Townhall Review | Commentaries

Opinions vary on the legalities of President Trump’s handling of classified documents surrounding his recent indictment. Federal Judge Aileen Cannon and a jury will sort through the charges, but most concerning is the unequal application of prosecutorial discretion in the dogged pursuit of President Trump. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden both have had serious issues with mishandling classified documents and related legal violations —yet Trump is the only one so far being prosecuted.

For America to survive as a free country, citizens must have confidence in the impartiality of its justice system. That in turn depends on unbiased, non-political application of the law —a standard that seems to have been thrown out when it comes to President Trump. 

From Russiagate on, norms have been flouted repeatedly, with no one held to account. In their zeal to stop one man, the left is jeopardizing America’s rule of law. Laws must be enforced equally.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Donald Trump has been indicted by the Special Counsel of the Department of Justice for the unlawful retention and use of records from his presidency.

This unprecedented indictment comes as President Trump is also the leading political opponent of the current President, who oversees the Department of Justice, to whom the Special Counsel answers.

Remember: Trump was impeached the first time in 2019 over allegations that he used his office to target his political opponent. One thing should be kept in mind though:  The first legal filing by any party in a criminal or civil case almost always looks damning, often unanswerable. 

Reserved judgment is in order. Only one side has had their say here, and there’s always another side, namely the defense. And a judge. And a jury.  And we haven’t heard from any of them yet.

We live in a moment of rushed judgments and hasty conclusions… but patience is in order—especially in such an unprecedented moment.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When news broke on Thursday night, that former president Donald Trump faced a seven-count indictment in Miami, shocked reactions came from across the political spectrum. 

Of course, there was some celebrating and football spiking on the Left—they didn't get Trump in the Mueller investigation. 

They didn't get Trump in two impeachments. 

Now they think they're finally going to get Trump over a box of documents in some vault at Mar-a-Lago. 

I wouldn't be so quick, because of course juries get involved at this point and they may step back in the way that, what appears to be a weaponized Department of Justice, hasn't and say—this is how Banana Republics work—not how the United States of America works. 

But the process will grind on and we will cover it every day. But he is presumed innocent until guilty. And we do know. We do know, it's all about a box of documents. 

Stay tuned. We'll keep you posted of the United States v. Trump. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

America crossed an unhappy threshold last year. Shoplifting cost the retail industry about $100 billion dollars. And this isn’t just a series of one-offs. It’s highly organized retail crime—coordinated robberies designed to take advantage of laws loosened in the wake of George Floyd’s death and/or woke DA’s who refuse to prosecute.

Forbidden to intervene, store employees must watch helplessly as their workplaces are robbed, sometimes multiple times daily. The thieves most often aren’t desperately stealing a loaf of bread. Rather, they’re hardened criminals using profits to fund drug purchases.

Hardest hit are the urban poor, whom the “woke” claim to care most about. They now live in a dystopian world, where stores are closing and everything they want to buy is encased in glass or plastic.  But all of us suffer when there is a breakdown in civil society so brazen and ugly. It can’t be allowed to continue.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This past weekend, China cut off a US destroyer in international waters.  This, shortly after a Chinese fighter jet cut off a US reconnaissance plane in international airspace. We should be concerned about a coming US-China military conflict.  But, it should be just as frightening how much American institutions have adopted ideological practices that hauntingly mirror those of communist China.

A recent essay in the New York Times detailed Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution, where “information was suppressed” and history was “constantly re-written.” Mau’s effort was to eliminate the “Four Olds”—old ideas, habits, customs, and traditions. It all sounds like what we’re seeing from today’s leftist ideologues in America.

The military threat from China is real, but so is our internal adoption of Marxist ideals and practices in our schools, government agencies and corporations. It’s time we recognize these trends for what they are and, more importantly, resist them.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Under Gavin Newsom’s leadership, the cities of California—the once-“Golden State”—have become a spectacle of human suffering. Homeless fill the streets. Now, Los Angeles must manage 11,000 people sheltered in dilapidated RVs parked citywide.

The crisis grows although Newsom has allocated more than $20 billion dollars to housing and homelessness just since 2018. He’s spending another three and a half billion this year. Yet the misery just grows.

There’s plenty of land in California—to develop housing or homeless facilities. The problem is California’s elite environmentalists—like Newsom—have made development cost prohibitive or altogether impossible. The other problem is willpower.

It’s time for Gavin Newsom to meet reality: money alone won’t get the job done. Roll back senseless regulations, push the homeless to make a choice, and get them something more than this suffering, degradation and early death.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During the crisis over the debt ceiling, President Biden following a number of congressional leaders including Bernie Sanders, John Fetterman, Elizabeth Warren and members of the so-called Squad laid claim to a power which no president has ever claimed before. 

The president said that an obscure provision of the 14th Amendment, which states the public debt should not be questioned means that he could violate the debt ceiling set by Congress. This interpretation is nonsense. The amendment was intended to stop southern states from defaulting on Union debts from the Civil War. 

It in no way transferred Congress’ authority over debt to the presidency, which would constitute the greatest executive branch power grab in history. Biden ended up not using the tactic, but he did use it for leverage and it is now an article of faith for the Democrats. This is dangerous to our constitutional order and to both U.S. and global financial markets. 

It should be roundly condemned.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The vote late Wednesday evening finalized a tactical win for Kevin McCarthy and Republicans on spending – and a humiliating retreat by Joe Biden. The president spent 97 days refusing to negotiate any deal to raise the debt ceiling and tried to bluff McCarthy with a game of chicken over a technical default. McCarthy's success in passing a debt-ceiling increase with substantial cuts—and no tax increases—forced Democrats to negotiate on McCarthy's terms and agree to cut hundreds of billions from planned spending.

Are there reasons to criticize this debt-ceiling deal? Yes, but this a debt-ceiling negotiation on budget items already passed by Congress. It was not a budget negotiation; but it does set the stage for that next budget negotiation—and on terms more friendly to conservatives. McCarthy's ability to pass the first bill demonstrates that the Speaker and the House majority are forces to be reckoned with.

Clearly, more is needed. But in order to achieve that, Republicans have to win more elections.

It was a tactical win.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lately, we’re hearing a lot about the dangers of TikTok. 

A piece by Julie Jargon at The Wall Street Journal caught my attention. The title: “TikTok Feeds Teens a Diet of Darkness.”

Jargon writes of recent research, where they put together hundreds of fictitious teenage accounts, set up as if they were indeed teenagers. The material directed to the teenagers was incredibly, frighteningly, dark: Self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, depression. 

Are you depressed yet?

She writes about this kind of feed and then says, “I had to stop. If the rapid string of sad videos made me feel bad, how would a 14-year-old feel after watching this kind of content day after day?"

The point is simple: As human beings, we are not made to be bombarded with all of this darkness—and that’s true whatever our age. It is warping to the personality. It’s corrosive to the soul. We are not made to marinate ourselves in this kind of darkness.

We were made for something more. Indeed, the Scripture tells us—much more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With angry members from the progressive caucus in Congress announcing their vast disappointment with the Debt Limit compromise, we can quickly surmise who got the better of whom in the long negotiation just concluded. 
 
Conservatives who are realists are cheering the breaking of the Democratic stranglehold that until this deal obliged Congress to spend an additional dollar on boondoggles for every new dollar spent on defense. Breaking this approach for good is the best part of the new deal. 
 
The next best thing is that there is not one line of tax hikes or “revenue enhancements” in the whole thing. Congrats to Speaker McCarthy for this critical win for spending discipline.
 
Some conservatives are angry that the GOP did not get everything that all of the 222 members of the caucus wanted. Realists know that was never going to happen, not with only one-half of the Congress under very narrow Republican control. 
 
But to make progress means winning in November of 2024, and this deal puts the GOP on the road to that crucial next step. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.