Gage Klipper

Gage Klipper is a writer based in New York. Previously, he was the culture critic at the Daily Caller and an editor at Pirate Wires.

Thursday

Gage Klipper

RFK Jr. triggers Vax War Two

From our US edition

Throughout COVID, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ aggressive leadership made Florida the national model for resisting vaccine tyranny. But Vax War Two is coming, and the state seems to have chosen the inevitably losing side. Florida now aims to eliminate vaccine mandates altogether, including those long required for children to attend school like the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. If the move goes through, Florida would become the first state in the nation to do so. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said of the mandates Wednesday in a press conference alongside DeSantis. “Who am I as a government – or as anyone else – as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?

RFK Jr.

Tuesday

Gage Klipper

True winners steal from children

From our US edition

“Sack of garbage,” “common thief,” “shameful jerk” – but a few of the choice words tennis fans had for the man who swiped an autographed hat from a child at the US Open over the weekend. Sure, the alleged thief is no saint. But now that he’s reportedly been identified as a self-made millionaire, I’d rather just call him a shark. The video of the courtside incident quickly went viral, showing a grown man snatch the hat away as Polish tennis star Kamil Majchrzak passed it up to a boy who pleaded in vain. The internet did as it wont, and identified the alleged thief as pavement plutocrat and fellow Pole, Piotr Szczerek. What is this world coming to? A man can’t even steal from a child anymore without having his whole life dissected by an internet mob.

Kamil Majchrzak

Wednesday

Gage Klipper

Worse than woke, Smithsonian art is bad

From our US edition

There’s a common myth in American culture that only the left is capable of producing great art. Right-wing art must be formulaic and preachy because it values established norms, while only transgressive leftism can reach new frontiers of form – or so we’re told. But what happens when the left’s own norms become dominantly rigid?Well, you wind up with the 20 exhibits that the Trump administration now rightly aims to purge from the Smithsonian’s sprawling array of museums, along with many other abuses. Since his inauguration, Trump has worked to rid wokeness from our cultural institutions through executive order, prompting leftist outrage against a so-called “attack” on the arts.

Smithsonian

Monday

Gage Klipper

Zohran’s embarrassing scavenger hunt

From our US edition

I still look back fondly on my 10th birthday party – a cute little scavenger hunt through the landmarks of Central Park. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to waste a peaceful Sunday afternoon reliving those glory days 20-odd years later.  Zohran Mamdani is cut from a different cloth, it seems. New York’s socialist soon-to-be mayor hosted his very own campaign-themed “Zcavenger Hunt” on Sunday, and thousands of over-worked (or unemployed?) New Yorkers seemingly had nothing better to do than embrace their inner whimsy.  Mamdani announced the event on Saturday in typical fashion – a highly produced video clip poking fun at his opponents.

Thursday

Gage Klipper

South Park has lost the plot

From our US edition

Since 1997, South Park has satirized just about every group in modern life while hilariously positioning itself as the voice of moderation. Yet with the premier of Season 27 last week, the show seems to have lost sight of reality, instead circling the drain of MSNBC-style political delirium. Far from rejecting the extremes of American politics, the shows repositions leftist extremism as the new moderation.  The new season’s first episode shows the Principal, who was once politically correct, embrace devout Christianity in an America where wokeness is effectively illegal and Christian Nationalism reigns supreme. The town’s adults are annoyed to see public schools foist religion on the kids, so they organize their usual rabble-rousing resistance.

South Park

Thursday

Gage Klipper

The doctor will kill you now

From our US edition

It’s the stuff of nightmares. You wake up on a cold metal table, fully conscious but unable to move or communicate as masked figures prep you for some unknown procedure – it turns out to be your last. This isn’t the plot of a Criminal Minds episode, but quite possibly a far too common reality in an American medical system that seeks to harvest organs from donors who are very much alive. It’s the latest example of modern progressive institutions committing harm in the name of help. A recent New York Times investigation revealed the disturbing lengths procurement agencies go to retrieve organs. Historically, organ donation occurred only from patients declared brain-dead, an “irreversible state.

Organ transplant in Paris (Getty)

Monday

Gage Klipper

LinkedIn is one big re-education camp

From our US edition

You just graduated college – time to find a job, buck-o. Print out those resumes, and hit the streets hungry. Pass them out to everyone and anyone. Be willing to do what others won’t. Landed your first gig? Show up each morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, no matter how humiliating, and consistently go above and beyond. But most importantly, stay true to yourself. This is the bumper sticker “job advice” boomers have been giving to successive generations for the last 50 years. It’s arguable how useful it ever was, even in their own time. But it’s not until LinkedIn that this contrived work ethic became formalized and permanentized in the digital square – so much so that we’re forced to ask, will we ever have a normal job culture again?

LinkedIn

Saturday

Gage Klipper

The real scandal of Zohran Mamdani’s college application

From our US edition

While the fact that Zohran Mamdani had identified as black on his Columbia University application stole the headlines, the hack that exposed this information highlighted something much more insidious in the college admissions system.Admitting the accuracy of the leaked data, Mamdani claimed that he was simply trying “to capture the fullness of [his] background” by checking the “Black or African American” box in 2019. New Yorkers raised an eyebrow. But what would have alarmed them more was the revelation buried in the trove of hacked data: that affirmative action is alive and well in America. The leak of Columbia’s admissions data demonstrates that, even after the Supreme Court ruled affirmative action policies unconstitutional in SFFA v.

Mamdani

Monday

Gage Klipper

Europe’s favorite novelty is causing pile-ups in the US

From our US edition

Talk to a Brit about their preference in social structures, and the first thing they'll likely tell you, as an American, is that you’re wrong. Whether it’s healthcare or guns, public transport or urban walkability, the American way of being is often at odds with our English cousins, and indeed the rest of the Europe. While we mostly resist conforming, the quietly irksome traffic circle – or, yeesh, “roundabout” – is quickly taking root in America’s vast suburban sprawl. And you could soon find yourself in a pile-up before you even know it. Europe’s favorite novelty is still relatively rare in America, but they are springing up fast. The UK has over 25,000 roundabouts, while the entire US has only about 11,000. Yet that figure has doubled over the last ten years.

roundabout turning circle