Will He Go Wooly Over DACHA Ban? Dear Weekend Jolter, OK, I have just been informed by Phil the Editorial Boy Wonder that the Trump action was on DACA, not dachas. Sorry. I was a bit woolly when I started writing this, minus any coffee, and jet-lagged -- okay, ocean-liner lagged -- from the just-concluded National Review Atlantic sailing. That said, if you want the one-stop, smart skinny on what the president has done -- and hasn't done -- on the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, and what it all means, then you really need to read this Andy McCarthy piece (maybe put on Dionne Warwick singing Promises, Promises to set the proper political mood). As for dachas, they can't be all that bad, since Stalin died in one. NR Pronunciamento There were two formal NRO editorial this week. The first: "A DACA Deal Should Include Real Enforcement." Here's the kickoff: The Trump administration announced the end of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, on a delayed, rolling basis. The decision is the right one. DACA is an extralegal amnesty at odds with our constitutional system. It has to go. But the delayed fuse gives Congress an opportunity to pass legislation dealing with this sub-set of the illegal population. The second: Praising Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos for bringing due process to the current lawlessness that prevails with Title IX and higher education. Read the editorial here. NRO Podcast Update 1. In this week's edition of The Editors, Rich, Michael Brendan Dougherty, Dan McLaughlin, and Theodore Kupfer talk about DACA, Congress's fall agenda, and the rattlings of the DPRK. 2. OK, when there's an episode on The Benny Goodman Orchestra or the Sons of the Pioneers, I expect to get a shot to star on NR's groovy new music podcast, Political Beats. In the meanwhile, enjoy this week's episode, where Tim Miller, former Jeb! Bush 2016 presidential campaign communications director and co-founder of America Rising, talks with hosts Scot and Jeff about Arcade Fire (yeah, me neither). 3. Over at The Bookmonger, Big Bad John J. Miller discusses The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 with author Richard White. 4. What's better than one episode of The Bookmonger? Yep: two episodes! John talks with Kyle Mills -- who continues the story of American assassin Mitch Rapp, the hero invented by the late Vince Flynn -- about his new novel, Enemy of the State. 5. I missed this on our last (cruise-truncated!) Jolt, but do listen to Jay Nordlinger getting all QandA with our old colleague, Bob Costa. It's a terrific conversation. 6. And more Jay. Hot off the microphones is his new QandA episode, headlining former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey. Speaking of Woolly, or, Wooly. . . Yours Truly is hoping Jolt readers who own a Wooly Willy might try giving him a Kim Jong Un hairdo -- for my sheer pleasure, and for possible republishing in the next Jolt. Take a picture and send to me at jfowler@nationalreview.com. (By the way, Bald Scott, before you give me grief, this isn't about you.) Seven NR Pieces I Suggest for Your Gander-Taking 1. Diane Feinstein and Dick Durbin and others are hanging up the "Catholics Need Not Apply" sign in the confirmation hearings of judicial nominees and a number of other places. David Harsanyi writes that "Democrats Are Increasingly Comfortable with Religious Tests." (Related: this Wall Street Journal op-ed kicks them in the heinie, and Ramesh Ponnuru does the same to the 'Dogma' brigade in his new Bloomberg View column.) 2. Despite being a Red Sox fan, Shannen Coffin can sometimes get things right, like this analysis commending President Trump's decision to nominate ace conservative legal mind Greg Katsas to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Carrie Severino doubles down on the Katsas kudos over at Bench Memos. 3. Take my wife, please! Kyle Smith provides another beaut on Andrew Cuomo, his white whale, and your wallet-emptier. From his piece: To mark the end of summer, New York's governor is barbecuing $10 million in public funding as the state's contribution toward construction of a comedy museum in Jamestown, N.Y. Jamestown? It's a place of "empty storefronts and underused buildings," according to the New York Times. It's three hours west of Ithaca. Three hours north of Pittsburgh. Six and a half hours northwest of Manhattan. Home to some 31,000 souls, it doesn't exactly scream "arts capital." There's a reason the most popular museums tend to be concentrated in cities rather than scattered randomly in rural areas, hamlets, and deserted islands: One museum, especially one small museum, isn't usually enough to make tourists to go much out of their way. Especially a museum that proposes to offer stuff few want to see in the first place. 4. Brendan O'Neill takes on the Left's latest dictat, this one being that whites cannot direct movies about blacks. 5. Brooke Stanton exposes the Left's latest gyrations on the meaning of life in her very interesting piece, "Sofia Vergara and the Fraudulent Science of 'Pre-embryos'" -- give it a look. 6. If you need to raise your heartrate, read Margot Cleveland's piece "The Transgender Agenda Hits Kindergarten." Stop the curriculum, I want to get off! 7. You go Betsy! Frederick Hess and Grant Addison explain how "DeVos Moves to Rein in the Campus Kangaroo Courts." A slice: But DeVos also proceeded to do something that her Obama-era counterparts never did, which is to carefully affirm that we do not protect or support victims by railroading the accused through sham processes. As DeVos put it, "One person denied due process is too many. . . . Every survivor of sexual misconduct must be taken seriously. Every student accused of sexual misconduct must know that guilt is not predetermined. . . . Due process either protects everyone, or it protects no one. The notion that a school must diminish due-process rights to better serve the 'victim' only creates more victims." Bonus Suggestion: Craig Shirley provides a juicy excerpt from his new biography, Citizen Newt: The Making of a Reagan Conservative. Seven Worthwhile Pieces from Our Friends 1. The headline of this College Fix piece should get your blood boiling: "Prof hands out white privilege checklist, then warns students who stereotype will be punished." 2. Over at The Federalist, Daniel Payne slaps abortion advocates who thrill defending eliminating babies with disabilities. 3. Rabbi Dov Fischer has a very interesting piece in The American Spectator titled "The Pain of the Contemporary American Orthodox Jew." The ending is more about promise than torment. Here, read this: The American Jewish vote slowly is changing, following the same strangely lethargic path trekked by Southern Democrats who needed only 120 years, or so, to figure the thing out. In the past forty years, since Menachem Begin first was elected Israel's Prime Minister in 1977, we have seen the population of the Jewish State abandon their prior half-century infatuation with the now-dying Labor Party and move sharply to the Center-Right. In the United Kingdom, likewise, Jewish voters have completely adopted political conservatism, evolving overwhelmingly to align with the right, now completely dumping the left and identifying tightly as the strongest among voting blocs supporting British conservative candidates and their Conservative Party. Slowly emulating these models, led by the emerging Orthodox Jewish majority in the United States, the American Jewish voter now is in the beginning phase of a historic evolution that will continue to take some time, but that is moving American Jewry toward the Republican Party. 4. Whole life versus pro-life -- is there really a big difference? The Human Life Review has published a very solid symposium (except for the Fowler contribution) on the debate. NR's K-Lo, Kevin Williamson, and Nick Frankovich share their two cents. 5. Wonderful news: Plans are underway for the repatriation of some 3,000 Christian refugee families in Iraq. Brad Miner reports and explains over at The Catholic Thing. 6. I have an un-funny feeling this might ignite a populist powder-keg in Central Europe: My pal Soeren Kern reports in depth for Gatestone Institute about how European Union judicial hacks have ruled that all nations must take in migrants and refugees. Is sovereignty really a thing over there? 7. Father George William Rutler, friend and once a confessor, hence his lack of much hair (you know, if you put a collar on Willy. . .), reviews (praises!) for The New Criterion Al Felzenberg's smashing biography of our founder, A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr. You can get your copy (for yourself, or as a gift) at your bookstore or Amazon, the link for which I just provided. This book means the world to the Buckley Legacy Project (which is, if I may mention it, a major undertaking of the National Review Institute). So order it. And read it. And here is my usual threat: If you don't buy a copy I am going to cry, and man oh man that is very not pretty. Scene from the National Review Atlantic Voyage On the last night aboard the Queen Mary 2, Deck Eight, aft, poolside. Mama mia it was fun. Friends and Family 1. I hear we are going to bend an elbow together in NYC on October 25th. Yeah, it's true. How? Why? Because you are going to come to National Review Institute's Fourth Annual William F. Buckley Jr. Prize Dinner. 2. "Freedom is not a partisan issue . . . but it does need advocates." That's the essence of American Freedom Network, the new and important project of Arizona's Goldwater Institute. Its objective: To create a massive cabal of pro-bono conservative lawyers. Maybe you're a lawyer who wants to do something on behalf of liberty, like protecting rights? Catch this little video, and consider attending AFN's "Pro Bono Attorney Training" conference in Philadelphia, on October 4th and 5th. 3. Well, there's nothing quite like a pissy liberal review to make me want to buy a book. Which I have. Which you should too: Just click on the link to order Douglas Murray's The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. As for some wise takes on his book, check out Michael Brendan Dougherty's and David Pryce-Jones's. 4. The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, by this Hanson fellow, is a must. It comes out in October, but you should really order a copy pre-publication. Follow, follow, follow Try to remember (a fantastic idea!) to follow these folks and institutions on Twitter. Randomly selected, in no order of preference, and more to follow in next week's Jolt: The College Fix, Gatestone Institute, National Review Podcasts, Reihan Salam, Daniel Hannan, Julie Kelly, The Amazon Post, Charles C.W. Cooke, Old Baseball Photos, Ballotpedia, and Lars Larson. Baseball 'Used-to-Be's The start of something big, no? Nope. Game 1 for the short-lived Seattle Pilots took place on April 8, 1969, in Anaheim against the Angels. The soon-to-be Brewers won, 4-3. The first Pilot to bat, Tommy Harper, singled. Mike Hegan followed with a homer (in fact, the first four Pilots reached base). Here's the boxscore. The season ended with a miserable record (64-98). That same day, back East in Flushing, the Montreal Expos played -- and also won -- their franchise's first-ever game, beating the New York Metropolitans. Here's another boxscore for you. From there it was all downhill -- the Expos ended the year 52-110. Montreal was kinder to the Expos than Seattle was to the Pilots: The Expos lasted in Canada for 35 years before heading to Washington. A dios Go with God my friends. Unless you found your name in the exception clause at the bottom of the tablets, try to make the Sabbath a day of rest. And while I'm lecturing you, remember to add a little sour cream when you mash the potatoes, put the dirty plates in the dishwasher, say "please" and "thank you," and please don't text message while you are ambling up Lexington Avenue (it's a sidewalk pal!). May you accept and enjoy all the graces and blessings that the Ancient of Days wants for you. See you next week. Elvis has left the building. Jack P.S.: About the Sons of the Pioneers: Get up on that pony and head out to The Everlasting Hills of Oklahoma to hear Roy and the boys croon and yodel (but mind yourself to stay away from cigareets, whuskey, and wild wild women). |
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