Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone

Memes sprouted up online as the rare, once-in-a-generation Hurricane Hilary threatened Los Angeles. “She’s back,” they all said. No one could mistake the namesake, with or without the extra “l.” Just before the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm and made its way toward me, I was revisiting Disney’s Snow White in the wake of comments made by Rachel Zegler, the young star chosen to revive...

“Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” - Shakespeare Despite the shock and awe of the four indictments against former president Donald Trump, the Democrats are more vulnerable than they’ve been in decades. It isn’t just the Afghanistan exit, th...

Dear Mr. Brooks, Your column might be the best thing written in the New York Times in the past seven years. You’ve undoubtedly been subjected to a fair amount of abuse for it. You should probably never have written it if the comments are any indication. But those are people in the bubble. They don’t represent either the majority or the future. They think they do, but they don’t. Your question, “Ar...

Part 1 - America at the Hands of a Cult | Part 2 - A Religious War As yet another indictment of Trump rolls out, they can barely contain their excitement. Is this finally it? Will that long-awaited termination of their tormenter give the ruling class the peace they demand? They’ve been patiently waiting, spending too much of their precious time hunched over a keyboard, saliva pooling at the edges...

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” ― John Steinbeck I not only believed in the myth of Joe Biden, I helped sell it. My father had just died and it was easy for me to transpose my grief onto Joe as I tried to convince my fellow Hillary supporters that he was the only candidate to beat Trump. Yes, the “old white guy” whose moment had finally arrived. He w...

This is a supplement to the piece I posted yesterday that needs clarification. It is all too easy to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer as two sides of the same coin - Barbie as the ultimate “woke” movie and Oppenheimer as a movie that attempts to vindicate or sympathize with Communism. But that would be a mistake. Barbie reflects our society now, a society not unlike what the Communist hunters most...

It’s beginning to look a lot like the 1950s. No two films recall that era more than Barbie and Oppenheimer, both opening this weekend. Despite these films being completely different in every way imaginable, they have captivated the internet as a reach back in time to a forgotten world, just as the sci-fi movies of the 1950s reached forward to a world they could never know. There is something about...

Sound of Freedom is sailing toward $100 mil without breaking a sweat. It topped all Hollywood blockbusters, from Disney’s catastrophe, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, to Insidious, to Jennifer Lawrence’s middling sex comedy, No Hard Feelings. Only Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning could top it. For a film that cost just $14.5 million, Sound of Freedom is rounding the bases and...

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” ― Thomas Jefferson November 8th, 2016. That was the day journalism, as we once knew it died. Gone was objectivity. Gone was a search for the truth, no matter where it led. Gone was holding the powerful to account. Gone was the desire to serve the public’s best interest. It’s been seven years now, a...

Houston, we have a problem. Now that COVID is long gone, and studios are putting out blockbusters again, it almost seems like things are back to “normal.” Yet, movie after movie keeps underperforming, which is a polite way of saying Hollywood movies are bombing at the box office. Why? Well, I don’t have to tell you why. You know why. Everyone knows why except the people tasked with covering Hollyw...

The first time I realized I was a proud American was the month I spent in Italy in 1997 with a man who would become the father of my child that month, unbeknownst to either of us. The news was earth-shattering to him because we were worlds apart. We fought and then broke up over the best decision I ever made, to keep my child. He complained about America a lot, and I tolerated it, but then I found...

Part One: The Timeline is here. Are we living through a culture war or a religious war? Can we even tell the difference by now? The Left demonized the religious for nearly all of my life, yet here we are, a country at the hands of a cult, and the intellectuals can’t get us out of it — No proper boundaries to protect children, no guiding principles beyond categorizing us by skin color or gender ide...

The Summer of 2020 was both a revolution and a coup, ultimately resulting in an unshakable pact between the Woke and all major corporate and cultural institutions in this country, up to and including the President of the United States. It isn’t a cult of one personality but of many. It’s a tawdry tale of influencers and algorithms, fast-moving technology and helicopter parents, social media, and C...

My Dad called me “happy Sash,” which was ironic because I was never a happy kid. I was a worried kid, just like I’m a worried adult. My dad would say it often, “she’s a Happy Sash.” I think he wanted me to be happy because then maybe he wouldn’t worry. He was a worrier too. There aren’t many pictures of me as a baby, but here’s one. That’s me in the middle. As you can see, not exactly smiling. Thi...

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men – not from men who feared to write...

What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye. - JD Salinger Taylor Swift’s concerts have become cultural phenomenons, religious-like experiences for so many people worldwide, especially l...

I used to be a true blue loyalist. My grandmother, an FDR Democrat, and lifelong social worker, kept a signed picture of Bill Clinton on her kitchen wall until the day she died. My earliest memory kicks it all the way back to 1988 when I wore a Dukakis button to work and was mocked for it. “Who would vote for du-Taxus,” one woman said. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with o...

As I began my drive across this big, beautiful country of ours, I saw real life going on. RVs filled with families hitched to trucks making their way somewhere. Lights turning on at grocery stores. Workers high atop utility poles fixing electrical lines. I drove through cities and pastures, across state lines, and on an interstate conceived and built by President Eisenhower. This is a public episo...

The same network that called Tucker Carlson a “Right-wing extremist” has decided to put Donald Trump back on prime time. As their hypocrisy comes full circle, a pathetic #boycottcnn hashtag bloomed on Twitter. As if. CNN’s ratings were in near-total collapse when Trump threw them a lifeline. By contrast, the Murdochs dumped their best ratings-getter for speaking too many uncomfortable truths. To m...

“Fear not the path of Truth for the lack of People walking on it.” ― Robert F. Kennedy A new poll by ABC News/Washington Post shows both Trump and DeSantis beating Biden by 6 points. According to this poll, the public does not believe Biden is fit to serve mentally or physically. @Politics_Polls Has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president: Joe Biden: Yes 32% No 63% Donald T...

“Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.” ― Salman Rushdie Last week, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez locked arms with Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch to silence Tucker Carlson off Fox News. Yes, the same side that once fought ag...

[Imaginary Tucker Carlson Monologue for Monday, April 24th, 2023] TUCKER CARLSON: “Good Evening, and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight. No doubt you’ve heard of the name Ray Epps. You have heard his name many times on this broadcast in connection with the events of January 6th. You’ve heard me tell you that our government was lying about what happened that day and that they haven’t stopped lying,...

“When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.” ― Theodore Roosevelt Joe Biden and the Democrats could learn something from what just happened on Twitter, where a populist revolt is currently underway. The blue check scam was powerful - a minority of elites who have granted themselves outsized influence on the media narrative, the Democratic Party and reality itself. Elon Musk playe...

beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone - Charles Bukowski An old friend texted me recently to ask how I was handling the “new Twitter.” I had to think for a minute, and then I realized that in the language of the Left, he meant that Elon Musk had bought the site, and now it’s overrun by hate spe...

“In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.” ― Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin Audrey/Aiden and Riley Gaines If we had strong leaders in the White House, which we do not, they would have stepped up to a podium somewhere after the mass shooting at Christian Covenant and the attack on champion swimmer, Riley Gain...