Leyla Hussein at a session of the Oslo Freedom Forum in New York, September 17, 2018 (Jay Nordlinger)

I have an Impromptus today, which begins with Clarence Thomas — the Judge Thomas of 1991, before he was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The last couple of weeks have brought it all back, vividly. And the Bork mess had been only four years before. It was still a burning wound, for many of us. (For some of us, it still is, possibly.)


You know what Thomas said to his wife when she told him he had at last been confirmed? He was so angry at what had taken place, he said, “Whoop-dee-damn-doo.”

Also in my column, I discuss refugees — and remember my late friend Dusty Rhodes. He was president of National Review and played a role in just about every conservative organization you can think of: the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Bradley Foundation, etc. Two of his biggest interests were free enterprise and school choice. He was one of the original Club for Growthers, for example.

He was also on the board of the International Rescue Committee. This is the organization founded in the 1930s at the urging of Einstein. The plight of refugees was very important to Dusty, and to most of us conservatives, I think.


Among the other subjects of my column is Julian Assange — who could not be closer to the Kremlin if he were Putin’s hanky. Neither man is a friend of the United States, or of democracy, or of truth. Assange’s current hosts, the Ecuadoreans, tried to get him to Russia by making him one of their diplomats. The Brits blocked this maneuver. You know what the Ecuadorean president’s name is, by the way? It’s almost poetic: Lenín Moreno.


My column is seldom without athletes and musicians — and today’s athletes include Naomi Osaka, Tiger Woods, and Isaiahh Loudermilk (of the University of Wisconsin football team).

As for Q&A, my latest guest is Leyla Hussein, who is familiar to National Review readers. I have spotlighted her work in recent years. Somali-born, Leyla is a campaigner against FGM, which stands for “female genital mutilation.” She herself endured the practice. Now she tries to save other girls from it. In her home country, several young girls have just died from FGM. You could say they were murdered — and maybe you should. Anyway, I saw Leyla in New York last week, and she spoke into my tape recorder, passionately and truthfully, as always. She will brook no PC or any other kind of nonsense, and she is altogether a breath of fresh air. Here is that Q&A.