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Articles by P.J. O'Rourke
DERB'S APRIL DIARY: [11 ITEMS!] Eclipse In Cleveland, Eclipse On Mars?; Middle East Disavowal; VDARE Conference; The Young Ones; ETC!!!! | Articles
DERB'S APRIL DIARY: [11 ITEMS!] Eclipse In Cleveland, Eclipse On Mars?; Middle East Disavowal; VDARE Conference; The Young Ones; ETC!!!! The busiest month. I don't know about April being the cruelest month, but for me April 2024 has the busiest month for a long time. April was bracketed, beginning and end, by two long (500 miles, 320 miles) road trips.
Clarence Page: After P.J. O’Rourke, who can save conservative comedy now? - Tribune Content Agency (February 18, 2022)
Clarence Page February 18, 2022Author P.J. O'Rourke at Book Soup in Los Angeles in 2007. (Michael Buckner/Getty Images/TNS) It was poignantly appropriate that the news of P.J. O’Rourke’s death was broken by a tweet from his friend Peter Sagal, host of the Chicago-based NPR quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” where O’Rourke had been a frequent panelist.
P.J. O'Rourke: Hillary Clinton's Healthcare Reform: License to Kill
P.J. O'Rourke: Hillary Clinton's Healthcare Reform: License to Kill The president has put a lawyer in charge of making doctors cheaper. Next he'll be trying to get our grass mowed for less by calling the plumber to come have a word with the boy who does the lawn. Read Full Article »
Why I Hate Politics
P.J. O'Rourke American Consequences February 16, 2022 November 10, 2021 - "My job is to make fun of politics. But after a lifetime of making fun of politics, I've realized that I'm enjoying myself about as much as a grizzly bear getting a bikini wax. I hate politics." Read Full Article »
Roadmaster Reruns: Sgt. Dynaflo’s Last Patrol
From the February 1978 issue of Car and Driver. I love old Buicks. My family had a Buick dealership when I was a kid and my first car was a Buick, my first job was washing Buicks, I had my first wreck in a Buick, and did some other things for the first time in a Buick's back seat. So when Tom Sargent, publisher of Cycle magazine, wanted his 1956 Special four-door sedan driven from Florida to his home in Los Angeles, I was more than glad to do it for him.
P.J. O'Rourke, renowned political satirist and journalist, dies age 74
Please try another search More More World11 minutes ago (Feb 15, 2022 07:06PM ET) © Reuters.
They're Not Investor Books, but Investors Should Read Them
P.J. O'Rourke American Consequences December 28, 2021 December 27, 2021 - Being a serious investor often means a lot of reading... Today, Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke details three non-investing books crucial to every investor. Read Full Article »
New Hampshire Magazine
From left: Actors K.P. Powell, Madeline Kendall and Kate Kenney perform in “Our Town” outdoors in Peterborough in August. We all know the play, or think we do. We’ve all seen it or read it in high school or college.
Investing Lessons From a Dog and a Felon
Investing Lessons From a Dog and a Felon A drug-sniffing canine, a circus sideshow, and an Enron alum all walk into a bar. And they each dole out priceless stock market insights. Read Full Article »
Satire site Babylon Bee defends Florida's social media regulation law in court
Gov. Ron DeSantis has a surprising backer in his quest to reinstate Florida's controversial social media regulation law: satirists. The Florida-based Babylon Bee, whose japery promotes a conservative Christian perspective but has also repeatedly lampooned Donald Trump, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of S.B. 7072. CEO Seth Dillon told Just the News it was the site's first foray into such legal briefs but not legal warnings.
It's Time to Broaden Our Defunding Horizons
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File Why stop at defunding the police? America needs to get its hands politically even dirtier by disposing of the The Department of Sanitation. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
How You Can Argue in Favor of Free Markets
How You Can Argue in Favor of Free Markets For all the market skeptics, agnostics, and atheists out there, P.J. O'Rourke synthesizes the sage financial insights of one Milton Friedman. Read Full Article »
Why Are Some Societies Rich, Others Poor?
Why Are Some Societies Rich, Others Poor? Today we're sharing the first chapter from our Editor in Chief P.J. O'Rourke's recently re-released bestseller Eat the Rich.
President Biden's Full-of-Baloney Jobs Plan
President Biden's Full-of-Baloney Jobs Plan P.J. O'Rourke delves into Biden's "American Jobs Plan," coming to the conclusion that its creators need to seek another form of employment. Read Full Article »
Don't Let Wuhan Leak Distract You
P.J. O'Rourke & John Tamny American Consequences June 3, 2021 (Abby Zimmardi/University of Arkansas via AP) The Wuhan-lab leak theory refocuses the pandemic narrative, scapegoating China while letting Fauci and Congress shirk responsibility. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
About Biden's $6 Trillion Heist, Founders Would Be Horrified
About Biden's $6 Trillion Heist, Founders Would Be Horrified P.J. O’Rourke muses on the folly of government planning, including whatever Biden plans to do with $6 trillion of your money.
Oh Come On, We Need Much More Cancel!
Oh Come On, We Need Much More Cancel! There's only one problem with cancel culture -- there's not enough of it. Here is how to get even more creative with your virtue signaling.
Everything Is Political, Which Should Worry Us Economically
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Politics is the ultimate weapon, meaning DC is so dangerous right now because every agenda has since been weaponized. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
America's Populism Problem
We have a populism problem in America… One big, honking populist has just been shooed out of the White House. And his replacement — while more of an old political hack and Washington establishmentarian than a populist per se — is coming in trailing strong fumes of populism from his own political party. Populism isn’t a Right‐wing or Left‐wing ideology. Populism isn’t an ideology at all…It’s about feelings, not ideas. Populism isn’t conservative or liberal, Republican or Democratic.
The Price of Freedom:What C19 Has Cost Us
The Price of Freedom:What C19 Has Cost Us PJ O'Rourke dissects the disparities between economic success and personal liberties internationally, i.e., "Does money make you free?" Read Full Article »
Econ. Populism Is About Feelings, Not Reality
P.J. O'Rourke American Consequences February 24, 2021 From MAGA to BLM and QAnon to Antifa, PJ O' Rourke explains America's current obsession with political populism. Read Full Article »
Shamalot
Jack Kennedy, we hardly know ye—and to know ye is not to love ye Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what the Kennedys ever did for your country. Bring the monkey’s paw of being telegenic into politics? Of all the things that the American political system needed, this was the last. And whatever it was that the Kennedys did, they did most of it a long time ago. The assassination of John F.
Shamalot
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what the Kennedys ever did for your country. Bring the monkey’s paw of being telegenic into politics? Of all the things that the American political system needed, this was the last. And whatever it was that the Kennedys did, they did most of it a long time ago. The assassination of John F. Kennedy is almost as distant in time as the assassination of William McKinley was when Kennedy took office. McKinley, by the way, also had great personal popularity.
As You-Know-What's-Up Nears, Consider Sitting On Your Hands
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Since 1980, U.S. presidential election voter turnout has averaged 53.7%. In the last hundred years, no voter turnout for any federal election has topped 62.8%, and that was in 1960 during the festive squeaker of a grudge match between pretty boy Jack Kennedy and grizzled bruiser Dick Nixon. Most of the time, nearly half of America’s eligible voters don’t vote.
Storm Warnings - The Bulwark
’Tis the season for apocalyptic literature. With COVID-19 bearing down on the entire world, a presidential election becoming a Götterdämmerung, and a nation that, if you squint at it hard enough through the distorting lens of Twitter, appears to be coming apart at the seams, anxious minds might reach the conclusion that the end times are upon us.
The Other Democratic Party
Four years after Trump’s victory, scholars are still struggling to understand his appeal, especially in the many working-class communities that had previously supported Obama. Observers usually say this surprising partisan flip is due to some noxious mix of racism, authoritarianism, and diseases of social despair. Such explanations have one thing in common: They all assume these citizens must have serious psychological or character deficits.
My Thoughts On Why Some Millennials Love Socialism
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File don't get it that communists are bad. It was too long ago. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Deng Xiaoping began market reforms in China in 1978. Kids Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments Related Articles
O Beautiful for . . . Pilgrim Feet?
America is in need of some explaining, especially at the moment. That the country is a mess is the one thing the country agrees on. And even about this we differ. Half the nation seems to be saying, “We don’t know what’s wrong with America, but we can fix it,” while the other half says, “There’s nothing wrong with America, and we can fix that.” Polar icecaps may be melting (or not!) but America’s polarization is frozen solid.
Joseph Biden's 564 Pages of Empty Promises
Joseph Biden's 564 Pages of Empty Promises Now I’ll tell you what you’re thanking me for… I just read Joe Biden’s presidential campaign platform so you don’t have to. If you’re thinking, “Thanks anyway, but I’ll read it for myself,” think again… Read Full Article »
Disconnect Between Economy and Home Econ.
The protests all across America are obvious, but what’s most obvious about them is not what’s most important… The message is more fundamental than the mess. The vandalism and the looting are unnatural catastrophes, and they don’t convey much more meaning than catastrophes of the natural kind. Read Full Article »
What’s So Funny about Corona, Politics, the Media, and the Culture? A Conversation with Andrew Ferguson and P. J. O’Rourke
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The Romance of a $200,000 Dollar Phone Call
P.J. O'Rourke, American Consequences February 18, 2020 The romance of being remote, isolated, and incommunicado used to be my career. I was a foreign correspondent from 1984, during the civil war in Lebanon, until the Iraq War in 2003 (when I decided I was too old to be scared stiff and too stiff to sleep on the ground).
Opinion | The New Hampshire primary and the Fort Worth rodeo have more in common than you’d think
Washington Post illustration; photos by The Washington Post, Getty Images and iStock In the past 10 days, I attended two quintessentially American events: the annual Fort Worth rodeo and the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary. One was a display of remarkable human ability to stay in the saddle, ride violent spins and bucks, dodge powerful kicks and lasso elusive strays. The other involved a lot of horses and cattle.
Opinion | We need a political system that isn’t so sure of itself
What this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs. We’d be better off, in my opinion, without so many opinions. Especially without so many political opinions. Including my own. Our nation faces a multitude of puzzling, complex and abstruse problems. Most Americans aren’t sure what to do about them.
The Future Is So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades
P.J. O'Rourke, American Consequences December 26, 2019 Predictions often tell you more about the predictor than the predicted. There's a fine line between making prognostications and drawing up a wish list… And I'm going to cross it. No, I can't tell you what's going to happen in the 2020s. But, really, neither can anyone else. No offense to the wise soothsayer in the rest of this issue. They may even be on the money.
Opinion | We license lawyers and teachers. Why not politicians?
P.J. O’Rourke is the editor in chief of American Consequences and the author of “None of My Business.” Politicians should be licensed. Nearly every other profession has some form of accreditation or certification. In the District, more than 125 occupations require a license. We license lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants, plumbers, real estate brokers, marriage counselors, dental hygienists, cosmetologists, beauticians and barbers.
Thoughts of Thanks, Now That the Bird Is Gone
Thanksgiving: indigestion, familial tension, airline travel that doesn't bear mention. But this year I decided we should be literal about the day and, instead of taking umbrage, give thanks. My wife, my three children and I gathered for the requisite enormous meal at the unaccustomed hour, and, after we'd said grace, the kids all expressed their gratitude for being spared the hunger afflicting so many other youngsters around the world.
We Reserve the Right to Lie About Our Politicians
In Ohio, it's a crime to knowingly or recklessly lie about a political candidate or ballot initiative. When the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion nonprofit, attempted during the 2010 midterm elections to buy a billboard attacking then-Rep. Steven Driehaus, who represented the state's 1st congressional district, Driehaus’s lawyers invoked Ohio law.
Pursuit of Happiness Is Right There In U.S.'s IPO
Other nations are founded on battle, blood, territory, nationality, culture, and language. Not America… We're founded on happiness. It's right there in America's IPO, in the first sentence of the main body of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments
A Man, A Mustang, Some Meatballs: '85 Review of 'Iacocca'
A Man, A Mustang, Some Meatballs: '85 Review of 'Iacocca' Iacocca: An Autobiography Lee Iacocca, with William Novak, Bantam Books, $19.95 (1984) Reviewed by P.J. O'Rourke, The American Spectator, May 1985 You see the poor bastards at every airport in the country and all the Ramada Inns, Avis counters, and... Read Full Article »
Capitalism Gets Rid of Things That Do Not Work
The amazing thing about free-market capitalism is that it gets rid of stuff that doesn't work. You say, “Amazing? When stuff doesn't work, of course you get rid of it!” If you've got a washing machine and – no matter how many times the supposedly lonely Maytag Man has been to your house – it just can't be fixed… do you keep piling dirty clothes into it? You'll run out of things to wear. Read Full Article » Show comments Hide Comments
Plea For A Cease-Fire In Business-As-Warfare Advice
Image Credit: ForbesLife This story appears in the May issue of ForbesLife magazine, dated May 21, as a feature entitled “Plea For A Cease-Fire In Business-As-Warfare Advice” By P.J. O'Rourke There’s a popular genre of business books claiming that war teaches lessons in corporate success. I’ve been skimming some—experience with business books shows “a flip through will do.” Their small fruit of wisdom can be plucked from topic sentences, chapter heads, and sometimes from just the title.
Opinion: It's time to make rich people uncomfortable again
P.J. O'Rourke Thursday May 30, 2019 at 5:28 PM Lately there has been a lot of anger and indignation about income inequality. Some blame this on . . . income inequality. I blame it on rich people in T-shirts. I won't mention Mark Zuckerberg by name. But, honestly, young man, you're almost 35 years old, worth $72 billion, and you're wearing your underwear in public. Yes, I'm also going around in an untucked "My Kid Went to College and All I Got Was This Lousy . . ." But I've earned it. Or, rather, I haven't.
Opinion: It's time to make rich people uncomfortable again
P.J. O'Rourke Tuesday May 21, 2019 at 11:22 AM Lately there has been a lot of anger and indignation about income inequality. Some blame this on . . . income inequality. I blame it on rich people in T-shirts. I won't mention Mark Zuckerberg by name. But, honestly, young man, you're almost 35 years old, worth $72 billion, and you're wearing your underwear in public. Yes, I'm also going around in an untucked "My Kid Went to College and All I Got Was This Lousy . . ." But I've earned it. Or, rather, I haven't.
Opinion: It's time to make rich people uncomfortable again
P.J. O'Rourke Tuesday May 21, 2019 at 11:22 AM Lately there has been a lot of anger and indignation about income inequality. Some blame this on . . . income inequality. I blame it on rich people in T-shirts. I won't mention Mark Zuckerberg by name. But, honestly, young man, you're almost 35 years old, worth $72 billion, and you're wearing your underwear in public. Yes, I'm also going around in an untucked "My Kid Went to College and All I Got Was This Lousy . . ." But I've earned it. Or, rather, I haven't.
Opinion | It’s time to make rich people uncomfortable again
(Washington Post illustration/Getty Images/iStockphoto) May 20 at 3:38 PM P.J. O’Rourke is the editor in chief of American Consequences and the author, most recently, of “None of My Business: P.J. Explains Money, Banking, Debt, Equity, Assets, Liabilities, and Why He's Not Rich and Neither Are You.” Lately there has been a lot of anger and indignation about income inequality. Some blame this on . . . income inequality. I blame it on rich people in T-shirts. I won’t mention Mark Zuckerberg by name.
It's time to make rich people uncomfortable again
P.J. O'Rourke, The Washington Post Published 2:53 pm CDT, Monday, May 20, 2019 Lately there has been a lot of anger and indignation about income inequality. Some blame this on . . . income inequality. I blame it on rich people in T-shirts. I won't mention Mark Zuckerberg by name. But, honestly, young man, you're almost 35 years old, worth $72 billion, and you're wearing your underwear in public. Yes, I'm also going around in an untucked "My Kid Went to College and All I Got Was This Lousy . .
The Legend of Cory Booker
HISTORIANS OF THE YMCA’s “Youth in Government” legislative simulations will recall that in 2001, after two solid terms in the state senate, your correspondent was elected Youth Governor of New Jersey in a blue-state upset that saw a reform-minded conservative succeed on a platform of tax cuts, school choice, and marijuana decriminalization.
No Country for Old Men
September 13, 2004 at 12:00 AM Old Boys by Charles McCarry Overlook, 476 pp., $25.95 I FIRST HEARD of Charles McCarry in El Salvador during the civil war. I was in a bar known to be frequented by covert types, having a drink with a fellow from the U.S. embassy whose title was something like "trade attaché"--although he almost certainly wasn't, El Salvador having little trade in anything but weapons at the time.
Cato Institute Policy Perspectives 2019 - Luncheon Address - None of My Business: P. J. Explains Money, Banking, Debt, Equity, Assets, Liabilities, and Why He’s Not Rich and Neither Are You | Cato Institute
Luncheon Address — None of My Business: P. J. Explains Money, Banking, Debt, Equity, Assets, Liabilities, and Why He’s Not Rich and Neither Are You P. J. O’Rourke, H. L. Mencken Research Fellow, Cato Institute
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