I am thrilled to report that today The Federalist published the pilot episode of a new media criticism show hosted by myself and Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky that we are calling “BAD NEWS.”
During the inaugural episode we discussed:
Tag: The Federalist (Page 1 of 2)
The Buck Sexton Show
I had the opportunity to guest-host “The Buck Sexton Show” on February 28, where we talked American Ingrate, coronavirus and its significance in terms of the battle between Communism and freedom, Huawei, 5G, and the argument for a national industrial plan to compete with the Chinese Communist Party, the corruption of public education and the creation of a generation of America-haters, the fantastic new documentary “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words,” and much more with guests Joy Pullmann of The Federalist, David Goldman of Asia Times, and Michael Pack of Manifold Productions.
You can find it on iHeart, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I’ve embedded it below:
American Ingrate Week One Round-Up
Separately, I wanted to share some of the great coverage we received last week, and thank you all once again for helping make the launch of American Ingrate so successful.
Below is a round-up of media out of the gate, with more hits, reviews, and press to come in the weeks ahead.
Op-Eds
- Ilhan Omar’s appalling ‘collusion’ with Turkey’s tyrant (New York Post)
- 14 Crucial Questions That Bernie Sanders Surrogate Ilhan Omar Won’t Answer (The Federalist)
Media Hits
I had the privilege of guest-hosting for my friend Buck Sexton on his “The Buck Sexton Show” for three days in a row.
On night #1, we discussed everything from impeachment, to Iran policy with the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran, the China Phase One trade deal in context of the nature of the totalitarian and imperialist Chinese Communist Party regime, citizenship and the assault on sovereignty and separation of powers with Dr. John Eastman, plus much more.
On night #2, we discussed everything from impeachment and the assault on American justice by the administrative state, to the China Phase One trade deal with Trump administration Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Dr. Peter Navarro, Chinese soft power and its sway over Hollywood with my The Federalist colleague Emily Jashinsky, why Gen. Flynn was the first domino targeted by the Deep State to fall in the Trump administration, his remarkable whistleblower effort, and the latest on his trial with lead counsel Sidney Powell, plus much more.
On night #3, we discussed everything from Martin Luther King Jr. and identity politics, to the “Afghanistan Papers” with American Greatness‘ Julie Kelly, the
Tribeca Film ‘General Magic’ Shows How Capitalism Pulls Big Success Out Of Big Failures
One of the great paradoxes of Silicon Valley is that while its denizens are monolithically progressive, its creatives and entrepreneurs illustrate in their own lives the virtues of the free enterprise system that progressives loathe.
While the propensity for risk-taking is in part cultural, the ability to create and bring new goods and services to the public requires favorable social, political and economic conditions. This is why a communist nation like China resorts to stealing intellectual property to compete. It’s why innovation in progressive Europe pales in comparison to what we see in America.
Innovation requires the protection of individual liberty, private property rights and free markets. But Silicon Valley’s progressive political allies are often hostile to these principles.
A compelling new film featured at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival reflects this tension. While the liberal audience at the world premiere for “General Magic” — a new documentary about the “failed” tech company of that name — might not have realized it, the movie is an exceptional story about capitalism that viewers of all stripes will appreciate.
I recently reviewed this documentary at The Federalist.
Here’s a taste from the piece:
In The Federalist, I write that Ambassador John Bolton’s appointment as National Security Advisor (NSA) is rattling the Muslim Brotherhood echo chamber.
Indeed, attacks on the former ambassador have inadvertently served as some of his strongest endorsements.
One of the largely overlooked but truly revelatory areas of criticism concern Bolton’s positions on Islamic supremacism, which reflect an understanding that jihadists pose a mortal threat that must be countered using every element of national power. You know these attacks are meaningful because they have been made under cover of a smear campaign.
Bolton has been castigated in a flurry of articles as an “Islamophobe” for the thought crime of being a counterjihadist who supports other counterjihadists.
“Islamophobe” is being lobbed at Bolton to try and discredit him and ultimately scuttle policies he supports intended to strike at the heart of Islamic supremacism. The “tell” is that the articles raising such accusations frequently cast counterjihadist policy positions themselves as de facto evidence of Islamophobic bigotry.
As the representative par excellence of the position that America should exit the Iran deal, it should come as no surprise that the Iran deal echo chamber in exile has sprung into action in savaging the ambassador with the most outlandish of insinuations. For the Islamophobia campaign, the lesser-recognized and perhaps more insidious Muslim Brotherhood echo chamber has been re-activated. Bolton is on record as supporting its designation as a terrorist organization, and Brotherhood apologists and true believers cannot abide this.
In The Federalist I expose this smear campaign — a campaign led by a Muslim Brotherhood echo chamber that previously proved successful in apparently dissuading the Trump administration from designating the Brotherhood a terrorist organization — and suggest that the administration should not concede one inch to the Brotherhood and its backers in the national security and foreign policy establishment. Further, I suggest that the specious and slanderous slurs leveled at Bolton precisely because of his keen understanding of the Islamic supremacist threat reflects all the better on his appointment as NSA.
Is it a bigger threat to republican government when American citizens are hypothetically better represented, or when noncitizens in actuality dilute their representation?
This is a question at the core of an emerging controversy I touched on recently over a seemingly trivial query the Department of Justice has urged the Census Bureau to reinstate on the 2020 Census: Are you a U.S. citizen?
Former Obama attorney general Eric Holder has now joined 17 state attorneys general in expressing his outrage over the potential reinstatement of this citizenship question in the census by way of a characteristically deceptive and hyperbolic column penned for popular consumption in The New Republic.
I systematically debunk Holder’s arguments in a new piece at The Federalist.
You can find my related twitter thread beginning below:
Is it a bigger threat to republican govt when Americans are hypothetically better represented, or when noncitizens in actuality dilute their representation? Dems led by Eric Holder and 17 Resistance state AGs want to prioritize noncitizens over you. https://t.co/B8un91xNTA THREAD
— Benjamin Weingarten (@bhweingarten) March 1, 2018
The Iran Deal echo chamber has been ratcheting up its rhetoric in the days around the Trump administration’s deal decertification announcement, seeking to protect the non-treaty at all costs.
Among the most honest and simultaneously sordid rationales for defending the deal, especially by leaders of the EU, is this: The JCPOA means big business for the West. As long as the money is good for the major corporations trading with Iran (who contribute to the politicians’ campaigns), who cares if the commerce is materially supporting the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad.
I explore this shameful episode in the history of the West in a new piece at The Federalist, detailing how the West is indeed selling out to a jihadist regime whose economy is expressly dedicated by Iran’s constitution itself to spreading its pernicious Islamic revolution.
Here’s a taste:
Now we understand why then-Secretary of State John Kerry was at pains to push Western entities to trade with Iran. Sec. Kerry served as Iran’s lobbyist-in-chief
Providing the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad with billions of dollars in cash, and trading it essential goods and services, merely bolster its malicious activities.
