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Nostalgia Machine
Nostalgia Machine
10 hrs

21 Nostalgic Christmas Time Things Children Of The 80s Will Remember
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pleated-jeans.com

21 Nostalgic Christmas Time Things Children Of The 80s Will Remember

The post 21 Nostalgic Christmas Time Things Children Of The 80s Will Remember appeared first on Pleated Jeans.
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Trending Tech
Trending Tech
10 hrs

Sequoia partner spreads debunked Brown shooting theory, testing new leadership
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techcrunch.com

Sequoia partner spreads debunked Brown shooting theory, testing new leadership

The newest episode raises questions about whether Sequoia's new leadership -- managing partners Alfred Lin and Pat Grady, who took over last month -- can or will rein in Maguire's social media activity.
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Conservative Voices
Conservative Voices
10 hrs

WATCH LIVE: President Trump speaking live in North Carolina (already in progress)
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therightscoop.com

WATCH LIVE: President Trump speaking live in North Carolina (already in progress)

President Trump is now speaking live in North Carolina as he travels the country to explain what he’s done to begin fixing the country and the economy. Watch below:
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Classic Rock Lovers
Classic Rock Lovers  
10 hrs

Unravelling Donald Trump’s insane Spotify playlist
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faroutmagazine.co.uk

Unravelling Donald Trump’s insane Spotify playlist

A bizarre mix. The post Unravelling Donald Trump’s insane Spotify playlist first appeared on Far Out Magazine.
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Conservative Voices
Conservative Voices
10 hrs

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spectator.org

It’s Not About the Guns: The Wrong Lesson From the Bondi Beach Attack

It may be too early for an in-depth analysis of the horrific attack on a Hanukkah gathering at Australia’s famous Bondi Beach, beyond the obvious fact that it was yet another act of Islamist terror, the latest in a long line of attacks meant to murder Jews. But it’s not too early to draw a single, transparently obvious conclusion. The Bondi Beach attack totally undermines the common progressive focus on the guns rather than the shooters. The guns at Bondi Beach didn’t simply jump out of a car and begin shooting on their own. They were brought to the location by a father and son team of Islamist terrorists who used them to murder 15 people, including a ten-year-old girl who was deliberately targeted as she tried to run away. Dozens more were wounded, and the toll might have been much higher but for the heroism of Ahmed al Ahmed, the now-famous Muslim grocer who attempted to disarm one of the attackers, and the further heroism — and firearms skill — of detective Cesar Barraza, who killed one of the attackers with a remarkable, long-distance shot. (RELATED: Did Iran Orchestrate the Hannukah Murder of Jews at Bondi Beach?) An event such as this surely deserves thoughtful reflection, particularly by government policymakers and those, both here and in Australia, who influence government policy. And yet, once again, we see that obvious truths are being ignored in favor of strict adherence to the long-established leftist narrative. For years now, Australia has been lauded by the usual gun control fanatics for having some of the most stringent gun restrictions in the entire Western world. Here in the U.S., gun haters have repeatedly held up Australia as a model, calling for similar measures as the solution to “gun violence.” Now, despite the absurdity of such measures exposed by the Bondi Beach massacre, it seems that the only response to lethal violence — I refuse to use the term “gun violence” — is to double down, yet again, in a search for even more draconian gun control measures. Prime Minister Albanese of Australia, in particular, has exemplified in recent days his commitment to this approach, but he’s scarcely alone. Suffice it to say that the continued pursuit of “gun control” stands revealed as an idiotic response to events such as this. Suffice it to say that the continued pursuit of “gun control” stands revealed as an idiotic response to events such as this. We’re often reminded that there are more guns than people in the United States, but it’s not just the United States, nor is it some type of “bad black gun.” The Australian shooters and the assassin of Charlie Kirk used ordinary hunting rifles, the weapons that even the most egregious anti-gun fanatics have heretofore seemed willing to exempt. It’s not just the United States but the entire world that is afloat on a sea of guns. AK-47s, the real selective-fire, full auto-capable versions, are now readily available across Europe, becoming the weapons of choice for criminals from Marseille to Malmö. This should be unsurprising, since there are, by conservative estimate, over 100 million AK-47s and AK-47 clones distributed around the world. And that’s just one category of firearm. No one knows just how many functioning firearms there are in the world. Many millions have been produced in recent years, but firearms are durable goods. A bolt-action Mauser manufactured a century ago, if properly maintained, is as capable of killing as the hunting rifles used by the terrorists at Bondi Beach. The sheer numbers should tell us two things about the absurdity of the gun control position. First, if there are hundreds of millions of firearms in circulation, why aren’t there hundreds of millions of murders? It’s the gun, they keep telling us, blaming an inanimate object rather than the person who pulls the trigger. Second, a policy predicated on a blanket removal of guns from society is bound to fail, if only because there are too many in circulation for even the most radical confiscation measures to succeed. No intelligent person should cling to the anti-gun position any longer. I could go on and on, but the message should be clear. “Gun control” is really about targeting responsible gun owners, men and women who would never commit a crime, while utterly failing to address the availability of illegal firearms to criminals and terrorists. But in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach pogrom, the gun control arguments have, I think, been exposed as completely fallacious. No intelligent person should cling to the anti-gun position any longer. So why, then, do the gun control bitter-enders refuse to let go? The answer, simply, is that addressing the true causes of lethal violence in the Western world requires abandoning a series of leftist shibboleths. The first of these is that there is no such thing as a criminal subculture in our countries. The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. In the United States, shootings are overwhelmingly confined to big city neighborhoods riven by gang conflicts and drug trafficking. The figures vary, and the various figures are often attacked by left-wing academics, but if one subtracts these neighborhoods from the equation, the overall murder rate in the United States would decline precipitously. Or consider cities like Malmö in Sweden, or Marseille in France, where gangs have taken over whole neighborhoods, waging war on each other and, increasingly, on the police and on innocent bystanders. The case of Sweden is particularly sad, since this was a country that, only a few short years ago, enjoyed an absolutely minuscule level of murders and related violent crime. The latter aspect is particularly important, since violence should be measured not only in deaths, but also in a pattern of intimidation. And while guns have proliferated, the escalation of violence utilizes many other weapons. Baseball is America’s game, not Europe’s, but baseball bats have become a terrifying weapon in many European cities. In the U.K., knife crime — including, fearsomely, machete crime — has become all too common. (RELATED: Australian Machete Ban Ignores the Real Causes of Crime) In every case, however, here and abroad, the problem of criminal violence is one associated with the ethno-cultural darlings of left-wing ideology. Thus, workable solutions would begin with measures the left absolutely hates. “Stop and frisk,” for example, works very well, but it entails a high degree of profiling, and this is anathema to those who run our cities. The cop on the beat knows full well who the criminals are and where criminality is likely to flourish. They develop a highly-trained sense of who is armed and dangerous–their lives, after all, depend on this. Ironically, “stop and frisk” represents perhaps the very best means of taking illegal handguns off the street, but in progressive cities, the police are prohibited from doing this, the one “gun control” measure that might make a meaningful difference. (RELATED: Welcome to New York. This Is What Dystopia Looks Like.) Something similar might be said when dealing with the violence of the criminally insane. Young women stabbed, burned, doused with acid, or subway passengers pushed in front of oncoming trains. The solution involves identifying those with these issues and taking them off the streets. Treat them, by all means, but don’t allow them to mingle with ordinary citizens. Moreover, understand that homelessness is not — Gavin Newsom or Zohran Mamdani to the contrary — an issue of lack of housing. It is the direct result of our apparent inability to deal honestly with mental illness or drug addiction, separately or in combination. (RELATED: The Burning of Bethany Magee) But as the Bondi Beach massacre should make absolutely clear, the greatest challenge of all lies in our civilizational confrontation with radical Islam. We can applaud, along with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Muslim grocer who risked his life to disarm one of the terrorists, but we should remain suspicious of naïve “religion of peace” fantasies. There is a significant element within Islam today that fanatically hates the Judeo-Christian traditions, even in their watered-down, post-Enlightenment secular form. (RELATED: Trivializing Religion Left Us Unprepared for Political Islam) We deceive ourselves that we can all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya” together. It may well be that the majority of Muslims have no violent animus toward Christians; it might even be the case that many of them would willingly live alongside Jews. However, we would do well to ask ourselves why so few Muslims now resident in our countries seem willing to condemn their radical co-religionists when events such as Bondi occur. It may be that many quietly support the goals of their terrorist brethren, even if they’re unwilling to resort to violence themselves — never mind that these quiet sympathizers become a breeding ground for the radicals. It’s also possible that many Muslims genuinely do wish to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors, but if so, why do so few speak up? It’s also possible that many Muslims genuinely do wish to live in peace with their non-Muslim neighbors, but if so, why do so few speak up? The answer, I believe, lies in the repeatedly demonstrated dynamic between the violent few and the peaceful majority. Whether in the old South of the Ku Klux Klan, or in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, or any number of other places at other times, the peaceful majority remains a silent majority as long as the price of speaking up is to be beaten or murdered. There’s a vicious cycle at work here. Governments sit back and wait for this “silent majority” to become vocal, while peaceful citizens remain quiet, hoping that governments will take action against the radicals. Furthermore, the institutionally dominant left offers cover for the radicals, as we’ve witnessed since the Gaza pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023. When “globalize the Intifada” is not simply tolerated, but encouraged by Western governments, academia, and the media, it would be a very brave ordinary Muslim who would choose to speak against it. (RELATED: Radical Chic Continues at Georgetown) There are a few such, and we can hope there will be more. Perhaps the example of Ahmed al Ahmed’s heroism will serve as an inspiration. His was an act of courage, but above all an act of simple human decency, an unwillingness to stand by while evil is being done. If there are to be more like him, then we have to do better ourselves. We need institutions that no longer make excuses for radical Islamist terrorism. We need no more “anti-colonial” narratives, no more complicity with anti-Jewish hatred, above all, no more self-hatred, no more cultivated hatred for a history of which, by all rights, we should be proud. (RELATED: The Anti-Colonial Shadow Over Mamdani’s Socialism) The solution to the murderousness on display at Brown University, on Bondi Beach, and in countless other moments of terror will never be yet another mindless gun control nostrum. It will never be found in the fecklessness of governments who insist on blaming an inanimate object for the horrors that flow from passionate — and passionately cultivated — hatred. Instead, it will come when we stand up for ourselves once again, for the values that for centuries have been the light of the world. It will come when we no longer tolerate criminality on our streets. It will come when we find the courage to confront Islamist terrorism whenever and wherever it presents itself, not just with pious words, but, when necessary, by forthright action. It will come when we finally defend and promote simple human decency against a world that cultivates hatred — the ultimate indecency. READ MORE from James H. McGee: Donald Trump’s Civilizational Defense Strategy The Burning of Bethany Magee Getting Ahead of Ourselves About the 2028 Elections James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. He’s just published his new novel, The Zebras from Minsk, the sequel to his well-received 2022 thriller, Letter of Reprisal. The Zebras from Minsk find the Reprisal Team fighting against an alliance of Chinese and Russian-backed terrorists, brutal child traffickers, and a corrupt anti-American billionaire, racing against time to take down a conspiracy that ranges from the hills of West Virginia to the forests of Belarus. You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.
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Conservative Voices
10 hrs

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spectator.org

Spite Repaid with Spite: The Metaphysical Roots of the Academic Massacre at Brown and MIT

While many in the media and beyond tried to explain the deadly violence at Brown University and MIT through external social factors like radical politics or unrestricted immigration, it is more likely that the cause of the lethality lies in a more diabolical realm — an envious pride that could not tolerate the perceived advantages of the victims. For those who understand envy as the “sin of sins,” the more plausible cause emerges as a harrowing case study in how envy acts as a primary catalyst for the kind of calculated, resentful violence perpetrated at Brown and MIT. According to investigators, the perpetrator, Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, and his victim, the MIT professor, Nuno Loureiro, had been student peers in a prestigious physics/engineering program at Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal’s premier engineering school, between 1995 and 2000. Federal authorities confirmed that they were both enrolled in the same program. But while Loureiro graduated in 2000 from the elite physics program, archived termination records issued by the school’s president indicated that Neves-Valente was dismissed from his position at the Lisbon-based university that same year. While Loureiro joined the MIT faculty in 2016 and went on to a stellar career in physics, garnering honors and awards in both academia and beyond, Neves-Valente appears to have achieved nothing. In 2015, Loureiro received the American Physical Society’s Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Award, and later received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 2017. In 2022, he became an American Physical Society Fellow and won the prestigious Presidential Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2025. At MIT, Loureiro won the Outstanding Professor Award in 2020, the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2022, and the Stanislaw Ulam Distinguished Scholar Award in 2023. In contrast, after suffering a humiliating dismissal in 2000 from that same Instituto Superior Tecnico, Neves-Valente struggled to find an alternate route to complete his graduate degree before enrolling in a PhD program in physics at Brown University in the fall semester of 2000. Arriving in the United States in August 2000 on an F-1 student visa specifically to attend the graduate program, Neves-Valente enrolled exclusively in physics courses at Brown, but ended his Brown academic career abruptly when he took a leave of absence in April 2001. There is no information available on why he left the Brown graduate program, but it is clear that he officially withdrew from Brown on July 31, 2003, without receiving a degree. It appears that Neves-Valente left the United States in 2003 but returned to the United States in 2017 after being issued a “diversity immigrant visa” and was granted permanent legal residency that same year. While there is no information available on his work history since his return to the U.S. in 2017, news reports indicate that he had been living in Miami-Dade (near Aventura) and returned to New England a few months ago. Envy often emerges in academic environments where status and achievement are highly visible and celebrated. Envy often emerges in academic environments where status and achievement are highly visible and celebrated. Such envy is not just personal jealousy. Rather, envy can become a corrosive force that drives individuals to seek the destruction of those they perceive as having attained something that they should have attained. In academia, this dynamic can intensify, as constant comparison fosters resentment and a desire to diminish the object of envy by any means necessary. For the killer, the MIT professor’s achievements likely transcended mere professional success, becoming a diabolical mirror that reflected his own perceived failures. This perspective helps explain how the killer might have viewed the professor’s success as an unbearable reminder of his own shortcomings, leading to a violent response. (RELATED: Mamdani Markets Envy to Sell a Marxist Utopia) Several years ago, public intellectual and writer Gore Vidal, known for his witty sayings, famously admitted that “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.” While Vidal may have made the remark as a joke, the truth is that there are many people who feel a sense of envious resentment whenever a close acquaintance or a competitor accomplishes something extraordinary — something that they thought they should have accomplished. Joseph Epstein, author of the brief treatise Envy, would be unsurprised by Vidal’s openly expressed resentment. He suggested that American academics are the “most likely candidates” for existing in a state of resentment: “They feel themselves simultaneously greatly superior and vastly undervalued, above their countrymen, yet isolated from them and insufficiently rewarded and revered by them.” As one who has spent the past three decades in academia, documenting the deadly consequences of academic envy in The Politics of Envy (Crisis Books), I tend to understand the resentment and toxic envy that some failed academics experience. Research on academic envy indicates that the successful career of a colleague or rival can inspire such envy, resentment, and fear that these spiteful individuals actually try to eliminate that person either by destroying their rival’s career — or worse. Philosopher Max Scheler, author of the seminal study Ressentiment, describes the powerlessness that emerges when one recognizes that he cannot change the circumstances he finds himself in but refuses to resign himself to them. Like the sin of pride, the sin of envy is a narcissistic preoccupation with self. Like the sin of pride, the sin of envy is a narcissistic preoccupation with self. The truly envious are the truly prideful who believe that no one is more deserving of advantages and rewards than they. Echoing the ‘Invidia’ of Dante’s Purgatorio, the motivations of the killer appear to demonstrate how a soul consumed by the sight of another’s goodness can eventually seek only to destroy it. In some ways, envy is the worst of the deadly sins because it leads to so many of the others. The resentment that accompanies envy often erupts in anger and resentful rage, and it is inextricably intertwined with pride. Envy derives from the Latin word Invidia, which means “non-sight.” This etymology suggests that envy arises from and creates a form of blindness or lack of perspective. In Anthony Esolen’s translation of Purgatorio, Dante Alighieri had the envious punished by having to wear penitential grey cloaks, their eyes sewn shut with iron wire because the truly envious are blind to the goodness, truth, and beauty around them. Dante warned that the envious are blind to reason and love, spending their days tormented by resentment toward those who possess that which they covet. It is an enforced blindness so that the once-envious souls can no longer look at others with envy and hatred. (RELATED: The Politics of Envy Always Ends With the Guillotine) In the Book of Wisdom, we are told that it is through “the envy of the devil, death entered the world” (Wisdom 2:24). In Genesis, envy is portrayed as a destroyer of happiness and contentment — from the story of Eve’s envious desire to have the wisdom of God, to the first deadly sin of the murder of Abel by his brother. It was Satan’s envy of the love that God had for his new creation, and that Adam and Eve had for each other, that led him to destroy the innocence in the Garden — an envy that was predicted as Adam sadly admits: “that malicious foe, envying our happiness, and of his own despairing, seeks to work our woe and shame by sly assault.” Milton’s Paradise Lost presents envy as the serpent in the garden. Consumed with envy toward the Son of God and His creation, Milton’s Satan experienced God’s love itself as envy. Envious of the awesome power of the Creator, the sight of the Garden and the happiness and love of God’s creation fills the devil with hateful envy — and a desire to destroy that creation. In his envious rage, Satan begins to believe that God created all of that in order to inspire envy. It was Satan’s envy — his hatred for the good, the true, and the beautiful — that moved him to corrupt Adam and Eve’s love for God and for each other. We are often taught that it was Eve’s pride — her wish to be as wise as God — that was the original sin. Yet in Book 9 of Paradise Lost, Milton reminds us that it was Satan’s envy of “this new Favorite of Heaven, this Man of Clay, Son of despite, Whom us the more to spite his Maker rais’d from dust: spite then with spite is best repaid.” It was envy that set off a battle in which “spite then with spite is best repaid.” Neves-Valente’s fixation on academia at Brown and MIT appears likely to have evolved into an unhealthy obsession, fueled by constant comparisons to those who had achieved — or in the case of the young students at Brown University, were achieving — what he could not. Each rejection and failure likely deepened his sense of inadequacy, eroding his self-worth and amplifying feelings of injustice. Instead of seeking constructive solutions, he spiraled into a mindset dominated by blame, targeting individuals and institutions he believed had conspired against him. This distorted worldview, rooted in envy, transformed ambition into bitterness and ultimately into rage. Over time, his inability to reconcile personal shortcomings with external success led to a psychological collapse, where violence appeared as the only means to reclaim control and assert significance. READ MORE from Anne Hendershott: Unproven but Unfolding Whistleblower Claims of Somali Medicaid Fraud in Ohio No, Mayor-Elect Mamdani, the Homeless Are Not an Apartment Away From a Good Life The Optics of Accommodation: Pope Leo’s Audience with Pro-Abortion Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker
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Conservative Voices
10 hrs

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spectator.org

The Weary Atlas

I At 11:37 in the morning of Nov. 20, 2025, Eastern European Time, the United States Embassy in Kyiv’s X account published the following message regarding “American leadership on the world stage”: Американське лідерство на світовій арені «Ми хочемо допомагати нашим союзникам. Ми хочемо змінювати наших ворогів». — Президент США Дональд Трамп The post was accompanied by a State Department meme image of President Donald Trump, tuxedoed and striding purposefully through an arched fan-light doorway and into the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, framed by the iconic Jean Zuber et Cie Scenes of North America wallpaper that graces the hall. “We want to help our allies,” the photograph was captioned, “We want to change our enemies.” Such was the sentiment, translated into Ukrainian, being conveyed to the beleaguered people of Ukraine. While a nameless embassy social media staffer was drafting this message, first responders were sifting through the rubble of an apartment building in the Soniachnyi district of the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil. A Russian Kh-101 missile strike had leveled the complex the night before, killing 38, including six children. The burnt bodies of Amelia “Amelka” Grześko, a seven-year-old Polish citizen, and her mother, Oksana, were eventually discovered, still holding each other amidst the wreckage. Russia had launched 476 drones, alongside 48 missiles, at Ukrainian targets that night. In the aftermath of the strikes, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson pleaded for “the uninterrupted and timely supply of aviation weapons from Western partners,” precisely the sort of help for which allies ask. I was struck, at the time, by the contrast between the horrors inflicted on the civilians of Ternopil that night and the carefully noncommittal meme posted by the State Department the following morning. Consider the word choice exhibited in the tweet. We want to help our allies? We want to change our enemies? This is the sort of guarded phrasing usually followed by the word “but.” Surely it would have been more compelling had we plainly vowed to help our allies — and deter our enemies — instead of using the temporizing, precatory language of wants, wishes, hopes, and desires, language that, in its own way, speaks volumes about our current approach to foreign policy. II There are times, however, when vague prose is not the result of a lack of intelligence or diligence, but of an intentional decision to obfuscate. In his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language,” George Orwell objected to the increasing use of mushy prose in political writing. When the political discourse succumbs to a “mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence,” he argued, it not only “anaesthetizes a portion of one’s brain,” but threatens to lead the nation down the road to ruin, for the “slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.” There are times, however, when vague prose is not the result of a lack of intelligence or diligence, but of an intentional decision to obfuscate. “In our time,” Orwell observed, “political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible,” but even if there are certain policies that “can indeed be defended,” it might only be “by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” A verbal false limb, a cumbersome prepositional phrase, the passive voice, the avoidance of direct, declarative, or active construction — these are not necessarily indicative of anemic or sloppy writing, or of stupidity. They may conceal unpalatable opinions, or unspeakable truths. Given the state of the State Department’s social media feeds, it was not altogether surprising to find the recently released 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) similarly chock-full of precatory language, which recurs throughout the document like a litany. “We want the world’s most robust industrial base.” “We want to remain the world’s most scientifically and technologically advanced and innovative country.” “We want to halt and reverse the ongoing damage that foreign actors inflict on the American economy while keeping the Indo-Pacific free and open.” “We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe.” At times, the language of the strategy report is notable for its unassertiveness. In the sub-section on “deterring military threats,” the reader is informed that “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority. We will also maintain our longstanding declaratory policy on Taiwan, meaning that the United States does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.” It has heretofore been our official policy to “oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side,” inasmuch as “we do not support Taiwan independence,” but “we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the 2017 NSS, the first Trump administration was even more vigorous: “We will maintain our strong ties with Taiwan in accordance with our ‘One China’ policy, including our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide for Taiwan’s legitimate defense needs and deter coercion.” (Emphasis added.) How differently the November 2025 report scans. We “do not support” a unilateral change, which is to say we neither “support” a Taiwanese declaration of independence, nor do we “support” a violent communist takeover of the peaceful, democratic island — for those are the only two choices that present themselves — and while we would like to deter a conflict “by preserving military overmatch,” the sentiment is undercut by the inclusion of the word “ideally,” another construction that unfortunately tends to imply the coming word “but.” We do not live in the ideal world, and have not since the days of the Primordial Garden. The new NSS has been described as “less a strategy than a mood board,” and one can certainly see why. The document advances a global strategy that is “pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist,’ realistic without being ‘realist,’ principled without being ‘idealistic,’ muscular without being ‘hawkish,’ and restrained without being ‘dovish,’” but the more one parses its contents, the more one realizes that its consistent use of ambiguous language, and its avoidance of the more assertive, and concrete, or confrontational rhetoric employed by previous administrations (even Trump-led ones), is masking arguments perhaps “too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties,” as Orwell put it in his celebrated essay. National Security Strategy reports are inherently political documents, of course, neither legally determinative nor of any binding effect, and may represent the thinking of a temporarily-dominant faction within the executive branch, and not that of various government departments, Congress, or the majority of the populace. Furthermore, when Japanese dive bombers are swooping down on Pearl Harbor, or a terrorist attack is underway, or when hordes of Russian barbarians are swarming across the internationally-recognized borders of Ukraine, it isn’t as if the president and the members of the National Security Council immediately start scrabbling around, looking for a copy of the most recent National Security Strategy to tell them how to react. (Maybe that’s what the new GenAI.mil platform is for.) Hence the observation that these reports are more like governmental policy mood boards. And oh, what a mood this particular report conveys. III Sad to relate, the new NSS is a declaration of geopolitical contraction, if not outright retreat, presaging the end of the global American empire. One can almost hear the strains of “Taps” or “Last Post” playing mournfully in the background. The prospect of American decline is nothing new in and of itself. During the Obama administration, conservatives regularly warned of declinism. “Decline is not a condition,” Charles Krauthammer insisted, but “a choice.” Since no American leader would ever admit to making such an affirmative choice, the language of strategic pullback is invariably cloaked in verbiage of one kind or another — the “Retrenchment–Protraction Doctrine,” a “recalibration of global posture,” the “streamlining of global responsibilities,” and so forth. Just the sort of jargon Orwell warned can be “used to dignify the sordid processes of international politics.” Back in 2017, not so long ago in the grand scheme of things, the NSS was clear on the threat posed by the “revisionist powers of China and Russia,” sinister international actors that “want to shape a world antithetical to U.S. values and interests.” While “China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others,” Russia “aims to weaken U.S. influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners.” Although the menace of Soviet communism is gone, new threats test our will. Russia is using subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments. With its invasions of Georgia and Ukraine, Russia demonstrated its willingness to violate the sovereignty of states in the region. Russia continues to intimidate its neighbors with threatening behavior, such as nuclear posturing and the forward deployment of offensive capabilities. Our response then was to “maintain a forward military presence capable of deterring and, if necessary, defeating any adversary. We will strengthen our long-standing military relationships and encourage the development of a strong defense network with our allies and partners.” Exactly the sort of language one would expect of an administration committed to Peace Through Strength. The approach now is radically different, representing the growing influence of isolationist hardliners in the administration, the sort who would consider the 2017 NSS overly “hawkish” or “idealistic.”The approach now is radically different, representing the growing influence of isolationist hardliners in the administration, the sort who would consider the 2017 NSS overly “hawkish” or “idealistic.” The approach now is radically different, representing the growing influence of isolationist hardliners in the administration, the sort who would consider the 2017 NSS overly “hawkish” or “idealistic.” Our top priorities are now homeland and economic security, followed by the Western Hemisphere (the Monroe Doctrine and its so-called Trump Corollary), and then the Pacific theater, with Europe trailing in the distance. There is to be a “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, especially the missions identified in this strategy, and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.” China is primarily treated as an economic competitor — the goal is for a “genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing” — and its aggressive posture in the Pacific is considered problematic only insofar as control of major shipping lanes would have “major implications for the U.S. economy.” As for Russia, well, the goal is apparently to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.” Much is made of burden-sharing and burden-shifting, with NATO allies expected to guard Europe’s eastern border, while South Korea and Japan are called on “to increase defense spending, with a focus on the capabilities — including new capabilities — necessary to deter adversaries and protect the First Island Chain.” The 2025 NSS is not unlike the curate’s egg, portions of which are quite palatable — re-industrialization is a worthy goal, and it is true that “the future belongs to makers” — but here we encounter a portion that is much harder to swallow. European governments are accused of “trampl[ing] on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition,” although curiously no such allegations are leveled against China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Myanmar, and the drafters of the document cheer on “the growing influence of patriotic European parties” and plan to cultivate “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.” A continent dominated by the likes of Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and Alice Weidel might be more amenable to elements within administration, but if the German AfD, the Austrian FPÖ, the Italian League party, the Dutch PVV, the French RN, and other “patriotic European parties” do manage to oust the center-right and center-left governments currently in power, it is hard to see Europe’s security architecture being strengthened as a consequence. These movements are all openly non-interventionist, pacifistic even, and exhibit a tendency towards Russophilia, making them exceedingly unlikely to assume a “primary responsibility” for the looming threat to the east. If the AfD politician Markus Frohnmaier — who notably just met with U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers and was fêted at a black-tie gala hosted by the New York Young Republican Club — is really “a deputy in the Bundestag under absolute control” of the Kremlin, as documents from the Russian presidential administration made available to Der Spiegel indicated back in 2019, would you really expect Frohnmaier and those like him to take the lead in transforming Europe into a heavily-militarized anti-Russian bulwark, thereby sparing us such a burden? As for the Pacific theater, when the formidable new Japanese prime minister, Takaichi Sanae, adopted a more combative tone on the Taiwan question in response to a string of reckless Chinese provocations, she was reportedly told by the American president “to lower the volume” and “not to provoke Beijing on the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty.” Our European and Asian allies could be forgiven for questioning the nature of this new burden-sharing arrangement, particularly as Washington pursues normalized relations, “strategic stability,” and “genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship[s]” with its geopolitical rivals, all the while waging sustained trade wars against its more traditional partners. (RELATED: Don’t Go Wobbly on China) There is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy at work here, with protectionist or isolationist policies breeding further isolation. In response to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer’s assertion that the rules‑based global trading system is “dead,” former Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Christopher Padilla considered the possibility of “America First” turning into “American Alone,” given the striking manner in which other countries have responded to the Trump administration’s tariff barrage. Most have not rushed to retaliate with tariffs of their own — because they know that doing so would damage their own economies. Instead, they’ve taken a far more strategic path: deepening trade ties with each other rather than with the United States. Just this year, EU–India free trade negotiations have concluded, and a long-dormant EU-MERCOSUR agreement is moving toward ratification. The CPTPP — the trans-Pacific trade pact the U.S. walked away from — has gained renewed energy and new applicants. Countries across Asia, Latin America, and Europe are stitching together bilateral and regional agreements that deliberately route around the United States. In other words, the world is not retaliating — it’s reorganizing in a way that does not involve the United States …. The irony is that the United States, by insisting that the rules‑based system is dead, is increasingly isolating itself from the very network that it once led. Protectionists may view this as a feature, not a bug, but it would be very surprising indeed if the construction of “new supply chains, new partnerships, and new trade architectures” without the involvement of the United States will redound to our overall benefit, just as new security architecture in Europe and Asia is unlikely to safeguard international peace and security as well as the old system, whatever its flaws may have been. IV The most telling passage in the recently-published strategy report can be found in the aforementioned section on burden-sharing and burden-shifting. “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” Quite a proclamation. Orwell, in “Politics and the English Language,” lamented the use of “dying metaphors,” and this must qualify as one of them. It might be slightly pedantic to remind the reader that the Iapetid Atlas did not actually hold up the world, as is so often supposed, but the concave vault of the heavens, and that through his noble efforts he became “the personification of navigation, the conquest of the sea by human skill, trade, and mercantile profit,” in the words of the German philologist Karl Heinrich Wilhelm Völcker. It would be less pedantic to point out that Atlas the Endurer, the “grim being” (ὀλοόφρων) who “knows all the depths of the sea, and keeps the long pillars which hold heaven and earth asunder,” earned his punishment when he and his brother Menoetius sided with the Titans in their failed war against the upstart Olympians. The United States was not forced, after its defeat, to prop up the entire world order. It created the world order in the aftermath of the Second World War, and defended it throughout the Cold War and beyond, resulting in a global hegemony unknown in human history. The U.S. dollar became the most widely-held reserve currency. The American military achieved unparalleled dominance through immense spending, a powerful alliance system, a network of hundreds of military bases all over the world, and a keen technological edge. The American economy represents roughly a quarter of global economic output. Americanization, defined by the economic historian Harm G. Schröter as the “adapted transfer of values, behaviours, institutions, technologies, patterns of organization, symbols and norms became an unrivaled primary soft power method,” has completely transformed the entire globe. And now it seems, judging by the 2025 NSS, that we are utterly exhausted, be it morally, spiritually, or economically, and genuinely rattled by the rise of China. Militarily, we see a massive Chinese 200-1 advantage in shipbuilding, and a seemingly insurmountable advantage in drone manufacturing. The People’s Liberation Army, Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute has warned, already has roughly 60 modern AWACS, all equipped with the latest active electronically scanned array-type radars and advanced data link and satellite communications capabilities to act as network nodes. More are being produced each year. By contrast, the U.S. Air Force has only 16 serviceable AWACS, and these are the nearly obsolete and badly worn-out E-3G Sentry. The plan to acquire the Boeing E-7A Wedgetail to replace this rapidly shrinking fleet was canceled by Hegseth in June 2025, citing concerns over cost overruns, delays, and operational vulnerability. We look on in dismay as China develops hypersonic missiles and glide vehicles that could make mincemeat of our carrier groups, we pore over the outcomes of various Indo-Pacific war games with a mounting sense of pessimism, and naturally, we begin to wonder whether military overmatch is a thing of the past. From an economic perspective, we observe China’s industrial might, and its resultant control of global supply chains, and we may be forgiven for thinking that a “genuinely mutually advantageous economic relationship with Beijing” would be a best-case scenario. “Ideally.” Even the 2025 report admits that our trade wars with China have not gone as planned: China adapted to the shift in U.S. tariff policy that began in 2017 in part by strengthening its hold on supply chains, especially in the world’s low- and middle- income (i.e., per capita GDP $13,800 or less) countries—among the greatest economic battlegrounds of the coming decades. China’s exports to low-income countries doubled between 2020 and 2024. But China is a vital market for our soybeans and Nvidia H200 advanced AI chips, so we are told to “lower the volume,” much to the chagrin of China hawks who would rather see the communist dictatorship contained. (RELATED: America’s Strategic Blind Spot in the Global Chip Race) As for the diplomatic front, let us recall a 2023 speech delivered by then-Senator JD Vance, in which the future vice president bemoaned the state of America’s foreign policy, so often predicated on “hectoring” and woke ideology, while the Chinese “have a foreign policy of building roads and bridges and feeding poor people, and I think that we should pursue a diplomacy of respect and a foreign policy that is not rooted in moralizing, it’s rooted in the national interest of this country.” The Chinese government, mind you, is certainly not averse to hectoring or cracking down on foreigners who wish to investigate China’s human rights record, or organize museum exhibitions about Genghis Khan or the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, or simply put on a film festival about everyday life in China, as we have so frequently discussed in these pages. They are in fact quite sensitive about those sorts of things, but setting that aside, Vance correctly highlighted the fact that China serves as a one-stop shop for developing countries interested in infrastructure and economic development, viz. the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and other xiao er mei, or “Small and Beautiful” projects. (RELATED: Foreign Affairs Features a Recipe for Defeat in Cold War II) There is, unfortunately, a non sequitur in Vance’s assertion. China is achieving diplomatic success with its efforts to improve infrastructure and feed poor people all over the world, so in response, we should pursue a policy of “national interest.” This, in the current administration’s view, does not involve us building highways and bridges and feeding the hungry, which we struggle at times even to do at home, but instead advancing an agenda of economic protectionism and strategic retrenchment. Regardless of one’s feelings on that definition of “national interest,” nothing about it is going to counteract China’s growing influence throughout the world. It can only clear the field further for our increasingly assertive rival across the Pacific. And now it is closer than ever to seeing its vision realized, with the 2025 NSS likewise envisioning a multipolar world divided into various spheres of influence, and a United States, its strength ebbing, turning inward. It is the rare National Security Strategy of the United States of America that is received with a rapturous welcome in the Kremlin. “The adjustments that we see,” according to Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “correspond in many ways to our vision.” Ever since Putin’s speech at the 43rd Munich Security Conference in 2007, when the Russian dictator called for a multipolar world and criticized “one state — the United States” for having “overstepped its national boundaries in every sphere,” the Kremlin has been hoping for a change in America’s international posture. And now it is closer than ever to seeing its vision realized, with the 2025 NSS likewise envisioning a multipolar world divided into various spheres of influence, and a United States, its strength ebbing, turning inward. The 2025 NSS is not quite “the kind of signal a dying whale sends out,” in the immortal words of The Thick of It’s Ollie Reeder, but it is an alarming document all the same. But the NSS is not legally binding. It is a glorified white paper, 29 pages long, with a generously large font size reminiscent of undergraduates trying to reach a mandated page length for an assignment. What is legally binding is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in the House on December 10, 2025, by a vote of 312-112, and being advanced by the Senate as I write these very words. This 3,086-page bill provides for a record $901 billion in annual military spending and represents something of a rejoinder to the 2025 NSS. It authorizes some $400 million in funds for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (despite the administration requesting no money for that program whatsoever), prevents the Pentagon from reducing troop levels in Europe and South Korea below certain levels, and codifies the Baltic Security Initiative, the purpose of which is “developing security cooperation with the military forces of the Baltic countries” who find themselves dangerously close the frontlines of Russia’s barbarous war on civilization. It is always welcome, these days, when Congress reasserts its authority and provides a modicum of oversight, and it is good to know that the isolationist cabal in the executive branch does not have carte blanche to completely demolish the security architecture built up over the last 80 years. Still, the 2025 NSS, for all its flaws, at least serves as a tocsin warning of the very real dangers faced by our nation. Realists and idealists, isolationists and interventionists, liberals and paleo-conservatives and neoconservatives alike can all acknowledge that we are being gored on the horns of a dilemma. Divided at home and challenged abroad, we remain a global hegemon, just barely, and are faced with a choice between imperial overstretch and under-stretch, between costly continued interventions and a retreat, excuse me, a “readjustment of our global military presence” back to our own hemisphere, where it is appreciably easier to rattle sabres at Venezuela and Colombia than it is to stare down the nuclear-armed, revanchist, and increasingly brazen Sino-Russian axis. The 2025 NSS is the work product of so-called realists who are finally in a position to pursue American retrenchment, thereby paving the way for the rise of multipolarity and the demise of the international rules-based order established after the Second World War. They are quite open in their wish to see Atlas set down his burden, so let us return to the metaphor of Atlas. Ovid, in Book Four of the Metamorphōsēs, provides a variation on the Atlas myth. He tells of a land where Atlas reign’d, of more than human Size, And in his Kingdom the World’s Limit lies. Here Titan bids his weary’d Coursers sleep, And cools the burning Axle in the Deep. The mighty Monarch, uncontroul’d, alone, His Sceptre sways: no neighb’ring States are known. One day, Perseus, son of Zeus and Danaë, visited the “gigantick Prince,” the Titan Atlas, who “ghastly star’d,” Mindful of what an Oracle declar’d, That the dark Wombs of Time conceal’d a Day, Which should, disclos’d, the bloomy Gold betray: All should at once be ravish’d from his Eyes, And Jove’s own progeny enjoy the Prize. Atlas bade his uninvited guest depart, only for Perseus to produce the foul head of Medusa, transforming the Titan into the mountain range that still bears his name. It is a cautionary tale, appropriate for the perusal of strategists from the Augustan Age to our own. No one, not even the mightiest Titan, is invincible. Empires rise and fall. There are times when, as Oswald Spengler so memorably put it, “optimism is cowardice,” and we must plan for terrible eventualities. But if America is Atlas, are the Chinese really so much like Perseus, or are they an industrial economy that is “deteriorating on several fronts,” with a “broad-based weakening [that] spans consumer spending, investment, real estate,” governed by an oppressive, inhumane ideology, and prone to beating the war drums despite an untested military, all the while precariously perched atop a demographic time-bomb? And as for the Russian Federation, its performance in its depraved war against Ukraine is not indicative of a rising military power, but a spent force desperate to reassert some modicum of control in what was once its “near abroad.” North Korea is a bizarre hermit kingdom. Iran has been chastened by the Israeli Air Force and American Massive Ordnance Penetrators, and at present faces civilizational collapse in the form of an unprecedented water crisis. Do those threats really add up to a Gorgon Medusa that turns us to stone and puts an end to our global ambitions? There may come a day when the United States will be forced into a policy of retrenchment, but we have not arrived anywhere near such a historical juncture. A disorderly American global retreat from global leadership, an abrupt contraction of our international commitments, a precipitous strategic pullback in the face of China’s assertiveness, without so much as a shot fired, would be catastrophic for the free world. Therefore, as we digest the most recent NSS, it is worthwhile to consider one of its predecessors, promulgated by the Reagan administration in 1987. Demonstrating a commitment “to the goals of world freedom, peace and prosperity,” the 1987 NSS advocated for “strong and close relationships with our Alliance partners around the world,” “active assistance to those who are struggling for their own self-determination, freedom, and a reasonable standard of living and development,” and a “willingness to be realistic about the Soviet Union, to define publicly the crucial moral distinction between totalitarianism and democracy.” While the United States has been the leader of the free world since the end of the Second World War, we have not acted alone. During that war and in the succeeding four decades, our strategy has been based on partnership with those nations that share our common goals. As the world has changed over the years, the differences between nations striving to develop democratic institutions and those following the totalitarian banner have come into sharp focus. As future changes take place in human rights, advanced technology, quality of life, and the global economy, our example will continue to exert tremendous influence on mankind. The United States is on the right side of this historic struggle and we have tried to build a lasting framework for promoting this positive change. The world has changed a great deal since the days of the 1987 NSS. It has even changed a great deal since the 2017 NSS. But it has not changed so much that these words of President Ronald Reagan no longer resonate or retain relevance. There are those ruin-mongers who would like to see Atlas succumb to the weight of the cosmos, never seeming to consider what would actually happen if the sky was falling, just as there are purported realists who never quite get around to explaining the far-reaching consequences of abandoning “strong and close relationships with our Alliance partners around the world” and the “crucial moral distinction between totalitarianism and democracy.” Rejoice at the envisioned end of the rule-based international order all you like, but the multipolar world that would arise from its wreckage will not be to your liking, and it will be very hard indeed, at that point, to defend the indefensible, vague platitudes, dying metaphors, and jargon notwithstanding. READ MORE from Matthew Omolesky: ‘Claude Missed It’ — The Pitfalls of Artificial Intelligence James Stevens Curl: A Champion for Beauty, Tradition, and Heritage in Architecture Straw Boats Borrowing Arrows: China’s Espionage Campaign
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What Made Rob Reiner Tick?

I totally understand why so many people think it’s absurd to spend more than a minute thinking about the murders of Rob and Michele Reiner by their son Nick. When you come right down to it, after all, it’s a private tragedy that has filled the news because one of the victims was a major celebrity. But I can’t stop thinking about it, for a couple of reasons. First, this is, broadly speaking, the kind of private horror that many of us have experienced: a loved one with a disorder that makes him dangerous to himself and others, and who should be given long-term treatment in a locked ward. Nowadays, however, the system, not just in the U.S. but in countries around the world, prioritizes the purported right of the screwed-up loved one to be set free and left to his own devices over his right to receive proper treatment for as long as it takes to eliminate the danger. (RELATED: Hollywood Horror: The Murder of Rob Reiner) As Nicole Gelinas writes in City Journal, a better criminal justice system would either have imprisoned Nick for his “drug possession and open-air drug use while homeless” or judged him to be too mentally ill to be held responsible and institutionalized him. “[At] some point,” she contends, “a healthy society must determine that an individual has had enough chances and should be removed from circulation until he poses no harm to others.” (RELATED: Can Being Charlie Tell Us Anything About the Reiner Murders?) Lacking such a system, Rob and Michele appear to have done what they thought was best under the circumstances. During the early years of Nick’s problems with drug addiction and mental instability, they listened to the experts and practiced “tough love.” When that didn’t seem to work, they rejected the experts’ advice and instead showered the kid with uncritical love. They spent a fortune on short-term luxury rehabs. And when Nick wasn’t in rehab, or wandering the highways alone as a homeless person, they let him live in their guest house, let him take meals with them, and let him accompany them to social events, even though he was, not infrequently, verbally abusive, violent, and, at least toward the end, palpably dangerous to everyone around him. On the last night of his life, at Conan O’Brien’s now notorious black-tie Christmas party, Rob is said to have confessed to friends that he was scared of being harmed by his six-foot-three 32-year-old son, whom he and Michele had brought with them, and who, wearing a hoodie, had harassed other guests at the party and ended up in a screaming match with Rob. Why was Rob scared? According to a Dec. 19 report by TMZ, Nick’s meds had been changed three or four weeks before the murders because of his increasing erratic behavior, but the changes made him “crazy,” and further attempts to adjust them only made him “more and more erratic and dangerous.” Meanwhile, his increased substance abuse intensified the schizophrenia with which he’d already been diagnosed. Many of us who’ve dealt with years of bad adjustments in our loved ones’ psych meds know just how terrible these sorts of missteps can be. In any event, Rob and Michele left the O’Brien party after the screaming match, apparently without Nick. This is one thing you could perhaps fault them for: if they wished to give Nick the opposite of tough love — what to call it, tender love? — that was their call. But what right did they have to subject O’Brien and his other guests to their dangerous son? Granted, given that Rob and Michele had been “increasingly worried” about Nick’s mental stability in recent weeks, they felt a need to keep an eye on him, and thus took him to the party. But why expose other guests to this ticking time bomb? It was fortunate, in retrospect, that Nick didn’t start slashing away at O’Brien’s other guests. Then there’s this. Even though Rob was admittedly scared of his son, he and Michele, after leaving the party, drove home and went to bed — even though they knew that Nick was somewhere out there and had a key to the house. Still, you can’t blame people too much for acting irrationally when they’ve spent years trapped in their own irrational private world. Still, you can’t blame people too much for acting irrationally when they’ve spent years trapped in their own irrational private world. Many of us, after all, have, in similar situations, behaved in much the same way that the Reiners did. We’ve irrationally believed that our love for a terribly unwell and dangerous individual required us to risk our lives every day by placing ourselves in an unsafe position instead of removing him from our lives. Some of us manage to snap out of this self-delusion before being killed. Others don’t. Quick question: if Rob was so worried about Nick, why not hire guys with guns to be in the house around the clock? Was it because Rob was so passionately anti-gun? On to my second reason for being preoccupied with this case. Even though Rob Reiner was living in an exceedingly toxic household for about 15 years, dealing every day with a son who was full of hostility toward him and who’d already displayed a penchant for violence, he — Rob — not only kept up a busy filmmaking schedule but was also highly active in Democratic Party politics. In fact, when you look at the timeline, you see that Nick became a problem child sometime around 2008 or 2009, when he was 15. It ramped up gradually after that. And it was in 2015 that Trump announced his first run for president, whereupon Rob began to hurl insults. It continued until Rob’s death. Rarely, when Rob wrote about Trump, did he offer anything resembling thoughtful criticism of specific policies — no, mostly it was just name-calling. Trump was “mentally unfit” for the presidency. He didn’t understand how government worked — and didn’t care to learn. Trump, Rob contended in 2023, had said that he planned “to govern like an authoritarian.” Routinely, Rob called Trump a fascist. “He wants to destroy the Constitution, go after his political enemies and turn America into an autocracy,” Rob said last year. In September, he warned that Trump had turned America into “a very, very scary place.” (RELATED: Weighing Trump’s Social Media Post on Rob Reiner’s Murder, Without the Hysteria) Rob didn’t limit his anti-Trump activity to name-calling. With Jeh Johnson, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, and other Deep State veterans, he founded the Committee to Investigate Russia, which pushed the Russia hoax, in a manifest attempt to bring Trump down. In other words, they were doing precisely what Rob accused Trump of doing. Mind you, moreover, Rob was doing all this — and more — while pursuing his directorial career and dealing every day with a son who was the human equivalent of a land mine. Was there a connection between Rob’s unceasing problems with Nick and his unceasing explosions of over-the-top outrage at Trump, which made him perhaps the most severe sufferer of Trump Derangement Syndrome in all of Hollywood? Let me explain what I mean by this question, which I raised in an article that was published the other day. That article was posted after I watched Rob’s 2015 movie Being Charlie (2015) — whose script, co-written by Nick, was based largely on the latter’s life as an obstreperous druggie — as well as contemporaneous interviews that Rob and Nick gave about the movie. During those interviews, Rob repeatedly explained that he’d given up on “tough love” early on because he simply wasn’t the “tough love” type: “You have to be who you are.” Besides, he added, “I know Nick better than some expert who’s never met him … If I’d listened to my own gut instinct I’d have done better by Nick.” Rob also disapproved of the fact that in “a lot of these treatment programs, it feels as if the kid is being punished.” When asked what advice he would give to other parents in his shoes, Rob replied: “Listen to your kids…. Try to understand your kids. And don’t punish them…. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing because there’s a pain…. Whatever you do, don’t be punitive.” In his Being Charlie interviews, Rob claimed repeatedly that he knew his own son. Did he? The more you see of the real Nick in those interviews, the more you can see how little the fictional Charlie resembles him. Charlie actually has an ambition — to be a stand-up comic — that he’s worked at and is good at. The real Nick, as people close to him have said in recent days, just wanted to be famous. Another detail: Charlie has doe eyes; Nick, in those interviews, has crazy eyes. “I get crazy,” Nick admitted during one audience Q&A. “You don’t want to set me off.” So it goes. One can admire Rob’s love and empathy for Nick even as one shakes one’s head in dismay at his utter misguidedness. He thought he was being a good parent by responding to Nick’s every obnoxious word or act with outpourings of unconditional love; in reality, he was feeding the behemoth that had possessed his son and that was coldly manipulating him, playing him for a sucker. Here’s a striking thing about Rob. After deciding to reject the “tough love” approach and to give Nick, instead, unlimited emotional and financial support, Rob seems to have stuck firmly to his guns, never again entertaining the possibility of altering his approach. He was all in. Nothing could change his mind. No matter how much Nick verbally abused him, trashed the guest house, and carried with him everywhere he went an atmosphere of intense disquiet, Rob continued to treat him kindly and gently. How did he manage that? Well, here’s my take: during these same years when he was unshakable in responding to Nick’s irrational hostility with oodles and oodles of what I’ve called “tender love,” Rob was equally unshakable in his thoroughly irrational hostility toward Trump. Which brings us to the question that I asked in my article about Being Charlie: was Rob, for all those years, directing at Trump the hostility that he felt toward his spoiled, angry, crazy, destructive, ungrateful, psychotic son? A brief interlude about Rob’s latest long-form interview. Just two months ago, he spent 90 minutes swapping ideas with Bill Maher on the latter’s Club Random podcast. They began with a friendly back-and-forth about the changes in the entertainment business over the last generation or two. Then they turned to Trump. And Rob was off to the races. He wasn’t just hateful — he was disconnected from reality. The right, he maintained, has much more of a “grip … on the media” than the left. “We don’t have a media infrastructure the way the other side does,” he asserted. Maher’s reply: “Bullshit.” Rob pressed on: Yes, the left has CNN and MSNBC. But nobody watches them. The left has the New York Times. But nobody reads it. No, Americans listen to Fox News. And for him, the point here was not that thoughtful American voters, by tuning in to Fox News, were paying attention to people who shared their views. No, for Rob, the point was that the left, which has billionaires like Soros behind it, needed even more truckloads of cash so that it could be more successful at manipulating the public. For Rob, in short, the whole business wasn’t about putting your views before the public and letting the public make an intelligent choice; it was about having the best propaganda machine. One was reminded that Rob, who had been so ardent in his characterization of Trump as an enemy of the Constitution, had been intensely involved in a comprehensive effort by Beltway insiders to violate the Constitution and overthrow Trump. (Come to think of it, if the FBI had acted quickly during Trump’s second term to arrest and imprison the people who’d conspired against him, Rob might be alive today.) Which brings us to a question: why was Rob Reiner so eager to help the Democrats take control of the government by any means necessary, constitutional or not? Was it because his own household was so terribly out of control, and he was desperate to feel that he wielded some degree of control over a far bigger entity? Maher, of course, is still very much a leftist, even though he’s rebelled at some of the more far-out positions that have taken center stage on the left. It was fascinating to watch him raise these issues with Rob. For example, when Maher mentioned the left’s refusal to acknowledge the reality of biological sex, Rob was baffled. “What do you mean?” he asked. Maher replied that he was talking about subjecting children to “gender-affirming treatment.” Which is worse, Maher asked: a president who’s joked about grabbing “pussies” or a political party that supports the surgical removal of the healthy private parts of little girls? Rob simply couldn’t process Maher’s point. Maher pressed it: actually removing children’s vaginas, he contended, is worse — “crazier” — than joking about grabbing women’s vaginas, and it “affects people more.” To which Rob replied heatedly that the people performing such operations weren’t running for president. In other words, Trump’s silly joke with Billy Bush mattered more than any number of surgical procedures depriving boys and girls of their genitals. Shortly thereafter, Rob served up the familiar leftist line that people on the right are racists. Maher countered that the left has its own problems with race. Again, Rob was confused: “Give me an example.” Maher began listing authors of Critical Race Theory texts: Robin DiAngelo, Ta-Nehisi Coates. That wasn’t good enough for Rob, who repeated: “Give me an example!” Maher cited the left-wing argument that “the only solution to past racism is future racism.” Rob, who seemed unaware that such ideas were at the heart of today’s Democratic Party, admitted that he wouldn’t agree with that view. But when Maher, noting that plenty of black women have complained on social media that they “just can’t deal with white people today,” commented that “you can’t imagine that in reverse,” Rob snapped back that you can fully understand why a black person would say that. This was, clearly, a man who found it exceedingly difficult to explicitly question even the most extreme planks in his party’s platform. Why? Because, I would suggest, his loyalty to Democratic ideology was of a piece with his utterly mad hatred for Trump — which, I would further suggest, was the only thing that enabled him to deal with the daily dose of madness provided by Nick, and the only thing that enabled Rob to maintain the façade of sanity in his personal and professional life. (By the way: in what ended up being a very creepy coincidence, the ad that Maher read before his interview with Rob was for a mental-health service called Rule: “Before you make the evening news, and not in a good way,” said Maher, turn to Rula, which makes “high-quality mental-health care easy and affordable.”) I’ll close with Rob’s unprecedentedly bizarre reaction to Trump’s re-election last November. First, he posted a rant in which he accused “MAGA scum” of joining the Bluesky social-media platform and making it “vile, racist and evil.” The next day, following “much discussion and heated debate with  family, friends and colleagues,” he announced that he was checking into a “facility” in order to find “peace and relaxation.” Question: Was it really Trump’s re-election that did this to him? He claimed that he saw Trump as an existential threat, an apocalyptic figure, a demon. In fact the real demon, the real existential threat, the real apocalyptic figure, was living on Rob’s dime and sleeping in Rob’s own guest house. It had his DNA. He was feeding it every day and kissing it goodnight every night. At the time that he shared with the world his post-election rage about Trump, Rob’s own personal apocalypse was a bit over a year away, and, though he didn’t know it, he was bringing it closer and closer to him as he coddled, cosseted, and caressed the psychotropically altered monster whom he still thought of as his beloved son — even as he slapped and smacked and swatted, with ever-increasing hysteria, at what he considered to be the supremely menacing specter of Donald J. Trump. READ MORE from Bruce Bawer: Can Being Charlie Tell Us Anything About the Reiner Murders? The New Yorker Makes a Shrine to Itself No Mommie Dearest, She
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The Christmas Gift List for Celebrities, Politicians, and Other Animals

You don’t always give gifts to people you like. Quite often, you have to give gifts to people you don’t. Think of the IRS. And finding the perfect present for someone you actively dislike is no easy task. Even when they’re your friends, it’s hard to come up with so many gifts in such a short period of time. As part of my charitable mission to make the world a better place through column writing, I have selflessly compiled this Christmas gift list for some of today’s most prominent personalities. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The ideal gift for any postmodern feminist: a bunch of cats, hundreds of bottles of wine, and Prozac. Ali Khamenei: A leg of Spanish Iberian ham, complete with its stand and special carving knife. A miracle cure for the mentally deranged. In Europe, Spanish Iberian ham has achieved more conversions than the great works of the Church Fathers. Bad Bunny: A Mozart album. And another one by The Blues Brothers. A guy who claims to work in the music industry should at least once in his life have the chance to discover what music actually is. Barack Obama: A return to the White House. As a decorator. (RELATED: The White House East Wing Renovations: Exorcizing the Daemons of Modernism) Bernie Sanders: A clown to accompany him everywhere. Since he is an elderly gentleman who looks like an elderly gentleman, there are still people who listen to him as if he were about to say something serious. Placing a clown next to him will help ensure no one forgets that this is all just a comedy act. Bill Gates: A minimalist, industrial-style trash can to install in his mansion, with a sign that reads: “Deposit your synthetic meat burger here.” (RELATED: Bill Gates Has Discovered Something More Profitable Than the Climate Apocalypse) Demi Moore: Fifty leeches for her anti-aging treatments, infected with E. coli, which is ideal for a good detox. Donald Trump: A roll of duct tape to cover his mouth whenever he feels tempted to take revenge on a man who has just been stabbed to death by his own son. Elon Musk: A damn Tesla door handle. (I used one for the first time a few months ago and spent 20 minutes trying to open a taxi door.) Emmanuel Macron: A couple of grandchildren. Not children, because it’s obvious that if he reproduces with Brigitte, the kids will be born already as grandchildren. George Soros: Two hundred cheerful illegal immigrants, like the ones he promotes for the entire West, brought in from a charming African village whose beautiful local Islamic traditions include grilling Christians and Jews. Preferably armed with flashy swords for their peaceful tribal dances. Hillary Clinton: Isn’t it about time she gave us something valuable? Her husband doesn’t count. We’re not Monica. Itxu Díaz: He loves broccoli, wants broccoli, is fascinated by broccoli. So the best gift would be expensive Venezuelan rum and donations. Joe Biden: A compass. And a set of rails with a moving platform so he can greet visitors while facing the right direction. (RELATED: Autopen Joe and the Gang That Couldn’t Spin Straight) Kamala Harris: A big Democratic endorsement of her idea that she could run for president again. Nothing would make Republicans happier. (RELATED: Kamala Harris’s Sad Book Tour Will Now Be Longer Than Her Campaign) Mahmoud Abbas: I hear he loves explosives, rockets, and bomb backpacks. Let’s grant his wish. Mark Zuckerberg: An archive compiling all the nonsense he’s been spouting for years, prior to his recent strategic ideological repositioning. (RELATED: Should We Believe Facebook on Free Speech?) Meryl Streep: A starring role in a big-budget silent film. Nicolás Maduro: An all-expenses-paid trip to Guantánamo so he can show off his impressive dance moves in an orange jumpsuit. (RELATED: Maduro Is a Mustachioed Turkey With Bird Flu (and Deserves No Pardon) Shakira: A good friend to tell her, “Girl, get a grip.” Sydney Sweeney: A bra. And a romantic dinner with someone handsome, kind, elegant, romantic, intelligent, dreamy, and humble. In other words, me. (RELATED: The Incomprehensible Failure of My Attempts to Woo Sydney Sweeney) Taylor Swift: A miracle: that God grants her in her brain what He granted her in her body. Ted Sarandos: Suspension from work without pay, in defense of national security. Ursula von der Leyen: A handful of pearls. I hear magpies love those. Vladimir Putin: Xanax mixed with vodka. Volodymyr Zelenskyy: A proper suit and men’s shoes. Xi Jinping: We should also send him Bill Gates’s infected steaks. We still owe him one hell of a pandemic. Zohran Mamdani: A statue of Christopher Columbus giving the finger, so he can keep it on his bedside table. READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: Why the World Is Turning to the Right The Sixth Annual Idiot of the Year Awards Give Me War and Give Me Castles
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Tom Steyer’s Affordable Energy Promises to California Are Unaffordable

Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist running for California governor, promises to cut electric bills by 25 percent by breaking up big utility companies like PG&E and Southern California Edison. In his ads, he boasts about fighting oil and gas companies, like when he helped kill Proposition 23 back in 2010. But here’s the problem: California’s economy runs 84 percent on fossil fuels. It powers our cars (mostly petroleum), factories, homes for heating (mostly natural gas), and even backs up our electricity (gas plants fill the gaps). Steyer’s war on these companies ignores simple supply-and-demand math, making his bill-cutting talk ring hollow. My Southern California Edison (SCE) bill during winter rates are 25 cents per kilowatt-hour off-peak, spiking to 59 cents during peak hours — more than double Texas’s 14-18 cents or Florida’s 15-16 cents. Those states deal with hurricanes and wildfires, too, but without California’s absurd rules making energy essentially unaffordable. Steyer’s plan is more of the same with no real change. On his campaign site and in op-eds, Steyer says the core of his energy plan is to “break up the utility monopolies” and “lower electric bills by 25 percent,” arguing that investor-owned utilities like PG&E are “state-sanctioned monopolies” that have been allowed to raise rates while earning “government-backed, double-digit profits.” In a LinkedIn announcement and social media videos, he repeats the same message: Californians can’t afford life here because “monopolistic” utilities and other “powerful interests” are being “coddled,” and he promises to “break up the monopolistic power of utilities” and make corporations “pay their fair share.” (RELATED: The Greens’ Daddy Warbucks Helps Himself) What he does not do in these materials is promise to roll back California’s aggressive climate timeline, loosen drilling restrictions, or rethink the state’s push toward 100 percent “clean” electricity by 2045. What he does not do in these materials is promise to roll back California’s aggressive climate timeline, loosen drilling restrictions, or rethink the state’s push toward 100 percent “clean” electricity by 2045. In fact, his long record as a climate activist and investor in decarbonization strongly signals he intends to stay within that framework.​ Given his record and current messaging, under a Steyer plan, several big things likely stay the same: Climate goals and mandates: He has spent years funding campaigns to strengthen climate laws and expand renewables standards, and nothing in his governor platform suggests slowing or scaling those goals back. Utilities would still have to meet some of the toughest renewable and emissions rules in the world, which are a major reason California’s per-kWh prices are far above Texas or Florida.​ Restrictions on oil and gas: Steyer built his political brand on “taking on the oil companies” and backing measures that tighten rules on drilling and refineries. His affordability message never mentions expanding in-state production or easing permitting, so California would likely continue importing most of its oil and relying on refiners under heavy constraints.​ Overall regulatory direction: He criticizes “corporate abuse,” not the regulatory structure. The same dense web of mandates, fees, and climate programs would remain in place; his focus is on who pays and how utilities are structured, not on simplifying or shrinking those obligations.​ In other words, the expensive rulebook and the hostility to in-state oil and gas that help keep California’s energy costs high would stay essentially intact. The part Steyer clearly wants to change is who runs the power system and how profits are made, not the underlying energy mix or mandates: He says he will break up the utility monopolies and reduce electric bills by 25 percent, but offers no detailed model yet — whether that means more retail competition, municipal takeovers, or some hybrid.​ He frames utilities as “coddled powerful interests” that have used their monopoly status and political clout to win guaranteed profits while pushing rising costs onto customers.​ He ties this into a broader populist promise to “make corporations pay their fair share” and redirect money to priorities like schools and housing.​ So the headline change is structural and political — reining in or restructuring investor-owned utilities — while the policy environment they operate in (100 percent clean-energy pathway, aggressive climate rules, strict treatment of oil and gas) remains essentially the same. California could drill oil and gas responsibly — meeting high environmental standards, like the new SB 237 law streamlining permits in Kern County — while protecting our air and land. But California’s extreme rules, like SB 1137 banning new wells near homes and pushing refineries out, force us to import 63 percent of our oil from countries with looser environmental regulations, which only shifts the environmental toll elsewhere, so California can falsely virtue signal about being climate-friendly. At the same time, gasoline prices skyrocket because California requires special gasoline blends such as the “summer blend,” adding another hidden cost to policies that do little to reduce global emissions. With oil and gas fueling 84 percent of our overall needs, we need more homegrown supply, which would bring much-needed high-paying jobs, not demonizing companies as enemies. Steyer’s “make them pay their fair share” line treats partners like villains, keeping us hooked on foreign oil.​ Texas and Florida show how it’s done: they welcome oil and gas, skip our renewables overload, and compete freely. Result? Low bills despite storms. Florida’s 15-16 cents per kilowatt-hour covers heavy air conditioning without our massive hikes.​ Breaking up utilities will not fix fuel costs, imports, or wishful-thinking climate targets. Steyer would have to reverse course—open the door to more responsible in‑state drilling like SB 237, ease California’s special fuel blends, and scale back aggressive mandates—to have any chance of meaningfully lowering prices. Until that happens, his “affordability” message is just green branding on the same costly playbook that already has Californians paying over twice what Texans and Floridians pay for power and far more at the pump. Voters should say a firm “no” to Steyer—and to every Democrat parroting affordability talking points while defending the climate policies that keep energy prices among the highest in the nation. READ MORE from Walter Myers: California’s Identity Support Plans Erode Parents’ Rights California Proposal Further Erodes Parents’ Rights The Indian American Community Deserves Immigration Fairness Walter Myers III is a Southern California-based senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
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