Townhall Review | Commentaries

As the country progresses in the fight against COVID-19, each state has to balance its pandemic response with economic, social, and liberty issues. In most states, elected officials make those calls, and voters can hold them accountable. In Oregon, however, an unelected bureaucrat now wants to impose a permanent mask mandate, one that would survive past even the emergency order from the governor.

Oregon’s mask mandate is already more expansive than most states. For example: It makes no distinctions between indoor and outdoor activity. And—as if to illustrate their intrusiveness—Oregon’s kind leaders have made explicit exceptions for showering and sleeping.

Even if mask-wearing is beneficial, this policy should be enacted by legislators, not a bureaucrat. As one petition opposing the “permanent” rule states, no unelected public agency should be allowed “indefinite” authority over any facet of public life. Oregonians should be able to breathe free or to have their elected representatives explain why they shouldn’t.

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Three months after Democrats and Republicans condemned the rhetoric that preceded the January 6th riot on Capitol Hill, House Democrat Maxine Waters has come to the Twin Cities to vent her own dangerous rhetoric. Speaking to protesters at the Derek Chauvin trial, Waters demanded that the jury deliver a guilty verdict—“or else.”

Waters not only demanded that the jury convict Chauvin, but added that she wanted a guilty verdict for “first-degree murder,” which isn’t even among the charges Chauvin faces. Waters then exhorted protesters to “stay in the streets” and “fight for justice”—loaded language in a city that exploded into rioting last year, and where unrest following a police shooting is ongoing in a nearby suburb.

House Minority Leaders Kevin McCarthy has demanded Nancy Pelosi take action against Waters for inciting violence in Minneapolis. If Congress wants us to take inciting rhetoric seriously, then they need to stop exporting it to our communities.

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President Biden has formally established a commission to consider adding seats to the Supreme Court.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer – both appointed by a Democratic president – have opposed it. But the left is angry. They don’t like the Supreme Court’s rulings, so they want to change its composition.

It’s called “court packing,” from when—in 1937—Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt tried and failed to do it.

President Biden must have forgotten he once called the idea of expanding the Supreme Court “a terrible, terrible mistake” and “boneheaded.”

And make no mistake: It is a terrible idea. Any politically driven effort to change the Court’s structure will only reinforce the perception that our judicial branch is guided by politics, rather than by legal principle. Over time, a packed court would surely erode confidence in the rule of law—which is indispensable to governing a free people.

America’s Supreme Court has had 9 justices since 1869. It should stay that way.

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The GOP should stop accepting financing from its Fortune 500 adversaries.

If former California State Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh was correct—that "money is the mother's milk of politics”—then it's time for the national Republican Party to wean itself from the milk that comes from nation's largest corporations.
Whether over North Carolina's bathroom law, Georgia's election law, or D.C.'s general profligacy, Big Business has time and again identified itself as an opponent of equal justice before the law, financial sanity and even biological reality.

The GOP should respond in kind by explicitly and publicly declaring it will neither seek nor accept campaign contributions from Fortune 500 companies' C-suite executives or corporate PACs.

Morally and politically, how does the GOP solidify its brand as the party of working people who play by the rules while seeking underwriting from those for whom every rule is subject to a rewrite?

The Main Street counterrevolution America needs comes only when the GOP stops giving and taking Wall Street and K Street handouts.

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The good guys won one at the Supreme Court last Friday—in a big victory for religious liberty rights.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that California must lift its pandemic restrictions on in-home religious gatherings. The Court said the state was violating its citizen’s religious liberty by forbidding religious meetings with people from more than three families.

But there are two points worth remembering here. First, think about how far we’ve allowed our most basic freedoms to erode. In a state with only a 1.6% covid positivity rate, people had to go to the Supreme Court of the United States—just to reassert the right to hold private prayer meetings in their own homes . . . something that has always been understood to be a foundational freedom here.

Second, consider that this liberty was secured by only a single justice’s vote.

We have work ahead to keep the flame of freedom burning in America.

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The Congressional Budget Office just released its annual forecast for budgets, debt and deficits. 

The news is not good. 

And even worse than the bad news in the report is the statement of the head of the CBO who admitted that the report didn’t include the effects of the recently passed $1.9 trillion-dollar stimulus bill, which will make debt even worse. 

The report had another interesting little observation. CBO admits that our lack of population growth will be a major impediment to growth in the future. 

If we fall below replacement level, our population shrinks and it’s almost impossible for productivity increases to make up for that. And, of course, as we sail into anti-growth policies, we’ll accelerate a decline in productivity.

A nation which does not reproduce itself has no vision for the future. A nation that avoids and aborts its children also aborts its economic future. 

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For most Americans, the definition of “bipartisan” is straightforward. It means both parties working together. During the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden defined it the same way, arguing that he could lead the country back to a healthy collaboration on public policy as he claimed to have done in the Senate. Biden pledged to be a “president for all Americans” rather than just his party.

But since taking office, Biden’s definition of “bipartisan” has shifted—like something straight out of Orwell. Rather than allow Republicans to participate in Biden’s initiatives, Biden instead claims that his proposals are already bipartisan—even with no Republican support. In doing so, Biden has become the president of a handful of Democrats on Capitol Hill, not all Americans.

It’s bad enough that some Senate Democrats have begun to balk at Biden’s autocratic approach, and even media outlets like the Washington Post have begun taking notice. The voting public should not be fooled by this dangerous experiment.

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All too often these days, it’s easy to despair—to think our side is losing the battle for the future. 

Well, not so fast.

The parents and children of West Virginia have just become the first in the nation to win education savings accounts. Each child in public school can now receive a state-funded scholarship equal to the amount it costs to educate a child in public school. It can be used for tutoring, books, and religious or secular private schooling. 

What a victory for freedom and opportunity!

And there are other signs of hope. Those sick of the radical politicization of schools are fighting back. A national grassroots group called Parents Defending Education allows parents to fill out incident reports about inappropriate classroom activities. 

The group then files complaints and Freedom of Information requests to school districts—and they’ve already received more than a thousand reports!

So never despair. And always remember: the future belongs not to the timid, but to the hopeful and brave.

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Ron Paul—the eclectic former congressman—coined the slogan, “Audit the Fed!” 

While I appreciate the sentiment, I think it misses the main point. I’m not so much worried that the Fed is lying about what's on its balance sheet. I’m more worried that it’s telling the truth about it! I’m concerned about what we do know.

Case in point: the Fed just recently released its audited financials and they show a massive expansion in size, growing 130 percent in just one year. They have tentacles in just about everything, not just financing our federal deficit, but even making massive investments in commercial and residential real estate loans. 

That’s right—trillions in newly created dollars have been thrown into real estate markets through mortgage-backed securities.

What could go wrong?

Has the memory of 2008-9 already faded? 

We need a renewal of fiscally responsible voices in Congress who will work to keep the Fed accountable. 

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Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low. CBS News and 60 Minutes have recently demonstrated why. Florida has successfully partnered with the private sector to get COVID-19 vaccines to as many residents as fast as possible. The state’s arrangement with supermarket giant Publix has been leading the way.

Rather than focus on the success of that partnership and others, 60 Minutes ran a hit piece on Governor Ron DeSantis, accusing him and Publix of engaging in a pay-to-play scheme to administer vaccines. To cook this story, the CBS program deliberately edited the response from DeSantis that definitively refuted those allegations, and hid those facts from their viewers.

The segment was so scurrilous that two Florida Democrats blasted CBS for airing what they labeled an “intentionally false” segment consisting of—quote—“absolute malarkey.”

DeSantis reportedly has presidential ambitions. CBS News smeared both DeSantis and Publix to interfere with American democracy. We must hold them accountable for this disinformation campaign.

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