Uncategorized

Michael Knowles tag line on Twitter is “I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists….” That is from the biggest podcast in the nation, The Daily Wire. And its raison d’etre is right wing theocracy. I would argue that it’s not science that’s caused despair and “suicidality” in the modern world — it’s people like him. But that’s just me. I’m not a scientist.

On June 21-22, thousands of representatives from Western governments and businesses gathered in London for the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC23). Officially, the meeting’s purpose was to “support Ukraine’s recovery”. But a closer look reveals that Western corporate elites convened in the British capital for somewhat less altruistic reasons: namely, to stake their claims to the …

Continue reading

Hi everyone, I’ve got two new pieces fresh from the oven. In my first article, “How America control Europe”, published in Compact, I reflect on Western Europe’s transformation into an American protectorate administered from Brussels — and how this explains the masochistic policies pursued by the EU vis-à-vis Russia-Ukraine, and its glaring silence over America’s (glaringly obvious) …

Continue reading

To mark the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius, which ends today, I wrote for UnHerd a myth-busting piece about the true nature NATO. The latter presents itself as a purely “defensive alliance… working for peace, security and freedom”. The reality, however, is quite different. Aside from the fact that its most powerful member and de facto leader, the …

Continue reading

In your head Wrap a police tape perimeter around Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His anti-woke mania is a crime scene. Greg Sargent explains: In recent weeks, plaintiffs who are suing to invalidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” have been confronting its defenders with a seemingly loaded question: Would the law, which restricts school discussion of race, prohibit a public university professor from endorsing affirmative action in a classroom setting? Surprisingly, lawyers defending the DeSantis administration just answered this question with a qualified “yes.” Which exposes a core truth about his anti-woke directives: They really do constitute efforts at state censorship, not just of concepts he likes to call “woke indoctrination” but also of viewpoints that are contested yet remain squarely within mainstream academic discourse. A provision in the law prohibits instruction that “espouses” or “promotes” certain ideas. Affirmative action, for instance: DeSantis has already fielded election police.

Crash on the levee, momma What’s it gonna take for governments to take climate change seriously? Weren’t we just here the other day? CNN: Intense rainstorms inundating the Northeast are turning streets into rivers, forcing evacuations and have prompted officials in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, to close the downtown area. “Make no mistake, the devastation and flooding we’re experiencing across Vermont is historic and catastrophic,” Gov. Phil Scott told reporters Tuesday. Floodwater continues to rise in some places, the governor said, “and have surpassed levels seen during Tropical Storm Irene,” he added. Irene hit the US as a hurricane in August 2011 and left entire communities submerged, killing more than 40 people in several Eastern states. A bit south of Montpelier on Sunday, things were dicey in the Hudson Valley: We easily brush off deadly flooding in foreign countries, even in Appalachia, dammit. But you know how this works. Until it happens to you….

“Housewife fascism” on the move And people wonder why they have been designated as an extremist organization. This is not a new phenomenon in America: As the historian Michelle Nickerson demonstrates, the period surrounding the cold war is a useful lens for understanding how mothers’ movements became a pillar of American conservatism. Like Moms for Liberty, these groups responded to cultural change by condemning the spread of progressive ideologies through public school systems. Fueled by anti-communist panic, they fought for the removal of textbooks, teachers and administrators they judged to be tainted by progressive ideals. A defining feature of these groups was how they leveraged cultural beliefs surrounding motherhood for political ends. They invoked motherhood to argue that they were uniquely connected to the domestic sphere and childrearing and therefore uniquely able to speak for the moral interests of parents, families and children. Moms for Liberty pulls deeply from this established playbook of “housewife populism”.

There have always been eccentric, senile and downright simple-minded members of congress. That’s democracy in action. But there is an unusually high number of them these days and they are all right wing Republicans. We’re accustomed to the House MAGA chaos agents’ preposterous escapades. Like this, for instance: It’s hard to know if Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene still doesn’t understand how the government works or how the world works but she does have a way of getting attention. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy couldn’t be more happy with her. He told Axios, “I think Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the best members we have, I think she’s the one of the most conservative members and one of the strongest legislators. I support Marjorie Greene very strongly.” (That was in response to a question about her ouster from the Freedom Caucus which is reportedly because she can’t be trusted not to share their strategies with McCarthy.) The House has always been the more fractious of the two houses of congress, more partisan and subject to volatility.

Anti-abortion zealots can’t wait to make Americans’ lives more miserable Iowa FTW: The legislation was passed during a rare one-day special session called by Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) for the “sole purpose” of enacting new restrictions on abortion. Reynolds celebrated the bill’s passage in a statement late Tuesday and said she will sign it on Friday. “Justice for the unborn should not be delayed,” she said. Iowa’s House and Senate passed the legislation alongmostly partisan lines late Tuesday after hours of hearings and sometimes heated protests. It is expected to face legal challenges. Abortion is currently legal in Iowa up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.

We are destined to repeat our mistakes over and over again When it comes to media criticism and China analysis there is no one I trust more than James Fallows. Over the course of many decades he has proven himself to be fair and knowledgeable about many things but these two issues are his wheelhouse. This piece On “Breaking the News” about the reporting on the Wuhan Lab theory is a must read. (I urge you to subscribe to his newsletter. It’s always good.) This post is a followup on the highly-publicized report last fall from ProPublica and Vanity Fair about Covid’s origins. (Henceforth PP and VF.) It’s prompted by another PP item five days ago, revisiting and revising their approach to this enormously consequential topic. I realize that what follows could be confusing. I’m going to be talking about three government reports, and three journalistic stories. Here’s a guide, with names I’ll try to use consistently (and will place in bold). The three reports are: The House Report, which came out in August, 2021.