Vladimir Lenin’s pamphlet What Is To Be Done? published in 1902, provided a draft proposal for the Communist revolution of 1905 and the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917. Based on NikolaiChernyshevsky ’s 1863 novel of that title, which argued for the creation of working cooperatives (an early version of the “soviets”) and total dedication to

Pete Buttigieg speaks during a town hall meeting in Fort Dodge, Iowa, April 16, 2019. (Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters) The Women’s Care Center receives an award from Notre Dame, one year after Mayor Pete Buttigieg vetoed its new location. South Bend, Ind. — In 1984, a student approached her professor at the University of Notre Dame and

Five of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, say that if elected they would revive the JCPOA—the Obama administration’s gravely flawed nuclear deal with Iran that gave Iran a nuclear sunset clause, allowed it to keep developing ballistic missiles and centrifuges, concocted a ridiculously inadequate inspection regime, and freed

On today’s episode of The Great Books podcast, National Review’s John J. Miller discusses Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird with Deidra Birzer of Hillsdale College. Find the episode here. Radio Free California Episode 70 finds Will Swaim and David Bahnsen discussing how the California government is doing its best to wreck the state, from

(Carlos Jasso/Reuters) The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a state law banning drug-induced abortions is unconstitutional, the Associated Press reported. The Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice had challenged the 2014 law, which banned the “off label” use of the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone, on the grounds that it forced doctors to rely on a sub-optimal, antiquated drug

Rep. Ilhan Omar participates in a news conference in Washington, D.C., February 7, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Immigrants see what is right about the West. That’s why they come. And then too many critique the very system they left their homelands to join. The harshest critics of the West in general and the United States in

Outside the New York Times building in Manhattan, 2008. (Gary Hershorn/Reuters) My fellow Americans, in the interests of soothing the worries of New York Times real-estate writers, please stop moving around. Stay exactly where you are, forever. White people are moving into previously black neighborhoods in the cities. Many urban blacks are moving into white

After Congresswomen Ilham Omar’s and Rashida Tlaib’s incendiary anti-Semitic rants directed at Jewish Americans and American ally Israel, the Democrat House “progressive caucus,” led by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, rallied around to protect and support them. The progressive media chimed in, supporting the Islamist congresswomen. Even after Rep. Omar dismissed the 9/11 attacks as “someone did something,”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, accompanied by other top Republican leaders at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., November 14, 2018. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters) On April 6, the Daily Beast posted a piece by Chris Kang accusing Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell of “destroying the Senate” and “light[ing] norms on fire for short-term advantage” in the

NRA executive vp and CEO Wayne LaPierre speaks at the NRA annual meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., April 26, 2019. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Indianapolis, Ind. – A long-simmering dispute between NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre and now-departing NRA president Oliver North exploded into the open Friday night, as the NRA’s Board of Directors suddenly forced to

A banner at the NRA’s annual meeting in Indianapolis shows (from left) CEO Wayne LaPierre, legislative director Chris Cox, and president Oliver North, April 27, 2019. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters) Indianapolis, Ind. — As the most dramatic National Rifle Association annual meeting approaches its conclusion, the organization’s board of directors is now forced to confront several interconnected

Justice Sonia Sotomayor 2009—In a terribly muddled speech to the ACLU of Puerto Rico, Second Circuit judge Sonia Sotomayor offers a blanket defense of freewheeling resort to foreign and international legal materials in determining the meaning of American constitutional provisions. Nominated a month later to the Supreme Court by President Obama, Sotomayor at her confirmation

Former Vice President Joe Biden talks to the media in Washington, D.C., April 5, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) Anita Hill wants Joe Biden to apologize.  While he’s thinking about it, I hope he considers sending one to Justice Thomas, for what Thomas courageously described as “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves,

I thought Joe Biden’s announcement video was interesting. Not for anything intrinsically of note in the content. The central theme was that “America is an idea,” one of the most thoughtless tropes in American life. In keeping with this, much of the rest of the brief video was clichéd, lowest-common-denominator American political rhetoric. But in

(Dejan Krsmanovic/Dreamstime) 2015—Federal district judge Jon S. Tigar denies the state of California’s request for a stay, pending appeal, of his preliminary injunction ordering the state (supposedly pursuant to the Eighth Amendment) to provide prisoner Jeffrey Norsworthy “sex reassignment surgery as promptly as possible.” Tigar agrees that the state’s appeal raises a serious legal question

In a new video for National Review, editor Charles C. W. Cooke warns of political tyranny and executive branch overreach following comments from Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.). “At a town hall organized by CNN earlier this week, Senator Kamala Harris of California said that if she’s elected president in 2020, she will give Congress

Maria Butina appears in a police booking photograph released by the Alexandria Sheriff’s Office in Alexandria, Va., August 18, 2018. (Alexandria Sheriff’s Office/REUTERS ) Russian agent Maria Butina was sentenced Friday to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy against the U.S. Butina, 30, was charged last summer with acting on

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 4, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) During a private speech Thursday evening, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein lamented the Obama administration’s decision not to “publicize” Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Rosenstein, who oversaw special counsel Robert Mueller’s recently-concluded investigation into Russian election

Field workers pick strawberries on a farm in Oxnard, Calif., in 2013. (Reuters photo: Gus Ruelas) Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has dispatched a top aide, a former farm industry lobbyist, to make sure the White House immigration plan provides for the importation of even more foreign labor for agribusiness. As the McClatchy report notes, this

Every day, Morning Consult surveys 5,000 Americans about whether or not they are happy with their governor. Once a quarter, they release the data showing the rankings — and for the first quarter of 2019, all ten of the ten most popular governors in the U.S. are Republicans. Leading the list is Charlie Baker of

My dear Bolsheviki, two time before I, VI Lenin — not to confuse please character book by religious fanatic author Leo Tolstoy — have rousted sleep mausoleum Red Square. Death of Ivan Ilyich made up novel to confuse masses for capitalist profit.  Death of Vladimir Ilyich very real, alas. Anyway, I thought two enough but event continue

Game of Thrones (HBO) Both Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are obliged by the nature of their dramatic structures to consider the fundamental questions of politics, and both invite deeply conservative interpretations. Conservatives are acutely aware of our pop-cultural deficit, and sometimes argue that we need more conservative stories on film, on television,

It seems like every other day we hear a story about company X suffering from a security breach. The private sector has been a prime target for hackers seeking monetary gain by extorting companies and stealing intellectual property. Over the past few years, government at the local and federal level has attempted to mitigate this

Sex, sex, sex, sex, and also sex. We live in a paradoxical culture characterized by both a profound Puritanism and a deep lasciviousness, though one may simply be the obverse of the other. Our new Puritans see sex everywhere they look and pursue it remorselessly in theory and doctrine while simultaneously igniting a vendetta against

Oleg Ivenko in The White Crow (Sony Pictures Classics) Ralph Fiennes avoids patronizing platitudes about poor immigrants. In The White Crow, young Rudolf Nureyev (played by Oleg Ivenko) first arrives in Paris to perform with St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre ballet troupe, but his immediate desire is to visit the Louvre. “I want The Raft to

The Washington Post Company building in Washington, D.C., 2012 (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) A Washington Post editorial on abortion regulations published yesterday evening begins with one misdirection, ends with another, and fills its middle with so many obfuscations it would take a great deal of time and space to unpack them all. Let’s focus on just a couple. The

Actor Jussie Smollett leaves court after charges against him were dropped by state prosecutors in Chicago, Ill. March 26, 2019. (Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters) The two Nigerian brothers who claim to have helped Jussie Smollett perpetrate a fake hate crime earlier this year said Smollett “directed every aspect of the attack” in a defamation suit filed Tuesday against

Bernie Sanders supporters during an event introducing the “Medicare for All Act of 2017” on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., September 13, 2017. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) House Democrats have scheduled the first ever hearing for Medicare for All legislation for next week, as the proposal is becoming a litmus test for Democratic 2020 presidential candidates. The “Medicare

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during an event to introduce the “Medicare for All Act of 2017” on Capitol Hill in 2017. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) Health care ranked as the most important issue to likely Democratic primary voters in a new poll released Tuesday. About 25 percent of such voters said health care is their top priority,

President Donald Trump talks with aides and Secret Service agents as he attends the 2019 White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington, D.C., April 22, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) The lawsuit he just filed in an effort to avoid doing so is frivolous. I  believe three things at the same time. First, Donald Trump should have voluntarily