Freedom

High Noon for Socialism vs. Free Enterprise?

Featured image Dan Proft is an excellent radio host in Chicago who now also has a syndicated radio show and podcast. I have been on the Chicago show a number of times, and joined Dan’s syndicated show yesterday afternoon for what I thought was an interesting discussion of socialism, capitalism and the Nordic model in the context of the 2020 election. Here is the conversation, which is around 14 minutes long. I »

China Expels Wall Street Journal Reporters over Critical Op-ed

Featured image Walter Russell Mead is a leading foreign policy expert. He writes a regular column for the Wall Street Journal. Recently, Mead published a WSJ column called “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia.” Much of the article pertained to the coronavirus and its economic impact. But Mead also argued that “China’s financial markets are probably more dangerous in the long run than China’s wildlife markets,” which are thought to »

A digital uprising in China

Featured image Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today and the Freedom Forum, paid for a sign in Red Square that said, “Freedom Works.” Actually, freedom doesn’t always work. However, it works far more often than the denial of freedom. Indeed, it seems to me that the denial of freedom never really works for a society in any strong sense. China is the latest test »

FedEx Versus the NY Times

Featured image The New York Times today took after FedEx for the sin of having a low corporate tax bill. Sample: FedEx reaped big savings [from the Trump tax cut], bringing its effective tax rate from 34 percentin fiscal year 2017 to less than zero in fiscal year 2018, meaning that, overall, the government technically owed it money. But it did not increase investment in new equipment and other assets in the »

Jack Phillips wins again

Featured image The Colorado Civil Rights Commission has decided to dismiss its pending discrimination charge against Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop. Phillips, you will recall, refused on grounds of his deeply held religious beliefs to bake a cake to celebrate a gay marriage. The Commission found him in violation of the law and imposed severe punishment. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Phillips prevailed. Thereafter, Phillips refused »

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Knights of Columbus?

Featured image Recently, Sen. Mazie Hirono claimed that Democrats have a hard time connecting with voters because they (Democrats) are so “smart” and “know so much.” If Democrats are smart and knowledgeable, you can’t prove it by Hirono. She embarrasses herself routinely on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she almost invariably finds herself in over her head. The latest embarrassment is her attack, along with Sen. Kamala Harris, on a judicial nominee »

A Work in Progress (2)

Featured image When I launched my new “Work in Progress” series yesterday I didn’t think I’d have material for another item so quickly, but thanks to a reader tip, I stumbled across this article from the New York Times yesterday, by Bryan Van Norden, a “professor of philosophy,” entitled “The Ignorant Do Not Have a Right to an Audience.” You can imagine where this is going right away: it’s an attack on »

DOJ tried to force pastor to testify on his views of Islam

Featured image Christian Adams at PJ Media reports that the United State Department of Justice issued subpoenas to force a Christian pastor in Virginia to disclose under oath his views on Islam. Fortunately, today a federal court dismissed the underlying case that gave rise to the subpoena. Nonetheless, the saga reminds us of the abusive leftism of the DOJ. Steve Harrelson is the pastor of the Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Boston, »

How to Get Rich

Featured image When it comes to countries, there really isn’t any dispute. No country has ever gotten rich through high taxes, big government and onerous regulation. And yet, these are the very prescriptions that often are promoted by international organizations and left-wing politicians. Abir Doumit of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation is here to set the record straight. The path to national success is blindingly obvious, but too often is »

Is Hillary Clinton a conventional thinker?

Featured image Yesterday, I took issue with Charles Krauthammer’s claim that Donald Trump, if elected president, would likely undermine our open and free international order. I argued that Trump thinks pretty conventionally about world affairs, and thus as president, though prone to the errors of conventional wisdom, would not be a threat to world order. I also complained that Krauthammer did not consider whether Hillary Clinton poses a threat to our domestic »

A Republic, if we can keep our TV shows

Featured image When Scotland was getting set to vote on whether to leave Great Britain, “stay” supporters raised the specter that an exit might mean loss of access to popular BBC television series. The “leave” movement took pains to assure Scots they would still be able to watch such shows as EastEnders, Doctor Who, and Strictly Come Dancing. Scotland voted to stay, so we never found out whether an independent Scotland would »

Free speech make way; here comes Obama-style regionalism

Featured image We have written about how “regionalism” and its handmaiden “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) are, in effect, an attempt by the left to dictate the way Americans will live. Now, we see that they also entail an attempt to tell elected officials what they must say. This has become apparent from efforts to muzzle Westchester Country Executive Rob Astorino. Westchester County, New York is ground zero in the left’s push »

Obama on freedom vs. totalitarianism — whatever works

Featured image President Obama didn’t just tango during his visit to Argentina. He also addressed a Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative meeting. During his remarks, Obama stumbled through an embarrassing discourse on “capitalism vs. communism.” The would-be leader of what used to be called the Free World treated the issue as just another false choice, sort of the way he used to speak of Red States and Blue States before he »

Dubuque isn’t liking AFFH; neither will the rest of America

Featured image I wrote here about how the federal government, pursuant to its Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) agenda, is forcing the city of Dubuque, Iowa to provide low-income housing to residents of Chicago. As in almost all of my writing about AFFH, I relied on the reporting of my friend Stanley Kurtz. In response to Kurtz’s article, Dubuque’s city manager stated that the article is “not an accurate representation of Dubuque’s »

AFFH-world comes to Iowa

Featured image In discussing the radical implications of President Obama’s “Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing” rule (AFFH), I typically point to what happened in Westchester County, New York as a sneak preview. But Stanley Kurtz directs our attention to an even more chilling example — Dubuque, Iowa. In Westchester County, Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development forced the local government to build low-income housing in an upscale community and to encourage people »

Local resistance: the next move in blocking AFFH

Featured image Readers may recall that last year, the House passed the Gosar Amendment that would have defunded President Obama’s “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH) rule. Unfortunately, Speaker Paul Ryan abandoned the Gosar Amendment during the negotiations over the Omnibus spending bill. Team Ryan loves to blame John Boehner for the disastrous Omnibus. But the Boehner-led House passed the Gosar Amendment. It was Speaker Ryan who gave it away, leaving us with »

Germany cracks down on speech by citizens enraged over its immigration policy

Featured image During my time at law school, I had to good fortune to study under a great scholar of the Constitution, rather than, say, a glib community organizer. That scholar was Gerald Gunther. Gunther was born in Germany in 1927. His Jewish family had deep roots in Germany, and Gunther said they were reluctant to leave even as the Nazi government increasingly oppressed Jews. Young Gunther, unaffected by tradition, had no »