Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's News

Justice Clarence Thomas recently became the second longest-serving justice in US history — and that’s something to celebrate. He is exceptional, both as a jurist and as a man.

Raised in poverty in a wooden shack in the segregated South, he credits his grandfather for shaping his character. From that foundation, he has articulated a powerful and increasingly influential originalist vision of the Constitution, grounded in the natural law principles of our Declaration of Independence.

His character is remarkable. Justice Thomas is beloved by those who know him. He’s renowned for his kindness: treating his clerks like family, knowing the names of court staff, and helping others with no expectation of return.

Justice Thomas is quite simply a national treasure. He’s a blessing to America. And it’s right that we celebrate this outstanding jurist and extraordinary man.

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Is the war with Iran “worth it?”

The cost—at this point—is the loss of 13 American soldiers and scores more seriously wounded. If, as widely expected, combat operations resume those human costs will climb.

So too will gas prices and the prices of everything that depends upon oil.

President Trump knows this, of course, but stated plainly: Operation Epic Fury had to be undertaken.

The reason is quite simple. Iran intends to obtain nuclear weapons by any means possible. Their rulers are “crazy.”

Does not the rise in gas prices destroy at least the argument that the civilians bear no costs of war at least when it comes to this, the Iran War?

You may not like paying the sacrifice. But the cost of war is at least being felt beyond the military.

Iran simply cannot have a nuclear weapon.

This is an argument the country should and will have. It is one that is long overdue.

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Numerous media outlets had a difficult time with the Rededicate 250 celebration the White House sponsored this past Sunday.  One major paper reported “Until Trump’s second term in office, it had been virtually unheard of in modern times for U.S. government officials to publicly tie the nation to a specific set of religious beliefs. Trump’s cabinet members have changed that norm.”  Boy that phrase “in modern times” is doing a lot of work here.

Calls to prayer and thanksgiving may be new to the old media staffed by too many young, but they’d raise no eyebrows from those who actually founded the country, like John Adams. who wrote, “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.”  We can go on and on with such language from John Adams to John Kennedy, never mind FDR’s D-Day prayer—the largest public prayer in history up to that point.

Just now, this country could use exactly what the White House sponsored, and a lot less of what the Mainstream Media is offering.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and the US Department of Justice struck a blow against the trans industry in a new settlement:

• Ten million dollars.
• And a new, first-in-the-nation clinic to unwind the damage done to children caught up in the pediatric-sex-change industry's machinations. Stripping five of its practitioners of access to more potential victims.

Texas Children's Hospital in Houston agreed to end its pediatric sex-change practice, pay $10 million in penalties while opening the nation’s first detransition center to assist victims of this predatory industry.

This settlement also vindicates Dr. Ethan Haim, who blew the whistle on the fraud – and got targeted by the Biden-era DOJ and the medical industry for retaliation.

Haim faced criminal prosecution under a ginned-up HIPAA complaint that could have put him in prison for ten years.

This settlement gives justice to Texas children maimed and sterilized by a despicable medical establishment. Dr. Haim deserves justice too, along with his vindication.

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Recently, a professor of Politics at Princeton wrote an op-ed pointing out how many of his students—and students at other colleges—simply are unfamiliar with the Ten Commandments.  He writes, “they lack religious literacy, and their ignorance of religious ideas means they struggle to understand a wide array of Western art, literature and philosophy.”

They also wouldn’t understand a great deal of art or history, never mind philosophy from Marx to Rousseau—or recognize lines from Shakespeare to our Founding to Frederick Douglass to Lincoln to MLKing, Jr.

This is what the late Richard John Newhaus worried about decades ago: An America that with an increasingly naked public square, bare of any religiosity, or recognition of religious faith or culture. What Newhaus feared is now is now nearly complete, when students at major universities are now illiterate in the cornerstone of Western Civilization.

Many states right now are debating posting the Ten Commandments in K-12 classrooms.  This wouldn’t be a parochial decision, it would, rather, constitute necessary basic and remedial education.

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In an age of fleeting stories fed by a constant conveyor belt of crisis and frenzy, keeping us all in a common state of agitation, with little ability to focus on the meaningful, let us do exactly that as we prepare for Memorial Day, coming up in another weekend.

The great historian Wilfred McClay once wrote “Without memory, and without the stories by which our memories are carried forward, we cannot say who, or what, we are.  Without them, our life and thought dissolve into a meaningless, unrelated rush of events.”

The commemoration of those who—in the words of James Garfield—“made immortal their patriotism and their virtue” in defending this country gave us the greatest lessons in who and what we are, and with the greatest of meaning.  Who and what we are matters—thus the memory of them and what they did for us matters.  They are antidotes to meaninglessness.

We can celebrate 250 years of our country’s life because of those we reflect on this Memorial Day. 

Thank God for these heroes.

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With the background of Russia's invasion and ongoing war against Ukraine, recently this astounding headline from the BBC:

“Putin says he thinks Ukraine conflict coming to an end.”

Now for perspective: Just consider last weekend's annual Victory Day parade in Moscow. It commemorates the end of World War II

What's notable this year is not what happened, but what didn't happen.

Russia couldn't afford to hold the parade as usual because Ukraine, as it turns out, has been so ingenious and so aggressive with its use of drones that Putin couldn't afford to hold that kind of military parade in Moscow. It would've been one giant magnet for a massive undertaking and attack by Ukraine.

This is a game changer.

Russia has now lost 350,000 men.

If you're a strong man, an autocrat in this kind of system, you have to appear strong and invincible.

You can't be a political strongman and a leader that gets into this kind of quagmire.

Putin is running out of time. Russians know it and Vladimir Putin knows it.

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Donald Trump finally got his response from Iran. Will he act on it?

Last week, Trump had sent a 14-point framework to mediators in Islamabad for reaching a peace accord with Iran. Trump insisted that the IRGC surrender its highly enriched uranium, agree to verifiably end its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and stop attacking international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran demanded that the US recognize the strait as Iranian sovereign territory and pay war reparations.

Trump responded by calling the IRGC’s terms as “stupid” and “totally unacceptable.” Yet Trump also insisted that a deal could be reached with the regime.

That is an unfortunate illusion—something Trump maintains despite all evidence to the contrary. Iran violated its terms almost immediately in the Strait and Iran continues to threaten the strait. 

The ceasefire is dead.

Trump has to either follow through on consequences or cut bait and walk away with Iran’s regime nearly as dangerous as ever. The decision point has arrived.

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The Trump administration has launched an investigation into Smith College—one of the seven historical all-women colleges in the American Northeast.

Why the investigation?

Well, Smith College is and has been since 2015—admitting biological males.

The “seven sisters” have been granted an exemption, going all the way back to the 1970’s to Title IX legislation. They were allowed to be restrictive as women’s colleges.

The Trump administration’s basically saying you can’t have it both ways—that is: claim this historic exemption or you can admit biological males.

President Trump made the point very clear point in his second inaugural address:

He said: “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

I will argue that was one of the most important and courageous statements a President of the United States has made in recent years. To his credit, he’s been pushing this through.

It’s a necessary step towards the restoration of cultural sanity and for that clarity.

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Since the battle with Iran began on February 28, there’ve been so many reports of “deals” with the rump regime atop the ruins of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that it seems almost silly to respond to another one.

But I trust Israeli journalist Amit Segal. On Wednesday, Segal summed up the supposed framework. The most salient part is said to include—and I quote:

“Negotiations are still underway on the duration of the uranium enrichment freeze. Three sources said the freeze would last at least 12 years, and one source estimated the final outcome would be 15 years.”

That—in and of itself— makes this a terrible proposed “deal,” one that would draw fierce criticism from the GOP’s Iran hawks who want President Trump to “finish the job”, no enrichment of uranium period and finish the job in dramatic fashion.

President Trump doesn’t surrender leverage. He’s got it. We have to hope he uses every ounce of it.

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