This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

The Olympics have long been a source of national pride here in the United States.

That’s why it was so wrong of women’s Olympic hammer-thrower Gwen Berry to turn her back to the American flag as our national anthem was being played at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Berry calls herself an “activist.” She protests what she calls “systemic racism.”

Her behavior stands in stark contrast to Jesse Owens, the American athlete who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler wanted to use the occasion to showcase the superiority of the so-called “Aryan race.”

Owens, who was black, became the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games.

But when there really was systemic racism in the U.S. – in the form of Jim Crow – Owens still had the patriotism and character to salute the flag he represented.

Berry could learn a thing or two from Jesse Owens. She should step down from the U.S. Olympic Team.

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The Wall Street Journal ran an op/ed titled, “Why I Stopped Hiring Ivy League Graduates.”  The author explained how woke Ivy League graduates are troublemakers in the workplace—but conservatives aren’t much better. They suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome and have learned either to counterpunch too aggressively or never to say what they’re actually thinking.

With all the overpriced nonsense the Ivies are force feeding America’s young people, it’s fair to ask: How much value are they actually adding? Precious little. Heaven help the Ivy League as more employers reach this conclusion—and parents realize it. Then the parents who care about their kids’ future will have a decision to make. Do they want their children well-credentialed, or well-educated?

The answer is easy. Especially because—given their declining standards and the intellectual junk the Ivies are peddling—there’s no guarantee that two decades from now, an Ivy League diploma will continue to be the credential it once was.

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Many Americans may remember the Obama-era IRS scandals, when the tax agency was targeted conservative nonprofits for political reasons. Let’s hope the IRS isn’t up to its old tricks.  

Recently, a top IRS official denied a Christian group’s application for tax-exempt status. Its justification, in part, was an interesting one: That quote “Bible teachings are typically affiliated” unquote with the Republican party.  Has anyone asked Democrats like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi—who make much of their Catholic faith—if they agree?

Of course, the IRS’s claim is ludicrous. By its reasoning, if the Republican Party’s values are consistent with the Bible, then promoting Biblical principles is somehow practicing politics! Presto! Every church in America just became a de facto outpost of the Republican National Committee. 

What nonsense.

Joe Biden recently proposed doubling the IRS workforce. If he hopes to generate any support for this plan, he’d better convince Americans that the agency isn’t just playing politics. Again.

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How desperate will Joe Biden be to re-embrace Barack Obama’s Iran deal? New Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi declared he will not come to the table unless the Biden administration lifts all current sanctions, removing current economic pressure to reopen talks. Raisi further refused to negotiate on other issues at all—including Iran’s ballistic missile program and its funding of terrorism in the region.

Israel’s new prime minister understands the stakes. Naftali Bennett reminded the West that Raisi acquired the nickname “The Hangman of Tehran” for “leading the death committees which executed thousands of Iranian citizens.” 

The Sunni Arab nations will take the measure of Biden in what he does next. If Biden capitulates to Raisi, the efforts to create a counterweight to Iranian pretensions of dominance in the Middle East will collapse, with catastrophic results to American interests. As Bennett declared, this is the last chance for the West to wake up to the extent of the threat from Iran. 

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The Supreme Court recently dispensed with a challenge to Obamacare’s constitutionality, and the law has now survived a myriad of legal challenges since it was enacted over eleven years ago. 
 
Where should conservatives who have qualms about how much power and authority ObamaCare puts in the hands of the federal government turn their attention now? 
 
The answer is the states. Governors and state legislatures across America are looking to enact common-sense reforms that would lower costs, expand access to coverage, and modernize our health care system. The focus on costs, in particular, is an important one as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many Americans are still paying too much for health care in this country, and more needs to be done by policymakers to address this challenge. Unfortunately, Washington politicians have shown themselves incapable in this regard.  
 
It’s time to look forward—not backward—if we want to make our health care system better.  

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I recently interviewed the Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, on my podcast Meeting of Minds, about his groundbreaking insights in economics, including his findings about the formation of bubbles. He suggested that bubbles are created when we buy things with the hope of reselling them for more money in the future. 

But he also found that easy money injected into the market also drives bubbles and he gave housing as an example of a bubble-prone asset. 
 
Professor Smith has found that bubbles and bursts in the housing market don’t stay in the housing market, but that both the exuberance and the collapse tend to pull the rest of the economy along with them. 

Whether Americans remember the lessons of 2008-9, is debatable, but our central planners clearly do not. 

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People of faith and fans of liberty have good reason to cheer the new decision from the Supreme Court. Their unanimous decision in a fight between the city of Philadelphia and Catholic Social Services restores the ability of the faithful to participate in public life.  

This Catholic charity has served for decades as one of several agencies for certifying foster homes for the city. They follow Catholic teaching in determining suitability, requiring that applicants be traditional married couples, not single, cohabiting, or in a same-sex union. Even though they routinely referred such households to other agencies for certification, Philadelphia demanded that they certify same-sex couples regardless. CSS either had to violate their religious tenets or end their service to the community. 

This unanimous decision re-sets the primacy of the First Amendment and the free-exercise clause over political correctness. 

It reminds us that the Framers intended to defend true tolerance and diversity—protecting us from those who would drive people from the public square over their beliefs.

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Comedian Jon Stewart defied media orthodoxy when he declared that he believed that COVID-19 came from a lab leak. Until a few weeks ago, that opinion would have resulted in a Facebook block and castigation of Stewart by the media as a conspiracy theorist, or perhaps even a racist. 
 
But one high-ranking scientist has repeatedly insisted that the lab-leak hypothesis be taken seriously all along: Former CDC director Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists for a CNN interview in March, when he called for a thorough investigation of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Only a few days later, the head of the World Health Organization also demanded a proper look at the lab in the epicenter of the pandemic, vindicating Redfield.
 
Redfield’s defiance is no mere footnote. The media and political establishment repeatedly quashed scientific inquiry in service to diplomatic expediency for China’s benefit. Redfield’s defense of true science must prevail over those enforcing convenient orthodoxies.

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Inflation is not a problem. So says our monetary central planners. Well, I guess it’s not much of a problem unless you want to buy a home, drive a car, or eat food. Home prices are up over 20 percent in the past year. Home prices under $300,000 were almost half of all sales a year ago, now they’re only about a fourth. 

We’re seeing the death of the starter home right before our eyes. 
 
But don’t blame the builders: Lumber prices are shooting up much faster than home prices, squeezing the profit margin of the building industry. 
 
In his presidential debate against Jimmy Carter, the GOP nominee Ronald Reagan said: “We don’t have inflation because the people are living too well. We have inflation because the government is living too well.” 

Well, we’ve got a repeat of Carternomics. 

We’re going to need a repeat of Reaganomics. 

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Congressman Ilhan Omar came to America by way of a Kenyan refugee camp, after fleeing civil war in Somalia. Given her history, you’d think she would treasure this country for all that makes it so unique and special.

Apparently not. In a recent tweet, Omar equated the United States to Hamas—a registered terrorist organization. It’s remarkable:  that a sitting member of Congress—and a member of the Foreign Relations Committee—can’t distinguish between a country that operates under the rule of law and a group that targets innocent civilians and tells people to “cut off the heads of Jews.”

Despite objections from Jewish Democrats to Omar’s ugly remarks, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been careful to make it clear she herself is not “rebuking” Omar.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is reportedly preparing a resolution to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It will be interesting—and oh-so-revealing—to see how many Democrats support it.

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