#neocon-talks

#neocon-talks

Hegseth maintained that the zero-enrichment policy was not foisted on him, adding: As someone who, unlike the individual you referenced, is in the presence of the president nearly every day and has been inside every single key meeting that has happened surrounding the idea of Operation Epic Fury, not a single thing has been foisted upon the President of the United States.

A ProPublica investigation has found that most of these bills are part of a coordinated effort, orchestrated by a constellation of groups that share staff or have funding ties to the prominent conservative activist Leonard Leo.

Jefferson's words on equality are often seen as self-evident, yet they fail to encompass enslaved individuals, women, and other marginalized groups, revealing a significant contradiction.

Erik Prince, the former CEO of the Blackwater mercenary group, warned that if Trump orders an incursion into Iran, the public will witness 'imagery of burning American warships in the next couple of weeks.' He expressed concern that people are not prepared for such outcomes.

For a nation whose founding symbols were carefully engineered around the balance of peace and war, that omission is hard to read as accidental. Dropping the olive branch from the dime isn't just a design choice: it's a cultural signal.

Indeed, regional "divisions" - others might say "alarm" or "outrage" - had intensified during the fall of 2025 following the US's massive military build-up in the Caribbean, its air strikes against alleged drug boats - resulting in scores of extrajudicial killings - and the threats of a US attack on Venezuela.

Three of the four things that gave Trump a foothold, in my opinion, were failures in this century (the fourth is the legacy of slavery and the organized political violence that replaced it). The other three, though, are the War on Terror, the financial crisis, and social media. (COVID was the final catalyst, I think; having moved during the height of COVID, I can't express how much worse the US dealt with it than much of the EU.)

And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right, we are now a nation divided be those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance.

On this week's episode of The David Frum Show, David opens with his reflections on the recent shootings in Minneapolis. He argues that these killings, alongside ICE's warrantless home raids and mistaken detentions, and the reports of deaths in custody, are not isolated abuses but signs of a rapidly deepening crisis in American democracy, one in which basic rights and due process are applied unevenly and increasingly contested.

Buckley's campaign was successful in re-energizing the conservative base. As Buckley biographer Sam Tanenhaus commented to The American Conservative, '[TAC Co-Founder] Pat Buchanan told me that after Goldwater's defeat in 1964 and before Nixon's victory in 1968, "Bill Buckley was all we had. He was the biggest guy."'

The Department of Homeland Security's Facebook account recently posted a recruiting notice for ICE under the banner "WE'LL HAVE OUR HOME AGAIN"-the title of a white-nationalist anthem by the Pine Tree Riots ("By blood or sweat, we'll get there yet"). The Department of Labor recently posted a video montage referencing American battle scenes under the tagline "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American"-a slogan close to the Nazi-era Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.

"It is not the critic who counts," President Theodore Roosevelt once said. "The credit belongs to the man who is in the arena." The Heritage Foundation has been in the arena for many years, fighting many battles, so it's no surprise that it has attracted many critics as well. And while Heritage cannot claim perfection, this much is certain: We have stayed true to our mission despite the critics;

The readings in my last series led me to see the genuine hatred conservatives have for what they call variously liberal hegemony, liberal ideology, left-wing ideology, and other names. David Brooks, newly ensconced at Yale and The Atlantic, is just sure it was liberals who caused Trump's wins, with their snotty "knowledge", and "refined tastes". I mocked this nonsense, but apparently Brooks was serious about the super bad feelings his people have about such things.

On January 15, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced $75.1 million for humanities projects across the country. Presented as part of President Donald Trump's January 25, 2025 executive order, "Celebrating America's Birthday," the move is the latest example of how the Trump administration is increasingly using federal funding as a vehicle to achieve its broader goals of reshaping higher education.