Society

The FBI has arrested Chauncey Billups, NBA champion, Hall of Famer, and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for his association in a rigged poker game operated by some of New York City’s most notorious crime family. “Why would Chauncey do it?” the world of sports is asking. He’s already worth tens of millions of dollars. That’s a question for Billups, his attorneys, his God, and, presumably, Blazers ownership to answer. But as someone who regularly plays a lot of low and micro-stakes poker, I have a pretty good idea. The games I play in are monitored by security cameras, with armed guards at the exits in case people get out of line. When I play in World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour events, there are a strict set of rules by which the vast majority of players abide.

In 2021, for the first time in 1,400-odd years, Britain ceased to have a Christian majority. The United Kingdom, the political entity of which the island of Great Britain has been a part since 1801, has had its share of not-quite-Christian prime ministers over the years, with a handful of agnostics and quiet atheists. But in 2022, for the first time, the UK had a prime minister who practiced a non-Christian religion – and Hinduism had the distinction of claiming the first post-Christian head of state, Rishi Sunak. The West’s ethnic and religious foundations have already shifted in our great cities It may be some time before an American president is Hindu. Already, however, there are several prominent Hindus in the Trump orbit and near the top of the Republican party.

There was a time when Wikipedia felt like a miracle: a spontaneous, self-governing lexicon arising from the turbid chaos of the web. No editors kept gates, no gilded towers barred entrance, no one had power to impose a worldview, it was all done by thousands of neutral volunteers harvesting and serving the world’s knowledge, onto a digital platter. And their sheer numbers – it was hoped – would preserve accuracy and objectivity. The same way a crowd has more wisdom than the individual.However, as the years pass, that illusion of noble neutrality has shattered. And a clear and maybe terminal tilt to the left has revealed itself. As Wiki-founder Larry Sanger lamented in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, the Wikipedia he wanted has long gone.

On Tuesday evening, the Illinois pope weighed in on Illinois politics. A reporter from the Catholic news outlet EWTN asked Pope Leo XIV about the Archdiocese of Chicago’s decision to award Senator Dick Durbin with a “lifetime achievement award” for his work advocating for immigrants coming to America. “Some people of faith are having a hard time with understanding this because [Durbin] is for legalized abortion,” the reporter said. How should Catholics feel about that? “I am not terribly familiar with the particular case,” the Pope conceded, speaking in English. Then he spoke more broadly, and vaguely, about what it means to be “pro-life”. “Someone who says ‘I am against abortion’ but says ‘I am in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life,” he said.

In Texas, empty church classrooms might just become new schools. On September 1, the state enacted the most expansive school voucher program in America. It will allow eligible families to receive up to $10,900 annually per student to be spent on private school tuition, or up to $2,000 to be spent on homeschooling. Students with disabilities could receive up to $30,000. The number of states with school voucher schemes is unclear, but governors across the country must decide whether to join President Trump’s new federal private-school choice program - the first national scheme, approved by Congress in July. In a recent study, economists Douglas N.

Florida Representative Randy Fine and Texas Representative Keith Self introduced the “No Sharia Act” last weekend in the U.S. House of Representatives “to ensure that no U.S. court, public agency, or legal institution can ever enforce or legitimize Sharia law. On X, Congressman Fine wrote, “You don’t get to come to this country and demand that our legal system accommodate your oppressive laws.” Meanwhile, Texas has operated as ground zero for the fight. On September 12, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared on September 8 that Sharia law was illegal in Texas. In a post on Facebook the Governor wrote: “In Texas, we believe in equal rights under the law for all men, women, & children. Any legal system that flouts human rights is BANNED in the state of Texas.

Are these the End Times? It certainly feels that way. Algorithmic demons are rewiring our brains. A young father is shot and killed, and people cheer. A woman is stabbed on a train, and no one tries to help her. The horrifying videos of these incidents are then watched millions of times over, often by children. The God in whom America trusts seems nowhere to be found. Can’t you hear the Antichrist knocking? Peter Thiel can. Not so long ago, no public figure outside of the kookier Evangelical universe would have dared admit such a thing, but times have changed.