Townhall Review | Commentaries

Albert Mohler on the Kavanaugh case.

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Hi this is Jim Daly with Focus on the Family.

You know, a couple of years ago I had lunch with Jack Phillips, the owner of the now famous Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver. I found Jack to be a terrific person—not the controversial character the media has portrayed him to be.

Now Jack’s been under attack because his deeply held religious convictions prevented him from making a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding. You can agree or disagree with Jack, but the Supreme Court eventually ruled in his favor.

However, that same Human Rights Commission has brought another charge against him, demanding that he now make a cake for a so-called gender transition celebration. I’m sure he was targeted.

Why do good people get beaten down in our culture for what they believe? That’s not the kind of nation we want to live in.

Don’t stick your finger in the other guy’s eye. Let them live their life according to their convictions. 

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In their desperate attempt to smear Judge Brett Kavanaugh, many left-leaning commentators try to connect him to #MeToo malefactors like Harvey Weinstein.

For two reasons, this association is utterly unfair.

• First, the #MeToo villains all exploited positions of power; Kavanaugh was a 17-year-old high school junior at the time of his alleged misdeeds.
• Second, all the #MeToo villains were guilty of mistreating multiple women, sometimes hundreds; in Judge Kavanaugh’s case, he’s accused of mistreating only one woman, on a single occasion.

The timing of the accusations is also highly suspect.

If Senators allow this shady maneuver to succeed, they will shift our politics from merely ugly to outrageously unjust.

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Late in the summer of 1982, President Ronald Reagan had a lot on his mind. He faced challenges at home and around the world. But on this August day, the 40th President of the United States had something even more pressing on his mind. His father in law, Dr. Loyal Davis, was dying, and Dr. Davis was an avowed atheist. President Reagan wrote an incredible letter that day to his father in law, pleading with him to trust Christ.

He told his father in law that Jesus is the very Son of God, writing, “Either he was who he said he was, or he was the greatest faker and charlatan who ever lived.”

President Reagan went on to cite John 3:16 in his plea to his father in law.

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post recently came across the letter while conducting research at the Reagan Library. It is one of the most remarkable presidential documents of modern times.

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A student at an elite university recently wrote to the New York Times: “I’m riddled with shame. White Shame … I feel like my literal existence hurts people, like I’m always taking up space that should belong to someone else … Instead of harnessing my privilege for greater good, I’m curled up in a ball of shame.”

This unfortunate student illustrates the destructive insanity in teaching personal guilt over so-called “white privilege.” In previous generations, the idea that their skin color made them less worthy than others proved devastating to black people; now some young whites are encouraged to “curl up in a ball of shame.”

As Dr. King made clear, in a decent society, individuals must be judged—and must judge themselves—on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

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President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail last week, with a strident and wide-ranging rebuke of President Trump and Republicans. He was asking voters to remember “the good old days”—when he was in charge.  

But let’s not forget the fruits of his labor: Here at home, he oversaw anemic economic growth, fought for a costly health care law that has increased insurance premiums and imposed stifling regulations. Abroad, he pursued a foolish nuclear deal with Iran, failed to articulate a comprehensive strategy for eradicating radical Islamic terrorism, and did not deal decisively with Syria—a failing that has resulted in human suffering, to this day. 

During campaign season, it’s natural for politicians to exaggerate a little in making their case.  But we shouldn’t let President Obama get away with complete rewrite of his own history in office.

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Could the transgender revolution really be fueled by a social dimension?—a social contagion?

That’s what a current—and now very controversial—peer-reviewed study has found. The headline from the Economist in London was this, “Why are so many teenage girls appearing in gender clinics?”

The author of the academic study discovered that there is a clear social dimension, a contagion of what's called gender dysphoria, particularly among adolescent girls and young women.

So: What does it mean?

It means the recent spike in transgender identity may be attributable in large measure to the influence of other young women in the same place at the same time within a definable set of relationships or going to similar places on the internet.

You may have sensed this already by observation and intuition.

Now: The academic research supports it.

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You know growing up in a dysfunctional southern California home in the ’60s and ’70s, I didn’t enjoy much stability, but there was something I could always count on: an In-N-Out Burger right there in West Covina, home of the chain’s original hamburger University. Support for this iconic burger chain is legendary, with some even calling it cultish.

But California Democrat Eric Bauman called for a boycott of the popular restaurant because the chain had reportedly donated to Republicans. Oh, guess what! They also donated to Democrats, but that didn’t matter.

Why do people who support anti-bullying spend a lot of their time bullying us?  I don’t know, but Bauman has now claimed the boycott is off—but that’s only because fans at In-N-Out Burger have teed off on him.

Hey, let’s do it this way: Let’s stop bullying each other.

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The liberal politicians in California are at it again. Their latest idea?  Legislation that would create “safe injection” sites in San Francisco, where addicts can be supervised while they abuse illicit substances like heroin.

The theory behind their idea is that such sites will help people to use drugs safely and in a controlled manner. But they discount the possibility all these sites will do is encourage addiction, legitimize the use of substances that destroy lives and increase crime rates in the neighborhoods where these so-called “safe injection” sites are situated.

California lawmakers also ignore the fact that supervised injection sites violate the federal Controlled Substances Act. And: law enforcement officials in California are mostly united in their opposition to the idea.

Governor Jerry Brown should veto this dangerous legislation. To do otherwise is to send the message that abusing illicit drugs is OK.

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Recently, the government announced that last quarter, the U.S. economy grew at 4.2 percent. That’s more than 2 ½ times the average growth rate during the past ten years. Predictably, critics of the President and his tax policies claim tax cuts had nothing to do with it. For them It’s just a coincidence that after a decade of stagnation the economy just happened to perk up right after the tax cut.

Business profits have also spiked since the tax cuts. And take-home pay is up more than 5 percent in the last year. More coincidences?

Or: Perhaps the tax cuts are actually working as intended, removing the punishing rates of taxation on profits, increasing output, creating more jobs and higher pay rates for those jobs.

It worked under Kennedy, Reagan and G.W. Bush.

Now it’s working for Trump and for America.

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