What good is a promise if you don’t know what it means? January 27, 2021 marked a notable event in recent history. It was the 25th anniversary of Holocaust Remembrance Day – a day of sober and reflective gathering to honor and give posthumous dignity to the millions of Jews that were slaughtered by the […]
The following is the transcript of my favorite speech ever delivered by the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Although I have never actually heard the speech, every time I read the words below, his voice rings alive in my mind. I take no credit for the transcript. It is available in Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, […]
Donald Trump would be a better president if he was meaner. Not louder; not CAPS-LOCK obsessed; not frivolous. “Meaner” in this context means what it would mean if we were to say that Abraham Lincoln was mean to the Confederacy. Or if we were to say that Harry Truman was mean to Japan. What those […]
I once saw a lone cape buffalo in Africa hold off a small pride of lions for the better part of half an hour. They had managed to separate him from the rest of his herd, and I was so sure they had him. But those puny, lazy, pack-hunting amateurs didn’t know what hit them. […]
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published on the Cinematic Katzenjammer in December, 2015 shortly before the theatrical release of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens. The individual discussed, whom I refer to as “Karol” is my friend Paul Vollmer, whose opinions and statements I have shared on this blog before, albeit on […]
In politics, your children are not interesting. Your young have nothing valuable to say about issues, candidates, cultures, or events. They aren’t informed, they aren’t aware, they aren’t equipped, they have no real ideas, and their thoughts are not their own. And worse, they’re struggling. A lot. So please do them and the rest of […]
For the past two weeks I have followed intently the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh. I read nearly every breaking article, every major hot take, and I have now listened to essentially the entire testimony by both parties. Skip to the end if you don’t want to read the rest. Before today, I refused to adopt […]
I am a student and practitioner of the martial arts. I began taking self-defense classes at a young age. As I grew into maturity, I came to understand the arts as not solely a prescription for unarmed personal protection, or method for maintaining physical fitness, but as a philosophy and discipline of life. One of […]
I wish Barack Obama and his family all the very best in their lives going forward. May they be blessed with joy, love, grace, and prosperity. I will not, however, miss his presidency, and to it I say farewell and good riddance. There are two reasons. First, Obama has been an abysmal chief executive, both domestically […]
Earlier this morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted the following: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Don’t do it. Don’t fall for it. You know what I’m talking about. Don’t make an embarrassing spectacle of yourself. […]
Donald Trump and his movement defied the odds yesterday and won the Electoral College, cementing him as the 45th President of the United States. At this time we await results only from Michigan, Arizona, and New Hampshire, with only N.H. swinging for Hillary Clinton. Thus, popular vote notwithstanding the electoral breakdown looks to be 232 […]
This is a message for my loudmouthed conservative and Republican peers now repudiating their prior commitment to vote for Trump, and seeking to wash themselves free of Trump’s tiny “pussy-grabbing” hands in the wake of the “locker room banter” revelation. If you think that your integrity can be so easily repaired by some public magic […]
Forward by Vivek: The unofficial mission statement of V for Verbatim this year was to restore some dignity in discourse and respect among peers that has been lost in the fog of political war (repenting as well, for my own contribution to it), and to carve on a slab of internet tube stone for time […]
Forward by Vivek: The statement below comprises writings that are not my own. For the first time (and it will not be a common type of post), I am transcribing someone else’s conservative treatise against Donald Trump’s candidacy for President. I would not do this if it was simply a rant from a stranger that […]
“Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean.” – Josey Wales Let’s first dispense with what you’re here for. I will not vote for any of the partisan candidates in November. In rejecting Hillary Clinton, I will not settle […]
“I attack ideas; I don’t attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can’t separate the two . . . you don’t want to be a judge.” Justice Scalia died of natural causes and was quite certainly not assassinated. But given the abundance of disrespect and vilification in discourse […]
Of all the things in politics that I hate, the one I despise the most is the single-issue voter. And it’s not just because some people wouldn’t mind a zombie apocalypse breaking out as long as it meant that they could hold onto their precious birth control. No, this is something a little different. My […]
2016 Update: This position is no longer the position I hold. I stand by what was written in 2013 as genuine at the time that it was written. And I have not changed a word of it since. But for those who end up reading it now, this is an old post with an […]
There is a considerable chance that liberals could be right about one thing – that we conservatives, in spite our quite justified skepticism towards President Obama, may not actually understand him fully. In short, we should entertain the fact that perhaps he is less of a zealous ideologue, and more of a ruthless strategist. Perhaps […]
With the second premiere of Zero Dark Thirty in theaters across the United States, and the recent Golden Globe Awards presented to Ben Affleck for Argo, both films are, for the moment, relevant enough to discuss once again. As it turns out, these films are quite similar to one another. They are both dramatic depictions of actual American […]
Not long ago, I stated on Facebook that there is no happy ending for the Republican Party this year. It may surprise you to find out that I am not conjecturing on the basis of personal pessimism. If the Bush Tax Cuts for the middle class expire, the GOP will get the blame, whether they […]
For those who don’t know, the American Presidential Election will be decided by only a few key states. Most states (and most people for that matter) have already made up their minds as to who they’re voting for and it’s just a question of turnout. In America, winning the popular vote isn’t enough by itself […]
States like Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida that will play an essential role in deciding the future of the nation on Tuesday should be aware of the potentially inevitable consequences of their vote on the basis of the issue of health insurance. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (aka “Obamacare”), the healthcare law that is […]
Thanks to a torrential maelstrom of jokes on Twitter persisting all throughout the next day, far too many people only remember Romney’s “binders full of women” hiring comment following Tuesday night’s highly contentious debate. Unfortunately, what has seemingly gone unseen is one of President Obama’s most economically ignorant, logically fallacious, and intellectually offensive remarks he […]
On the one hand he’s a flip-flopper, and on another hand he’s a super-rich not-your-average-Willard. These problems are interconnected and compounded by the fact that American people are, by their very nature, simple. This is not an insult. It’s just a fact. People want their leaders to be just like their spouses – compatible, communicable, […]
