Tag Archives | Xi Jinping

Tank Man City

Commentary by , November 19, 2019

World News Roundup Some time ago, I decided to take off last week in an attempt to get a little more rest and avoid burnout before going into the end-of-the-year rush and starting work on my new book project. It’s only a week, I thought, what could possibly happen? A lot, it turns out. To […]

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Can You Hear the People Sing?

Feature Article by , August 20, 2019

A bit of conventional wisdom I’ve heard for decades is that the people of China are not interested in freedom, either because they value social conformity and “stability” too much (as if the Communist Party has ever provided it), or because they have been bought off by a deal in which they trade freedom for […]

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Who Resists the Resistance?

Commentary by , May 1, 2019

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Viva la Revolución “Democratic socialism” has finally achieved its usual end-state in Venezuela: mass shootings of innocent civilians by government goons. I’ll warn you that the reporting on this has been pretty awful, and in the link I just gave, even Jake Tapper—who ought to know better—refers […]

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Salon of the Refused, Episode 7

Announcement by , January 9, 2019

Episode 7 of my video and podcast series, Salon of the Refused, is now available. I talk with an old friend, Bob Garmong, who spent most of the past decade as a lecturer at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics in Dalian, China, about his experiences there and the prospects for the country’s future. The […]

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Fast Times at Ben Trovato High

Commentary by , December 4, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Let No More Be Heard of Confidence in Man I speculated a while back that the legal problems of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, might come back to haunt the president–and lead to “The Clinton Impeachment Rerun We Didn’t Want But Probably Deserve.” It looks […]

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World News Roundup

Commentary by , September 17, 2018

American politics is more of a circus than usual these days, and aside from distracting us from the really important domestic issues–the growing economy, but also this administration’s total failure to rein in government spending and debt–it also distracts us from what is going on in the rest of the world. So I decided it […]

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Collusion

Commentary by , August 2, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Rule by Executive Order During his final years in office, Barack Obama leaned heavily on attempts to bypass an uncooperative Congress and use “a pen and a phone” to achieve his goals by executive order, whether or not he had the authority to do so. A few […]

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A Giant Effigy of Marx

Feature Article by , May 15, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today 1. Jaw-Jaw Is Better Than War-War I recently responded to a claim, reflecting the conventional wisdom of the Trump-era right, that “ideas and persuasion are insufficient” for the pitched culture war we are currently in. This is often expressed in the conviction that scribblers like me are useless […]

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An Intellectual Eats a Chicken Sandwich

Commentary by , April 15, 2018

Five Things You Need to Read Today Here is your latest update, for subscribers only, recommending five stories that are worth catching. 1. Trump Can’t Either Win Or Go Home President Trump has announced American air strikes against the Assad regime in Syria, in partnership with Britain and France. The airstrikes are for one night […]

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Will Trump Get Played by North Korea? He Just Did

Feature Article by , March 12, 2018

Will Donald Trump join the list of American presidents and diplomats who have been played for suckers by North Korea? It looks like he already has. First, let’s be clear what North Korea’s game is and how the new proposal for a meeting between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un fits into it. The […]

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