From the Right
/Politics
An Alternative to Tariffs
Contrary to what some supporters of President Donald Trump claim and the President himself asserts, tariffs are not paid by foreign governments, but by the American people. Importers pay taxes on each part or whole product imported into the country. They then raise the price of goods to recoup the American people's cost.
The increased cost is...Read more
The Poisoning of the Democrat Mind
On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump stood in the House of Representatives and introduced DJ Daniel, a 13-year-old boy battling brain cancer who desperately wants to be a police officer. His local police department made DJ an honorary officer. Last year, a video went viral of people ridiculing DJ for proudly wearing his uniform. He went ...Read more
Understanding Even If Not Agreeing
In the United Nations, the United States sided with Russia, Belarus and North Korea -- three authoritarian regimes currently rampaging through parts of Ukraine -- against a General Assembly resolution that noted Russia as the aggressor in the Ukrainian invasion. China and Iran would not side with Russia on that resolution. It is a bad look for...Read more
Downsizing Happens
Chelsea Milburn is a disabled veteran of the United States Navy who, until recently, worked for the United States Department of Education. As part of cuts from the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, she has lost her job. On Wednesday, she appeared on the news and lamented, "They don't care about how this impacts me or people ...Read more
Elections Have Consequences
Republicans have never met a government program outside the Defense Department that they wanted to save. Democrats, outside the Defense Department, have never met a government program they wanted to close. With Donald Trump's election, the discrete niceties of Washington, D.C., have been pushed aside in favor of a Republican effort to shutter ...Read more
A Dunning-Kruger Plane Crash
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is in full force these days. It posits that those with less knowledge of a subject have more certainty about the subject. For example, a layman is far more certain about the big bang than the astrophysicist. The armchair aviation expert is far more certain of the plane crash cause than the aviator.
Tragedy struck on ...Read more
Press Victims
The American press corps covers Republican presidential administrations very differently from Democratic presidential administrations and covers Donald Trump's administration differently from everything. To the press, Donald Trump is a bad man -- a would-be authoritarian tyrant. Therefore, any policy is presumed to be bad, and it will be ...Read more
Entropy on the Right
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church, the fourth largest cathedral in the world, and unfinished. Begun in 1892, it is more exhibition hall than gathering for Christians. Given the rate of decline of the Episcopal Church, once called the Republican Party at prayer, it can safely be written that the last ...Read more
A Progressive Hellscape
"February was the wettest month in downtown Los Angeles since 1998. With over 12 inches of rain drenching the city, it was the fourth-wettest February -- and the seventh-wettest month overall -- in the city's nearly 150-year recorded history," said Judson Jones' report on Los Angeles' weather on March 2, 2024, in The New York Times. Just under...Read more
New Year, Same as the Old Year
The Romans set January as the first month of the year. Originally, March had been the start of the new year. But the early Roman kings, before the republic, moved it to coincide with Janus, a two-faced god who looked backward with an old face and forward with a young face. Julius Caesar realigned Roman governance around January being the start...Read more
A Light in the Darkness
The week before Christmas in 2006, on the same day I lost my job, doctors gave my wife six months to live. I had to be the one to break the news to her. I sat in her recovery room following a lung biopsy surgery, waited for her to be awake and aware, and told her the doctors discovered she had an aggressive form of cancer that had spread to ...Read more