Townhall Review | Commentaries

In one of the classic lines from the movie “Casablanca,” Captain Louis Renault tells Rick Blaine—played by Humphrey Bogart—that’s he was “shocked, shocked!” that gambling was going on in the casino.

His line came to mind as Joe Biden and his team express their own shock that their gamble on the border created incentives for a mad rush into the U.S.

Biden campaigned on promises of liberalizing asylum policies and processing within the U.S. rather than Mexico. Is there any doubt that those messages reversed the disincentives of the Trump years?—or that the slow response telegraphed a lack of will to enforce border security?

Biden’s gamble has backfired.

The only way to put an end to the border crisis is to change the incentives and thus convince people to remain in their home countries. Biden’s “solutions”—including releasing asylum claimants without even a court date—have only made matters worse.

What we get is a collapse of border integrity.

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Elite culture warriors have demanded that Pepe Le Pew—the Looney Tunes cartoon skunk—be cancelled. New York Times columnist Charles Blow argues that the character’s misbegotten pursuit of female counterparts somehow—in his words—“normalizes rape culture,” even though he consistently becomes the butt of the joke.

Critics justify eliminating Pepe from cartoons arguing boys may imitate his undesirable behavior if they witness it. How strange, then, that the same elites praised the recent Grammy performances by Cardi B, and Megan Thee Stallion. Children are watching those, too.

If there is a danger in emulating the message of a cartoon skunk, why can’t they see a greater danger in the raunchy message and performance from real live performers who are targeting our teens today?

The cancel culture crew can’t have it both ways. Are they really concerned about children learning unwholesome lessons from popular culture?

A glance at the Grammy’s says, “no.”

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The new jobs report is in, and it indicates that the labor market is starting to truly recover. Nearly 400,000 jobs were added in February, almost twice what was expected. The unemployment rate is now half what it was at the peak of the pandemic. Despite these gains, Democrats are pushing for policies that could seriously undermine this recovery.

The new stimulus package was supposed to include a $15 an hour minimum wage. Though saner voices blocked it from the final bill, a national wage hike was one of Biden's core campaign promises. It will be back—and that alone that would be a massive hit to the jobs market.

Alongside the expanded and extended unemployment benefits, it could be disastrous. Democrats are pushing for a regime in which workers will be priced out of the market, while subsidizing unemployment. They want to make jobs harder to get and then pay people to not work.

It is both morally and fiscally irresponsible.

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The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts will now legalize polyamorous relationships.

Yes, polyamory is the project du jour—and Cambridge—home to Harvard and MIT—is also home to this latest experiment.

The argument put forward is: That the definition of the family is changing, the law has to keep up—or else people will be vulnerable because their own relationships will not be recognized.

So, a marital family unit in Cambridge will include any number of participants who simply “consider themselves to be a family.”

What’s at stake here is the redefinition of the family from anything based on the familial construct which has been true throughout millennia—that is by blood descent, a man, a woman, coming together in marriage and the children who are produced by that marriage, and the larger extended family of blood kinship and adoption.

That—the natural family unit—is what advocates want to de-normalize.

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Just four years after 9/11, Senator Dick Durbin took to the floor of the US Senate and compared U.S. soldiers to Nazis and Communists and the Pol Pot regime.

The military’s response? Dignified silence.

What a difference 16 years makes. Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson recently critiqued new military policies—including flight suits for pregnant women.

This prompted outraged tweets from uniformed soldiers including the Sergeant Major of the Army, the Commander of Fort Hood and an official U.S. Marines account.

Our military should focus on keeping America safe—not bickering with a commentator. We have a proud history of a military that retains widespread respect by refusing to play politics. We should keep that standard. 

Our servicemen and servicewoman ought to keep one thing in their sights: America’s enemies. Their job is to defend us and our rights—including the right to speak freely—even when some soldiers may disagree.

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In his State of the State address this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom argued that the effort to recall him from office is a “partisan power grab.” But the reasons why Newsom is under fire have very little to do with partisanship at all.

Many California public schools are still closed, even though the research overwhelmingly shows that schools can open safely, and now. Vaccine distribution has been uneven, and many counties are still facing shortages, leaving at-risk Californians without protection. And Newsom has overseen one of the biggest management failures in the state’s history—the state unemployment insurance fund paid up to $30 billion in fraudulent claims, including to people are sitting in state prison as we speak. And let’s not forget that Newsom ignored his own public health rules and dined with lobbyists at a fancy Napa Valley restaurant during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Newsom hasn’t been a failure because Republicans say so. No, his own actions are to blame for that.

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The congressional budget office just released its new debt figures. The national debt this year will top 102 percent of GDP. This has only happened twice before, both during WWII.

This number does not count the 1.9 trillion stimulus bill, nor does it count the money which was borrowed from Social Security since that’s considered “inter-governmental” debt. Debt levels this high break the intergenerational covenant that we have with our children and grandchildren.

FDR borrowed to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan—money well spent. Reagan borrowed to defeat the Soviet Union. That was also money well spent.

These great projects made the world better for future generations, but our political class is not buying victories against international threats. They are buying political victories for incumbents.

This is nothing more than fiscal abuse and our kids will pay the price.

It needs to stop—now.

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Given the short supply of competent journalists today, we’ve been left with an endless loop of “Republicans are in a crisis” story. Journalism is actually in the crisis, not the Republican party. That line is nonsense.

The Republican Party is simply not in trouble. In American politics, renewals and comebacks are never far away.

Look at the current breakdown: The Democrats’ hold on power is razor thin. The Senate is 50-50. And the Democratic majority in the House has narrowed to what will eventually settle at 222 to 213. This is, as they say, a close-run thing.

Redistricting in the next two years will definitely advantage the GOP, as will inevitable midterm losses for the party that holds the White House. The Democrats.

Yes: The Senate map is rougher for Republicans in 2022. And yes: The GOP has been in stronger positions in the past, but this is no crisis.

The center-right and old right are simply angling for position while facing a new order, a different coalition of voters and a set of issues defined by the rising menace of the Chinese Communist Party.

Don’t believe the nonsense about a crisis.

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For Americans to have confidence in our representative democracy, we must have confidence that the rules of its elections are fair, favoring neither political party. Unfortunately, HR1 is a step in the wrong direction. Passed on a party line vote, it wouldn’t only overrule many state laws—it would do so in ways that would clearly favor Democrats.

HR 1 would allow ballot harvesting, create a federal right to no-excuse mail in ballots, and mandate both same-day voter registration and 15 days of early voting. What’s more, it would prohibit any form of identification but a signature in order for registered voters to obtain absentee ballots.

Of course: all who are legally eligible should be able to vote. But it’s equally important that their votes matter—and aren’t diluted by an influx of illegal votes or votes dishonestly secured.

Since our nation’s founding, men and women have died to secure the vote.

Let’s keep it free from the taint of corruption.

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As I speak to you, five different women have made charges of some kind of sexual abuse or sexual harassment against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

And it tells you something about our times that this is not the biggest scandal or controversy surrounding him.

It’s true because we’re also talking about life and death.

As most of you know, a directive from Cuomo’s office sent elderly people who'd been infected with COVID-19 into nursing homes, a decision that led to widespread death.

But as bad as that is, that's not even the biggest scandal. The biggest scandal is the coverup within the Cuomo administration of the very fact.

The Times Union newspaper, based in the state capital of Albany, summed up what should be obvious to all in the title of a recent editorial:

“Resign, Mr. Cuomo.”

The political elite should have recognized it a long ago, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

It’s time for Cuomo to go.

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