The Brion McClanahan Show Podcast

In 2015, the Christian Science Monitor interviewed me about the push to remove Confederate symbols across the United States. I argued that the next step would be removing the Jefferson Memorial or renaming Washington D.C. It hasn’t exactly come to that–of course there is a push to remove Washington’s name from George Washington University–but it seems everything traditional in America is under assault. This is …more

In 2012, Barack Obama signed the NDAA into law, a bill that suspended the writ of habeas corpus in the United States. Not many noticed, and Obama himself tried to downplay the significance of the bill by issuing a “signing statement” designed to soften the blow to civil liberties. For those that don’t understand the terms “signing statement” or habeas corpus, I’ll help. A “signing …more

Last week I talked about the situation with Ann McLane and the witch hunt in Virginia to take her down. It worked. McLane resigned from her appointed position, probably at the instance of the spineless governor. We should have expected as much. Youngkin is just another establishment Republican. I pegged him for that a while back. But the real issue at hand is something bigger, …more

Thomas Jefferson famously charged King George III with sending over “swarms of officers” to the American colonies with the sole purpose of “harassing” and “eating out the substance” of the American colonies. These would be called bureaucrats, or the “Deep State”. The general government operated with a very small paid cadre of employees for most of the early federal period. Alexander Hamilton had ONE employee …more

When the 55 delegates to the Philadelphia Convention assembled at the Pennsylvania Statehouse in May 1787, only a handful knew that the gathering would potentially be a seismic shift in American politics. The majority of the delegates believed they attended to simply review the Articles of Confederation and present amendments. Not so for the nationalists bent on “remaking” America. As John Dickinson warned once their …more

When I was a young lad in graduate school, I wanted to to write my dissertation in Abraham Lincoln. This was post Tom DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln, and I wanted to focus exclusively on Lincoln’s abuse of power. This had already been done, at least to an extent. One faculty member at South Carolina pulled me aside and told me not to do it, not …more

American conservatives seemed to be confused about the real goal of American education. It isn’t to foster creative thinking or problem solving skills. It isn’t to introduce students to the classics or a wide range of topics. It’s to “educate,” and by educate, I mean “indoctrinate.” That means having the “correct” opinion on every important subject. Nothing is safe. You see, every subject in most …more

Recent Supreme Court decisions have the progressive left apoplectic. They almost can’t understand how their monster, the federal court system, has gone rabid and turned against them. I say almost because they believe they know the culprit. You. You vote for conservatives who in turn have had the chance to nominate dozens of justices to the federal courts. That has turned their baby against them. …more

On Jul 4, 1976, President Gerald Ford addressed a large crowd at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. His advisors worried that his previous speeches on the meaning of the founding were getting lost in the media shuffle, and they wanted him to make a definitive statement about the bicentennial. This was his chance. Everyone would be watching and the media had to cover this speech. One …more

I predicted in 2015 that the woke mob would not stop at Confederate monuments. Neocons didn’t listen and instead hid behind their self-righteousness and moral preening. You see, they loved Abraham Lincoln, so they were on the right side of history. Confederates were Democrats (or Nazis) who deserved to be purged. And what American doesn’t love the “Great Emancipator”? They forgot that Lincoln had some …more