George Floyd
Screened out
The pitfalls of wrongthink
Don’t defund the police: reform them
‘Nothing works if public space is unsafe,’ says the respected urban sociologist Patrick Sharkey. The ‘Defund the Police’ initiative demands…
Defend the police
President Trump is signing an executive order today on police reform. The order, while relatively toothless, does one important thing:…
Lethal force
The truth about America’s police culture
Portrait of the week
Home The government lurched uncertainly in dealing with coronavirus. Not all years in primary schools would after all return before…
Marching against racism is too easy
When I first saw the footage of George Floyd being asphyxiated by a policeman’s knee on his throat, my reaction…
Madness in Minneapolis
My City Council in Minneapolis has decided to de-something the police. Defend? Nah. Defund. But by ‘defund’, they don’t mean…
EXCLUSIVE: Dan Bongino’s prepared testimony on police brutality
Dan Bongino, a conservative commentator and former Secret Service agent, will testify Wednesday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on…
Abolish the police. Then what?
One of the best rules of thumb to emerge from systems theory is Stafford Beer’s famous statement: the purpose of…
Remember when Joe Biden gave a eulogy for Strom Thurmond?
Biden did not attend the private funeral and burial of George Floyd today. Instead, Biden recorded a video to be…
Would Joe Biden defund the police?
Thanks to the nature of digital media, the last 10 days can be seen in entirely different ways. On one…
A US import we can do without
It is nearly four years since Black Lives Matter had their first major protest in London. Emulating their US counterparts,…
Diary
One victim of police brutality is police decency. Our son has a tutor, J., who works with autistic kids in…
Law and disorder
In Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed, a black entrepreneur had his bar destroyed before he even had a chance…
The creeping nihilism of the American left
The twin temptations of American liberalism are to radical excess and conservative stasis. Because liberalism is a practical philosophy of…
Lady Luck has deserted Trump
‘The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end,’ said Donald Trump on July…
Which black lives matter?
There is practically universal agreement that George Floyd was unjustly killed by police officer Derek Chauvin and that his life…
Bill de Blasio unites cops and protesters — in disgust
New York City is crumbling into shambolic lawlessness and its citizens are growing more afraid and frustrated by the day.…
The protests have not ended COVID-19
Remember when peaceful protesters of the economic lockdown were smeared for apparently putting lives at risk by utilizing their First…
How to destroy civilization
Yogi Berra was right: it’s déjà vu all over again. Just turn on the evening news. If you are old…
A night in an American riot
Race riots have gripped the nation over the past week, eclipsing the peaceful protesters demanding justice for the death of…
Dear dictators: don’t lecture the US on how to treat its people
If you’ve been watching the news, you would think the United States is a third world nation on the verge…
Mayhem in Manhattan
It’s important — and easy — to tell the difference between protesters and looters. Just as New York should have…
This riot is brought to you by Nike
In Chicago last weekend 82 people were shot, 22 of them fatally. Between May 2019 and late May 2020, homicide…
Pity the shopkeepers
Small businesses in America have been hit by a devastating double whammy. Stores that managed to survive the economic shutdown…
