A b****, or a mere piece of sh**?

Fans of the 1999 movie Pushing Tin will recall frenetic scenes of air traffic controllers working to keep airliners from colliding in crowded skies. The current reality, writes John Tierney in City Journal, is far worse. Control tasks at U.S. airports today are still exchanged using paper “flight strips”. In contrast to this “international disgrace”, writes Tierney, European and even Canadian control towers have gone nearly all-digital.

Perhaps the most scandalous government waste uncovered by Elon Musk’s controversial DOGE so far is in the US$80-billion-per-year U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), writes Rod Dreher in The European Conservative. USAID’s ideologically biased, morally corrupt antics range from funding transgender surgeries in Guatemala to undercutting conservative democracies in Europe to subsidizing left-wing media outlets within the U.S. What Musk and Trump are aiming at, writes Dreher, is nothing less than “gutting the globalist hydra by cutting off its lifeblood: U.S. government funding.”

In Commonplace, Nicholas Phillips takes on the new trope that import tariffs serve the interests of the “deep state” that populists want to dismantle. It’s the opposite, Phillips argues: the current regime of “free” trade (in fact, heavily rules-bound and highly unequal) has been concocted main by unelected officials and little-known bureaucratic agencies – the deep state’s very pillars. They are now terrified by a democratically elected, pro-tariff President and are grasping for ways to avoid losing control.

Daniel J. Mahoney in the American Mind boldly predicts that with his magnificent Second Inaugural Address, Donald Trump is headed for greatness. The centrepiece, writes Mahoney, is the new President’s full-throated, across-the-board campaign to drive out ideological leftism, “a creed based on an unholy ideological trinity: borderless globalism, environmental eschatology and puritan wokery” including “racist ‘anti-racism’.”

The rampage of rape, torture, murder and destruction by Hamas in October 2023 involved children as young as 10 setting fire to Israeli houses, reminds Caroline Glick at Jewish News Syndicate. With such hatred motivating one side, Glick predicts, no “ceasefire” “deal” can possibly hold. Israel must win this war by eradicating Hamas – or risk its own annihilation.

Among the worst of his quickly-lengthening list of outrages, say critics, is Donald Trump’s vow to end “birthright citizenship”, by which women who enter the U.S. illegally and give birth there claim U.S. citizenship for their child, themselves and, in many cases, other family members. While the Constitutional jurisprudence is admittedly complicated, John Daniel Davidson writes in the Federalist that Trump is right to try to stamp out this “pernicious” practice. 

The “chainsaw” taken by Argentina’s new-ish president, Javier Milei, to his battered nation’s bloated bureaucracy, catastrophic finances and – perhaps most important – failed leftist governing dogmas has worked magic. As David Harsanyi notes in Jewish World Review, Argentina’s public service has shrunk by tens of thousands, the budget is nearly in balance, inflation has plunged, trade is reviving and wages are inching up. The lessons for Canada and the U.S. are clear.

Sumantra Maitra in The American Conservative illuminates the revival of American expansionism spearheaded by the new President. But this 21st century version, Maitra points out, is of a particular and limited scope: improved continental security, notably through a possible purchase of Greenland, and tighter ties with fellow members of the “Anglosphere”.

Noting the clear proof that women in sports cannot stand up to the battering inflicted upon them by genetically and physically male “trans” women, Ann Coulter on her Substack wonders why leftist women – including prominent Democrat politicians – continue to insist that women are the equal of men in army combat, policing and firefighting. The L.A. wildfires, America’s wildest female columnist notes, should end that conversation.

In the City Journal, John McMillian revives the case for the “broken windows” theory of policing, which emphasizes dealing with minor offences such as disorderly behaviour because, if left unpunished, such violations beget more and worse crimes. McMillian retells the history of broken windows’ stunningly successful implementation in New York City in the 1990s – and calls for the policy to be applied once again.

Frank Furedi in The European Conservative examines the conspiracy of silence by British MPs to suppress investigation into the nationwide gangs of Pakistani-Muslim rape gangs (euphemistically termed “groomers”). Furedi details how, in their craven desire to avoid appearing “racist” or “Islamophobic”, the MPs (along with local authorities and police) allowed these criminals free reign to commit horrendous crimes against innocent (and mostly white) British girls, teen-agers and women.

In Spiked, Kara Dansky reports on the recent U.S. Supreme Court hearing in United States v Skrmetti, in which the federal Department of Justice is challenging the State of Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormones for minors. Dansky scrutinizes the left’s inability to define critical terms like “gender” and “transgender”, and reflects on what the case’s outcome could mean not only for gender ideology but for girls and women.

In Law & Liberty, Bruce Gilley uses the bankruptcy of Spirit Airlines as a case study for the devastation when Marxist ideology, union greed, government bullying, bureaucracy, uncontrolled litigation and crony capitalism coalesce into what Gilley terms the “predatory” economy. The wresting of rights from shareholders, entrepreneurs, owners and managers, Gilley argues, has effectively nationalized the U.S. economy.

The barbaric slaughter of Jewish innocents by Hamas 15 months ago not only triggered a determined counter-attack, writes Caroline Glick at Jewish News Syndicate, it opened the way to a strategic victory for Israel over the enemies ringing it and, even more significantly, a kind of psychic “rebirth” or “resurrection” – Tkuma in Hebrew – of Israeli resolve, self-confidence and strategic independence from the U.S.

Lionel Shriver in Spiked celebrates the sudden stalling-out of wokism in U.S. workplaces, educational institutions and ordinary conversation. The toppling of the Democratic Party in the recent U.S. elections, Shriver believes, is enabling society to shake itself out of the decade-old woke spell. While warning that the task ahead remains vast and the risks steep, Shriver dares to be optimistic.

Instapundit’s Glenn H. Reynolds recounts how the left forced America’s population to submit to – and profess acceptance and belief in – woke ideology and identity politics. And how just as in past totalitarian regimes, the end to this tyranny by “preference falsification” came abruptly as regular people noticed they weren’t alone after all.

Eli Lake in The Free Press celebrates the defeat of Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad and notes the cynical, mendacious attempt by senile U.S. President Joe Biden to take credit for resolution of an unspeakably brutal war that he and predecessor Barack Obama had indulged and allowed to fester.

In the City Journal, E.J. McMahon bemoans New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to distribute “inflation refunds” of surplus sales tax revenue to middle/lower-income state residents. Inflation-indexing the state’s income tax code, McMahon notes, would be fairer and more effective – as well as ongoing – but instead Hochul is doling out one-time cash to her voting base.

Meghan Murphy reveals in Spiked the precipitous fall of transgender ideology in public esteem. According to Murphy, this has nudged many die-hard transgenderites to adopt a “moderate” stance with “nuanced views”. Murphy hopes this opportunistic shift will wake up even more people to the lies at the core of trans propaganda.

In City Journal, John Tierney laments the scientific community’s descent into partisan politics and propaganda. Tierney sees hope for scientific integrity and academic freedom, however: U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Covid dissident Jay Bhattacharya for director of the very National Institutes of Health that colluded with social media to suppress Bhattacharya’s views throughout the pandemic.

Joel Kotkin in the American Mind reports on the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the left’s ranks. Quite simply, writes Kotkin, the left has betrayed the Jews, with so-called “progressives” now calling for the destruction of Israel and allying with Muslims who rally in the streets of Western cities promising “death to the Jews.”

In City Journal, Christopher F. Rufo unmasks the U.S. federal government’s prodigious spending on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Rufo details how a web of moralistically preening consulting firms have billed billions for things like training “on the brain science of inclusion” or “anti-racism analytics tools”, and how the DEI ideology – as bad as it always was – has degenerated into yet another money-grubbing racket.

Brendan O’Neill reports in Spiked on last week’s decision by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – something O’Neill regards as a direct threat against Israel’s right to defend itself. He also details the crass hypocrisy of Israel’s neighbours who despite having committed demonstrable atrocities and even genocide make a spectacle of demanding “justice”.

Harrison Pitt in The European Conservative shows how the UK’s recently elected Labour Party intends to crush farmers. Among other things, Keir Starmer’s government intends to implement a 20 percent inheritance tax on agricultural assets worth £1 million or more. Tallis details how this has caused widespread protest amongst British farmers who do not wish to lose their livelihoods.

In the wake of Amsterdam’s horrific “Jew hunt”, Rod Dreher reports in The European Conservative on the surrounding rise of violent crime in the Netherlands, describing the correlation between that phenomenon and growth in the country’s Muslim population. Dreher hopes that the U.S. Presidential election result will inspire Europeans to also free themselves from their “progressive” rulers.

In The Blade of Perseus, Victor Davis Hanson analyzes Democratic Party leaders’ embarrassing response to their defeat – especially their impulse to blame anyone but themselves and their vows to launch a new “resistance”. Hanson describes how the societal decay under President Joe Biden brought voters to a stark choice – and how they ignored the hectoring instructions of America’s elites.

Both sides of the political spectrum in the United States frequently accuse one another of being a threat to democracy. Writing for Law & Liberty, James Hankins argues that America’s government was not founded upon democracy per se, but on a (lower-case R) republican vision of ordered liberty and popular self-government. Hankins reviews America’s foundation and reminds readers of the intentions of the Founding Fathers for their new republic.

Joel Kotkin in Spiked reveals the reason for Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris’ seemingly spontaneous shift in policies: ever-more Americans, he writes, are wearying of woke/“progressive”/DEI ideologies. Finally recognizing their plunge in popularity, Kotkin writes, Harris and her campaign are attempting – insincerely, of course – to distance themselves from their once-loudly proclaimed principles.

In The Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg explores the difficulty of clearly defining the often-raised but ever-elusive concept of fascism. Discussing varying versions and analyzing historical regimes unanimously deemed fascist, Goldberg offers the view that fascism is a “political religion” with the simple, maximalist goal of securing as much power as possible.

John O. McGinnis reports in the City Journal on the rise of civic-education colleges at universities across the U.S. These schools, McGinnis describes, are attempting to correct for the painful failings of today’s universities by busting open the left-wing echo chamber and creating a space for free and genuine academic discussion.