Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to criticize American libertarian-conservative political commentator and author George Will and the lack of true statesmen across the country.
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The first book I ever read on public policy was Compassion Versus Guilt. A collection of columns by the great Thomas Sowell, it was what I regularly referred to on all questions economic toward the end of high school, in college, and well beyond. I have it to this day, and it informs my thinking to this day.
In many ways Sowell’s collection is a look back in time. Thanks to the internet, these kinds of compilations aren’t as common nowadays. This is unfortunate, but at the same time some writers are so prominent and popular that they still rate this kind of publication. Washington Post columnist extraordinaire George Will is one of them. Thank goodness. His latest collection of essays, American Happiness and Discontents: The Unruly Torrent 2008-2020 is nothing short of spectacular. Though a little under 500 pages, I read it in a few sittings so unputdownable was it. Every column had me wanting more, which meant a few late nights and early mornings in a very short, very busy 8-day stretch.
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by Troy Worden You might have heard about the #WalkAway Movement, in which disaffected Democrats say farewell to their party due to its hard-left turn. But you might not have heard much about an identical movement of disaffected Republicans leaving their party, though it’s not because it isn’t happening. It’s just that nobody cares. Nobody cares about recent pieces in The Atlantic, Washington Post, and other liberal papers detailing former Republicans’ disaffection with their party, even if they were published in the wake of Brett Kavanaugh’s highly contentious nomination to the Supreme Court. Indeed, very few people cared about the exodus of other, more prominent conservatives from the party, among them campaign strategist Steve Schmidt and columnist George Will. This isn’t to say Schmidt or Will or others—Bill Kristol, David French, and Jonah Goldberg among them—are not intelligent figures who sincerely believe that they are defending the principles of “true conservatism.” They can be mistaken without being insincere. All due respect for their work on behalf of a cause we once thought we shared in common. Now, however, we have to be honest. Many of them are cashing in on their Trump Derangement Syndrome, bigly. Kristol says he’s still…
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by Jeffery Rendall Are #NeverTrumpers loners or are they really just lonely? The question came to mind recently as the nebulous allegedly “conservative” anti-Trump group appears to be losing adherents and friends at an alarming rate. It’s not that President Donald Trump has suddenly become so popular that it’s no longer fashionable to oppose him; maybe it’s because the #NeverTrump group has just run out of things to criticize the president for. Whatever the reason more conservatives have taken to kicking the GOP intra-party opposition where it hurts with many a commentator treating #NeverTrump with the same contempt as they would Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer. Nerdy bespectacled intellectual George Will perhaps triggered the bash-#NeverTrump revelry a couple weeks ago when he encouraged conservatives to vote Democrat this November instead of for Trump-enabling Republicans. The #NeverTrump suicide-fest continued last week with several more establishment Republicans declaring independence and urging the ultra-disgruntled to do the unthinkable: go Democrat. Then one-time highly respected right-leaning (neoconservative) writer Max Boot took his turn at pleading for the minority party. Boot wrote last week at The Washington Post, “No one anticipated Trump’s takeover. It’s possible, these [#NeverTrump] Republicans argue, that we might be equally surprised by his downfall. Imagine…
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by Jeffery Rendall It should come as no surprise to observers of American politics that nearly two years after Donald Trump was formally nominated as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate – and a year and a half after he assumed the office – his “conservative” #NeverTrump adversaries are still after him. These spoiled, pampered and snobby pseudo-Republicans won’t let bygones be bygones and acknowledge the plethora of positive things Trump brought the GOP and the conservative cause since taking center stage in the White House on January 20, 2017. Simply put, Trump (thus far) has been the most refreshing political surprise of a half-century. Perhaps starting with his choice of full-spectrum principled conservative Mike Pence as his running mate (and future vice president), Trump’s made one good decision after another, usually tilting the political balance towards the right side of the scale. Still there are those refusing to give Trump his due; these malcontents snipe at his flanks, mostly by decrying his past personal history, his current behavior and his fondness for punching back at critics via Twitter or his always entertaining but never conventional press appearances. Despite this, few in the nebulous #NeverTrump contingent have come flat out…
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The Janus Decision will not create drastic structural changes to unions. It will simply make them more accountable to their own members. And in the case of teacher unions, this greater accountability should focus on making the quality of education front and center, help public education rebuild support from the public for issues like raising teacher pay and school funding, and work for the common good of all students and educators.
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