Author: nick

[ad_1] (This big book came out in 2023, won many prizes and reached a broad readership. I’ve often been asked my opinion of it.) A series of interlocking encounters with memorials both musical and physical, Time’s Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance by Jeremy Eichler, former chief music critic of the Boston Globe, has a weighty, monumental bearing. Its solemn reflections center on—or, as Eichler might put it, listen to—four works spawned by the ungraspable twentieth-century crimes of the book’s title. Eichler enjoins us to hear the traumatic resonances, culturally and politically fraught, of…

[ad_1] MAGA can be a very emotional movement. That passion led to a historic win in 2024 when President Trump carried every single swing state. But it can also have downsides. Unfortunately, when we run into even a little adversity, we are prone to crippling self-doubt and panic. A bad court ruling. A hostile media cycle. One misleading, hyperbolic headline. Some anonymous quote from a faceless, NeverTrump bureaucrat. Within hours, social media timelines fill with blackpilling, accusations of betrayal, and declarations that the entire MAGA agenda is dead. But the Panicans need to relax. We’ve watched the president work for…

[ad_1] Image by Trent Yarnell. In his haunting July 5, 1852 speech titled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?,” the great abolitionist and escaped slave Frederick Douglass said this to United States Americans about the national birthday they had just hailed in the name of freedom and equality: “Your celebration is a sham, your boasted Liberty, an unholy license, your national greatness, swelling vanity. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your shouts of Liberty and equality… mere bombast, fraud, deception, a thin veil to cover up crimes, which would disgrace a nation of savages.” These…

[ad_1] So the German Supreme Court has ruled on my case. Their ruling is that they will not rule on my case. They sent my attorney a letter to that effect. It literally says: The constitutional complaint will not be accepted for a ruling. No explanation is provided. This ruling is incontestable.” So I am now officially a “hate criminal” in Germany. I was already pretty much a “hate criminal” in Germany, but now it’s official. This is Germany’s supreme court. There is no higher court to appeal to. OK, sure, there’s the European Court of Human Rights, the international…

[ad_1] Still from The Color Purple. Members of the Womanist cult, whose leader is Alice Walker play for keeps. Three of them lied about my position on their Holy Grail movie, The Color Purple, without white editors like Chloe Schama of the New Republic fact-checking them. When I tried to correct womanist Victoria Bond, who said I called The Color Purple “a Nazi conspiracy,” a lie begun by Jacqueline BoBo, and continued by Bond, and Salmaishah Tillet, Schama said the New Republic didn’t print letters. She said I could write an essay. She rejected the essay. I suspect that some of these…

[ad_1] Firearms sales went through the roof during COVID and 2020’s social unrest as people scrambled to deal with a world that seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Previously thought of—with a great deal of exaggeration—as the domain of white male rural-dwellers, gun ownership became increasingly diverse as women and minorities acquired the means of self-defense. A recent survey finds that many people among the growing ranks of gun owners are carrying their tools for protection. You are reading The Rattler from J.D. Tuccille and Reason. Get more of J.D.’s commentary on government overreach and threats to everyday…

[ad_1] Here’s another Trump court loss. Big ones coming up. Judge Fund During Legal Challenge The Wall Street Journal reports Judge Pauses Trump’s ‘Anti-Weaponization’ Fund During Legal Challenge A federal judge directed the Trump administration to pause efforts on a $1.8 billion fund for people who say they were targeted by prosecutors for political reasons, while she weighs a legal challenge to it. The order issued by Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday temporarily blocks the government from taking any action to initiate the “anti-weaponization” fund, such as moving money into it or considering claims, “to…

[ad_1] I WANT FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS! Help Reason push back with more of the fact-based reporting we do best. Your support means more reporters, more investigations, and more coverage. Make a donation today! No thanks I WANT TO FUND FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS Every dollar I give helps to fund more journalists, more videos, and more amazing stories that celebrate liberty. Yes! I want to put my money where your mouth is! Not interested SUPPORT HONEST JOURNALISM So much of the media tries telling you what to think. Support journalism that helps you to think for yourself.…

[ad_1] I’m lucky to live immediately adjacent to Point Reyes National Seashore in California and make frequent visits to indulge my photography hobby. In the summer I can work a full day and still search for bobcats through the evening golden hour. And I’m truly privileged to be able to advocate for its restoration and protection in my capacity as executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network. Photo: Ken Bouley. Used with permission. Point Reyes is a coastal treasure protecting about 110 square miles of some of the most scenic and biodiverse landscapes on the planet. Surrounded by marine protected…

[ad_1] I am happy to pass along this guest post from my frequent collaborator, Elliott Wainwright. — At oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, Justice Amy Coney Barrett  asked several times how the Citizenship Clause works when members of Indian tribes are born beyond the limits of tribal domains. The peculiar Oregon Territory citizenship statute Congress passed in 1872 and the effect it had—or ought to have had—on the citizenship status of tribal Indians born in that territory appears to bear on Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s inquiry. However, despite the fact that John Vlahoplus and Michael L. Rosin have written…