Townhall Review | Commentaries

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

California lives on the edge of change. A few years ago, the Golden State adopted two big changes to its elections:  Open primaries in which voters choose candidates from any party, and a top-two primary where the top two finishers qualify for the general election, regardless of party. The idea was to elect more moderate candidates.

The results are coming in and it isn’t working. The 2018 primaries shows that Republicans still want to vote for Republicans and Democrats for Democrats. People don’t cross party lines looking for an idealized moderate candidate.

Plus: The unintended consequence is often no real choice in a general election. In 2016, two liberal Democrats ran for the Senate and in many state legislative races, there are either two Democrats or two Republicans.  

Worse, candidates have gamed the system to face a weaker opponent later. 

Beware election reforms from California.

I’m David Davenport. 

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Early this month the Supreme Court released a decision on a case you’ve heard me talking about for years:

Jack Phillips and his business—the “Masterpiece Cakeshop.” Essentially, the government of Colorado here was forcing speech—forcing Jack to celebrate a message he, out of religious conviction, just could not celebrate.

It took 6 years, but the court ruled—7 to 2—in Jack’s favor. Many have tried to diminish the nature of this win, but we should be clear: It was an enormous win for religious liberty and any nuancing of the exact scope of the decision misses how big it would have been if the court ruled against Jack in Masterpiece Cakeshop.

It’s also a huge win for the group defending Jack Phillips, ADF, the Alliance Defending Freedom—a group we’re proud to have with us as a sponsor.

This is a key case, no means the last case.

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How the Peter Strzok and Lisa Page texts contain a smoking gun in the IG report!

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Last Thursday’s report by Inspector General Horowitz on FBI behavior during the Hillary Clinton email probe should shake our country to its core.

This report continues the erosion of public trust in an American institution that has long been highly esteemed for its professionalism and integrity.  While exposing gross political bias in several FBI officials, the report scorches former FBI Director James Comey for his abuse of authority, and for deceiving both his superiors and the public.    

What motivated him? Mollie Hemmingway on my program did not hesitate to answer: He “was definitely animated by self-interest—in his own power and the power of the FBI.”

There was a time when public servants were motivated by earning the public trust.  We will suffer greatly as a nation if this doesn’t continue.

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We can understand in part, but Bourdain’s death and Kate Spade’s death brought the parade of televised tributes and eulogies heaping admiration on these celebrities who had taken their own lives.

And now: we have a government report indicating a 30 percent spike in the national suicide rate.

In all this, we hear very little about the immorality of suicide: The deliberate taking of human life.

And: We don’t hear about the studies that show those who do not attend religious services are five times more likely to kill themselves relative to active attendees.

Struggling souls need help, hearing—now more than ever—that life is a gift of God, that life is worth living.

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This is Jerry Bowyer of Townhall Finance for Townhall.com.

The hypocrisy on the left was on full display during the Trump-Kim summit. Many on the left outright attacked Trump for trying diplomacy and giving Kim “legitimacy.” On MSNBC, guests said—on a number of occasions—that this meeting showed how much Trump loves his “fellow” dictators. 

This is clearly absurd, but even more so given the absence of that rhetoric in 1994, when President Carter—during the Clinton administration—persuaded Kim Jong-il to agree to stop making nukes. We all know how that worked out.

But now it’s Trump  and the media can’t stop throwing cold water on it.

If anyone other than Trump was up there shaking Kim’s hand, elite media would be fawning.

I’m Jerry Bowyer.

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A front-page headline in The New York Times distorted a bold new initiative of the Trump administration and displayed that paper’s long-standing grudge.

Beneath a dramatic photo of a suspect being led away in handcuffs, the headline proclaimed: TRUMP TARGETS FEDERAL WORKERS IN ORDERS CURBING PROTECTIONS. First of all, the photo had nothing to do with persecution of federal workers: it showed movie mogul Harvey Weinstein at his recent arrest. Second, the story didn’t describe “targeting” of government workers: it focused instead on admirable efforts to make it easier to cut unnecessary federal jobs and to terminate incompetent workers.

Recognizing the obvious bias in their original headline, the Times itself changed it in later editions to the far more accurate: TRUMP MOVES TO EASE THE FIRING OF FEDERAL WORKERS.

It was a revealing episode in media bias.

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Someday, conservative critics of President Trump will have to reconcile their vehement opposition to him with their love of the Constitution. The latter is most definitely benefiting from the president’s massive impact on the federal bench.

The Supreme Court, though by far the most important court, still reviews only 80 or so appeals court decisions per year, compared to the tens of thousands of case participations completed by the Federal Appeals Court judges.

The president and the GOP-controlled Senate have already put one-eighth of the federal appeals bench in their seats. Each of those new appointees— all principled “originalists” in the mold of the late Justice Scalia—will have more than 400 participations in 2018 alone. Critics from the #NeverTrump crowd need to balance their criticism with this remarkable record of repair of the bench.

Looking forward, I’ll bend that famous Carville phrase a bit: “It’s the judges, brilliant people.”

It’s the judges.

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Dr. Mohler comments on the Supreme Court ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, in which a baker was sued for refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. 

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Despite the constant assertions from the media that young people are left-wing, a Gallup study showed that more teens identified as conservative than liberal. Perhaps this is because people, especially teenagers like to push back against authority. The Millennials are left wing because they grew up during the Bush administration. But the Post-Millennials, also known as Generation Z grew up during the Obama administration, amidst a climate of political correctness among many of their teachers.

Gen Z does not watch CNN and MSNBC; they watch YouTube. And YouTube political commentary is dominated by conservatives like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens and Jordan Peterson.

So don’t be worried when you hear about Millennial support for Sanders and socialism. That’s old news. The generation after them is leaning right.

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