City Journal Media Bias

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Govern, or Fight?

politics

Last week, a spotlight shone on two houses divided: the House of Representatives and the Republican Party. Until Kevin McCarthy was elected as Speaker of the House just after midnight on January 7, the House witnessed 14 failed votes for the position—the most in a century—as the narrow Republican majority wrangled with itself and Democrats munched popcorn on the sidelines. Perhaps the most telling contrast, however, was between the ruckus on the House floor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s attending an infrastructure event with President Joe Biden. In the aftermath of a disappointing midterm performance, Republicans remain divided between those who think it most essential to show that the GOP can be a partner in governing ...
City Journal     Jan 11, 2023

Black Ink Brings Red-State Tax Cuts

politics

The state tax-cutting momentum that began unexpectedly during the pandemic has accelerated as 2023 dawns. This year, residents of 11 mostly Republican-leaning states are set to enjoy cuts to their individual income taxes, according to the Tax Foundation. That’s on top of an equal number of states that trimmed their income-tax rates in 2022. A handful of states have also sliced business taxes and reduced or suspended levies on gasoline and groceries, amid rising inflation.
City Journal     Jan 11, 2023

How to Make April Less Taxing

Of the many government bureaucracies Americans must confront regularly, none is more reviled than the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Why? Start with the approximately 35 million unprocessed tax returns that had piled up in its offices by the end of last year, dashing hopes of speedy refunds for countless individuals, or the 73 million phone calls from taxpayers seeking help or guidance during the 2022 filing season, of which a dismal 10 percent actually reached an IRS agent.
City Journal     Jan 11, 2023

Jordan Peterson and the "Re-education" of Canada - City Journal

Free speech is under increasing attack in Canada. Over the past decade, ideologically emboldened political leaders, activists, and professional regulators have narrowed the field of allowable discourse and sought to punish any expression that ventures outside it.
City Journal     Jan 10, 2023

The Last Gasp of Pandemic Restrictions?

10 Blocks podcast
City Journal     Jan 07, 2023

SAFE-T in Peril

art

In 2021, the state enacted the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act, which Paul Mauro has previously discussed in City Journal. The hastily enacted law contained a host of criminal-justice provisions ranging from the sensible to the shocking—from requiring cops to use body cameras (albeit with an impractically intricate set of rules), to declaring that an escape from electronic monitoring doesn’t count until someone has been in violation for 48 hours. After further debate and public pushback, some of the worst elements of the law (including the electronic-monitoring provision) were clarified, revised, or eliminated through several rounds of amendments.
City Journal     Jan 07, 2023

Why Empower the Speaker?

politics

Members of the newly elected U.S. House of Representatives took their seats on January 3, but the chamber has faced the greatest difficulty in selecting a Speaker in over a century. The House majority party has traditionally been eager to delegate power over the chamber to its leader as a means of facilitating the passage of legislation. But, with Democrats controlling the Senate, a critical group of House conservatives fears that the arrangement may simply be used to facilitate legislative dealmaking behind their backs.
City Journal     Jan 07, 2023

Strategic Charitable Giving

Joshua Katz recently urged City Journal readers to exercise due diligence in their charitable giving. Do not assume, he warned, that the nonprofit you have supported for years remains true to what was once its stated purpose. There is a high chance that it has added “anti-racism” to its mission, however irrelevant such an agenda may be to that mission and however negative the consequences of that redirection for our culture.
City Journal     Jan 07, 2023

The Need to Curb Black Anti-Semitism

At a Hanukkah celebration last month, President Biden stated: “Today we must all say clearly and forcefully: Antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence in this country have no safe harbor in America.” But simply saying it, no matter how forcefully, does not appear to carry much weight against the increasingly evident support among many black Americans for ideas and voices espousing violence toward Jews. Black and Hispanic youth report higher rates of anti-Semitic views than among white youth on the alt-Right.
City Journal     Jan 06, 2023

Affirmations

Given the quasi-religious fervor of environmentalism today, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that climate change-inspired anti-natalism—the commitment not to have children—is a growing phenomenon. Whether rooted in concern that the earth cannot sustain the current population or in fear of extreme weather, this trend is sufficiently widespread that it is “impacting fertility rates quicker than any preceding trend in the field of fertility decline,” Morgan Stanley analysts noted in a recent letter to investors. Celebrities from Miley Cyrus to Seth Rogan have publicly endorsed this commitment, and YouTube channels and podcasts dedicated to convincing others to join the movement attract audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
City Journal     Jan 06, 2023

Can Capitalism Save Hollywood?

entertainment

After a decade of rapid growth, the nation’s media and entertainment complex is facing retrenchment and, perhaps, a necessary reappraisal. Firms are consolidating. Workers are being laid off at Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount, CBS, and other production houses. News media firms like CNN, Gannet, and Buzzfeed are planning similar actions. In 2022, stocks in media companies lost $500 billion in value, and stocks in tech firms, increasingly big players in entertainment and news, suffered a reversal of an astounding $4 trillion.
City Journal     Jan 06, 2023

Can Philadelphia Turn the Page?

travel

“The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on,” French writer Andre Gide’s cryptic comment from the 1950s, applies to Philadelphia’s 2022 homicide count of 514. While nobody expected a radical reduction in city homicides from 2021, some saw in the new stats a glimmer of hope: the city’s murder rate for 2022 was down 7 percent from its previous (and record-setting) year.
City Journal     Jan 06, 2023