Townhall Review | Commentaries

As you celebrate this Fourth of July weekend, I hope you get time to slow down and relax—enjoy the day with friends, family and the loved ones in your world.

As you do, remember that even these things are the fruits of freedom, the benefits of a stable government and a civilizational order. 

Many have been concerned about the health of our nation in recent days. One sign of encouragement came with the closing of this Supreme Court term. The court extracted itself from the mess of Roe and Casey, affirmed the First and Second Amendments, dealt a significant blow to the administrative state in the EPA decision … and I could go on.

On this weekend of the 4th, let us thank the pro-life workers who labored some 50 years for this day. And: Let us thank the men and women who have taken the uniform to defend us.

America is still as my old friend Bill Bennett has said—“The Last Best Hope.”

On behalf of Salem Media Group have a great 4th of July!

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The Supreme Court scored a major victory for both common sense and tolerance when it comes to private prayer in public places. Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that a high-school football coach’s prayer on the field after a game did not amount to an endorsement of religion by the school district, reversing his termination and lower-court rulings. 

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance,” Gorsuch wrote in Kennedy v Bremerton, “not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.” 

A simple and voluntary prayer of thanksgiving after the end of a school event neither harms nor compels anyone. Firing people over such a prayer harms and intimidates many. It shouldn’t take the Supreme Court to get schools and courts to recognize common sense, but thankfully, this time Gorsuch and a majority delivered a common-sense outcome that religious and non-religious Americans can live with. 

That is true tolerance.

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I am sure each of you have seen and heard and read lots of coverage of the recently-released Dobbs decision on abortion that came from the Supreme Court—where the court held, and I quote: “Roe and Casey are overruled…”

I would like to take just a moment to thank the real heroes and heroines of the pro-life movement, the ones to whom we are greatly indebted today:

They licked envelopes and they did mailings, they carried signs and they walked sidewalks. They have volunteered at crisis pregnancy centers, and they have put their hearts and lives on the line to counsel women who have been approaching an abortion clinic.

They have gone into court, making the arguments when it didn’t appear there was any likelihood that conservative pro-life constitutional arguments were going to gain traction much less win the day.

We thank you, from our hearts.

And: We offer a posthumous “thank you” to those who labored in these trenches and on the sidewalks and did not live to see this day.

There is certainly much work to be done. But today: one thing we owe is a sincere “thank you.”

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The Supreme Court scored a major victory for both common sense and tolerance when it comes to private prayer in public places. Writing for a 6-3 majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that a high-school football coach’s prayer on the field after a game did not amount to an endorsement of religion by the school district, reversing his termination and lower-court rulings.

“The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance,” Gorsuch wrote in Kennedy v Bremerton, “not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.”

A simple and voluntary prayer of thanksgiving after the end of a school event neither harms nor compels anyone. Firing people over such a prayer harms and intimidates many. It shouldn’t take the Supreme Court to get schools and courts to recognize common sense, but thankfully, this time Gorsuch and a majority delivered a common-sense outcome that religious and non-religious Americans can live with.

That is true tolerance.

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The Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey is the culmination of decades of public advocacy, of unheralded acts of love and mercy, and of unrelenting prayers for justice for the unborn and their mothers. 
 
It will be remembered and celebrated as one of the most important days in the history of this country—a day when we began to right the wrongs inflicted by the Court in Roe a half-century ago.

The past half-century of abortion on demand has been a disaster. It has torn the bodies of unborn babies apart, and it has torn apart the body politic. It has made nothing better. It has harmed everything it touched.

Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our work of building a culture of life that protects babies, supports mothers, and strengthens families for the long haul.

Let’s begin the work together.

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For nearly 50 years, we've been saying that Roe must go, and that day has finally come. The Supreme Court's ruling sends the issue of abortion back to the states. Some of you live in pro-life friendly areas, and others live where the right to abortion on demand is still the law of the land. We need to continue our work to serve and help moms and help save as many babies as possible, and we need to continue working to change hearts and minds and get to a day where abortion becomes unthinkable.

But for now, let's give thanks for all those who made this day possible, and pray for peace. It makes no sense for people who claim to want to help women to terrorize and vandalize the very places like pregnancy resource centers that are put in place to help those women, but that's the illogic and lunacy of radical abortion activists. So, we pray, and we also give thanks for this consequential win for life. 

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The Supreme Court has just handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Its significance cannot be overstated. It marks the culmination of a five-decade long project by pro-lifers to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion up to the point of an unborn baby’s viability outside the womb.

For almost half a century, abortion has poisoned our politics because the issue was resolved through judicial fiat.  Now, abortion policy will return to the states—the place it belongs. It will be back in the hands of the people’s representatives. Every American can make his or her voice heard on this most important of moral issues, and each state legislature will have the vigorous debate that was short-circuited by Roe v. Wade.

Most Americans prefer laws far friendlier to life than the radical regime Roe v. Wade enabled. As a result of the Dobbs decision, now their policy preferences will be honored … as befits a free people.

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In a long-awaited 2nd Amendment ruling, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that states cannot deny citizens the right to bear arms in public based on arbitrary decisions by bureaucrats on whether they have a need to do so. Clarence Thomas and the five other justices made very clear that states can regulate firearms, but only on a rational and consistent basis and without broadly infringing on this enumerated right.

The media, of course, responded hysterically to the decision in Bruen. CNN’s chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was perhaps the most egregious as he claimed that the ruling showed that the court wanted to demolish all regulations.
 
Expect more of these hysterical reactions about this supposedly radical court.
 
This decision will reverberate through the nation. 

Justice Thomas made it clear: the plain reading of the Second Amendment shows that American citizens have the right to “bear arms” as well as to keep them. 
 
It was a victory for the Second Amendment and for the Constitution.

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In a recent speech to the AFL-CIO union, President Biden said:

“I don’t want to hear any more of these lies about reckless spending, we're changing people's lives. And because of the fact this year, we're delivering the biggest drop in deficit in the history of the United States of America.”

Well, he is changing people’s lives. Families having to decide whether to fill their bellies or their gas tanks. That’s a changed life. And new couples looking for a starter house and finding nothing affordable. That's also a big change.

Of course, one thing that isn't changing is the penchant of politicians to speak falsehoods. Contrary to the President’s claim, we have not had the biggest drop in the deficit in American history. Far from it.

The Congressional Budget Office just revised its deficit forecast upwards by almost $2.5 trillion dollars. What is the main cause? In plain English, it’s reckless spending.

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As an anxious nation awaits the Supreme Court’s holding in a case widely expected to overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion zealots have run amok. There have been dozens of attacks on churches and crisis pregnancy centers. Protestors have disrupted church services, and an abortion supporter actually attempted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Yet media coverage has been minimal. President Biden has declined to condemn any of these events. And worst of all, the Justice Department has dragged its feet in investigating the attacks against crisis pregnancy centers – even though, last September,  the Biden DOJ charged nine people simply for blocking the entrance to a Washington DC abortion provider.

There’s a reason Lady Justice wears a blindfold and the phrase “Equal justice under law” is engraved on the Supreme Court building. If leaders selectively enforce the law to conform to their political preferences, they undermine the rule of law that’s a hallmark of every free society.

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