Townhall Review | Commentaries

After fumbling for two weeks on the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v Wade, Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have settled on their midterm message. That message is that they want women to turn out in droves to support their position that the federal government should make abortion accessible at all stages of pregnancy.

President Biden said as much: “I don’t think the Court, or for that matter, have a clue about the power of American women. But they’re about to find out,” he said.

According to a survey conducted by Harvard and Harris Polling after the Dobbs decision, Biden and Democrats don’t have a clue about women or abortion. Far from supporting their extremist position, 75 percent of all women oppose abortions after 15 weeks, and so do 60 percent of Democrats. In fact, not a single voting demographic supports the Biden-Schumer-Pelosi proposal that would end all restrictions on abortion.

When it comes to understanding women and abortion, it’s Biden who needs a clue.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Food & Drug Administration wants to ban e-cigarette Juul and menthol-flavored cigarettes.

But they’re strangely unconcerned about pot. Joe Biden has called for decriminalizing recreational marijuana use and allowing states to legalize recreational marijuana use. And this is even though studies now reveal that marijuana can lead to permanent IQ loss of as much as 8 points, negatively affect male fertility, and cause many of the same lung problems as smoking cigarettes. Marijuana has also been linked to depression, anxiety, and—notably—psychosis.

The Biden administration seems similarly indifferent to the fentanyl flowing over our southern border—which killed more than 71,000 Americans last year.

Treating Juuls and menthol-flavored cigarettes like dangerous substances—while ignoring potent marijuana and the scourge of fentanyl—is a prime example of fiddling while Rome burns.

The Biden administration should be ashamed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We have entered new terrain. The Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade is a watershed moment for the pro-life movement—and the nation.

 

Finally, the Court has admitted that it got it wrong 50 years ago. Finally, the Court has admitted that there is nothing in our Constitution that protects a right to kill unborn babies in the womb.

Finally, we as citizens of a self-governing republic have the freedom to pass laws protecting unborn babies and their mothers from the violence of abortion.

And that means we need to be ready to persuade our neighbors and win converts to the pro-life cause.

To equip you to make the case for life, Alexandra DeSanctis and I have authored a just-released book, “Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.”

It’s a one-stop resource for all you need to know to respond to the lies coming from the Left. Pick up a copy today to be ready to bear witness to the truth.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last week, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had to leave Morton’s Steak House through a back door, after protestors assembled outside and called the manager, telling him to kick Kavanaugh out.

The White House apparently has no problem with these tactics. Asked about the restaurant protest, the president’s spokeswoman insisted, “That’s what democracy is.”

Except, of course, that it’s not. There’s a law against intimidating federal judges. And any rational person understands the distinction between protesting a ruling at a federal building and stalking a person at dinner with his family.

No democracy—or democratic republic—can long survive without a healthy civil society. And that, in turn, depends on a citizenry mature enough to acknowledge the boundaries between private and public life. 

Without those boundaries, a common life marked by mutual respect becomes impossible, and our country will become ever-more-deeply fractured.    

It’s a lesson the left needs to learn.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. assigned himself the opinion in the recently decided West Virginia v. EPA, the Chief knew he'd be writing one for the ages.

That's because his opinion and the five other votes behind it will hem in the inexorable growth of the federal bureaucracy for at least a decade or two.

The West Virginia decision defines a hugely significant Supreme Court term. Most eyes were on the cases involving abortion, guns and religion, which is understandable in these fiercely divided times. But Roberts kept for himself the opinion that would cabin the powers of the executive branch and force Congress to do its job instead of leaving the big decisions up to unnamed and unelected individuals in federal agencies who don't even have direction to do so from Congress.

A cage has finally been placed around the feral federal bureaucracy. Roberts's opinion will be recognized as a milestone in constitutional history, one saying to every agency: You may only go and regulate where Congress and the president have sent you.

It was quite the term.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the 2022 election cycle continues, Republicans in a few battleground states are looking at a polling gap as we enter this Fall’s general.

Take, for example, my own home state of Pennsylvania, where the polling does not look good for the GOP in our gubernatorial contest.

All is not lost. The GOP has all the momentum—and polls have tended to under-estimate the chances of populist candidates. 

But it is an uphill battle for some. As primary season continues: Let’s remember that the goal is to put our people in office.

The late William F. Buckley created the rule of thumb: We should support “the rightward-most viable candidate.”

That is: Nominate the most conservative candidate who can win in the general.

So: The winning strategy in politics is to rally behind and vote for candidates that are able to win both a primary and a general election.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two recent cases at the Supreme Court have sparked the left’s particular rage. One is the Dobbs case, overturning Roe v. Wade. The other is a case restricting the EPA’s power to regulate carbon emissions. 

There, the Court held that whenever an agency regulates in an important new area, its regulations are invalid without specific Congressional authorization.

Part of the left’s anger stems from fear. They realize the era is over when they could use unelected officials — in the judiciary or the bureaucracy — to enact unpopular policies by fiat. Now, they’ll have to convince their fellow citizens that their preferred policies are the right ones, rather than simply capturing Washington elites.

But what’s bad news for the left is good for the rest of us. It’s the way a free people rule themselves — without having to knuckle under to the diktats of the unelected and unaccountable.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Dobbs decision, reversing Roe v. Wade, has been met with hysteria by the left. We’re a long way from the days when even the left viewed abortion as a “necessary evil” that should remain safe, legal, and rare.

Most misleading is the claim that the Supreme Court has outlawed abortion. It has not. In fact, compared to the Roe decision, the Dobbs holding is quite moderate. The Roberts Court could have been as radical with Dobbs as the Burger Court was with Roe. It could have simply held that every pregnant woman is carrying a baby, and then declared abortion unconstitutional under the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause.

Instead, the Court upheld its proper role in our constitutional structure—interpreting the law, not making it. Each state’s voters will be able to decide for themselves… as free people should.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Democrats’ midterm prospects continue to grow grimmer with every approval rating of Joe Biden. Voters remain focused on inflation, especially at the gas pump, and shortages at the grocery store more than any other issue. That applies especially to abortion, although Democrats have yet to realize it.

Leaders of the party assumed that overturning Roe would result in a massive voter revolt. According to NBC News, Biden and his team believe that it will rescue them in the upcoming midterms. However, despite the leak of the Dobbs decision in May, the issue of abortion has not impacted any primaries over the last two months. Why? Even after the Supreme Court made the Roe revocation official, the abortion issue has remained a low priority to voters – as low as five percent in this week’s poll from Monmouth.

Biden and Democratic leadership are trapped in the closed mindedness they like to accuse their opponents of. They have grown deaf to the real concerns of American households. 

Their midterm roar may be the only way to restore a bit of hearing. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Congressional Budget Office just released its new budget and economic outlooks. I regret to inform you: There’s not really much good news in it. The government is expected to borrow another 14 trillion in the next ten years and that’s 2 1/2 trillion higher than their last estimate. 

The deficit is expected to rise as well. 

The main reason, the American Rescue Act of 2021 which didn’t rescue much of anything except big government and its wall street enablers. While debt is expected to gallop, economic growth is expected to stumble along at less than 2 percent per year. 

Why? 

Not enough people. From here on, working age population will be shrinking as boomers go from paying into social security and Medicare to getting paid by them. 
 
It won’t be easy to make things better, but it will be all too easy to make things worse: Just keep doing what we're doing now and we will reach a point of no return. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.