POMPEII, Italy—The newly restored remains of an opulent house in Pompeii that likely belonged to two former slaves who became rich through the wine trade offer visitors an exceptional peek at details of domestic life in the doomed Roman city. On Tuesday, the House of Vettii, Domus Vettiorum in Latin, was being formally unveiled after…

Commentary What do you think “virtue signaling” is about? The point of it is to claim superiority for the speaker, and inferiority for the listener. It means “I am a good person, and, if you do not agree with me enthusiastically, you are a bad person.” When the Canadian prime minister says that he’s a…

“Should the U.S. government try to overthrow the [Chinese Communist] Party?” asks Isaac Stone Fish in his new book, “America Second: How America’s Elites Are Making China Stronger.” Stone Fish, CEO of China-focused consulting firm Strategy Risks, as well as a former Beijing correspondent for Newsweek magazine, writes, “The Party poses an existential threat to…

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) relies to a large degree on a strategy of luring powerful figures in American politics and business to extend its influence and avoid the consequences of its misdeeds, according to Peter Schweizer, author of the book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China.” “The strategy is to buy off…

Commentary “They said you were high class, but that was just a lie.” — Elvis Presley, “Hound Dog” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain brought criticism on himself last week when he retweeted a post from Harvard economist Jason Furman. Furman claimed that rising inflation and nationwide supply chain issues that have delayed products from reaching…

Commentary Globalization has afforded non-governmental organizations, the ultra wealthy, and Big Tech power and influence on a global scale once reserved for the world’s superpower states. The  World Economic Forum, which describes itself as an international organization for public-private co-operation, has proposed a “Great Reset” initiative  to rework global economics to address the challenges of…

In my last column here for 2020, I’d like to look back to one of my favorite books from the 1990s, Thomas Sowell’s “The Vision of the Anointed.”  To say that the book was prescient is an understatement. You can instantly discern its prescience by savoring its subtitle: “Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.”…