Townhall Review | Commentaries

A recent article in The American Spectator badly mischaracterized our history when the author claimed that after 1965’s immigration reform—and I quote—“the quality of America’s immigrant intake has declined … Immigrants are less educated than they were in the past…. That burdens the country, but it’s very Heaven for an American aristocracy, which can hire cheap labor.”[end quote]

Now, this screed not only ignores engineers and entrepreneurs who’ve led recent waves from India, China and elsewhere, but romanticizes our past. Millions arrived from Ireland, Poland, Italy and Greece but they weren’t well-educated or highly skilled; most were destitute laborers, like my Russian-Jewish, barrel-maker grandfather.

The problem for immigrants today isn’t their “low quality”; it’s the efforts by multi-culturalists on the left and restrictionists on the right to block their healthy progress toward assimilation and Americanization.

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‘Tis the season for Christmas carols, and one of the most beautiful of our carols asks the most important question of all: “What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” Christmas demands an answer to that question.

Even with all the fanfare and frantic activity of the season, that question remains. Even though commercialism and secularism and political correctness try to push the question aside, the question still stands. In the stillness of a winter’s night, the question rings out loudly and insistently – who is this child?

You know the carol’s answer: “This, this is Christ the king, whom shepherd’s guard and angels sing.” “Joy! Joy! For Christ is born. The babe, the son of Mary!” That is the true answer to the question – the baby is Christ the King. May you know the full joy of Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

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Everyone knows about George Frideric Handel, but few remember Charles Jennens, but it was Jennens who wrote and conceived the idea of the “Messiah,” the massive oratorio that is performed thousands of times worldwide at Christmas. Jennens wrote the libretto—the text—of the “Messiah,” tying together the Bible’s central story: God’s salvation of His people through the work of the Messiah.

He used the very words of the Bible for his text. Jennens had a purpose in his project, and that was to remind his audience of the truth and power of the story of salvation. And thus his attention to the birth of Christ. In just 21 days, Handel put the words to majestic music. “For Unto Us a Child is Born.”

That is the prophet’s declaration of God’s great gift to us at Christmas. It is the reason for the unspeakable joy Christians know at Christmas.

 Merry Christmas from the Salem Radio family.

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Saturday Night Live offered a pre-Christmas spoof called “It’s a Wonderful Trump,” in which their presidential impersonator gets a glimpse of how life would be different if he’d lost the election.

The skit proved only intermittently entertaining, but it suggests a response to those who blame Trump alone for our angry antagonisms. 

Imagine that Hillary won: would America be a model of harmony and civility? We’d still disagree bitterly on immigration, taxes, trade, race relations and foreign policy. 

In fact, President Hillary might have gotten her very own special prosecutor, just as Reagan, her husband and Trump did. With Congressional Republicans pushing hard to probe Uranium One, e-mails, and the Clinton Foundation, Robert Mueller might have been tapped to lead a very different investigation. 

Sure, President Trump could do more to bring the country together. But you can’t explain our present polarization as the work of a single individual.

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This is David Davenport of the Hoover Institution for Townhall.com.

It happens every year.  People who do not understand the First Amendment of the Constitution launch legal attacks on Christmas.

This year’s Grinch award goes to an elementary school principal in Nebraska who banned Santas on worksheets, Christmas trees in classrooms, an elf on the shelf, making ornaments, reindeer and, yes, “red/green items” since those are Christmas colors.  My favorite was her ban on candy canes because they are shaped like a J for Jesus and the red is for the blood of Christ and the white for the resurrection.  Who knew?

Following expressions of outrage from parents and teachers, the school district reversed the anti-Christmas policy.  Strike another blow for Christmas and the First Amendment.

Yes, the First Amendment says government may not respect the establishment of religion, but that still leaves plenty of room for you—and your children—to enjoy a Merry Christmas, even at school.

I’m David Davenport.

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Sometimes, the conventional wisdom gets it right, and that’s the case with the common designation of, “It’s a Wonderful Life” as the greatest Christmas movie ever made. This 1947 masterpiece celebrates the classic American virtues—small business, devotion to family, neighborliness and ordinary decency. Jimmy Stewart embodies the Yankee hero: unassuming, tender-hearted and utterly essential to his community and his neighbors.

On my radio show and in two of my books, I’ve recommended the “Bedford Falls Test” to understand America’s role in the world. A Christmas angel shows George Bailey a vision of how horribly his town would have fared if he hadn’t lived. Just imagine how terribly the world would have suffered without America! Remembering the precious contributions that every day people bring to our lives helped George Bailey, and it can help the rest of us, to better appreciate the “Wonderful Life” we’re blessed to live.

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You may have missed a very important announcement from the Trump administration on the so-called contraception mandate from the Affordable Care Act.

The administration is now making extremely clear that religious employers and specifically Christian organizations cannot be required to violate conscience in the contraceptive mandate. That mandate from the Obama administration was so draconian that even some Christian ministries were ordered to comply against their own convictions—paying for contraception for all—including forms of contraception that many believe will contribute to, or cause, an abortion.

The government does have so many means at its disposal whereby it could provide this kind of contraception coverage. Requiring it of religious employers was a deliberate slap in the face, a clear violation of religious liberty.

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but the “contraception mandate” is finally gone.

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The Republican party will shortly turn over control of the House to the Democrats, but does that mean there are no more opportunities to cut taxes and spur growth?

 

Not at all.

 

Larry Kudlow—the President’s Chief Economic Advisor—has previously promoted a way a president could cut taxes without going through Congress.

 

It appears that the tax statutes give the president the authority to adjust the calculation of investment taxes so that we get taxed on actual gains, not increases in prices due to inflation.

 

Imagine you bought a share of stock for a hundred dollars and sold it several years later for 110 dollars, but there had also been ten percent inflation. You didn't really make any money, you just broke even, but the IRS would tax you on that alleged gain. It appears that the President has the authority to change that without going through Congress.

 

It’s time for the Kudlow plan.

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Two recent disasters give President Trump a chance to shape bipartisan solutions to Make America Great Again.  First, disputed elections in Florida, Georgia and elsewhere exposed grievous shortcomings in the way we cast and count our votes; in an age of dazzling technology, the current confusion is inexcusable. The President could convene a national commission to address the mess, selecting a prominent Democrat to co-chair that effort. 

One possible candidate: former Senator Joe Lieberman, with a bi-partisan background and personal experience as Vice Presidential nominee during the infamous recount chaos of 2000.

Second, the devastating wild fires in California demand immediate enhancements in forestry management and fire-fighting capacity; any upgrade to infrastructure should begin with new strategies to prevent and contain these nightmarish infernos. By addressing these two issues immediately, the president can challenge the new Democratic House to cooperate, restoring confidence in government’s ability to respond.

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In the midterms, Democrats captured nearly 40 seats previously held by Republicans, but those losses weren’t spread evenly across the country. California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania each flipped four seats to the Dems, and Virginia delivered three. These results reflected the flawed, flailing candidates at the top of the ticket: gubernatorial nominees in California and Pennsylvania both lost by more than 17 percentage points, the U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia lost by sixteen, and even scandal-tarred Democrat Senator Bob Menendez crushed his New Jersey challenger by 11.

Such non-competitive statewide races discourage loyal Republicans from bothering to vote, dooming down-ballot candidates. To take back the House in 2020, the GOP needs not only a strong race by the President, but credible, energetic nominees for Governor and Senate in every state, to give House candidates a shot at success.

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