Commentary: Congress Must End the Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children

One of the Left’s emotional weapons it uses to continue its open border agenda is unaccompanied alien children. A historic number of these children have crossed the southern border during the Biden administration—their parents were enticed by promises of entry into the U.S. and other immigration benefits for their children.

But they are often brutally mistreated on the journey, and many do not face happy endings once here. Sadly, unknown numbers are sex-trafficked, subjected to child labor, and face other abuses. But Congress has an opportunity to end this inhumanity beginning this week when it considers the Secure the Border Act in the House.

Read More

Commentary: U.S. Government Will Not Default on Loans If Congress Doesn’t Raise the Debt Ceiling

Contrary to widespread claims that the U.S. government will default on its debt if Congress doesn’t raise the debt limit, federal law and the Constitution require the Treasury to pay the debt, and it has ample tax revenues to do this.

Nor would Social Security benefits be affected by a debt limit stalemate unless President Biden illegally diverts Social Security revenues to other programs.

Read More

Commentary: It’s Time to Take the Unnecessary Politics Out of ESG and Retirement Savings

New York Stock Exchange

Increased politicization of “environmental, social and governance” (ESG) factors in investment has resulted in one side claiming it only promotes social and political objectives, and the other side claiming that ESG is always relevant to making sound investment decisions.
 

President Biden’s veto of a Congressional resolution, regarding recently finalized amendments to a 2020 Department of Labor (DOL) administrative rule on retirement security, has brought ESG to the forefront again. The DOL’s amendments address how fiduciaries of a person’s 401(k)s and private pension funds make decisions about their retirement savings and the role of ESG in making those investment decisions. The DOL, under ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974), regulates private retirement plans. ERISA covers roughly $12 trillion in retirement savings for 150 million Americans. 

Read More

Commentary: If Hunter Biden Is Indicted

Hunter Biden courtroom

What will President Biden do if his son is indicted by the federal prosecutor in Delaware? That’s one of three questions looming over U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ fateful choice. The second is whether the indictment will go after a larger, coordinated family scheme of influence peddling or confine itself to smaller, tightly-confined issues like lying to get a gun permit and not registering as a foreign lobbyist. The third is whether Attorney General Merrick Garland will approve Weiss’ proposed charges. Significant political calculations follow from those decisions.

Read More

Commentary: January 6 Supporters Set Their Focus on Trump

In 2002, David Frum, chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, coined the phrase “axis of evil” to describe the despotic regimes of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq during the nascent stages of the global war on terror.

Today, Frum is warning the country about a different axis of evil that he believes similarly threatens the security of America and perhaps even the world: Donald Trump, the Oath Keepers, and the Proud Boys.

Read More

Commentary: The Biden Admin Doesn’t Care About Creating Jobs – They Even Say So

Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the quiet part out loud last week. As the executive of our public lands agency, she does not believe that Americans need jobs because there are already so many jobs available. It’s better to lock up land, and lock down mining because who wants those jobs, when there are so many others?

Before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Haaland told Sen. Josh Hawley, “Senator, I know that there’s like 1.9 jobs for every American in the country right now. So, I know there’s a lot of jobs,” which was her explanation for canceling cobalt mining permits for Twin Metals Minnesota, an underground mine proposed for the northeastern part of the state. America won’t need those jobs, she was saying.

Read More

Commentary: Christian Popular Culture’s Revival Cast Out the Money Changers

“Jesus Revolution” and “The Chosen” are not just Christian dramas but the avant garde in a revolution in faith entertainment. The former – a feel-good movie about hippies who returned to Christ during the 1970s, starring former “Cheers” and “Frasier” star Kelsey Grammer – has grossed more than $52 million since its debut just a few weeks ago, making it the most successful film released by studio heavyweight Lionsgate since 2019.

Read More

Commentary: Three Traditional Skills Young Men Should Learn

It seems that no matter where we turn in modern life we can see how modern conveniences have chipped away at the skills so many used to pride themselves on. Of course, in and of themselves, modern conveniences aren’t bad—I’m grateful for many of them—but when so many of us young people today don’t know the skills of our forefathers, I can’t help but think that we are losing that hardy, independent mindset that early Americans often embodied.

Read More

Commentary: The Long Road to Confronting China’s War on Religion Part Two

Falun Gong emerged in China in 1992, a time of a spiritual renewal in a land still under Communist rule, but one recovering from the horrors of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. Drawing on Buddhist traditions, Falun Gong combined meditation and tai chi-style exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of “zhen,” “shan,” and “ren” (truth, compassion, tolerance.) The word, in both English and Chinese, to describe this contemplative mind and body approach to life is qigong.

Read More

Commentary: Recession Looms as Banks Collapse and the Economy Slows

The unemployment rate still remains at historic lows of 3.4 percent in April, according to the latest data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amid other worrying signs for the U.S. economy including a continued collapse of job openings, a string of bank failure and an overall slowing Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

In the survey, as the population increased by 171,000, those not in the labor force increased by 214,000 as labor participation dipped slightly by 43,000. Those who said they had a job increased by 139,000 after a 577,000 increase in March. As a result, the unemployment rate has actually ticked downward for two consecutive months from 3.6 percent in February, to 3.5 percent in March and now 3.4 percent in April.

Read More

Commentary: Men of the West, on the Cusp

So here we be, again. On the cusp, I would say. Four thousand years of Western Civilization at risk. On the verge. The eve of destruction, as the song says. The best that mankind has to offer is in the balance. I say “the best” because the West has set more men free than any other iteration of civilization, and freedom is the only standard by which we have to judge ourselves for what we are, or what we are capable of becoming. Being able to comply with the dictates of others is only the standard of a slave. 

Read More

Commentary: The Long Road to Confronting China’s War on Religion Part One

In 2016, when President Xi Jinping delivered a speech calling for the “Sinicization of religion” in a nation of one billion, he was espousing a century-old impulse among his people while also inadvertently underscoring a persistent paradox that Chinese Communists brought with them when they took over the country in 1949 – and have never shaken.

The impulse is that the major faiths observed in China are not indigenous to the world’s oldest civilization. Buddhism was imported from India and Tibet. Islam arrived in overland trading routes and human migration from the Middle East, while Christianity, another Abrahamic faith, came across the ocean from Europe and America. To Communist leaders, and many Han Chinese civilians, these traditions represent potentially destabilizing foreign influence. 

Read More

Commentary: Red States Ban Destructive Transgender Treatments as K-12 Schools Funnel Children to Dangerous Path

Citing “very serious side effects” and a “lack of reliable scientific evidence for their efficacy and safety,” Missouri is clamping down on chemical and surgical gender transition interventions for both children and adults.

The move comes as public schools across the nation push children toward transgenderism with organized efforts and intentional tactics that leave children’s parents and legal guardians in the dark.

Read More

Commentary: Joe Biden Gambles on Default with No-Strings Increase of $31 Trillion Debt Ceiling

President Joe Biden is set to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other Congressional leaders on May 9 to discuss the looming the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. It’s about time.

So far, Biden’s only plan has been for Congress to simply increase it into perpetuity or else threaten to default, never bothering to address the dismal fiscal outlook facing the nation, even as regional banks continue to fail because of the unsustainable burden caused by taking on U.S. treasuries — a problem that will only grow as the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projects the national debt will rise to $50.7 trillion by 2033.

Read More

Commentary: Biden’s Election ‘Big Lie’ Is of Little Interest to Mainstream Media

Democrats whine on and on about “The Big Lie.” In their minds, this phrase summarizes President Donald Trump’s argument that vote fraud, ballot irregularities, and ninth-inning rules changes sank his 2020 reelection bid.

However, Democrats are mum about the Big Lie that slimed Joe Biden into the White House.

Read More

Commentary: ‘Conservatism, Inc.’ Fiddles While the Republic Burns

While members of the conservative think tank elite, outfitted in black tie and ball gowns, sat celebrating themselves in a Washington, D.C., ballroom listening to Dierks Bentley and popping off fireworks over the Potomac, their opponents in Minnesota were pre-registering 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, enacting “motor voter” laws, and establishing pop-up polling locations wherever they expected a balloting hotspot might be (think drop boxes on steroids).

While the Left is actually working to achieve generational political power, elites on the Right seem satisfied to simply celebrate . . . what? The latest white paper? The sold-out conference on how the Left is beating them in the political arena? Another record fundraising year where 60 percent of the funds go to promote the institution rather than on-the-ground efforts to implement the ideas? It’s usually all of the above.

Read More

Commentary: The Experts Were the Crisis in 2020

The quote from Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a useful way to begin addressing the Washington Post editorial board’s confident assertion that “’A collective national incompetence in government’” was at the root of the U.S.’s alleged failure vis-à-vis the coronavirus in 2020. According to the Post quoting from a recently released report (“Lessons from the Covid War”), “The United States started out ‘with more capabilities than any other country in the world,’ but “it ended up with 1 million dead.” Were he still around, one guesses Tolstoy would mock the conceit of the Post’s editorialists.

Read More

Commentary: Another California Bank Fails After $100 Billion Run on Deposits and Rising Interest Rates Forces First Republic into FDIC Receivership

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation put the $229.1 billion California-based First Republic Bank into receivership today on May 1, while the FDIC also entered into a “purchase and assumption agreement” with JP Morgan-Chase Bank for the nation’s largest bank to assume First Republic’s assets as well as its $103.9 billion of deposits.

Another one bites the dust.

Read More

Commentary: Homesteading in Modern Day America

Six years ago my husband and I moved our family of 10 to a five-acre hobby farm and a new lifestyle. Prior to this, we’d been living in an 1,100-square-foot brick home built in the 1940s near the boundary of St. Louis. I loved that house. It had a breakfast nook and an enclosed sunporch we referred to as the “Three Season Room.” When we bought it, I was five months pregnant with our first child. Over the next 11 years, we had a total of eight children­—four of them in that very home as I was attended by a midwife. By the time our youngest kids, a set of identical twins, were born, it was clear we could no longer live in that house. We’d outgrown it.

Read More

Commentary: The Mexicanization of American Politics

We see it everywhere in American politics. One army general gave voice to the fear in a memorable simile, worrying that the country might collapse like “Mexico and the Central American countries” unless something was done to tamp down partisan passions and encourage unity. His comment went viral, and soon people across the country were talking about, and deploring, the possible “Mexicanization of American politics.” 

The governing question, as one distinguished historian put it, is whether “American politics [has] become permanently ‘Mexicanized’?” Another commentator, considering “the Mexicanization of institutions,” defined it as a toxic situation in which “all party contests have the character of civil war.” 

Read More

Commentary: Equity and the Race to the Bottom

Over the last few years, the rallying cry of “woke” activists has become “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (often abbreviated to DEI). There is little reason to object to such principles on the surface. After all, America was founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Unfortunately, the meaning of words can change over time.  

Rather than the Founders’ vision of equal opportunity for all, the use of the word “equity” today denotes equal outcomes for all. The implementation of this “equity agenda,” however well-intentioned, will lead to terrible consequences. 

Read More

Commentary: A.I. Can Never Become God

Artificial intelligence will not spontaneously erupt into a superintelligence. Not soon, not ever. To understand the absurdity of A.I. becoming a “god,” we need only look at the possibility from the perspective of the A.I. itself.

Let’s start with a reflection on how humans, under God’s guidance, became intelligent in the first place. Over the course of millions of years, ancestors of humans bred in conditions that shaped physical and mental characteristics leading, generally, to the propagation of traits that helped humans survive and reproduce. We must assume, therefore, any A.I. created by man immediately would manifest anthropomorphic qualities that have proven useful for our species. 

Read More

Commentary: Bill Lee Attacks the Second Amendment with a Red Flag Proposal

Governor Bill Lee called on the Tennessee Legislature to pass a Red Flag law – one that he proposed – before the 2023 Legislative session ended. The Legislators did not consider his proposal but instead they wrapped up business – they thought – and adjourned until January 2024. Governor Lee, apparently thinking of himself as perhaps the “master” of the Legislature, has now stated that he will call a special session to force the Legislature to take up his call for a Red Flag law.

Read More

Commentary: Outcome of Proud Boys Trial Could Decide Trump’s Fate

Of the hundreds of video clips used as evidence in the marathon trial of five members of the Proud Boys, prosecutors began closing arguments not with a clip of the defendants engaged in criminal activity but with a clip of Donald Trump.

The government showed the jury a portion of the September 2020 presidential debate; goaded by Joe Biden and then-Fox News host Chris Wallace to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups” in an effort to downplay Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence, Trump asked them to “give me a name.” Biden quickly answered, “the Proud Boys.”

Read More

Commentary: On Economy, Biden Re-Election Faces Challenges

As President Biden embarks on his reelection campaign, a majority of American voters are dissatisfied with his stewardship of the U.S. economy. Aware of the general angst among the electorate, Biden is threading the needle by saying he’s running on the strength of his overall record, while vowing to “finish the job” that he started when he stepped into the Oval Office. It’s a daunting task, with an overwhelming majority of registered voters expressing deep pessimism about the economy: 40.2% say the United States is currently in a recession, 17% call it a general state of stagnation, and 10.4% believe the country is in an outright depression.

Read More

Nearly 700 Professors Sign Letter in Opposition to Teaching About America’s Founding, Constitution

On Tuesday, an open letter was circulated that featured hundreds of North Carolina professors declaring their opposition to any requirement that students learn about the United States government and its founding documents.

As reported by Fox News, exactly 673 professors from the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill signed the letter as legislation works its way through the North Carolina legislature that would mandate the teaching of such courses. The professors claim that such a law would violate the school’s “academic freedom.”

Read More

Commentary: Dominion vs. ‘Russian Collusion’ and ‘Disinformation’

Fox News is reeling, both financially and with respect to its talent, after being drawn into a long lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. 

The network just settled for an astounding $757.5 million and soon after released Tucker Carlson, the network’s highest-rated host.

Read More

Commentary: Fox News’ Lean into ESG

After Tucker Carlson’s firing by Fox News, do high ratings even matter anymore?

That might be a good question one might ask from Fox News’ termination of Carlson, the station’s most highly rated host, who was easily winning cable news’ battle for the 8pm slot for years, with an average 3.25 million viewers a night for the past four months.

Read More

Commentary: A Grand Alliance to Overcome the Elite Betrayal of America

For the first time in history, the ruling class of a powerful nation has abandoned its fellow citizens. What is happening in America today is more than a return to feudalism, although the new economic model into which we’re being herded is correctly compared to feudalism. The reality is actually much worse: America’s elites view ordinary citizens as no longer necessary. Because of globalism, they are replaceable. Because of automation, they are superfluous. Because of environmentalism, they are unsustainable.

Read More

Commentary: Academia’s Woke Groomers

Exposing woke academia is both infuriating and amusing. Stanley K. Ridgley, a professor of management at Drexel University, has a knack for unearthing the horror of leftist, racialist, feminist, transgenderist grooming of immature minds on university campuses, and for caricaturing the groomers. His sarcasm will leave you rocking with laughter just after you’ve gasped with horror. 

Read More

Commentary: Biden’s Open Borders Are Bringing Diseases to Your Neighborhood

by Betsy McCaughey   Ready for another pandemic? New York City’s health commissioner announced last week that the influx of migrants from the southern border — more than 50,000 to New York City alone in the past year — is delivering contagious diseases, including tuberculosis and polio, to our neighborhoods.…

Read More

Commentary: Insane Deficit Spending Is Immoral

In Armageddon, Bruce Willis blows himself up on an asteroid to save his daughter and all of humanity. (Sorry for the spoiler, but the movie is 25 years old.) That theme—parents providing for, and sacrificing for, their children—is the deeply moral and moving story that Americans used to love. 

I say “used to,” because something troubling has happened. We now accept that young people should be worse off for a lifetime in order to benefit those who have already lived full, comfortable lives. We saw this during COVID-19, when an elderly leadership class locked children out of classrooms, playgrounds, friendships, and sports, and wiped out jobs, training, and mentorship for young workers.

Read More

Commentary: The ‘Limit, Save, Grow’ Plan’s Discretionary Spending Caps that Save More than $3 Trillion Might Not Be Enough

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the House Republican majority have unveiled their spending plan for the next decade, the Limit, Save, Grow Act, that will be tied to a $1.5 trillion increase in the $31.4 trillion national debt ceiling, the centerpiece of which imposes discretionary budget caps beginning in 2024, but which will be set at 2022 levels, which could save more than $3.2 trillion over the next decade, according to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

While an official score still has not come in from the Congressional Budget Office, the proposal stands out as a promise kept on McCarthy’s part to use the must-pass debt ceiling to restore some semblance of fiscal sanity to the out-of-control federal budget and national debt, the latter of which the White House Office of Management and Budget projects will rise to a gargantuan $50.7 trillion by 2033.

Read More

Commentary: America Doesn’t Have a Free Press

Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk kicked the hornet’s nest when he labeled National Public Radio “state affiliated media.” The howls of protest were amusing, and telling. While they like to pretend otherwise, the mass media in the United States operate much like the state-run media of autocratic regimes. 

And it isn’t just NPR. The New York Times and CNN are preoccupied with the generation of propaganda, narrative making, the enforcement of dogmas (“woke” agendas on race, climate, sex, etc.), and the censorship of dissenters. 

Read More

Commentary: Will the Sketchy Donor Scheme Uncovered by O’Keefe be Allowed to Stand?

The Federal Election Commission owes Americans an explanation.

In late March, muckraking journalist James O’Keefe of O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) knocked on the doors of a few older and unemployed Americans, to ask them about their campaign donations, which were nothing less than extraordinary: Some were donating thousands of times, adding up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Read More

Commentary: Let Parents Opt-Out of Low-Performing Schools

Single mom Shinara Morrison discovered homeschooling by accident. When public schools closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, she found herself taking the lead on her child’s education to fill the gap.

Morrison never withdrew her son, who was 7, from the public school system. But she supplemented his online instruction with custom coursework that blended academics and life skills. Morrison had no formal training as an educator, but she had special insight as a mother.

“I had a little cheat sheet in my head,” she says. “I knew his learning style.”

Read More

Commentary: Saint John Paul II’s Enduring Legacy

In recent weeks, slanderous allegations have been made against Saint John Paul II.

On Divine Mercy Sunday, a day established by John Paul II, Pope Francis defended his predecessor saying, “Certain of interpreting the feelings of the faithful throughout the world, I direct a grateful thought to the memory of Saint John Paul II, the object of offensive and unfounded inferences these past few days.”

Read More

Commentary: Feds Still Fighting Release of January 6 Tapes Despite Mounting Legal Pressure

Matthew Graves just received a court summons.

As the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Graves is rarely on the receiving end of a legal inquiry. In fact, Graves’ hand must be tired from signing thousands of criminal indictments, sentencing memos, and plea offers related to his ongoing investigation into the events of January 6, 2021. Just this week, the FBI arrested two more individuals on minor offenses, giving Graves’ overstaffed office more fresh meat for the Justice Department’s vengeful retaliation against Americans who protested the certification of Joe Biden’s election that day.

Read More

Commentary: The Financial Costs of Biden’s Illegal Immigrants on American Cities

In New York City, if the newcomers aren’t put up at the luxury cruise terminal that served the QE2, they could get $700-a-night midtown hotel accommodations with iconic Manhattan views. In Chicago, they found themselves whisked to suburban lodgings. In Denver, officials refer to them discreetly as “guests” and you needn’t bother inquiring about their inns or addresses.  

Read More