Another year of Northeast Reader is concluding. This is the annual review wherein I highlight one or more articles from each month, comprising what I think are the most important moments to remember. This is also a great way to become acquainted with NER if you’re a new visitor. As someone newly acquainted, I emphasize reading the ‘About’ page which will give you an understanding of what makes me tick and where this site and I fit into the conservative blogosphere.
January
Meditation On an Apocalyptic California
While this essay specifically names California, the ideas presented are a pretty good synopsis for any jurisdiction or conglomeration of public entities. It just so happens that California presents itself as an excellent cautionary tale showing both cause and effect of either bad governance or divine wrath; perhaps it doesn’t make so much difference which one. Watching this past year go by and watching the turnings of the worm, Governor Newsom, just lends credence to the bible template I sued to illustrate the concept. When tragedy happens on his watch and due to his own willful and overwrought neglect, he doubles down, then doubles down on his double downing with stunningly persistent arrogance, just like Pharaoh, and he is far from finished. The main point here though is not Newsom or even California. This glove, this shoe, fits a lot of other examples almost as well as Newson’s California.
February
Stay and Build Your Own Country – The Not So Bad Alternative to Illegal Immigration
In this writeup, I confess within the piece that the objective spelled out in the title is naive. I can double profess the same now some eleven months later. Since then, another notion I put forth in other articles, that illegal immigration was really about building perpetual Democrat majorities, has gone from disingenuous denials to open confessions, ostensibly negating the need for my proposed thinking; and yet, I stand by the idealism. Now that the reversal of the Biden flood of illegals is well under way, activists are still promoting the notion that shipping them back is a violation of some human right. Going home? This article provides a primer on an idea some people still clearly need.
March
What I Learned When Spectating an Evangelical Take on Everything Trump
During March 2025, a lot of important things were going on, but I took time to dive into a divergence from the secular to focus on that which is above…not quite. The evangelical perspective is to some, a strange cultural backwater made up of misfits but historically, one of the most influential forces in America, a position that is now quickly being compromised into the leftist miasma. While the small expose’ isn’t systematic or comprehensive, I take off on a personally observed online conversation and annotate what I learned. As a former card carrying evangelical (and now ambiguously non-aligned) I still believe that evangelicalism may yet get one more chance to be ‘light and salt’ in these evil days before we descend into either a technological abyss, or a new dark age.
April
What We Are All Thinking About the Fraud Class
When I wrote and posted this piece, it was just a commentary on a widespread generalize angst and anger floating around with hardly any actionable direction. Fast forward to today and it’s a white-hot news story with the Somali scandals being discovered in MN and other blue states. The ‘fraud class’ refers to a whole set of scams and schemes by which people and groups enrich themselves at the ultimate expense of those of us that choose to live ethically. It is vitally important to point out that some of these schemes I point out are technically ‘legal’ but only because law and ethics cannot keep up with all the ways that people shake down government programs and processes. This is a big piece because it draws deeply on a lot of pent-up anger and frustration. It’s also a case of: if I knew in April, just half of what has been revealed now in the past month… I’d have been throwing far more cogs. This message needs to be greatly amplified and ultimately updated.
May
The Travails of an Angry Bad Statue – Now and to Come
Some months, it’s hard to choose among other good articles, some with big enduring themes, but in this case, I chose the one that at first glance might seem almost petulant. As per the title, it discusses a statue, it represents a demographic, a favored one, in fact, one that one criticizes only at their own peril. That’s why I chose this article to highlight for May. The left has built a fortress, a wall, and what goes on behind that wall: fraud, theft, but most importantly, a bald attempt at perpetual one party dictatorial power, is tied up in this seemingly stupid public gesture of bad art. You are commanded to worship, warned never to cross or question, never concern yourself with what goes on behind what this statue represents. If you do or try, you’re a racist white supremacist, unworthy to stand and speak in the public square. That’s just how they want it. I stand and condemn it and them.
June
The Not Very Good Example of Terry Moran
Another month, another difficult choice, another obscure news story that is definitely forgotten by the public but yet it has some very important lessons. In the world of journalism, the left gets away with murder every day. I think I found a good example to stick a marker in and say, ‘this is how shallow these extremely overpaid people really are’. The bigger lesson that I demonstrate in my piece is that you, ‘ordinary Joe’, can legitimately critique and judge the soft hands and empty suit that sits on your TV screen and you have more to give to your peers and public then they do. Wealth and years of no real opposition has made them lazy and sloppy. Now is the time to expose them.
July
A More Obvious Answer to Trump’s Peak Approval Rates
You may have noticed so far, I’ve intentionally skipped over all the articles directly addressing Trump (47’s) successes. There are two primary reasons why which is what I focus on here, but Trump clearly gets the credit for being the first executive in a long time to practice them. In abstract theory, anyone could; you or me, his enemies, anyone. What makes Trump win is ‘scalable’, only in this case, scaled down to what all of us living smaller lives are capable of given the ‘talents’ we have; money, innate intelligence, connections, social environment. The more we learn about institutionalized corruption that his administration is uncovering, the more we learn that so few men great and small have any intention of following Trump’s example.
August
Where Did a Hundred Thousand Experts Go Wrong About Tariffs?
Every once in a great while, I’ll write something to brag about a prediction or position I made that came to pass. While this piece is primarily explanatory, it also perhaps constitutes one of my singular greatest predictive and affirmative position writings ever. I did so in support of Trump’s counter policy to hundreds of thousands of ‘experts’ on the matter of tariffs. I also explain in layman’s terms, some very simple reasons why. These may now seem enlightened, but they certainly were not to the exceptionally educated nay class just months ago. I’ll gladly take your money the next time you need a clear voice on a similar straightforward matter.
September
A Primer on MAGA and Footnote on ‘Christian Nationalism’
This article, at face value, attempts to explain and mashup four or five different big topics that each deserve their own discussion. This was not because of some undisciplined running rant. It came on the heel of the Charlie Kirk assassination and my firsthand observation of how some ‘evangelical Christians’ were processing it. I can’t say whether they read it but I trust that there are others that need the same rebuttal I make here. It spans MAGA, globalism, nationalism, particularly in the context of Christian nationalism. Implied also is what I consider increasingly wayward evangelicalism. All these deserve more specific attention which will eventually occur, but as of that writing, it all belonged together.
October
The Spending Continuing Resolution – The Not So Hidden Opportunity for the Democrats
This writing starts out as a partisan political current event that has since been resolved, hardly worth adding to an anthology of the best most critical works. The reason I go ahead and include it is as a clarion call for a few Democrats to rise up and save their party [and I am not a member]. Democrats are widely understood to be lost in the desert or locked in the basement and all they can do is double down on their own failure. As is too often the case when there are hostages, captives and captured, it is those that are held ‘against their will’, have the real potential power, but they never take it because fear and ignorance. Democrats are guided by their most radical, unglued, and vain. Eight ‘normies’ could have grabbed the reigns at that point and been leading their entire party out of the wilderness right now, but they chose to cower and whimper until events overtook the whole saga.
November
The Human Race is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Discussing the issue of global and likely permanent de-population is not a new theme for me. I touch on it at least every second or third year I write. So why highlight this one right now? Two reasons: First, each time I write, there’s a new cultural and political context. The reasons to forestall reproduction might seem like a constant but they do indeed change or add on; for example, economics may dominate for some time and then woke notions may increase the consequence as a force multiplier. Second, the whole topic is still largely ignored even by most conservatives that would have some interest in righting the ship. I’d even suggest that the generation stable enough to care the most is aging to the point that they actually don’t care anymore; they’re now letting it all pass and their descendants are so taken with day-to-day struggles that they cannot care all that much either. Civilization’s end is now resting in the hands of a narrow generational band of young females that show little inclination to change their stance on procreation.
December
The Sad Case of Rob Reiner and Nick Reiner – Both Lost for the Same Reason
As it is the end of the year and this post addressed a major cultural event in this month, the ink is hardly dry. My approach to this tragedy is a little unusual for me thus I include it as a final word on 2025. I wrote a great deal about political news items this year and that is a small component here, but I avoided loading down the year review with those concerns. This story was literally a life and death event, therefore I attempted to rise up above the political (and I think I succeeded) because at the end of the day when we shut our front door and finally put down our cell phone and are alone with our closest, our own soul, and our maker, that ultimately transcends everything else. Even though I thought Reiner’s activism was flawed to the point of despicable, I tried to express a little humanity in this final piece.
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