Nourishing the Soul Through Sweat, Toil and Endurance

Those looking forward to America’s collapse in the face of an ascendant China are likely to be disappointed, writes Victor Davis Hanson at The Blade of Perseus. Examining a range of revealing metrics, trends and recent events, Hanson pronounces the U.S. the true “crouching tiger, hidden dragon”. America can be “sluggish” and “naïve,” admits Hanson, “but historically, its innately resilient free people, singular constitutional government, robust federalism, and free-market economy eventually wake up to the next rising threat.”

In City Journal, Ramon Maislen explains that solving a housing affordability crisis – New York City’s in this case – depends on driving down the costs of bringing new units onto the market. Civic governments can’t control interest rates, but they can cut red tape, local taxes and constraints on construction companies. “If we want lower rents,” Maislen observes, “we need more housing. And if we want more housing, the math needs to add up for the people who build it.”

The descent into moral depravity of what was once the world’s foremost daily newspaper continues with the NYT’s publication of a column by Nicholas Kristof that treats as fact accusations by Hamas supporters that Israeli security personnel are raping Palestinian prisoners using objects and a specially trained “rape dog”. As Adam Kredo points out in The Washington Free Beacon, Kristof’s career features a series of calamitous reality-inversions. His latest appears timed to overshadow a meticulously detailed Israeli report on Hamas’ systematic sexual barbarism against Israeli women, men and children on and after October 7, 2023.