The Week

• A Hamas spokesman sneered that Israelis love life while his group craves martyrdom. Even in our grief, we can see a win–win scenario.

• Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, after less than nine months, became the first speaker of the House of Representatives in American history to be ousted by a procedural maneuver known as a “motion to vacate.” The attention-seeking Florida representative Matt Gaetz led the anti-McCarthy charge and was joined by seven other Republicans and all 208 Democrats, the Republicans ostensibly because McCarthy had cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open. McCarthy had been attempting to govern with a historically slim and fractious House majority and with Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House. A new speaker won’t suddenly change the math in the House, the reality of life under divided government, or the difficulties of dealing with a conference in which the likes of Gaetz hold inordinate power.

• John Kelly was asked about Donald Trump. Kelly is the retired Marine Corps general who in the Trump administration served first as secretary of homeland security and then as White House chief of staff. Kelly said, “What can I add that has not already been said?” He then unloaded. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs, are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’” On Kelly went, with specifics and generalities. He wrapped up with: “There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.” In response, Trump denied Kelly’s allegations, calling him “a Lowlife with a very small brain and a very big mouth” whom he fired “like a ‘dog.’” Between the two of them, Kelly is the one with the reputation for honesty.

• No, President Biden hasn’t gotten serious about border security. The recent hullabaloo over the resumption of construction on “the wall” was much less than it seemed. Back in 2019, Congress appropriated $1.4 billion for U.S. Customs and Border Protection “for the construction of primary pedestrian fencing in the Rio Grande Valley.” Back in June, CBP announced in a press release that it had “an estimated $190 million remaining in FY 2019 funding.” The administration continues to call on Congress to cancel remaining border-barrier funding or reappropriate it for security measures it considers more effective. Barring that, the Department of Homeland Security is required by law to use the funds for their appropriated purpose. This isn’t a change in policy so much as a required act of compliance with the law that conveniently lets the administration play both sides of the issue.

• Talking about illegal immigration, Trump said, “It’s poisoning the blood of our country.” This is not helpful to the cause of border enforcement, immigration reform, intelligent debate, or common decency. Said Reagan at the United Nations, “The blood of each nation courses through the American vein.” Lincoln said that immigrants had no connection to the Founders “by blood” but rather by the principles and ideals those men of old espoused. Lincoln spoke specifically of the “moral sentiment” expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Immigrants, he said, “have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that declaration,” adding, “and so they are.”

• There is an Alice in Wonderland quality to New York attorney general Letitia James’s civil fraud case against Trump. Before the ongoing trial began, Judge Arthur Engoron pronounced Trump guilty of fraud — in civil-law jargon, found him liable in the state’s first cause of action, transgression of the law that prohibits “persistent fraud.” The verdict precedes the trial because the state has brought six other causes of action that must be decided, as well as ten “prayers for relief,” of which Engoron decided two in his pre-trial summary judgment (removing Trump and his conglomerate’s privileges to do business in New York and subjecting them to a monitor). The big remaining issue is disgorgement: James, an ambitious progressive Democrat who campaigned for office promising to get Trump on something, is seeking $250 million of what she describes as his ill-gotten gains. But ill-gotten how? Yes, there is strong evidence that Trump overvalued his assets to obtain loans, insurance coverage, etc. But there are no victims: Trump paid his obligations, and the counterparties made money. Trump’s business behavior was unsavory for decades; this prosecution started only after his political success.

• The Senate, by unanimous consent, passed a resolution establishing business attire — including a coat and tie for men — as the dress code for the floor of the chamber. The resolution, sponsored by Mitt Romney (R., Utah) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), reimposed what had been an unwritten standard before Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) relaxed it so that Senator John Fetterman (D., Pa.) could relax in his hoodie-and-shorts Man of the People costume. Congress already provides many reasons for people not to take it seriously. Straighten those collars.

• On Face the Nation, New York governor Kathy Hochul (D.) called for the Biden administration to beef up border security and stop letting everyone enter who seeks asylum. In a CNN appearance, she addressed migrants directly: “If you’re going to leave your country, go somewhere else.” She also discussed the possibility that policies designed to support migrants will encourage more to come. Earlier this year, Hochul said she wanted New York City to end its policy of a “right to shelter,” stating, “We have to let people know that if you’re thinking of coming to New York, we are truly out of space.” The border’s too open? Go somewhere else? Has someone been reading our back issues?

• Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin (R.) gets only a single term as governor, and it is half done. The people of Virginia deserve his full attention, which for now is focused on electing a Republican majority in the state senate and preserving or extending the majority in the house of delegates. Until Republican voters have been persuaded to abandon Trump, multiplying the alternatives in the presidential race, which some supporters are calling on Youngkin to enter, won’t achieve anything. At this late date, he would face daunting obstacles to organizing a campaign and getting his name on all the ballots. “President Youngkin” has a ring we might like, but let the man finish his current mission first.

• If, after learning of the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein, you dreaded that Governor Gavin Newsom would fill the seat with just another California progressive, the good news is that the appointed senator, Laphonza Butler, is not a California progressive. She has lived and been registered to vote in the D.C. suburb of Silver Spring, Md., for the past two years. She has resided in the D.C. suburbs because she has been the president of Emily’s List, an organization that aims to elect Democratic women who support taxpayer-funded abortion on demand. Governors who use appointments to placate interest groups are familiar, but Newsom, an innovator, has put the interest group in the Senate. Californians may wonder why no one who actually lived in the state was good enough, but Newsom’s press release also emphasized that she is a “black lesbian” and used to be president of the California Service Employees International Union. With one swift stroke, Newsom has ensured that the activist groups of the Left shall have a new berth of influence, and that government of the progressive lobbyists, by the progressive lobbyists, and for the progressive lobbyists shall not perish from the earth.

• FTC chairwoman Lina Khan can’t figure out whether Amazon is evil for having prices that are too low or prices that are too high. In an academic paper she wrote before she was an FTC commissioner, Khan argued that Amazon engaged in anticompetitive predatory pricing, forgoing profits to smother its competitors by holding prices too low. In the FTC’s new lawsuit against Amazon, the problem is that it is holding prices too high, maintaining monopoly power and harming consumers by burying lower-priced options in search results. The FTC’s argument in this case is not that Amazon should be broken up. It’s that the FTC should be able to determine how it runs its business. The standard now appears to be that if enough unelected bureaucrats at the FTC dislike a company’s business practices, even if they have no measurable negative impact on consumers, the company is to be forced to change its ways. The FTC is likely to lose again in federal courts, which have adjudicated antitrust cases according to the consumer-welfare standard, but that’s only partial consolation. The message this FTC lawsuit sends to other businesses is that the government may cook up novel theories to come after them — which can’t be good for the consumers the agency is charged with protecting.

• The Department of Justice charged Charles Littlejohn, a former outside contractor, with leaking the tax returns of Donald Trump “and thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, including returns and return information dating back more than 15 years.” A little justice, a little late, is better than nothing, but it is astonishing, given the unprecedented nature of the crime and its use as political retaliation, that Littlejohn was charged in only a single count — not two counts, for two separate leaks to media organizations, or thousands of counts for the separate violations of the rights of each taxpayer. The miscreants who printed the contents of the stolen documents are unrepentant, and Joe Biden and his administration have been quiet about the political weaponization of IRS data, choosing to make the charge public late on a Friday. Two days later, Biden gave a rare sit-down interview — with John Harwood of ProPublica, one of the outlets in question. It’s good to have friends in power.

• According to emails obtained by Semafor and Iran International (which is not affiliated with the regime in Tehran), Iranian officials internally claimed credit for cultivating a network of Western scholars to promote their message during nuclear negotiations with the Obama administration. Two of the scholars, Ali Vaez and Ariane Tabatabai, have close ties to Biden’s Iran envoy Robert Malley — who is now on unpaid leave for allegedly mishandling classified material. Throughout the talks surrounding the 2015 accord, they were in regular contact with people on the Iranian foreign ministry’s payroll, asking them about potential speaking opportunities and even giving them the chance to suggest edits of their writing about the negotiations. Congress should require the State Department to give Congress a full accounting of Malley’s rocky tenure.

• Once more, a political prisoner has won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is Narges Mohammadi of Iran, a longtime advocate of human rights. She has been in and out of prison since 1998 — mostly in, as she is now. That prison is Evin, often called “notorious.” It is one of the worst places on earth. Mohammadi’s health is very bad. She has always refused to leave Iran, reasoning that change must come from within the country. Her husband and their 16-year-old twins live in France. One of the twins, Ali, learned of the Nobel committee’s decision when he was in school, by checking his phone under his desk. “I couldn’t shout in class,” he later said, “but I was so happy. We are afraid for my mom every day. The Nobel Prize is a sign for her to continue straight on and not abandon the fight.”

• In 1921, Joseph Stalin assigned the Armenian-populated autonomous oblast of Nagorno-Karabakh to Soviet Azerbaijan. After the fall of the USSR, the region declared independence, backed (though not officially recognized) by Armenia. Azerbaijan attempted incursions and was repelled routinely for three decades until 2020, when, with Turkish assistance and drones purchased from Israel, it captured the region’s major stronghold and most of its territory. It finished the job last month. Now, the de facto government of Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh, as it’s known to Armenians, has announced that it is dissolving state institutions and will cease to exist on January 1. Azerbaijan’s long-standing policy toward Armenian cultural and historical claims has been to deny them and erase their material basis. Dozens of medieval Christian monuments in an Azeri exclave to Armenia’s southwest have been effaced over the years. As Artsakh’s longtime inhabitants flee — ethnic cleansing as forced choice of those of whom the region is to be cleansed — many more historic monasteries, churches, cemeteries, and iconic works of ornate masonry called “cross-stones” are likely to vanish with them. The territorial loss is Armenians’, but the civilizational loss is wider.

• A report from CBS News begins, “Families in the small northeast Ukrainian village of Hroza were trying to process horror and loss Friday morning after a Russian rocket strike hit a grocery store and café, killing at least 51 of the town’s remaining 300 or so inhabitants.” A police official said, “We only found bits and pieces of some bodies.” The headline over that report reads, “U.N. probes deadly Russian strike on village with Ukraine ‘100% worried’ about wavering U.S. support.” In this same period, Vladimir Putin made a stark statement: “If Western defense supplies are terminated tomorrow, Ukraine will have a week left to live as it runs out of ammunition.” This ought to concentrate minds, on Capitol Hill in particular.

• Shortly before the commencement of the Catholic Church’s “synod on synodality” — a conference of bishops, clergy, and select laypeople held in Rome at the instigation of the pope — Francis sparked headlines by appearing to display “openness” to blessings for same-sex unions. In a reply to a letter from five cardinals seeking clarification on the matter, the pontiff said he did not want the practice of blessing same-sex unions to be formally adopted as had happened in Belgium and Germany, lest this “give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized.” But he implicitly gave carte blanche to priests wishing to bless same-sex unions, by stating that “pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or various persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage.” There is a crucial distinction between blessing individuals as individuals and blessing individuals in a sexual union regarded by the church as sinful. But Pope Francis did not clearly draw that distinction and so left his meaning ambiguous, as is his frustrating wont.

• In his recent apostolic exhortation Laudate Deum, Francis returns to climate change, about which he wrote in a broader context in his encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015). He worries and despairs. “The world in which we live is collapsing,” he writes. He denounces “the technocratic paradigm,” criticizes rich nations for their disproportionate contribution to greenhouse-gas emissions, and asserts that “the most effective solutions” will come “above all from major political decisions on the national and international level.” Will they? The developed world has been reducing emissions per capita in recent years and is on track to meet the lower per capita levels of poorer countries eventually. Passionate and short on concrete proposals, Laudate Deum takes the form of a cri de coeur: full of heart, head a little too close to the clouds.

• Standing athwart takes more than writing. A man quite good with the numbers has played a vital role in this enterprise for more than three decades. The tall, thin, quiet CPA James X. Kilbridge first came to National Review while it was ensconced in its East 35th Street headquarters. He was hired to make a one-man radical effort at modernizing the magazine’s mom-and-pop-store finances. He succeeded. Much more than a payer of bills and reformer of bookkeeping, Jim has also negotiated contracts, overseen health insurance, invested employees’ pension funds, administered subscription efforts, crafted annual budgets, and stage-managed two staggering office moves. The Kilbridge home has hosted memorable gatherings of colleagues; if one finds oneself in a financial pickle, Jim can be counted on for sage advice and assistance. Along with the heart, he has legs. Jim finished the 2003 New York Marathon in under three hours (368th place out of 30,000-plus). Now another finish line approaches: retirement, and satisfaction in a job well done.

• Dianne Feinstein’s political ascent was baptized in blood. As a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, she was in City Hall in 1978 when ex-supervisor Dan White killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. She felt for the dead Milk’s pulse and announced the murders to a shocked audience. The board tapped her to fill Moscone’s place. As mayor she saved the city’s tourist-draw cable cars. Walter Mondale considered her as his running mate but went instead with Geraldine Ferraro, on the grounds that the twofer of first Jewish woman on a ticket would be one first too many. In 1992 Feinstein won a seat in the U.S. Senate. She was a liberal with a few deviations — e.g., support of the death penalty. In her ninth decade, her health and her wits began visibly, then grossly, to fail. How to handle age and debility? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. retired, age 90, as soon as colleagues told him he should, but they probably should have told him sooner. A legal limit seems procrustean, but many more senators who outlive their time as Feinstein did would make it come to pass. Dead at 90, R.I.P.

• “I have no idea where it’s going,” Tim Wakefield said of his main pitch, the knuckleball. It flutters unpredictably. Few pitchers ever fool with it. “The hitter doesn’t know where it’s going, and the catcher doesn’t know.” Drafted as a first baseman by the Pittsburgh Pirates, he saw that he lacked the skills to crack the majors. His experiment throwing the fluky rare pitch panned out well enough that by age 26 he was winning MLB postseason games. With the Red Sox in 2004, his team down 0–2 in the playoffs against the Yankees and getting clobbered in Game 3, he asked manager Terry Francona to let him eat some innings, to spare the bullpen. Wakefield ate them. The bullpen shone the next game and thereafter, as did Wakefield. The Sox came all the way back to go to the World Series — Yankees manager Joe Torre called him to say that he was happy for him — and to win it for the first time in 86 years. In 2010, Wakefield received the Roberto Clemente Award, in recognition of his sportsmanship and charity work for children, especially those with special needs. Dead at 57, so soon. R.I.P.

• Dick Butkus, the football legend who played for the Chicago Bears from 1965 to 1973, has passed away at the age of 80. A son of immigrant Lithuanians, the Chicago native was a superstar college linebacker for Illinois State before being drafted by the Bears and becoming known as an implacable force on the defense. His physical presence was intimidating enough to force fumbles and turnovers, to say nothing of his tackles: “Every time he hit you, he tried to put you in the cemetery,” an opponent later reflected with admiration. Butkus embodied the strength of the City of Broad Shoulders, and if the adage is true that the devil always plays offense, then he’s in serious trouble now come game day. R.I.P.

• M. S. Swaminathan was born in British India in a time when food shortages were common. He studied agricultural science in an effort to reduce starvation. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Madras and his doctorate at Cambridge, and then did postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin. The spot in Madison where he met American scientist Norman Borlaug is marked with a plaque that reads “The birthplace of the green revolution.” Borlaug would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and Swaminathan would go on to revolutionize farming in India, to the benefit of more than a billion people. Not stopping at his scientific discoveries, Swaminathan also mentored countless Indian scientists and built institutions that continue to advance research today. Since the 1960s, crop yields globally have nearly doubled for oats and potatoes, more than doubled for rice and barley, and roughly tripled for wheat and maize. Undernourishment and extreme poverty have fallen steeply in consequence. M. S. Swaminathan died at the age of 98 in Chennai. A long life well lived, which prolonged or made possible the lives of countless others. R.I.P.

• Ellsworth “Al” Johnson, a courageous American medic and peerless soldier, has died at 100. Johnson fought in both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. Drafted in 1943, he trained as a medic but volunteered for a dangerous assignment and ended up joining the Office of Strategic Services. In August 1944, he parachuted into France deep behind enemy lines, to assist the French Resistance and capture a vital dam. Then he transferred to the Pacific Theater, where he and other Americans trained Chinese paratroopers and jumped into Japanese-occupied territory in 1945. After the war, Johnson became a machinery and beauty-supply salesman and married Jeanette DeBoer. He wasn’t widely known until 1995, when information about his missions was declassified. The last surviving member of a special-operations group that laid the foundation for the modern Green Berets, he was honored four weeks before his death with an Army Special Forces tab and a green beret, presented in a special ceremony at his assisted-living facility near Grand Rapids, Mich. Thank you for your service, sir. R.I.P.

Destroy Hamas

On the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, and at the end of Sukkot, meant to be one of the jolliest festivals of the Jewish year, Hamas, the terrorist rulers of Gaza, invaded Israel. While hundreds of missiles battered the Iron Dome, with many getting through, Hamas fighters overran towns, kibbutzim, police stations, and military bases, not to be killed or repelled for several days.

War is hell, as Sherman said. But some things are worse. This was. Civilians were murdered in their cars, their homes, on the street. Captured soldiers were beheaded; so were babies. Women were raped, naked bodies desecrated and paraded before jeering crowds. Hundreds, including children and grandmothers, were taken back to Gaza as hostages. The war crimes were orgiastic, public, celebratory. Hamas posted videos of its Jew-killing for the world to see and admire.

Israel announced that it was at war and called up a record number of reservists for its counter-attack. The operation began with air attacks pulverizing any building in Gaza known to house Hamas leaders or infrastructure. Ground forces moved in next, though some had to be held to fend off Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon to the north.

The surprise and scope of the invasion will upend Israeli politics. The safety of the people is the supreme law; Israel’s leaders did not sufficiently attend to it. They thought they had found a modus vivendi for quiet in Gaza. Their mistake cost Israel the per-capita equivalent of multiple 9/11s.

The immediate, and indeed only moral, response to such an assault as Israel has suffered is to destroy Hamas as a functioning entity. This will require abandoning Israel’s long-running but risky policy of exchanging prisoners in order to liberate its own citizens held captive. In one notable swap, Israel released a thousand terrorists to free one soldier. But when Hamas is being obliterated, who can make a trade? As for Gazan civilians, they will not, unlike Israelis, be intentionally targeted. But many are already paying, and many more will pay, a heavy price.

At the same time, Israel must consider the patron of Hamas and of this attack: Iran. Iran sponsored it no doubt in part to derail the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran has succeeded for now, though the dynamics that drive the two nations together still exist: Sunni Arab states fear Iran and desire prosperity; Israel wants fewer enemies in the neighborhood. Iran’s mullahs, determined to rule the region, face economic failure and popular resistance at home. Antisemitism is their only card (a popular one, unfortunately, in that and other parts of the world).

President Biden made a blunt statement of support for Israel, declaring that “we will never fail to have their back.” A carrier group was dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean. Yet Biden’s policy of mending relations with Iran, inherited from Barack Obama, helped bring Israel to this pass. He agreed to release $6 billion to Iran to secure the release of American prisoners. The money sits in Qatar, to be doled out under supervision. While none of those dollars went to Gaza, the prospect of an off-site kitty freed the mullahs to devote other resources to terrorist activities.

But Biden was Donald Rumsfeld beside the post-colonialist American Left. The Democratic Socialists of America, sponsors of New York representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, marked the atrocity with a pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square. Code Pink, the new infatuation — horseshoe ends meeting — of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), also came out for the cause. Is fifth-wave feminism pro-rape? Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (D.), terrified of offending Muslim constituents, dared say only that she had reached out to unnamed “communities,” lest she utter the I-word. Thirty-one student groups at Harvard blamed all the massacres on Israel; this tops admissions quotas as an instance of Ivy League antisemitism.

As the dead are counted — hard to do since Hamas torturers burned and mutilated many — it has been reported that 20 or more Americans, including dual nationals and visitors to Israel, are missing. Some may be among the hostages. What will the Biden administration do about that? It would be good to have a president who didn’t end his public appearances at half past noon and a challenger who wasn’t a narcissistic lunatic. The world has become too serious for hijinks.

The Voucher Warrior

Teachers’ unions consider him public enemy No. 1. Republican governors consult him on education policy.

He is Corey DeAngelis.

“I’ve said that @DeAngelisCorey is the most effective school choice advocate since Milton Friedman, but it’s time to revise that assessment: he’s the most effective ever,” Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has written on the social-media platform X.

A pioneer of school choice, Friedman argued that parents who send their children to private schools should receive tuition vouchers. While the economist acknowledged the need for some government support for education, he rejected the idea that governments should provide education directly.

Calling himself a “school-choice evangelist,” DeAngelis has assumed Friedman’s mantle and put his own emphasis on activism, traveling the country to galvanize an education revolution. The goal: to liberate children from their zip codes and empower them to enroll in stronger schools.

His efforts have sparked state movements to establish school choice. The governors of Iowa, Arizona, and Arkansas, to name just a few, have all thanked DeAngelis for his grassroots rallying on behalf of their proposals.

The magnitude of the achievement should not be underestimated just because those states are red strongholds. Rural Republicans have often been skeptics of school choice. Georgia’s attempt to expand its voucher program in March failed because 16 Republican members of the house, most representing rural constituencies, thought the program would starve their districts financially. DeAngelis’s campaigning has helped change narrow margins of defeat for school choice into narrow margins of victory. In Arizona, for instance, he worked with then-governor Doug Ducey to establish the nation’s first universal education-savings-account program, flipping three GOP holdouts in the house.

As more school-choice bills have taken effect, more families have used them to escape government-run schools. Between fall 2010 and fall 2019, enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools grew from 49.5 million to 50.8 million students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Compare that with Covid school year 2020–21, when almost 1.2 million U.S. students left public-school systems, according to the American Enterprise Institute. DeAngelis has noted that only 36 percent of respondents in an August Gallup survey said they were satisfied with public K–12 education — the lowest figure in the poll’s 24 years, recorded only once before.

Since DeAngelis is busting the public-school monopoly, it’s only natural that he has drawn the ire of teachers’ unions and Democratic officials beholden to them. But he strikes back. He keeps a Rolodex of hypocrites, most of them Democrats, who have blasted school choice publicly but either send their kids to private school or attended private school themselves. They range from prominent union bosses to academics to Hollywood artists, and DeAngelis often calls them out online.

One is Bill Prady, a co-creator of the TV series The Big Bang Theory. In 2021, he railed against the “racist origin of vouchers”; the same day, DeAngelis disclosed that Prady had attended Cranbrook, an expensive private school in Michigan.

More recently, DeAngelis revealed that the president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), Stacy Davis Gates, sent her son to private school despite having compared school choice to fascism. DeAngelis made it a viral moment that led to a reckoning for Gates, who was asked by a CNN host whether she regretted her “rhetoric.”

In early 2021, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the behemoth run by Randi Weingarten, pressured the Centers for Disease Control to revise its February 2021 school-reopening guidance. Around the same time, an AFT affiliate wrote in a later-deleted tweet that “the push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.” DeAngelis often reminds the teachers’ unions of their complicity in delaying school reopenings.

And his school-choice movement is succeeding even as other political trends disappoint. The GOP performed badly in the 2022 midterms, but school choice won anyway. As DeAngelis noted in a Wall Street Journal opinion article, there was no “red wave” or “blue wave, but there was a nationwide school-choice wave.”

DeAngelis has insisted, in the spirit of Friedman, that the best way to blunt the influence of radical curricula in government-run schools is to introduce competition. In a book to be published next May, The Parent Revolution: Rescuing Your Kids from the Radicals Ruining Our Schools, he develops that theme. The wave hasn’t crested yet.

by Caroline Downey

The Stat

Sixty-one percent — the amount by which the federal government’s interest payments increased between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the last quarter entirely before the Covid pandemic, the fourth quarter of 2019, the federal government made interest payments of $564 billion on an annualized basis. In the most recent quarter for which we have data, the second quarter of 2023, that number was $909 billion. Interest rates are much higher now than they were in 2019, and the federal deficit is larger as well, so more borrowing at higher rates will mean higher interest payments. The average maturity on federal bonds is only about 70 months, and much of the debt that was issued under the near-zero rates of the 2010s has already turned over. Another $7.6 trillion in debt will mature within the next year, according to Apollo Global Management chief economist Torsten Sløk. As the Treasury pays that out and issues new bonds for additional borrowing, any lingering advantage the U.S. may have had because of the low rates of the 2010s will be minimal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, interest payments are expected to climb from 14 percent of federal revenue in 2023 to 20 percent in 2033, rising all the way to 35 percent by 2053. That means the U.S. is on pace to spend more than a third of taxpayer money financing other spending. The 61 percent increase in interest payments since before the pandemic is only the first taste.

by Dominic Pino

Still Athwart

Since 1955, National Review has been standing “athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” When Buckley wrote those famous words in the first issue of NR, he noted that NR was “out of place,” contrasting his magazine with the capital-L Liberals and with fringy or ineffectual elements of the Right.

As this magazine makes a big change from a fortnightly to a monthly, it’s worth taking stock — and, sure enough, we are still out of place, and still committed to the ideals that made us so then and make us so now.

On this occasion, we thought it made sense to recapitulate our core commitments. On the adjoining page, you’ll find a mission statement and brief explication of what we’re fighting for. This is necessarily a broad-brush exercise, so not every policy priority of ours makes an explicit appearance (for instance, border security and a merit-based legal-immigration system). But the big, encompassing categories are there, as well as the overriding devotion to the American way, and in particular the ordered liberty favored by our Founding Fathers.

All of this is important, but none of it is new. Indeed, there is a direct line from Buckley’s founding editorial and the seven-point credenda he included at its end to the statement nearby, and it runs through the nearly 70 years of journalistic effort in between.

As for still being out of place, it almost goes without saying.

The popular and intellectual culture in which we operate is dominated by the Left, and we remain unafraid to stand up against its pieties. No matter what the New York Times or CNN or 123 signatories on an open letter from university professors say, there are only two sexes, babies in the womb are human beings, and there is no epidemic of police violence against black men, or men of any other skin color for that matter. The battle for objective truth and against relativism rages on, and we’re on the front lines every day.

Despite communism’s evils having been repeatedly demonstrated over the last century, more than 1.5 billion people remain under communist rule today. About 11 million of them live on an island 90 miles off our shore. And too many here at home are beguiled by socialism’s false promises.

The tinkerers, the social engineers, the sort of people who believe they can uproot long-standing habits with just the right government program, or rejigger society, working in tandem with corporate titans enamored with stakeholder capitalism or the latest fad — these are our permanent ideological and political enemies. They work for the government, for the universities, and for the Fortune 500. They want to skirt the Constitution, corrupt our youth, and coerce other people’s capital to their cause. They are ultimately doomed to fail, for the same reason central planning is always doomed to fail, but they can do plenty of damage between now and then.

The United States of America is not just another country on the U.N. roll call, or just one of several great powers, each with an equally legitimate claim on world leadership. It is the greatest political project man has ever embarked upon, and it must be preserved. The U.S. is more important than any one person in it. It doesn’t need a politician-savior, and it never will. The political salvation of America will always be where its Constitution begins, with the people.

We are used to the Left rejecting our premises, as it has done from the beginning. We are also familiar with, though we do not gratuitously seek out, occasions during which disagreeing with our ideological kin becomes necessary. This is sometimes mischaracterized as an unwillingness to fight or a willingness only to chide our own side; to the contrary, it reflects a belief that only a healthy and sound conservatism can save America.

To the extent that voices on the right counsel a rejection of tenets conservatives rightly hold dear — a constitutional state, equality before the law, a confident America on the world stage, a free economy — they are a funhouse-mirror version of the Left, employing its fallacies to their own ends.

The battle of ideas is fierce, and we’ve never coddled our (truly extraordinary) readers, as a sign of our mutual respect. As a journalistic institution, we affirm and practice the American tradition of lively public debate on the issues of the day. We’ve always rejected the false conformity of thought that would come with publishing only pronouncements of our editorial line. We run articles on art, literature, and philosophy that are meant to broaden and deepen our perspectives.

In short, when the Left assaults our constitutional order and way of life, when demagogues thrive, and when public discourse is increasingly focus-grouped and dumbed down, National Review stands athwart. Again, we’re out of place. But we’re fighting for the greatest country in the history of the world. And we like to think that still makes NR today what Buckley wrote it was in 1955: just about the hottest thing in town.

Mission Statement

National Review defends and advances the ordered liberty that is necessary to human flourishing and to a free, prosperous, and strong America.

The United States grew from seedbeds in Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, and especially in the English traditions of accountable government, from Magna Carta to the Glorious Revolution. America built on the best of this inheritance through the colonial experience, the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, and seminal events since — including the Civil War and the extension of civil rights — to create a great experiment in self-government and a truly exceptional nation.

All our efforts are geared toward preserving that experiment and the foundations of American exceptionalism — in particular the ordered liberty that reflects the Founders’ belief in our ability to govern ourselves as well as their clear-eyed view that we need institutional and cultural constraints, personal virtue, and, above all, religious faith to maintain the predicates of freedom.

Our priorities include:

Constitutional Government

The U.S. Constitution is the best governing document created by man. Its protection of rights, its latitude for democratic decision-making constrained by guardrails, its balance among the branches of government and between the federal and state governments, and its allowance for the diversity of a vast continent-spanning country within a framework of national cohesion reflect a work of genius. The Constitution must always be defended as the foundation of the American republic.

Free Enterprise

Without economic liberty, people cannot be free and cannot express their God-given creativity and drive. Free markets have made possible the extraordinary economic and technological advances that have made us prosperous and powerful. Economic freedom and its associated elements — the rule of law, property rights, and social trust — are necessary to a free, just, and vibrant society that has ample opportunity for individual advancement. In debates about government intervention in the economy, our presumption should always be in favor of freedom.

Moral Bedrocks

Freedom depends on an intrinsic moral order and fundamental virtues, without which lives lose meaning and society loses cohesion. The traditional two-parent family is the most basic building block of our society. All human beings, born and unborn, deserve the equal protection of the laws. Personal responsibility is foundational to individual achievement and orderly social life. Community is a guard against atomized individualism and a source of countless other social goods. Belief in objective truth is necessary to pursue the higher things and to protect against relativism and nihilism. Religious faith is not only useful as a check on selfishness and a pillar of civilizational self-confidence; America’s faith in God is a conduit of blessing upon the nation and its enterprises.

A Strong Defense

Peace through strength is an enduring American idea beginning with the strategic thought of George Washington. It is the approach to national security most consistent with a realistic appreciation of human nature and the protection of our sovereignty, interests, and values. It depends on a strong military, a vibrant military-industrial base, and technological innovation. We must preserve a forward-leaning posture abroad — better to counter threats before they come to our shores — and an American-led system of alliances as a force multiplier. Our overwhelming priority is advancing our national interests. When it is consistent with that priority, we should be friends of the true advocates of freedom everywhere.

Love of Country

Patriotism is the lifeblood of a nation. We should revere our national symbols, heroes, and traditions, as well as our founding documents. America’s survival depends on teaching our children to do the same and protecting the schools from ideologically driven distortions of our history. Our patrimony deserves civic and cultural institutions dedicated to our national memory and highest ideals. Military service should be encouraged and honored. Whatever America’s imperfections, we can never forget that she is great and good.

Defending Western Civilization

We need to know the sources of our civilization in the ancient, medieval, and early-modern world. We must defend the West from its enemies in academia and popular culture, restore to our schools the teaching of Western Civ, and ensure that our children know about — and engage with — the statesmen, thinkers, artists, and writers whose extraordinary contributions changed the world.