Townhall Review | Commentaries

The 2022 election is now on us and many Americans are even now voting.

We've been hearing all the arguments. I'm sure you've felt the acrimony and the division.

We've all been living through this most dynamic and often disturbing period of our nation's history. The choices are being discussed, now the voters of the nation are making their choices and this is your responsibility to weigh in.

In contest after contest across the nation, voters face a choice between individual politicians. But it is also in most cases a contest between political parties—and all that those parties stand for. Beyond that, it is a contest of ideas… it is a battle of world views.

It's an oft-repeated adage, but elections have consequences. Ideas matter, worldviews matter and elections matter.

Whether you vote early or wait to go to polls on November 8, make sure your vote is part of the 2022 election.

Please: So much is at stake. Don't sit this out.

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There was only one debate for the Senate seat in Arizona. At one point in that debate—the crucial point in the debate— GOP nominee Blake Masters asked Democrat incumbent Mark Kelly why he had voted for 87,000 new IRS agents but against 18,000 new border patrol agents. Kelly, stunned, mumbled about the complexity of the voting process. 

Every state is a border state in 2022 but Arizona, Nevada and Colorado have been particularly hard hit by this massive wave of unpermitted migration. That’s why Republican nominees for Senate in those states—Blake Masters in Arizona, Adam Laxalt in Nevada and Joe O’Dea in Colorado—are running to the election finish line on November 8 with the electoral wind at their backs. 

We have to regain the ability to regulate who enters our country and the ability to keep deadly drugs out. Only a Congress controlled by Republicans can oblige President Biden to do this. 

That’s why I’m encouraging a vote for Republicans—Laxalt, Masters, O’Dea and anyone else—up and down the ballot.

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Pollsters who touted a Democratic comeback over the summer are now conceding: This year’s elections look good for Republicans. 

It’s no wonder.

Been to the market lately? The same basket of groceries is now noticeably pricier than it was just a year ago. It’s not uncommon to see shoppers look at prices then return items to the shelf. 

Each trip to the gas station causes sticker shock. 

Everywhere, there’s apprehension, malaise, and the grim unease that characterizes an era of diminished economic expectations.

At our southern border, Democrats justify or even enable the blatant violation of our laws.

In our major cities, no one feels secure but the criminals—we’ve all seen too many videos of horrendous acts of random violence. 

Voters are afraid. Yet there are no solutions from the president’s party — just the dodging of questions and the loud, angry denunciations of those who push back against this radical agenda.

Election Day can’t come soon enough.

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There was big news from the Supreme Court as they announced that they will hear two tech cases examining the immunity our big tech corporations received through Section 230.

I’m referring to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, passed at the dawn of the Internet Age to protect Google and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube from the consequences of the material they post, including even out there things like ISIS videos. 

Twitter and Google have been sued by victims of ISIS for the propagation of the terrorist group's propaganda. The terrorist group existed—romped indeed—until early into the Trump presidency when they were crushed out of existence. The devastation they left in their wake was appalling. 

But Section 230 is a shield. The big tech companies play the hand of the editor and publisher when and how they want. 

There is no liability for the awful propaganda of terrorist organizations left lying around on the web. Watch these cases. The simple point is this: 

Those who are accepting the protection of Section 230 should be understood to be agents of the government and therefore subject to First Amendment standards. 

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Forget the polls for now. If you want to know how the election cycle is going for Democrats, just read the Washington Post report on their new strategy for the midterms. Democrats have stopped talking about themselves and their “accomplishments,” and have instead adopted “a dark midterm message” focusing on a supposed Republican “dystopia.”

Joe Biden set this course with his soulless demagoguery in August at Independence Hall. Instead of presenting a defense of his own record, Biden lashed out at Republicans as enemies of the state. Now his party will adopt the messaging of despair in an attempt to gaslight Americans into believing that they are not the best option, but the only option.

With their “accomplishments” being inflation, lost buying power, higher crime, and a massive border crisis, it’s no wonder Biden and his team want to talk about anything but themselves. Voters won’t stay in the darkness, no matter how hard Biden and the media try to sell it. They can’t afford Biden’s darkness any longer.

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This week marked the first Monday in October, and thus the opening of the Supreme Court. This term, few cases are as important as the religious freedom issue in 303 Creative v. Elenis. Lois Smith is an artist who challenged a Colorado law, which would have forced her to create designs that violate her beliefs about marriage. It’s the same law used to punish Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips. 

Last year, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal held that Colorado could make people create websites promoting messages that violate their beliefs. This is compelled speech, with government telling people what they must say—and it is blatantly unconstitutional. Lois Smith has appealed to the Supreme Court, ably represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Now it is up to the Supreme Court to vindicate Ms. Smith’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and religion. We’ll be watching closely.

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Abortion extremism plagues the Democratic party. Just consider California.

Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law thirteen pro-abortion bills on the same day. Thirteen.

And next month, California citizens will go to the polls to vote on Prop 1, a constitutional amendment that would prevent any protections for unborn babies from ever being enacted and signed into law by a future pro-life governor. As the California Family Council explained, “It protects all abortion, for any reason, up until the moment of birth.”

Meanwhile, Newsom is posting billboards in prolife states telling citizens to cross state lines to get an abortion in California. The most outrageous part, the billboards cites Scripture— quoting Jesus’s commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus, of course, is right. We should love our neighbors, including our neighbors in the womb. But if Prop 1 passes, nothing could be enacted in California to protect the most vulnerable amongst us.

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For years, some politicians have justified costly and burdensome regulations by telling us they’re worth it, even if they save only a few lives. Now, strangely, many of the same people ignore a scourge that’s killing our young people.

I’m talking about fentanyl. Overdoses have become the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45.

It’s coming in over our southern border. Last year, law enforcement seized about two and a half billion doses of fentanyl at the border — and more of our fellow citizens died from drugs than we lost throughout the entire Vietnam War. Two hundred and fifty thousand Americans have died from drugs in just the last three years.

The politicians who refuse to protect our country’s border from the poison that’s flowing across it care more for some political agenda than for our country’s youth – its future. Throw. Them. Out.

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Frank Garrison became the first man to stand up in court for America’s working-class households to oppose Joe Biden’s regressive student-loan debt forgiveness plan. Not only is Biden’s big giveaway illegal and unconstitutional, it puts the onus for the trillion-dollar debt on the shoulders of those who never benefited from the education it bought.

Garrison and others get hit even worse. He lives in a state that will apply income taxes to any debt forgiveness, creating an immediate tax liability. It is on that basis that Garrison and his attorneys at Pacific Legal Foundation will get standing to challenge this proposal. That’s only necessary because Congress lacks the will and the courage to stand up for its own authority and jurisdiction in court.

Garrison has more than standing … he has a case. And he’s standing up to Biden and Democrats, while also standing up for working class Americans, who won’t stand for this massive redistribution of funds to the wealthy and privileged. 

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This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

Recently, in Europe, we’ve seen some interesting female leaders rise to prominence. First, Liz Truss, an avowed admirer of Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister of Great Britain. Now, Giorgia Meloni is poised to become Italy’s first female prime minister.

It seems like an ideal time for a spate of news articles hailing the ascension of these highly capable women to the pinnacle of power. But in most prestige American papers, there seems to be little celebration. Meloni, in particular, is being routinely savaged as “hard right” for holding views that are pretty standard conservative fare here in the United States.

So why all the gloom? Perhaps “girl power” is something elite media celebrates only if the leaders at issue hold all the “correct views.” Or just maybe they fear the election of right-leaning leaders in Europe is a portent for our own elections this November.

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