In Beijing I had a friend and confidante, an academic who was a Communist Party member, and a Buddhist. In the capital city of what is arguably the most brainwashed and intellectually and morally barbarised country in the industrialised world, she was one of the tiny handful of marginally independent-minded and authentically inquisitive Mainland Chinese I have ever met. She was … [Read More]

In light of the demonstrated ability of Hugo Chavez and his “Bolivarian” compadres to come up with government regulations that sound like self-parody, but aren’t, I’m announcing an ongoing competition for the most “out-there” example of legislation that exemplifies the hubris of the self-deluded bureaucrat, who thinks he (or she) can command the tides to stop: the Hugo Chavez Award. And … [Read More]

Why not regulate everything? That seems to be the central canon of what Hugo Chavez calls “Bolivarianism,” which is Venezuelan for bollocks. Chavez started out as a nationalist, who pledged to clean up corruption, and opposition from the US boomeranged, propelling him into power. Shortly after that, however, he started to go off the rails, perhaps never having been fully on … [Read More]

The biggest scandal at the moment in Washington is a subset of the biggest scandal in Washington ongoing for decades. For the latter, read about it in the most important book on U.S. foreign policy in a long time, entitled The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by professors Mearsheimer and Walt, published this week, highlighted here Monday. For the former, … [Read More]

It’s alive, and it’s arrived! “Back to school” season is here.   It’s that time of year when merchants get downright giddy, as countless pint-sized shoppers peruse and purchase Hilary Duff backpacks, folders featuring beloved superheroes, shiny pencils, and eco-friendly attire. Meanwhile, moms and dads count down the days when a gas-guzzling banana-colored bus will arrive in the neighborhood (or ‘hood) … [Read More]

Last week, I reported that a number of newspapers had decided not to run a two-part storyline appearing in Berkeley Breathed’s comic-strip Opus (the reincarnation of his once wildly popular Bloom County).  In the comic, the main female character, Lola Granola (a name redolent with meaning), had decided to convert to radical Islam and had begun to wear a burqa.  According … [Read More]

The venerable, highbrow publisher—Farrar, Straus and Giroux—is publishing the bombshell book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy this week. In a recent blog entry, “The Lobby Strikes”, Justin Raimondo gave us a heads-up on the book. You may have wondered, as I have, if it was really necessary for researchers at Harvard and at the University of Chicago to do … [Read More]

In April of 1990 I visited Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg, where the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were executed by the Communists. My colleagues and I created a school for Boris Yeltsin and his people, teaching them how to win elections.  The director of the school requested that I return for a few weeks sometime during the year to … [Read More]

Unless I’m mistaken, the liberal-neocon establishment will black out my new book, on the conservative movement, with the same dogged malice it brought to bear against my previous five works, including a tome published in a prestigious series by Princeton. It is therefore important that I advertise my book on this website—and not only to help boost my sales. Unless my … [Read More]

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a relatively nascent conservative, if his public profession of political faith is to be believed, may have just received an unexpected boost to his campaign by, of all people, the deposed Idaho state chairman of his presidential effort: departing Senator Larry Craig.  As the entire free world now knows, Sen. Craig was arrested in an airport … [Read More]