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Conservatives love their histories; they lose themselves in great biographies; they have a voracious appetite for news and avidly devour op-eds. But the menu for literature on the right is, regrettably, if understandably, a bit limited. To add a bit of variety, Chris Scalia joins Peter, Steve, and Charles to discuss his soon-to-be-published book, Thirteen Novels Conservatives Will Love (But Probably Haven’t Read). The boys quiz Chris on his selections and on the broader premise that the novel deserves greater attention from keepers of the cause.
Plus, the hosts prattle on about the Pope, nationwide injunctions, Trump’s trip to Riyadh, and the blasted SALT caucus.
Should We Be Trusting These People?
Every time our country revisits the topic of developing closer relationships with questionable countries, I can’t help but feel uneasy. Currently, President Trump is ingratiating himself with several Middle Eastern countries; most of them have discomfiting reputations. I realize that we can benefit from relationships with many countries that don’t have stellar backgrounds, but is there any line to be drawn that would stop us from building alliances with them? Frankly, I don’t think there is an easy answer to this question, but I do wonder if our country should be considering the history of these countries, and whether we should be friendly with them. There are several examples I would give.
The first country I’ll focus on is Saudi Arabia. After the brutal murder of Amal Khashoggi in 2018, which appeared to be ordered by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the appropriateness of supporting such a cruel regime seemed worth debating. That incident aside, the Saudi government’s involvement in 9/11 has recently been called into question:
Why is this GLoP different from all other GLoPs? Because on this GLoP, the principals discuss the future of the show and how to evolve it given their divergent interests. But don’t worry: there’s also plenty of laughs involving Gavin MacLeod, his TV wife Joyce Bulifant (look her up), an actual joke about the holocaust, and another one about the N-word. And even some actual pop culture with some thoughts about Andor, Sinners, and BritBoxTV.
Chancellor Merz Defends AfD
Friedrich Merz, formerly of BlackRock Germany, is the new chancellor of Germany. He’ll be taking office amid investigations by German intelligence of AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), characterized as a very, very far-right political party by their globalist adversaries, despite polling as high as 40% (more than any of the opposition) with German voters. Gateway Pundit is now reporting that Chancellor Merz has repudiated the effort to ban or sanction the AfD, as has been so broadly discussed.
In a climate of escalating rhetoric and maneuvering amid shifting political realities, Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz has rejected growing calls from leftist and globalist parties to ban the right-wing, anti-globalist AfD, warning that such efforts risk weaponizing state power against legitimate political opposition.
The President spends his first major overseas trip of his 2nd term in the Middle East, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – courting investment in America and stirring up some “plane” old fashioned controversy.
Then we talk to “America’s Top Recovering Attorney,” Kerry Lutz and founder of the Financial Survivor Network.
Starbucks Dress Code
I keep seeing stories on X about Starbucks employees angry over a new dress code. So, I looked it up:
The more defined color palette includes any solid black short and long-sleeved crewneck, collared, or button-up shirts, and any shade of khaki, black, or blue denim bottoms. We’re also making a new line of company-branded t-shirts available to partners, who will receive two at no cost – including partner network options.
This is direct from the Starbucks site. Link
Math Points to a Designed Universe
It was the mathematicians who stayed after to talk in my biblical integration teaching at Liberty University. The math department was especially interested in my quote from Herbert E. Huntley, The Divine Proportion: A Study in Mathematical Beauty:
In the classroom where science and mathematics are taught exists the feast of beauty unlimited both in abundance and variety. Every discerning teacher knows that in the sphere of the created world, Beauty is an utterance of the divine voice.”
I believe math is one of the great bases for Christian apologetics. The exactitude of Divine Design is a marker of what Paul said:
Romanian elections don’t typically generate much excitement with an American audience, but Călin Georgescu’s sudden rise, the annulment of last year’s vote, and the ban on his running in this year’s election grabbed our attention in this topsy-turvy decade of near-daily surprises. With the final round of 2025’s election set for Sunday, Remus Stefureac, CEO of INSCOP Research, joins Henry to discuss the scandals surrounding last year’s canceled presidential race, the leading candidates today (nationalist George Simion and independent Nicușor Dan), the circumstances in parliament, the Romanian diaspora variable, and economic and foreign policy considerations that are driving (and expected to complicate) the push for change.
And, of course, we hear about INSCOP’s polling ahead of this weekend’s vote.
Going Before A Fall (or Why I Stay Indoors)
In 2005, my wife and I celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary with a long weekend in the mountains. On these trips we always liked spending an afternoon driving up the Blue Ridge Parkway, hiking the trails at Craggy Gardens, and enjoying the view from the summit of Mt. Mitchell. I am decidedly not an outdoorsman, but none of this was particularly adventurous. These are all places with parking lots and nicely maintained gravel paths.
But we’d made that drive many times, and I wanted to find something different to do. In the sitting room of the B&B, I happened across a book about North Carolina waterfalls, and a couple of the ones it described sounded like they were relatively easy to reach, even for a confirmed indoorsman like me. I wrote down some directions and off we went.
Join Robert and Ericka as they welcome conservative political commentator, author, attorney, and columnist, Josh Hammer.
Josh, Robert, and Ericka discuss the growing ideological divide in America, Josh’s new book Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West, and why the survival of the Jewish nation is deeply tied to the future of the West. From campus antisemitism to constitutional decay, they unpack the urgent threats facing our republic—and what it will take to restore moral clarity and national strength.
In this episode of The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy and Kelley Brown, a Massachusetts U.S. history and civics teacher, interview Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson, author of The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777. Mr. Atkinson explores the rise and fall of British imperial power in North America, the radical leadership of the American patriot Samuel Adams, and the early military struggles of General George Washington and the Continental Army. He discusses the brutal battlefield realities faced by Continental soldiers, the pivotal roles of Lafayette and the French alliance, and the ideological stakes of America’s War for Independence. As the nation marks the 250th anniversary of the April 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, Atkinson reflects on the Revolution’s lasting lessons about civic sacrifice, liberty, and the meaning of American democratic ideals. In closing he reads a passage from his new book, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780.
Work to Live, or Live to Work? A False Choice
There is a common expression that Europeans work to live, while Americans live to work. Europeans always feel a little smug about this, since work is surely not the purpose of existence!
But I think there is a much better way to frame the question. Think about it instead as whether we care about the present or the future. Do we invest in the future – at the cost of the present? We might call that “live to work.”
Tariffs, seemingly a relic of the 18th and 19th centuries, are back on the front page as tools of policy, with wide-reaching impacts on America’s economy and Americans as individuals. What’s the history behind tariffs as tools of policy, and how have American leaders understood and used them differently over time?
Political Economist Rob Wyllie joins Jeff for this timely explanation of the background and history of tariffs, as well as a healthy dose of analysis and even some forecasts related to what’s going on now in the Trump administration and what it might mean for you and America now and in the near future.
About Those “Protesters” At the ICE Detention Center in New Jersey . . .
The New Redlining Against Orthodox Jews
(Hat-tip to CT Law for sending me links to the topic.)
If you think that anti-Semitic protests are happening exclusively on college campuses, think again. A federal case has been launched against a town that exposes housing discrimination against Orthodox Jews in Forestburgh, New York:
Joe Biden’s Mental State in 2024
The media and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, insisted up to the moment that Joe Biden dropped out that he was fully up to being president for a second term. That was obviously not the case. It was asserted that any videos showing Biden in a poor light were cheap fakes or deepfakes. Now that Trump has been elected, and it’s safe to admit the truth, the books are starting to come out about Biden’s impairment. But it was clear to me, long before the disastrous June 2024 debate with Trump, that Biden’s mental impairment was severe. Why didn’t a senior Democrat say this in 2023 and allow a vigorous campaign to choose a successor candidate?
California Governor Gavin Newsom clearly knew that this was the case. He ran ads attacking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and debated him. At one time, DeSantis had been the favorite to win the 2024 Republican nomination. Given that Trump declined to participate in primary debates, DeSantis was the logical choice to raise Newsom’s prominence. But why didn’t Newsom come out and say that Biden was not up to the job? He may have feared that, if Joe were nominated and lost, Newsom would be blamed for it. So they all repeated the lie that Joe Biden was up for a second term. In a party dominated by the far left, telling the truth takes courage from a Democratic politician. Billionaires such as George and Alexander Soros can make or break Democrats. Telling the truth out of school may cause the money spigot to turn off.
Ann talks to John Tierney about how males’ natural chivalry is being used against them, the bogus studies that plague the work of “Gender Studies,” and the “joy” of composting.
John Tierney is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor to City Journal. Tierney has significant experience in print and media, including more than two decades as a reporter and columnist with the New York Times.
Henry Ford’s Violins
@ekentgolding mentioned that the Henry Ford Museum has a Stradivarius violin on display, so I was curious to see about Ford’s violins. Here’s a synopsis of what I found online.
Henry Ford loved what he called “fiddle music,” early American folk music, and folk dancing. When he was a young man, he bought a violin and taught himself to play, although he was only an amateur violinist. In 1926, when he was in his 60s and wealthy, he bought seven Italian violins for an estimated $100,000, including two Stradivari and a Guarneri. (Today that would be about $1.8 million.) He kept them in his laboratory and played them in his dancing room at the lab, where he hosted dances. He also took them to his mansion. He hosted square dances there, too.
Capitalism makes people wealthier. And happier. And more productive.

From Krakenimages.com, asset ID: 1680432307
I’ve long been fascinated by the changes that occur in a medical practice when that practice is bought by a third party. I’ve had several friends who ran their own practice for years and were outstanding docs. Then the regulatory environment gets increasingly complex, Medicare gets increasingly complex, revenue goes down, overhead goes up, and he gets concerned. Then the local hospital or some other large organization comes in, offering to buy his practice – pay him some money upfront, then put him on salary as an employee. He knows that he can’t keep up with governmental complexity anymore, and that the hospital has a legal department, a management department, and Lord knows what else. So he signs up.
The 100proofnewshound / The Hundred Years and More Show
I’ve been around here since the beginning, but have only posted seven times. Six have been promoted to the main feed, which is a pretty good batting average. I’m here to tell you about a new venture I’ve undertaken, telling the history of America through the medium of newspapers. The plan is to post one monthly show, commencing in January 1925 and continuing thereafter. Additionally, there will be three shows a month on specific topics of interest from any time prior to 1925.
To date, I’ve got twelve shows in the can and have posted the three below. These are the monthly shows from February and March 1925, along with a fun episode on the life of America’s premier confidence man, Charles Gondorf. I can’t tell you how much fun it is preparing and recording these little YouTube adventures with my daughter Olivia, my editor.
Progress as a Moral Imperative
I enjoyed a lecture many years ago by a Jesuit history professor who opined that the real injury to Ireland from the Norman invasion was that the Normans did not finish the job—instead, the people got a long-term, partial, hostile occupation without the nation-building transformation the Normans had wrought in England.
Around that time, I read a semi-serious paper by two African academics (I am unable to locate a copy) who called for a re-colonization of Africa by the United Nations. They argued that the legacy of European colonization left national boundaries unrelated to ethnic or historical groupings, weak governments that were pale imitations of colonial bureaucracies crippled by corruption and political instability. Their proposal was to replace virtually all of Africa’s governments with the rule of law, administered by non-corrupt technocrats empowered by powerful nations that would establish patterns, habits and expectations required for a functioning modern democratic economic order and then let new, modernized nations emerge with viable foundations.
Passage of Interesting Times
On May 1st, Ross Douthat published a conversation with Jonathan Keeperman, titled “The New Culture of the Right: Vital, Masculine and Intentionally Offensive.” Keeperman, known for years on Twitter as “L0m3z” (pronounced “Lomez”), is the publisher at Passage Press, a confidently right-wing publishing company that has reprinted original Hardy Boys stories, HP Lovecraft science fiction, and Robert E. Howard pulp, founded a periodical called “Man’s World,” and put the words of prominent X-lectuals like Curtis Yarvin and Nick Land in print. His ascent from Twitter anonymity to recognition by one of prestige media’s preeminent thinkers — points of reference bookending his doxxing last year, which transmogrified an internet troll into a handsome young man with respectable academic credentials — denotes the suitability of Douthat’s choice of title for his interview series. “Interesting times,” no doubt.
The duo meander a bit into relevant territory, covering conservative hipsters (news to me), “The Longhouse,” and their shifting disagreements over the president, but the explicit purpose of the sit-down was to discuss a future for right-wing art. Kepperman seeks to present order to his seemingly contradictory mission, while Douthat hopes to discern whether Passage is constructing an institution capable of containing the entropic forces unleashed by the New Right it represents. The unstated point of contention between these representatives of two generations competing to replace the retiring Baby Boomers hinges not so much on the tired debate about “what time it is,” but rather on the appropriate action given the late hour. (You can imagine which party is up for pulling an all-nighter and which prefers to turn in for a fresh start tomorrow.)
Viewing Life Through a Peephole
Many people have made admirable efforts to characterize and understand the irrational, hysterical and bizarre behavior of people on the Left. Still, trying to understand the reasons they perceive life as they do is challenging. The other day, however, I had an insight that might, at least in part, explain how the Left sees the world, and why their view is so limited and selective. First, let’s look at typical descriptions of the Left by the Right. The Left is usually described as an elitist, utopian-thinking, Marxist group. All of those attributes, I believe, are true. Missing from the description are the reasons why these beliefs are so easy to maintain, in view of real-life events:
The Left views life through a peephole.
China, U.S. Agree to a 90-Day Trade War Pause
Weekend talks in Geneva between U.S. and Chinese officials yielded a 90-day pause on the triple-digit tariffs between the world’s two largest economies. In the meantime, American tariffs on Chinese imports were reduced to 10%, down from 145%, along with a separate 20% levy due to Beijing’s role in the fentanyl trade. American tariffs will remain on steel, aluminum, and automobiles, meaning tariffs on China will remain above the current 30%. Chinese retaliatory duties were reduced to 10%.
American trade markets rallied in response to the news, combined with a surge in the dollar and treasury yields and a drop in gold. The relief came as a great surprise to many, as the president said only days ago that an 80% tariff on China “seems right.”