Townhall Review | Commentaries

The horrifying video showing the last anguished moments of George Floyd featured a detail only now drawing outraged attention: the cop car parked near the incident was a Police Interceptor, manufactured by Ford.

In a petition signed by more than 100 employees, the automotive giant faces demands that they stop making such vehicles. The petition charges: "Throughout our history, the vehicles that Ford employees design and build have been used as accessories to police brutality and oppression." This offensive statement suggests that all police forces brutalize and oppress, rather than protect and serve. The petitioners smear police as an invading army, condemning their own company for trading with the enemy.

The poisonous notion that police are the implacable foe of all people of color, worthy of scorn and resistance, and unworthy of decent equipment, could cost innocent lives among officers of the law as well as civilians.

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Some prominent liberals are starting to push back against cancel culture. Leading the way is J.K. Rowling, author of the fabulously successful Harry Potter novels. On Twitter, Rowling had expressed her support for a woman who was fired for nothing more than claiming that men and women are fundamentally different.

The Twitter mob was shocked. I wasn't. The accomplished author has a more nuanced political philosophy than many of her readers. 

The uber-villain Voldemort was clearly a stand-in for fascism. But we also had arch-villain, Grindelwald, an obvious stand-in for Marx and his minions.

Rowling has always known that there is a threat to human dignity from both the authoritarian right and the authoritarian left.

She has an almost miraculous ability to read a cultural moment. I think she's reading what the rest of us are: the writing is on the wall for cancel culture. 

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The entertainment industry regularly ignores a common sense lesson: you can’t connect with a mass audience by insulting a figure they revere. Multiple reports indicate the upcoming film HABIT features Paris Jackson, glamorous daughter of the late King of Pop, as a lesbian Jesus and object of fixation for a drug-addicted party girl.

A petition by Christian believers to block the dubious film’s release has drawn nearly half-million signatures, and its box office potential looks distinctly limited. Adding to the irony: Paris Jackson, the film’s star, was raised from age 11 by her grandmother, a devout Jehovah’s Witness and mother of ten.

Meanwhile, another film – Disney’s filmed version of the musical masterpiece HAMILTON- has set streaming records and drawn near-universal praise with its sympathetic portrayal of rapping, dancing founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and George Washington.

An obvious conclusion: you can attract more filmgoers by respecting their values than by assaulting them.

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The second quarter just ended—and the markets did very well.

As you know, the first quarter was a time of financial panic—the markets crashed hard. Many people in that moment of panic took money out of the markets.

Well, they missed one of the greatest recoveries in decades. The Dow Jones roared back, returning almost 18 percent, the best performance since 1987. The S&P returned almost 20 percent in one quarter, the best since 1998. And the tech-heavy NASDAQ beat a 30 percent return, the best since 1999. Smaller companies tended to do even better than the big ones in these large-company-heavy celebrity indices.

The bottom line: panic is not your friend. The other bottom line is that betting against the US economy is usually a bad move. I’m not telling you how to invest. I am telling you how not to invest. No-no number one is not to be controlled by your emotions.

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The Little Sisters of the Poor just won a big case at the Supreme Court, but the win goes far beyond the famous order of Catholic nuns. This decision is a big win for religious liberty and for moral conscience.

In a 7-2 decision, the nation’s highest court ruled that employers who have sincere religious or conscience beliefs against birth control cannot be forced to pay for contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

The majority decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, came nine years after groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor protested that the Obama Administration was forcing a violation of religious conscience through its rules on the Affordable Care Act. The Court upheld a policy correction made by the Trump Administration that restored religious liberty and included the right of conscience for employers.

It took both the Trump Administration and the Supreme Court to set this straight.

Keep that in mind as you vote in November.

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A sweeping new national security law has gone into effect in Hong Kong, effectively ending the “one country, two systems” promise that had long governed its relationship with mainland China. The new law cements China’s authoritarian rule over Hong Kong and limits many freedoms of the people there.

For example, the law criminalizes a number of protest activities in Hong Kong, if they are directed at the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese government. It also sets up a unit within the Hong Kong Police Force that has the power to search properties and perform warrantless, covert surveillance—all while using security personnel from the mainland.

We’ve gotten used to scenes of democratic protestors in the streets of Hong Kong, fighting for their rights and freedoms. Such scenes are now unlikely, given the severe penalties that the Chinese government will impose on many such activities.

It’s the sad end of an era in Hong Kong. The Chinese government’s actions demonstrate they are committed to hegemonic control of their neighborhood.

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The New York Times seizes every opportunity to impute racist motives to Donald Trump, even when reacting to positive announcements that shouldn’t be controversial.

After his Independence Day Eve speech at Mt. Rushmore, one Times headline read: “President Orders National Garden of Heroes, With List Mostly of White Men.” Actually,  Trump went out of his way to feature females and people of color, who comprised 12 names on his 30-person list.

That’s 40 percent—from Colonial flag-maker Betsy Ross, to Dr. King, to the ill-fated teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe. No honest history of America would devote more than 40 percent of its space to female and black leaders; for our first 200 years, white males—for better or worse—utterly dominated every field of endeavor.

Arguments over the “Garden of Heroes” bring one welcome feature: focusing on the virtues of candidates for new memorials, rather than stressing vices of those whose statues we seek to destroy.

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This has been an incredibly important session of the Supreme Court and it has come with big wins for religious liberty. In a series of three decisions, the nation's highest court ruled, first, that a state that offers financial support to private schools cannot exclude religious schools, second, that religious schools are free to employ teachers consistent with their religious beliefs, and third, that employers cannot be forced to provide contraceptive coverage if it would violate their religious or moral conscience.

It is hard—close to impossible, in fact—to overestimate the importance of these three Supreme Court decisions. Two of them were handed down just Wednesday

Once again, we are reminded of the importance of the Supreme Court and of the fact that the future of that court—and all federal courts—now hangs in the balance in the 2020 election.

Just imagine the disaster of losing any one of these decisions, much less all three.

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On Friday night last week, the president gave a stirring and patriotic 4th of July speech at Mount Rushmore.

But the reaction from critics and today’s elite media is more telling even than any criticism I could give of the left.

From the Los Angeles Times: “At Mount Rushmore, Trump uses 4th of July celebration to stoke a culture war.”

And the New York Times: “Trump uses Mount Rushmore speech to deliver divisive culture war message.”

And the Associated Press: “Trump pushes racial division, flouts virus rules at Rushmore.”

And I could go on and on.

When you've got the left saying up is down and blue is red, then you've got obviously an inversion of truth and objectivity in the media.

The need for alternative voices—like mine—and alternative outlets—like the one you’re listening to right now—has never been greater.

Simply put: President Trump’s speech was one of his best.

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With the news dominated by Covid-19 and racial injustice, you might not remember one of the big stories of the past year: the rise of socialism. Previously a dirty word, socialism became popular among young people and polled well with Democrats.

But now we hear nothing about socialism. Bernie Sanders is gone and the Green New Deal has gone silent.

The fact is, young people were never interested in formal socialism. The same polls showing their attraction to it also showed they prefer a market economy over government control. They really didn’t want socialism, but free stuff: free college tuition, forgiven student loans, help with expensive housing and maybe a guaranteed income.

That agenda is now, quietly, Joe Biden’s platform, without the socialism name. He has embraced versions of all that and more. He is the candidate of free … and expensive … stuff.

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