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Nicholas J. Kaster
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March 27, 2022
Eric Metaxas makes the case for GodOn April 8, 1966, Time magazine shocked its readers by running a cover story asking “Is God Dead?” The cover -- named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the magazine covers “that shook the world” -- was of course a reference t...
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March 2, 2022
How COVID Spending and Green Policies Enabled Putin’s March into UkraineWriting in the Atlantic recently, #NeverTrumper David French urged a de-escalation of partisan rhetoric over the Ukraine crisis. “It’s important for Americans to understand where the blame lies -- with Putin, not with Democrats or Republi...
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January 10, 2022
Will the COVID Pandemic Cause a Big Government 'Ratchet Effect'?In his classic book, Crisis and Leviathan, economic historian Robert Higgs introduced a key concept that he called “the ratchet effect.” Higgs noted that the power of government grows during times of crisis, such as war or nati...
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October 5, 2021
Loving their servitudeIt should come as no surprise that the institutions that gave us “safe spaces” to protect students from uncomfortable political beliefs have now embraced a form of therapeutic totalitarianism designed to keep students safe from COVID. ...
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September 18, 2021
Beating Left-wing AuthoritarianismBen Shapiro’s new bestseller, The Authoritarian Moment, is about the death of authentic liberalism and the rise of left-wing authoritarianism. He writes: I grew up in an America that made room for different points of view that could tol...
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April 22, 2021
Bush: Still clueless on immigrationLike the old Bourbons who "had learned nothing and forgotten nothing," former President George W. Bush took to the Washington Post recently to call for amnesty for "DREAMers" and enactment of "comprehensiv...
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April 5, 2021
An 'Informed Patriotism': Lessons from Reagan’s Farewell AddressPresident Reagan was famously optimistic. He will forever be remembered for “Morning in America,” the campaign ad that inspired his 1984 landslide re-election, and for his policies that revived American confidence at home and abroad. B...
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March 22, 2021
Louis L’Amour: the Chronicler of AmericanismMarch 22 is the birthday of the iconic writer Louis L’Amour, a man whose name became synonymous with the American frontier and whose novels promoted old-fashioned patriotism and morality. America sorely misses his kind. L’Amour was bor...
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March 19, 2021
Biden to states: Whatever you do, don't cut your taxes!Hidden away in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the horribly misnamed "COVID relief" giveaway law signed by President Biden, is a curious provision that prohibits states from using any of the federal funds allocated to provide tax redu...
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March 8, 2021
Preventing a Repeat of Disastrous Lockdown PoliciesThe announcement that Texas and Mississippi are lifting their COVID lockdowns and mask mandates is welcome news. “It is really over now,” reporter Alex Berenson tweeted on March 3. “The vaccines will be the excuse,” he added, ...
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February 17, 2021
‘Equity’: Reparations by Another NameReparations for slavery, though largely disliked by the general public, garnered significant support among Democratic presidential candidates in 2020. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris openly supported the policy, as the New York Times noted in a fe...
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January 29, 2021
The Griggs Decision and Affirmative ActionGriggs v. Duke Power Co. does not have the name recognition of Roe v. Wade or Brown v. Board of Education, but it is nonetheless one of the most consequential decisions ever rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court. As we approach the 50th anniversary of t...
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December 31, 2020
Farewell to a Dreadful YearThe French writer Jean Raspail died this summer. It was somehow fitting that the man whose dark novel The Camp of the Saints foretold the end of western civilization should pass at a time when everything seemed to be falling apart. As a summary of...
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December 19, 2020
Darkness at Noon and the Progressive MindsetDarkness at Noon, published in December 1940, stands as one of the most penetrating denunciations of totalitarian ideology ever written. Eighty years later, the novel is still relevant: not only as an expose of Communist ideology but of the ideology ...
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December 7, 2020
Santelli vs. Sorkin: A perfect microcosm of left vs. rightViewers of CNBC were recently treated to something altogether novel: an actual debate over coronavirus policy. The debate pitted Andrew Ross Sorkin, the co-host of CNBC's pre-market show Squawk Box, and Rick Santelli, who reports ...
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November 21, 2020
New report shows how the lockdowns have harmed health careProponents of the COVID lockdowns claim they are prioritizing public health over "mere" economic concerns. However, a new report from the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) calibrates the overall cost of lo...
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November 13, 2020
Will liberty survive the lockdowns?Back in March, when the coronavirus lockdowns were first being imposed, President Trump tweeted, "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself." At the time, the public was willing to go along with a brief shutdown to pre...
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October 11, 2020
Sen. Lee reminds us: this is a Republic, not a democracyRecently, Utah Senator Mike Lee triggered the historically illiterate when he tweeted, “We’re not a democracy.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted back, “Maybe we should be.” Lee later explained, “Democracy isn...
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September 21, 2020
The Brave New World of Coronavirus SafetyismWe have entered the seventh month of coronavirus panic, with large parts of America still partly or wholly shut down. What began as a 15-day expedient designed to “flatten the curve,” has gradually become the norm in American life. The go...
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August 15, 2020
A Valuable Exposé of the #NeverTrump MovementIn December 2015, National Review, still believing that it was the “gatekeeper” of conservative thought, ran its famous “Against Trump” issue. At the time, many of Trump’s political views were not well vetted and there w...
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July 17, 2020
The mindset of the Gulag comes to HollywoodAs each day passes, the increasingly totalitarian nature of Woke Culture is becoming more apparent. Recently, the U.K. Daily Mail described the reverse racism emerging in Hollywood, which has created a "toxic" climate for ...
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July 4, 2020
Coolidge on the 4th"It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history." Those words were spok...
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June 20, 2020
Two New Books Provide an Antidote to the Virus of SocialismThe coronavirus panic has emboldened the far Left. Bernie Sanders recently said that if there is a “silver lining” to the pandemic, it is that we “start rethinking some fundamental tenets about the way our government and society wor...
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May 29, 2020
Lockdowns deepen America’s class divide“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions,” said Thomas Sowell, “than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Accordingly, it should surprise...
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April 25, 2020
'The Pretense of Knowledge' has Cost America DearlyRecently, Brit Hume, the sober and understated Fox News commentator, voiced the thoughts of millions when he said, “I think its time to consider the possibility… that this lockdown, as opposed to the more moderate mitigation efforts...
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April 1, 2020
Reflecting on Crisis and Leviathan in the age of the pandemicNot very long ago, President Trump tweeted, "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself." He was pilloried for daring to suggest that government action with respect to the coronavirus pandemic has both benefits ...
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March 19, 2020
Four Supreme Court rulings this term strengthen Trump's hand on immigrationThe confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court have proven to be consequential in advancing President Trump's immigration agenda. Four cases decided during this term, three by a 5-4 margin, have reversed lowe...
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March 2, 2020
The ’64 Civil Rights Act and the Origins of Political CorrectnessIn his new book The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, Claremont Institute scholar Christopher Caldwell explains how the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark legislation designed to end segregation in the South, gave unprecedented ...
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February 13, 2020
Why we're not likely to see Democrats release a list of judicial nomineesOne of the most innovative and consequential decisions made by Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign was to release a list of potential Supreme Court nominees. This list was a critical factor in helping Trump to gain the trust of conservative ...
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January 29, 2020
Diversity by subtractionIn the latest chapter of the Left's ongoing culture war against the West, Yale University has announced that it is eliminating its popular introductory art history course because of the "overwhelming" whiteness, maleness,...
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January 19, 2020
Amity Shlaes's Verdict on the Great Society: Not That GreatSeldom in history has a program been undertaken with such lofty intentions and ended in such bitter disappointment as Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.” In her latest book Great Society: A New History, Amity Shlaes provides a fresh a...
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January 4, 2020
The Mob and Social JusticeThe British writer Douglas Murray is one of those rare public intellectuals who writes cogently, with wit and erudition, but also with a sharp dose of common sense and humanity. His latest book, The Madness of Crowds, is an extended meditation o...
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December 19, 2019
In the British elections, older meant wiserIn the recent British elections, radical leftist Jeremy Corbyn won the "coveted" youth vote handily but was nevertheless crushed by the Conservative Party in a historic landslide. Lord Ashcroft Polls, which surveyed 13,000 voters on elec...
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November 30, 2019
In Favor of NationalismRich Lowry, the editor of National Review, a magazine that pointedly distanced itself from Donald Trump in the 2016 election, has written a new book that cogently and compellingly defends nationalism, Trump’s signature issue. In The Case for Na...
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November 23, 2019
President Trump on Medicare for AllLast month, President Trump signed an executive order that enacted policies designed to expand health care choice and competition. The president also offered his blunt assessment of "Medicare for All," the single-payer ...
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November 4, 2019
Polygamy, Obergefell, and the slippery slopeThe resignation of California's Rep. Katie Hill, involving allegations that she was involved in a three-way sexual relationship, and an ensuing succession of articles defending polyamorous relationships, has National Review's John H...
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October 10, 2019
Five 'Gutsy Women' Who Didn’t Make it into Hillary Clinton’s BookHillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea have collaborated in writing The Book of Gutsy Women, a glossy work that purports to be their “favorite stories of courage and resilience” about “gutsy women who have inspired -- women with t...
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September 27, 2019
Middle Eastern migrants 'assimilate' into Germany's social welfare programsOne of the standard justifications for the mass importation of Middle Easterners into Western Europe has been economic: the need to replenish the workforce due to a declining native birthrate and to pay for the retirement benefits of an aging populat...
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September 10, 2019
Max Boot reaches peak narcissismWriting from his gilded perch at the Washington Post, Max Boot reflected on the frustrations of being a NeverTrump columnist: I love what I do and realize I am supremely lucky to be able to make my living by writing and speaking a...
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August 29, 2019
Will SF charity be strong-armed into rescinding award to GOP donor?This is your daily reminder that tolerance is not a value on the Left. There is in San Francisco a nonprofit health care organization called "Shanti Project," which provides support to people with life-threatening illnesses, especially H...
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August 9, 2019
'Diversity' or truth, pick oneThe cult of diversity worship in academia came under withering assault this week from Anthony Kronman, a Yale law professor and former dean of the Yale Law School. In an article for the Wall Street Journal, Kronman bravely wrote that the diversity do...
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July 22, 2019
A war on the WestWill the West be complicit in its own destruction? That is the question raised by the documentary film, The Fight of Our Lives: Defeating the Ideological War against the West. The 2018 film was recently screened at the Anthem Film ...
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July 13, 2019
Nineteen Eighty-Four at 70: What Orwell Got RightThis summer, George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four turns 70 years old, and that anniversary has prompted a surfeit of articles analyzing the book and its continuing relevance to our age. There is no doubt that the book is one of the most ...
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June 15, 2019
Bret Easton Ellis Rebukes the Progressive Elites“If you feel you’re experiencing 'micro-aggressions' when someone asks where you are from or 'Can you help me with my math?' or offers a 'God bless you' after you sneeze, or... someone merely insulted you, or the...
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May 4, 2019
Justice Kavanaugh is Still Triggering the LeftNormally, one would expect that a university fortunate enough to get a sitting Supreme Court Justice to join its faculty would be receiving accolades from its students. But of course, these are not normal times. Thus, when George Mason University rec...
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April 23, 2019
Narrow minds try to erase history in Oak Park, IllinoisErnest Hemingway was often accused of characterizing Oak Park, Illinois, as a “neighborhood with wide lawns and narrow minds.” The quote is actually of dubious authenticity, but it is undoubtedly true that the famous writer, born and rais...
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April 8, 2019
The EU: 'Pinnacle of well being' for bureaucratic elitesThe political and economic system of Europe has long been the model for American progressives. Thus, it was fitting that Barack Obama extolled Europe's greatness in an April 6 speech in Berlin. Obama told the assembled:...
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March 29, 2019
What would Biden replace our 'English jurisprudential culture' with?Recently, while apologizing for his role in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing of Clarence Thomas more than a quarter-century ago, which involved sexual harassment claims made by Anita Hill, gaffe-prone Joe Biden let loose with quite a volle...
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March 15, 2019
Reparations = racial socialismIn a recent op-ed piece, the New York Times’ resident faux conservative, David Brooks, announced -- surprise! -- that he has changed his mind on the issue of slavery reparations. “Nearly five years ago,” said Brooks, “...
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March 1, 2019
The Secular Theology of the Green New DealA quote attributed to C.S. Lewis stated: “Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything.” Today, among secular leftists, radical environm...
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February 20, 2019
Kamala Harris: 'Goodbye Columbus' (Day)Speaking at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, Sen. Kamala Harris announced that she would support a federal law to change Columbus Day to "Indigenous Peoples Day." She told the crowd that "we are the scene of a...
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February 9, 2019
The EU: Hell hath no furyIn the midst of negotiations to implement Brexit, E.U. president Donald Tusk sneered that there was "a special place in hell" for those who pushed Brexit "without a plan," a comment seemingly designed to foil an agreemen...
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December 13, 2017
Ten Great Conservative Novels and Why They Are Relevant TodayConservatives often seem to resist reading fiction, preferring fact-laden books on history, philosophy, or economics. Similarly, conservatives are more likely to recommend the latest book by Mark Levin or Ann Coulter, or a philosophical evergre...
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October 4, 2017
David Brooks wants the GOP to embrace open bordersThe New York Times' resident faux conservative, David Brooks, believes that establishment Republicans ought to mount a "philosophical assault" on President Trump's immigration policy. In his most recent opinion piece, Brooks c...
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May 1, 2017
Trump’s appointments outshine even the Gipper’sJonah Goldberg, doyen of the National Review's NeverTrumps, offered the following assessment of Donald Trump's first hundred days: I've been mildly surprised by a few things about Trump's performance so far –...
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November 23, 2016
We need to reform legal immigration, tooThe appointment of immigration hardliner Jeff Sessions to be attorney general is a strong signal that Donald Trump is serious about tackling the issue that launched his campaign. When Mr. Trump famously descended the escalator at Trump T...
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September 3, 2009
Health care: while government dithers, private enterprise deliversWhile Barack Obama schemes to enlarge the government's control over health care, private enterprise has stepped in to provide low cost, quality health care to Americans. Since 2000, over 1,200 private in-store clinics, typically staffed by nurse prac...
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June 11, 2009
Reverse Gender Gap in UnemploymentData from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals a huge gender imbalance in unemployment, one which the ever-vigilant mainstream press has curiously ignored. As revealed by the graphic below, male unemployment in May 2009 has soared to 10.5%, while f...
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May 26, 2009
Trouble for cradle of social welfare state policiesGermany, whose welfare state model inspired the "progressive" movement of which Obama and the American Left are so enamored, is in deep economic trouble. The new "poverty atlas," reported yesterday by Time/CNN, reveals that German...
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February 11, 2009
Imitating FailureShortly after the end of World War I, the U.S. economy contracted sharply and fell into a recession. The federal government did not respond with a stimulus program, did not expand government spending, did not add government workers to the payrol...
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June 21, 2008
Will Estonia Liberate the United States?Estonia, liberated from communism in part by music, has embraced supply side economics and economic freedom. This small Baltic nation may have some lessons for America.I recently attended the Chicago premiere of The Singing Revolution, an extraordina...
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June 19, 2008
Obama's Latest Proposal to Increase TaxesBarack Obama has unveiled his plan for saving Social Security and it consists, unsurprisingly, of a massive tax increase. In addition to his plans for raising tax rates on capital gains and dividend income and repealing the Bush tax cuts, Obama now p...