Townhall Review | Commentaries

On May the 1st this year, Marxists and socialists in the United States celebrated their International Worker’s holiday, complete with marches in Chicago, Los Angeles and other big cities—focusing on grievances surrounding issues of police brutality, immigration, and income inequality.

These marches remind us that positive feelings toward Marxist socialism are at an all-time high in our country. They shouldn’t be. Although almost all of us know of the horrors inflicted by Nazis, too few Americans realize Marxist socialism is history’s deadliest ideology. It caused some 100 million deaths through executions, man-made hunger, famine, war, deportations and forced labor.

It’s right that we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. It stands as a reminder of the dangers of anti-Semitism and radical nationalism. But May 1 should likewise be marked as Victims of Communism Day—so we always remember the dangers of leftist tyranny, and the misery that results when we hand our God-given rights over to government control.

I’m Carol Platt Liebau.

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Every year, publicly traded companies are required by law to hold a meeting of their shareholders. Members of the board are elected, and various resolutions are voted on. In addition, management takes questions from the company’s owners—the shareholders. I’ve attended half a dozen shareholder meetings in recent days and have been asking corporations about their endorsements of The Equality Act—a bill that would severely weaken the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. So far, every company has refused to answer my question. In the case of several—Exelon, Cigna and Corning—meeting organizers seemed to have implied that all questions had already been taken. 
 
Shareholders are the final line of accountability when CEOs stray from their day job into polarized politics. You probably own a lot of these companies in your retirement account. Annual Meeting season is just getting started, and they are typically online this year. 

You have a right to attend. 

You have a right to ask questions. 

It’s time to show up. Believe me, they’ll notice.

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The first third of the year has ended. It’s not too soon to size up the game for the Republican presidential hopefuls down the road in 2024.

I call it Season 1 in “The Hunt for Red November.”

Here are five leaders I have in “Tier 1”:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has used his time well leading what’s been dubbed the “Free State of Florida.” 

We have a pair of “formers”—former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie—both have niches on television networks that give them visibility. 

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton will be a serious, well-versed contender with high visibility in the Senate.

And then—just last week—South Carolina Senator Tim Scott delivered a beautifully written response to President Biden’s address to Congress.

He was immediately met with an avalanche of invective—pushing him into my “Tier 1,” as it did for many Republicans.

It’s still early in the first quarter of a long game, but it’s starting to take shape … and the GOP has a lot of talent. 

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Northern Virginia has been called the “Silicon Valley” of the East—but don’t expect that moniker to last much longer. In the name of “equity,” the state is considering changes that could leave students unable to take advanced math classes until junior year of high school. 

Papers by a national association for math teachers, shared by the Virginia education department, read as follows: “Those that have been privileged by the current system must be willing to give up that privilege for more equitable schooling.” And members of the group charged with rethinking the state math curriculum admit one of their goals is addressing “inequities” in math education. 

While Virginia flirts with social justice, American students rank a mediocre 30th in math in the latest scores from the Program for International Student Assessment. China’s students came in first. 

If America intends to compete in the future, it’s long past time for Virginia to worry less about equity—and more about excellence. 

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The confrontation with China over Taiwan approaches—and the Biden administration must make its position clear.

Reasonable people disagree on when China and its leader Xi Jinping will move militarily against Taiwan, but few doubt Xi’s ambitions.

Whenever it takes place, aggression against Taiwan will pose the same dilemma to the West as did Hitler’s militarization of the Rhineland to the Allies in 1936. Western democracies blinked 85 years ago, and war engulfed the world shortly thereafter. 

Threat followed threat, demand followed demand, and the policy of appeasement of Germany failed. 

What happened next then was a catastrophe.

Whenever China moves, the United States and its allies will face a sudden, inescapable choice: Defend Taiwan or acquiesce.

Thus far, team Biden has sent only a tremulous message from a confused administration. 

This is not the time for diplomatic pirouettes or ambiguity. It’s a time for clarity. Its absence sends every signal the Chinese Communist Party needs.

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This is Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institution for Townhall.com. 

Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina gave a powerful speech this week responding to President Biden’s address to Congress. Scott’s message was simple: Republicans want to work together with Biden to solve some of our country’s most significant challenges. But, so far, the reaction by Democrats has been to go-it-alone.  

The substance was good, but what made Scott’s message so compelling was that it included his personal story—how he came to the policy views he as, the political perspective he holds, and why he chose a career in public service. 

Scott doesn’t fit the narrative of what some think a “typical” Republican looks and sounds like. That’s good, because the conservative movement has a lot more texture and diversity than the mainstream media—or the progressive left—would like you to believe. What Scott was able to do was to earnestly convey his story and views in a way that people could relate to.  

We could use a lot more of that in our politics, to be sure. 

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To re-enter the United States as an American citizen, you must prove you’re Covid-free. But when it comes to illegal immigrants, the rules are different. House Democrats blocked a proposed law that would require them likewise to test negative before they’re released into our country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Now take California. There’s a mask mandate in place and businesses can’t operate at full capacity. But on Oscar night, there the movie stars were, laughing it up—maskless—on television for all to see.

Illegal immigrants and movie stars may operate at opposite ends of the social spectrum, but there’s one thing they have in common. They enjoy the ruling party’s favor, so they get to disregard the rules that govern the rest of us. 

This is the way the system operates in socialist countries. The elected/selected/connected and protected operate with special dispensation from the government; the rest of us are bullied and oppressed by government.

It isn’t supposed to be this way in America. 

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Why would a high-ranking American diplomat alert an Iranian government official about Israeli covert actions? In a leaked recording between Mohammad Javad Zarif and a political ally, the foreign minister revealed that John Kerry personally informed him that Israel was behind over 200 attacks on its military forces and proxies in Syria.

Zarif professed “astonishment” at Kerry’s tipoff. No doubt the Israelis are astonished at this as well, and all Americans should feel the same way. After years of unfounded accusations about Republican collusion with Russia, we now hear of a prominent member of two Democratic administrations sharing intelligence about our ally’s covert operations with a regime that regularly holds “Death to America” rallies in its capital.

Not only does this torpedo a close ally in an existential fight against Iran, it also looks like a tacit approval of Iran’s infiltration in Syria. The Biden administration needs to explain Kerry’s actions immediately, especially while pursuing pointless negotiations with a puppet government in Tehran.

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The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times has put forward a horrifyingly honest argument about abortion. 

The headline it ran was this: “The right to an abortion means the right to have it for any reason.” 

They intend for abortion to be available for any reason, at any time or for no reason. 

Their focus was a law passed in 2017 by the legislature in Ohio—a law that seeks to prevent abortion on the grounds that the unborn baby has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome.

The editorial board of the Los Angeles Times is saying that it is wrong to try to protect unborn babies that are diagnosed with Down syndrome by such a law. 

Why is it wrong? 

Because, says the editorial board, it interferes with what is a greater good than human dignity in the womb, and that means a woman's absolute autonomy and what the paper claims is her constitutional right to destroy the life within her.

Like I said: this editorial is honest. It’s also horrifying. 

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Last week we saw Derek Chauvin—the former Minneapolis Police Office—convicted of three serious felony charges that were brought against him.

There are some very important lessons here for Americans if we are truly committed to the rule of law. We must recognize that what took place was the result of a legitimate court process and verdicts handed down by a jury of the defendant’s fellow citizens. 

No doubt there will be further developments.

But right now we need to pray for the city of Minneapolis and we need to pray for the United States of America. What we are engaged in right now is a great test as to whether we really believe in the American project, in the American constitutional order and in the rule of law. The rule of law—let us remind ourselves—applies not only in the courtroom, but it applies in our neighborhoods and it applies on the streets.

If the rule of law operates anywhere, it has to operate everywhere.

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