Nothing reveals more about our culture than the depths to which we’ll stoop to make someone else pay for our own stupidity. And every year the insurance industry chronicles the ten most ridiculous lawsuits to take the measure of our rapacity. Here we go. 10. Man sues Godiva Chocolates because it’s not in Belgium Sure,

Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan gives a briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. October 8, 2019. (Leah Millis/Reuters) The Trump administration’s chief border enforcement official cast doubt on the administration’s goal of completing construction of the southern border wall by 2021, throwing cold water on one of the

Aerial image of Baltimore (Adrees Latif/Reuters) Baltimore may see the highest homicide rate ever recorded in the city by the end of 2019, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. Police had recorded 338 homicides as of Tuesday, four shy of the 342 seen in 2017 and 2015. The city saw 353 homicides in 1993, the

IT’S A TRAP It’s not just that the more vaunted players in the mainstream media have become so execrable in the Trump era, it’s that each outlet seems to be working overtime to prove that it is the worst. The Washington Post, which just happens to be the newspaper of record for the capital of

U.S. President Donald Trump listens to a question from reporters next to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as he arrives for a closed Senate Republican policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 26, 2019. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday mocked Democrats’ call for an impeachment trial untainted by

Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg pauses while speaking at a news conference at the annual shareholder meeting in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., April 29, 2019. ( Jim Young/Reuters) Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg resigned Monday, the latest turmoil in a string of ongoing problems for the company over its flawed 737 Max aircraft. The board’s current

(Pixabay) 1987—As a result of a Seventh Circuit ruling (in American Jewish Congress v. City of Chicago), the city of Chicago no longer displays a nativity scene in the lobby of the Chicago City-County building. In dissent, Judge Easterbrook laments the multi-factored balancing test established in Lynch v. Donnelly, where the Supreme Court permitted a

Truncated, But Still Here for You Merry Christmas, my friends. Just a quick briefing today because even a veteran cynic like me can’t go all dark and newsy on Christmas Day. I’ve left some links under the tree for you to open but I think that the biggest gift I can give all of you

On Friday, I caught a little bit of flack for calling Star Wars fans “nerds” on Fox News. This was, of course, not surprising to me. I knew my comments would piss some people off — after all, how could I forget receiving a barrage of death threats over joking about the franchise back in

This week, children may learn about that greedy man, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is selfish until ghosts scare him into thinking about others’ well-being, not just his own. Good for the ghosts. But the way Scrooge addresses others’ needs matters. Today’s advocates of equality, compassion, increased spending on education, health care, etc., say “we care” but

On Friday, I caught a little bit of flack for calling Star Wars fans “nerds” on Fox News. This was, of course, not surprising to me. I knew my comments would piss some people off — after all, how could I forget receiving a barrage of death threats over joking about the franchise back in

The editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, Mark Galli, wrote an editorial calling for the impeachment of President Donald Trump. In my view, this editorial only serves to confirm one of the sadder realizations of my life: that religious conviction guarantees neither moral clarity nor common sense. The gist of the editorial — and of most religious

On Friday, I caught a little bit of flack for calling Star Wars fans “nerds” on Fox News. This was, of course, not surprising to me. I knew my comments would piss some people off — after all, how could I forget receiving a barrage of death threats over joking about the franchise back in

Oozing Festive I’m going for something a little more lighthearted today and tomorrow (yes, there will be a Christmas Day briefing). Just because I have to read the news all day doesn’t mean everyone has to be miserable. Where in the Hell Are the Singing Cats? I have never seen the musical Cats, nor do

(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Ten years of missed opportunities, from health care to education to national security to entitlements to fiscal stability In 2010, the U.S. electorate responded to the overreach of the Obama administration — on health care, but not only on health care — by giving Republicans control of both houses of Congress. The Obama

EVERETT, Pennsylvania — For the past two years, items on layaway for over 200 families at the Walmart here have been paid for by some generous soul who won’t reveal his or her identity. Last year, this modern St. Nicholas paid off $46,000 in items placed on layaway by local residents. This year’s total was

Americans aren’t moving. pic.twitter.com/GI3SR4pNfF — Michael R. Strain (@MichaelRStrain) December 20, 2019 Americans aren’t moving like they used to. This is exacerbating economic inequality between different regions of the country because geographic mobility has been one of the key ways that wages across different parts of the nation converge and lagging regions see their economic

You can’t understand the judicial-confirmation process if you don’t understand the rules governing the process, so it’s disappointing to see this otherwise informative Washington Post article yesterday assert that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell “did away with ‘blue slips,’ which allowed senators to contest judicial nominees from their home states.” Advertisement Advertisement The largest error

THANK YOU For a few minutes on Saturday night, all was right with the program that was once must-see-TV for comedy aficionados. The once-vaunted — and occasionally brilliant — Saturday Night Live has largely been reduced to an anti-Trump diaper-soiling/boring video feelings journal in recent years. Sure, it was in decline even before the 2016

Porn actresses line up at the opening of the “Venus” erotic fair in Berlin, Germany, in 2013. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters) Restriction would be not only constitutional but essential to the political order. The most discussed issue in the conservative blogosphere over the past couple of weeks, outside of the impeachment controversy, has been pornography — specifically,

So now we’re presented with an impeachment that isn’t really an impeachment until the Empress of America declares it to be, by presenting it to the Senate, which she shan’t do until the Senate establishes rules to her liking, Constitution be damned. I probably should gloat a little bit, since this brings us back to

(Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters) “Christianity Today exposed the reality of Evangelical division,” reads the headline to David French’s column today for The Dispatch. He notes “the malleability of the definition” of “Evangelical”: Not all self-described “Evangelicals” share the same beliefs or the same faith habits. Exit poll questions about religious identity are far too imprecise to provide

West Point cadets react during filming of Fox NFL Sunday at the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., Nov 10, 2019. (Danny Wild/USA Today Sports) The U.S. Naval Academy and U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Friday cleared three cadets of wrongdoing after they were accused of making a white supremacist hand sign

A British girl was “passed around like a piece of meat” between Muslim men who abused and raped her between the ages of 12 and 14, a court heard earlier this month. Her problems began after she befriended a young Muslim man who, before long, was “forcing her to perform sex acts on other [and

Shipping containers at the Port of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, Calif., January 30, 2019. (Mike Blake/Reuters) Let’s start by enforcing the law. President Donald Trump’s incompetently executed trade war is set to cost U.S. companies something like $316 billion through the end of 2020, a conservative estimate, and the indications from the tentatively emerging

It is common to observe projection in campus and party politics, and in human affairs generally. “Projection” is a well-understood psychological mechanism in which a person or collective accuses another of doing what the accuser himself or itself is doing. “Psychological projection is a defense mechanism people subconsciously employ in order to cope with difficult

(File photo: Robert Galbraith/Reuters) Adolfo Martinez of Iowa has an extensive criminal record, littered with arrests and convictions. In June, he stole a congregational church’s gay-pride flag and set it ablaze. In Iowa, as elsewhere, it is illegal to steal another’s property. It is also illegal to set such things on fire. Under Iowa law,

About the cabinet of newly elected President Barack Obama, the Los Angeles Times gushed in 2008: “Seldom has a presidential Cabinet included so many intellectual and political heavyweights. Obama’s other achievement is to have assembled such an impressive team with due deference to the need for an administration that ‘looks like America’ — Bill Clinton’s

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) walks out of a news conference along with her Democratic House committee chairs after the House of Representatives approved two counts of impeachment against President Donald Trump in the House Chamber on Capitol Hill, December 18, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) This excerpt is from episode 182 of The Editors. Rich: All right,

One hears a lot of talk about cancel culture these days, but little discussion of how a cultural movement goes about canceling itself. This is especially the case with feminism. The entire program is ruptured by flagrant violations of common sense and manifold contradictions it cannot resolve. One scarcely knows where to start in disentangling