|
|||||
|
Due to waves of (mostly) Russian spam hitting our server, the Samizdata SmiteBot is has been grumpy for several days now beyond my ability to manually intervene every time. This means it has been shooting on sight (or maybe on site) & asking questions later. If your comment vanished, now you know why. Do not take it personally unless you are a Russian spammer, in which case take it personally.
March 13th, 2026 | 3 comments
 A conservative is actually despairing of finding himself having to call himself ‘conservative’ in the first place. February 26th, 2026 | 2 comments
To be clear, none of this has much to do with actual right-wing or conservative political thought. If you’re wearing tweed and reading Sir Roger Scruton, please carry on. The influencer ecosystem I once inhabited was the Chernobyl-ass Frankenstein of right-wing politics. A radioactive, reanimated corpse stitched together from clout, resentment, and cocaine, which desperately needs to be taken out back and shot for everyone’s good (it’s own included). Unfortunately, monsters are hard to kill February 21st, 2026 | 22 comments
Under the Bank Secrecy Act, one of the most common reasons for filing a suspicious activity report (often abbreviated as SAR) is because someone deposited or withdrew nearly $10,000 in cash. That’s all it takes for you to get labeled as “suspicious” in an official report to the government. These reports rarely catch actual criminals. Yet, each report is like a red mark on your banking record, nonetheless. And getting too many of these reports filed on you can quickly spell trouble. If you rack up multiple reports (often as few as three), banks will close the account. The bank might know you are likely innocent, but the risk of regulators punishing them for inaction is too high. Fines for failing to report real criminal activity can reach into the millions. It’s much safer for the bank to close the account than risk fines later, especially if it is a smaller account. February 17th, 2026 | 5 comments
I find it splendidly sensible that ‘ordinary’ people are able to see through celebrity endorsements. It was F Scott Fitzgerald who famously said, ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind, at the same time, and still retain the ability to function’. Regular people are able to admire, even idolise, a singer or an actor – and then totally do the opposite politically to what that performer calls for. February 7th, 2026 | 34 comments
“The First Amendment doesn’t stop at the water’s edge just because a foreign bureaucrat sends a threatening letter. If you’re in Wyoming, you speak freely. Period.” February 2nd, 2026 | 27 comments
When U.S. special forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in a predawn raid on Saturday, it should have been a moment of triumph for Venezuela’s democratic opposition. But rather than endorsing the leadership of Edmundo González, whose victory in July’s 2024 election was stolen by Maduro, President Donald Trump announced he’d work with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president for the past six years. After Trump called her “gracious” and claimed she was “essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court swiftly appointed her as acting president on Saturday, once again sidelining the elected opposition. Rodríguez is neither gracious nor a reformer. She’s a self-identified communist who has held key positions under both former dictator Hugo Chávez and Maduro, Venezuelan political writer Paola Bautista de Alemán tells Reason. In 2017, Maduro tapped Rodríguez to be president of the illegitimate constituent assembly that usurped the powers of the elected National Assembly to silence the opposition. Later that year, Maduro appointed her to the “Anti-Coup Command,” tasked with taking measures against alleged coup plotters and terrorists, labels routinely applied to peaceful opposition figures. January 7th, 2026 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
The US Congress is to all intents and purposes dead. It cannot function with the filibuster rule and an evenly balanced country with the two sides highly belligerent. Now the question we want to ask is: is this a good thing or a bad thing? One the negative side it means that the government can’t get anything done, but on the positive side it means the government can’t get anything done. January 6th, 2026 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Whilst still agog at the snatch in Venezuela, let’s not forget that Iran remains on the brink. Might be a good time for the IDF or USAF to JDAM a few HQ buildings or mess with telecommunications 😀 January 5th, 2026 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
And I hope when I next check the news, I discover that we’ve put a missile down Khamenei’s smokestack, and that Putin and his entourage have perished mysteriously in an accident involving an exploding tractor or something. Wouldn’t that make for a great news day. (Given how surprising the news has been so far in 2026, who would be such a fool as to blithely rule that out?) January 3rd, 2026 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Our speech laws are bad enough. But at least they can, in theory, be repealed and amended by members of parliament. NCHIs, by contrast, just bubbled up out of the policing quangocracy. No law was ever passed instructing the police to waste their time like this. But on and on they’ve gone, for more than a decade now. December 29th, 2025 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
