In celebration of New York’s new gun control law taking effect on September 1, Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul claimed: “This whole concept that a good guy with a gun will stop the bad guys with a gun, it doesn’t hold up. And the data bears this out, so that theory is over.”
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Commentary: Tragedy Strikes and Opportunists Circle America
There are few words available to describe the shock and loathing in the wake of the murder of innocent children. The tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas crystallizes these feelings as people seek to grapple with what went so wrong with an eighteen-year-old that he would choose to murder children, an adult in the school as well as shot his own grandmother before traveling to the school.
Read MoreCommentary: The State and Local Leaders Who Aren’t Ready to Give Up Pandemic Power
While many government leaders sound the all clear message on COVID-19, dropping vaccine restrictions and mask mandates, some states and municipalities are clinging to the emergency powers that allowed them to govern people’s behavior in unprecedented ways.
Citing the need to direct emergency funding and oversee hospitals, they have held on to their emergency orders even as many restaurants, shopping centers, and sports arenas are once again packed and lingering pandemic concerns have faded into the background of a more normal life.
Emergency orders at the state level are usually issued in response to temporary threats, especially weather disasters, and are wrapped up in a few days or weeks. Soon after the new coronavirus exploded in March 2020, most governors issued broad executive orders. Under these powers, governors banned crowds, closed businesses, and imposed mask and vaccination mandates. They have also deferred to unelected public health officials in imposing restrictions.
Read MoreCommentary: Natural Law Liberalism—An Ideology for the Republican Party
Do you ever wonder why Democratic politicians frequently resort to name calling when challenging Republicans? Why do the so-called mainstream media always seem to have the same anti-Republican talking points? Why are Republican judges consistently portrayed as evil? Why do progressive commentators and democratic policy makers always seem to “talk down” to their conservative opponents?
Alternatively, does it seem odd that most Republican politicians and conservative speakers often try to portray their arguments as policy disagreements and their opponents as “good people” with “differing views”? Republicans and most mainstream conservative pundits generally answer policy questions directly. They try to show respect and yield to opposing points when they make sense. Republicans in general just want to argue for practical solutions to problems.
The reason for this is simple: the Democratic Party over time has embraced an all-encompassing ideology that governs the way their politics and quest for power are shaped. All Democratic politicians and their pundits embrace at least some key aspects of this ideology. This fact is not readily apparent to everyone because Americans are not inclined to over-intellectualize politics. Most Americans view government and politics as a means of enacting the best common-sense policies to govern their daily lives. Each issue is viewed on its merits and Americans often split policy allegiance between Republican and Democratic ideas. Republican politicians subscribe to this concept as well, frequently supporting individual Democratic policies or at least trying for a compromise if the Democratic policies appear to have some stand-alone merit. Unfortunately, this is increasingly a losing proposition because they are fighting against a unified ideology bent on reshaping our constitution and imposing a totalitarian worldview. Democrats and the Left believe that the future is the collective and the collective is guided by an intellectual ruling class.
Read MoreBlinken Replaces ‘Controversial’ Pro-Hong Kong Tweet with Milder Statement
Secretary of State Antony Blinken took down a tweet he posted Thursday saying the U.S. would “stand with the people of Hong Kong,” the South China Morning Post reported.
“Beijing should let the voices of all Hong Kongers be heard. The PRC’s disqualification of district councillors only weakens Hong Kong’s long-term political and social stability,” Blinken said in the tweet, as shown in screenshots from the South China Morning Post.
“We stand with the people of Hong Kong & continue to support their human rights & fundamental freedoms,” he added. Blinken took down his tweet on Friday, later replacing it with a milder message, South China Morning Post reported.
Read MoreCommentary: The Tyranny of Experts
The principles and policies of America’s original progressives have received renewed attention over the last decade, both in academia and in public discourse. Today’s progressive politicians and intellectuals have pointed to their roots in the original progressive movement; moreover, the connections between the original progressive calls for reform and the language and shape of our politics today have become increasingly obvious. In what follows, the relevance of original progressivism to government today will be more fully explored. There is no better place to begin than with our administrative state. This essay deals with the general principles of the administrative state and its roots in the original progressive movement.
The term “administrative state” has come to have a variety of meanings, but at its core it points to the situation in contemporary American government, created largely although not entirely by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, whereby a large, unelected bureaucracy is empowered with significant governing authority. The fundamental question for many of those making reference to an “administrative state” is how it can be squared with government by consent and with the constitutional separation-of-powers system.
Read MoreJudicial Watch Continues Lawsuit as Chicago Mayor Says She Would ‘Absolutely’ Deny Interviews with White Reporters Again
Judicial Watch announced Tuesday that it has amended its lawsuit against Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who claims to be “unapologetic” about her previous policy to only grant interviews to journalists of color.
Lightfoot told the New York Times in a podcast released Monday that she “would absolutely” implement the interview policy again. “I’m unapologetic about it because it spurred a very important conversation, a conversation that needed to happen, that should have happened a long time ago,” Lightfoot said.
Judicial Watch, which sued Lightfoot on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation and its reporter Thomas Catenacci, said the mayor’s office has ignored calls to sign an agreement to not use race-based criteria for interview requests for the remainder of her term.
Read MoreLeft-Wing Politicians Push Claim That Chauvin Sentence Is Not ‘True Justice’
A slew of left-wing politicians and activists continue to push the rhetoric that Derek Chauvin’s sentence does not show justice, but only “accountability.”
Chauvin was sentenced to 22½ years in prison for the murder of George Floyd. In April, a jury found him guilty on all charges, which included second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.
Following his sentencing Friday, Rep. Ilhan Omar released a statement implying that the U.S. justice system does not promote “true justice.”
Read MoreCatholic Bishops Pass Measure to Draft Statement Prohibiting Some Politicians from Receiving Communion
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) overwhelmingly approved a measure to draft a statement laying out whether politicians who counter church teaching may be denied Communion during Mass.
Nearly 170 out of the 229 total U.S. bishops, or roughly 75% of the conference, voted in favor of the measure on Friday, according to The Pillar reporter J.D. Flynn. The vote, which only needed two-thirds of the bishops to vote in favor to pass, suggested that a broad range of bishops across the ideological spectrum supported drafting a statement.
Read MoreCommentary: White Liberal Control Freaks Are a Menace to Liberty
The greatest threat America faces isn’t “white supremacy” or any foreign power, but America’s own ruling class. China understands very well that Americans have less to fear from Chinese armies than they do from their own Stasi-like informants with “In This House, We Believe . . . ” signs on their front lawns.
The Chinese have a word for this demographic: baizuo, which literally means “white left.” It’s a political pejorative referring to narcissistic white American liberals.
In a time of vaccine passports, “disinformation,” and make-believe insurrections, the anti-social, authoritarian tendencies of this lot have never been a clearer menace to America and its tradition of civil liberty.
Read MoreCommentary: Stop Calling It a ‘Labor Shortage.’ It’s an Incentive Shortage
It’s no secret that US businesses are struggling to find workers. Recent surveys have shown that small businesses are reporting record job openings.
Many have described the phenomenon as a labor shortage.
“Walk outside: labor shortage is the pervasive phenomenon,” economist Lawrence Summers recently observed at a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Read More‘Meet the Press’ Anchor Chuck Todd Was Senator Klobuchar’s Landlord, Never Disclosed Relationship
Sen. Amy Klobuchar rented a Virginia home from NBC host Chuck Todd, who never disclosed the relationship during his many interviews with the Minnesota politician.
That’s according to a Thursday report from Breitbart editor Alex Marlow, who discusses the relationship in his new book, “Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruptions.”
Marlow states that Klobuchar and her husband, attorney John Bessler, began renting an Arlington, Va., home from Todd in 2008, shortly into her first term as a U.S. senator. Monthly rent for the three-bedroom house was $3,200, earning Todd $38,400 annually.
Read MoreTrump Antagonist Opposes Arizona Election Audit as Justice Department Official
A foe of former President Donald Trump is leading the Biden Justice Department’s push to discredit or halt an election audit in Arizona’s largest county—an issue that is heating up this week.
Pamela S. Karlan, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, warned the leader of the Arizona state Senate that the audit of Maricopa County’s election results in November could run afoul of federal law regarding security of voter information and voter intimidation.
President Joe Biden, who appointed Karlan, narrowly defeated Trump in Arizona, where Maricopa County was a crucial battleground.
Read MorePoliticians Who Want to Defund the Police Hire Bodyguards to Visit Minneapolis
Politicians who want to defund the police won’t step foot in Minneapolis without their own personal security details.
U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Maxine Waters are both progressives who vocally support measures to defund the police. However, both of them used private security or an actual police escort when visiting Minnesota, the center of the defund movement.
Omar spent $3,103 on security in her home state in the first financial quarter of 2021, which spans from the beginning of the year through March, per Federal Election Commission records. One of the companies she hired, Aegis Logistics, provides armed and unarmed bodyguards. The other, Lloyd Security Services, provides video surveillance and intrusion detection — a vital service in a city that has experienced about 6,000 cases of theft so far this year after huge cuts to the the law enforcement budget.
Read MoreCommentary: Why Do So Few Clergy Serve in Congress?
While campaigning for Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, U.S. Rep. Doug Collins – a former pastor – attacked her opponent, Democrat Reverend Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, for his views on abortion rights.
“There is no such thing as a pro-choice pastor,” Collins said of Warnock. “What you have is a lie from the bed of hell.”
Read MoreCommentary: Why Politicians Are Incentivized to Embrace COVID-19 Restrictions—Even If They Don’t Work
Over the weekend Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, took to Twitter to criticize Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker for not taking more assertive government action to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“Massachusetts has more new COVID cases per capita than Georgia, Florida, or Texas,” observed Jha, who also serves as the Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “Our hospitalizations, deaths are up 100% in [the] last 3 weeks. But our casinos and tanning salons are still open.”
Read MoreCommentary: Modest and Benevolent Leaders or Maniacs Drunk on Power?
It is not surprising that the political class tried to cancel Thanksgiving and wants to jettison Christmas this year. Americans have been made to live with all kinds of impositions in 2020, putatively for our protection, with no sign they’re going away anytime soon. Instead, the rules have increased relentlessly in number and severity.
Read MoreCommentary: The Dirty Game of Influence Peddling
Back in the early months of 2016, I was invited to an Ivy League school by one of the world’s most honored scholars of Dante, to give a lecture commemorating the 750th anniversary of the poet’s birth. The lecture was that year’s entry in a series financed by one of the professor’s friends, a former student and a high-stakes industrialist. He was also the big financier of Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign, and one of his closest advisers.
Read MoreCommentary: The Unelected Tyrants Who Burned Down the Golden State
If this seems like an unfair title, it isn’t, though some of these tyrants were appointed by elected politicians. And all of these tyrants rely on laws that were passed by elected politicians. But while there is plenty of blame to go around, tyranny is what Californians have endured. A tyrannical system is entirely to blame for apocalyptic fires that are wiping out California’s forests, fouling the air, and killing everything in their path.
So who are these unelected tyrants?
Read MoreCommentary: ‘Do Something’ Is a Dangerous Demand to Make of Politicians
Do Something, goes the suddenly popular chant. In response to the wave of mass killings this year, it’s being shouted at any available political figure. Be careful what you ask for.
Read MoreCommentary: Today’s Politicians Shouldn’t Try to Compete for Every Possible Vote
Should a politician compete for every vote? It depends on who you ask… and who the voter is.
Read MoreObama Says Politicians Lying is Something We Have Not Seen Before. Here Are Three of His Biggest Whoppers
by Tim Pearce Former President Barack Obama lamented the state of political rhetoric in the U.S. at a rally in Wisconsin on Friday, saying politicians are “just blatantly, repeatedly, baldly, shamelessly lying.” Obama traveled to Wisconsin to campaign for Democratic candidates including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers…
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