Books
February 23, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Philip Hamburger is the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and the author of books including, perhaps most prominently, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (2014). I reviewed it for National Review in “A new old regime” and subsequently posted a Power Line interview with Professor Hamburger about the book here (more here). In connection with what I’ve been calling Califoria’s (looming) billionaire tax, Professor Hamburger has
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February 23, 2026 — Scott Johnson
John Howard Griffin risked his health to darken his skin and report what it was like to be a black man in the Jim Crow South, circa 1959. He published the expanded version of the resulting Sepia magazine series as Black Like Me in 1961. I read it in the original 1962 paperback edition published by Signet Books. It made an impression on me and millions of other readers. Griffin’s
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February 22, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Nathan Pinkoski is a fellow at the Center for Renewing America and at the Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Politics. He is the best young writer on politics I know of. Everything he writes is worth reading. His Substack site is Lament for the Nations. In his Lament post “The veil is torn,” Pinkoski noted the publication of a new edition of Jean Raspail’s dystopian novel The Camp of the
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February 19, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The death of Jesse Jackson has elicited a chorus of warm praise for his life and works. However, it doesn’t comport with what I remember about him. If you too want to recall a few of the lowlights, I suggest you turn to the profile of Jackson preserved here at the Horowitz Freedom Center’s Discover the Networks (“the only resource of its kind”). I remember having breakfast with David Horowitz
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February 19, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Having written about the novelist Lionel Shriver yesterday morning, I discover that Spiked has posted the video of Fraser Myers’s interview with her about her wicked novel on our immigration nightmare, the just-published A Better Life — and I find that she and I are on the same wavelength. She even makes a point about the metamorphosis of the “homeless” to the “unhoused” that I made here last week. This
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February 18, 2026 — Scott Johnson
I knew nothing about Lionel Shriver when I first wrote about her on Power Line in 2016. Since then I’ve come to enjoy her political commentary at The Free Press and elsewhere. She is the author, most recently, of the just-published A Better Life and, most famously, We Need To Talk About Kevin. Anticipating her new novel, Publishers Weekly published a profile of her late last year. Vaguely remembering I
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February 14, 2026 — Scott Johnson
This past weekend the Wall Street Journal featured Tunku Varadarajan’s profile of Anthony Daniels (pseudonym Theodore Dalrymple) under the headline “The Psychiatrist to the ‘Underclass’” (“Anthony Daniels is a firsthand observer of the ‘squalor produced by the welfare state’ and by the ‘widespread abdication of personal responsibility’”). He has published brilliant, lucid, and witty essays in City Journal on a quarterly basis over the past 32 years (compiled here). The
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February 11, 2026 — Scott Johnson
You may have read about The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition. It is a two-volume history each volume of which is jointly attributed to the accomplished historians Allen Guelzo and James Hankins. However, except for the jointly written introduction, Professor Hankins is the sole author of Volume I (Subtitle: The Ancient World and Christendom, 2025) and Professor Guelzo, whom I cite in the adjacent post, of Volume
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February 8, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Randy Barnett is the Patrick Hotung Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown University Law Center where he directs the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. He is the author, most recently, of A Life for Liberty: The Making of an American Originalist (Encounter Books, 2024). In the current 25th anniversary double issue of the Claremont Review of Books, Professor Barnett reviews Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation, by Zaakir Tamiz.
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February 5, 2026 — Scott Johnson
If he were so inclined, I think Governor Walz could rewrite the Paul Simon song subtitled “How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission.” In Walz’s case, it would go “How I was Nancy Pelosi’d Into Submission.” The lyrics would explain how he was Nancy Pelosi’d into submission by Amy Klobuchar, or perhaps how he was Klobber’d into submission. I told the public part of the story in the Examiner column
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December 31, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Laurence Cooper is professor of political science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is the author, most recently, of Dreaming of Justice, Waking to Wisdom: Rousseau’s Philosophic Life (2023, University of Chicago Press). For the past five years or so I have studied the classics of political philosophy together with him and former Claremont Institute Chairman Bruce Sanborn weekly over lunch. Larry is our gifted teacher. I asked him
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December 27, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal published Rick Richman’s review of Jewish Roots of American Liberty: The Impact of Hebraic Ideas on the American Story, edited by Wilfred McClay and Stuart Halpern and published by Encounter. Professor McClay holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair in Classical History and Western Civilization at Hillsdale College. Rabbi Halpern serves as senior advisor to the provost at Yeshiva University. Rick Richman’s review appears
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December 19, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Norman Podhoretz was one of my intellectual heroes. His single most famous essay may be “My Negro Problem — and Ours,” published in Commentary in 1963. In 2013 he looked back on it in “‘My Negro Problem — and Ours’ at 50,” another great Commentary essay. James Baldwin plays his part in both essays. As we became friendly correspondents, he wrote me frequently to thank me for this or that.
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December 18, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Last week Racket News published Matt Taibbi’s column “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Blunt Call for Government By ‘Independent’ Experts” (“Independent from what? Dumb voters, of course. On this week’s potentially transformative Supreme Court case, and the revival of Woodrow Wilson’s vision”). In his own way Taibbi takes up a subject we’ve written a lot about on Power Line over the years. Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship Dean Ronald Pestritto’s
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December 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Legendary Commentary editor and author Norman Podhoretz died last night at the age of 95. John Podhoretz pays first tribute to his father here. Mr. Podhoretz served as an inspiration to me for-roughly-ever. His turn to conservatism and support of Ronald Reagan made Commentary a magazine of world-historic import. When Power Line had a moment in the sun after Rathergate, I expressed the debt I felt to him in a
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December 11, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Seven years ago we celebrated a week of Charles — Charles Kesler, Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Clarmeont McKenna College, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, long-time friend and tutor — for his receipt of one of 2018’s Bradley Prize awards along with Allen Guelzo and Jason Riley. Video of the event is posted here on Vimeo. Charles is a gentleman, scholar, author, teacher, editor, advocate of America
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December 9, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Benjamin Weingarten is the author of the aptly titled American Ingrate: Ilhan Omar and the Progressive-Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party (foreword by Andrew McCarthy). At his Substack site, Ben has posted his research on the links among Ilhan Omar, the Feeding Our Future fraud, and the Feeding Our Future fraudsters. Ben asks: “Did Ilhan Omar Rake in More Campaign Cash From More ‘Feeding Our Future’ Scandal Fraudsters Than Has
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