Category: Commentary

Commentary: America for Sale

Virginia Star Staff

The dollar’s status as the sole transaction and reserve currency of the world gives America’s federal government unique privileges. International demand for dollars enables federal budget deficits. It also creates an incentive for trade deficits, because incoming investments effectively collateralize American currency. To perpetuate this multi-decade debt binge, America’s real estate and corporate assets are for sale to any foreign investor with surplus dollars.

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Commentary: GOP Field Braces for Tucker Carlson Iowa Inquisition

RealClearWire

More than one Republican presidential campaign expressed surprise, even trepidation, when RealClearPolitics broke the news in March that Tucker Carlson would moderate a presidential forum hosted by the Family Leader.

In the spring, several candidates accepted Bob Vander Plaats’s invitation to address his influential group of social and religious conservatives. None knew Carlson would be waiting for them on stage in the summer. “This isn’t prepping for an interview,” said a senior aide to one presidential candidate. “It’s an interrogation.”

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Commentary: GOP Split on How to Handle Absentee Votes

RealClearWire

“I can’t begin to understand what ballot harvesting is,” Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the former Republican House Speaker, said in an interview in the wake of a 2018 political upset in Orange County, California. Democrats had swept the congressional seats in one of California’s few Republican strongholds, largely due to a well-executed strategy of harvesting, or the collection and submission of ballots by someone other than the voter.    

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Commentary: Biden’s Latest Green Energy Scheme

Virginia Star Staff

In a move eerily reminiscent of the failed Solyndra, President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy has doled out massive loans in green energy initiatives to corporations.

Remember Solyndra? Way back in 2009, the administration of Barack Obama, newly inaugurated and stoked with the ideological fire of environmental zeal, greenlit a $535 million loan guarantee to a company by that name to mass produce easy-to-install cylindrical solar units.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Illegal Immigration and Western Spiritual Sickness

Virginia Star Staff

The usual suspects have weighed in on recent belated efforts to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

Our now bankrupt media, the corrupt government of Mexico, and the Diversity/Equity/Inclusion apparat have damned a series of laws recently passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Governor Ron DeSantis that enforce existing federal immigration laws.

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Commentary: Censorship Is More Dangerous Than Disinformation

Virginia Star Staff

The First Amendment is under assault by the very people entrusted to protect it. The Biden administration and the corporate media removed any doubt about this after a July 4 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty. Evidence revealed during the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden convinced the judge that administration officials illegally pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored views. Doughty issued a 155-page opinion and an injunction prohibiting federal officials from “pressuring or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”

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Commentary: Bidens Do the Crime, But Not the Time

Virginia Star Staff

The family that skates together stays together.

The influence-peddling, money laundering, and foreign shakedowns encircling Hunter Biden, his uncle Jim, and The Big Guy in the Oval Office have received considerable attention, at least in the conservative media. But even Fox News addicts would be stunned ​by how many Bidens have T-boned into the law and ​waltzed away from the wreckage. The Biden family is an ongoing crime spree in which the word “consequences” might as well be in Swahili.

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Commentary: As Hiring Slows Down, So Does the Economy

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.

Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from COVID notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.

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Commentary: The Question of Socialization in Homeschooling

Virginia Star Staff

Questions about the socialization of homeschooled children are by far the most frequently asked of a homeschooling parent. The misconception is that without the traditional school experience to provide social training, homeschooled children will grow up having no idea how to function and fit into society.

My own children have been peppered with questions about their socialization training, or lack thereof, by complete strangers while the adult doing the questioning ignores all social cues and boundaries about the appropriateness of such an inquisition of a child. I myself have also been questioned, sometimes quite aggressively, about the issue of socialization as it relates to my homeschooled children.

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Commentary: Republicans Must Not Surrender to Bernie Sanders on Healthcare

Virginia Star Staff

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the GOP needs an effective healthcare agenda. There are many policies and programs they could be championing to help families deal with rising costs — especially now with control in the House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate — but unfortunately, they’ve failed to capitalize on this issue so far.

Republicans are missing an important opening; last year 90 percent of voters said a candidate’s plan for reducing the cost of healthcare would be important to them and 39 percent went so far as to say they would likely cross party lines to vote for a candidate who makes reducing healthcare costs their top priority!

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Commentary: Societies That Surrender Moral Foundation Historically Self-Destruct

Virginia Star Staff

Despite its origins in the historic Stonewall Riots of 1969, “Pride Month,” which concluded last week, has devolved into a manifestation of moral decay in 2023.

The proliferation of the transgenderism movement, fueled by Marxist ideologies, within our public education system is concerning enough. However, the decision to dedicate an entire month to celebrate moral degradation is a step too far. While I am not advanced in years, I never envisioned a day where transvestites would lecture us on human biology, or sterilizers would pose as health professionals advocating for human rights. It seems that our nation has descended into a state of utter madness, where men can now claim pregnancy and the number of genders rivals the alphabet.

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Commentary: Poland and Hungary Are What Healthy Democracies Look Like

Virginia Star Staff

“Even by today’s low standards, this is shockingly delusional,” I thought after reading Kati Marton’s diatribe against the current Polish and Hungarian governments in the Los Angeles Times last week.

Most such pieces are relatively standard and don’t warrant a response. This one, it seemed to me, mutilated the charred corpse of the truth. As a Polish citizen and Polish speaker who has lived in Hungary, I concluded it was too much to overlook. Allow me to share some of my experiences from these two countries, which most often bear no resemblance to the ones Marton describes.

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Commentary: SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision Ignores Elephant in the Room

Virginia Star Staff
U.S. Supreme Court

Growing up in the Jim Crow South, my parents grew up dreaming of a world where they didn’t have to use “colored-only” restrooms, sit in the back of the bus, attend segregated schools, and could sit in restaurants together with other Americans – regardless of their race, creed, or nationality.

They dreamed of equality for all. Yet, almost 70 years after the Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal,” the recent decision to strike down affirmative action makes it clear that many black progressives like Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson – who benefited from the Brown v. Board of Education decision – still view the issues of race and equality through rose-colored glasses.

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Commentary: As Hiring Slows Down, So Does the Economy

Virginia Star Staff

The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.

Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from Covid notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.

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Commentary: Biden Begins Shadow Loan Forgiveness Plan

Virginia Star Staff

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled against the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness proposal which would have forgiven $10,000-$20,000 of student loans per borrower. But the fight for student loan forgiveness isn’t going anywhere.

In a previous article for FEE, I highlighted how student loan forgiveness has already been happening and started under president Trump due to the freeze on interest accumulation. Although this may not be as visible as a $10,000 lower balance, frozen interest means the real cost of taking a loan out became smaller than the initial terms suggested.

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Commentary: Two Americas Collide at the Supreme Court

Virginia Star Staff

When President Biden fumed that the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling is “not normal,” he spoke more truth than he may have intended. It is certainly not normal nowadays to acknowledge, even implicitly, that discrimination against whites is possible, or even wrong. The Supreme Court blasted the vaporous pretexts that elites have used to justify this invidious scheme, which has carried on indefinitely, feasting on countless dreams without satisfying a bottomless hunger of unquantifiable grievance. The sentimental and, arguably, self-serving wailing of the dissenters, particularly Justice Jackson, draws from that same source.

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Commentary: America Needs to Update Its Labor Union Laws

Virginia Star Staff

For years, labor unions have been exempt from the consequences of destroying private property. Would you like a higher wage or salary? Sounds good! So, how would you go about persuading your employer to give you a raise? Why not vandalize some of your employer’s property with your labor union, or at least threaten to do so unless the boss gives you the raise you want?

Let’s say you want to get hired for a certain job, but you are worried that another applicant might get the job you want. Should you slash the tires on the other person’s car and threaten to pound him with a baseball bat if he doesn’t disappear?

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Commentary: Randi Weingarten Is the Last Person to Give Advice on School Safety

Virginia Star Staff

Straight from the “No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up” file, it was recently announced that American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten has been appointed to the Homeland Security Academic Partnership Council. According to the Homeland Security website, the HSAPC will “provide strategic and actionable recommendations to the Secretary on campus safety and security, improved coordination, research priorities, hiring, and more.”

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) vented his frustration with the appointment, tweeting that Weingarten “is the last person who should be advising anyone on school safety.”

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Commentary: Social Conservatism Is Rebounding

Virginia Star Staff

It was just a matter of time. Decent Americans have had radical race and LGBTQ+ agendas shoved in their face for too long, and now they are fighting back. Too bad not all conservatives are on board.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan recently said that he was not a “cultural war guy,” contending that he is more concerned about the debt crisis. This is what we would expect from someone who is at home sitting on the board of directors of Fox News’ parent company, Fox Corporation. 

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Commentary: On Independence Day, Remember Why Economic Liberty Matters for America

Admin

I’ve often thought there is something providential about the Declaration of Independence being drafted and promulgated throughout the American Colonies the same year that Adam Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations” was published.

After all, both texts were revolutionary, and both were fundamentally concerned with protecting and promoting liberty.

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Commentary: The Surprising Origins of the ‘No Taxation Without Representation’ Slogan

Admin

Ask most Americans where the slogan “No taxation without representation!” came from and the likely response will be “American colonists protesting against Britain in the 1760s.” But the spirit, if not the precise letter of the phrase, originated more than a century before. Moreover, we can thank the Brits themselves for it. It started with something called the “ship tax.”

Since the early Middle Ages, English custom allowed the monarch to impose a special levy in times of war upon citizens who lived in coastal settlements. They could meet the requirement by providing ships, shipbuilding materials, or money for the Crown to build ships (hence the name, “ship tax”). Kings and Queens levied the “tax” as a royal prerogative, meaning they skipped the annoyance of securing the consent of Parliament as required in the Magna Carta of 1215.

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Commentary: The Bidens’ Existential Threats to the American Rule of Law

Admin

President Joe Biden, the Biden grifting conglomerate, the Department of Justice, and the FBI under its fourth consecutive weaponized director, are in danger of subverting the American system of law.

They are in various ways undermining the tradition of self-reported income tax computation and voluntary compliance.

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Newt Gingrich Commentary: The Woke Left Are the Means for Decentralized Tyranny in Maoist America

Admin

Mao Zedong became one of the last century’s most powerful dictators by completely transforming Chinese society through a systematic use of violence, coercion, and aggressive propaganda. His method was so unique – and ruthlessly effective – it was codified by historians and political scholars as Maoism.

Today, a new kind of Maoism is developing in the American left, and it is a direct threat to the American traditions of individual rights, the rule of law, the Constitution, and personal freedom.

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Commentary: A CIA Agent’s Analysis of the Chaos In Russia and What to Look for Next

Admin

It’s been a wild set of events in Russia over the past week – with mutinous Russian forces marching towards Moscow, President Putin addressing the nation about their treason, and then the rebels announcing they would turn back “according to the plan” – as though nothing had happened.

As these whiplashing events evolve, here are 10 key developments that former CIA Officers like me will be watching for in the near and long term…

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Commentary: SCOTUS’ Decision on Affirmative Action Could Spell Big Trouble for ESG’s ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ Hiring Quotas

Admin

It’s a simple ruling: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

On June 29, the Supreme Court affirmed Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code § 2000d’s prohibition on racial discrimination in federally funded programs, including higher education, at both public and private universities, in the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision.

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Commentary: Actually, They ARE Coming for Your Children

Admin

From the South Lawn of the White House to the pulsing heartbeats of North America’s bustling metropolises, Democrats are stepping into the 2024 electoral fray armed with a transgender-dominated platform that makes the riots of 2020 look like a block party.

This time, the spotlight is focused on the very future of the country: our children.

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Commentary: The Case for Impeaching Joe Biden

Virginia Star Staff

When I defended former President Trump against a Democratic effort to impeach and remove him on grounds that I believe are unconstitutional, I predicted that when the Republicans gained control of the House, they would use that precedent as a justification for trying to impeach the next Democratic president.

Sure enough, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) has introduced articles of impeachment that replicated what the Democrats had done just three and a half years earlier.

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Commentary: Today’s Youth Are Digital, De-Churched, and Depressed

Virginia Star Staff

The kids aren’t alright, and it’s starting to show. Last week, the New York Post published a front-page story that heralded “The New Great Depression,” tracking the twin rise of social media and juvenile depression. 

Since 1991, the University of Michigan has annually polled thousands of students in middle and high school, asking whether they agree with the following three statements: “I can’t do anything right,” “I do not enjoy life,” and “My life is not useful.”

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Commentary: Dear America, The Intelligence Community Isn’t Your Friend

Virginia Star Staff

The intelligence agencies have been in the news a lot lately — and not because they deserve praise. Recently, the FBI refused for weeks to provide the House Oversight Committee with a document that alleges a bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden during his time serving as vice president.

To avoid a contempt of Congress hearing, FBI Director Christopher Wray decided, at the last minute, to allow the committee’s members to view the document in question.

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Commentary: Tennessee’s Certificate of Need Laws Stifle Competition and Allow Harmful Healthcare Monopolies

Virginia Star Staff

In today’s healthcare landscape, access to affordable and high-quality health care services remains a pressing concern for individuals and families. It is especially important during these economically turbulent times that the government spend taxpayer dollars wisely and on programs that actually offer real value to taxpayers. 

Tennessee offers a cautionary tale about wasting taxpayer money on ineffective and harmful bureaucracy. In the Volunteer State, Certificate of Need (CON) laws play a significant factor in preventing free-market competition. In the worst cases, it allows entrenched interests to operate as monopolies. CON laws erodes patient choice by eliminating affordable options in the marketplace and patients suffer the consequences. 

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Commentary: Mainstream Media Has Convinced Even Republicans to Believe Hunter’s Business Is No Big Deal

Virginia Star Staff

After reading my commentary about my self-inflicted ordeal of listening to NPR for a month, a friend noted this station’s “reports” bear no resemblance to “objective reality.” Can so many Americans, asked my correspondent, believe that the U.S. is full of oppressed transgendered who must take up arms to protect themselves against “anti-trans rhetoric?” Do NPR listeners really think American blacks are suffering from “systemic white racism,” and that only increased government control can protect them from being shot on the streets by white racists?

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Commentary: The International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Roadmap Will Increase Energy Costs

Virginia Star Staff

Two years ago, efforts by climate activists and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investors to block investment in oil and gas production by Western companies appeared to have received a seal of approval from no less an authority than the International Energy Agency (IEA), when it published Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. As a result, attempts to achieve net zero carbon emissions (NZE) by 2050 became central to the “E” in ESG and the IEA’s net zero roadmap has come to define the NZE baseline for energy companies.

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Commentary: American Medical Association Compromised by Radical Ideology

Virginia Star Staff

The American Medical Association recently passed a series of resolutions in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion that highlight how elite, professional organizations have been deeply compromised by ideology.

A report by National Review on Monday noted that the AMA, which accredits medical schools and has enormous power over the medical profession, passed a series of resolutions in mid-June denouncing legislation that would prevent “gender-affirming care” for minors and in support of racial preferences in higher education.

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Commentary: ‘Bidenomics’ Are Leaving Americans Behind

Virginia Star Staff

“When you think about wages going up, when you think about inflation at its lowest by more than 50 percent than it was a year ago, that’s because of the work that this President has done.  And he’s going to continue to focus on what we can do to lower cost for the American people.  And so, that is incredibly important.”

That was White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on June 26, outlining President Joe Biden’s views on the current state of the U.S. economy, which have seen a diminution of the purchasing power of American households as high inflation set in following the more than $6 trillion that was printed, borrowed and spent into existence for Covid coupled with the economic lockdowns and production halts—literally too much money chasing too few goods.

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Commentary: Does Anyone Buy That the Head of BlackRock Is ‘Ashamed’ of ESG?

Virginia Star Staff

The big news in energy this week is that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he is no longer using the term “ESG” in his business communications. Even more, Mr. Fink is now “ashamed” to be a participant in the debate on the issue. At least, that’s what he initially said on Sunday to an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where he was a speaker.

“I’m ashamed of being part of this conversation,” Fink said as quoted by Axios. But almost as soon as he made the admission, Fink took it all back when pressed by his session’s moderator. “I never said I was ashamed,” he said, even though he had just actually said that very thing. “I’m not ashamed. I do believe in conscientious capitalism.”

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Commentary: Looking for the Deep State

Virginia Star Staff

Allegations that the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been politicized and weaponized against Republicans are in the news. It is commonly acknowledged that most federal employees lean left and vote Democratic, but this is usually said to make little difference. Prior to the 2022 election, a survey by Government Executive magazine said federal workers preferred Democrats 47 percent to 35 percent in House races, and 37 percent to 33 percent for the Senate. 

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Commentary: To Unions, Organizing Time Is Fine When It’s on the Taxpayers’ Dime

RealClearWire

Randi Weingarten, the powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers, hasn’t been a working teacher in more than a quarter of a century. 

Of the six years she spent teaching social studies, half of them appear to have been as a substitute. Yet despite the long absence from her short tenure in the classroom, the union leader described herself during a recent congressional hearing as being on leave from Brooklyn’s Clara Barton High School. 

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Commentary: Democrats Are Starting to Panic as Trump’s Numbers Unaffected by Indictment over Documents

Admin

“Democrats have a deep bench. They had better prepare now to turn to it.”

That was former Bloomberg News executive editor Al Hunt writing for The Messenger on June 25, pontificating about the prospects of replacing President Joe Biden in 2024 as the Democratic Party nominee as the incumbent president’s poll numbers still appear gloomy even after Biden’s Justice Department brought his top political opponent, former President Donald Trump, who is standing for election once again in 2024, up on charges over documents retained after the Trump administration that Trump says he declassified.

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Commentary: The Left Fears the Revolutionary Model it Bequeathed to America, for Good Reason

Admin

by Victor Davis Hanson   The present-day Left bears little resemblance to the old civil-libertarian, integrationist Democratic Party that existed from the 1960s through 2000. The antecedents to its current madness were once previewed in the old party’s extremist wing of campus radicals of the 1960s and 1970s. They were…

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Alan Dershowitz Commentary: Trump’s Prosecutors Shouldn’t Get to Use the Word ‘Espionage’

Admin

Former President Donald Trump has been charged with a variety of crimes, including violation of the misnamed Espionage Act.

That 1917 statute is misnamed because it covers a great many offenses that don’t involve spying or giving secrets to the enemy. In fact, over the years it has been used extensively against patriotic Americans who have opposed wars and dissented from other government actions.

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Commentary: Taxation Without Representation Meets the 21st Century

Admin

Who is authorized to tax the income of a commuter who doesn’t commute? This question—born of the pandemic and currently pending before the Supreme Court of Ohio—could be coming to a tax bill near you, and soon.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, government orders forced millions of employees to work from home instead of at their usual offices. These orders accelerated a trend which had already begun toward remote and hybrid work and—three years later—is all but entrenched.

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Commentary: A Deep Dive into the Century of Conservatives’ Failure to Contain the Administrative State

Admin

by Theo Wold   James Landis is widely credited with crafting the theoretical architecture supporting President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s radical reconstruction — and expansion — of the federal government. Landis shrewdly both established and legitimized the regulatory state, including Roosevelt’s creation of new federal administrative agencies, by offering the regulatory state…

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Commentary: The Democrat-Funded ProPublica ‘Investigations’ into Conservative SCOTUS Justices Is Retribution for Overturning Roe

Admin

ProPublica launched a partisan “investigation,” this time targeting another conservative U.S. Supreme Court member.

As if on cue, mainstream media outlets jumped on the bandwagon, relishing in the prospect of free content for their publications — content that undermines conservative jurists, and conservative lawmakers by association. This is purely political payback for the Dobbs decision of 2022.

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Commentary: Religious Conviction in Woke Sports

RealClearWire

When the University of Oklahoma softball team showed up for the College World Series last week, reporters expected to hear pride and camaraderie from a squad on the way to winning its third consecutive national championship.  

But several star Sooners players startled the press and went viral online by declaring that their joy in Christianity trumped their considerable athletic accomplishments.  

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