Townhall Review | Commentaries

The scale of California’s homelessness problem is difficult to fathom.

According to a report from the Public Policy Institute of California, more than 115,000 people in California in 2022 were unsheltered. That accounts for half of all the homeless in the entire country.

I’d point to Los Angeles, city and county both, as the epicenter of the tragedy. L.A.’s Homeless Services Authority’s 2022 count found nearly 69,000 homeless across the county.

In 2020, a group of residents and business owners filed a lawsuit, trying to force L.A. city and county both to address the crisis. U.S. District Court Judge David Carter has been presiding, pushing the myriad alphabet agencies and billions of budget dollars into something like a serious plan of action.

It isn’t working. 

Last week, the parties were in court, looking for a settlement.

Notably absent from the whole process, I should point out, is California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Everyone in California should be asking about his abject failure to address th unprecedented and avoidable disaster of homelessness.

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We knew the mainstream media had transformed into shills for the Left and Democrats. We didn’t know the extent of their corruption until last week. Enterprising photographers captured Joe Biden holding note cards at a press conference not just with a reporter’s name but also with a photo and the question Biden would have to answer. The Los Angeles Times reporter dutifully asked the question she supplied in advance, and Biden answered it as though he was wrestling with the issue extemporaneously.

This goes well beyond “softball questions.” At the same time that voters are being asked to debate whether an octogenarian incumbent is up to the task of the presidency, the LA Times created a façade of competency to boost Biden’s electoral chances. The rest of the media ignored it and its implications; when CNN did cover it, it was only to claim that Republicans were “seizing” on it.

The nation’s media has transformed its mission from holding leadership accountable to creating its propaganda. It has literally become “fake news.”

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The contentious abortion debates we’re seeing after the Dobbs decision has led some on the right to, essentially, say the cause of life is a losing issue.

I don’t think that’s true.

Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed a fetal heartbeat bill that protects unborn babies at six weeks’ gestation. His action suggests that Republicans can win on abortion if they define the terms of the debate.

GOP leaders need to continue to champion the truth about the precious child in the womb: The entity that ultrasound technicians refer to as “your baby,” whose heartbeat expectant mothers and fathers anxiously wait to hear, and whose grainy pictures we share in text messages, is a human being of profound worth. 

Standing for the inherent and equal dignity of every human places the pro-life movement on the right side of this issue.

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Certainly, everyone is entitled to an opinion. But some views are so appalling that they merit the greatest possible disdain.

Take the new report from agencies affiliated with the United Nations. It calls for all forms of sexual activity to be decriminalized. Worse, it implies that sex regardless of age should be decriminalized, if the minors “consent” to the activity.

That’s a big step forward toward normalizing one of society’s last remaining taboos: pedophilia.

The UN has pushed back, claiming it refers to sex between adolescents of similar ages.  But that’s not what the report says. It references, instead, “adolescents’ evolving capacity to consent in certain contexts, in fact if not in law.” Had the report’s authors intended to limit their discussion to inter-adolescent relationships, they knew how to do so.

Shame on the UN for its complicity in the effort to destroy the innocence of children.

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California’s Governor Newsom has announced he’ll be deploying the National Guard to address the fentanyl crisis in San Francisco.

It’s about time.

The Greek statesman, Pericles, said “Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the whole earth flow in upon us.”  We can’t say that about our big cities in America today anymore. From New York City to Los Angeles, the fruit has become rotten.  And San Francisco is its own awful dystopia.

It remains to be seen what he will allow the guard to do, but it’s shameful he’s taken so long.  Let’s hope it’s not too late. Many have been urging action for years. Last year alone, in San Francisco, four times more people died from fentanyl poisoning than everyone under the age of 18 died from Covid over the course of three years, in the entire state of California. 

This was avoidable carnage—and the message to other public officials should be: don’t wait this long, again.  Ever.

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What do you do when your movement is on the right side of an issue morally, but seems to be losing politically? That’s the question the pro-life movement needs to answer, and fast.

This much is true: Public opinion in America isn’t as protective of children in the womb as it should be. But: It’s also true that Americans are dramatically more pro-life than the Democratic Party. Taxpayer-funded abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy—the official Democratic platform—is extremely unpopular even for many Democratic voters. 

The pro-life movement has an opportunity to expose this left-wing extremism.

We need to be willing to work incrementally towards a goal of an America where every child is protected in law and welcomed in life. If we move steadily forward, one step at a time, we will get there.

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The next time you hear Democrats and their media allies say Republican governors and legislatures are trying to “ban books” in schools, ask them if they are prepared to allow five- and six-year-olds to attend Rated-R movies.  

The point is pretty simple: Rated-R movies are not banned movies, they are restricted, restricted because of age-inappropriate material and content.  Now, given the content of some of these books Democrats and others say are being banned in the early grades, ask yourself if elementary schools should also be able to show explicit movies in their schools.

There used to be a left-to-right consensus about exposing children to inappropriate content. Even Bill Clinton understood this when he said at a State of the Union speech: “When parents control what their young children see, that is not censorship; that is enabling parents to assume more personal responsibility for their children's upbringing.”

That’s a principle and conviction that today’s Democrats have abandoned.

It’s harmful … and shameful.

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You probably know who your governor is and your senators too. But do you know who your state treasurer is, auditor general, how about your comptroller? Well, it's time to start paying attention, because these officers have emerged as the new frontline against the intrusion of politics into finance under the guise of  ESG. 

On my podcast, “Meeting of Minds,” I recently interviewed John Murante, Treasurer of Nebraska, an agricultural state. He warns that the war against fossil fuels is now turning into a war against agriculture as government and activists push companies to divest not just from the energy industry but from industries that use energy, and farms use energy. 

Whether they know it or not, ESG activists would create a world where we are colder, more hungry, and in the dark. It's time to start engaging with the companies you own in your 401(k). Remember, they work for you.

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Have we grown too cynical and self-serving to keep national security information a secret any longer? The case of Jack the Dripper, the Massachusetts Air National Guard enlistee who transmitted highly classified material through his gaming platform, is only the latest in self-absorbed leakers and classified material mishandlers. Jack Teixeira didn’t exploit his access to the nation’s secrets to act as a whistleblower or even for ideological purposes. Teixeira allegedly used the material simply to bolster his standing in a cult of personality.

The recent rash of personally motivated leaks for social media credibility raises significant questions about whether we have lost our ability to put national security ahead of personal gain. That starts at the top, however. The recent exposures of national leaders retaining classified material for their own commercial and/or political use is similarly damning. 

We get the behavior we incentivize. If we reward narcissism in both public and private arenas, we ought to expect the undermining of integrity and commitment to the ideals that allow a self-governing republic to function. 

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Following a weekend of “fiery violence” in Chicago, the Mayor-elect, Brandon Johnson, said: “It is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”  The same weekend, four teenagers were shot and killed in Dadeville, Alabama.  Something awful is happening with our youth and it’s spreading beyond our major cities—but it’s not a lack of economic opportunity.  Reckless and senseless violent crime is not caused by poverty.

What this comes from is “moral poverty.” Economics does not drive the lack of impulse control.  The absence comes from not teaching young boys the habituations of right and wrong, and children without fathers, drenched in environments of drugs and resentments. What we adults teach and insist upon—or what we don’t—is what matters. Until we get this right and reinstitute timeless and reliable standards of right and wrong in our youth, be prepared for more violence, death, and destruction.  And not just in our major cities.

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