Townhall Review | Commentaries

In a move with national implications, the California legislature halted a bill to force local governments to increase housing density. Think multiple homes on single lots and apartment buildings near transit centers.

It was a battle between Governor Gavin Newsom and Democrats on one side addressing a housing crisis, and California residents who had bought into their California dream communities on the other. Above all, it was a question of local control.

Liberals said there was no time to debate or compromise, this was a crisis. Everything in government is now wars and emergencies: Wars on poverty, crime, drugs, terror and 31 states of national emergency. We need action now.

Finally, a few Democrats who represented suburban districts said let’s take more time with this, seek something less extreme, find a compromise.

Good for them. Localism is still alive, even in California.

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After the latest testimony of former special counsel Robert Mueller, the tide has very clearly turned—and Trump now has a distinct advantage as we move into 2020.

No: President Trump has not yet been fully vindicated. Only his reelection will provide that.

But Trump has decisively repulsed the attempt to deny him the opportunity to win that vindication at the polls in November next year.

The president is now going on the offensive.

He’ll argue that the real scandal was the attempt to keep him from winning election and, once having won election, from governing. His opponents did so by shocking means far outside the norms of law and U.S. politics.

Trump will make this argument simply by force of repetition.

That the attack on Trump has decisively failed is not open to debate—except by people unfamiliar with “sunk costs.”

It was a terrible strategy from the start, that which the Democrats embrace, and it ended badly for everyone—except Donald Trump.

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With economic commentator Steve Moore out of the running for Fed, President Trump has turned to another option, announcing his intent to appoint economist Judy Shelton.

Dr. Shelton is a superb choice.

Years ago, Shelton was one of the very few analysts to predict the fall of the Soviet Union long before it happened. Her conservative commitments are rock solid, having directed the Sound Money Project at the Atlas Foundation. Just last year she was successful in getting Senate confirmation as the U.S. director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, so she’s already been thoroughly vetted—and would likely prevail in the confirmation process.

The stakes for the global economy have never been higher. We need a new voice at the Fed who can be a solid vote for the protection of monetary stability and who can handle herself at the table with the big boys.

Judy Shelton will do well. She should be confirmed.

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On the issue of abortion, the United States is an outlier on the world stage—even when it comes to the notoriously liberal countries of Western Europe.

This point was recently illustrated in an article in the New York Times.

The headline: “German Doctors Fined for Abortion Ad.”

Doctors there may list professionally that they perform abortions, but they may not positively advertise how they do the procedure nor can they advertise in a commercial context.

One sentence in the article demands our attention: “Abortion is legal in Germany through the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy.”

Twelve weeks.

Remember: In the state of New York that number was increased by all moral effects to 40—40 weeks of a pregnancy.

What we need to note here is that the United States is a genuine outlier. It became an outlier in 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision.

It’s even more an outlier now.

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently hosted the nation’s second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom.

From China to Iran to Burma and beyond, the forces of anti-religious pluralism are ascendant in many places across the globe. And yes: The struggle for religious freedom is ongoing even here.

The Ministerial will be an enduring mark of Pompeo’s tenure at Foggy Bottom. This, along with his new Commission on Unalienable Rights will continue to focus the agenda of liberties owed to every individual by virtue of their existence—primary among them being the right to exercise religious beliefs freely and without interference from the state.

On my program recently, Pompeo argued, quote: “Nations become stronger when they permit their citizens to exercise their core beliefs about who they really are.”

He’s echoing Jefferson and Madison—and deserves a hearty recommendation for doing so in our age of cynicism.

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The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives recently passed legislation to raise the minimum wage from $7.50 to $15 nationwide.

While that might sound good to some, the reality is that such an increase may put up to 3.7 million people out of work, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Particularly hard hit will be employees at small businesses, which are less likely to have the resources or profits to cover the proposed doubling of the minimum wage. While Democratic lawmakers had an opportunity to exempt the smallest of businesses from their bill, they declined to do so.

The proposed increase in the minimum wage may also have the effect of hurting teenagers or those who may just be getting started in the workplace.

Increasing the minimum wage may seem like a good idea. But like many of the ideas that progressive politicians are trumpeting, it’s likely to do more harm than good.

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The state of Maine has now legalized physician-assisted suicide.

The Associated Press—in their reporting on the story—said reporters were, “declaring it in line with the state’s tradition of individualism and opponents insisting the practice tempts fate.”

Let’s just look at that again: “in line with Maine’s historic tradition of individualism.” That’s the claim of absolute personal autonomy that we see elsewhere today, but it’s here packaged as a part of the “state’s long tradition of individualism.”

We’re told that physician-assisted death can be pursued when “reasonable medical judgement” would “produce death within six months.”

But the culture of death always says, “Here’s all we want. We will draw this very clear line.”

But it always presses on—because the logic of the movement presses on—and where the logic is allowed to go, the law will frighteningly follow.

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As keynote speaker at the recent National Conservatism Conference, Peter Thiel, one of silicon valley’s most successful entrepreneur/investors called upon our government to investigate whether Google has been infiltrated by Chinese intelligence.

Thiel’s case is really quite strong: Artificial intelligence is a field of technology with numerous important national security implications. Google has worked closely with Chinese companies on AI.

It is well known that Chinese companies are not truly independent of the Chinese government. Google refused to work on AI with the US Pentagon, while China is well known for using intelligence services to steal IP from foreign companies.

Richard Clark who is a career anti-terrorism official, recently told CNBC that he agrees with Thiel.

On the face of it, it certainly seems like there’s enough smoke to see if there’s fire.

We should take Thiel seriously.

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In a sense, the 2020 race is shaping up as a choice between two Bernies—a right Bernie and a left Bernie.

Do you like the Capitalist Bernie or the Bolshevik Bernie?

These two Bernies have neatly defined the choice in 2020.

On the one hand is Home Depot founder, the creator of a half-million jobs, and billionaire Bernie Marcus who is spending his golden years giving away his money to worthy causes.

On the other hand is Soviet devotee Sen. Bernie Sanders who’s spending his golden years the same way he spent his formative ones—giving away other people’s money.

Bernie Marcus is an unabashed Trump supporter undeterred by threats of a Home Depot boycott by Marxist mobsters.

Bernie Sanders is an unrepentant redistributionist who said on “Meet the Press” recently his goal is “to make the poor richer and the rich poorer.”

Bernie Marcus doesn’t believe helping people is a zero-sum proposition. Bernie Sanders believes everything should be free except freedom.

Which Bernie will you support in 2020?

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Bloomberg News and CNBC reports that the Trump administration is seriously considering a rule change which would stop the IRS from taxing investors based on phantom gains from inflation.

Let’s say you buy an investment for a hundred dollars and sell it a few years later for 105 dollars, but inflation was 5 percent. You didn’t really make any money. In real purchasing power, you just broke even.

The way the system works now, you’d have to pay taxes on that five dollars. That’s not taxing income; that’s confiscating wealth.

Larry Kudlow, now the president’s chief economic advisor has long been a champion of the idea, and it looks like the president is on board. And: It looks like the president can do this without buy-in from Congress.

We should hope the president embraces this idea and moves forward with it.

It’s good economics—and it would be good politics as well.

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