Townhall Review | Commentaries

It looks like the days of wine and roses—and impunity—for the EPA are over. For the second time in as many years, the Supreme Court has rebuked the agency for expanding its jurisdiction without congressional authorization. 

Last year, the court ended the EPA’s attempts to regulate carbon dioxide as a “pollutant.” Now they’ve unanimously rebuked the agency from attempting to regulate all  land with water on or even near it as part of the Clean Water Act. Justice Alito ended five decades of capricious regulatory actions by seriously limiting the “Waters of the U.S.” rule to a common-sense definition. 

After 19 years, the Sackett family prevailed—delivering a blow for liberty and the rule of law over the administrative state.

The court will have another opportunity to strike a much bigger blow against the entire bureaucratic state in the Loper Bright case. 

Let’s hope they choose to act for the rule of law over the administrative state then as well.

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Each year at this time, we are granted a three-day weekend and what amounts to a kick-off to the summer months ahead.

This year, Memorial Day comes amidst tense and dynamic times for the nation. 

And yet, on the world stage, our nation is facing challenges unlike anything we’ve seen since the end of the Cold War.

General Secretary Xi and the Chinese Communist Party sense weakness in this administration and are more aggressive and assertive than ever. When you consider Iran, Russia, North Korea, other rogue institutions and states and the still-present threat of radical Islam across the globe, we live in a very dangerous world.

I’m hopeful our nation will rise to the challenge yet again.

I know this: We are debtors to all those who have defended us for nearly 250 years now.

For all who bear the scars of service, for all who paid the ultimate price, for the families with an empty seat at the table…

We are in your debt.

Hundreds of millions of Americans salute you today.

A grateful nation says, “Thank you.”

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It came and went without much notice, but last week a new report showed drug deaths increased last year to nearly 110,000 Americans—an increase from the previous year’s nearly 107,000 deaths.  And these are undercounts, just drug poisonings—they don’t include drug involved suicides or fatal car crashes.  Consider: With drug deaths, we are now losing the equivalent of two major commercial airline crashes per day in America. This isn’t carnage—it’s slaughter.  

As for children, for Covid we closed schools, shut down athletic and other programs, vaxxed and masked our kids and scared the heck out of them.  Yet, in 2021, alone, we lost 154 percent more children from drug poisonings than Covid. And it’s getting worse.

We are actually witnessing a decrease in life expectancy. That’s unheard of in a society as wealthy, educated and developed as ours.   

We can ignore this problem, we can appease it, or we can roll up our sleeves and actually do something to stop the slaughter.

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A recent survey of Americans’ views of the news media by Gallup and the Knight Foundation “goes beyond others that have shown a low level of trust in the media,” according to an Associated Press report of the findings, “to the startling point where many believe there is an intent to deceive.”
 
That’s right. We think the media is lying.  This skepticism might be growing. 
 
Consider recent revelations by Republican-led House investigations about the 2020 letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials strongly suggesting that the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian disinformation operation. Right on cue, the letter released before the 2020 election, impacting it with a massive media publicity boost.
 
Now we’re on to the 2024 campaign, and the legacy media’s contempt for Donald Trump and the tens of millions of Americans who support him still burns with the heat of a thousand suns, and it certainly distorts media coverage. 
 
Journalists shouldn’t be surprised when they discover that feeling is mutual.

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Last week, the Supreme Court rejected last-ditch efforts to restrain illegal immigration by retaining Title 42. That’s the covid-era public health policy that let the government quickly expel certain asylum seekers.

Justice Neil Gorsuch penned a wise accompanying statement. He denounced all the emergency decrees — from lockdown orders to vaccine mandates — enforced during the pandemic. 

Calling them, rightly, “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country,” Justice Gorsuch was only getting started. He pointed out how executives closed churches but allowed casinos and other favored businesses to stay open. And he noted that abuses from the executive branch had occurred at every level of government.

The Justice concluded with a warning all of us must take to heart: “Rule by indefinite emergency edict risks leaving us with a shell of a democracy and civil liberties just as hollow.” 

Let’s hope more of the nation starts listening.

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Regulations—imposed by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats—already impose $2 trillion dollars in compliance costs on Americans. That sum is roughly equal to the entire Canadian GDP.

The Biden administration’s already proposed rules to effectively outlaw gas stoves. Now they’re coming for other appliances.

One proposed rule mandates new dishwashers use 34 percent less water and 27 percent less power. Another would get rid of top-loading washing machines. The administration is eyeing microwaves and toothbrush chargers, too.

All this is being done in the name of “environmental justice.” But even as these rules erode our standard of living and make everything more expensive, can anyone quantify their benefits? Why are Americans sacrificing when China’s carbon emissions are nearly double ours and Europe’s combined—and they’re still building the equivalent of two coal plants per week?  

It’s time for the Biden administration to answer these pressing questions—and press “pause” on this regulatory state.

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You may have seen recent news reports where the new Ford Mustang is not going to have an AM Radio on the dashboard. We’ve heard similar reports about plans for radio in some of the EVs coming from automakers like Tesla, Audi, Porsche and more.
 
The car companies should not be moving this fast.
 
We all know the media’s landscape is changing quickly—but AM radio still has upwards of 45 million listeners every month. AM radio is the core of the Emergency Alert System for the nation.
 
When cell phones are dead … when mobile coverage is just not there, AM radio provides reliable, real-time help to Americans facing weather emergencies, traffic safety issues or other crises.
 
When other mediums fail, AM radio is a reliable source for help— always.
 
AM radio ought to remain on the dashboard of today’s cars.
 
In a rare, bipartisan move, Republicans and Democrats have introduced the “AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act” in Congress.
 
It ought to move quickly through both houses of Congress.
 
Keep a wonderful system in the car and available.

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“Nordstrom Leaves Downtown San Francisco Joining Big City Retail Exodus.”

That was a recent headline from the Washington Post … and the story of what is happening in San Francisco and cities like it should have our attention, because they are not alone.

What we are looking at here is the genuine potential of failed cities in the United States of America. There is an entire collection of big problems in San Francisco … and the bills are all coming due right now.

The most immediate driving issue here is crime—with theft having a double effect: scaring away paying customers and eating away at narrow retail margins. 

Under the very, very liberal, politically progressive government and under the rule of those progressivist ideas, they basically made it impossible to put up any significant limitations upon crime in San Francisco. 

The result: San Francisco is becoming more and more unlivable and ungovernable. The government is not working … 

… and, again, just remember this, San Francisco is not alone.

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Since when does even C-SPAN fail to cover an event involving an official Congressional press conference? Last week, the House Oversight Committee presented its preliminary findings from its corruption probe of the Bidens’ business connections. They have identified 20 or more limited liability corporations used by the Bidens to filter millions of dollars of payments from foreign sources—one of which has been known for years as a front for Beijing’s intelligence services. 

And yet, the national media didn’t bother to cover it live, with the singular exception of Fox News. Most outlets ignored it entirely. The few that did shrugged off the issues as potential influence peddling; the New York Times even reported that the committee had exonerated Biden and his family.

Jonathan Turley sarcastically called the news blackout ‘Pulitzer worthy,’ referencing both the awards given to news outlets for amplifying the Russia collusion hoax. 

The elite outlets of American journalism have degraded to a progressive protection racket, willing to sacrifice any claim to credibility to keep people from asking questions about Biden Inc. 

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Not long ago, Gavin Newsom started a tour to attack the policies of red state governors. But perhaps he’d be better advised to tend to his own state’s business before he goes meddling.

Just this weekend, Newsom announced California’s budget deficit will be $9 billion dollars higher than the twenty-two-and-a-half-billion dollar deficit he announced earlier this year.

This bad news comes on the back of the state’s $32 billion dollars in pandemic era unemployment insurance fraud. And California has defaulted on $18.6 billion dollars in federal loans it borrowed to address the state’s unemployment fund deficit. Now its businesses are on the hook.

Newsom has his eye on The White House. But he’d clearly be failing up. Given his spotty record at home, if he keeps on telling other governors how to do their jobs, the blowback won’t be pretty.

Things aren’t so golden in the Golden State.

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