Townhall Review | Commentaries

This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

Last week, the CDC’s advisory committee recommended that the COVID vaccine be added to the immunization schedule for children—everyone aged six months and over.

Although such recommendations don’t constitute mandates, which are set by states, they will absolutely influence some states to require the vaccine for school entry.

The CDC’s credibility is being further eroded by the recommendation. Children are the group at lowest risk from COVID-19. What’s more, 86 percent of them have already caught the virus, which confers natural immunity. And: The vaccine does little to prevent transmission, and it comes with risks of its own.

It's just another example of unaccountable, unelected elites making unpopular decisions on behalf of regular people—and one more reason why the governed view the government with growing mistrust.

The CDC has completely failed us. The decision of whether or not children receive the vaccine belongs with their parents—not the state.

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One Democrat candidate for the Senate used Twitter to praise Iranian terror-state supreme leader Ali Khameini, wished he could meet with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad—and proposed to work in Havana as an American diplomat. 

Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin is not your father’s Democrat. Neither is Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, who wants to let murderers out of prison because he watched “The Shawshank Redemption.” Nor, for that matter, is Georgia’s Raphael Warnock, who claims God has endorsed abortion. 

All of these Senate candidates are radical Leftists, not the kind of Democrats we used to know in days gone by. They want to push Joe Biden’s progressive agenda even further to the Left. In fact, The Hill reported that Bernie Sanders himself is strategizing on how to make Democrats even more radical after the midterms in their next presidential cycle. 

None of these candidates should come within a country mile of power. Voters have an opportunity to ensure they don’t—by voting in the upcoming elections. Make your vote count for America. 

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The midterm election is now on us. In many states, early voting has begun. After two years of disastrous single-party governance, we strongly believe that the voters must rebuke Democrats at every level this year. Roaring inflation, soaring crime, an open border, the collapse in Afghanistan … all are reasons to vote for candidates with the R behind their name. 

But this year be sure to seek out the school board elections on your ballot and do not vote for any incumbent whatsoever unless you are personally absolutely sure—absolutely sure—that those incumbents opposed the shutdown of the schools, the mandatory masking and the radical agenda being pushed on so many campuses across the nation. 

It’s been a nightmare for parents—for two years—and our students have paid the price.

As voters, you have the power to make the changes needed at school boards. 

Make sure you’re registered and prepared to vote—and vote for new blood on old school boards.

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Forget everything you thought you knew about the midterm elections—and especially what the mainstream media told you about it. That summer comeback for Joe Biden and Democrats? It was a mirage. 

As pollsters get closer to Election Day and accountability, their polling results have gotten closer to reality. Newspapers and television outlets will paint this as sudden momentum for the GOP. The truth is that this is an exceptionally bad political environment for the governing party, and the distraction campaigns designed to cover it up have failed.

As James Carville once said, “It’s the economy, stupid”—but we can add inflation, crime, education, a border crisis—and arguably the most incompetent president in modern American history. 

Now all that’s left is to finish the job. Study your ballot, get your friends and family registered and most importantly—vote. It’s our best weapon against tyranny, and in this election, perhaps our last hope against disaster. 

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On Valentine’s Day of 2018 in Parkland, Florida, Nicholas Cruz murdered fourteen students and three staff members in a deliberate and premeditated act of unthinkable evil. Last week, nine of twelve jurors imposed the death penalty—but because Florida law requires a unanimous verdict, Cruz will spend life in prison.

It’s hard to be a death penalty juror, but before being seated, each juror would have affirmed his or her willingness to hand down the penalty if warranted. If the Parkland shootings didn’t merit the death penalty, what would?

One juror apparently was unsure whether Cruz had a mental disorder. But to claim mental illness, a defendant must lack the capacity to understand his actions were wrong. Cruz knew—but killed on purpose nonetheless, destroying lives and families forever.  
 
This is the very sort of case for which the death penalty was created.

The sentencing was a profound injustice for the seventeen victims and those who loved them. 

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The inflation destroying your ability to make ends meet, making it impossible to fill your tank or your grocery cart, is the simple result of too much money chasing too few goods. When Donald Trump left office there wasn’t an inflation problem at all because bipartisan efforts spent the right amount of borrowed money to restart the economy after the government’s Covid shutdown. 

But Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer wanted to be remembered as new versions of FDR—and they abused the narrowest of majorities in Congress to pass trillions more, even as they took actions to shutter oil and gas production. Prices have soared … and then the president pushed through another 400 billion through a student loan give away to favored constituents. 

This is Joe Biden and the Democrats’ inflation. It’s Joe Biden and the Democrats’ recession. It’s Joe Biden and the Democrats’ record. Vote accordingly and do so early, and as soon as you can.

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We just got the new inflation numbers and they're bad. 

They especially expose the spin about this inflation being a result of the Russia-Ukraine war. You see, in addition to calculating overall inflation, the government also calculates inflation without including food and energy. They call that core inflation. And it's the highest since 1982. 

That means that even when you strip out the two categories of goods most affected by the war, we still have a once-in-a-generation loss in the purchasing power of the dollar. 

It might not be so bad if wages were keeping up, but they aren't.

There really is only one solution to the problem, a power shift in Washington. We need a Congress which will ride the brake pedal on growth in government and the gas pedal on growth in the private economy. 

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In Iran, there’s a feminist revolution struggling to survive. Mahsa Amini was detained by Iran’s guidance patrol last month for failing to wear her hijab properly, then died at the hands of the mullah’s morality police.

Since then, women—even schoolgirls—have challenged the regime’s authoritarian rule, waving their hijabs and chanting “Death to the dictator!” Good men are joining them in a complete repudiation of the Islamic Republic.

Yet Western media downplays their protests. The Biden administration is silent. College campuses, which once would have teemed with supportive protests, are quiet. Students seem too busy pondering their own identities to support those suffering real oppression because of their gender.

Worst of all are American “feminists.” Preoccupied with abortion, they can’t spare a thought for their Iranian sisters struggling simply for the right to live as full citizens, without fear.

Say a prayer for these brave Iranian protesters.

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The 2022 election has been fun to watch. First, legacy media came at J.D. Vance in Ohio, and the attacks bounced off. J.D. will win comfortably. Then legacy media came after Dr Oz and ignored both the left-wing extremism of John Fetterman—and now his disability from a stroke. Oz has surged. So now legacy media wants to destroy Herschel Walker over anonymous and unproven allegations.

Legacy media fails to understand that when they attack the Republican—in the case of Herschel, one of Georgia’s favorite sons—while ignoring all the radical past and leftwing politics of Raphael Warnock, the Democrat, that imbalance is seen and understood by Peach State voters.

They know that President Biden and Chuck Schumer have Warnock’s vote 100 percent of the time. 

When Herschel wins on November 8, legacy media will get an assist—because you can’t fool Georgians about elites from Manhattan and the Beltway pushing their agenda through the politics of personal destruction.

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There’s a hot new trend among Democrat candidates this year: refuse to engage your opponent.

Take John Fetterman, the radical Democrat, running for Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat. He’s agreed to a single debate, two weeks before election day—and seven weeks after mail-in ballots went out. Colorado’s Democratic Senator Michael Bennett refused to debate until October 28, eleven days after Colorado mailed out its ballots, and four days after the start of early voting. Senator Maggie Hassan is refusing to appear on the same stage with the Republican nominee for one of only three debates. And finally, Katie Hobbs, Arizona’s Democratic nominee for governor, won’t debate at all.

Democrats are getting away with this nonsense because elite media permits it. But media should recognize more than anyone, a functioning representative democracy depends on an informed electorate. These candidates, from a party posing as democracy’s defenders, should realize that too, and behave accordingly.

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