In George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece “1984,” Big Brother manipulated the masses through the Ministry of Truth. Joe Biden and Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas propose a real-life version in its new “Disinformation Governance Board,” an unintentionally ironic name. The new board’s mission will focus not just on foreign sources of disinformation—a task more suited to intelligence services—but also on issues related to Joe Biden’s border crisis.

It's not hard to see where this effort will lead. It became even more clear when Mayorkas appointed Nina Jankowicz as its new executive director. Her experience at governing disinformation includes her public insistence that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “a Russian influence op” and “fairy tale.” She was simply wrong.

Even aside from Jankowicz’ partisan track record of misinformation, the federal government has no business interfering in the free and fair exchange of ideas in a free republic. Congress must put an end to Biden’s new Orwellian speech police. 

Remember, after all, the First Amendment.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Biden appointee to the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to impose a rule that would force companies to publish expensive and complicated reports confessing their sins when it comes to fossil fuel usage. 

This proposal is an accelerant for Environmental Social and Governance—ESG—a fad which is being used to politicize corporate management decisions. Activist investors have been trying to compel companies to disclose alleged climate risks for years, but most shareholders don’t agree and so the proposals lose when placed on the ballot. 

Having failed to get investors to push companies into adopting these complex, politicized, lawsuit magnets, now the government is trying to give shareholders something they don’t want, allegedly for their own good. 
 
This will be a huge subsidy to environmentalist consulting and law firms. It will add costs and be used to embarrass companies which don’t toe the line. ESG is a social-credit system applied to companies. This proposal gives that social credit system more teeth. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s official: Elon Musk will buy Twitter for roughly 44 billion dollars—or $54 per share. Shareholders will reap a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price earlier this month, before Musk disclosed he was its biggest shareholder.

Twitter has been the digital forum for our culture’s most influential voices. But—in recent years—conservative voices have been unfairly prevented from competing in this marketplace of ideas.

In a statement, Musk—who’s previously criticized Twitter’s alleged censorship of right-leaning users—hailed free speech as, “the bedrock of a functioning democracy.”

Observers across the political spectrum are waiting to see whether Musk can successfully battle the establishment. Under the guise of confronting “disinformation,” everyone from President Obama to Twitter employees are highly invested in censoring voices that stray from the dominant media narrative.

There’s an easy gauge to measure Musk’s success. If the number of Twitter users increases, it’s likely to be because conservative voices have now been welcomed back to the platform. We wish him well.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Courage,” C.S. Lewis wrote, “is the form of every virtue at the testing point.” We rarely see real world demonstrations of this truth, but the emergence of Volodymyr Zelensky as an inspirational wartime leader reminds us of ancient truths about the value of courage. It also reminds us how far we go astray from cardinal virtues when we live in soft times.

In the absence of crisis, Lewis also noted, we lose sight of the value of truth and virtue. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens contrasted Zelensky’s heroism with the unserious nature of Western leadership, especially in the US. The point’s well taken. In the absence of existential crisis, we’ve lost our way—manufacturing crises in attempts to redefine truth, virtue and value. 

If we want to ensure that we produce leaders with the courage and virtue of Zelensky, we need to reorient ourselves to the cardinal virtues and the promotion of truth. We need to return to those classical values before we too face an existential crisis. 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inflation is bad enough on its own, but some forms of inflation are more frightening and more destabilizing than others. 

Near the top of the list is food inflation. Sadly, when the Fed grades itself it tends to focus on something called “core inflation,” which leaves out food and energy. But instead of downplaying food and energy inflation our monetary masters should give more focus to them. 

They have a huge impact on our lives. High energy prices destabilize the world, as we see in the Russia/Ukraine war. And high food inflation tears the social fabric. When food prices rise, poor and even middle-class people start missing meals. 

Often government scapegoats “greedy” businesses and imposes price controls, which leads to shortages.

That way lies madness. 

One thing and only one thing has ever worked to whip inflation, and that is sound money. But the longer we wait, the harder it will be to wean ourselves off our addiction to easy money. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the last six years, those on the left have insisted there’s no greater imperative than “protecting our democracy.” If they really believe that, they’ve got a strange way of showing it.

Take the Biden White House’s response to two new Alabama laws. One requires boys and girls to use bathrooms appropriate for their biological sex. The other prohibits doctors from performing sex-reassignment surgery on minors. The bills passed the state legislature with 4 to 1 support in the state Senate, and 2 to 1 support in the House.

Democracy—the people speaking through their lawmakers—doesn’t resonate more clearly than that. But the Biden White House didn’t applaud the operation of “our democracy;” it threatened litigation. It may try to overturn the laws in the courts.

That’s not democracy. And it makes you wonder.  When the left talks about “protecting democracy,” are they actually just insisting that they always have the right to get their way?

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The issue of parental rights over education in public schools might seem like something new, but we’re actually looking at a very long argument and a very long struggle. 

Jill Lepore of Harvard University has written an interesting piece for The New Yorker. She notes a parallel between the current struggle for parental rights over critical theory and gender theory, with the issue of evolution in the school system from the early 20th century.

During that struggle, just go back to a year like 1909, the progressive educator Ellwood Cubberley said, “Each year, the child is coming to belong more and more to the state and less and less to the parent.”

Those honest words were spoken over a century ago. 

Simply put: The way cultural elites gain control of children is through the public schools.

As we look to these current issues, we need to recognize that the cultural elites are at it again. They’re always at it.

Parents must wake up and act or they will find their children lost to the state, once again.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There’s nothing worse than gangster government – politicians weaponize their office to attack an opponent. The Biden administration already did it when the Justice Department threatened to sic the FBI on parents protesting school policies on covid and CRT.

Now they’re at it again. Elon Musk has threatened the elite’s stranglehold on Twitter by trying to buy the publicly-held company and restore free speech to it. Fox Business reports the Biden DOJ and SEC have launched a joint investigation into regulatory issues involving—not Twitter—but Tesla.

Just the process of defending against government actions is punishment in itself—and no one knows that better than government lawyers. Sometimes gangster government isn’t just about retribution against a billionaire—it’s to deter anyone else from following in his footsteps.

If Musk engaged in real wrongdoing, of course he must be held accountable. But without convincing proof, the Biden administration looks all-too-willing to abuse the system just to punish a political opponent.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Forget the red wave in the midterms. If two new polls are correct, Democrats had better prepare for an electoral tsunami the likes of which have not been seen in at least a dozen years. 

Joe Biden’s collapse over the last several months—coupled with record numbers on inflation—have done significant damage to his own standing. His job approval ratings now hover around 40 percent, but Biden does worse when voters rate his performance on the issues. A CBS poll finds that sixty percent or more disapprove of Biden’s performance on four of five issues that matter most to midterm voters: the overall economy, inflation, crime, and immigration. 

That has consequences beyond policy. A new ABC poll shows that 55 percent of GOP voters describe themselves as “very enthusiastic” about voting in the midterms. Only 35 percent of Democrats express that high level of enthusiasm, a 20-point gap that signals a despondent Biden base and a massive turnout advantage for Republicans.

Yes: The polls are effectively a tsunami warning.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whoa, new inflation numbers just came out and over the past year prices have gone up a whopping 8.5 percent. That’s the biggest spike since 1981. Yes: The worst inflation in 40 years.

Of course, the Biden administration and the press—but I guess I’m kind of repeating myself—are taking the same line:  It’s about the Russia/Ukraine War spiking food and energy prices, they say. 

Okay, then just for the sake of argument, let’s take food and energy out of the number. The resulting inflation is still off the charts, the highest in forty years. Although, the inflation was already setting records before the war. Our own leaders are doing this to us and blaming Putin. Harry Truman said of the presidency, “The buck stops here.”

Mr. Biden, paraphrasing Truman, ought to say, “The debasing of the buck stops here!”

Embrace growth policy. Stop scapegoating "corporate greed."

Publicly endorse sound money.

It worked for Reagan 40 years ago.

It will work now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.