Politics

After attending NatCon, the recent National Conservatism conference featuring academics, wonks, theologians, and politicians like Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, and Ron DeSantis, I realized there are two factions within American conservatism: Team Frodo and Team Boromir. Readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring remember Frodo as the hobbit tasked with destroying the Ring of Power lest it fall into the hands of the evil Sauron. Boromir was the traveling companion who urged Frodo to let him use the Ring’s power against their enemies. “Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need?” he asked. “Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy.

The Supreme Court is poised to grant a victory to religious conservatives via the First Amendment in blocking recognition of an LGBT club at Yeshiva University. Yeshiva is a Jewish law school which objects to the club on religious grounds. This is important news for other religious schools across America facing similar legal challenges. Though the Court as an intermittent step referred the case back to the lower courts as Yeshiva University v. YU Pride Alliance, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Comey Barrett made no bones in their dissent that they would stand with the First Amendment when the full case comes before the Supreme Court, as it is expected the lower courts will demand Yeshiva recognize and fund the club.

Biden, Meloni and the meaning of democracy Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser on Wednesday night, Joe Biden delivered a familiar message about democracy. The fight between “democracy and autocracy” is domestic and international, he said. “Democracy is at stake,” he warned and, as evidence of the global threats to democracy he said, “you saw what’s happened in Italy in that election.” As you have probably read by now, the result of that election was that Italy now has its most conservative prime minister since World War Two: Giorgia Meloni, the triumphant leader of the Brothers of Italy Party. And the US president’s response to that outcome demonstrates the problem with the “democracy versus autocracy” prism through which he views the world.

You have to wonder what Liz Cheney feels her relationship to the Republican Party to be today. Having spent years denouncing Donald Trump as a faux Republican and a disgrace to the party, much of the past year implicitly accusing him of treason as vice-chair of the January 6 Committee and the two months since her defeat in the Wyoming primary characterizing half (at least) of the GOP as “very sick,” she is co-sponsoring a bill with Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, to reform the Electoral Count Act in order to “protect the rule of law and ensure that future efforts to attack the integrity of presidential elections can’t succeed.” Representative Lofgren was one of seven impeachment managers in President Trump’s trial for his first impeachment in 2020.

It's always easier to break something than to build it. Joe Biden broke the immigration control system that he'd inherited from Donald Trump and that had been built up over several administrations of both parties. Rebuilding it after Biden's vandalism will take time. Even if Republicans win the majority in both houses of Congress in November, it will take a change in administration before any real reconstruction can begin. With more than 2 million "encounters" with illegal border-crossers over the past year, more than any year in history, restoring order may seem like an insuperable task. But as we saw right after Trump's election and during the first months of his presidency, a simple expression of will can have a huge influence on prospective illegal aliens and their smugglers.

Could Putin go nuclear?  When national security adviser Jake Sullivan warned of “catastrophic consequences” for Russia if it uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine on ABC News’s Sunday Show, This Week, he was acknowledging that the war in Ukraine has entered a dangerous new phase. The warning, he said, had been communicated “directly, privately to the Russians at very high levels.” And it comes after Vladimir Putin, having suffered major territorial setbacks in Eastern Ukraine, last week announced a partial mobilization, called up reservists and made a nuclear threat that was more immediate and explicit than he has done in the past. In what amounts to a redrawing of Putin’s red line, Russia is in the process of annexing parts of Ukraine. Sham referenda were held last week.

Hillary Clinton recently took a timeout from being a tote bag salesperson (which I guess is a close second to losing the presidency to Donald Trump) to make a comment about abortion and guns. In a tweet earlier this week, she declared, “I’ll say it again: It shouldn't be harder to obtain an abortion than an AR-15.” She then returned to selling merchandise, which, I’ll say again, is a close second to losing to Donald Trump. I’m here to tell Mrs. Clinton that these terms are acceptable. Abortions nationwide should be as easy as obtaining an AR-15. The pro-life movement should begin working on implementation immediately. Because here's what Hillary Clinton is really demanding from anyone who wants to have an abortion: first, a full legal federal criminal background check.

Fancy a touch of wokeness on your lunch break? If you work in the United States Senate, you might be in luck. One of Cockburn's many Capitol Hill spies snapped a photo today that gave him quite the chuckle. The Senate cafeteria is hosting a "Latinx brunch" in celebration of "Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month," which apparently runs from September 15 to October 15. [caption id="attachment_40221" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Senate cafeteria hosts ‘Latinx’ brunch (Photo credit: The Spectator)[/caption] The brunch, located in the Dirksen cafe, features classic Latin meats and dishes such as chorizo, fried plantains, Salvadoran beans and rice, and black beans. The menu also includes something called "Pirujo Frances", but a Google search didn't return a useful translation.

New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, three of his adult children, and other senior members of the Trump Organization on Wednesday. Her suit alleges business and insurance fraud as well as conspiracy for the same, and marks the end of a three-year investigation into Trump and his business. The civil suit is basically a civil version of the criminal indictments the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the Manhattan and New York State attorneys general have failed to generate at the federal and state levels.