Recently a liberal filmmaker (Ron Howard) made a movie with liberal actors about the book Hillbilly Elegy. It has received strong criticism from both sides of the political aisle. But since this is not a conservative movie, and it was made by standard-issue Hollywood leftists, the criticism from the left is more interesting.

The book was written by a man who had grown up in Appalachia with a lot of poor white neighbors. He describes the pathologies of that culture, from drug use, to lack of planning for the future, to lack of interest in education, and so on. But he also mentions some virtues of some of his neighbors, as an increasingly desperate group of people try to cope with plant closures and economic changes that are devastating their neighborhoods. These occasionally sympathetic glimpses into the lives of poor whites are drawing the ire of leftists, and Glenn Reynolds thinks he knows why:

The old Southern Democrats maintained the allegiance of poor whites by making sure those poor whites felt they could look down on blacks. The modern Democratic Party maintains the allegiance of ­upper-middle-class whites by making sure they can look down on lower-class whites. By ­humanizing those lower-class whites, Netflix’s “Hillbilly Elegy” calls the whole enterprise into question.

The news of Professor Williams’ passing came as a jarring blow, an unexpected loss in a year of tenacious tragedies. It is our loss, of course, and most especially for Dr. Williams’ loved ones and friends, all of whom remain in our prayers. I wasn’t privileged enough to have met him, but I felt as if I knew him and remain grateful beyond words that he took the time to write an encouraging letter to me when I was in college.

I began reading his newspaper columns in the Panama City News Herald in 1980 and was struck by his fierce independence of mind. I couldn’t quite categorize him politically, which made him all the more intriguing. He grew up in racially segregated public housing and was drafted into the Army. He was on the receiving end of racial abuse from civil authorities and military officers. In fact, as an army private, he wrote to President Kennedy, asking:

Should Negroes be relieved of their service obligation or continue defending and dying for empty promises of freedom and equality… Or should we demand human rights as our Founding Fathers did at the risk of being called extremists….I contend that we relieve ourselves of oppression in a manner that is in keeping with the great heritage of our nation.

The actor formerly known as Ellen Page recently came out in an Instagram post saying she is a man, now to be known as Elliot Page.

I have my own mixed feelings towards transgenderism but probably lean to the Ben Shapiro side more than anything. We won’t get into that here. What I want to get into are some of the problems a story like this should present to the mainstream leftist ideology. None of these are original, just a few picked up here or there I find to be especially challenging.

“I wanted to kill myself. If I hadn’t been pregnant, I definitely would have killed myself.” Thus, does Seema Misra begin the story of her three-year odyssey as a sub-postmistress working for Britain’s Royal Mail.

She was approved to open a postal station in her small Surrey shop in 2005, and was set up with supplies and a Horizon computer terminal to use for Post Office business. (A word to the wise: the Post Office in the UK operates differently than it does in the States, and there are over 11,000 of these “sub-post offices,” usually operating out of small general stores, chemist shops, or newsagents, dotted all over the country, often in out-of-the-way villages (think Agatha Christie mysteries) which would otherwise be underserved. The people who run them are contractors, not employees of the Royal Mail. And the post office itself is used for purposes unheard of in the US–you can go there to pay your utility bill, perform banking transactions, and get your welfare payments, as well as buy stamps and send off letters and packages.)

It wasn’t long before Seema began to notice discrepancies in her end-of-day reconciliations, between what she thought should have been the total Post Office business done, and what the computer report spat out. In every case, the computer report indicated that there should have been more money applied to the account than indicated when Seema took the receipts and transaction history and totaled them up manually. Some days, the discrepancies were in the £100 range. Sometimes, thousands.

I have three little girls, who are in college now. When they were young we rarely gave them candy or soda. Those were special treats for birthdays, or travel, or holidays, or whatever. But that was not part of their everyday diet. We weren’t fanatics about it, but we avoided junk in their diet. Nothing wrong with the occasional treat, but that wasn’t how we lived every day. And we raised three very strong, healthy kids.

We lived in the mountains of Tennessee, and often would have a fire at night, out on the deck (That’s me, on just such an evening, pictured to the right.). We’d sit around the fire, look at the views of the mountains, admire the sunset, and enjoy the cool evening mountain air. It was idyllic. I enjoy bourbon, and on those evenings I would often have a bourbon and Coke. Or three. I mix them with an emphasis on the bourbon, adding Coke mainly for color, and to avoid the appearance that I’m drinking straight bourbon. Anyway, on one of these lovely evenings, the adults were sitting around the fire, and I had a beautifully potent BOURBON and coke sitting on the ground next to my chair.

My daughters were running around, catching fireflies, chasing the dogs, playing tag, and doing the things that little kids do on beautiful summer evenings. Until my middle daughter noticed what appeared to be a Coke sitting on the ground next to my chair. “What a special treat!” she thought to herself. “He won’t notice if I just take one drink!” she thought.

A bar owner declared that he would no longer put up with arbitrary totalitarian state edicts that would destroy his business, and called on the people of America to take to the streets to protest.

An insurrection against these totalitarians is now the only remaining hope of America.

Ted Cruz came out last night with a highly cogent argument for the Supreme Court taking up the case in Pennsylvania that would disqualify the mail-in ballots.

“Today, an emergency appeal was filed in the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the election results in Pennsylvania. This appeal raises serious legal issues, and I believe the Court should hear the case on an expedited basis.