among the ruins (see photos below).
Martin Anderson, now almost in his 90th year, has written a fascinating memoir about fashioning a cattle and big-game preservation ranch in Africa: Galana: Elephant, Game Domestication, and Cattle on a Kenya Ranch. At one time Galana was believed to have been the largest single ranching operation in Africa, and one encouraged by the Kenyan government to be a model of tourism, cattle production, and wildlife protection.Galana is an analytical but also personal memoir about what Africa was like in its once hopeful and immediate postcolonial phase, and how Martin Anderson in his late thirties came to the Kenyan wild in 1960, when most Westerners were leaving, often for understandable reasons. When I last saw Martin two weeks ago, he was headed to Nairobi, undaunted by the recent Islamic violence at the shopping center, and eager to return to his ranch. When talking with Martin (who appears more like 65 than 89), one realizes that in some sense age is a state of mind — and old age a referendum on a life either smartly or unwisely lived.
Speaking of the bush and the wild, as I was finishing rereading Galana last evening, I got a call from my son about a truck speeding out of the family vineyard alleyway across the road. Yes, I know, reader — same old, same old:
The miscreants had already dumped their trash: chemical drums, paints, solvents, oils, concrete, tires, garbage, and lots of broken fluorescent glass tubes — something a bit worse than the usual toxic brew that is left on San Joaquin Valley property. Continue reading “Reading Among the Ruins”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
It is not easy to ruin the American economy; doing nothing[1] usually means it repairs itself[2] and soon is healthier than before a recession. Continue reading “How to Weaken an Economy”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
There has been for months a popular parlor game of tallying instances in which President Obama seems to have either ignored or simply bypassed federal law. Continue reading “Obama’s Postmodern Vision”
by Bruce S. Thornton
FrontPage Magazine
We can’t say much about the veracity of the sexual harassment complaints leveled against Herman Cain 15 years ago, given the lack of specific detail or even the names of the accusers. Continue reading “The True Significance of Herman Cain’s Sexual Harassment Troubles”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
For the last 235 years, on the Fourth of July, Americans have celebrated the birth of the United States, and the founding ideas that have made it the most powerful, wealthiest, and freest nation in the history of civilization. Continue reading “An Exceptional Fourth of July”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
When the Law Does Not Pay
I do not think in California there is much law these days. We are regressing to the days of my grandfather’s stories who used to relate to me a wild Central Valley circa 1900 when the sheriff was a day away. Continue reading “Land of the Lawless”
by Bruce S. Thornton
Advancing a Free Society
The post-mortem revelations of Osama bin Laden’s daily habits have confirmed the orthodox narrative about the al-Qaeda chief. Continue reading “The Fellow Travelers of Jihadism”