Books
February 3, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I went to see A Complete Unknown for a second time over the weekend. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it and thought it a work of art the second time. If Bob Dylan’s music rings your chimes, as it does mine, you won’t want to miss it. Here are a few observations and resources that may enhance your enjoyment in case you go. I grew up listening
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January 29, 2025 — Scott Johnson
In what is now yesterday’s good news we took note of the OMB directive ordering federal agencies temporarily to block disbursement of grants and loans — other than for Social Security, Medicare and other programs providing direct aid to individuals. The relevant OMB memo is posted here. Now comes today’s bad news. Judge Loren AliKhan has promulgated some kind of equitable relief blocking the Trump administration from implementing the order
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January 22, 2025 — Steven Hayward
Trump promised back in 2016 that there’d be so much winning that we’d get tired of all the winning. And he’s certainly delivered in his first 24 hours on the job. But no, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this much winning. I could do a whole gallery of items about all the winning from the first day, but my eye caught a story from the Times of
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January 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
New York Times reporters Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater have written the forthcoming book Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man With Rats in His Walls Broke Congress. The book includes an account of Chuck Schumer’s meeting with President Biden at Biden’s vacation mansion in Rehoboth Beach following his disastrous June 27 debate with Trump. Today’s New
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January 12, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Reading serious reference to President Biden’s “legacy” as though it is anything but an unprecedented catastrophe presents a challenge to my progress in anger management. Joe Biden — this is the guy who opened our borders and invited the world to “come on down,” like someone trying to find his calling as a game show host. This is the guy who deployed the forces of the Department of Justice to
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January 9, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday Yoram Hazony recommended Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II. It is a mind-boggling book that hasn’t received the recognition it is due. On the publication date of the book in 2021 we posted his backgrounder “The story behind Stalin’s War.” McMeekin’s “Stalin’s War” is the best history I’ve read in years. Among other themes: 1. Stalin was every bit as evil as Hitler. 2. FDR was
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January 1, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Around New Year’s, I have sometimes posted a recap of books I read during the preceding year. I am not doing that this year, partly because I finished the complete works of John D. MacDonald, which is somewhat embarrassing. Instead, I want to note Mark Helprin’s contribution to the Claremont Reviews of Books’ Christmas Review, about which Scott has written, and to which he contributed. Helprin’s “reading highlight” of 2024
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January 1, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I noted the annual Claremont Review of Books Christmas round-up when it was published last month. Among the contributors are favorites of mine including Michael Barone, Chris Caldwell, Glenn Ellmers, Chris Flannery, Mark Helprin, Heather Mac Donald, Dan Mahoney, Sally Pipes, Andrew Roberts, Tevi Troy, Amy Wax, Jean Yarbrough, and more. I contributed as well and thought I would post my recommendations here. * * * * * Washington Post
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December 28, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Further to John’s post on “Anti-Semitism in the arts” (the British arts, that is) consider this testimony taken by Liel Leibovitz from an insider with first-hand knowledge: “There’s no question that Jews are being excluded from the publishing industry at every level and rank—from editors at publishing houses unwilling to publish Jewish books, to literary media outlets refusing to cover Israeli or Jewish books and authors, major festivals no longer
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December 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Only last week I recalled Gene Smith’s best-selling account of the end of the Wilson presidency When the Cheering Stopped. My paperback copy gives it the subtitle The Strange, Untold Story of the Last Years of Woodrow Wilson!, although part of that was a Bantam Books embellishment. I predicted that an enterprising historian will do Smith’s number on the Biden presidency. It’s not much of a prediction. The story of
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December 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Claremont Review of Books has just posted its annual Christmas round-up of book recommendations. Among the contributors are favorites of ours including Michael Barone, Christopher Caldwell, John DiIulio, Jr., Glenn Ellmers, Chris Flannery, Mark Helprin, Heather Mac Donald, Dan Mahoney, Sally Pipes, Andrew Roberts, Tevi Troy, Amy Wax, Jean Yarbrough, and many more. I contributed as well and will only add that Professor Yarbrough and I both recommended David
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December 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Bari Weiss interviewed UK Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch at length in the hour-plus video below. The video is posted here at the Free Press with an introduction by Bari. I have also posted the video below. At about 12:00, Bari asks Badenoch if she read any books that influenced her intellectual evolution. Good question! If Thomas Sowell came to mind, as it did to mine, you are correct. Badenoch
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November 21, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I have four propositions with which many readers disagree. First, William Barr was an outstanding Attorney General of the United States in the first Trump administration. Second, if it weren’t for Barr, the Mueller investigation would still be going strong persecuting innocent citizens. We would be entertaining proposals to convert it into a permanent commission. Third, I agree entirely with Barr’s critique of President Trump’s endgame on January 6. I
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November 15, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll reports OUR GIRLS ARE CRAZY! She writes: For several years now various confessional books, psychologists, sociologists, and observers of the passing scene have warned us that our young women – especially those who lean left — have become, not to put too fine a point on it, bat guano crazy. But I didn’t really believe it. As a “somewhat high-strung” person of the female persuasion, whose husband complains
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November 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding. It may have been cutting-edge in 1961, when it was published, but not for long. Indeed, Hunter Biden’s misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover’s satire. However, I have found Gover’s title an irresistible source of headlines for comments on the news. Here we go again. The Harris presidential campaign reportedly raised and spent $1,000,000,000 in the course of its
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October 9, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Below Steve takes up the incredible story of the roiling of CBS News by a morning host’s treatment of Ta-Nehisi Coates as an adult writer rather than the author of holy writ. Coates was peddling his new book attacking the existence of Israel. Having read his old book — Between the World and Me, published in 2015 and celebrated as a masterpiece wherever the left holds sway — I was
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September 24, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Republicans held a narrow majority in the Minnesota state senate after the 2018 elections that produced Tim Walz as governor. The Republican majority was reduced to one vote after the 2020 elections. Paul Gazelka served as the senate majority leader for five years including the entirety of Walz’s first term. Mr. Gazelka did an excellent job holding his caucus together and keeping Walz in check — until Walz seized on
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