Townhall Review | Commentaries

In 1952, Alderman Robert Merriam remarked to journalist A.J. Liebling that Chicago “is the only completely corrupt city in America.”

That hasn’t changed in the dismissal of charges against Jussie Smollett.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is one of the Socialist Spice Girls put together by Michelle Obama’s top lieutenants. That’s why Mayor Rahm Emanuel was out of the communication loop.

Why would Foxx have inappropriate ex parte communications and muck up her recusal?

Why would her office waive the customary demand for reduced sentencing by Smollett and offer no objection to the case file being immediately sealed?

Was Foxx making good on a promise?—accepting a bigger, better quid pro quo?—or just singing the tune she needed to sing to stay in the band?

That’s now a matter for the FBI to figure out.

What everyone has figured out about Chicago is that the rule of politics supersedes the rule of law.

Chicago—indeed—is completely corrupt.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To the intense disappointment of hyper-partisan Democrats, the Mueller Report delivered anti-climactic results: no evidence of Russian collusion and no new charges against Trump and his team.

Despite his complaints on Twitter and elsewhere, the president allowed Mueller to complete his investigative work without significant interference, so it’s time to put to rest the charges and counter-charges.

Democrats, however, intend to use Congressional Committees to continue investigating Trump’s personal and business history, and some Republicans talk of retaliatory investigations of Obama’s FBI and Justice Department. This waste of taxpayer money is not their primary job as lawmakers: we hire legislators to legislate, not investigate.

Those who want to drive Trump from the White House have only one way to do it: vote him out.

The desperation of Democrats to continue their scandal-mongering only displays their growing fear of crushing defeat in 2020.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While the rest of us enjoy basketball’s March Madness, progressives are creating madness of their own. The latest is their proposal to pack the Supreme Court by adding new seats on the Court for the next president to fill. This is clearly a political ploy to change the present 5-4 conservative makeup to a 6-5 liberal one.

Writer Wynne McLaughlin said, “Maybe history wouldn’t have to repeat itself if we listened once in a while.” Obviously, progressives aren’t tuned into history because the last time this was proposed, by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s, even his own party said no.

Packing the Court will become an endless project, with every new president and congress tempted to change the makeup, and the Court will become more polarized, not less. A far better reform would be term limits for justices.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As half the country goes through an unofficial period of mourning in the aftermath of the Mueller report, one thing has become absolutely clear: Vladimir Putin got exactly what he wanted.

No, I’m not talking about installing a Russian puppet in the White House. I’m talking about Putin’s actual goal: undermining faith in American democracy. And in this his most helpful, if unwitting allies have been most of the mainstream media.

Russia was seeking to delegitimize the expected Clinton victory. Facebook ads targeting Hillary Clinton in broken English didn’t undermine anything without the help of Putin’s unwitting partner: the mainstream media.

For over two years, guest after guest speculated about Russian agents “hacking our election. ” Partisan pundits blamed Russian interference for the results of every single race that turned out poorly for Democrats.

Putin got what he wanted, not from Mr. Trump but from his irresponsible critics.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The state of Colorado is moving to pass a new sex education bill that would bar abstinence-only education. The legislation itself is troubling, but—when concerns are raised—proponents are pointing out that parents have an opt-out provision.

Patrick Neville, writing in the Denver Post, took a closer look. This claim—that parents can genuinely opt-out their kids—“is not only bizarre, it’s also deeply misleading,” he says.

They do this by identifying four different categories of instruction, then saying that human sexuality teaching occurs only when two or more of these categories are discussed.

This is not anything close to genuine parental information or consent.

It’s a massive, intentional loophole.

What we are watching is a sexual revolution in progress. They are focused on the children, adolescents, and young people. Don’t miss the reason why. It's because the sexual revolutionaries know that they will win if they can get to our kids by going around their parents.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Trump faces a much clearer pathway to reelection in 2020 now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s found no evidence that the President or the Trump campaign colluded with Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

President Trump’s task ahead is to focus his reelection effort on the reasons why voters should give him a second term in office.  And while Democrats continue to obsess over Trump and his alleged misdeeds, it’s up to the President and his team to focus instead on the ways in which they’ve improved the livelihoods of the American people with tangible policy accomplishments.

The President spearheaded tax cuts that have helped many Americans keep more of their hard-earned money; his Administration has cut regulatory burdens and red tape to spur economic growth; and he has appointed judges to federal courts who respect the rule of law and the Constitution.

If President Trump can keep his rhetoric—and his focus—on touting these accomplishments, he’ll go a long way toward winning four more years in the Oval Office.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

So: Robert Mueller has delivered his long-anticipated report to Attorney General William Barr.

Here's the short of it: There was no collusion and there was no obstruction of justice. And there's no fair way to interpret this other than as a big win for President Trump.

The investigation was bigger and broader than virtually all observers knew: 19 lawyers; 40 FBI agents; 2,800 subpoenas; 500 search warrants; 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence and interviews with some 500 witnesses.

For the last two years, it was a legitimate story-the prospect of collusion and charges of obstructing justice.

Those are serious stories. I didn't believe it then. But now, it is not even a legitimate story.

It's a perilous time for elite media: So many outlets and so many individuals have been repeating this for so long. They are now going to have to come to grips with a very new reality.

It's going to be difficult for many of them.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the campaign trail, several leading Democratic presidential candidates express support for the concept of reparations paid to black people to compensate for the crimes of slavery.

The most uncomfortable questions about this terrible suggestion aren’t what it says about the past, but what it means for our future. Most advocates want reparations paid out over time, not in a single lump sum—but when would the payments end? And what about an African-American baby born in, say, 2050: would she be entitled to reparations, too?

Affirmative action was supposed to be a temporary program, terminated once equality was achieved, and yet it’s continued to give preferential treatment based on race for more than 50 years. If government bonuses—like race-based preferences in college admission and some hiring—go on indefinitely, then that would perpetuate racial differences rather than unifying the country.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

One of the perplexing things about the recent bribery-for-college-admission scandal into prestigious schools is a question few are asking: “Why even bother?”

 

Elite education in recent decades has seen double-digit price increases and at the same time moved from its mission of broadening minds towards narrowing them. So: Higher price and lower quality. Seems like a bad deal, and that’s not even counting the bribery premium and the risk of detection.

 

All this won’t end until we end it. Conservatives and people of faith are keeping this nonsense going—every time we insist on sending our kids to the “best” schools.

 

They aren’t the best schools any longer—they’re just the most prestigious.

 

After scandals like this, it’s not clear that they’re even that any longer.

 

The best schools are the schools which reinforce the Judeo-Christian worldview and western civilization. They also have an added bonus: You don’t even have to bribe your way in.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The state of Kentucky is in the historic process of passing four new, pro-life laws—all of them expected to be signed by Kentucky’s pro-life, Governor, Republican Matt Bevin.

One has already been appealed—it’s a law that would nearly ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. The “Fetal Heartbeat Bill” would protect life once a detectable heartbeat is existent.

House Bill 148 would ban abortion completely in the state of Kentucky, taking effect only in the event that Roe v. Wade is reversed.

Another would require physicians to tell women about certain realities of life and options available to them in the event they’re considering an abortion.

But in moral terms, one of the most important of these bills is the last one, called House Bill 5. It would make illegal abortion based on race, gender, or the disability of a fetus. But the pro-abortion movement is fighting it with everything they have.

It’s a big moment for the cause of life.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.