From the Right
/Politics
Honor Tyre Nichols with Real Reform
Driving to dinner on Sunday, I found myself suddenly surrounded by emergency vehicles. Fire trucks, police cars and ambulances seemed to converge from all directions. Had someone jumped off the bridge into the river?
I thought of that crush of rescuers when the video of Tyre Nichols' murder surfaced. What a split screen: On one hand, the total ...Read more
Lying to Parents about Trans Kids Hurts Kids
Imagine that you are the parent of a 15-year-old girl and discover that her school has been concealing her daytime behavior from you. Your daughter has joined a far-right Mormon spin-off cult, believes in plural marriage, has spoken of dropping out of school to get married, and declines to participate in physical education because wearing gym ...Read more
Why Johnny Might Finally Learn to Read
If you're a parent with kids in public school, you are doubtless aware of the roiling controversies about the teaching of critical race theory and about policies governing the participation of trans athletes in sports. Those things are not trivial, but you're probably not hearing much about a far more consequential matter: how schools are ...Read more
The Normalization of Marjorie Taylor Greene
During one of Kevin McCarthy's gauntlet of punishing votes, it was striking to see with whom he passed the time. There she was, dressed in sophisticated black, the member hailed as a "key ally" to the new speaker of the House: Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Her choice of color (in the past she has donned stark reds, whites or blues -- get it?) is ...Read more
It Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy
Here's a funny thing about the Freedom Caucus' insurrection against Kevin McCarthy, which on Tuesday denied him election as Speaker of the House on three consecutive ballots for the first time in a century. On the surface, it looks like the firebrands and zealots are in revolt against the GOP "establishment." But the reality is that the ...Read more
Greg Abbott: Scrooge
On Christmas eve in Washington, D.C., the temperature plunged to 15 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest on record. In our neighborhood, people were admonishing their neighbors for leaving dogs outside too long. "It's friggin' 15 degrees!"
And yet, the governor of Texas nonetheless decided to dump another 130 men, women and children -- some wearing ...Read more
The Naysayers are Wrong: Fusion Will Change the World.
A government laboratory, after decades of tireless effort and many a disappointment, announces that it has achieved the holy grail of green energy -- nuclear fusion ignition! And the response has been ... a damp squib.
A reporter at The Guardian sniffed that what happened at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was a "milestone event but not ...Read more
Do Americans Even Know How to Agree?
Paging through the latest survey research from More in Common, I came upon a phrase that deserves to be carved in stone: "conflict entrepreneurs." You know them. They are the arsonists who incessantly inflame every disagreement in order to boost their own "brands." They rile us up and deceive us about the danger of "the other side."
A ...Read more
The Right Needs Hunter Biden
The right is positively giddy over the so-called Twitter files. House Republicans called a press conference to declare that their very top priority will be investigating Hunter Biden's laptop. Rep. Elise Stefanik promised in July that if given the majority, Republicans would get "accountability" from the "Biden crime family." The victim ...Read more
Pro-Lifers Need a New Strategy
What is the pro-life movement? I've always imagined it to be broader than just efforts to make abortion illegal. In the wake of the 2022 elections, in which voters rejected candidates whose abortion postures were perceived as extreme, those who care about the welfare of unborn children might want to rethink their focus.
Arguably, the immediate ...Read more
What Ails the American Male?
Throughout most of Richard Reeves' excellent new book, "Of Boys and Men," I wasn't just nodding along; I was foot-stomping. As a culture, we remain stubbornly attached to the notion that girls and women need encouragement to bring them into full equality with males in school, in the workplace, in sports -- well, pretty much everywhere. There is ...Read more