Brandon Turner

If only Epstein had thought better of it and not committed suicide he might be in the Cabinet today.

not only does Kirk mistakenly add the word "conservatism" here, he just utterly misinterprets the rhetorical direction of the passage and the piece. hughes is raising *alarm* at this anti-ideology and its potential to sap the visions of "utopia" that animate politics.

here's what Hughes actually writes:

"that's a great line," i think. it pops up elsewhere online, but in each case clearly gleaned from kirk.

i found what i assume is the original source, a 1960 essay in a special issue of DAEDALUS on "Mass Culture and Mass Media," with contributions from eg. Arendt, Shils, Schlesinger, James Baldwin

another round of "stuff that interests only me probably"

in a brief chapter introducing a 1993 collection of essays called THE POLITICS OF PRUDENCE, Russell Kirk quotes H. Stuart Hughes, a mid-century American historian who unsuccessfully ran for JFK's vacated Senate seat, to the following effect:

Beginning a response to this, but finding it difficult. Like so much MAGA bullshit, it's just so sloppy and so uninterested in facts that one hardly knows where to begin. It is simply not serious and in this feel totally impervious to a serious response.

I am a conservative, and I'm against this sort of thing

The Manhattan Statement on Higher Education America’s colleges and universities have long been the bright lights of our civilization. For nearly four centuries, they have pioneered new fields of knowledge, brought the arts and sciences to new h...

Many persons I'd think would know better have affixed their names to a new and highly illiberal set of demands on colleges and universities. Just a preliminary note or two on why it's disappointing to see them do so. /1 manhattan.institute/article/the-...

The police militarization debate is over Quaint disputes about the proper role of police and military have been superseded by a more urgent threat: Donald Trump is creating his own, personal paramilitary force

New at The Watch:

radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-police...

"Silly liberal, Hegel did not anticipate the pundit cla-"

Reading a picture book about two guys getting married? Unacceptable. Child abuse.

This? Hey bud those kids broke the law

he clearly hates being a senator! truly bizarre situation

the relief one feels after finishing Vol. I of a la recherche du temps perdu and realizing that, despite its exceedingly delicate texture and at times overwhelmingly refined aesthetic sensibility, despite the author's exquisite skill in leading his captivated reader first to this ornately finished

with the exception of AOC, who has been consistently great

in other words, it can at least be wondered if immigration's slow climb is due partly to the fact that it's hard to tie it to a specific Dem or group of Dems

the immigration numbers are heartening, but i wonder if what we're seeing isn't evidence that Democrats should "lead" on this issue--since, despite being sometimes forgotten, nobody likes any of these Democrats--and more a testament to the awe-inspiring negative polarization powers of Trump

suddenly but surely that one is, finally, what people call simply "old," that despite these things and many others besides, observations and descriptions that litter the text like ancient curios in the sitting room of a wealthy eccentric, that one probably doesn't need to read the other six volumes

petal, then still to a further and perhaps darker, an innermost chamber with low lights and walls weighted with tapestries of rich and slightly forbidding origins, a room in which a million private joys whose pleasing effect gives way over time to a sort of languid finality in which one realizes

room of the limitless internal manse, then to that equally decorous space dedicated to a simple but elegant piano forte upon which a handsome and frail young man, not yet aware of your presence, runs through one of those sonatinas of Mozart's that seem to float through the air like a single hawthorn

the relief one feels after finishing Vol. I of a la recherche du temps perdu and realizing that, despite its exceedingly delicate texture and at times overwhelmingly refined aesthetic sensibility, despite the author's exquisite skill in leading his captivated reader first to this ornately finished

I would like Trump's letter to Brazil to live on as one of the important primary source documents of the Trump era, linking trade restrictions in historical memory to impunity for criminal behavior, right-wing nationalist authoritarian politics, coups, domestic illegality, and simple illiteracy.

Trump's Plan to Impose 50% Tariffs On Brazil Highlights Illegal and Harmful Nature of his Trade Policy Earlier today, President Donald Trump announced he intends to impose 50% tariffs on imports from Brazil, citing that country's…

Trump's imposition of 50% tariffs on Brazil highlights dangerous and illegal nature of his trade policy, and its threat to the rule of law: reason.com/volokh/2025/...

MI:2 is an absolute mess. You could skip it and lose nothing at all from the series.

this headline is perfectly correct!

the Babylon Bee knows how fucking BAD this looks for, uh, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn

This is outright Nazi language.

Postscript: the reply to pointing this out, always, goes something like this: but here are other reasons to suspect that she held *the same views* attributed to her here. Once you can pin a "view" on the subject, everything is permitted and scholarly discipline can be jettisoned.

In a word: no

CBP SECTOR CHIEF GREG BOVINO TO LA RESIDENTS: “We don’t work for Karen Bass… better get used to us now, this is going to be normal very soon.”🤔

If it quacks like Martial Law…

How long til Cali folks move to stop funding this with their tax dollars?

(The piece appears in the Dec 21 1955 issue of NR; the NR archives are now far more widely available on Gale and EBSCOHost.)

Poking around led to this catty letter from Whittaker Chambers to Buckley on the subject of Paterson, who Chambers seems to have liked about as much as he liked Ayn Rand: