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

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

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

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

Central American migrants walk during their journey towards the United States in Villa Comaltitlan, Mexico, April 18, 2019. (Jose Cabezas/Reuters) Mexican authorities on Monday detained hundreds of Central American migrants in groups straggling at the end of a caravan of thousands moving towards the U.S. border. As many as 500 migrants traveling with the caravan of

Those of us of a certain age will remember a cartoon called Beavis and Butthead that ran on MTV. What made Beavis and Butthead funny — and embarrassing — was how perfect a caricature of 13-year-old boys it was, at the age when exploiting syntactic ambiguities was comedy and tricking your friends into purported admissions

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.) speaks at an Organizing Event in Claremont, N.H., January 18, 2019. (Brian Snyder/Reuters) Her latest batty idea is up on her Medium page today: It’s time for bold action to actually fix the debt crisis. Here’s what my new plan would do: • It cancels $50,000 in student loan debt for every

President Trump speaks during a meeting of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, April 4, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Many, many people have observed that the Mueller report offers example after example of Trump’s aides saving him from bad decisions by ignoring them. It’s an accurate generalization, and I’ve made it myself. But it seems

I’ve finished reading the entire Mueller report, and I must confess that even as a longtime, quite open critic of Donald Trump, I was surprised at the sheer scope, scale, and brazenness of the lies, falsehoods, and misdirections detailed by the Special Counsel’s Office. We’ve become accustomed to Trump making up … Read More

That has been a policy dispute for many years, going back at least to 1980 as Indiana University professor Fabio Rojas reminds us in this Martin Center piece. In it, Rojas argues in favor of an open-doors policy, treating children of undocumented immigrants no differently than anyone else. Rojas writes: People should be judged on

Attorney General William Barr takes part in the “2019 Prison Reform Summit” at the White House, April 1, 2019. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) The current progressive effort to demonize attorney general William Barr is creepy, but then again not so strange. He came into the office with singular experience and an excellent reputation from past service. As

(Tyrone Siu/REUTERS) 2006—In Harper v. Poway Unified School District, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit rules that the First Amendment permits schools to impose viewpoint-discriminatory restrictions on student speech. The case arose when Tyler Harper wore an anti-homosexuality T-shirt to his high school in response to the school’s sponsorship of a gay-rights event. The

(Leah Millis/Reuters) If I may jump in, I take Charlie’s point and I think he’s largely correct. I also think David is correct. There’s not that much of a contradiction in that because I think to some extent they’re talking about different things. And this reflects a larger frustration I have with many of the Mueller/collusion arguments. Charlie

Attorney General William Barr (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) Barr has provided Congress with the full, at times gory details drawn from Mueller’s aggressive investigation. Democrats and their media partners owe Bill Barr an apology. He won’t get one, it goes without saying. Just to recap, the attorney general was accused of misrepresenting Mueller’s report; of providing a

Looking back ten years, it’s a toss-up as to whether I found the Tea Party or the Tea Party found me. In 2009, I was still very much a Republican team player, but my frustration with the party was growing. I’d lined up firmly behind President George W. Bush after 9/11, but by Election Day

The Mueller report puts a spotlight on the composite nature of the Trump presidency, which is a constant negotiation between Trump and his aides about what decisions are. The question whether they are truly final and what they truly mean is always up for grabs, with Trump getting his way when his aides agree with

Attorney General William Barr, flanked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, speaks at a news conference to discuss Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report in Washington, D.C., April 18, 2019. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) So much for collusion. The media conversation has now officially moved on from the obsession of the last two years to obstruction of justice.

Rep. Steny Hoyer on Capitol Hill in 2018. (Toya Sarno Jordan/Reuters) Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Thursday that he has seen nothing in the final version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report that would make it worthwhile for House Democrats to impeach President Trump. “Based on what we have seen to date,

House Speaker designate Nancy Pelosi speaks to reporters in Washington, D.C., December 11, 2018. (Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS) The Democratic leaders in the House and Senate called Thursday for Attorney General William Barr to testify publicly before Congress about what they called his “regrettably partisan handling” of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on the Russia investigation. House