Most Read from past 24 hours
Sometimes events converge in my life and explode into revelation. A few weeks ago, I edited an interview with Elizabeth Spalding, one of the founders and now the director of the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C. About this same time, I read Under a Cruel Star, Heda Kovály’s account of life in Czechoslovakia
READ MOREEighty-five percent of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, an AP-NORC survey found in June. Large majorities disapproved of the current administration’s handling of the pandemic, gun policy, and the economy. If we look at the road we have traveled to arrive at this point, we find that the GPS for
READ MOREIn the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden declared to the nation and world: “We are engaged anew in a great battle for freedom. A battle between democracy and autocracy.” On her trip to Taiwan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed Biden: “Today, the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America’s determination
READ MOREFive minutes and 47 seconds. That’s the length of the scene when Prime Minister Winston Churchill avails himself of the Underground, also called the Tube, in the film Darkest Hour (2017), a brief and fictitious cinematic interlude, yes, but one bulging with messages for us today. On boarding the carriage, as the English call it,
READ MOREIn a major reversal, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D–WV) struck a deal with Senator Chuck Schumer (D–NY) to enact a major climate, entitlement, and tax bill. This legislation has been praised by President Biden, Al Gore, and other proponents of highly progressive policies. Dubbed the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” Senate Democrats voted to pass
READ MOREPower kills. Absolute power kills too many to count. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin spoke with personal authority on the subject when he famously said, “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” To write about any one or more massacres for which Stalin was responsible, one must first answer the question, “Which
READ MORE