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Jan 18, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Douglas Murray |Juan P. Villasmil |Riva-Melissa Tez |David Kaufman
What’s in a word? “Equality.” “Equity.” It’s the sort of thing that Channel 4 newsreaders find impossible to understand. Surely they’re the same thing, aren’t they? And even if they aren’t then what kind of pedant would keep trying to point it out? What difference does it make anyway? Well, quite a lot. Potentially the difference between your home burning down and it not burning down. It’s important that people who come to your burning home look like you.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Michael Evans |Riva-Melissa Tez |Tom Goodenough |Katja Hoyer
The ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq was defeated at a cost of billions of dollars and the loss of thousands of lives. And yet the ideology of violence and hatred espoused by the Islamic State lives on and has spread into cities in the West like a poison with no antidote.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
thespectator.com | Riva-Melissa Tez |David Kaufman |Anatol Lieven |Juan P. Villasmil
Donald Trump doesn’t take office for another week, but the Trump show starts in earnest this week with a confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth, followed shortly by Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Doug Burgum, Doug Collins and others. While some drama is to be expected, Trump’s current nominees have mostly run the gauntlet unscathed. Not all were so lucky, however.
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Dec 26, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Peter Jones |Riva-Melissa Tez |Christopher Sandford |Julie Burchill
The “lifestyle guru” Russell Brand is now under police investigation and (in desperation?) has taken to hawking magic amulets. Still, it has to be better than his announcement that he had become a Christian. As the Greek satirist Lucian pointed out, such a move did little good for one such would-be “celeb” (Latin celeber, “busy, crowded”), Peregrinus. He was born c. AD 95 and, suspected of killing his father, went into exile.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Teresa Mull |Frank Lavin |Ben Domenech |Riva-Melissa Tez
The Napa Legal Institute released its second annual Faith and Freedom Index last month, which essentially scores states on how easy it is for faith-based non-profit organizations to operate within them.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Leon Mangasarian |Cindy Yu |Roger Kimball |Riva-Melissa Tez
Welcome, DC Diary readers, to the last edition of this newsletter before Tuesday night’s election. Most polls still have the presidential race at a dead heat between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump. Pennsylvania remains the lynchpin, as the paths for the respective candidates appears to be the Rust Belt and Pennsylvania for Harris, and the Sun Belt and Pennsylvania for Trump. Each campaign is pointing to data that they think gives them an advantage tomorrow.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Cherie DeVille |Roger Kimball |Riva-Melissa Tez |Gavin Mortimer
I’ve worked in the porn industry for nearly two decades — through the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. Yet this year, I have heard more porn stars than ever before vocalizing their support for former president Donald Trump and his MAGA movement. How did the industry of free-speech icons and Democratic donors Larry Flynt and Hugh Hefner skew to the personality cult devoted to a man who helped overturn Roe v. Wade and screwed Stormy Daniels in more ways than one? The answer is complicated.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Roger Kimball |Riva-Melissa Tez |Samuel Ramani |Gavin Mortimer
Elon Musk has often commented that “if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election.” He often adds that, “far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it.”I believe both statements are essentially true. I say “essentially” because, should Trump lose — or to follow Musk more accurately, should he not be elected, which is not quite the same thing as losing — then there would still be events called elections. Only they wouldn’t be like elections of yore.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
thespectator.com | Riva-Melissa Tez |Samuel Ramani |Gavin Mortimer |Sam Leith
For some of us, watching newly minted Republican tech bros giddy at the thought of a Trump win fills us with a painful nostalgia. There’s a sadness but also a burgeoning frustration while reading their posts. A friend recently pointed out that my social media posts seemed “cynical.” Another called to ask if I was OK after I exclaimed, half joking, for the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment. These friends underestimate the severity of the political blackpill some of us have swallowed.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
spectator.com.au | Riva-Melissa Tez
For some of us, watching newly minted Republican tech bros giddy at the thought of a Trump win fills us with a painful nostalgia. There’s a sadness but also a burgeoning frustration while reading their posts. A friend recently pointed out that my social media posts seemed “cynical.” Another called to ask if I was OK after I exclaimed, half joking, for the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment.
