Townhall Review | Commentaries

Whether the decline began with the sliming of Robert Bork or the segregationist filibusters of civil rights legislation, the modern U.S. Senate has been on a downward spiral for some time.

What the Senate needs now is an overhaul of its rules, one that preserves the rights of the minority in some cases—key legislation, for example, and perhaps appointments to the Supreme Court—while also reflecting the speed at which the world moves today. Simple majorities on appropriations and time limits on debate over minor nominees are two obvious reforms. They could be traded, for example, for agreement on the high court vacancies and how long those debates should last.

The Senate’s dysfunction is astonishing to Americans who have to make things actually run, who have to do their jobs to keep their jobs. Donald Trump has shrewdly taken aim at the Senate’s vulnerability as an issue. It would be best for both parties to head off change imposed from pressure from the outside with change organically orchestrated from within by those with care for the body and its original design.

It is time to extend what I call the “Reid-rule reforms,” and it’s time to do so now.

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This is Michael Medved for Townhall.com, with a message to President Trump: congratulations, Mr. President, on your first year in office.

 

In the upcoming State of the Union Address you should highlight our strong economy, progress against ISIS, cuts in taxes and regulation, judicial appointments and more. You should paraphrase Ronald Reagan by asking: are you better off than you were one year ago? An overwhelming majority will say yes, we are.

 

But please, Mr. President, don’t let Democrats change the focus from the state of the union to the state of your mind. Of course, your opponents have been nasty and unfair, but hitting back at them in similarly nasty terms only diminishes your stature. By emphasizing the undeniable progress of everyday Americans, you will build on your first year’s success. And you can overcome the highly personal attacks of your critics more effectively by ignoring them, rather than responding to them.

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The president recently made an historic appearance by satellite transmission to the March for Life, becoming the first president of the United States to do so.

 

President Trump, just a matter of years ago, had described himself as very pro-choice, but now he can only be described in terms of his actions and statements as very pro-life.

 

I cannot dream of understanding exactly how he came from a pro-choice position to a pro-life position, but I do know this: he put himself very much on the line in that webcast of the March for Life. He has also put himself and his administration on the line for the pro-life position in numerous executive orders and in developments even just the day before.

 

Whatever happened in the thinking and in the heart and in the policies of Donald Trump over the last several years is exactly what needs to happen amongst millions and millions of our fellow Americans.

 

That’s what we strive for, that’s what we hope for, that’s what we pray for, and that’s what we work for.

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As the Republican-led Congress plans the 2018 legislative agenda, healthcare needs to continue to be a top priority.

 

Health premiums continue are soaring, and millions of people have little or no choice of health insurance. Millions of people who once could afford coverage no longer can, and many find that their health insurance premiums cost more than their mortgage or rent payments.

 

In a new Associated Press-NORC poll, nearly half of Americans said health care is their primary concern for 2018, topping taxes, immigration, education, and the environment by more than 15 percent.

 

Obamacare has failed miserably in fulfilling the last administration’s promise to cut health costs. The typical American worker now must devote roughly twice as many work hours to cover health costs as to pay for food.

 

Individuals need to be empowered with greater flexibility and choice. And states are better equipped than Washington to oversee their health insurance markets. This requires legislative action from Congress for these new and better choices.

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A president’s first state of the union message is an important occasion. But in our era of political theater, there is some danger that this year the sideshow will overshadow the main attraction.

Several democratic members of Congress say they will boycott the event.  One Congresswoman is encouraging females who do attend to dress in black. 

Despite the political challenges, “it’s the economy, stupid.”  If Trump makes this primarily an economic address, he can succeed.  Think about it:  unemployment is down, jobs are up and the stock market is on fire. His big piece of legislation, the tax bill, is projected to lead to even more economic growth. The president has problems elsewhere, but so far so good on the economy and that should be his message.

The Constitution does not actually require this kind of televised state of the union address, though tradition does.  It’s always possible that a nontraditional president like Trump might surprise us and do something completely different.

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The unbounded enthusiasm for Oprah Winfrey’s prospective presidential run illustrates the Democrats’ tendency to prioritize personality above policy. Nobody knows where Oprah stands on issues of the day, or what style of governance she’d favor, but Democrats know she is a popular personality and that’s enough for them. Barack Obama enjoyed similar popularity among Democrats: his brief pre-White House career displayed few practical achievements or even a coherent philosophy, but inspiring speeches about hope and change gave him an almost magical appeal.

In approaching President Trump, of course, Democrats also prefer to ignore substance and to concentrate on style: they emphasize the president’s volatile personality and dismiss his undeniable record of first year accomplishment. Liberals would rather scold the latest presidential tweet than consider the booming economy or the lowest black unemployment rate ever measured. The GOP shouldn’t help them in this effort, but must focus relentlessly on the nation’s pressing issues rather than the president’s personality.

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Tax reform legislation signed into law by President Trump in December, which will lower taxes for most Americans this year, unfortunately did nothing to stop billions of dollars in new taxes under Obamacare from hitting millions of Americans in the wallet.

One example is the Obamacare health insurance tax, which is being paid for directly by consumers, in the form of higher premiums. So millions of us will take a direct hit, even though most people who will be paying for the tax increase don’t even realize it.

Over the next 10 years, individual market beneficiaries will pay over $2,000 more in premiums; families getting their coverage through small employers will pay over $6,000 more; and Medicare Advantage members will pay over $3,000 more.

Although Republicans did not create ObamaCare, they are in a golden position to end this tax and help bring down premiums. A failure to do so may hurt congressional Republicans when they come before the voters in this November’s midterm elections.

And that’s a risk they shouldn’t take.

 

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The moral confusion of our culture was appallingly illustrated in a recent article in the New York Times: “Is your child lying to you? That’s good.”

 

The author, Alex Stone, refers to research suggesting that the children who learn how to lie the earliest are the children who turn out to be smarter. It takes a certain amount of intelligence, after all, to learn how to lie.

 

Your child isn’t lying? Well, don’t worry. The article supplies exercises you can do with your child to speed up the process of learning how to lie.

 

Stone goes on to suggest that one of the worst things parents can do is to punish a lie. Instead, he encourages parents to pay children to tell the truth.

 

We really are living in a world turned upside down when parents in a major American newspaper are told to celebrate when their toddlers lie and are offered tactical advice about how to teach them to lie.

 

It’s a catastrophe. It’s a moral world turned upside down. And that’s no lie.

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The 75th Annual Golden Globes recently awarded the prize for best drama to “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The show is based on the dystopian novel of the same title, written by Margaret Atwood.

Hollywood would have us believe that Margaret Atwood pointed to what we’re facing now in America with the #MeToo movement. In reality, the novel was first published in 1985.

Back in 1985, Atwood was warning of about the impulse to theocracy in the Reagan administration.

Atwood basically renewed her charges of theocracy every time a Republican was elected as president.

But intellectual honesty compels us to recognize that when Margaret Atwood is talking about theocracy in her vision of dystopia, she's actually talking about any legal mechanism to regulate marriage or sexuality in a way that doesn't meet her feminist expectations.

So throw questions such as assisted reproduction and abortion and others into the mix and you pretty much have the picture of what it takes for Margaret Atwood to declare a theocracy.

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Two Republican legislators in South Carolina proposed a new monument on the state Capitol grounds to honor Confederate soldiers—this time commemorating black fighting men who went to battle for the South.

This idea is both ill-considered and offensive. First, the estimated 6,000 African-Americans who did fight for the Confederacy were mostly slaves, and forced to do so—many deserted when the Confiscation Acts and Emancipation Proclamation offered freedom to those who crossed Union lines. Second, black soldiers represented less than 1 percent of the 750,000 white Confederates—and a tiny fraction of the 200,000 blacks who served the Union military.

Finally, it makes no sense to construct new memorials to those who fought against the United States in an effort to destroy our country. Yes, there may be romance and sentiment associated with the South’s “Lost Cause” but conservatives who want support from people of color must unequivocally acknowledge that this Lost Cause deserved to lose.

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