By • Frontiers of Freedom
The alarms bells for the Postal Service’s financial position have been brought to the forefront yet again following the recent release of the Government Accountability Office’s new 2021 High Risk List of vulnerabilities for waste, fraud, and abuse within elements of the Federal government. The report cites USPS losses of $87 billion in the past 14 years and it is projected to lose another $9.7 billion in 2021.
While the nation’s usage of the Postal Service continues to fluctuate amidst changing consumer demands and adjustments to account for the COVID-19 pandemic, the GAO maintains that the USPS is still subject to the essential responsibility of operating with financial self-sufficiency by earning enough revenue from its products so that it can adequately cover costs.
Yet evidence of the USPS’ broken business model have persisted and accelerated as the agency’s expenses exceeded revenues by $18 billion in 2019 and 2020.
Surely the challenges must become a central focus as potential new members to the Board of Governors are considered. Newly announced nominees include recently retired Deputy PMG Ron Stroman, in addition to Anton Hajjar, the former general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union, and Amber McReynolds, CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute.
While the qualifications for the USPS board speak generally to the importance of candidates having a background in public service, law or accounting or have demonstrated skill in managing substantially large organizations, there are also designations that are very specific in nature, including requirements that, “the Governors shall not be representatives of specific interests using the Postal Service.”
With respect to the nominees, such stipulations present myriad questions about conflicts of interest and potential disqualification from consideration including, but not limited to candidates’ history in regularly endorsing and encouraging programs that entail USPS mailing services, and also major inquiries in regards to the representation of postal employees’ interests in direct negotiations with the organization in which they would potentially assume a leadership role.
This is especially important given the Government Accountability Office’s instruction that Congress is to take USPS’s financial condition into account in “any binding arbitration in the negotiation process of USPS labor contracts.” The GAO’s demands ultimately underscore the importance of ensuring that USPS is led by independent thinkers who acknowledge how rectifying the agency’s fiscal chaos is a foremost priority.
Frontiers of Freedom has previously cautioned that simply absolving the USPS of its debt without achieving structural reform would be a nightmare scenario. Following the release of the Postal Service’s year-end financials for 2020, we emphasized the importance of taking action: “In order to effectively manage and reduce the agency’s $160 billion debt, the USPS must update its policies and work with the incoming Biden administration to create thoughtful reform that will help preserve and ensure the success of our most important public institutions.”
The challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service are surely far too significant to be entrusted to potential leaders with unknown motivations and who lack the urgency to help USPS achieve more sustainable financial footing.
By • The Federalist
A new Democratic-sponsored Colorado Senate bill is raising eyebrows with the proposed establishment of a state-run ministry of truth to regulate online speech.
The bill, titled “Digital Communications Regulation,” seeks the creation of a digital communications division under the state department of regulatory agencies to regulate online content available in the state. The division will be run by a new commission to serve as government-blessed arbiters of truth.
Under the legislation, proposed by Democratic state Sen. Kerry Donovan, the new commission is tasked with the authority to investigate and hold hearings on claims filed with the division that accuse a particular platform of engaging in what the government declares unlawful conduct. Such conduct under the proposal ranges from promoting “hate speech” to “disinformation,” “fake news,” and “conspiracy theories,” or content the commission determines is meant to “undermine election integrity.” The idea for a similar proposal at the federal level was floated by New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in January.
The bill puts government force behind an already-implemented progressive purge pursued by Silicon Valley tech giants wielding unprecedented power over the digital public square, with many of the same rules already in place. Such rules, however, which have become more stringently enforced to justify censorship of conservatives and reporting unfavorable to progressive interests, have been applied with remarkable inconsistency.
“We all know from experience at other places where such rules are in place, they’re not applied equally,” Joshua Sharf, a senior fellow in fiscal policy at the Denver libertarian think tank Independence Institute, told The Federalist. “They’re actually impossible to apply equally.”
The contrast between the four-year conspiracy alleging President Donald Trump was a Russian agent and the online suppression of blockbuster revelations published by the New York Post last fall, which implicated then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in his son’s potentially criminal overseas business ventures, illustrates how rules governing online content are arbitrarily enforced for political purposes. There is no shortage of examples highlighting Silicon Valley’s double-standards.
“Realistically, we all know what the intent here is,” Sharf, who runs his own online blog, warned. “The intent here is to limit what Sen. Donovan considers conservative speech.”
Donovan did not respond to The Federalist’s request for an interview.
Under the senator’s legislation, communications-oriented online businesses, including social media platforms and media-sharing platforms with services offered to Colorado residents, would be forced to register with the new government ministry of truth. Failure to do so would classify as a class-two misdemeanor with up to a $5,000 fine each day until they comply.
Republican Colorado Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, who sits on the State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee where the bill was introduced, railed against the proposal as unconstitutional and shared no faith that the independent commission appointed by the governor would dictate online content fairly.
“I have no confidence whatsoever that if the commission was formed it would be somewhat politically diverse,” Sonnenberg told The Federalist. “It’s almost like a giant commission just like Facebook to determine what posts are accurate and what are not.”
Republicans in the state’s upper chamber have already pledged their opposition, though Democrats control both houses of the Colorado legislature.
“Nobody wants an unelected commission of wannabe authoritarians deciding what is and is not ‘fake news’ and what we can and cannot read on the internet,” Colorado Senate Republican spokesman Sage Naumann told The Federalist. “We’re hopeful this bill never makes it to the floor.”
Sonnenberg said he saw no momentum for that happening, even as Democrats hold the majority.
“Anybody with a reasonable mind would look at this bill and go, ‘This doesn’t make sense.’ This indeed is a violation of our First Amendment, a blatant violation,” Sonnenberg told The Federalist. “If this is a party-line vote and it gets out of committee, we have bigger problems in our country.”
By • Hoover Institution
Earlier this year, the Biden administration issued a “Fact Sheet” on his proposed US Citizenship Act, a comprehensive plan to expand pathways to citizenship and otherwise modernize and liberalize this nation’s immigration system. It is very difficult to draw categorical conclusions about the many facets of immigration law. The passion on both sides of this issue suggests that finding a sensible middle position may be impossible. Even so, a measured and compromising approach is the best way forward on immigration reform, with its complex highways and byways.
One way to think about immigration reform is to compare the case for free and open immigration with the parallel case for free trade. Fierce opposition to free trade in part propelled Donald Trump to his 2016 presidential victory. Free trade did not take a central role in the 2020 election, in large part because candidate Biden offered a similar sentiment to bolster trade union support. This was not merely campaign talk. President Biden recently issued a protective “Buy American” statement, the objective of which is “to support manufacturers, businesses, and workers to ensure that our future is made in all of America by all of America’s workers.” A Biden executive order from January seeks to “use terms and conditions of federal financial assistance awards and federal procurements to maximize the use of goods, products, and materials produced in, and services offered in, the United States.”
But the effort to turn the United States inward on matters of economic activity will force superior foreign products to be substituted with inferior domestic ones, making domestic production less efficient. These inefficiencies will have far-reaching consequences: raising prices and lowering wages across the board, weakening American exports, and inducing other nations to take retaliatory measures, which will further contract world trade. Hopefully, the world economy can avoid a repeat of the implosion of international trade that followed the passage of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff. But the political risk still remains.
Face the Challenges
The issue of free immigration is vastly more complex than the problem of free trade. As a general matter, no one thinks that the United States and other nations lack the power to exclude foreign individuals from entering and residing in their countries. But, as with free trade, there is a fierce debate over how that power to exclude should be exercised, leading to a series of difficult and hotly contended questions. Do we reunite families, when some members are abroad and others are in the United States? Do we allow entry into the United States for political refugees who have suffered under oppressive regimes? Do we reserve spots for individuals who bring special skills and talents to the United States? Do we make special allowances for “dreamers” who came illegally into the United States at a young age and have nowhere else to call home?
In all these cases, it is possible to offer a sympathetic justification for expanding the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States. Indeed, American policy on immigration since the 1960s has become increasingly liberalized on exactly such grounds. Thus the percentage of foreign-born individuals in the United States has nearly tripled from about 4.8 percent in 1970 to 13.7 percent in 2018. The basic policy that lets individuals into the country is complemented by a back-end system of deportation of individuals who have entered under false pretenses, have given material support to terrorist actions in their own country, or who have committed serious crimes after their arrival to the United States.
Beyond the serious administrative difficulties of the current immigration system, it may be harder to support free immigration than free trade. Free trade is largely an economic story, with massive efficiency gains that can be spread broadly to offset much of the displacement it generates. Immigration, on the other hand, brings new persons into the United States, the presence of whom change the face of the nation. Claims of excessive criminal conduct by immigrant populations, especially those intemperately made by Trump during his successful run for the presidency in 2016, are surely mistaken. Nonetheless, immigration poses heavy challenges in the areas of education, health care, and housing. The political composition of cities and states can change with a rise in immigrant power.
Often, these issues are dealt with by sensible policies that help immigrants integrate into the economic system, learn English, and participate more fully in society. Indeed, as the immigration debate rises to a fever pitch, Ilya Somin of the Scalia Law School at George Mason University has written a powerful book, Free to Move. Somin, against the grain, urges the United States to adopt an open-border policy on immigration, noting the enormous gains for immigrants who reach our shores and the major contributions immigrant populations have made toward overall welfare in the United States.
Somin’s arguments help to strengthen the case for maintaining current levels of immigration and point towards some further liberalization of the system, starting with dreamers, who have already integrated themselves into American society. Nonetheless, I am uneasy about the more extreme position, which may be called open or free immigration. Even the mass immigration into the United States from 1890 to 1914 was not entirely free and required the resolution of hard policy problems.
For instance, immigrants had to be free of contagious diseases––and if these could not be eliminated during quarantine, shipping companies were obliged to return immigrants to their country of origin. That system, moreover, worked as well as it did in part because the private costs of immigration were sufficiently high. High costs operated as a sorting mechanism that tended to bring fitter and more self-reliant individuals to our shores. At the same time, the absorption of immigrants into society was made easier by the far smaller state and federal welfare operations of the time. This reduced the public costs of admitting new residents, and left the task of supporting and integrating newly arrived individuals to successful private organizations like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), founded in 1881.
Open immigration under current conditions would bring great uncertainty. Could the United States absorb several million Central American immigrants coming across the border through Mexico, especially if their arrival generated political unrest or brought risks of disease? Could an organized effort by third-party entrepreneurs to ferry thousands of impoverished individuals from Africa or Asia to our shores place burdens on this nation that it could not withstand? Would the same rules for deportation apply to such populations that are imposed today?
It is hard to deal with such issues by experimentation once an open immigration program is implemented, and easy to predict the massive backlash that would occur if post hoc restrictions were implemented legislatively. It seems better, then, to adopt safer policies that have a better chance of leading to a measured expansion of immigration populations while offering humanitarian aid to regions in or near crisis.
Truthful Distinctions Matter
Candidly confronting illegal immigration is a necessary component of these delicate midcourse corrections. Some sanctions have to be imposed on illegal aliens if a system of legal immigration is to be maintained. In this regard it is instructive to note the recent trend to undermine the distinction between legal and illegal immigration for the sake of generating a more tolerant attitude towards illegal aliens. Take, for instance, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996,passed during the Clinton administration, which deployed the term undocumented immigrants in place of illegal aliens. That verbal substitution creates the linguistic possibility that people could be both undocumented and legal, even though a legal illegal alien is an oxymoron.
More recently, both the Biden administration and liberal Supreme Court justices have preferred the term noncitizen, which covers a range of persons, including those who have never had or desired contact with the United States. The term leads to such linguistic oddities as permanent noncitizen. It is now commonly asserted that the term illegal alien is “disparaging,” “derogatory,” or “dehumanizing,” and that a change from “alien” to “noncitizen” offers a way “to recognize the humanity of non-Americans,” as urged by a long-time immigration law expert, Professor Kevin R. Johnson.
Unfortunately, these exaggerated claims undermine the very policies that could help expand legal immigration. Immigration policy requires many difficult judgments on the proper relationship between citizens and legal and illegal aliens. Truthful statements about illegal conduct should not be regarded as wholesale condemnation of any individual. Deliberate obfuscation will not move immigration reform forward for either the proponents or the opponents of expanded immigration. d
By • Frontiers of Freedom
Geza Hofi, the brilliant late Hungarian comedian, in one of his politically charged monologues, delivered in the Madach Kamara Theater in Budapest, described post-Communist Hungary in the late 1990s thus: “The setting on this stage depicts a closed psychiatric ward in a hospital that specializes on mentally ill patients. I am a patient in this institution. I closed it from the inside in order to prevent all those idiots living outside from coming in.” His admonition to his countrymen was twofold. On the one hand, he wanted to call attention to the predictable vagaries of history, namely, to the disconcerting fact that history, if allowed, does tend to repeat itself, and normally not in a positive way. However, even more importantly, he undertook to issue a warning to humanity at large about the destructive behavior of the majority of ordinary citizens in a quasi or full democracy who can be fooled by ideologically demented public figures masquerading as sane and responsible politicians.
Presently, America is at war with itself. The nation is under siege by diverse mobs whose savage designs to replace reality with a regime of fallacious falsehoods threaten the very survival of the Republic. Their infinite and blind violence have already spiralled out of control in the Democrat Party controlled towns and metropolitan areas. In Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, New York City, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and in many other settlements the racially charged savagery of assorted minorities dated back to the hateful rhetoric of Democrat politicians as well as the subservient media have witnessed brigands murdering and pillaging at will. These unsavory groups have operated outside the constitutional framework of political actions with the declared goal of altering by force the very organization of society. This politically fueled artificial chaos coupled with the measures necessarily taken by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, have led to the most unusual national elections before, during and after November 3, 2020.
Whether there was a wholesale fraud perpetrated by the unholy alliance of the Biden campaign organization, Big Tech, the overwhelming majority of the media, politically motivated judges, and the federal as well as states’ bureaucracies is still open to many unanswered questions. Yet, when the air cleared a little, the Democrats succeeded to maintain a shrinking majority in the House of Representatives, to gain four seats in the Senate, and recapture the White House after four years of a turbulent hiatus.
Joe Biden was 78 years old when he ascended to the Presidency on January 20, 2021. The visibly unwell former Senator and Vice President was carefully shielded from the world throughout the campaign by his handlers as well as the Democrat Party’s praetorian guard. During the intervening period between November 3, 2020 and January 20, 2021, his handlers surrounded him with a coterie that harked back to the unsuccessful ancien regime of former President Barack H. Obama, and as such is characterized by its glaring lack of intellectual quality. Against all the laudatory nonsense by the hugely biased media, he has been, throughout his long political career, a weak character with a woefully empty mind, prone to frequent plagiarisms, without any original ideas or imagination, and the wherewithal to manage himself, let alone enforce his stolen ideas when the inevitable challenges and crises have hit him like a ton of brick. Indeed, animated with superficial emotions and with a below mediocre intelligence, bereft of ideas of his own, subject to the persuasion of the last person he has spoken to, he has been the saddest epitome of an utterly failed amateur in the highest echelons of American politics.
While President Biden now exists mostly in a cocoon of his own, his handlers attempt to be the quintessential hands-on politicians. These Obama-era veterans are navigating from professional incompetence to full-blown socialism, making sure to preserve their bureaucratic powers amidst the relentlessly aggressive attacks of the Democrat Party’s radical elements. Nothing good will come out of such a catastrophic situation. As long as in power, the Democrat establishment will stumble from one grave crisis to another until their self-erected house of cards will collapse into the abyss of their sophomoric illusions.
Clearly, the sinister shadows of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and the newest generation of so-called communist despots across the globe hover over President Biden, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Schumer and their comrades’ self-created audacious political swamp. The American Republic is faltering. The past is annihilating the present and the future. The dead destroying the living. The bodies of the two seasoned criminals Michael Brown Jr. and George Floyd have had more political power since 2014 than the many great achievements of the Trump administration. To add insult to injury, President Biden in his inaugural address called for unity and to end the “uncivil war” thus: “A cry for racial justice, some 400 years in the making, moves us. The dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer. A cry for survival comes from the planet itself, a cry that can’t be more desperate or any more clear now. The rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, that we must confront and we will defeat. To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy – unity. Unity…My whole soul is in it today, on this January day. My whole soul is in this. Bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause. Uniting to fight the foe we face – anger, resentment and hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness, and hopelessness.”
Yet, the flurry of his executive orders, actions and memorandums, which were ready for his signature immediately, belied his high-flying rhetoric. Halting funding for the construction of the border wall, reversal of the travel ban from certain countries, and twenty two other executive actions directly eliminating “bad policies” of the Trump administration were justified by him thus: “And I want to make it clear – there is a lot of talk, with good reason, about the number of executive orders that I have signed – I’m not making new law; I’m eliminating bad policy.” And then: “What I’m doing is taking on the issues that – 99% of them – that the president, the last president of the United States, issued executive orders I felt were very counterproductive to our security, counterproductive to who we are as a country, particularly in the area of immigration.” Again, the high-flying rhetoric of the Obama era without any truthful and rational explanations. Forty one executive actions to satisfy the most radical demands of the Democrat Party. This is not leadership. This is called the Stockholm Syndrome. Plainly, this is the behavior of a fake politician held hostage by his own party and his own monstrous bureaucracy.
President Biden’s divisiveness and immorality have been in full display in the $1.9 trillion COVID package and the H.R. 1 – For the People Act of 2021. Neither piece of legislation is about the relief they pretend to address. The former is a shameless bailout for the Democrat governed failed states of the west and the east coasts, coupled with outrages handouts to the most radical Democrat Party constituents. At the end, the massive coronavirus relief bill was passed by both the House of Representatives as well as the Senate without a single Republican vote. Speaking about the pandemic, President Biden said the following: “A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked. Denials for days, weeks, then months, that led to more deaths.”
Blatant lies and not a single word of truth. Already on January 6, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under the leadership of then President Trump published a travel notice for Wuhan, China, due to the available information. On January 29, 2020, He formed a coronavirus task force at the White House and two days later declared a public health emergency, accompanied by a restriction on travel to and from China. Then President Trump did all these measures while Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Head of the World Health Organization, declared on January 14, 2020, that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” Even as late as January 20, 2020, ABC quoted him stating that there was “only limited human-to-human transmission.” For good measure, the Organization declared that “This (meaning the COVID-19) is in line with experience with other respiratory illnesses and in particular with other coronavirus outbreaks.” The World Health Organization finally declared the coronavirus a global emergency only on January 30, 2020. Busying themselves with impeaching the then President Trump, the Democrats ignored the pandemic until after the former’s acquittal. Most glaringly, the COVID package utilizes unemployment numbers instead of the previous population numbers in determining final state payouts, thus rewarding failing blue states with tax dollars of red states whose jobless claims have always been below the unemployment numbers of the Democrat governed states. Textbook retail politics that has nothing to do with President Biden’s high flying clarion calls for national unity.
In the same vein, HR1, fraudulently titled “For the People Act” passed the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. Defined by every objective analyst as a law allowing wholesale fraud of all elections, HR1 would shift control of elections from cities, counties, states to the federal government in Washington, D.C. Moreover, HR1 would make voting by mail-in ballots permanent, prohibit voter ID, launch automatic voter registration, allow same-day registration and voting, enshrine in law ballot harvesting, and funnel all appeals into one court – the traditionally Democrat-controlled D.C. Circuit Court.
To up the ante, the New York Times published on March 11, 2021, an Opinion by its Editorial Board, titled “For Democracy to Stay, the Filibuster Must Go.” Pursuant to the Board’s opinion, “It is hard to imagine a more fitting job for Congress than for members to join together to pass a broadly popular law that makes democracy safer, stronger and more accessible to all American.” Please, notice the misleading language that has become the hallmark of the radical as well as extremist members of the Democrat establishment. HR1 would weaken democracy. It will open the floodgate for uncontrollable voting by limitless numbers of ineligible individuals. It would also erode democracy, because voting, according to HR1, would not reflect the will of the citizens of the United States of America. Moreover, HR1 is far from being “a broadly popular law.” Even the Opinion states that HR1 could only count on the votes of fifty Democrat Senators and the tie breaking vote of the Vice President. Of course, the solution is to abolish the filibuster, which is opposed by Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats too. Some “broad popular” support!
Unquestionably, the fledgling Biden administration is infected with the virus of ideologically tainted incompetence and nascent immorality. Headed by a mentally confused President, supported by a woefully incompetent Vice-President, and surrounded by a coterie of ideologically blinded bureaucrats, collectively they preach the deceptive gospel of ubiquitous unity. In fact, however, the Biden administration is bringing about the greatest tragedy of American history by its ruthless attempt to enforce an utterly false unity, domestically as well as internationally. As Biden is prone to tell his fellow Americans and the rest of the world, his administration will be the torchbearer for the humanistic values of mankind across the globe. President Biden’s schizophrenic belief in the universal goodness of all Americans and the rest of the world, and his simultaneous railing against everybody who does not happen to share his and his fellow travellers’ cult-like enthusiasm for accommodating their political as well as antisocial psychopathic fictions, put all normal people in the Hillary Clinton’s basket of not just “deplorables”, but also into the cage of “enemies” or “domestic terrorists” of an absolutely fake Democrat Utopia.
In this context, it is worthwhile to take a short trip along the memory lane of the early 20th century Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks of Russia/Soviet Union decided in December 1923, to introduce the policy of revenge against their opponents. Having borrowed from the vocabulary of the French Revolution, they adopted the Jacobins favorite definition for their numerous opponents, “enemies of the people”, “enemies of the workers”, “enemies of the republic”, and “enemies of the glorious revolution.” Anyone found guilty by the Bolshevik regime’s kangaroo courts was sentenced to a minimum of ten years, mostly in the GULAG. The gruesome story of the retaliations in the Soviet Union can be found exhaustively in Agnes Gereben’s excellent book with the same title.
This collection of the Biden administration’s useless idiots lack both domestic and international strategies. Their only so-called policy is to wipe away everything that was accomplished between 2017 and January 2021, and beyond. By denouncing everybody who allegedly “oppose them everywhere”, their real aim is to permanently disrupt any emerging understanding among the starkly divided groups and organizations of American society. Opening the southern borders to indiscriminate illegal invasion of the United States of America and calling this humanism is lunacy, rejoining the Paris climate accord while lying about its real content, refinancing counterproductive United Nations’ organizations to deepen already existing divisions among nations as well as regions, embracing a dead Palestinian cause in contravention of the Abraham Accord as well as the newest positive developments in the greater Middle East, North Africa, and South-East Asia, trying to appease Iran repeatedly, and calling Black Lives Matter, Antifa, ACLU as well as other violent minority groups peaceful and beneficial for the perfection of American democracy, while denouncing in the strongest possible language those who oppose these lies, open the door to deception over reality, and immorality over decency.
Yet, the ultimate purpose of this charade of unbelievable manipulations is to prove that the Biden administration and the Democrat Party is a modern government unquestionably committed to transformative reforms on behalf of all Americans and the rest of the world. In other words, they are alone in touch with the people of all races. For this reason, anybody who opposes them is guilty of “systematic” and “institutionalized” racism. In this manner, mankind is inherently guilty of the moral crime of racism, and are burdened to prove their innocence. This Orwellian or Kafkaesque trap is injustice ab initio amounting to the grossest abuse of language, and ultimately to a shameless undemocratic perversion of power.
This pseudo-epistolemic misuse of language could win votes in the short run. However, it cannot win hearts and minds in the long run. Rigged elections give a sense of false security, yet deny understanding of the real reflection of political, economic, and social discontent in the country. Ideology-driven foreign policy will surely breed intense criticism as well. Calls for return to genuine normalcy and the restoration of necessary freedoms will quickly undermine Biden’s psychopathy and the Democrat Party’s attempt at totalitarianism in the United States of America. Invented history, such as “Project 1619” and the Obamas’ “you built this country” primitive exhortations, only contribute to the intellectual poverty as well as the contextual thinness of the Democrats’ utopian lunacy. Their collective resistance to acknowledge reality will surely end in catastrophic defeat and tremendous political, economic, social, and moral disarray. Therefore, the United States of America shall prepare itself to rally around a narrative which shall face reality and which shall enable the nation to live up to its views of its past, present, and future greatness.
In 2015 and 2016, then candidate Donald J. Trump campaigned under two simple slogans: “America First” and “Make America Great Again.” Collectively, these two rallying cries called for the rejection of the two endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the open borders policy of then President Barack Obama, the convoluted doctrine of multiculturalism, the identity politics heavily laced with an exaggerated sense of mostly nonexistent victimhood, and similarly unreal elitist idiocies coached in twisted linguistic phenomena reminiscent of the communist propaganda that emanated ceaselessly from the Soviet Union and its vassal quasi-states for over seventy years in the 20th century. When he announced his candidacy for president on June 16, 2015, Trump appeared to be a lonely voice in the political desert. His speech was highly unconventional, because of its provocative content. Basically, he faced the nation alone with the nonchalance of an ordinary citizen speaking his mind without any concerns for the political consequences. This personal campaign strategy gave him the presidency on January 20, 2017. His presidency proved that he was right. He revived the economy, which under the community organizer president’s eight years tanked, lowered unemployment for everybody, including African Americans, to 3.6%, reestablished the strength of the military, accomplished internationally the normalization of relations between Israel and most of its neighbors, and largely stemmed the criminal penetration of the central and south American gangs and cartels into the United States of America.
Then came the Chinese COVID-19 virus in January 2020. Among other shortcomings of the system, the pandemic brought forth the long-term problems of the federal administration that he attempted to change. Former President Trump has created a movement that is alive and well to the present day. Yet, politically he has remained a solitary figure, belonging to nobody and yet to every American. Thus symbolically, he has embodied in his person the past, the present, and the future of America. Clearly, for three years, he was one of the most successful presidents the United States of America have had in the almost two hundred fifty years of its history. This is not to say that those three very successful years were not turbulent. The “Resist” movement by the Democrats, the “Never Trump” Republicans, the Black Lives Matter radicals, the idiotic Antifa criminals, the irrationally biased media and Social Platforms, all allied themselves to thwart him at every step. His answer to this relentless opposition was twofold and fundamentally contradictory. On the one hand, he insisted that the rule of law shall be strictly obeyed and followed. On the other hand, however, he was ready to break the laws when he believed that his resistance would help America to be protected and to be stronger.
His achievements in America’s recovery following the post-Reagan era insignificant decades of the Clinton-Bush-Obama triumvirate, are as impressive as that of any great democratic leader of the 19th and 20th centuries. President Trump has always believed that loyalty to the constitution would strengthen the Republic and democracy. Commander, stage manager and star of his movement to make America great again, he bathed in the unconditional adoration of his followers. His defense of American interests was unfailing. As President he took literally the constitutional mandate that the head of the Executive Branch is the President. Therefore, the secretaries of his cabinet were there to execute his policies, which he set with minimal consultation. Those who stood up to him were mostly summarily dismissed. He also believed that America looked for strong leadership that he always strived to provide.
Although former President Trump was indeed a revolutionary chief executive in his own way, even he could not set a lasting mark for a nation so starkly divided between conservatives and those who adamantly refuse to integrate and assimilate into the constitutional order of the United States of America. His handling of the pandemic was in a way self-defeating. While the full nature of the new coronavirus was still unknown and the medical community was hopelessly divided over the measures that might mitigate or even stop the spread of the virus, former President Trump wanted to demonstrate strong leadership. However, the virus turned out to be more complex and, therefore, more unpredictable than the so-called experts predicted. Meanwhile, the economy began to weaken and unemployment rose. Coupled with the political unrest that engulfed the Democrat-led communities, America started to descend into chaos.
Since former President Trump assumed leadership from the get go, the blame largely fell on him. In the second half of 2020, the majority of Americans became prisoners of their visceral mistrust of the federal government. Although most Americans wanted to see their country as exceptional, bequeathed to them by the founding fathers and their successors, they developed their doubts about the existing state of affairs. Historically, if present realities contradicts the prevailing political vision, and the people’s faith in their president’s ability to handle the problems facing them weakens, these combined occurrences would leave them feeling uncertain about the future, opening them up to the siren voices of extremist illusions. In this mental condition, they start to long for unity instead of division, tranquility against political and social unrest. Yet, ironically, when such efforts fail, as they always do, compromise becomes suspect. The results are the reemergence of old divisions – multiplied by new once -, ethnic and religious factionalism, personal and ideological conflicts in the historic tradition of the nation. Quick and mindless recourse to mayhem and distraction then escalates to ubiquitous social chaos.
Once again, Washington, D.C. is out of step with the nation. The American national identity, which is firmly anchored in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, contain the principled ideas of the Republic. Yes, the history of this Republic has not been perfect. However, set against some flaws are the many achievements both domestically and internationally, which are more than sufficient reasons for justifiable national pride. Nor has the history of the last decade been all negative by any means. Those who love America can point to the country’s strength, to its inherent goodness, its morality, its guarantees of the rule of law, good healthcare, liveable pensions, long lives, and almost eight decades of peace. However, for fast every plus there has been a minus lately. Minority groups arrogantly as well as aggressively claim victimhood status and with it demand only rights without responsibilities. To wit, they demand impunity from punishment for criminal acts with the cynical explanation of fake discrimination and nonexistent racism. While doing nothing or little constructively, they call for ever more slices of the pie and oversized power for themselves to the detriment of the majority.
To top this insanity, teaching organizations resist reforms and hide behind the Democrat Party and its affiliated organizations. As a result, elementary education has tanked and so has the quality of secondary education. Vocational training has been deteriorating, especially in comparison to Europe and Asia. Logically, tensions between parents and teachers have risen, particularly since the pandemic. Enrolment in private and charter schools has risen steadily, accounting for almost 30% nationally. Colleges and graduate schools have turned increasingly into places of indoctrination instead of teaching. Indoctrination, in turn, has given rise to intolerance, censorship, intimidation, and outright authoritarianism in higher education.
There is a palpable and deepening disaffection among the younger generations. The majority of these people have the unsettling feeling that the United States of America is not living up to its ideals and its potentials. Thus, the spreading sense of victimhood. Demands for social justice, reparations, reexamination of the past, cancel culture, the growth of false identities and identity crises, are eroding the political, economic, social, and moral fabric of the country. Revolution is called for, while the nation remains mostly conservative in its mentality. For the majority, that fact that the United States of America is in a turmoil is reason for sadness that goes beyond the notion of manifest destiny. The turbulences of the last decade, especially the four years of the Trump presidency, affected all parts of the nation. Yet, the elections of 2020 were an evasion of reality. While the results might appear to be politically convenient, prolonging a clear decision could prove to be a disaster. Increasingly it appears that the fault lies with the American people. As President Reagan said: “Our whole system of government is based on “We the People,” but if we the people don’t pay attention to what’s going on, we have no right to bellyache or squawk when things go wrong.” Accordingly, the opposition to the present idiocy must find and work out a realistic alternative acceptable to the majority of the American people. For that to be accomplished, politicians ready and able to rally this majority behind a positive vision must be found and supported. The “We the People” cannot allow a rudderless administration to keep them hostage of a fraudulent history and its untrue narratives.
Although many lament the dark times for conservative ideas and the death of free speech, they should see this as an opportunity to break free of corrupted institutions.
By • The Federalist
In a recent edition of the Stanford Review, scholars Scott Atlas, Victor Davis Hanson, and Niall Ferguson wrote a statement defending themselves against the baseless attacks of leftist colleagues at Stanford University who accused them of encouraging extremism, conducting illicit opposition research, and causing the deaths of “tens of thousands” from COVID-19. Atlas then discussed the issue at a virtual student meeting.
These accusations are completely untrue and tied to an antisemitic activist who aligns himself with Antifa. Nevertheless, Atlas, Hanson, and Ferguson felt the need to make their case even if it’s unlikely they will face any real threat to their livelihoods or reputations, as the Hoover Institution and Stanford have backed them.
All of them are highly accomplished intellectuals who have amassed large followings. It is they who bring clout to Stanford, not the other way around.
The real tragedy here is that they have to bother explaining themselves at all. It’s beneath them. They could be writing books, articles, giving talks, and continuing their work, but now they have to waste time with nobodies. Even the leadership of Stanford could see this, which is why this effort to cancel fell flat. Unfortunately, as writer Jonathan Tobin explains, their survival of this cancellation attempt was an exception to the rule.
After all, who in the world is David Palumbo-Lieu, one of the four professors leading the charge against these conservative scholars? Has he spoken out against the blunders of the American government’s COVID-19 policy? Does his CV include so many well-written books and countless articles on a limitless range of topics? Did anyone see him on a popular television series celebrating the key successes of Western culture?
No, Palumbo-Lieu’s great work appears to be praising his students “who occupied and blocked the San Mateo Bridge at peak commuting hours, endangering lives, causing minor car crashes, and getting themselves arrested.”
This episode is reminiscent of the great theologian St. Augustine of Hippo exerting so much energy denouncing the Donatist heresy. Much like today’s left, the Donatists were intellectually bankrupt and frequently resorted to the same petty tactics of destroying their opponents’ reputations with slander, false accusations, and the intervention of corrupt politicians.
That Augustine wasted so much time with them means that he had less time to write another “City of God” or “On Christian Doctrine.” Tallied with every other instance of a great mind taking on what’s beneath him, this Stanford kerfuffle amounts to a great loss in progress. The world is shallower, less informed, and less healthy as a result.
So what should happen in these cases? How do the attempted cancellations stop? As Atlas, Hanson, and Ferguson demonstrate, it isn’t through compromise or complaining; rather, it is through excellence. As the saying goes, success is the best revenge against one’s enemies. It is also the best way to overcome cancel culture.
This doesn’t mean that defending free speech is not important, but it shouldn’t become a fixation. Otherwise, it can detract from the work of building a competing culture and undermine the very reason to preserve free speech itself.
Free speech is the means, not the ends. This point is sometimes lost when people respond to yet another canceling or instance of censorship. Because it seems like conservatives are constantly defending themselves, they end up making the same points repeatedly and struggle with moving forward. As such, leftists can dismiss conservatives for having “no content,” no vision of what they want.
What results is a growing despair over free speech. If the fruits of free speech are partisan mudslinging and rehashing the same arguments, many people stop seeing the point of protecting the freedom to express one’s views.
It also doesn’t help that the left always frames these debates over free speech as about hate speech and misinformation, never around truth and reason. As a result, conservatives have to defend themselves from being called white supremacist Nazis or crackpot conspiracy theorists while leftists tell (often fabricated) sob stories about the many victims of conservative speech.
Since this is what seems to prevail, most people, particularly young people, simply shrug and give up the fight. If this is what free speech looks like, even if conservatives are right and progressives are wrong, it still seems mostly frivolous and needlessly stressful. Like the villain Cypher in “The Matrix,” they prefer to accept that their lies go unchallenged and declare, “Ignorance is bliss.”
This doesn’t mean that Atlas, Hanson, and Ferguson were wrong to write their statement, nor does it detract from their point about free speech. It’s just a shame that they and so many others have to worry about this kind of thing. Rather, Stanford should worry that their best people feel the need to speak out in this fashion.
It’s time to think bigger. Change will only happen when conservatives have their own Stanfords. If elite universities want to go down the paths of critical race theory, social justice activism, and an abandonment of standards, conservatives should build and support alternatives.
As Arthur Milikh points out on last week’s American Mind podcast, conservatives need to stop slamming Ivy League universities only to confer their respect on these places in the next breath. Instead, they need build their own equivalent and dominate. Otherwise, these places won’t change. One would think that the very people who support movements like school choice would understand this.
In all of her novels, Ayn Rand spoke exactly to this problem and offered a vision of what could happen. Whether it’s “Anthem,” “The Fountainhead,” or “Atlas Shrugged,” the primary conflict was always the same: a protagonist is a brilliant creator, but he lives in an envious world that seeks to tear him down.
How does the protagonist resolve this? Not only by making impassioned speeches (although, admittedly, there are few of those), but by continuing to create on his own terms and let his excellence carry the day. Conservatives today need their own version of Galt’s Gulch.
Although many lament the dark times for conservative ideas and the death of free speech, they should see this as an opportunity to break free of corrupted institutions. There is a dearth of excellence that needs to be filled.
Instead of enlisting the best and brightest conservatives for defending conservatism, conservatives should defend their best and brightest so that they can be left free for excellence. That means giving them space and time to do their work, understanding that this is the whole purpose behind preserving freedom. Not only conservative ideas, but the country and the culture, will be all the better for it.
The left’s push to censor, block, and purge is part of a larger project to undermine the American ideal of self-government and liberal democracy.
By • The Federalist
Last week, YouTube removed videos of former President Donald Trump’s speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, citing violations of its rules about “misleading election claims” under its “presidential election integrity” policy.
Also last week, Ebay blocked all sales and purchases of the half-dozen Dr. Seuss booksrecently deemed unfit for children because they allegedly “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” Amazon blocked access to a documentary about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Twitter suspended the account of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Facebook continued its purge of QAnon-linked accounts, which began back in October. And the cable network TCM announced a program to reframe classic films like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Searchers,” and “My Fair Lady,” which it considers “problematic” and “troubling.”
That was just last week. The growing movement on the left to censor, purge, block, and suspend anyone who expresses disfavored views, or any book or film that some might consider offensive, isn’t just an attack on conservatives or a quixotic war on the past. It represents the single greatest wholesale rejection of liberal democracy, civil society, and the ideal of self-government in American history.
Simply put, the people who will not allow Trump’s CPAC speech to be searchable on YouTube do not think you can think through things and make your own decisions, let alone participate in democratic governance. To them, you are only slightly more intelligent than an animal, and ought to be treated as such.
The reason it matters—and the reason this illiberal, censorious impulse can’t just be laughed off—is that the institutions and industries behind all this are incredibly powerful. They control what you watch, read, discuss, and share—even with your own children.
Disney Plus, for example, pulled a bunch of classic titles from its children’s programming back in January for “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.” The banned films include “Lady and the Tramp,” “Peter Pan,” “The Jungle Book,” and “Dumbo.” The titles are still available, with a disclaimer, on the main streaming service, but the writing is on the wall: if you want your kids to enjoy the originals, better buy the DVD now.
Let’s be clear about something: this isn’t about ferreting out “offensive” content or ideas, or making society more tolerant and inclusive. After all, whether or not something is offensive is relative. This is about taking away your agency, your ability to make choices and decide for yourself what you think, whether it’s about Dr. Suess or a presidential election.
Why else would Amazon pull down a well-reviewed and by all accounts fair and sober book about transgenderism, as they did last week to Ryan T. Anderson’s 2018 book, “When Harry Became Sally”? It’s not because the book is offensive to a wide swath of the reading public. It’s because the ideas presented in it—including the now-radical notion that biological sex is immutable and that encouraging children and teens to “transition” causes irreparable harm—challenge the left’s utopian vision for society.
In other words, it’s not that these ideas are offensive, it’s that they’re in the way. The people who applauded Amazon for taking down Anderson’s book do not want to contend with Anderson’s arguments. It’s much easier for them if a corporate behemoth like Amazon just blots them out, makes them disappear.
Otherwise, Anderson might actually persuade some people that he’s right, that transgenderism isn’t just morally wrong, it’s also bad for society, and maybe we should rethink our sudden embrace of it. Maybe we should have some honest debate about it and let people make up their own minds.
The left would like to take those kind of choices away from you, even (especially) for children’s literature. The hypocrisy of the left in this regard knows no bounds.
CNN’s Jake Tapper, who once championed the publication of controversial images—including cartoons of Mohammed, even though it’s deeply offensive to Muslims—denounced Republicans last week for complaining about the cancellation of Dr. Seuss. Tapper was upset because they keep citing beloved titles like “Green Eggs and Ham,” not the half-dozen books that contain what Tapper calls “empirically racist” images that are “indefensible.”
He’s wrong about that. This is an argument for another column, but the images in those banned Dr. Seuss books are entirely defensible and, to my mind, not at all racist, empirically or otherwise.
But of course one need not defend the content of burned books to protest the burning of them. It’s even possible simultaneously to object to the content of a book and the notion that it should be burned for its content. This is a pretty basic tenet of classical liberalism, and Tapper knows it. He’s just being dishonest.
Everyone, in fact, who champions the banning of books—any books—or films or speeches or whatever, is engaged in a deeply anti-American project to undermine the means by which we form citizens capable of self-government. If you can’t be trusted to think through whether the mention of “Eskimo Fish” in Dr. Suess’s “McElligot’s Pool”is appropriate for your kids, then you certainly can’t be trusted to think through whether the 2020 election was marred by fraud and loose rules for absentee ballots.
Likewise, you can’t be trusted to make decisions about COVID-19, about whether to get a vaccine or wear a mask, which is why Dr. Anthony Fauci saw fit to lie about mask-wearing to the American people at the onset of the pandemic last year. He doesn’t think you can be trusted with the truth because he thinks you’re an idiot child who needs be governed, not an American citizen who has the natural right to govern himself.
When I watch Fauci lie, or see Tapper and his peers cheer digital book-burnings, or see example after example of censorship to protect us from supposedly offensive ideas or images, all I can think of is a line from an interview conducted in 1842 with a veteran of the American Revolution. The man was asked why he fought, and he replied, “Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”
By • RealClear Politics
In the weeks since Donald Trump departed the White House — and during the four years he resided there – we were constantly told that conservatism is in crisis. Then again, crisis seems to be a recurring condition for conservatism, or, more precisely, for the American conservative movement. By and large, these crises have proved fertile. American conservatism’s resilience over the last seven decades — its ability to shift weight and adjust focus to achieve a suitable balance — suggests that what appears as calamitous disarray involves salutary adaptation, sometimes painful and awkward, to changing circumstances.
The post-World War II conservative movement was born in crisis. Communist totalitarianism abroad and rapid expansion of the welfare state at home provoked incisive responses from two camps: those determined to conserve individual freedom and limited government and those dedicated to conserving traditional morality. Both classical liberalism and traditionalism had populist appeal, espousing principles that political and intellectual elites rejected but which significant swaths of ordinary voters embraced.
In 1955, a sense of crisis surrounded William F. Buckley’s launch of National Review. The upstart magazine quickly established itself as American conservatism’s preeminent publication, serving as a home for classical liberals and traditionalists, who were often at loggerheads even as polite society ostracized both. The conservative movement’s first national standard-bearer, Barry Goldwater, suffered a landslide defeat in the 1964 presidential election to Lyndon Johnson. In the mid-1970s, the fallout from Watergate roiled conservatism as well as the nation. George H.W. Bush’s loss to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election sent shock waves through the conservative movement as did Barack Obama’s defeat of John McCain in 2009 and Mitt Romney in 2012.
In each instance, the movement regrouped, recalibrating the balance between classical liberal and traditionalist imperatives, while appealing to the people against the elites. National Review laid the groundwork for Goldwater’s candidacy. His defeat and Watergate’s tumult served as preludes to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. President Clinton’s failed effort (which effectively excluded Republican participation) to pass health-care reform energized Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution. President Obama’s successful passage of health-care reform (which also effectively excluded Republican input) galvanized the Tea Party movement. Eventually, the Obama administration’s permissive immigration policy and inattentiveness to the distress that globalization wrought in working-class households fueled the populist backlash that Donald Trump rode to the White House.
In “A New Conservatism: Freeing the Right From Free-Market Orthodoxy,” published this month in Foreign Affairs, Oren Cass addresses conservatism’s current crisis. He sensibly contends that, in light of Trump’s achievements and implosion, conservatism must rebalance its priorities. For good reason, Cass urges conservatives to develop better policies to deal with inequality, labor, and public education. However, his tendentious critique of those whom he disparages as promulgators of “market fundamentalism” — from whom he would strip the title conservative – echoes old errors that marked internecine conservative strife dating back to the 1950s. It also warps today’s political realities and subverts Cass’s aspiration to form a right-leaning governing coalition.
Cass is executive director of American Compass. Founded in 2020, the new organization’s mission is “[t]o restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity.” At the time, Jack Butler gently observed in National Review that “some of Cass’s immediate claims are worth questioning.” That remains true.
Consider his mockery of conservatives’ response to the COVID-19 global pandemic: “Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House flipped frantically through their dog-eared playbooks from the 1980s to determine just the right tax cut for the moment.” In the pandemic’s wake and consistent with their principles, many conservatives did propose tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Cass, however, falsely accuses Republicans of having “hewed rigidly to an agenda of tax and spending cuts, deregulation, and free trade.”
Actually, the GOP adopted a hybrid agenda. On March 27, 2020, in the pandemic’s early days, President Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, passed by a Republican-led Senate and a Democratic-led House. The CARES Act provided one-time cash payments to individuals, temporarily supplemented unemployment benefits, authorized loans to small businesses and large corporations, and delivered hundreds of billions of dollars to state and local governments. In May 2020, the Trump administration announced Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership that in record time supplied the American people and nations around the world with responsibly tested and highly efficacious vaccines.
Cass’s narrow definition of conservatism further distorts his analysis. “The hallmark of conservativism,” he begins reasonably enough, “is not, as is often thought, opposition to change or the desire for a return to some earlier time.” A related mistake, he observes, is “that conservatives lack substantive preferences.” But instead of identifying American conservatism’s substantive preferences — along with its principles and understanding of human nature and government — Cass highlights conservatism’s supposedly defining concern: “What in fact distinguishes conservatives is their attention to the role that institutions and norms play in people’s lives and in the process of governing.”
Progressives, too, care about the moral and political impact of institutions and norms. Having wrested control of the K-12 school system and universities, mainstream media, Hollywood, and the federal bureaucracy, they seek from those commanding heights to remake popular and political culture. Moreover, the left — in the academy, the media, and government — stresses the use of law and public policy to transform family, society, and the organs of government in accordance with progressive norms. Left and right differ over which norms should be cultivated, how institutions should be structured, and the extent of government’s involvement.
Cass’s abstract definition of conservatism as attentiveness to norms and institutions, moreover, reflects the excess of abstraction that conservatives since Edmund Burke — whom Cass cites as a model — have criticized. While appreciating that conservatives in the mold of Burke must combine “a disposition to preserve” with “an ability to improve,” Cass does not adequately specify the norms and institutions central to the American experiment in ordered liberty. In contrast, we can look to “Reflections on the Revolution in France,” published in 1790. In that document, the first of the modern conservatives came to the defense of the venerable beliefs, practices, and associations that sustained British liberty against the radical dogmas about freedom emanating from Paris.
While the American conservative movement possesses substantive preferences and is dedicated to the preservation of specific institutions, Cass fails to identify the core ones. Well understood, the conservative movement in America seeks in the first place to preserve the constitutional order, which is grounded in unalienable rights, embodies the principles of limited government, and depends on a citizenry that is educated — at home, in the community, and at schools — for the rights and responsibilities of freedom. Cass rightly seeks policies that fortify families, sustain communities, and address the discontents of working-class Americans, who have been hit hard by globalization. But he tends to downplay or neglect the imperatives of individual freedom and limited government in the fashioning of such policies.
American conservatism must once again respond to crisis by striking a balance, appropriate to the circumstances and the demands of the moment, that gives both classically liberal convictions and the traditional morality that sustains freedom their due. We need not “a new conservatism” but rather a new blend of American conservatism’s enduring principles.
Parents across the country are increasingly tired of fights between school-district leaders and teachers’ unions over whether classrooms should open for in-person instruction.
By • Reason Foundation
Extended public-school closures and one-size-fits-all school systems have provided free advertising for school choice over the past year. Parents across the country are increasingly tired of fights between school-district leaders and teachers’ unions over whether classrooms should open for in-person instruction. And as their children’s learning continues to suffer, they are increasingly desperate for more options. Their desperation might just make school choice more popular, even after the pandemic is behind us.
One key factor driving parental exasperation is the obvious contrast between what public schools have done during this period and what private schools have done. While public schools in many cities remain closed, private schools and daycare centers have been fighting to safely reopen their doors for months. In fact, private schools in Kentucky went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for the right to provide in-person services to their customers. A private school in Sacramento County, Calif., even rebranded itself as a “daycare” by training its employees as child-care workers in an attempt to get around the government’s arbitrary closure rules. Nationwide and state-specific data confirm that private schools have been substantially more likely to reopen in-person than nearby public schools. And four rigorous studies have each found that public-school districts with stronger teachers’ unions have been significantly less likely to reopen in person.
Even more frustrating, there is no major medical reason for this disparity. In fact, keeping schools closed for in-person instruction flies in the face of the science. Last month, Center for Disease Control (CDC) researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that “the preponderance of available evidence from the fall school semester has been reassuring” and that “there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.” In New York City, for example, the latest positivity rate reported in schools was less than a tenth of the positivity rate in the overall community. Additional studies from other countries — including Sweden, Ireland, Norway, and Singapore — similarly suggest schools are not major contributors of community spread. UNICEF also reported that “data from 191 countries show no consistent association between school reopening status and COVID-19 infection rates.”
Yet certain examples of public-school behavior are particularly egregious even by these standards. For instance, while some public K–12 providers insisted on keeping classrooms fully remote, they were opening the same school buildings for in-person childcare services and charging families hundreds of dollars per child per week out of pocket. If the schools could reopen for in-person childcare services, why couldn’t they open for in-person learning? And more recently, a Chicago Teachers Union board member was caught vacationing in Puerto Rico while rallying teachers on social media to not return to work in person. But if was safe enough to travel to another country and vacation in person, then why wasn’t it safe enough to return to work in person?
Of course, some high-risk teachers have real health concerns and are looking for good-faith ways to make schools safer for them to be in. Unfortunately, unions have largely taken an all-or-nothing approach to their demands for reopening. In fact, many teachers’ unions across the country have been fighting to remain closed since the start of the pandemic. The public-school monopoly sought to protect itself at the expense of families as soon as the lockdowns began last March. The Oregon Education Association successfully lobbied that same month to make it illegal for families to switch to virtual charter schools. The Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators lobbied for the same thing that month to prevent desperate families from taking their children’s education dollars to schools that had years of experience operating virtually. California took similar action by passing a bill that effectively prevented families from taking their children’s education dollars to public charter schools.
That’s not the only evidence that some teachers’ unions often prioritize politics and power over the needs of families. Take a look at some of their demands. In their report on safely reopening schools, the Los Angeles teachers’ union called for things unrelated to reopening schools, such as defunding the police, Medicare-for-All, a wealth tax, and a ban on charter schools. At least ten teachers’ unions joined with the Democratic Socialists of America to hold a “National Day of Resistance” to “Demand Safe Schools” on two occasions in less than a year. Included in their list of demands, in addition to more funding and staffing, were police-free schools, rent cancelation, unemployment benefits for all, and a ban on standardized tests and new charter schools.
Meanwhile, families have been left scrambling for nearly a year now and many children are falling behind academically, mentally, and physically. After all this, parents are beginning to realize that it is time for a change in the relationship between students and schools. They’ve recognized that it does not make any sense to fund closed school buildings when we can fund students directly instead. Think of it this way: If a grocery store doesn’t reopen, families can take their money elsewhere. If a school doesn’t reopen, families should similarly be able to take their children’s taxpayer-funded education dollars elsewhere. After all, education funding is supposed to be meant for educating children, not for protecting a particular institution.
Recent nationwide polling from RealClearOpinion Research found that support for the concept of school choice jumped ten percentage points in just a few months — from 67 percent in April to 77 percent in August 2020 — among families with children in the public-school system last year. Another national survey conducted by Morning Consult found that support for several types of school choice — education savings accounts, vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and charter schools — all surged between the spring and fall of 2020. The same national poll found that 81 percent of the general public — and 86 percent of parents of school-aged children — now support funding students directly through education savings accounts.
These initiatives allow families to take a portion of their children’s K–12 education dollars, which would have otherwise automatically funneled to their residentially assigned public-school district, to cover the costs associated with any approved education provider, such as private schooling, tutoring, homeschooling, microschooling, and “pandemic pods.” And, of course, families would still be able to take all of their children’s education dollars to their residentially assigned public school if they prefer.
It isn’t just voters who are changing their minds. Legislators in at least 23 states have introduced bills in the past two months to fund students instead of systems. Five of these states — Arizona, Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, and Kansas — have already passed school-choice bills out of a chamber, and three others — Florida, Missouri, and South Dakota — have passed bills out of committees.
Language in some of this new legislation also suggests that the push to fund students instead of systems is the direct result of the inability or unwillingness of some teachers’ unions and school systems to reopen in person. Legislators in states including Utah, Maryland, and Illinois introduced bills to allow families to take their children’s education dollars elsewhere if their public schools didn’t reopen in person. The proposal to fund students directly in Georgia includes several eligibility categories — one of which happens to be for students assigned to public schools without full-time in-person instruction. Congressman Dan Bishop also introduced federal legislation to allow families to take some of their children’s K–12 education dollars to private providers if their public schools don’t reopen in person.
Families are also fighting back in other ways. Parents are filing lawsuits against school districts over their inadequate reopening plans. Others are pushing to recall school-board members.
The good news is that teachers’ unions and others who oppose safe in-person instruction have done more to advance school choice in the past year than anyone could have ever imagined. The pandemic has revealed the main problem with K–12 education: There is a massive power imbalance between the public school system and individual families.
Families have always gotten the short end of the stick on K–12 education. But it’s more obvious now than ever, and families are figuring out they’re getting a bad deal. The only way that we’re ever going to fix that uneven power dynamic is to give families real options by funding students directly.
It’s about time we get our priorities right and fund students, not systems.
By • American Action News
U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, under fire and with her approval rating among the folks back home dropping, has drawn what will likely be the first of many opponents in the next GOP primary.
The No. 3 Republican in the GOP House leadership, Cheney is under fire for her vote to impeach former President Donald J. Trump, a largely partisan effort launched by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, after the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats and some Republicans have repeatedly referred to the riot as an attempted “insurrection” prompted by Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. The objective of the rioters, some say, was to disrupt and perhaps force Congress to suspend that day’s counting of the electoral college ballots as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution and to prevent Joe Biden from being officially declared president-elect.
Cheney has drawn heat for her vote to affirm the charges against Trump and for insisting it was, for her and for all Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives a “matter of conscience” that permitted members to cast aside any partisan allegiances by which they might feel bound.
Taking on Cheney is Wyoming State Rep. Chuck Gray, a Republican who announced his intentions on social media.
“It’s time for a leader who actually listens to the hard-working people of Wyoming, and not to the D.C elitists,” Gray tweeted. “Join me on my journey as I seek the Republican nomination for the United States Congress.”
In February, the Wyoming Republican Party voted overwhelmingly to censure Cheney with only eight of the 74-member state GOP’s central committee openly opposing the punishment in a process that did not conclude with a formal vote. An effort by GOP House conservatives to remove Cheney from her party leadership post failed 145-61.
Gray has repeatedly criticized Cheney’s vote to impeach Trump and accused her of taking positions that were “nothing more than a stepping stone” to higher office. “Well, not anymore,” he said. “Wyoming agrees with President Trump” who, during his recent speech to the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference called Cheney out by name and said he hoped she would be defeated.
The subject of Trump’s speech caused some friction between Cheney and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who told reporters at a press availability he thought the former president should speak to the nation’s largest annual gathering of conservative political activists. Cheney disagreed, saying she did not believe the former president “should be playing a role in the future of the party or the country.”
Cheney, who was first elected to the House in 2016, has not yet said whether she will be a candidate for reelection in 2022. Her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, held the seat she now occupies from January 1979 until 1989 – when former President George H.W. Bush nominated him to be U.S. Secretary of Defense.
By • Newsweek
Former President Donald J. Trump’s recent speech to the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) put him back in the spot he most enjoys: front and center of the national conversation. He’s been the topic, even as President Joe Biden suffered his first defeat on Capitol Hill and House Democrats passed a bill that suppresses our treasured right to freedom of speech.
Trump, always controversial, continued unhelpfully to assert the election was stolen from him even while effectively attacking the nascent Biden administration for undoing policies that “made America great again.”
The speech breathed new life into the discussion of a possible run in 2024 and whether he could win the Republican nomination.
Republicans and Democrats both know he could be a formidable presidential candidate in 2024, should he win the GOP nomination. He won 74 million votes in 2020—11 million more while losing than he did while winning in 2016. The GOP also picked up a governorship and flipped control of two state legislative chambers from Democrat to Republican (Democrats flipped none). Out of 227 defeated state legislators seeking re-election, only 52 belonged to the GOP.
Trump ran ahead of John McCain and Mitt Romney among blacks and Hispanics, and the GOP came within an eyelash of winning back control of the U.S. House of Representatives—when pre-election forecasts predicted they’d lose as many as two dozen seats.
Still, it’s not all gravy. The GOP lost control of the U.S. Senate and, as Karl Rove pointed out recently in The Wall Street Journal, almost all the Republicans running for the House ran ahead of Mr. Trump—”including eight in the 14 closest races that gave the GOP its pickups.” Down-ballot, the pattern was repeated, as many state legislative candidates ran ahead of the president.
Trump ran ahead of John McCain and Mitt Romney among blacks and Hispanics, and the GOP came within an eyelash of winning back control of the U.S. House of Representatives—when pre-election forecasts predicted they’d lose as many as two dozen seats.
Still, it’s not all gravy. The GOP lost control of the U.S. Senate and, as Karl Rove pointed out recently in The Wall Street Journal, almost all the Republicans running for the House ran ahead of Mr. Trump—”including eight in the 14 closest races that gave the GOP its pickups.” Down-ballot, the pattern was repeated, as many state legislative candidates ran ahead of the president.
Others have encouraged the party to disavow Trump and what they refer to as “Trumpism”—which, until the former president’s speech at CPAC, was a phrase left either ill- or un-defined by those advocating for it.
This is where the danger lies—something that could plunge the GOP into a prolonged civil war that could cost the party greatly, and for a long time. Going forward, the party needs to decide what it’s for and what it’s against, and give the American people “an agenda worth voting for,” as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich used to say.
What that in mind, it’s important to first define what “Trumpism” is in order to decide if it should be tossed aside. At CPAC the former president defined it as support for cutting marginal tax rates and deregulation to spur economic growth and job creation, traditional values and a strong military, secure borders and a merit-based immigration system, law enforcement, the rule of law, the Second Amendment, life, liberty and not letting China eat America for lunch (among other things).
Altogether, that sounds like an agenda most conservatives could, and should, support.
There may be other positions out there that people in positions of influence would like to see the GOP adopt. If there are, they should say so now, so that a discussion can be had. Simply throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as some suggest, would erase decades of progress by conservatives in defining the GOP as a coalition standing for free minds, free people and free markets.
That’s not to suggest everything about Trump should be swallowed whole. Like many of his predecessors, he refused to tackle entitlements, did nothing to address spending and approached important intergenerational issues and societal changes in a ham-handed, angry fashion. It’s one thing to push back against the Left—and it’s important he did—but it’s equally important to pursue consensus and to remember that compromise does not necessarily equal capitulation.
Right now, the GOP is stuck. To move forward and regain the majority in Congress as well as the presidency, the party must figure out how to take from Trump what was best while casting off things that were political or electoral liabilities. It’s not as hard as it sounds—and it’s been done before, as in 1994, when Republicans got past President George H.W. Bush’s betrayal of his promise to never raise taxes to win back Congress for the first time in 40 years.
The party’s mission, as the former president told CPAC, “must be to create a future of good jobs, strong families, safe communities, a vibrant culture and a great nation for all Americans.” If the GOP can come up with a plan to do that, its future electoral success is assured.
By • American Action News
More than 30 Democrats serving in the United States have written President Joe Biden asking him to consider expanding the number of people involved in the decision to launch a nuclear strike, the New York Post reported Thursday.
“As president, two of your most critical and solemn duties are the security of the country and the safeguarding of its nuclear arsenal,” the letter reads, noting the president’s sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons assures keeping them under civilian control.”
The request was not because of concerns over Mr. Biden’s health, advanced age, or because some commentators have expressed doubts about his mental fitness. Instead, the letter said, the issue was being raised at this time because “Past presidents have threatened to attack other countries with nuclear weapons” – which a footnote explains is a reference to tweets posted by former President Donald J. Trump directed at North Korean President Kim Jong Un – and because they have “exhibited behavior that caused other officials to express concern about the president’s judgment.”
The latter point, another footnote indicates, is a reference to an attempt by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to inject herself into the string of command over U.S. nuclear weapons after the November election by reaching out to the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Several legal scholars have suggested that by doing so, Mrs. Pelosi vastly exceeded her authority under the U.S. Constitution and could, under different circumstances, have found herself under investigation for doing so.
The Democrats writing to Mr. Biden proposed a variety of alternatives to the current procedures should Mr. Biden agree to surrender the authority currently vested solely in the president to order the use of nuclear weapons. These include:
“We respectfully request that you. As president, review ways in which you can end the sole authority you have to launch a nuclear attack and to install additional checks and balances into the system,” the letter concludes.
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee slammed the effort, the Post reported. GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wy., Committee Ranking Member Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Turner, R-Ohio, released a statement calling the idea “dangerous.”
“The President of the United States must have the exclusive ability to command and control our nuclear deterrent. Democrats’ dangerous efforts suggesting a restructuring of our nuclear command and control process will undermine American security, as well as the security of our allies,” the three said.
“These proposals, if enacted, would leave Americans vulnerable, destabilize the nuclear balance, and shake our allies’ confidence in the nuclear umbrella. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would cheer if the United States adopted such a unilateral restriction,” Cheney, Rodgers, and Turner continued.
The suggestions offered by Panetta and Lieu in their letter would, if adopted, be the most far-reaching effort to reduce the president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief of any effort since the War Powers Act was adopted in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.
The White House has not yet commented on the letter but that does not mean the proposal is by any means dead. In fact, say some Republicans, it sounds just like the kind of thing a President Joe Biden would love to take up, regardless of the way conceptually it could make the United States more vulnerable to an attack rather than make the world safer.
By • American Action News
Joe Biden’s pursuit of the presidency relied heavily on a carefully cultivated image that emphasized his moderate credentials. It won him the White House but, a new poll says, a majority of voters may be suffering from buyer’s remorse.
According to a recent Rasmussen Reports survey, 54 percent of U.S. voters surveyed said Mr. Biden was governing like “a puppet of the left” and not the “moderate ‘nice guy’” he portrayed himself as being during much of the campaign.
If that were not bad enough for a White House whose legislative agenda anticipates a prolonged progressive shift in U.S. politics, 49 percent of likely voters (including 24 percent of Democrats) participating in the same survey said they believed the left-wing of the Democratic Party “had too much influence” on Mr. Biden.
The condemnation of the president’s apparent lack of independence and leftward drift was shared widely among cross-sections of the electorate. Majorities of male and female voters, as well as voters in every age category, agreed he was operating as a “puppet.” Black voters, Rasmussen reports said, were “less likely” than voters in any other category to agree.
“Remarkably, many who say the left-wing has too much influence” on the president “also believe big business has too much influence” on him. The survey revealed 49 percent likely voters including 66 percent of GOP voters, 29 percent of Democrats, and 52 percent of unaffiliated voters were wary of the level of sway corporations had on the new president.
Voters who “strongly approve” of Mr. Biden’s presidential job performance were most likely to applaud the left’s influence on the administration’s agenda while those who strongly disapproved were almost unanimous in their opinion he was not governing as he’d promised.
During the initial days of his administration, Mr. Biden’s White House advanced several proposals that prioritized the interests of the green movement over those of the blue-collar union members who formed the core of the Democratic electorate at the time the president first entered the United States Senate. Among them was the decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline – which even AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, a close ally of Mr. Biden’s seemed to admit was a job-killing move – and a ban on new fracking on federal lands which, experts say, will ravage the budgets of states dependent on energy exploration issues to pay for education and other critical programs.
The shift has observers who are admittedly not fans of Mr. Biden wondering if he is in charge at the White House of if Vice President Kamala Harris, who campaigned briefly for president on a much more progressive agenda, is calling many of the important shots. Either way, the voters are showing early on they’re not happy about having been sold a bill of goods, apparently expecting a vote against the Trump presidency was not specifically as a vote against Trump policies that drove energy prices to record lows, sparked a prolonged stock market rally, and prior to the onset of the pandemic-driven lockdowns, brought unemployment to its lowest level in decades.
All that may abate if Mr. Biden changes direction again after he’s been in office for one hundred days. The idea of front-loading a legislative agenda with the heaviest political and ideological lifts that allow an incoming president to maximize accomplishments during the “Honeymoon Phase” of his presidency is not new. It’s been done before precisely because it gives controversial legislation its best chance to get through Congress and gives those who support it including the president the most time possible to recover lost political capital before the next election.
Whether Mr. Biden can do that will depend on his ability to get progressives like Bernie Sanders and AOC as well as house Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to agree that, once reconciliation passes, he’s given them enough — for now.
Why Rush Limbaugh matters
By • The Washington Free Beacon
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Feb. 7, 2020. The Washington Free Beacon is reposting on the occasion of Rush Limbaugh’s death Feb. 17, 2021.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis spoke to Rush Limbaugh last fall at a gala dinner for the National Review Institute. The radio host was there to receive the William F. Buckley Jr. award. “He actually gave me one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever had,” Limbaugh told his audience the next day. “He listed five great conservatives and put me in the list.” DeSantis’s pantheon: William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Limbaugh.
Good list. No media figure since Buckley has had a more lasting influence on American conservatism than Limbaugh, whose cumulative weekly audience is more than 20 million people. Since national syndication in 1988, Limbaugh has been the voice of conservatism, his three-hour program blending news, politics, and entertainment in a powerful and polarizing cocktail. His shocking announcement this week that he has advanced lung cancer, and his appearance at the State of the Union, where President Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, are occasions to reflect on his impact.
It’s one thing to excel in your field. It’s another to create the field in which you excel. Conservative talk radio was local and niche before Limbaugh. He was the first to capitalize on regulatory and technological changes that allowed for national scale. The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 freed affiliates to air controversial political opinions without inviting government scrutiny. As music programming migrated to the FM spectrum, AM bandwidth welcomed talk. Listener participation was also critical. “It was not until 1982,” writes Nicole Hemmer in Messengers of the Right, “that AT&T introduced the modern direct-dial toll-free calling system that national call-in shows use.”
Limbaugh made the most of these opportunities. And he contributed stylistic innovations of his own. He treated politics not only as a competition of ideas but also as a contest between liberal elites and the American public. He added the irreverent and sometimes scandalous humor and cultural commentary of the great DJs. He introduced catchphrases still in circulation: “dittohead,” “Drive-By media,” “feminazi,” “talent on loan from God.”
The template he created has been so successful that the list of his imitators on both the left and right is endless. Even Al Franken wanted in on the act. Dostoyevsky is attributed with the saying that the great Russian writers “all came out of Gogol’s ‘Overcoat.'” Political talk show hosts came out of Limbaugh’s microphone.
Limbaugh’s success prefigured more than the rise of conservative radio. His two bestsellers, The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993), were the leading edge of the conservative publishing boom. And his television program, The Rush Limbaugh Show, produced in collaboration with Roger Ailes, was a forerunner of the opinion programming on Fox News Channel. “I had to learn how to take being hated as a measure of success,” he told a Boy Scouts awards dinner in 2009. “Nobody’s raised for that. And the person that taught me to deal with this and to remain psychologically healthy was Roger Ailes.”
Limbaugh is not fringe. His views fit in the conservative mainstream. He idolizes Buckley. “He was a fundamental individual in helping me to be able to explain what I believed instinctively, helping me to explain it to others,” Limbaugh saidlast year. The ideas are the same but the salesman is different. Limbaugh is Buckley without the accent, without the Yale credentials, without the sailboat and harpsichord. Limbaugh is a college dropout from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, who spends Sundays watching the NFL and speaks in plain language. His background connects him to the audience—and to the increasingly working-class Republican voter.
Limbaugh entered stage right just as Ronald Reagan made his exit. He took from Reagan the sense that America’s future is bright, that America isn’t broken, just its liberal political, media, and cultural elites. “He rejected Washington elitism and connected directly with the American people who adored him,” Limbaugh said after Reagan’s death. “He didn’t need the press. He didn’t need the press to spin what he was or what he said. He had the ability to connect individually with each American who saw him.” The two men never met.
Limbaugh assumed Reagan’s position as leader of the conservative movement. In a letter sent to Limbaugh after the 1992 election, Reagan wrote, “Now that I’ve retired from active politics, I don’t mind that you have become the Number One voice for conservatism in our Country. I know the liberals call you the most dangerous man in America, but don’t worry about it, they used to say the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear ‘the way things ought to be.'”
In a long and evenhanded cover story in 1993 by James Bowman, National Review pronounced Limbaugh “the leader of the opposition.” Bowman quoted R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor of The American Spectator. “We need to have people who can dramatize ideas,” Tyrrell said. “You need that literary spark. Luigi Barzini had it; Buckley has it. And, though he’s a great talker rather than a great writer, Rush has it too.”
More than a decade later, after the Republican defeat in 2008, Limbaugh once again stepped into the breach. The media likened Barack Obama to FDR. Republicans wavered. Should they cooperate with President Obama in building a “New Foundation” for America? Limbaugh gave his answer on January 16, 2009. “I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year and a half,” he said. “I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.” Limbaugh said he hoped Obama failed. “Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it?” The monologue, and the speech he delivered to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., a month later, became a sensation. They set the tone for the Tea Party and Republican victories in 2010 and 2014.
Limbaugh did not mock Trump when the businessman announced his presidential campaign in June 2015. “This is going to resonate with a lot of people, I guarantee you, and the Drive-Bys are going to pooh-pooh it,” he said. He spent the primary reminding listeners of the importance of defeating Hillary Clinton. Trump was not an ideological candidate, he said. Trump was a missile aimed at the establishment. If ideology matters, then you should vote for Ted Cruz. “If conservatism is your bag, if conservatism is the dominating factor in how you vote,” Limbaugh said in February 2016, “there is no other choice for you in this campaign than Ted Cruz, because you are exactly right: This is the closest in our lifetimes we have ever been to Ronald Reagan.” But, Limbaugh added, the feeling in the country might be so anti-establishment that Trump’s unusual coalition could win the presidency. It did.
To say that Limbaugh supports the president would be an understatement. Last December he introduced the president at a Turning Point USA summit. He mentioned a recent encounter on a golf course. Someone told him it is hard to defend President Trump. “I said, ‘What? Hard to defend the president? It’s one of the easiest things in the world to do.’ President Trump does not need to be defended.” The crowd cheered. A few seconds later Limbaugh said, “How do you defend Donald Trump? You attack the people who are attempting to destroy him. They’re trying to destroy you. They’re trying to transform this country into something that it was not founded to be.”
Bold, brash, divisive, funny, and amped up, President Trump’s style is similar to a shock jockey’s. His presidency is another reminder of Limbaugh’s staying power. The American right has been molded in his anti-elitist, grassroots, demotic, irreverent, patriotic, hard-charging image. Rush Limbaugh is not just a broadcaster. He defines an era.
The Magna Carta created the moral and political premise that, in many ways, the American founding was built upon. The Magna Carta came to represent the idea that the people can assert their rights against an oppressive ruler and that the power of government can be limited to protect those rights. These concepts were clearly foundational and central to both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.
First, a bit of history about Magna Carta — its full name was Magna Carta Libertatum which is Latin for “Great Charter of Freedoms.” But, it became commonly known as simply Magna Carta or the “Great Charter.” It was written in 1215 to settle an intense political dispute between King John of England and a group of barons who were challenging King John’s absolute right to rule. The terms of the charter were negotiated over the course of three days. When they reached agreement on June 15, 1215, the document was signed by the King and the barons at Runnymede outside of London.
This was a time when kings asserted the absolute right to rule, and that they were above the law and that they were personally chosen to rule by God. At this time, even questioning the King’s power was both treasonous and an act of defiance to God himself.
The Magna Carta limited the king’s absolute claim to power. It provided a certain level of religious freedom or independence from the crown, protected barons from illegal imprisonment, and limited the taxes that the crown could impose upon the barons, among other things. It did not champion the rights of every Englishman. It only focused on the rights of the barons. But, it was an important start to the concept of limiting the absolute power of governments or kings that claimed God had given them the absolute right to rule.
Magna Carta is important because of the principles it stood for and the ideas that it came to represent — not because it lasted a long time. Shortly after signing the charter, King John asked Pope Innocent III to annul it, which he did. Then there was a war known as the First Barons War that began in 1215 and finally ended in 1217.
After King John died in 1216, the regency government of John’s nine-year-old son, Henry III reissued the Magna Carta, after having stripped out some of its more “radical” elements in hopes of reuniting the country under his rule. That didn’t work, but at the end of the war in 1217, the original Magna Carta’s terms became the foundation for a peace treaty.
Over the following decades and centuries, the importance of Magna Carta ebbed and flowed depending on the current king’s view of it and his willingness to accept it, or abide by it its concepts. But subsequent kings further legitimized or confirmed the principles of Magna Carta — often in exchange for some grant of new taxes or some other political concession. But the path towards limited government and individual rights had been planted and continued to grow.
Despite its relatively short political life as a working document, Magna Carta created and memorialized the idea that the people had the right to limit the powers of their government and they had the right to protect basic and important rights. By the end of the Sixteenth Century, the political lore of Magna Carta grew and the idea of an ancient source for individual rights became cemented in the minds of reform-minded political scholars, thinkers and writers.
Obviously, it wasn’t as written in 1215 a document that protected the rights of the average Englishman. It only protected English barons. But the concepts of individual rights and the limitations of governmental power had grown and were starting to mature. Magna Carta was the seed of those powerful concepts of freedom and constitutionally limited government. By the 17th and 18th Centuries, those arguing for reforms and greater individual rights and protections used Magna Carta as their foundation. These ideas are at the very center of both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.
As English settlers came to the shores of North America, they brought with them charters under the authority of the King. The Virginia Charter of 1606 promised the English settlers all the same “liberties, franchises and immunities” as people born in England.[1] The Massachusetts Bay Company charter acknowledged the rights of the settlers to be treated as “free and natural subjects.”[2]
In 1687, William Penn, an early American leader, who had at one point been imprisoned in the Tower of London for his political and religious views, published a pamphlet on freedom and religious liberty that included a copy of the Magna Carta and discussed it as a source of fundamental law.[3] American scholars began to see Magna Carta as the source of their guaranteed rights of trial by jury and habeas corpus (which prevented a king from simply locking up his enemies without charges or due process). While that isn’t necessarily correct history, it is part of the growth of the seed of freedom and liberty that Magna Carta planted.
By July 4, 1776, the idea that government could, and should be, limited by the consent of its citizens and that government must protect individual rights was widely seen as springing forth from Magna Carta. The beautiful and important words penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration spring from the fertile soil of Magna Carta:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Obviously, Thomas Jefferson’s ideas of liberty and freedom had developed a great deal since Magna Carta was penned in 1215. But, it is impossible to read Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence and not see the common DNA.
When the Founders debated, drafted and ratified the U.S. Constitution, it is also clear they were creating a set of rules and procedures to limit and check the power of government and to guarantee basic, individual rights.
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” is a concept that comes from Magna Carta. Our constitutional guarantees of “a speedy trial” as found in the Sixth Amendment are also founded in the political thought that grew from Magna Carta. The Constitution’s guarantee of the “privilege of the writ of habeas corpus” (Art.1, Sec. 9) is also a concept that grew from Magna Carta.
Even the phrase “the law of the land” comes from Magna Carta’s history. And now we use that phrase in the United States to describe our Constitution which we proudly label “the law of the land.”
To this day, Magna Carta is an important symbol of liberty in both England and the United States.
The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are in my estimation the two most important and influential political documents ever written. What they did to provide promote and protect the freedom, opportunity and security of the average person is almost impossible to overstate. As British Prime Minister William Gladstone said in 1878, “the American Constitution is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”[4]
I believe Gladstone was correct. But, Magna Carta was an important development in political thought and understanding about government power and individual rights. It is difficult to imagine the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution without the foundational elements provided by Magna Carta.
By • American Action News
The man generally considered the most powerful and possibly the most corrupt politician in Illinois abruptly resigned his seat in the state legislature Thursday after being denied another term as Speaker of the State House of Representatives.
Michael (Mike) Madigan, who for years has ruled the Illinois Democratic Party and political machine with an iron hand said he would give up at the end of February the seat he’d held for half a century as concerns mounted over what the Chicago Tribune called “a sprawling federal corruption probe” into events in which it has been suggested Madigan may have been involved.
The scandal that eventually brought the powerful Democratic leader down erupted after federal prosecutors said leaders of Commonwealth Edison had bribed Madigan associates in exchange for help from his political organization passing legislation deemed favorable to its interests. One of those most closely involved in the scheme was former state representative and ComEd lobbyist Michael McCain, whom the Tribune described as being “One of Madigan’s closest confidants.”
Madigan has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the scheme. Nonetheless, it is the straw that broke the camel’s back of a career that saw him looming large over every aspect of Illinois politics. More than a handful of his Democratic colleagues cited the scandal as the reason they could not vote to give him another term as Speaker.
“It’s no secret that I have been the target of vicious attacks by people who sought to diminish my many achievements lifting up the working people of Illinois,” Madigan said in a statement. “I have been resolute in my dedication to public service and integrity, always acting in the interests of the people of Illinois.”
His speakership, which began in 1983, lasted nearly 40 years and is one of the longest on record anywhere in the United States. Before his colleagues declined to re-elect him, the closest he ever came to losing his grip on power came in 1994 when, as part of the Contract of America election the Republicans won control of the Illinois Legislature for a single term.
His replacement as Speaker, Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, is seen as a Madigan loyalist who, in a statement thanked him for his “sincere and meaningful contributions to our state.”
“Under him, we’ve had strong, sustained Democratic leadership in Springfield,” Welch said, referring to the legalization of same-sex marriage, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, and the abolition of the death penalty, which began in earnest under former GOP Gov. George Ryan.
“Now we must build on that with a new generation of leadership focused on racial and gender equity in all dimensions, improving government transparency, and leading with the kind of conviction, compassion, and cooperation expected by our constituents,” Welch continued.
Big labor leaders whose alliances with Madigan were the source of his power also complemented the outgoing Speaker. Chicago Federation of Labor President Bob Reiter called him a “steadfast, dedicated, and courageous champion of workers and their families in Illinois for a generation,” the Sun-Times reported.
Despite his resignation, Madigan remains a significant player in Illinois politics – at least for the time being. He spawned a political dynasty that includes his adopted daughter Lisa, the Illinois Attorney General from 2003 to 2019. He will remain chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party and will continue to be the Democratic Committeeman for Chicago’s 13th Ward which, according to published reports, gives him an outsized role in picking his successor.
The federal probe into state corruption and any possible role Madigan may have played in it is expected to continue.
