Author: RealClearWire

Commentary: The Most Important Trait for Yale’s Next President Is Courage

RealClearWire
Yale University campus

On August 31, 2023, Yale’s 23rd president, Peter Salovey, announced he would be stepping down. Since this announcement, much has transpired in the world of American higher education: the resignation of Harvard and UPenn presidents, the creation of campus encampments nationwide, and the cancelation of commencements at Columbia and USC. These developments point to an American higher education system that is malfunctioning. The breakdown we are witnessing at Yale’s peer institutions will continue until leaders are chosen for their courage to apply wisdom to divisive issues.

America’s Founders understood the importance of higher education. Of all his great accomplishments, only three made it onto Thomas Jefferson’s headstone: Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statue of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and the father of the University of Virginia. Jefferson knew that America’s ability to be great and good – UVA’s motto – depended on the presence of high-functioning universities. America’s first polymath, Ben Franklin, famously said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Framers like Franklin and Jefferson understood the value of academic pursuits, and their example lit a spark that motivated generations of Americans to pursue higher education.

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Commentary: Billionaires Funding Protests Donate Millions to House Dems

RealClearWire
George Soros

For President Biden and congressional Democrats, the fierce party division over the campus protests and the war in Gaza is full of warning signs during the 2024 election year. The unrest is unlikely to stop when universities break for the summer; protesters are pledging to disrupt the August Democratic National Convention planned to be held in Chicago. 

Most House Democrats have been reticent on the antisemitic protests and encampments roiling college graduations this month, while a handful have vocally defended or even celebrated the student protests as displays of protected free speech. 

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Commentary: Milgram in the Modern Day and the Psychology of Antisemitism in Higher Ed

RealClearWire
Palestinian Protesters

Mere days after Columbia’s president testified the university was doing “everything it can” against antisemitism, extremist protestors took over the campus, threatening and attacking Jewish students, encouraging others to become “martyrs” like the Hamas terrorists who committed the Oct. 7 massacre, and calling for Oct. 7 to become “every day” for Jews worldwide. After Jewish community leaders called for Jewish students to leave Columbia, President Shafik moved all classes online.

Now, similar antisemitic extremism is spreading to other campuses, including Harvard, the University of Southern California, Yale, and Princeton. The police are getting involved. The protests are being praised by Iran’s Ayatollah and even Hamas.

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Commentary: Biden’s Punitive, Anti-Growth Tax Proposals

RealClearWire
President Joe Biden

President Biden’s 2025 budget proposal provides a salient reminder that he is no moderate, despite his attempts to position himself as one.

Biden’s tax proposals would effectively increase the top federal marginal tax rate on long-term capital gains to 44.6%, a record high since the tax was enacted in the 1920s. As a result, taxes paid on long-term capital gains would reach levels above 50% in some states after accounting for state capital gains taxes. Biden also proposed increasing the corporate income tax rate from 21% to 28% and presented a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains for individuals whose net worth exceeds $100 million.

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Commentary: DHS’ Secrecy About ‘Disinformation’ Regulation Docs

RealClearWire
Nina Jankowicz

Nearly two years after Nina Jankowicz briefly led the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, she’s launched an organization demanding transparency and the public release of documents about the public debate on disinformation. An interesting move, likely without true transparency in mind.

My organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, has spent the same two years fighting DHS for documents on the federal board Jankowicz managed. We’re filing a second lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to fight continued government stonewalling of our requests. Thus far, DHS has refused to provide unredacted versions of documents that outline its purported authorities to regulate disinformation. Nor will the agency release more information about its work on misinformation related to “irregular migration” and “Ukraine” before the board was disbanded in August 2022.

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Commentary: Typically, That General Is Removed

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General Kenneth F. McKenzie

by Stuart Scheller   Do general officers have an obligation to publicly tell the truth? I have an interesting perspective on this question. Currently, the Marine Corps teaches my story at the E-8 seminar (senior enlisted school). If you remember, I was the Marine officer who, via video, made a plea for accountability from military leaders who purposely abandoned Bagram airbase, American citizens and American military sacrifices. Shortly thereafter, I was fired, placed in solitary confinement and kicked out of the military short of my retirement. My story is not used to discuss leadership failures and operational mistakes during the Afghan withdrawal, but as a case study on why not to publicly criticize leadership. Military culture clearly signals: Making leadership look bad is far more dangerous than obediently failing. To date, not a single military leader assumes accountability for their failures at the end of Afghanistan. CNN recently published an article titled, “New evidence challenges the Pentagon’s account of a horrific attack as the US withdrew from Afghanistan.” It offers new video evidence and first-hand accounts of a significant gunfight following the suicide bomb attack in Kabul, during the American withdrawal. The article illustrates more facts contradicting the current political administration, and,…

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Commentary: Five Ways Campus Turmoil Hurts Democrats and America

RealClearWire
Campus protesters

Higher education is sinking lower and lower. That’s bad news for our country, which has benefited enormously from having the world’s best system of higher education. And it’s bad news for Democrats, who face a tight election. Their party is closely tied to education at all levels, especially at elite universities. It is the party of experts, after all, and the party of the left. Universities are both. Moreover, since the Democrats control the Executive Branch, the public holds them primarily accountable for ensuring social order. Their failures are obvious to the average voter. That’s bound to hurt Democratic Party candidates in November.

Parents with children in college or expected to matriculate soon have every right to expect their kids can learn in peace, hear diverse viewpoints, and speak freely without threats, intimidation, or indoctrination. That’s true whether the parents are Jewish or not. Decent Americans won’t tolerate threats against Jewish students any more than they would tolerate them against blacks, Muslims, Christians, or Asian Americans. Yet they now see those threats against Jewish students every day, and, at many universities, they don’t see administrators standing up for their rights.

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Commentary: Unredactions Reveal Early White House Involvement in Trump Documents Case

RealClearWire
Stern Su Trump

Top Biden administration officials worked with the National Archives to develop Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump involving the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified material, according to recently unsealed court documents in the case pending in southern Florida.

More than 300 pages of newly unredacted exhibits, containing emails and other correspondence related to the early stages of the hunt for presidential papers, challenge public statements by Joe Biden about what he knew and when he knew it regarding the case against his political rival.

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Commentary: Abortion Once Again at Forefront of Election

RealClearWire
United States Supreme Court

The prevailing belief in the Democratic Party is that abortion will again be a potent issue against Republicans in this year’s election cycle just as it was in 2022 – and that this time it will not just cost the GOP gaining the majority in the U.S. Senate, but also give Democrats the upper hand in retaining the presidency and winning back the House.

Abortion rights put the brakes on the Republicans’ chances in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years; a decision that transformed American politics that year, benefiting Democrats who were on their way to a bruising midterm election defeat.

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Commentary: The World Health Organization’s Pandemic Treaty Ignores COVID Policy Mistakes

RealClearWire
World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is urging the U.S. and 193 other governments to commit next month to a new global treaty to prevent and manage future pandemics. Current estimates suggest over $31 billion per year will be needed to fund its obligations, a cost most lower income countries cannot afford. But that isn’t the only reason to oppose it. Validating this treaty is a vote for the disastrous policies of the Covid years. Rather than taking time for deep reflection and serious reform, those pushing the pandemic treaty are set on ignoring and institutionalizing the WHO’s mistakes.

From the Spring of 2020, many experts warned that the panic begun in Wuhan’s unprecedented lockdown would cause wide-ranging damage—and indeed they did. School closures deprived a generation of children—especially poor children—of access to basic education. Businesses were shuttered. Vaccine and mask mandates made public health an authoritarian exercise of power devoid of science. Border quarantines promulgated the idea that the rest of the world is unclean.  

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Commentary: Voters Aren’t Buying What Shapiro Is Selling

RealClearWire
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro

As inflation persists, Pennsylvania voters are rejecting increased government spending, according to new polling data released by the Commonwealth Foundation.

Inflation and the rising cost of living remain Pennsylvanians’ chief concerns. With more than two-thirds of voters saying that high prices are eating away at their standard of living, it’s no wonder that a plurality reports their family is worse off than two years ago.

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Commentary: Immunity for Me but Not for Thee

RealClearWire
Former President Donald Trump

“Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office?” That is the question the Supreme Court will answer when it hears oral argument in Trump v. U.S. on April 25, 2024.

Legacy media and the ladies of “The View” nearly lost their collective minds when the Court agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of the D.C. Circuit’s decision denying him immunity for his actions surrounding the events of Jan. 6, 2021. However, even Jack Smith, the Special Counsel prosecuting the case, argued that it was of “imperative public importance” that the Court resolve the immunity question before trial.

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Commentary: Secret Service Scuffle Prompts DEI, Vetting Scrutiny

RealClearWire
Secret Service Agent standing in front of The White House

An incident involving a physical attack by a female Secret Service agent tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris is raising questions about whether the agency had thoroughly vetted her during her hiring and whether an ongoing push to increase the numbers of women in the service and boost overall workforce staff played a role in her selection.

The Secret Service agent assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris was removed from her duties Wednesday after physically attacking the commanding agent in charge and other agents trying to subdue her, according to an agency spokesman and knowledgeable Secret Service sources.

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Commentary: To Appease Environmentalists, the FTC Will Cripple U.S. Energy

RealClearWire
FTC Chair Lina Khan

In the movie The Perfect Storm, George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg are among the crew of a boat off the Northeast coast that is caught in the convergence of multiple powerful storms. The combination of tempests ultimately takes down the craft and its crew. We should all hope one of our nation’s most vital industries doesn’t succumb in similar fashion as it is caught in a perfect storm of ideological rigidity, bureaucratic arrogance, and regulatory overreach.

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Commentary: The Discovery of Aliens Will Probably Be… Unsatisfying

RealClearWire
Michael L. Wong

There are a least a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, our home galaxy. And there could be trillions of planets! That leaves a lot of potential real estate for extraterrestrials.

Let’s optimistically assume that we’ll one day find aliens. How might that happen? Maybe it will be like in the movies! They’ll visit Earth with their faster-than-light starships, hopefully coming in peace, like the Vulcans from Star Trek or the squid-like beings in Arrival.

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Commentary: NPR Scandal Should Kill Taxpayer-Funded Broadcasting

RealClearWire
NPR Building

“I don’t want any yes-men around me,” said Sam Goldwyn, the Hollywood producer famed for his movies and malapropisms. “I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their job.” The brass at National Public Radio must have heard Sam, but they add a slight amendment. We want only “yes-men” (they/them) and will boot anyone who dares to dissent.

Lest there be any doubt, NPR just proved it by suspending, without pay, the staffer who exposed the pervasive problems there. He dared to write publicly that that National Public Radio was uniformly ideological, deeply committed to its strident left-wing views, and determined to exclude any alternatives. For saying that out loud, they cut off Uri Berliner’s paycheck for five days. It’s their way of saying, “Thank you for your feedback.” Q.E.D.

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Commentary: President Biden Must Not Encourage Illegal Mass Migration from Haiti

RealClearWire
Haitians on Boat

“It’s better to be the United States’ enemy than its friend.” Foreign officials tell me this is their perception under the Biden Administration, which has a strange habit of appeasing our adversaries while holding our allies to impossible standards. It’s bad foreign policy, plain and simple. Moreover, it’s encouraging chaos in our region.

Just look at what’s happening in the Dominican Republic. The Caribbean nation is facing extraordinary migratory pressure from neighboring Haiti, which has all but collapsed into anarchy. President Luis Abinader has made it clear he will protect Dominican sovereignty by enforcing deportations. Yet the Biden Administration, influenced by radical left-wing groups like Amnesty International, is pushing him to accept three million Haitians at any moment.

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Commentary: Uncomfortable Facts About Why Fatal Police Shootings Aren’t Declining

RealClearWire
Police arresting suspects

When Dexter Reed died in a shootout with Chicago police on March 21, the incident was quickly grafted onto a narrative that began in 2014 after a policeman killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – namely, that the U.S. faces an epidemic of violence by unbridled cops who do not believe black lives matter. “Killing of Dexter Reed raises questions about Chicago police reform. ‘The message is, go in guns blazing,'” blared a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Reed’s death joins a long list of police shootings that have received wide media coverage and political scrutiny – especially those involving African Americans. Over the years, many police departments embraced reforms, including the use of bodycams, to document incidents – an effort bolstered by a public eager to use smartphones to record the behavior of cops. In 2015, the Washington Post created a database logging every person shot dead by police in the U.S.

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Commentary: Impeachment ‘Whistleblower’ Was in the Loop of Biden-Ukraine Affairs That Trump Wanted Probed

RealClearWire
Eric Ciaramella

The ‘whistleblower’ who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal.

In 2019, then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off a political firestorm when he anonymously accused Trump of linking military aid for Ukraine to a demand for an investigation into alleged Biden corruption in that country.

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Taxpayers will Subsidize Democrat Boots on the Ground This Election

RealClearWire
People casting their votes

Progressives are using legal loopholes and the power of the federal government to maximize Democrat votes in the 2024 election at taxpayers’ expense, RealClearInvestigations has found.

The methods include voter registration and mobilization campaigns by ostensibly nonpartisan charities that target Democrats using demographic data as proxies, and the Biden administration’s unprecedented demand that every federal agency “consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.”

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Commentary: Third Largest Teachers’ Union Faces Demise of Its Own Making

RealClearWire
United Teachers of Dade

In a frantic attempt to preserve its monopoly over the Miami-Dade County Public Schools, attorneys for the union currently representing the district’s 24,000-plus teachers and support staff are relying on a strategy that has the potential to backfire and leave its members without workplace representation altogether.

On March 18, United Teachers of Dade (UTD), using an argument that would invalidate its own petition, asked a hearing officer with Florida’s Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) to reject a competing union’s bid to participate in a forthcoming election to determine the bargaining representative for the South Florida educators.

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Commentary: The Unattainable American Dream

RealClearWire
American flag waving in front of house

Get married, have children, buy a house, and live comfortably on a single income. Not very long ago, that path was the reality, the norm, for the great American middle class.

But America has gone backward in this regard, and struggling citizens know it all too well. Experiencing the kinds of lives enjoyed by our parents and grandparents has become impossible for most Americans, leading to widespread disenchantment and a palpable loss of patriotism and confidence in America.

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Commentary: Aileen Cannon Is a Portrait of a Judge in the Fractured Double Reality of American Justice

RealClearWire
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon

The residents of Fort Pierce, Florida, are not accustomed to seeing dark SUVs and flashing motorcycles speed down the town’s main thoroughfare bordering the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Part beach getaway, part working class community, the city is located about 60 miles north of the luxurious Palm Beach estate of the most famous – and frequent –criminal defendant in recent history: Donald J. Trump.

The former president has become a regular visitor to the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, more specifically, the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon who is presiding over the so-called classified documents trial.

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Commentary: New Details Emerge of Afghanistan Chaos

RealClearWire
Afghanistan Evacuation

New testimony from those who witnessed firsthand the confusion and chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal further contradicts President Biden’s assertion that the hurried and violent end to the longest war in American history was an “extraordinary success.”

In a transcribed interview before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, former Foreign Service officer Samuel Aronson said the very opposite in living, harrowing color. “Let me be clear,” he told lawmakers behind closed doors, “I cannot call this evacuation a success.”

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Commentary: Self-Servant Leadership

RealClearWire
Mark Milley

“With all due respect, guys, I’m here for the families of Abbey Gate.”

Said the man in the cool blue suit at a congressional hearing last week in Washington.

Back straight, eyes serious, spool of white hair parted to one side, he looked authoritative. Here was the Ivy League grad finally freed from the oversized camouflage utilities once draped like a battle tunic over his squarish frame.

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Commentary: The Biden EV Plan Needs American Mining

RealClearWire
Mining Work

The Biden administration has just supercharged the electric vehicle (EV) revolution. With its finalized tailpipe emissions rule, the administration expects that by 2032 70% of new U.S. car sales will be electric.

This lightning-fast transformation of the nation’s car fleet faces myriad challenges but perhaps none are greater than sourcing the minerals needed for millions of EVs and addressing the nation’s alarming reliance on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains.  

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Commentary: In 2024, Digital Is Everything in Politics

RealClearWire
Computer

As the 2024 election heats up, now is the time for campaigns to invest wisely. Questions abound: Do you invest in cable news advertising? Door-to-door canvassing? Social media? Something else?

For answers, I look back to the past. In 2000, I oversaw the South Carolina Republican Party’s history-making effort to post real-time presidential primary results online. The election night vote-counting for the epic Bush vs. McCain battle played out on screens across the world – not just in the South Carolina GOP’s vote tabulation center. On that night, the ground shifted beneath our feet.

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Commentary: The Winners of RealClearPolitics’ Samizdat Prize

RealClearWire
RCP Award Show

Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” hosts a panel with the winners of the first RealClearPolitics Samizdat Prize — “Twitter Files” journalist Matt Taibbi, “Great Barrington Declaration” co-author Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and NY Post reporter and “Laptop From Hell” author Miranda Devine.

The three were chosen for their bravery in resisting censorship. They discuss the cost of taking a stand as well as the future of free speech and online discourse.

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Commentary: My Friend Joe

RealClearWire
Joe Lieberman

I write now, in the worst pain and shock, with news of my friend Joe Lieberman’s death just moments ago. I write because I know what his critics will be quick to write, what news reports have already re-circulated. 

The same old attacks on Joe Lieberman, which he and I talked about so often, we both regarded as badges of honor: He often broke with his political friends and allies in the Democratic Party over matters of conscience. His critics did not just disagree with his positions. They had to attack him personally, call him names. But that didn’t dissuade him from sticking to his principles, regardless. 

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Commentary: The Many Ways a Porous Border Means Crime Without Boundaries

RealClearWire
Illegal Immigrants

When President Biden’s supporters attacked him for describing the man who allegedly murdered Georgia co-ed Laken Reilly as an “illegal,” they shined a light on one of the most contested words in American politics.

The progressive push to describe border crossers as undocumented or unauthorized can also serve to downplay and obscure the massive issue of crime perpetrated and spawned by the influx of millions of migrants since Biden was elected – often in ways that leave the migrants themselves as victims.

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Commentary: DOD Must Strengthen Support for Veterans

RealClearWire
Military Veterans

Veterans have positively impacted the success of our nation since its inception. Our nation’s service members make up every aspect of our society and represent every ethnic group at some level. Military service is highly regarded by the vast majority of our nation. For many, it provides a chance to grow, transform and serve something greater than themselves. Countless veterans continue their service to their country as leaders in business, government, and their communities. Their inherent leadership skills coupled with a time-honored ethos make them first-round draft choices for any organization.

Although many veterans find the path to the next chapter of their life a rewarding and exciting time, too many struggle, often because civilian and government organizations have little to no real understanding of military service’s attributes. Some of our nation’s most successful businesses have active recruitment of veterans and veteran resource groups in their companies. This isn’t sentimental – they have benefitted from that investment. Many more could benefit from a more in-depth understanding of what veterans truly offer.

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Commentary: The Gift of C-SPAN in an Era of Partisan Media

RealClearWire
Al Gore on C-SPAN

Forty-five years ago today, future vice president Albert Gore Jr. stood in the well of the House of Representatives to discuss an innovative development in television programming. There was nothing remarkable about that in itself: Al Gore had been a newspaperman before becoming a Tennessee congressman and had a genuine interest in both new technology and mass communication.

Except that there was something momentous about Gore’s speech that day. It was the first time that remarks delivered on the House floor by a member of Congress were televised. It was an event long envisioned by a 38-year-old Indiana-born, Purdue-educated, U.S. Navy veteran who had worked as a White House and Capitol Hill aide before returning to journalism. His name was Brian Lamb. As the Washington bureau chief of the trade publication Cablevision, Lamb had dreamed of creating a nonprofit cable network that would focus exclusively on public affairs, particularly Congress. It was called C-SPAN, and on March 19, 1979, that dream became reality.

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Commentary: It’s Time for GOP to Unite Behind Trump

RealClearWire
Donald Trump Rally

For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy. I see the federal government using its enormous powers with contempt for the governed instead of with the consent of the governed as our founders envisioned.

Fundamental change in America is occurring by executive order or the force of the government’s police powers instead of through the legislative process required by the Constitution. From this, I fear that free market capitalism may be replaced by big government socialism. I also fear the erosion of our rights and freedoms, including parental rights, freedom of speech and religion, and due process. 

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Commentary: Electric Transmission Buildout Could Cost Americans Trillions of Dollars

RealClearWire
Electric Grid

Though windmills and solar panels get the headlines, the big energy topic in Washington is electric transmission. Whether it is Congress’s newfound interest in permitting reform, the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Grid Deployment Office, or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) upcoming final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, how to build and pay for long-range transmission to connect generators to customers is considered the final piece in the quest to meet net-zero goals.   

Like so many issues in Washington, the need for more transmission lines is accepted without question and the costs are not considered. But for American consumers, especially low-income and elderly, as well as small businesses and energy intense manufacturers, building new transmission lines could result in much higher monthly bills and leave them on the hook for stranded assets.

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Commentary: Trump Says No More ‘Free Milk’ for NATO Free Loaders

RealClearWire
Trump NATO

The mainstream media and political establishment are outraged over Donald Trump’s latest comments about NATO. Instead of all the dramatic pearl-clutching, they should be embracing his position.

Trump recently issued a stern warning to America’s NATO allies, specifically those who are still failing to uphold their commitment to spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. Recounting a conversation he had with the leader of a delinquent NATO member who sought reassurance that America would defend their country from Russian attack, Trump declared that he would let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that refuse to make minimum expenditures toward their own defense.

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Commentary: When Classical Learning Meets Public Education, the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic

RealClearWire
School Work

The future of the controversial classical education movement will be showcased later this month when Columbia University senior lecturer Roosevelt Montás is scheduled to deliver a keynote address at a national symposium hosted by Great Hearts, the biggest classical charter network.

The views of Montás, author of the widely praised memoir “Rescuing Socrates,” are well to the left of many in the classical charter movement, which is rooted in Christian conservatism. What makes Montás’ upcoming speech so notable, then, is the signal it sends about the movement’s effort to diversify its brand and project a welcoming attitude as it seeks to expand beyond conservative strongholds and suburbs where it began.

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Commentary: Trump Tightens Grasp over GOP

RealClearWire
Trump Crowd

Former President Trump continued his romp through the Republican primary, easily winning all but one Super Tuesday contest and demonstrating a dominance so absolute that his stacked victories now seem nearly routine.

“We want to have unity,” Trump told a crowd gathered at Mar-a-Lago, “and we’re going to have unity, and it’s going to happen very quickly.” On the eve of perhaps the greatest political comeback in modern American history, his remarks were relatively subdued by his standards. He never mentioned his former UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, almost as if the competition did not exist and a third nomination was guaranteed all along.

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Commentary: Technology Changes and Bipartisanship are Causing Journalism’s Woes

RealClearWire
Journalists Press

by Carl M. Cannon   For the American media, 2024 has been a fiasco. And it’s still only February. Nine days into the new year, highly respected Los Angeles Times editor Kevin Merida resigned rather than tolerate another round of layoffs and the meddlesome ways of a billionaire publisher and his progressive political activist daughter. Two weeks later, California’s largest newspaper announced it was shedding 20% of its staff, including half of its Washington bureau. Sports Illustrated was still reeling from an ethical lapse that cost its CEO his job (the magazine used AI to generate news stories under fake bylines) when management told the staff in a seven-minute Jan. 19 Zoom call of mass layoffs. Many SI journalists were terminated that day via email. Earlier that week, new Baltimore Sun owner David D. Smith met with the apprehensive staff of his new acquisition. The meeting didn’t go well. Smith, a television executive, told the reporters and editors at the venerable 187-year-old daily that he hadn’t read the paper in years. That didn’t stop him from insulting the quality of their journalism. Nor did Smith disavow his previous critique of U.S. print journalism as being “so left-wing as to be meaningless dribble.” Perceived bias…

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Commentary: Obama’s CIA Asked Foreign Intel Agencies to Spy on Trump Campaign

RealClearWire
Obama CIA

The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate.

The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The involvement of foreign allies in surveilling American citizens under the pretext of national security raises serious questions about the integrity of our democratic processes and the autonomy of our nation’s intelligence operations.

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Commentary: The Pipe Bombs Before January 6 Is a Capital Mystery That Doesn’t Add Up

RealClearWire

The newly disclosed video shows a dark SUV pulling up to the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., at 9:44 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2021. It sits for several minutes until a uniformed man with a bomb-sniffing dog enters from the right and steps up to the vehicle. The driver complies with his command, the dog sniffs inside and outside the car which is soon allowed to enter the parking garage. The man and his dog exit back to the right.

This scene is unremarkable except for one detail: The uniformed man and his trained canine came within a few feet of where a plainclothes Capitol Police officer would soon discover a pipe bomb that had been planted there the night before. The bomb, which the FBI has described as viable and capable of inflicting serious injury, along with a similar one found at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee, would appear to be the most overt act of violence perpetrated on Jan. 6.

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Commentary: For Electricity, Americans Deserve More Choices

RealClearWire
Electric Grid

Amid a polarizing presidential election, areas of common ground are rare, especially around energy. President Joe Biden has labeled climate change as “the only existential threat humanity faces,” and outlined an agenda to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Meanwhile, his would-be Republican challengers have pledged a different course, with the frontrunning campaign of former President Donald Trump pledging to “maximize fossil fuel production” and roll back funding for Biden’s landmark 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. 

A step back from the daily partisan back-and-forth reveals an idea with something for everyone to support: increasing choice when it comes to where consumers get their energy. A commitment to freedom and creating our own destinies is quintessentially American. Yet most of our citizens have zero control over their power provider and the cost of their energy, and very few politicians on either side of the aisle say anything about it. 

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Commentary: States Must Act Now to Save Rural Lives from Fentanyl Crisis

RealClearWire
Heidi Heitkamp

Across rural America, the expanding crisis of fentanyl-fueled overdoses is ravaging a generation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl deaths in the U.S. have tripled since 2016, and initial data from 2022 indicates that synthetic opioids cause about 90% of all opioid overdose deaths – which translates to nearly 75,000 Americans killed in that year alone. Rural communities, where hundreds of hospitals have already closed and more are on the chopping block, are bearing the additional weight of overdoses. We need states to do more to protect Americans and ensure access to all overdose reversal agents that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Hidden in counterfeit prescription pharmaceuticals like Adderall, Xanax, and Oxycontin, it’s so lethal that just two milligrams, the size of a pencil tip, can kill. 

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Commentary: The Pandemic Treaty That Won’t Prevent a Pandemic

RealClearWire
World Health Organization

If a “pandemic treaty” fails to account for the dismal international response to COVID-19 and isn’t focused on preventing future pandemics, is it really a “pandemic treaty”? Yet that’s the current state of the draft “pandemic treaty” being negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO).

The failures of the international health system’s response to COVID are well-established. The People’s Republic of China failed to inform the international community of the outbreak in a timely manner as required by the International Health Regulations – a provision established because of Beijing’s cover-up of the 2002 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). China mischaracterized COVID-19 saying that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission—a deadly lie that the WHO parroted unquestioningly.

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Commentary: The Democrats’ Coming ‘September Switcheroo’ to Bench Biden and Nominate Michelle

RealClearWire
Michelle Obama

President Biden’s poll numbers seem set in quicksand. Now the special counsel’s justification for not recommending charges against Biden for having “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” is damning: Biden’s memory has such “significant limitations” that the special counsel believed he could not convince a jury that Biden has a “mental state of willfulness” that a serious felony (or, presumably, serving as president) requires. Cue the campaign commercials.

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Commentary: Biden Staffer Who Mishandled China, Iran Secrets Retains High-Security Pentagon Job

RealClearWire

While Special Counsel Robert K. Hur has raised the issue of mental deterioration in explaining why he declined to prosecute 81-year-old Joe Biden for illegal retention and sharing of classified documents, the president chose another rationale to declare himself not culpable: He shifted the blame to the staffers who boxed up his records as he left the vice president’s office in 2017.

At a press conference hastily assembled after the report’s release, Biden said he assumed his aides had shipped “all” the documents to the National Archives in College Park, Md. “I wish I had paid more attention to how the documents were being moved and where,” he said. “I thought they were being moved to the Archives. I thought all of it was being moved [there].”

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