When I joined the U.S. Army in the 1960s, we were told our job was to defeat communism—specifically, the kind practiced in the old Soviet Union. After almost a year of specialized top-secret training, I was assigned to a specialized detachment of the Army Security Agency in West Germany. Our …
A few days ago, Laura Hollis, a friend and former faculty colleague from my days as a professor and dean at the University of Illinois, contacted me. Today, Laura is a professor at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, where she teaches business law, among other subjects. She was …
Will 2024 be a Reprise of the disastrous 1876 Presidential Election? What a question, you might ask. But let’s look at what happened in 1876, and then you can decide. The political comparisons between 1876 to 2024 are striking. Let’s set the scene. In 1876 the Democrats controlled the House, …
In 2020, after Joe Biden announced that Kamala Harris would be his running mate, an ad hoc group of Democratic Party operatives sent an extraordinary memo instructing all news media outlets on how to cover Kamala. Here’s what the memo said, in part: “Our country — and your newsrooms — …
The would-be assassin who tried to kill Donald Trump but instead killed one member of the former president’s campaign rally audience and wounded two others used an AR-15 rifle. It took only a few hours before Joe Biden was once again yelping about banning the AR-15, incorrectly referring to it …
(Occasionally, I like to repost my piece on Evelyn Waugh’s “Scoop,” the classic book that lampoons foreign correspondents. I first read Scoop in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in March 1975 as Communist Khmer Rouge guerillas surrounded the besieged city. Day after day, the Khmer Rouge bombarded the city with 107mm Chinese-made …
The most controversial movie of 2024 (so far) is the dystopian film “Civil War.” It depicts a politically and socially divided America in the throes of a second civil war. In the not-too-distant future, the United States is no longer united but split into four warring forces or states. There …
Every day, a new political poll materializes, telling us which presidential candidate is leading in which state, county, or even city. Other polls tell us which candidate is leading nationally or who is leading with a particular group of voters: black, Hispanic, Asian, white, etc. I’m weary of polls like …
In 1968, Chicago was known as “the city that works,” meaning a powerful Democratic political machine commanded it. The master of that machine was a virtuoso politician and mayor named Richard J. Daley. A year before, “Boss” Daley had pitched Chicago as the site of the 1968 Democrat National Convention. As …
In college, I read George Orwell’s gloomy and ominous novel 1984. While it was eye-opening, I never once considered that the totalitarian world it portrays could ever materialize in America. Today, I’m not so sure it couldn’t. We seem to be already moving toward the dystopian totalitarian state of “Oceania” …