Author Archives: Paul Mirengoff

The Russians are coming. . .to Montenegro

Featured image During an interview last year, President Trump and Tucker Carlson had this exchange: CARLSON: Membership in NATO obligates the members to defend any other member who has been attacked. So let’s say Montenegro, which joined last year, is attacked: Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack? Why is that? TRUMP: I understand what you’re saying. . .but that’s the way it was set up. . »

Colin Powell’s self-serving distortion of Balkan history

Featured image In his 1995 autobiography, Colin Powell tried to justify America’s refusal to intervene in the Balkan Wars by claiming that these wars were driven by “ancient hatreds” in a “thousand year-old hornet’s nest.” I’d call this a misreading of history, except that Powell probably was not reading history. Maybe he picked up this trope at a cocktail party. In any case, the clash between Croats and Serbs in the 1990s »

Elizabeth Warren surges. Why?

Featured image While I was in Europe, and not paying much attention to the news, Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy surged. Polling suggests that she has moved well past Pete Buttigieg into no worse than third place in the race for the Democratic nomination. A very recent poll by YouGov has her in second place, ahead of Bernie Sanders. What explains Warren’s surge? Paul Waldman of the Washington Post tries to answer that question »

U.S. soccer stars embarrass themselves at Women’s World Cup

Featured image Yesterday at the Women’s World Cup, the U.S. defeated Thailand 13-0. The lopsidedness of the result is further proof that the tournament is a second rate sporting event. Soccer is the world’s game, but women’s soccer is not. Not many countries take women’s soccer seriously and, with the possible exception of the U.S., those that do don’t take it nearly as seriously as they take men’s soccer. Hence, mismatches like »

Good news for Northern Virginia criminals

Featured image Two veteran prosecutors in Northern Virginia were defeated yesterday by leftists backed to the hilt by George Soros’ money. In Arlington County, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti narrowly defeated longtime Commonwealth Attorney Theo Stamos. In Fairfax County, Steve Descano unseated incumbent Raymond Morrogh. I warned here and here that the massive influx of Soros money might produce these results. Dehghani-Tafti and Descano both campaigned on the “criminal justice reform” mantra. After her victory, »

Off to Vienna

Featured image and other central European destinations. I’ll be gone for two weeks and will take a break from blogging during this time. I will follow the news, but won’t obsess over it. If I learn anything about European populism, etc. I’ll report on it when I return. »

Trump demagogues crime issue. . .from the left

Featured image Yesterday, President Trump tweeted: Anyone associated with the 1994 Crime Bill will not have a chance of being elected. In particular, African Americans will not be able to vote for you. I, on the other hand, was responsible for Criminal Justice Reform, which had tremendous support, & helped fix the bad 1994 Bill! By “anyone,” Trump means Joe Biden. In fact, he also tweeted: Super Predator was the term associated »

Mulvaney places Acosta DOL in “receivership”

Featured image Well, not quite. But here, according to Bloomberg, is what President Trump’s acting chief of staff has done: Mick Mulvaney has seized power over the Labor Department’s rulemaking process out of frustration with the pace of deregulation under Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, according to current and former department officials and other people who communicate with the administration. Upon arriving at the West Wing in January, Mulvaney instituted a formalized system »

A free speech case the Supreme Court should hear

Featured image Teresa Seeberger rented rooms in a house she owned in Davenport, Iowa. When Seeberger learned that her tenant’s fifteen-year-old daughter had become pregnant, she told the tenant that she and her daughter would have to leave. When the tenant asked why, Seeberger said: “You don’t even pay rent on time the way it is . . . now you’re going to bring another person into the mix.” The eviction was »

Where’s Joe?

Featured image The Washington Post reports that Joe Biden is running a presidential campaign of “limited exposure.” This Memorial Day weekend, when his rivals were scurrying from venue to venue pressing the flesh, Biden’s agenda stated “no public events scheduled.” That’s typical of his campaign so far. According to the Post, since entering the race four weeks ago, Biden has held 11 public events. Beto O’Rourke held nearly four times that number »

Tom Cotton’s sacred duty

Featured image In his excellent review of Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National Cemetery, by Senator Tom Cotton, Scott Johnson criticized himself for not asking Tom about his service in the Old Guard at Arlington National Cemetery when the two met in New York City years ago. Scott says he now “feels like a fool” for not having asked questions that would have elicited some of the information contained in »

“Brussels consensus” suffers setback in EU elections

Featured image The Washington Post reports that “Europeans [have] dealt a blow to the continent’s traditional center-left and center-right politicians in elections for the European Parliament. . .depriving them of a majority for the first time.” It was a high-turnout election, with the highest participation level in 25 years. The Post says that voters used the elections to “take a shot at the parties that have steered Europe’s consensus-driven policies for decades.” »

John Walker Lindh and the First Step Act

Featured image John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban, was released from prison last week. He served 17 years of his 20 year sentence. He got out of jail early because he received “good conduct” credits. The First Step Act — the “jailbreak” legislation pushed by the Trump administration, the Heritage Foundation, and prominent GOP Senators like Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham — expands the credits that Lindh used to get out of »

Head and shoulders, knees and womb

Featured image It’s obvious which of those things is not like the other, but apparently not to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. During a hearing on facial recognition technology, she tried to connect this form of surveillance with the privacy concern cited by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Ocasio-Cortez opined that the privacy concern “doesn’t just give us [sic] a right to my uterus, it gives me a right to my hand and »

European chauvinism as the antidote to nationalism

Featured image Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post is probably the leading American defender of “the Europe of Brussels,” the antithesis of “the Europe of Nations.” She’s also one of President Trump’s harshest critics. That makes sense. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks the truth when he says that “President Trump has helped put the world back on track to a nation-first trajectory.” In her latest column, Applebaum describes a lunch meeting »

The Europe of Nations vs. the Europe of Brussels

Featured image John Fonte is probably the leading American critic of what he calls “the Europe of Brussels.” Thus, his is a voice worth listening to in connection with the European parliamentary elections now being held. John discusses what’s at stake in these elections in an article for “American Greatness” called “The Virtues of Patriotism.” The election, says John, represents a “war of ideas between the ‘Europe of Nations’ and the ‘Europe »

Girl killed by MS-13 members after Maryland officials ignore ICE detainer

Featured image Last week, police arrested two teenagers, Josue Fuentes-Ponce and Joel Escobar, and charged them with the murder of 14 year-old Ariana Funes-Diaz. She was killed in a tunnel, beaten with a baseball bat and slashed with a machete. She was found naked. Reportedly, the killers, members of MS-13, ordered her to strip before they murdered her. According to authorities, Fuentes-Ponce and Escobar killed the girl because they were worried she »