The New York Times claimed in its 1619 Project that plantation slavery was the basis for American capitalism. However, research shows that the plantations were anything but capitalist enterprises.

The government “shutdown” and the so-called threat to the food stamp program may be abated for now, but we need to understand why this program has metastasized in recent years. James Bovard tells us why.

The revolutionaries include the pamphleteer writing in his study, the journalist, the agitator, the organizer, the campus activist, the theoretician, the philanthropist.

The priorities of Britain’s extremism researchers, and even those of the country’s state apparatus, do not reflect the fact that Islamism presents the greatest terror threat to the UK. Islamism is a religio-political movement that aims to reestablish a theocratic Caliphate in the modern world—a single polity encompassing all of the world’s Muslims, within which Sharia Law would be followed in all matters, and non-Muslims would be reduced to (at best) second-class citizens. This ideology began with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, and it now exists in multiple variants and offshoots worldwide. Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Boko Haram, Hamas, the Taliban, and the Shi’ite regime ruling the Islamic Republic of Iran are all overtly Islamist entities, while the governments of Turkey and Qatar might diplomatically be described as influenced by or sympathetic to Islamism.

For many Western politicians and intellectuals, criticism of Islamism is taboo, but this should not be the case. Aside from Qatar’s Al-Jazeera media network and a minority of Islamist-aligned states, the Muslim world is far more ready than the West to acknowledge the danger that Islamist movements and ideology pose. Multiple Muslim-majority states have even outlawed Islamist organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood altogether, which is now banned in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and its own native Egypt, but remains free to operate throughout continental Europe (with the exception of Austria) and the English-speaking world.

Revolution in and conquest of Muslim-majority regions of the world has always been the greatest priority for Islamists—Islamic State, for example, was largely occupied with a war against its Muslim neighbours. However, they also seek dominance over Muslim minorities elsewhere in the world, and they work to infiltrate state and community institutions wherever they are able to do so. A recent report about the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in France paints a disturbing picture of creeping totalitarianism. As the BBC reported in May:

In a copy of the report published in Le Figaro newspaper, the authors identified the Federation of Muslims of France (FMF) as the main French emanation of the historic Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded 100 years ago to promote a return to core Islamic values.

They said the FMF controlled 139 places of worship in France, with a further 68 affiliated—in all around 7% of the total. The organisation also ran some 280 associations, in sports, education, charity and other fields, as well as 21 schools.

The aim of the movement was to set up “ecosystems at local level” to “structure the lives of Muslims from birth till death.”

“[The movement’s] officials, who are hardened activists, enter into a relationship with the local authority. … Social norms—the veil, beards, dress, fasting—are gradually imposed as the ecosystem solidifies,” the authors write.

“What happens is that religious practice become[s] stricter, with a high level of girls wearing the abaya (long robe) and a massive and visible increase in the number of young girls wearing Islamic headscarves. Some are as young as five or six.”

All of the same symptoms may be observed in the UK, where Brotherhood-linked figures and organisations are also well-established in the religious and charitable sectors, maintain extensive investment and property portfolios, and provide cradle-to-grave services for many British Muslims. In 2015, a review of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain—commissioned the previous year by then-prime minister David Cameron—found that “Muslim Brotherhood associates and affiliates here have at times had significant influence on the largest UK Muslim student organisation, national organisations which have claimed to represent Muslim communities, … charities, and some mosques.”

The report further explained:

[I]n common with the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere, Muslim Brotherhood-related organisations and individuals in the UK have openly supported the activities of Hamas. People associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK have applauded suicide bombing by Hamas, in some cases against civilians. Hamas terrorist activities have not been publicly disowned or condemned. Muslim Brotherhood organisations and associates in the UK have neither openly nor consistently refuted the literature of Brotherhood member Sayyid Qutb which is known to have inspired people (including in this country) to engage in terrorism.

Exemplifying this trend, the report added that two Brotherhood-linked organisations—the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain—had “consistently opposed programmes by successive Governments to prevent terrorism.” Yet, as recently as 2023, the Ministry of Defence was trusting the latter to endorse chaplains in the armed forces.

(John Hinderaker)

The last penny was minted today in Philadelphia:

The last penny ever to be made was finally struck at the US Mint in Philadelphia on Wednesday — after President Trump cancelled production of the costly copper coin after 232 years.
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And just like that, the coin that’s been in production since 1793 will never again be made.

It is, I think, a sad occasion.

Penny production was cancelled by Trump for the 2026 year after the coin started to cost about four times more to make than the 1 cent it is actually worth in US currency.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that pennies are a bad idea. A single penny may be used for hundreds or thousands or transactions. The nickel, for what it is worth, costs 14 cents to produce.

This, though, is more significant:

Trump and other critics have also argued that the penny has become an obsolete denomination with little use in modern markets – and that there are already billions in production to tide America over for the foreseeable future.

You could see that the penny was on the way out when gas stations and other retail establishments set up “take a penny, leave a penny” signs. The pennies were no longer worth worrying about.

Why do I think the demise of the penny is sad? Because it is a tangible marker of the steady inflation that has eroded the value of our currency. In 1900, the dollar was worth $38.57 in today’s money. So a penny was worth more than 38 cents–well over the value of today’s quarter. Let’s hope the dollar is not on its way to becoming like the yen; a single yen is today worth $.0065, or 65/100 of one penny. Literally not worth printing.

And, while it is true that there will be pennies in circulation for years to come, there will not be any shiny new ones. A new copper penny’s shine is different from, and vastly superior to, that of the silver (or “silver”) coins. A shiny new penny heralds the beginning of a new year.

Quite a few years ago, when I was a kid, I got a shiny new 1957 penny. The older pennies were, by contrast, dull. It struck me as the symbol of a new age dawning: 1957 was modernity, everything before then was a somewhat misty past. I still feel that way. For me, 1957 was the beginning of the modern world.

The humble U.S. penny, RIP.