Townhall Review | Commentaries

An Economist/YouGov poll asks respondents if they’d back “a presidential candidate who has done immoral acts in private life.”

A full 48 percent of Republicans find it acceptable, but only 19 percent of Democrats agree.  After three-decades of Democratic infatuation with the profoundly imperfect Bill and Hillary, this counts as a shock.

Yes, these attitudes reflect the polarized response to the current incumbent but other factors make the GOP less judgmental than the stereotype. More common identification with religion helps Republicans see “immoral acts in private” as nearly universal, so they pick the most capable sinner.

It’s liberals who view politics as life’s highest calling, while conservatives look askance at politicians in general, while feeling ready to trade a bit of private imperfection for a lot of public competence.

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An important case before the Supreme Court this week points back to 2015, when the legislature in California adopted a law requiring crisis pregnancy centers to articulate an explicitly pro-abortion message right down to how women could contact the state about financial assistance in obtaining an abortion.

In short: It’s a law compelling speech.

Ilya Shapiro, representing the CATO institute, points out that it’s extremely telling that California has no comparable law requiring abortion providers to post advertisements for adoption agencies, or any other alternative to abortion.

We're about to find out in short order if the justices of the United States Supreme Court mean what they say when they pledge to uphold the constitution of the United States—a constitution that includes the right of a citizen not to have a government coerce speech against conviction.

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California is stepping closer to a civil war with the federal government over immigration. In the latest round, one day after President Trump visited the state to see prototypes of his border wall, the state senate appointed an illegal immigrant to serve on a state commission, a big step in California’s progressive history.

Lizbeth Mateo, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was appointed to the state’s Student Opportunity and Access Program Project Advisory Committee.  Perhaps, as a lawyer who advocates for immigration rights, she would have a perspective to share as a witness before a state commission, but as a member? There’s no legal basis for that and it is a further effort by California to tweak the Trump administration. 

Unfortunately, the rule of law is rarely raised anymore in debates about immigration policy. Tweaking Trump is just a bad approach to public policy.

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I’m a huge admirer of Poland.

I love the way they have embraced their national identity, including their Christian heritage.

As an investor in Poland, I have admired their embrace of human productivity which helped to make Poland the best performing market in the world last year.

But this wonderful nation may be on the verge of a big mistake. It has passed a law which would illegalize speech about the small role which Polish collaborators played in the holocaust. Israeli leaders have reached out and officials from both nations are meeting in Jerusalem to discuss it, while Poland reconsiders this law.

Pope John Paul II, perhaps Poland's greatest gift to the world, probably did more than any Pope in history to heal the relationship between Catholicism and Judaism. His compatriots should follow his great example.

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A wave of change is coming in the 2018 and 2020 elections:  the rise of millennial voters.  In those elections, millennials, born between 1980-2000, will finally pass baby boomers as the largest voting generation.

What we know is that millennials hold different political views than their boomer parents.  They are more fearful, saying 4-1 that America is on the wrong track.  They believe less in political institutions such as Congress and the President.  They are more open to socialism, less committed to freedom. Seventy-one percent say we need a new political party. 

What we don’t know is how many millennials will actually show up to vote.  So far, their voting percentage is low:  only half or less of eligible voters in 2016. 

It seems likely that millennial concerns will change the conversation in future elections, but we’ll have to wait and see whether they actually vote and change the outcome.

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Reactions to White House plans to meet with Kim Jong-Un highlight the damaging impact of partisan polarization and obsessive Trump hatred.

Had Barack Obama arranged to negotiate with the brutal North Korean dictator, some of the same Democrats now deriding Trump would have hailed their hero as a bold visionary, deserving of a second Nobel prize.

Some of the voices that blamed Trump for incendiary rhetoric leading toward needless war now attack him for reckless concessions in pursuit of peace. Of course, this new initiative could still collapse in a U.S. setback, but Americans should give the president broad support to strengthen his hand. Yes, Trump true-believers can sometimes embarrass themselves by claiming the president can do no wrong, but his die-hard critics damage our politics by insisting that he can do no right.

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On my first show for MSNBC last June, I sat down with CIA Director Mike Pompeo, now President Trump's nominee for secretary of state. A quick read of the transcript will reassure any fair-minded person that a much-needed infusion of talent and presidential trust is on the way.

First in his class at West Point and an editor of the Harvard Law Review, Pompeo got key experience in the ways of the Washington swamp at the law firm Williams & Connolly before going as far as possible from it to Wichita to launch a successful career in business and then Congress.

Most importantly, Pompeo agrees with Trump's priorities and understands that his job is to serve Trump's agenda, not create one of his own. Like George Shultz with President Reagan and Henry Kissinger with President Nixon, the boss needs a trusted right arm, not a distant figure of uncertain commitment to core presidential goals.

Good news Pompeo at State!

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President Trump shocked the world when he agreed to meet with North Korean dictator Kim-Jong Un.  While there’s reason to be skeptical of Kim’s motives and tactics, we should all acknowledge that the President has managed to secure a major diplomatic breakthrough in the crisis. 

Now comes the hard work of making the meeting a productive one. North Korea has long dangled the prospect of disarmament in return for various concessions from America and its allies. Never before has the rogue regime been willing to keep to its promises, or to truly negotiate in good faith.  It’s possible the North Koreans are simply using the meeting as a ploy—an opportunity to make “asks” that will be impossible for American negotiators to agree to.

President Trump deserves credit for getting us to this point. But it’s important that he remains vigilant as we approach the murky waters ahead.

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Last week, the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers transgender persons even though they do not appear in the legislation.

The opinion was written by Circuit Judge Karen Nelson Moore who writes—and I quote: “the funeral home fired the employee because she refused to abide by her employer's stereotypical conception of her sex.”

That ruling means that there is now no determinate meaning to sex or gender in the United States of America.

This is a direct threat to religious liberty because the Sixth Circuit said that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has no bearing on this employment question whatsoever.

The moral revolution has but one great barrier to its complete victory: that barrier is religious conviction.

Watch closely.

 

 

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President Trump has agreed to go to a summit with the dictator of North Korea, Kim Jung Un.  Those who have watched three previous administrations fail to curb the North Korean nuclear program are stunned and wondering outl loud what could possibly come of such a meeting.

  If Donald Trump comes back with any concessions it will be a major win for his foreign policy even as the destruction of the physical caliphate of ISIS achieved under his watch is in sharp contrast to the fecklessness of the Obama years.  We are watching the renewal of a policy of peace through strength, and a key part of that is the massive budget increase passed by Congress earlier this year.  After 8 years of appeasement, American power is back and deployed around the globe.  It may be enough to bring calm to the Korean peninsula, or it may not work.  Either way, it is preferable to the appeasement that marked the Obama years.

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