In his best-selling 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Czech-French author and Soviet dissident Milan Kundera defines “kitsch” as not merely tacky art or sentimental excess but a deliberate denial of reality’s messiness. “Kitsch,” he writes, is “the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and figurative senses of…
Tangible things break for a variety of reasons, but in most cases the causes are easy to understand: 1) a part wore out; 2) a part was defective, or 3) the device was designed to break and be unrepairable to force us to buy a new one, i.e. planned obsolescence. Systems…
A black judge has released accused murderer Karmelo Anthony in the latest case of “we should not be forced to live with these people.” Angela Tucker, a graduate of SMU’s ironically named Dedman School of Law, serves on the bench of Texas’ 199th District Court where she was…
It’s not unusual for smallish nationalist political parties in Europe to be banned once they’re perceived as a possible “threat” to a country’s establishment. “Democracy” has devolved into a tightly managed system of manipulation and regulation, and populists and nationalists aren’t supposed to participate in an effective way. As…
So, you wonder why Democrats are so anxious to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the USA. Is it to lead the national ticket in 2028? Who else have they got? Pete Buttigieg doesn’t have half of Kilmar’s charisma. AOC is just pretending to be Sandy-from-the-block — and everybody…
For decades, U.S. foreign policy wonks such as Paul Wolfowitz, Raymond Tanter, Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle, argued that U.S. military power could reshape the Middle East, somehow transforming it from the tribal and religious mess that it is into an American-style liberal democracy. The primary beneficiary of this…
Story at a Glance: •The FDA was established in 1906 in response to public concern over unsafe food and drugs, such as spoiled food and counterfeit products. However, food industry lobbyists gradually gained influence, leading to the removal of the agency’s original leader. As a result, numerous harmful food…
Many prattling about the Rule of Law and Our Sacred Constitution these many years have no problem with President Trump usurping Congress’s constitutionally specified “. . . Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, . . .” (Article I, Section 8) by issuing his Liberation Day…
The West has waged a “proxy war” against Russia via Ukraine and lost it, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. Hungary, a member of the EU, has repeatedly criticized the bloc’s policies on the Ukraine conflict, particularly its sanctions on Moscow and weapons deliveries to Kiev. In an interview with…
You likely already know from reading Racket that the Biden administration was very active in targeting misinformation and disinformation, even as it engaged in those practices. Racket’s Twitter Files and other reporting have extensively documented many of the anti-disinformation and misinformation programs and organizations that the federal government supported, like the Election…
