From Wikimedia Commons: Among the Sierra Nevada, California (Albert Bierstadt, 1868) 

Democrat governance in America's major cities has come to signal a process of institutional unraveling and civic erosion. From New York to Chicago and Detroit, and extending westwards to Los Angeles and San Francisco, prolonged one-party rule correlates with rising disorder and fiscal strain, ultimately driving the flight of productive residents.

California, a laboratory for Democrat experimentation, currently governed by Gavin Newsom, epitomizes the ideological artefact of "decivilization." Conservative historian Victor Davis Hanson—himself a fifth-generation farmer of the San Joaquin Valley—has described The Golden State of yesterday as a mismanaged "third-world" entity in which a narrow elite flourishes while the broader population confronts economic contraction, infrastructural decline, and social disintegration. Sadly, his characterization is substantiated across budgets, crime statistics, housing markets, and the state of the public realm.

California's fiscal position reveals chronic imbalance. Massive budget deficits persist alongside soaring unfunded liabilities for pensions and retiree health care. Residents confront some of the highest gasoline, energy, and sales taxes in the nation. These burdens fall disproportionately on the middle class and small businesses, while progressive

Not long ago, I attended a Sunday service at a Methodist church in Denver.

Before the service began, the pastor introduced herself, shared her preferred pronouns, and informed the congregation that we were worshipping on stolen Native American land.

I remember wondering why, if the land had truly been stolen, the church still owned it. I wrote about it on these pages. 

Now Denver's City Council wants to add another public ritual to official meetings.

Not a prayer.

Not the Pledge of Allegiance.

Not even a moment of silence.

A labor acknowledgment recognizing slavery and its legacy.

Image created by ChatGPT

The proposal is curious for one obvious reason.

Colorado entered the Union in 1876 — more than a decade after the Civil War ended — as a free state. No one currently living in Colorado was ever enslaved, and no one currently living in Colorado owned slaves here.

Yet before city business can begin, elected officials may soon be expected to acknowledge historical events that occurred generations before anyone in the room was born.

The ritual keeps growing.

First came pronouns. Then land acknowledgments. Now

There are a number of ways in which Western governments are waging war against their citizens.  The United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and leftists in the United States do not believe in free speech.  These Western governments also spy on their citizens without warrants or probable cause.  They have transformed their court systems into ideologically-partisan dictatorships that impose rulings based upon feelings and "political correctness," rather than black-letter law and self-restraint.  An offense that often gets overlooked, however, is Western governments' infringement of citizens' freedom of association.

Freedom of association is our natural, God-given right to meet with likeminded people, discuss ideas, express ourselves, and promote our mutual interests.  As with freedom of speech, it is fundamental to any notion of liberty.  Respect for freedom of association is the bedrock for religious freedom, freedom of conscience, communal identity, and national self-determination.  

Countries are born when people of common ancestry, language, history, and customs choose to work together and defend their way of life.  Towns spring up when likeminded people settle and develop a region together.  Religious congregations grow through common worship.  Schools, skilled trade unions, clubs, sports leagues, and civic organizations of all types are formed when people come together to

Japan remains the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasury securities, with holdings still above $1.1 trillion.  For decades, that position helped finance American deficits at relatively contained rates.  The arrangement, however, is fraying.

The Bank of Japan has raised its policy rate and is gradually stepping back from the extreme yield-curve control that kept Japanese government bond yields artificially suppressed for years.  Domestic Japanese yields have risen.  The yen has been under pressure, prompting repeated intervention.  When Tokyo defends the yen, it often draws on dollar reserves that include Treasuries.  The net result is reduced Japanese demand, or outright sales, for U.S. government debt at the precise moment the United States must roll over enormous volumes of maturing obligations against a debt stock that has crossed $39 trillion.

This is a structural shift.  Foreign official buyers are no longer the reliable residual demand they once were.  Domestic private buyers and the banking system will have to absorb more paper.  Markets have already tested higher long-term yields.  The political system will not tolerate market-clearing rates high enough to clear the entire supply on purely commercial terms for long.

The available middle road has a name and historical precedent.  "Financial repression" is what governments do when default is unacceptable and honest fiscal consolidation is

Six years ago, police in Aurora, CO, drew weapons on Brittney Gillian, a black woman, and four minors—her sister, daughter, and two nieces, ages 17 to six years—forced them to the hot asphalt in a parking lot, handcuffed them, and turned their "Sunday fun day" outing into a nightmare. The officers had misidentified Gillian's SUV as stolen, matching the plates but not waiting to cross-check the description of the vehicle the Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) network alerted them to: an out-of-state motorcycle.

The Aurora police apologized and, three years later, paid Gillian and the others $1.9 million in a civil rights settlement, but the officers were not charged. Their heavy-handed action, perhaps a genuine error, was found to be in keeping with standard procedure. That does not excuse the trauma Gillian and the children suffered. And compensation in one case does not lessen the extent to which ALPRs can be—and have been—used in violation of citizens' privacy and liberty.

With free access to ALPR data, police officers are predictably the biggest abusers. At least 50 officers nationwide have faced charges for accessing ALPR networks for personal reasons—for example, to stalk romantic interests.

• A Milwaukee police
  American Thinker

On the 81st anniversary of Imperial Japan's surrender, President Donald J. Trump issued a message that rightly honors the warriors of the Greatest Generation. Those men answered the call after Pearl Harbor, fought across the Pacific at Midway, Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, delivering total victory. More than 16 million served. Over 400,000 never returned. Their grit ended the deadliest war in history and left the American flag flying over a liberated Pacific.

Today, a democratic Japan stands as a close ally. Trump's message made plain that freedom survives only when citizens stand ready to defend it. He stressed that the America which those heroes saved remains the mightiest force for good on Earth.

Words alone would be empty. Trump promptly matched them with concrete action on national defense.

He signed a memorandum that confronts the long neglect of American shipbuilding head-on. The Navy has suffered delays, cost overruns, and canceled programs because of overly complex designs and a hollowed-out industrial base. Competition has withered. Capacity has atrophied. Trump directed the replacement of failed advanced systems on the next aircraft carrier with proven steam and hydraulic technology.

He ordered more direct investment modeled on successful foreign practices that bring jobs

Nathan Hochman's prosecution of LAPD Officer Daniel Flores is evidence of Hochman's integrity, not evidence that he has turned against police, because a pro-law-enforcement district attorney ought to enforce the law even when the defendant is a police officer.

Election 2020 was a disaster, not just because Trump lost the election (unfairly, I might add). In Los Angeles County, where I live, I witnessed George Gascón, the flagrantly pro-"criminal justice reform" former District Attorney of San Francisco, carpetbag down from the Bay Area and become the District Attorney for Los Angeles County. LA County lost any semblance of law and order for four years.

Eventually, everyone woke up, in a good way, about Gascón, but after two failed recall efforts, LA County voters would have to wait for the next election.

And in came Nathan Hochman. In 2022, he ran for state Attorney General as a liberal Republican. He earned enough votes to get just above 40%, decent for a Republican in a deep-blue state. After some political maneuvering (switching to "Independent" and backing away from Trump), Hochman won, and things have never been better in Los Angeles County (at least compared to the last four to eight years. Remember

For years, I've tried to understand the growing rancor between the Muslim community and the American population. It seems there is never a time when the two groups have lived comfortably with each other. And in these times of Muslims also becoming part of our political community, of the strife in the Middle East, and the ongoing conflicts in Muslim-majority countries, there is no sign of relationships improving.

Although some Muslims have migrated here and have made satisfying lives for themselves, a large number of Muslims are dissatisfied or uncomfortable with their new home. It has been helpful to try to understand the mindset of these Muslims and then explore the implications of their beliefs and commitments.

Muslims and native-born Americans have fascinating and different explanations for the Muslim dislike of the U.S. If you ask Muslims, many of them will say that their reactions are due to the recent steps that the Trump administration has taken against Muslims in this country and around the world:

1. Muslim Ban: The first executive order you issued in 2017 when you took office the first time was a call for a 'total and complete ban on Muslims entering the U.S.'

2. Jerusalem Embassy Move:

American Thinker

Our Founders spoke of inalienable rights -- gifts from God, not permissions granted by men. They believed that all humans possess inherent natural rights, which can neither be granted by nor canceled by men. While they sought to protect certain rights in the Constitution's Bill of Rights, they acknowledged that it was an incomplete list.

At the insistence of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, the Ninth Amendment was included to protect those rights not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

They weren't talking about a right to universal health insurance, nor a right to a livable wage. They were talking about things which all humans know in our hearts to be true -- such as the right of parents to oversee the welfare of their children.

Parental dominion over our children is an unenumerated right, which has been universally accepted since Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel. It supersedes

• The right of school boards to force transexual ideology on our children,
• The power of medical science to enforce unproven vaccine schedules, and
• The authority of judges to stipulate what a man or woman is.

Christians use the term

It looks like our liberal friends are cranking up to blame "critics" for the death of black Cambridge professor Jason Arday.

But I'm here to tell our liberal friends, echoing the immortal linguist Col. Pickering, "you did it!"

The whole arc of left-wing politics, since not later than Marx and Engels, has been about "fighting" for the oppressed against the oppressors. But I say that in every case, the left Made Things Worse for their helpless victims.

Free education for the poor? Everyone, except those sucking the education tit, know that government education is an utter waste.

Welfare? Demolishes the low-income family.

Wage and hour laws and unions for the workers? How are all those industrial unionized workers doing these days? As opposed to unionized government employees living off the fat of the land.

Liberation for women? Listen, cupcake, the only thing that matters in this world is to get kids on the ground and keep them alive. For women, that means birthing and caring and mothering; for men it means providing and mentoring. Everything else is frosting on the cake.

Civil Rights for blacks? Yes, for one shining moment. Then politics as usual intervened and civil rights turned into affirmative action, then quotas, then

Satellites bring to mind images of shiny, angular objects orbiting Earth at tremendous speed through the boundless emptiness of space. Yet the orbits are no longer empty. Besides traffic, they are teeming with debris from spacecraft breaking up because of age, explosions, or collisions.

Orbital debris has doubled over the past decade. As of 2026, about 1.2 million objects measuring 1–10 cm are in orbit. Traveling at speeds of 7–8 km per second—10 times that of a bullet and 4–5 times that of the fastest planes—these objects can disable or destroy spacecraft. Without debris management, this growing danger to expensive space projects remains unchecked.

Two companies—ClearSpace and Astroscale—have approached the U.K. Space Agency to demonstrate active debris removal (ADR). ClearSpace has conducted two ADR missions for the agency. Last year, Astroscale received a U.S. patent for its 2021 filing for a cleanup system. Both companies are competing for a contract to remove two defunct British satellites from orbit.

But such nascent efforts are meager. They will not reach meaningful scale unless a binding international legal framework with clear protocols, impartial, well-coordinated monitoring, and enforceable liabilities is established. The current regime is wholly inadequate.

To understand how more

Last week was interesting for anyone concerned about Islam's growing influence in America.

Recently revealed were the 2009 remarks made by Michigan US Senate nominee, Democrat and avowed Muslim, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.  He reportedly shared that, while in medical school, he chose to obtain a loan that was compliant with Islamic law—Sharia. In fact, he proclaimed that, as a Muslim, he would always follow Sharia in "everything" he ever sought to do.

Some may dismiss these remarks, made 17 years ago, as those of a man simply dedicated deeply to his religion—one he embraces totally separate from his political views and life in general. However, such a dismissal would be a big mistake for Michigan voters in the upcoming election.

While U.S. legislators embracing Christianity and most other religions do leave their religion at the door to represent their constituency on matters concerning their well-being, Muslims dedicated to their "religion" do not—and cannot. There is no issue amongst non-Muslim legislators complying with the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment mandate prohibiting the establishment of a national religion and protecting the free exercise of religion; but for Muslim legislators, there is.

The above mandate gives rise to the philosophical and jurisprudential concept that there