The pope and the president are at odds with each other, and Sohrab Ahmari isn’t happy about it. In an April 15, 2026, essay for UnHerd, he lamented the president and vice president’s intemperate words about Pope Leo, and suggested a diagnosis some might find startling. This friction, Ahmari thinks, is the bad fruit of Catholic neo-conservatives like Fr. John...

　　California may put an extraordinary wealth tax before voters this fall. Under the proposal, anyone worth more than a billion dollars would see 5 percent of their wealth taken next year. Supporters cast it as a one-time measure targeting only the super-wealthy, yet that reassuring description may mislead voters. A state that enacts such a tax to fill its empty...

　　April 23 may not be the “perfect date” (a title reserved for the 25th), but it comes close to fans of literature and flowers. April 23 marks St. George’s Day, the patron saint of a surprising number of countries, including England, Catalonia (in Spain), Portugal, Georgia, and Ethiopia. It is also recognized as World Book Day, an extension of its...

　　When Donald Trump first suggested that the United States should purchase Greenland, the reaction in Washington was disbelief mixed with ridicule. The United States, it had seemed, long ago settled its borders. Territorial expansion belonged to a different era. 　　Yet in the longer arc of American history, expansion has been quite normal. For much of the nation’s first century and...

　　The state of Colorado has made a habit of losing decisively at the Supreme Court of the United States. This term marks the state’s third loss in less than a decade. In all three cases, the Court has held unconstitutional Colorado’s attempts either to compel its citizens to express approval of certain orthodoxies about human identity and sexuality or to...

　　July 4, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the colonists’ claim to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The year 1776 also recalls a quieter but significant anniversary. Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, giving the modern world a language for thinking about markets, productivity,...

　　Even before 1776, American liberty and equality were expressed in church and civil covenants and compacts, like the 1620 Mayflower Compact. Alexis de Tocqueville makes much of such covenants and compacts in Democracy in America, arguing that religion lies at the core of American character and sustains the American experiment in democracy. Christianity, in his view, is especially well-suited to...

　　“Thinking is always in crisis.” Thus observes the narrator of Ian McEwan’s most recent novel, What We Can Know. Set in the year 2119, the novel focuses on its narrator-protagonist who teaches English literature at the British University of the South Downs. The proud British Isles have shrunk to an archipelago of minor islands during the “Inundation of 2042,” and...

　　Editors Note: This is the second essay in a symposium on the Iran War and Americas role in the Middle East. You can read the first essay here. 　　“To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.” So spoke President Donald Trump when he announced the commencement of Operation Epic...

　　Editors note: This is the first essay in a symposium on the Iran War and Americas role in the Middle East. 　　The US-Israeli war against Iran was fought for unclear purposes, with a vague strategy, towards an ambiguous end. That does not mean it contributed nothing to US interests. The world is safer with a weaker Iranian regime whose nuclear...

　　Americans are falling in love with Project Hail Mary, a movie about an astronaut who finds himself alone at the end of the universe, with perhaps no hope of ever returning among mankind. He then has to figure out how to save mankind in very difficult circumstances, by his wits and his technical know-how. A man a lot like the...

　　In his piquant memoir, Streetwise, Lloyd Blankfein, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, shares an arresting anecdote about the administrative state. The SEC sued Goldman for allegedly misleading investors about the risks of mortgage-backed securities. Blankfein considered the suit meritless but settled for $550 million. “You can’t litigate against your regulator. It’s like a Star Trek episode: an alien controls the...