The Commentary Magazine Podcast

This week, the podcast will be doing something a little different: We’re talking about our favorite contributions to the culture this year. In this episode, the hosts discuss their favorite books they read over the last year, whether they were published in 2021 or not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast today goes far afield, into the cooking plans of our crew, Charles Dickens and his greatness, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and, of course, COVID. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Joe Biden’s interview with ABC News, the president sought absolution for his failure to anticipate another surge of Covid. That suggests the elite consensus around this virus really did believe their were behavioral rites that would ward off the disease, and, as a corollary, that contracting the disease is a personal failure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up Joe Biden's peculiar speech yesterday, which did absolutely nothing to reassure anyone about anything (save a hopeful Dr. Monica Gandhi, who thought it said what she would want it to say). Why did he give it? What was the purpose? What gives? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's podcast, we discuss the options for how to get around in the world today if someone in your household has contracted the virus. Do you just go about your life? Do you quarantine? Do you isolate? What? And what about Trump finally saying conservatives and his followers should express pride in the vaccines? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up the continuing disbelief on the part of Democrats that Joe Manchin meant what he said and said what he meant, and what the simple act of refusing to hear him has cost them and will continue to cost them. And more Omicron craziness. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Covid to climate change, from the optimal functioning of the judicial system to normalcy itself, it has become a mark of sophistication on the left to reject good news and the happiness that accompanies it. This is madness, and Democrats will pay a steep price for inculcating depression in their voters. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The multi-trillion human, social, metaphysical Build Back Better boondoggle has been officially “shelved” for 2021, and good luck pulling it off that shelf in the election year of 2022. Indeed, that was the most likely outcome, as we repeatedly said was the case. Permit us a victory lap, because we’re already halfway around the track. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc...

The crime wave is real, and even the most cosseted of archetypical leftwing reformers are noticing and resenting it. The backlash against permissive liberal governance is building, and they see it coming. But so, too, is the backlash against Covid mitigation measures that seem to ignore the nation’s vaccination rate. Will they wake up to that, too, in time? Kentucky State University Professor... S...

Matthew Continetti joins the podcast today to talk about his piece in the January COMMENTARY, “Disaster of the Senate,” about Chuck Schumer. But first, we discuss, and express our horror at, the texts to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows as the January 6th riot was going on—and wonder at their long-term effect. Then we talk omicron. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit meg...

The disparity between the Omicron variant’s apparent severity and the public health response to it suggests that the pandemic isn’t really about the pandemic anymore. What we’re witnessing is a competition between incompatible visions of societal organization. Also, Christine Rosen on her cover article in the new issue of COMMENTARY: “The New Misogyny.”... Source Learn more about your ad choices....

Today’s podcast takes up the larger meaning of Jussie Smollett’s attempt to use the criminal-justice system as his catspaw and how it reveals a crisis in the liberal understanding of crime in general. Then we discuss the inflation crisis and what it means, and offer a few choice words about Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Chelsea Clinton. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices....

On today’s podcast, we discuss Donald Trump’s oddly casual revelation that he believes Russia stole our hypersonic technology research—and then that research got into China’s hands. Isn’t this the biggest story ever? And why is Biden giving Putin what he wants with a big summit? And why are Democrats losing Hispanics? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

Did Senate Republicans make a mistake by giving in to a one-time debt ceiling increase that circumvents the legislative filibuster? Is Biden responding with appropriate force to the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine? And what do we make of the leftwing effort to frame the sinking of Saule Omarova’s nomination to the position of comptroller as cynical red baiting? Source Learn more about your...

A report out of South Africa confirms the rumors: the Omicron variant is less severe even though it is more contagious. That is good news, so why isn’t it being treated as such? Also, the national crime wave continues to build and Joe Biden’s existential test in Europe. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Casse, president of the G100 Chief Executive program, joins the podcast this morning to discuss the trap in which Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats find themselves. Namely, the idea that their political fortunes are tied to Covid case rates, over which they have no control. Also, a look back on the life of the late Sen. Bob Dole. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/...

The Biden administration is improvising its way through a new Covid panic, projecting impotency along the way. Speaking of impotency, Russia is sending signals indicating that another invasion of Ukraine is imminent, and the White House’s response so far has consisted of sternly worded letters. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Constitutional law scholar Adam White joins the podcast today to discuss the abortion rights case before the Supreme Court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. What are the merits of the arguments before the Court? Will the conservative justices dismantle the precedents established by the decisions in Roe and Casey? And will the country descend into political combat when the ruling comes...

It’s a busy podcast today as we take up the limited evidence that the new variant justifies the draconian measures now being imposed in Europe and being floated here at home. Then we go into the “indefinite suspension” of Chris Cuomo at CNN and what it means for the future of the network, whose new boss has already indicated he wants to take it in a different direction. And will the new West Side....

The podcast wonders at Joe Biden’s inability to pronounce the name of the variant he went on national television to warn against—and tries to sort through what little evidence we have about how dangerous this thing really is. Then we come to Chris Cuomo: Why does he still have a job exactly? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s podcast asks whether there’s a crazed overreaction to the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. We then discuss the car that killed people in Waukesha and the continuing effort by the media to whitewash its role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. And a final word on Stephen Sondheim. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s pre-Thanksgiving episode offers our own crushingly morose tribute to the United States as we battle the phenomenon of prosecutors letting people loose to commit horrible crimes and elite opinion-wielders trashing the United States when this country provided them with bounties untold. Happy Turkey Day and give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Biden administration is making the strategic petroleum reserve available to the markets seemingly only in response to his sagging polls, which observers believe is a response to rising consumer costs. But this is not an energy policy. Also, thoughts on the public response to the verdict in the Rittenhouse trial. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s podcast, we discuss the reaction to the Rittenhouse verdicts, the continuing effort to talk up the Biden social-spending bill, and the horror in Waukesha. Also, Christine explains how she is the podcast’s successor to the Karate Kid. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Bahnsen joins the podcast today to talk about the Build Back Better bill and why its passage in the House might be at best politically meaningless for Democrats and at worst their Armageddon before we go on to discuss his book, There’s No Free Lunch, about economics and human flourishing. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices