NEW YORK—A fire on the roof of a 44-story luxury apartment building sent plumes of dark smoke into the New York City skyline on Thursday.The fire in the Hudson Yards mixed-use development on Manhattan’s…

BUFFALO, N.Y.—Rasmus Dahlin scored 1:33 into overtime to lift the Buffalo Sabres to a 4-3 win against the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.Alex Tuch and Ryan McLeod each had a goal and an assist in…

Even its precious prehistoric toe-beans are there.

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Politics 2024 as 2006’s Mirror Many of the incumbent Democratic Senators forgot what they had first been elected on in 2006. (Photo by Saad Shalash-Pool/Getty Images) In last Tuesday’s election, three incumbent senators, Bob Casey (D-PA), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), lost reelection to Republican challengers. Unremarked upon was the fact that all three of these Democratic senators were first elected in 2006’s Democratic sweep of both legislative chambers, and lost in circumstances not dissimilar to those in which they won.  In 2006, three years into the Iraq War, Democrats were able to take advantage of that disaster and the increasingly neglected American at home to take control of both the House and the Senate, the former for the first time in twelve years. Democrats picked up five seats (six including the technically independent Joe Lieberman, admittedly a hawk). Three of those victors would be defeated 18 years later after reversing their earlier foreign policy views. In Pennsylvania, Casey was able to win a sweeping victory over incumbent Sen. Rick Santorum by campaigning against Bush’s Iraq policy and emphasizing his social conservatism and his family’s reputation as pro-life Democrats. Casey, though opposing immediate withdrawal from Iraq, demanded that the Bush administration put forward various benchmarks to wind down and end the conflict while attacking Santorum as lacking the ability and the “guts” to stand up to Bush on the war. Casey eviscerated Santorum on the campaign trail for being closely tied to Bush in foreign policy, with the line “When two politicians are agreeing 98 percent of the time, one of them isn’t necessary” becoming a common refrain in his campaign against Santorum. In his victory speech in 2006, Casey credited his landslide win to his demand for foreign policy accountability, declaring: “It’s about time that politicians in Washington are held accountable in Iraq.” Similarly in Montana, Jon Tester ran in 2006 as a fiscal conservative critical of Bush’s Iraq policy. In the campaign against the ultra-hawkish Conrad Burns, Iraq took center-stage, with Tester asserting that the Bush administration had started the war under false pretenses, that the Republican Senate had not done enough to check claims about weapons of mass destruction, and that the war was a distraction from the actual challenges facing Montanans. At the same time, Sherrod Brown in Ohio overcame his reputation as a progressive in the House by capitalizing on his record of foreign policy restraint in his 2006 campaign. A U.S. representative before his election to the Senate, Brown was well-known for voting against the Iraq War, the PATRIOT Act, and warrantless wiretapping.  However, by 2024, all three Senators endorsed endless foreign entanglements while ignoring the economic needs of their constituents. Brown, Tester, and Casey all found themselves amongst the ranks of Ukraine-maximalists. The earlier combination of (at least feigned) conservatism and skepticism of foreign interventions that had defined the 2006 campaigns of Tester and Casey had been entirely abandoned in favor of social liberalism and internationalism. Casey completely reversed many of his earlier signature positions, running as the pro-choice candidate in the race and with the Pennsylvania Democrats accused his opponent of not being hawkish enough. Brown also traded in his earlier reputation as an anti-war progressive for one of hawkishness, with Brown’s office declaring in February that aid to Ukraine is necessary as a deterrent not only against Russia, but somehow also against China and Iran.  This year, much as in 2006, various foreign entanglements (this time in Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East) have cast a shadow over the U.S. election. However, this time the roles of the parties are reversed. Democrats express near-uniform support for endless aid to Ukraine, while Republicans have become increasingly skeptical, as that conflict has dragged on as inconclusively as the Iraq War had in 2006. Democrats campaigned with Liz Cheney, while the Republican vice-presidential nominee walked onto the convention floor to an anti-Bush protest song. And as in 2006, these entanglements, paired with domestic disorder, favored the party promoting a more “America First” vision, with Republicans taking the Presidency, Senate, and retaining the House. The now-victorious challengers to the seats of Brown and Tester, in particular, businessman Bernie Moreno and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, ran as this year’s culturally conservative realists. While viewed as more hawkish than his potential primary opponent, Matt Rosendale, Sheehy indicated that he would have voted against aid to Ukraine last Spring. Moreno likewise opposed the aid package. Incoming Pennsylvania Sen. David McCormick, by contrast, has sent mixed messages on the Ukraine issue, stating on a podcast that he would have voted against a particular aid package in February, but generally favoring a more internationalist foreign policy. However, with Donald Trump dragging him over the finish line against Casey, one can still interpret McCormick’s win as a win for realism and restraint and as a repudiation of Casey’s alignment with the internationalism of the Biden administration. While it is somewhat trite to point out that “all politics is local,” in this case it seems necessary to posit a corollary from that saying: that politicians neglect local concerns in favor of foreign preoccupations (be they in Baghdad or Kiev) at their own peril. While it is somewhat unclear how the newly elected senators, Sheehy, Moreno, and McCormick, will govern, it would be wise for them to avoid making the same mistakes as their predecessors. The post 2024 as 2006’s Mirror appeared first on The American Conservative.

Culture This Old House The Mount Vernon makeover is an occasion to reflect on our politicians and their many abodes. Credit: image via Shutterstock Looks like George Washington’s mansion outside Washington, D.C., is getting a makeover. Much of the manor house at Mount Vernon is now closed and will remain so for almost a year. Once the Property Brothers have tossed their tools into the back of their pickup and Ye Olde Jacuzzi is up and running, elected officials of our own day—Washington’s heirs—should be moved to the front of the line to see the results. The more they know about the Father of Our Country, the better for all of us, right? He set a worthy example for all of our political leaders, and the good ones try to live up to it. This renovation will be “the most complicated preservation effort since the house was saved from decay in 1860 by the private, nonprofit Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, which still owns it,” the Washington Post reports. If action were not taken now, Douglas Bradburn, president of George Washington’s Mount Vernon says, termite damage is such that high winds “could knock it off its foundation.” You can only imagine how a proud and sometimes crusty character like Washington would take that news. Back when he was commanding troops in the American Revolution and had left his home back in Virginia in the care of a trusted nephew, a 16-ton British frigate slipped up the Potomac River, torching plantations along the way, and paused at Mount Vernon. Interpreting this as a threat to bombard the place, the nephew boarded the ship, bearing “a small present of poultry,” followed by gifts of sheep, hogs and other goodies. This gesture of goodwill, said nephew told Washington, spared the farm from bombardment and might possibly secure the return of some 20 slaves who had fled to the frigate. Rather than grateful, Washington was incensed. It would have been “less painful” to have heard that the nephew had thumbed his nose at that “parcel of plundering Scoundrels,” Washington said, and that “they had burnt my House and laid the Plantation in ruins.”  Taking goodies to the British and “asking the surrender of my Negroes, was exceedingly ill-judged,” and the kind of behavior that other independence-minded Americans might copy, with dire consequences for the war effort. This would not have imposed any great hardship on Washington, after all. Had the British leveled the mansion, he could easily have moved into the cozy townhouse he had purchased some years earlier just up the road in Alexandria.  Here, as in so many areas, Washington set the standard. One lesson his successors in high political office have learned is the importance of having some place to rest your weary head after doing the public’s business all day when your primary place of residence is unavailable. This is true whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, to use today’s political labels.  We are, first and foremost, Americans. Trump has Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago, and who knows what else. Bedminster? The Clintons have that place in Chappaqua, a mansion on Embassy Row in Washington, and an apartment in Little Rock. The Obamas own a place in Kalorama, which is not far from Embassy Row, and a vacation get-a-way on Martha’s Vineyard. Joe and Jill Biden own a four-acre lakeside property in Wilmington, Delaware, and a summer place at Rehoboth Beach where Joe was so often seen taking much-needed naps.  Then there’s Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Bernie has a home in Burlington, Vermont, and a vacation place on Lake Champlain. Not so long ago, he also owned a townhouse on Capitol Hill. If, when he decided to vacate the townhouse, he converted it to “affordable housing,” we’re still waiting for his office to let us know. The post This Old House appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Gabbard Is a Dream Come True for Foreign Policy Realists Interventionists haven’t forgiven her for her opposition to Syrian intervention.  It has been absolutely fascinating to see whom CNN is trotting out to oppose the president-elect’s new appointments, especially the (now) former Rep. Matt Gaetz to the Department of Justice or the former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence. John Bolton, Adam Kinzinger, Andy McCabe, and Jeh Johnson are unhappy, and on CNN, talking about how each of these picks are “unqualified.” Enough ink has been already spilled to oppose the stinking credentialism often mistaken for meritocracy and the “consensus politics” that goes on in the name of bipartisanship in the capital of this country; it is not the job of this magazine to defend those called upon to serve, as they will face their own inquisitions, and will have to come out of them bold and gracious. That said, there are some egregious accusations that deserve to be scrutinized for the sake of propriety.  Two of them include Gabbard’s stances on Syria and Ukraine, the epitome of liberal hubris. The trotting out of Obama-era Democrats to denigrate Gabbard shows that they have not forgiven her for her cardinal sin, the heresy of opposing the prophet at the height of liberal internationalism.  Gabbard opposed the toppling of Assad in Syria by force, going against Obama and the U.S. government’s stated policy of “Assad must go.” Consider Gabbard’s own statement justifying her views. “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” she told The View. The congresswoman and then presidential aspirant further tweeted, “We heard attacks from warmongers in politics/media before. Those opposed to Iraq/Libya/Syria regime change wars are called ‘dicatator-lovers’ [sic] or ‘cozy’ with evil regimes. Rather than defend their position, they resort to name-calling & smears. American people wont [sic] fall for this.”  In 2016, she wrote an op-ed arguing against U.S. interventions in the Middle East, where she correctly assessed that “to maintain order after Assad’s fall would require at least 500,000 troops in a never-ending occupation.” “Our actions to overthrow secular dictators in Iraq and Libya, and attempts now to do the same in Syria, have resulted in tremendous loss of life, failed nations, and even worse humanitarian crises while strengthening the very terrorist organizations that have declared war on America,” Gabbard wrote. “A recent New York Times article reported that these ‘rebel groups’ supported by the United States ‘have entered into battlefield alliances with the affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria, formerly known as Al Nusra.’ How the United States can work hand-in-hand with the very terrorist organization that is responsible for the killing of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 boggles my mind and curdles my blood.” The idea that a secular dictator might be better than ostensible democracy infused with hardline Islamists in a region that is culturally incompatible with Madisonian democracy might be an amoral position, but it is a realist one, and is supported by evidence and international relations literature.  On the question of NATO, opposition to Gabbard bordered on the cusp of outright libel and calumny.  She tweeted in 2022, “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border.” POLITICO called her “Russia-friendly” for that.  The fact that Russia has a legitimate security interest in its near abroad, has defined redlines, and is reactive to perceived encroachment of the same, isn’t a controversial position. It is validated by research, including a book-length analysis by your humble columnist, as well as by the statements of the current CIA director, William Burns, and the former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. The fact that anyone still denies that chain of causation is a sign of severe intellectual mediocrity and corrupting ideology.  But, perhaps, the cause of liberal fear is something else. Gabbard’s appointment is also a sign that Trump is serious about reforming the intelligence apparatus of this country. Given that she’s opposed to the core theological impulse of this regime—promoting egalitarianism and sexual rights often by force across the globe as a revolutionary power—this causes paranoia among those who have sinecures in the regime’s bureaucratic apparatus. And for that, and for that alone, she deserves our support and praise. The post Gabbard Is a Dream Come True for Foreign Policy Realists appeared first on The American Conservative.

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Emotional vulnerability leads the way... The post ‘Nobody’: Mitski’s devastating look at isolation, alienation, and a “big fucking breakdown” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.