Archive | Commentary RSS feed for this section

“I Never Had a Lawyer Who Took Notes”

Commentary by , April 20, 2019

What We’ve Learned About Trump from the Mueller Report Among the political media and Twitter obsessives—but I repeat myself—Thursday was dubbed “Mueller Day,” because it was the day when the mostly unredacted report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller was due to be released to the public. I was not among the obsessives, having been skeptical […]

Comments are closed

How Politics Works

Commentary by , April 13, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today Editor’s Note: I was very pleased to see my recent article, “Why I Don’t ‘Believe’ in Science,” picked up by Judith Curry, a distinguished atmospheric scientist who is skeptical of global warming—exactly the sort of person to whom I want to offer this kind of intellectual ammunition. Her […]

Comments are closed

“We” Are All Socialists Now

Commentary by , April 2, 2019

It’s a little disconcerting how quickly the “libertarian moment” of the Tea Party era gave way to today’s socialist moment. The dissipation of that supposed “libertarian populism,” which has turned out to be more “populist” than “libertarian,” is certainly disappointing, but at least this history provides some hope that the socialist moment will prove just […]

Comments are closed

Don’t Feed the Trolls

Commentary by , March 29, 2019

I have taken my time writing about the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in part because I don’t think it’s a good idea to be panicked by rare and unusual events, particularly mass shootings, which are often intended precisely for the purpose of gaining publicity for the shooter’s poorly thought out pet cause. But the […]

Comments are closed

Status-Income Disequilibrium

Commentary by , March 17, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Status-Income Disequilibrium You’ve probably heard by now about the college admissions scandal, in which wealthy and famous people were arrested for bribing college officials to get their kids into elite schools…. The details that are coming out are pretty amazing. There are the Hollywood actresses who laundered […]

Comments are closed

America’s Only Established Religion

Commentary by , March 6, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The Theater of the Deal Some of us never quite believed Donald Trump’s “Art of the Deal” self-image as the ultimate deal-maker. It was an image crafted for the tabloids and for television, and Trump imported it straight into politics, promising he would employ his astounding powers […]

Comments are closed

Upstairs, Downstairs

Commentary by , February 23, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Undemocratic Socialism There is a lot going on with Venezuela right now, and I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, a piece I sent out to subscribers of this newsletter on February 4 under the title, “The Lessons of Venezuela,” has just been published in […]

Comments are closed

“I Didn’t Need to Do This”

Commentary by , February 19, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. The National Emergency Emergency I declare a national emergency of presidents declaring national emergencies. Before President Trump declared ordinary conditions on the border to be a “national emergency,” there were already 28 active “national emergencies” giving the president special powers, and most have been in effect for […]

Comments are closed

That Noise the Kids Are Listening to These Days

Commentary by , January 30, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. But He Fights I’ve been editing videos and working on other writing projects for much of the last week, so I wanted to do a roundup of news that happened while I was doing all of that–and a lot of interesting things happened. The first item is […]

Comments are closed

A Little More Enlightenment

Commentary by , January 17, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. A Little More Enlightenment I recently re-posted my series of articles from last year on the legacy of the Enlightenment, including my review of Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now. One year after the publication of that book, Steven Pinker looks back, in an article in Quillette, and responds […]

Comments are closed