Category: Commentary

Sexologues professionnels conseillent une méthode éprouvée: super kamagra. Confidentiel et sans trop-payé.

Commentary: Poland and Hungary Are What Healthy Democracies Look Like

Minnesota Sun Staff

“Even by today’s low standards, this is shockingly delusional,” I thought after reading Kati Marton’s diatribe against the current Polish and Hungarian governments in the Los Angeles Times last week.

Most such pieces are relatively standard and don’t warrant a response. This one, it seemed to me, mutilated the charred corpse of the truth. As a Polish citizen and Polish speaker who has lived in Hungary, I concluded it was too much to overlook. Allow me to share some of my experiences from these two countries, which most often bear no resemblance to the ones Marton describes.

Read More

Commentary: SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision Ignores Elephant in the Room

Minnesota Sun Staff
U.S. Supreme Court

Growing up in the Jim Crow South, my parents grew up dreaming of a world where they didn’t have to use “colored-only” restrooms, sit in the back of the bus, attend segregated schools, and could sit in restaurants together with other Americans – regardless of their race, creed, or nationality.

They dreamed of equality for all. Yet, almost 70 years after the Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal,” the recent decision to strike down affirmative action makes it clear that many black progressives like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – who benefited from the Brown v. Board of Education decision – still view the issues of race and equality through rose-colored glasses.

Read More

Commentary: As Hiring Slows Down, So Does the Economy

Minnesota Sun Staff

The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.

Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from Covid notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.

Read More

Commentary: Biden Begins Shadow Loan Forgiveness Plan

Minnesota Sun Staff

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness proposal which would have forgiven $10,000-$20,000 of student loans per borrower. But the fight for student loan forgiveness isn’t going anywhere.

In a previous article for FEE, I highlighted how student loan forgiveness has already been happening and started under president Trump due to the freeze on interest accumulation. Although this may not be as visible as a $10,000 lower balance, frozen interest means the real cost of taking a loan out became smaller than the initial terms suggested.

Read More

Commentary: Two Americas Collide at the Supreme Court

Minnesota Sun Staff

When President Biden fumed that the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling is “not normal,” he spoke more truth than he may have intended. It is certainly not normal nowadays to acknowledge, even implicitly, that discrimination against whites is possible, or even wrong. The Supreme Court blasted the vaporous pretexts that elites have used to justify this invidious scheme, which has carried on indefinitely, feasting on countless dreams without satisfying a bottomless hunger of unquantifiable grievance. The sentimental and, arguably, self-serving wailing of the dissenters, particularly Justice Jackson, draws from that same source.

Read More

Commentary: America Needs to Update Its Labor Union Laws

Minnesota Sun Staff

For years, labor unions have been exempt from the consequences of destroying private property. Would you like a higher wage or salary? Sounds good! So, how would you go about persuading your employer to give you a raise? Why not vandalize some of your employer’s property with your labor union, or at least threaten to do so unless the boss gives you the raise you want?

Let’s say you want to get hired for a certain job, but you are worried that another applicant might get the job you want. Should you slash the tires on the other person’s car and threaten to pound him with a baseball bat if he doesn’t disappear?

Read More

Commentary: Randi Weingarten Is the Last Person to Give Advice on School Safety

Minnesota Sun Staff

Straight from the “No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up” file, it was recently announced that American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has been appointed to the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. According to the Homeland Security website, the HSAPC will “provide strategic and actionable recommendations to the Secretary on campus safety and security, improved coordination, research priorities, hiring, and more.”

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) vented his frustration with the appointment, tweeting that Weingarten “is the last person who should be advising anyone on school safety.”

Read More

Commentary: Social Conservatism Is Rebounding

Minnesota Sun Staff

It was just a matter of time. Decent Americans have had radical race and LGBTQ+ agendas shoved in their face for too long, and now they are fighting back. Too bad not all conservatives are on board.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan recently said that he was not a “cultural war guy,” contending that he is more concerned about the debt crisis. This is what we would expect from someone who is at home sitting on the board of directors of Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corporation. 

Read More

Commentary: On Independence Day, Remember Why Economic Liberty Matters for America

Admin

I’ve often thought there is something providential about the Declaration of Independence being drafted and promulgated throughout the American Colonies the same year that Adam Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations” was published.

After all, both texts were revolutionary, and both were fundamentally concerned with protecting and promoting liberty.

Read More

Commentary: The Surprising Origins of the ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ Slogan

Admin

Ask most Americans where the slogan “No taxation without representation!” came from and the likely response will be “American colonists protesting against Britain in the 1760s.” But the spirit, if not the precise letter of the phrase, originated more than a century before. Moreover, we can thank the Brits themselves for it. It started with something called the “ship tax.”

Since the early Middle Ages, English custom allowed the monarch to impose a special levy in times of war upon citizens who lived in coastal settlements. They could meet the requirement by providing ships, shipbuilding materials, or money for the Crown to build ships (hence the name, “ship tax”). Kings and Queens levied the “tax” as a royal prerogative, meaning they skipped the annoyance of securing the consent of Parliament as required in the Magna Carta of 1215.

Read More

Commentary: The Bidens’ Existential Threats to the American Rule of Law

Admin

President Joe Biden, the Biden grifting conglomerate, the Department of Justice, and the FBI under its fourth consecutive weaponized director, are in danger of subverting the American system of law.

They are in various ways undermining the tradition of self-reported income tax computation and voluntary compliance.

Read More

Newt Gingrich Commentary: The Woke Left Are the Means for Decentralized Tyranny in Maoist America

Admin

Mao Zedong became one of the last century’s most powerful dictators by completely transforming Chinese society through a systematic use of violence, coercion, and aggressive propaganda. His method was so unique – and ruthlessly effective – it was codified by historians and political scholars as Maoism.

Today, a new kind of Maoism is developing in the American left, and it is a direct threat to the American traditions of individual rights, the rule of law, the Constitution, and personal freedom.

Read More

Commentary: A CIA Agent’s Analysis of the Chaos In Russia and What to Look for Next

Admin

It’s been a wild set of events in Russia over the past week – with mutinous Russian forces marching towards Moscow, President Putin addressing the nation about their treason, and then the rebels announcing they would turn back “according to the plan” – as though nothing had happened.

As these whiplashing events evolve, here are 10 key developments that former CIA Officers like me will be watching for in the near and long term…

Read More

Commentary: SCOTUS’ Decision on Affirmative Action Could Spell Big Trouble for ESG’s ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ Hiring Quotas

Admin

It’s a simple ruling: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

On June 29, the Supreme Court affirmed Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code § 2000d’s prohibition on racial discrimination in federally funded programs, including higher education, at both public and private universities, in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision.

Read More

Commentary: Actually, They ARE Coming for Your Children

Admin

From the South Lawn of the White House to the pulsing heartbeats of North America’s bustling metropolises, Democrats are stepping into the 2024 electoral fray armed with a transgender-dominated platform that makes the riots of 2020 look like a block party.

This time, the spotlight is focused on the very future of the country: our children.

Read More

Commentary: The Case for Impeaching Joe Biden

Minnesota Sun Staff

When I defended former President Trump against a Democratic effort to impeach and remove him on grounds that I believe are unconstitutional, I predicted that when the Republicans gained control of the House, they would use that precedent as a justification for trying to impeach the next Democratic president.

Sure enough, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has introduced articles of impeachment that replicated what the Democrats had done just three and a half years earlier.

Read More

Commentary: Today’s Youth Are Digital, De-Churched, and Depressed

Minnesota Sun Staff

The kids aren’t alright, and it’s starting to show. Last week, the New York Post published a front-page story that heralded “The New Great Depression,” tracking the twin rise of social media and juvenile depression. 

Since 1991, the University of Michigan has annually polled thousands of students in middle and high school, asking whether they agree with the following three statements: “I can’t do anything right,” “I do not enjoy life,” and “My life is not useful.”

Read More

Commentary: Dear America, The Intelligence Community Isn’t Your Friend

Minnesota Sun Staff

The intelligence agencies have been in the news a lot lately — and not because they deserve praise. Recently, the FBI refused for weeks to provide the House Oversight Committee with a document that alleges a bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden during his time serving as vice president.

To avoid a contempt of Congress hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray decided, at the last minute, to allow the committee’s members to view the document in question.

Read More

Commentary: Tennessee’s Certificate of Need Laws Stifle Competition and Allow Harmful Healthcare Monopolies

Minnesota Sun Staff

In today’s healthcare landscape, access to affordable and high-quality health care services remains a pressing concern for individuals and families. It is especially important during these economically turbulent times that the government spend taxpayer dollars wisely and on programs that actually offer real value to taxpayers. 

Tennessee offers a cautionary tale about wasting taxpayer money on ineffective and harmful bureaucracy. In the Volunteer State, Certificate of Need (CON) laws play a significant factor in preventing free-market competition. In the worst cases, it allows entrenched interests to operate as monopolies. CON laws erodes patient choice by eliminating affordable options in the marketplace and patients suffer the consequences. 

Read More

Commentary: Mainstream Media Has Convinced Even Republicans to Believe Hunter’s Business Is No Big Deal

Minnesota Sun Staff

After reading my commentary about my self-inflicted ordeal of listening to NPR for a month, a friend noted this station’s “reports” bear no resemblance to “objective reality.” Can so many Americans, asked my correspondent, believe that the U.S. is full of oppressed transgendered who must take up arms to protect themselves against “anti-trans rhetoric?” Do NPR listeners really think American blacks are suffering from “systemic white racism,” and that only increased government control can protect them from being shot on the streets by white racists?

Read More

Commentary: The International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap Will Increase Energy Costs

Minnesota Sun Staff

Two years ago, efforts by climate activists and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investors to block investment in oil and gas production by Western companies appeared to have received a seal of approval from no less an authority than the International Energy Agency (IEA), when it published Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. As a result, attempts to achieve net zero carbon emissions (NZE) by 2050 became central to the “E” in ESG and the IEA’s net zero roadmap has come to define the NZE baseline for energy companies.

Read More

Commentary: American Medical Association Compromised by Radical Ideology

Minnesota Sun Staff

The American Medical Association recently passed a series of resolutions in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion that highlight how elite, professional organizations have been deeply compromised by ideology.

A report by National Review on Monday noted that the AMA, which accredits medical schools and has enormous power over the medical profession, passed a series of resolutions in mid-June denouncing legislation that would prevent “gender-affirming care” for minors and in support of racial preferences in higher education.

Read More

Commentary: ‘Bidenomics’ Are Leaving Americans Behind

Minnesota Sun Staff

“When you think about wages going up, when you think about inflation at its lowest by more than 50 percent than it was a year ago, that’s because of the work that this President has done.  And he’s going to continue to focus on what we can do to lower cost for the American people.  And so, that is incredibly important.”

That was White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on June 26, outlining President Joe Biden’s views on the current state of the U.S. economy, which have seen a diminution of the purchasing power of American households as high inflation set in following the more than $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent into existence for Covid coupled with the economic lockdowns and production halts—literally too much money chasing too few goods.

Read More

Commentary: Does Anyone Buy That the Head of BlackRock Is ‘Ashamed’ of ESG?

Minnesota Sun Staff

The big news in energy this week is that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he is no longer using the term “ESG” in his business communications. Even more, Mr. Fink is now “ashamed” to be a participant in the debate on the issue. At least, that’s what he initially said on Sunday to an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where he was a speaker.

“I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said as quoted by Axios. But almost as soon as he made the admission, Fink took it all back when pressed by his session’s moderator. “I never said I was ashamed,” he said, even though he had just actually said that very thing. “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”

Read More

Commentary: Looking for the Deep State

Minnesota Sun Staff

Allegations that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been politicized and weaponized against Republicans are in the news. It is commonly acknowledged that most federal employees lean left and vote Democratic, but this is usually said to make little difference. Prior to the 2022 election, a survey by Government Executive magazine said federal workers preferred Democrats 47 percent to 35 percent in House races, and 37 percent to 33 percent for the Senate. 

Read More

Commentary: To Unions, Organizing Time Is Fine When It’s on the Taxpayers’ Dime

RealClearWire

Randi Weingarten, the powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers, hasn’t been a working teacher in more than a quarter of a century. 

Of the six years she spent teaching social studies, half of them appear to have been as a substitute. Yet despite the long absence from her short tenure in the classroom, the union leader described herself during a recent congressional hearing as being on leave from Brooklyn’s Clara Barton High School. 

Read More

Commentary: Democrats Are Starting to Panic as Trump’s Numbers Unaffected by Indictment over Documents

Admin

“Democrats have a deep bench. They had better prepare now to turn to it.”

That was former Bloomberg News executive editor Al Hunt writing for The Messenger on June 25, pontificating about the prospects of replacing President Joe Biden in 2024 as the Democratic Party nominee as the incumbent president’s poll numbers still appear gloomy even after Biden’s Justice Department brought his top political opponent, former President Donald Trump, who is standing for election once again in 2024, up on charges over documents retained after the Trump administration that Trump says he declassified.

Read More

Commentary: The Left Fears the Revolutionary Model it Bequeathed to America, for Good Reason

Admin

by Victor Davis Hanson   The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000. The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were…

Read More

Alan Dershowitz Commentary: Trump’s Prosecutors Shouldn’t Get to Use the Word ‘Espionage’

Admin

Former President Donald Trump has been charged with a variety of crimes, including violation of the misnamed Espionage Act.

That 1917 statute is misnamed because it covers a great many offenses that don’t involve spying or giving secrets to the enemy. In fact, over the years it has been used extensively against patriotic Americans who have opposed wars and dissented from other government actions.

Read More

Commentary: Taxation Without Representation Meets the 21st Century

Admin

Who is authorized to tax the income of a commuter who doesn’t commute? This question—born of the pandemic and currently pending before the Supreme Court of Ohio—could be coming to a tax bill near you, and soon.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, government orders forced millions of employees to work from home instead of at their usual offices. These orders accelerated a trend which had already begun toward remote and hybrid work and—three years later—is all but entrenched.

Read More

Commentary: A Deep Dive into the Century of Conservatives’ Failure to Contain the Administrative State

Admin

by Theo Wold   James Landis is widely credited with crafting the theoretical architecture supporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radical reconstruction — and expansion — of the federal government. Landis shrewdly both established and legitimized the regulatory state, including Roosevelt’s creation of new federal administrative agencies, by offering the regulatory state…

Read More

Commentary: The Democrat-Funded ProPublica ‘Investigations’ into Conservative SCOTUS Justices Is Retribution for Overturning Roe

Admin

ProPublica launched a partisan “investigation,” this time targeting another conservative U.S. Supreme Court member.

As if on cue, mainstream media outlets jumped on the bandwagon, relishing in the prospect of free content for their publications — content that undermines conservative jurists, and conservative lawmakers by association. This is purely political payback for the Dobbs decision of 2022.

Read More

Commentary: Religious Conviction in Woke Sports

RealClearWire

When the University of Oklahoma softball team showed up for the College World Series last week, reporters expected to hear pride and camaraderie from a squad on the way to winning its third consecutive national championship.  

But several star Sooners players startled the press and went viral online by declaring that their joy in Christianity trumped their considerable athletic accomplishments.  

Read More

Commentary: For the Love of English, Stop Changing Definitions

Minnesota Sun Staff

There has long been a debate in linguistics about how to approach language and how language should be used by native speakers. The two traditional schools of thought are prescriptivists and descriptivists. The former are concerned with establishing norms for language and formulating rules and proper ways of using said language. On the other hand, the latter believe that a given language should be understood by how it is used, without establishing certain rules and parameters.

It seems that the English language today, at least in America, is in the throes of taking the descriptivist position to the extreme. We are now seeing a concerted effort to overturn the traditional definitions of words and terms in order to push certain political and social agendas.

Read More

Commentary: The Crumbling Relationship Between Big Business and the GOP

Minnesota Sun Staff

Relationships don’t always last forever. As with friendships, neighbors, employment, and even marriages, sadly, longstanding political bonds can be severed. Today, the supposed “marriage” between big business and the Republican Party seems on the rocks. It might even be in a slow-motion breakup.

A recent Wall Street Journal article recounts the growing rift between the GOP and big business. Republican leaders are more willing to criticize corporations, Republican lawmakers are proposing more legislation regulating business, and the GOP is becoming less and less dependent on corporate donations.

Read More

Commentary: Prof Jenkin’s Summer Reading List for Young Conservatives Part I

Minnesota Sun Staff

If you’re a conservative college student hoping to spend your time profitably this summer, here’s a suggestion: Read a book. Read several. That will broaden your horizons, deepen your understanding, and improve your vocabulary.

Plus, tackling longer works—as opposed to short pieces like this, which, don’t get me wrong, you should also read—helps you develop self-discipline and improves your powers of concentration.

Read More

Commentary: America Wakes Up to Woke

Minnesota Sun Staff

Wokeness was envisioned as a new reboot of the coalition of the oppressed. 

Those purportedly victimized by traditional America would find “intersectional” solidarity in their victimhood owing to the supposed sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other alleged American sins, past and present. 

Read More

Commentary: School Choice’s Rapid Post-Pandemic Expansion Sets Up a Big Pass/Fail Test for Education

RealClearWire

A growing number of states are adopting a comprehensive new type of school choice program that would pose a threat to public schools if many students were to leave them for a private education. 

Eight states – including Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and West Virginia – have approved “universal” or near-universal school choice laws since 2021. They open the door completely to school choice by making all students, including those already in private schools and from wealthy families, eligible for about $7,000 to $10,000 in state funding each year for their education. 

Read More

Commentary: Decadent Elites Plunge America into Political Crisis

Minnesota Sun Staff

If the last seven years of constant anti-Trump intrigue have shown anything, it’s that America’s liberal so-called elites want to govern a certain way and will not tolerate being told otherwise. Given Donald Trump’s recent arrest, they could not make themselves any clearer apart from possibly having the man killed. If he goes to prison, he very well may die there.

These kinds of dramatic outcomes to political battles are supposed to be precluded in a government of consent, which allows for a peaceful transfer of power (another phrase, like Our Democracy™, that has been bastardized in the mouths of the elites). Uprisings, show trials, assassinations, and the like are not supposed to be necessary when the people can choose and remove their rulers.

Read More

Commentary: Hollywood Is Demoralizing Americans, One Story at a Time

Minnesota Sun Staff

As a young boy, I lived for a time under the rule of a totalitarian regime when visiting my parents’ homeland of Iran during the 1980s. It was only a few years after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and the despotic new ruler, Ruhollah Khomeini, was investing heavily in his cultural propaganda machine. The Ayatollah’s dubious aim, like any new totalitarian, was to erase the proud culture of ancient Iran and replace it with one new and ideologically approved.

Read More

Commentary: The ‘Get Trump’ Games Continue

Minnesota Sun Staff

It all started with a self-important official at the National Archives and Records Administration. Or at least that’s the official story.

In May 2021, William Bosanko, NARA’s chief executive officer, noticed two presidential documents were missing from the Trump Administration: the letter Barack Obama wrote to Donald Trump and correspondence between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

Read More

Commentary: A Heated Argument in the House Portends Good Results for the Budget

Minnesota Sun Staff

“Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.” Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, 2004.

I must’ve used this quote a thousand times (primarily mitigating fights between contentious children of different ages) without even realizing its origin. I’ve often wondered why emotion-driven youths (and big people, too) simply amp up the volume when intellectually dueling with others rather than maintaining the discussion at an even keel and perhaps lulling their opponents into listening to what they’re saying – or screaming even louder.

Read More

Commentary: The Problem with ‘Pride’ Month

Minnesota Sun Staff

Pride Month and the ubiquitous displays of rainbow colored flags as well as the concomitant ceremonies are puzzling practices to say the least. It is one thing not to be ashamed of one’s sexual orientation. But it is quite another to be proud of it. 

How does emphasizing the differences between people benefit American society as a whole? Ordinarily, the response to criticisms of lauding pride in sexual orientation is to compare it to Black pride and the struggle to eliminate racism. But this raises the same questions. Should one really be proud of one’s race? Is it not pride that got us into the racism mess in the first place? The idea of proclaiming one race superior to others? So why extend this exaltation to sexual behaviors? 

Read More

Commentary: Trump Lawyers Targeted by Dark Money Group

Admin

Among the unusual features of last week’s arraignment of former President Trump in Miami involved the difficulty he had finding a qualified attorney to represent him in the classified documents case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. The corporate media inevitably made much of this issue. The Washington Post, for example, quoted various anonymous sources who claimed that Trump’s reputation as a “challenging client” caused several prominent lawyers to turn him down. In reality, the problem resulted from an intimidation campaign by a radical pressure group called the 65 Project, whose explicit mission is to ruin any lawyer willing to represent Trump.

Read More

Commentary: Energy Companies Are Finally Backtracking on Their Absurd Green Goals

Admin

Is the public finally waking up to the inherent absurdities taking place in the energy space in the U.S. and across the Western world in recent years? Recent votes taken on ESG and climate change-related shareholder initiatives at major oil company annual board meetings indicate that may well be the case.

Though it has received scant attention across the legacy news media in general, the Financial Times reported recently that such shareholder initiatives were overwhelmingly rejected by shareholders of both ExxonMobil and Chevron, with most receiving less than 10 percent support. Similar initiatives in the previous few years would typically generate support in the 30-40 percent range, with a handful even gaining majority support.

Read More