Frustrated by the lack of mayoral backing of police and prosecutorial unwillingness to put repeat, violent offenders behind bars, a Chicago alderman recently proposed fining criminals.

If we can’t punish them for their lawlessness, maybe the city can get cut in on the action?

It was silly idea borne out of exasperation with defund-the-police ideologues, even among some Democrats.

It also serves as a reminder of an immutable law of big-city government: you cannot work around the principal.

In suburban and rural communities residents may be able to work around the mayor through their village boards, but in big-city America, if the mayor and local prosecutor are not law-and-order you are guaranteed to have neither. 

This is the story we’ve seen play out from Chicago to New York, Los Angeles,  Portland and Minneapolis over the past year.

New York Democrats signaled a recognition of this reality in selecting former NYPD officer Eric Adams as their mayoral nominee. 

The residents of those other major metropolises would do well to come to the same realization.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An amazing sight was revealed in Cuba on Sunday – protests against the failed communist regime broke out on streets across the island nation. “We are no longer afraid,” they chanted, “We want freedom!”

The Marxist-Leninist regime in Cuba dates back to 1959, and the small island nation of just over 11-million people has been under the hard fist and the corrupt repression of the Communist Party for decades. Under revolutionary dictator Fidel Castro, the Communist Party consolidated its one-party rule. Fidel is now dead. Raul—his brother—is too old to rule, but the Communist Party continues its repression and the nation is suffering under both a severe economic crisis and a resurgence of COVID-19. The Cuban people have had enough.

Here is the big question: Will the Communist leaders of Cuba now turn their guns on their own people? They have done it before. Now, the world is watching. The voices of the suffering people of Cuba say they are not afraid. 

Our prayers –and our hopes -- are with them. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, that narrative changed fast. After supporters of critical race theory claimed it wasn’t being taught in elementary schools, the National Education Association – the teachers’ union – passed a new business item at its annual meeting. Specifically, union members decided it was “reasonable and appropriate” to teach American children a curriculum informed by critical race theory.

At least the union’s been forced to admit they’re in favor of indoctrinating our children with their poisonous beliefs. But using critical race theory to teach about America’s past is like using bath crystals to teach geology. It’s nonsense. Racist nonsense, at that.

Sadly, the NEA cares more about political power and government workers than about children. In 2019, it actually voted down a measure “making student learning the priority of the Association.”  

So what do we do? The answer is to provide parents greater choice over their children’s education by funding students, not school systems. 

It’s time for real, meaningful school choice.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My longtime friend and fellow Salem Media editorial board member, Lanhee Chen, has taken a big step forward to help save California from its ongoing fiscal and social collapse. Lanhee recently announced he is running for the Office of Controller in the Golden State. Bravo, Lanhee. You are needed now more than ever. 

The Controller is California's independent fiscal watchdog, providing sound fiscal advice and control over more than $100 billion in receipts and disbursements of public funds a year, offering fiscal guidance to local governments and uncovering fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars. In a one-party state as deeply blue as California, it's vital that there be such a watchdog, one who is savvy, experienced and very smart. 

Lanhee Chen is moderate in tone and temperament, but solidly grounded in free markets and the founding principle of liberty and constitutionalism. 

California desperately needs some balance to offset its leftward lurch. Lanhee Chen will provide it. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has just dismissed concerns about rising crime in cities as “hysteria.” It was an interesting juxtaposition with a recent NY Times article discussing the progressive left’s disappointment about their failure to win over voters of color, who often tend to live in cities.
 
What’s most amazing is that the left would be surprised. How racist to assume voters of any color would automatically side with criminals. It’s the lawbreakers who are putting their loved ones at risk and making it dangerous to leave their homes. How elite and entitled of a US Representative – with taxpayer-funded protection -- to dismiss their very real concerns as “hysteria.”
 
Government’s first responsibility – in fact, the primary reason it exists -- is to protect citizens from those who would prey upon them. Unprincipled leftists have used George Floyd’s death as an excuse to defund the police, and now law-abiding people of color in our cities – the vast majority -- are disproportionately paying the price. Of course they don’t like it. Who would?
 
I’m Carol Platt Liebau

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're living in "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." That's the title of a book by Shoshana Zuboff whose thinking has shaped my own as we look on the growing power of Big Tech.

The biggest flaw in most tech companies' business models is a general willingness to loot an individual's personal information-and thus his or her privacy-without payment for this data and without informed consent.

Did you know that a small percentage of apps provide your consent to remotely turn on your phone's microphone and record you after you signed their terms and conditions?

I imagine your response is like mine? "what?! I'd never agree to that."

I am certain a hard line on personal privacy would have a greater appeal to the public than many other issues currently separating the parties. Watch that vast uncharted space and which party moves to restore data that has been taken and to repair walls of privacy that were breached long ago.

Whoever gets there first will be a long-term winner.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In one of the more disgraceful corporate episodes in recent history, during their recent earnings call, Nike CEO John Donahoe described his company as follows: it’s “a brand of China and for China.”

This happened even as the Chinese forcibly closed Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy paper. The Chinese imprisoned Apple’s owner, Jimmy Lai, a self-made millionaire who fled Communist China at the age of 8.

And among its other human rights abuses, China has oppressed the Uighurs, interning them in camps, raping and torturing them, and subjecting them to forced labor. It’s been reported that Nike has benefited from that forced labor.

Certainly Nike profits handsomely from China. But it could never have become a global powerhouse without the American system: capitalism and the rule of law.

None of that seems to matter to Nike now. Maybe that “brand of China” should reincorporate under Chinese rule—and hope for a better fate than Apple Daily and the Uighurs.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Juneteenth—short for June 19th—is the new federal holiday marking the emancipation of slaves in America. It is also known as Jubilee Day, based on the Biblical year of Jubilee which also liberated slaves. There’s a debate raging right now as to whether Juneteenth is intended to, or should, replace July 4th. 
 
I think this argument really misses the point. The emancipation is not in competition with the Declaration, it is the logical extension of it. June 19th occurs before July 4th in our calendars, but the ideas we celebrate on Independence Day come before the ideas we celebrate on Jubilee Day. Juneteenth isn’t a replacement; it’s a sequel—or a culmination.
 
In fact, the Liberty Bell’s quote, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land” comes from Leviticus 25, the Jubilee Year passage in the Bible. The bell that was rung then, is what led to liberty for all later. Maybe we should go back to calling it Jubilee Day, or at the very least Liberty Day. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Once again, Americans are ready to celebrate the 4th of July. Very ready indeed. But let's remember that the holiday is actually known as Independence Day, marking the anniversary of the act of American Patriots in declaring independence from Great Britain. 

The Declaration of Independence is the nation’s birth certificate. More than that, Independence Day marks a momentous event in human history. For the first time a new nation was established upon the premise that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

For more than 200 years, the United States of America has been learning how to fulfill that promise. But on Independence Day, we celebrate the fact that this world-changing promise was made and a new nation was born. A nation founded upon liberty, dignity and self-government. Happy Independence Day.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The assault on religious liberty continues in our increasingly secular America. The left openly derives religious freedom as an impediment to its moral revolution. And the mainstream media now often use the term religious liberty only in scare quotes as if it isn't even real. But religious freedom is our first freedom upon which all other liberties depend. Our nation's founders understood that, enshrining religious liberty in the very First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Nevertheless, the recent unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court defending the religious liberty of a Catholic adoption ministry has brought scorn from the left. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school of the University of California at Berkeley said that he feared the decision is, "Part of a trend expanding the protection of free exercise of religion at the expense of other crucial government interests." Other crucial government interests?  That is ludicrous, but that is the challenge we now face. Religious freedom is not just a government interest. It is a constitutional right.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.