“On social media: A podcast.”
The censorship regime and its discontents. In an exchange this evening, Scrum founding editors Marshall Auerback, Patrick Lawrence, and James W. Carden discuss Marshall’s latest piece, “Social media’s reckoning,” written in response to Silicon Valley’s extraordinary speech crackdown after the events on Capitol Hill…
“The Assange ruling.”
This will not end well, regrettably. There is relief and surprise in London today, and everywhere else the world over where those of humane and principled sentiment have gathered in behalf of Julian Assange these past many months. There is…
“A yearend conversation.”
The Scrum’s founding editors gather to look back and forward. This afternoon, our last of the year, we convened via Zoom to take a (not so fond) look back at the year that was. We spoke from Washington, Toronto, and…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump’s Foreign Policy Explained
Trump arrived in Washington as a New York property man unfamiliar with the permanent DC establishment, but determined to make deals where others dare not go. Chaos was the result. “Some friendly health advice to Iran,” President Donald Trump tweeted last Wednesday….
“The Biden blackout.”
“Soft despotism” is upon us. This article first appeared on The Scrum. DECEMBER 17—Those who followed events in 2016 with sufficient acuity will have registered events it is now well to recall. In the infra dig response of liberals to…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Empire with a Human Face
The Biden people are unlikely to speak of a new cold war with China, but they appear likely to wage one all dressed up as a sophisticated trans–Pacific strategy. Those boneheaded Trump people explained their hostile, xenophobic, fated-to-fail policy toward…
Who will Biden bomb first?
The President-elect’s ‘global leadership’ is a return to the failed policies of Obama and Clinton This article first appeared on Unherd on December 4, 2020. “America is back.” So President-elect Biden declared after announcing his cabinet nominations last week, and after…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Assassins & Iran
Any thought of Biden and his people riding into town on white horses to save the nuclear deal is strictly naïve. I was on the telephone with a friend in Tehran Sunday and found myself telling him about a Christmas card…
“Thanksgiving thoughts.”
Grounds for gratitude. Rummaging around for something to be thankful for this apparently thankless season seems to be the favored flavor this Thanksgiving. The New York Times recruited the safely tame poets laureate of these United States to make some suggestions and…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: US Meddling in Hong Kong
An honorable democracy movement that held its head high for many decades now falls to Beijing’s heavy hand after U.S. meddling. Midway in a week of shocking news, I awakened last Wednesday to a piece in Asia Sentinel that made my heart…