Townhall Review | Commentaries

Since early 2021, Democrats have ridden a moral high horse. They insist Republicans not only threaten democracy — they’re virtually human powder kegs. In fact, President Biden has accused Trump supporters of being “the most extreme political organization in American history.” 

But Democrats’ actions have just made hypocrites of them. Democracy’s defenders have melted down over a draft Supreme Court decision returning abortion from nine unelected judges to the democratic process.

And though the president denounces Republican violence, his White House refused to condemn his allies’ intimidation campaign against the Supreme Court … at least until they had threatened the lives of the justices and their families, harassed churchgoers, and firebombed a pro-life organization.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is no better. In 2020, he publicly threatened Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, saying they would  “pay the price” and “won’t know what hit them” if they voted the wrong way on abortion.

Constitutional republics can’t survive mob rule—or leadership marked by hypocrisy.

 

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Do laws protecting people from the lethal violence of abortion improperly “impose” morality? Do pro-life laws constitute the illicit “establishment” of “religion”?

Absolutely not.

Laws banning fetal homicide are no more and no less the “establishment” of “religion” than laws banning adult homicide. Laws protecting people from the violence of abortion are no more and no less the “imposition” of “morality” than laws protecting people from other forms of unjust violence.

All law is based on morality—either good or bad morality, true or false beliefs about the human person. There’s no escaping it.

Pro-life laws are based on the biological reality that a new human being comes into existence at conception and the moral truth that all human beings are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the inalienable right to life.

Pro-life laws, in other words, are no more and no less religious than the Declaration of Independence.

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Nina Jankowicz, nominated to head a new, Orwellian-sounding Disinformation Governance Board cuts a ridiculous figure. Whether she’s yodeling on Tik Tok or crooning raunchy Christmas songs on YouTube, it’s more tempting to mock than fear her.

But tyranny’s a threat, whether Big Brother wears jackboots or a chirpy grin. The First Amendment is clear: “Congress shall make no law abridging … the freedom of speech.”

A government board created to “coordinate countering misinformation” is clearly intended to chill the expression of ideas 
the administration opposes. That cannot stand.

The right to speak is inseparable from the right to think. Some 80 years ago now, Justice Robert Jackson wrote the opinion striking down a law requiring students to pledge allegiance to the flag, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official … can prescribe what shall be orthodox in … matters of opinion…”

I’m convinced that any Disinformation Governance Board is unconstitutional.

Nina Jankowicz would do well to take note.

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Several recent headlines reveal that American children and adolescents are suffering from mental illness and anxiety at what some claim are record rates.

 

The New York Times ran two major pieces in different sections on the same day, one under the headline, “It’s Life or Death, U.S. Teenagers Face a Mental Health Crisis,” and the other “The City”, meaning New York City, “has a Loneliness Problem.” Both appeared just days after the Wall Street Journal published an article with the headline, “Children as Young as 8 Should Be Screened for Anxiety, Experts Recommend.”

These pieces are written under the presumption that we’re looking at something pathological—they speak as if these issues have just happened.

But these issues have been coming for a long time, even before the Covid-19 crisis.

A society bent on breaking down everything God gave us to make a society healthy should not be surprised when it becomes a society of moral, psychological, and emotional problems.

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Today on the National Day of Prayer, I'm reminded to be thankful to God in all things—and I'm also reminded there is much to pray about. 

The world is on edge. 

We've gone through a pandemic. 

There are wars, a drug epidemic, inflation, and major political dysfunction. 

Marriages are under extreme pressure and more and more children are growing up without fathers. 

There's also a spiritual crisis and Americans report an increasing sense of hopelessness. 

So please, take some time today to pray about these challenging times. 

The Bible says, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power." 

So remember to pray. God will hear you—and that's a promise. 

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It was an unprecedented leak at the Supreme Court—the draft of Justice Alito’s majority opinion overturning Roe v Wade.

What are we to make of this?

First, the betrayal of confidence at the Court is deeply disconcerting—putting public pressure on the Justices in this way directly undermines the integrity and independence of the judiciary. No Justice should allow this act to influence his or her decision, and no citizen should applaud the leak.

Second, the draft opinion is outstanding. If something like it becomes the opinion of the Court, that will be a victory for Constitutional self-government, the rule of law, and—most importantly—for justice. Roe v Wade was wrong on the day it was decided. Nothing in our Constitution protects a right to choose lethal violence in the womb.

Pray for the safety of the Justices, the integrity of the Court, and that one day we’ll protect the right to life for all Americans—born and unborn.

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Do religious groups have the same right to speak in the public square as other secular organizations? The Supreme Court ruled unanimously this week that they do.

Boston offers a flagpole for groups to use for ceremonial purposes as a demonstration of the city’s “diversity” without endorsement of any of the messaging. When it came to a Christian group, however, Boston suddenly decided that allowing them access would violate the Establishment Clause.

The Christian flag was the only application the city rejected.

Justice Breyer’s opinion rebukes Boston for viewpoint discrimination, but misses the forest for the trees. Concurrences from Justices Kavanaugh, Alito, Gorsuch and Thomas rebuke the majority for extending ambiguity around both the definition of private speech as well as the reach of the Establishment Clause.

The Court needs to resolve these issues. This decision is a start. The upcoming ruling on Coach Joseph Kennedy—the praying football coach—needs to finish the job.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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