The Spectator World • 14th April 2024

What Iran’s attack on Israel means for the Jewish state, America and the region

Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel Saturday night represents a dangerous escalation for three reasons. The first is its scale, some 300 drones and missiles. Second, it marks the first time the Islamic Regime has launched a lethal attack on Israeli territory from Iran itself, rather than through proxies. Most important of all is the combination of the first two: a major attack launched against Israel from Iranian territory. Although Israel, the US, the UK and, surprisingly, Jordan managed to s

Real Clear Politics • 8th April 2024

Who Should Compete in Women's Sports?

The issue is not whether transgender people deserve the same respect given to all individuals. Of course, they deserve that respect. The issue is not whether transgender athletes can compete in sports. Of course, they can. The issue is WHO they should compete against. The crucial issue here is that it is simply unfair to ask biological women to compete against transgender women in sports where strength and body composition matter.

The Spectator World • 1st April 2024

The Biden White House’s Beltway elitism shows on Easter

Among the many political advantages of the presidency, surely one is the ability to extend warm wishes to Christians, Jews and Muslims on their holidays. It’s a golden opportunity to invite a few for pictures at the White House and explain how much the holiday has always meant to you. Easy-peasy. For a Catholic president such as Joe Biden, expressing solidarity with co-religionists on Easter ought to be a well-practiced routine.

It took genuine incompetence and obtuseness for the Biden White Ho

Real Clear Politics • 26th March 2024

Law and Order is a Killer Problem for Democrats

Polling data shows Democrats are in deep trouble on the issues of domestic safety and unbiased justice. Voters say they want law and order and aren’t getting it. They want enforcement of criminal statutes duly passed by their representatives. They abhor favoritism for some and targeting for others. They want personal safety and basic fairness. They deserve them. And they are angry.

The Spectator World • 19th March 2024

Laken Riley’s murder and the long shadow of Willie Horton

The most effective ad ever made for a presidential election featured a violent, career-criminal, Willie Horton, walking out of a Massachusetts prison on a weekend pass. On one of those passes, he went on another vicious crime spree. George H. W. Bush used those crimes — and the lax policies that let Horton roam the country — to destroy his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis.

The past is prologue. Once again, voters are worried about their safety and angry about the open-bo

The Spectator World • 14th March 2024

The thirty-two-hour work week: another of Bernie’s bad ideas

Bernie Sanders is the bottomless cup of bad ideas. He keeps refilling it. Take his latest venti, a law that says everybody gets to work thirty-two hours for forty hours pay. That’s a magical 25 percent pay increase. His next trick is to pull free steak dinners out of a hat.

What do you think would actually happen if such Bernie’s law were passed, enforced and found constitutional? (None of those would actually happen, of course.) The immediate effects would be another 25 percent price increase

The Spectator World • 11th March 2024

How Fani Willis trashed her reputation

Proof is mounting that the DA ① hired Nathan Wade as a special prosecutor when he was already her lover, ② showered him with public money, ③ never questioned his vaguely-worded bills,④ benefited from his income by traveling with him on lavish trips, and then ⑤ lied, under oath, about their relationship and the financial benefits she received from it. Willis and her office should be disqualified from the RICO case and investigated for multiple crimes of their own

The Spectator World • 6th March 2024

After Super Tuesday comes a spiteful campaign

Super Tuesday is over and so is the primary season. The parties’ nominees are now locked in. They were really locked in several weeks ago. Biden had no serious competition and Trump vanquished his two main rivals in the early voting.

Trump’s chief competitors were Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and Trump’s UN ambassador. The former president effectively clinched

The Telegraph • 4th March 2024

The Supreme Court have dealt the first blow against Democratic lawfare

SCOTUS has decided unanimously decided that states cannot choose which presidential candidates to keep off the ballot. The DoJ should follow up by ensuring its own attorneys do not interfere in the election by holding trials close to the November vote. The trials can easily be be postponed until mid-November.

The Spectator World • 28th February 2024

The message from Michigan

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump won overwhelming victories in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, but their undeniable success doesn’t answer the hard questions facing each candidate in the general election. They won’t get the answers next week on Super Tuesday, either, even though both candidates are expected to win easily.

What are those questions, on which victory in November depends? Oddly, some are the same for Biden and Trump. Can they recapture the reluctant wings of their party, the factions th

The Telegraph • 27th February 2024

It’s not Trump’s election to win – it’s Biden’s to lose

Now that Trump has effectively clinched the nomination, he faces a slew of major obstacles before November. Those range from court cases to raising campaign funds, from picking a running mate to consolidating support among Republicans and winning some Independents.

The Spectator World • 25th February 2024

Why Trump won South Carolina

So has Trump, and he left victorious.

The “primary show” will have a few encores, mainly on March 5 (Super Tuesday), when multiple states vote, but the outcome is certain. With his decisive win in South Carolina, Donald Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination. He easily defeated his last opponent, Nikki Haley, in her home state.

Trump’s victory there follows those in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Trump has carried every state. No one else has come close.

Why did Trump win? For

Real Clear Politics • 21st February 2024

How To Understand Trump's Jeremiad Against NATO Freeloaders

Donald Trump sent a shiver through official Washington and America’s friends around the world recently when he once again fulminated against NATO allies who refuse to pay for their own defense. His specific target was NATO members that failed to meet their pledge of spending at least 2% of their GDP on their military. Their “free riding,” he stressed, is costly to the U.S., Britain, Poland, and other NATO members who pay more than their share.

The problem is not a new one, nor an easy one to so

The Spectator World • 16th February 2024

Fani’s ‘personal relationship’ sinks her and her office

Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, went down in flames on Thursday. A crematorium wouldn’t have been more efficient. Her angry, self-righteous defense added a load of fossil fuel to the conflagration.

It happened at a judicial hearing before Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the election-interference case Willis brought against Donald Trump and eighteen codefendants. The district attorney charged them with acting jointly to overturn the 2020 US presidential e

The Spectator World • 11th February 2024

The stalemate on illegal immigration

Few moments are less promising to reach a bipartisan deal than the months before a presidential election. And few issues present greater obstacles than limiting illegal immigration. Even the word “illegal” is contested. Progressives say it is too harsh. Conservatives say it is simply truthful.

It is no surprise, then, that the compromise “border-security bill” gasped its final breath this week. The Senate bill, negotiated by a Democrat, a Republican and an Independent, met a hostile reception a

Real Clear Politics • 6th February 2024

FaniGate and the American Way of Scandal

To qualify as a first-rate American political scandal, the escapade should include three juicy elements: sex, money, and the abuse of power. Fani Willis and Nathan Wade hit the trifecta.

The Telegraph • 1st February 2024

The Gaza-Egypt border is Israel's unsolved problem

That demilitarized zone, known as the “Philadelphi Corridor,” was established in the 1979 Egypt-Israeli treaty. Hamas uses it as a vital smuggling route.

The Spectator World • 29th January 2024

Both parties are fumbling the border debate

Given just how unpopular illegal immigration is, it is stunning to see both the likely nominees for president fumbling the issue. That’s political malpractice.

For Biden, the malpractice consists not only in keeping the border open, which is already killing him in the polls, but in resisting the strongest Republican proposals to close it. Every time Republican congressional leaders visit the White House to negotiate, they come away empty handed.

In stiff-arming the Republican proposals, the Wh

The Spectator World • 24th January 2024

Why is Nikki Haley staying in the race?

In classic cartoons, one character occasionally runs off the edge of the cliff and, for a few moments, hangs suspended in mid-air. Confused, he looks at the camera and then looks down. As soon as he looks down and realizes there is no Earth supporting him, he plummets to the bottom of the canyon. Wile E. Coyote faces that fate repeatedly.

Nikki Haley faces it now. So far, she’s refusing to look down. When she finally does, she will see that there is no ground beneath her in the Republican prima

The Telegraph • 23rd January 2024

Biden has bigger problems than New Hampshire

The beleaguered president is in for a world of trouble in November – but polls show him well ahead in New Hampshire, even as a write-in. A victory wouldn’t mean much, but a defeat or very weak support certainly would. Biden is likely to escape those pitfalls and go on to win easily in South Carolina, the party-approved “first primary.”

The Spectator World • 22nd January 2024

How Ron DeSantis crashed and burned

“Many are called, but few are chosen.” That verse from Matthew (22:14) certainly applies to presidential aspirants. The latest to be called but not chosen is Ron DeSantis, who ended his campaign Sunday. Technically, he “suspended” the campaign, but that was simply to comply with campaign finance laws. In practice, the run is over.

The campaign was a brief, unsuccessful effort by a candidate who began with high promise, based on his success as Florida governor. He won that office, just barely, i

The Spectator World • 18th January 2024

How Trump captured his party

Vintage news outlets, with lots of time to kill & space to fill, are desperately trying to say the Republican primary contest is still open. It’s not.

The Spectator World • 9th January 2024

Lloyd Austin’s mistake should be career-ending

The disappearance of defense secretary Lloyd Austin for a few days without notifying the White House, or even the second in command at the Pentagon, is more than a one- or two-day story. It’s a much larger problem. It’s a problem politically for the White House, an opportunity for Republicans, a dilemma for congressional Democrats and a problem for the most powerful military in the world. And, of course, it’s a major problem for Secretary Austin’s future in the position.

The Spectator World • 4th January 2024

Claudine Gay may be gone, but the issues on campus remain

Claudine, we hardly knew ye. Gay’s tenure atop Harvard was the shortest in that university’s history. Yet it was still too long. In mere months, she did enormous damage to one of the world’s great universities.

Gay is not the only one who should be held accountable for this fiasco. The university’s governing board, the Fellows of Harvard Corporation, should be out, too. They chose her, and their choice did enormous damage to the institution. They should pay for it. Their statement accepting her