Column

This week, an anonymous leaker violated generations of Supreme Court norms by passing on to Politico a draft decision by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Mississippi, the case considering overturning Roe v. Wade (1973).

As with many things, propaganda can be used for good or for ill, depending on who dispenses it. During World War II, American propaganda was considered a necessary tool in the pursuit of victory in a moral cause. Germany and Japan had their own propaganda machines to advance an evil agenda. The Nazi propaganda effort was headed by Joseph Goebbels to whom the term “The Big Lie,” meaning if one…

Washington — I do not go to the movies. Oh, I go to reruns of “The Godfather,” “The Godfather: Part II” and “The Godfather: Part III.” (There was a “Godfather: Part III,” was there not?) I got a little tired of all those Italians eating pasta and killing each other. Seriously, I was raised in the suburbs of Chicago, and I grew up with the children of mafiosi. To this day, I am amazed at how…

George Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” has arrived and the Left’s demand for outright fascism steps up. America’s “Ministry of Truth” was announced this week by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The official title of this Orwellian confection is the “Disinformation Governance Board” and its executive director is one Nina Jankowicz. 

Comedy’s grand gala turns into an embarrassing display of chutzpah. Imagine gathering the biggest names in comedy and leaving out an existential threat to creative freedom. The minds behind the Mark Twain Prize organized just such an effort Sunday to fete Jon Stewart for its latest honors.

This week, in one of the most shocking business moves in recent memory, Twitter reversed itself and decided to sell itself after all to Elon Musk, who paid some $44 billion for the privilege. The move was made, at least in part, for ideological reasons; Musk has been vocally critical of Twitter's management of information flow.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a bill passed by the Republican-majority legislature that revokes a special tax exemption and other privileges for Walt Disney World in Orlando. This was in response to the company’s current leadership and some of its employees who have protested another bill signed by the governor that prohibits the teaching of gender issues in kindergarten through…

“And they’re off,” as the callers of horse races say, but in this case, it means the government will no longer enforce mask mandates on airplanes, trains, buses, subways and other forms of public transportation. U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a judge for the Middle District of Florida, said the rule exceeded the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

Not good. The headline in The New York Times this past week was this: "CNN+ Streaming Service Will Shut Down Weeks After Its Start; A major investment by CNN, which poached big-name anchors and threw a splashy launch party, ends abruptly at the hands of a new corporate leadership team."

Apolitical comic shreds crime-ridden Big Apple, home of NBC franchise. Comedians can’t be everywhere at once. If something happens in their own backyard, though, those excuses fade away. Ryan Long may be Canadian by birth, but the comedian has lived in New York long enough to state the obvious. It’s more like Escape from New York these days.

I really am flummoxed by the ineptitude of President Joe Biden and his chief of staff, Ron Klain. Biden has been a Washington politician for half a century, including eight years as vice president and before that a senior senator. Klain is a consummate Washington insider, having worked for Janet Reno, Al Gore, Biden and others. How are they this inept? Last summer, the border got swamped with…

The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, recently purchased a 9% stake in Twitter, the social media platform that permanently banned former President Donald Trump and that conservatives accuse of suppressing their content. Musk's purchase made him Twitter's largest shareholder, and he vowed to take it over, possibly to turn it into a private company.

The media's ignorance about basic economics is galling. I expect it from politicians. I expect it from The New York Times. But it's sad to see in the New York Post, my town's rare alternative to Democrat media. Recently the tabloid freaked out over higher prices imposed by ride-share companies. “New Yorkers are fed up with forking over excessive amounts for Uber and Lyft…

Americans who subscribe to “traditional values” have had to put up with a lot from the left in the name of the First Amendment. From vulgarities on TV (self-described First Amendment defenders said things like, “If you don’t like, it change the channel”), to sexual scenes in movies (“If you don’t like it, don’t go”), to the ready availability of pornography on the internet (“use blockers if…