No place for young children

Washington Examiner

July 20, 05:55 AM July 20, 04:46 PM

If you take a vacation this summer to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, or any other city, here’s one thing you won’t see much of: children.

Since the pandemic, the number of children under age 5 has fallen by more than 6% in large urban areas, according to new data from the Economic Innovation Group. This includes large drops in 2020, 2021, and still in 2022, when experts were hoping families would return to the city or that millennials would return to having children.

NO SPECIAL TAX BREAKS FOR BLUE STATE REPUBLICANS

Some readers may ask, why would anyone want to raise children in the city? Sure, Hell's Kitchen and Venice may never be the best family locales, but every major American city has great neighborhoods where millions of boys and girls have grown up. Cities can be, should be, and have been good places to raise children.

Young children are becoming a little bit rarer almost everywhere in America. The under-5 population is down 3% in small cities since early 2020, down more than 2% in rural counties, and down 1.5% in suburban counties. All of these classes of counties saw fewer and fewer young children each of the past three years.

Only exurban counties, or outer suburbs on the brink of the countryside, have maintained their population of 0-4-year-olds. In fact, the exurbs saw a 0.5% increase in 2022.

So what’s happening where the decline is most glaring?

The timeline gives us a couple of culprits: COVID-19 and crime.

Cities were the places that closed schools the longest, that clamped down on public life the most, that locked playgrounds, canceled sports leagues, criminalized hanging out, and suspended summer camps. Of course parents would flee these places, and of course 20- and 30-somethings would be less excited to have babies in these places.

Raising children is an inherently social undertaking. Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters need mentors, coaches, teachers, neighbors, friends, babysitters — that is, community. The misanthropy of COVID mitigation measures was pleasant for hermitlike misanthropes but was hell for families, which, the numbers show, fled to greener pastures where youth sports were legal and schoolhouse doors were open.

The national crime wave of recent years, accelerated by the anti-social lockdowns and riots following the police killing of George Floyd, is concentrated in cities. Preachy "progressives" brag of their tolerance for crime (see the commentary against Daniel Penny for examples).

Urban school districts have also handed the reins to ideological extremists intent on indoctrinating children in radical new theories about sex and gender while preaching race essentialism informed by critical race theory. Even left-leaning parents, if they’re normal, do not want to expose their children to this and would prefer schools where the emphasis is on actual education.

Thus all sorts of parents flee to the exurbs.

Conservatives shouldn’t cheer this exodus, even if it does confirm our criticism of left-wing urban governance. It’s actually a sad development.

First, there’s the general sadness of the young urban leftists. They believe America is bad, they believe climate change will destroy human life, and they believe that each new human is bad for the planet. It’s tempting to say, “Well, I’m glad that these folks aren’t reproducing,” but it should concern us that they account for an increasingly large portion of our young urbanite populations.

A second worry is that their sadness is self-reinforcing. Cities and towns with fewer children are sadder, emptier, less purposeful places. Bottomless mimosas at brunch can make for a pleasant Sunday morning, but you can’t build a meaningful life around having no commitments or permanent connections.

This gets to the broadest worry. Our shrinking population isn’t just about parents moving away — it’s about babies not being born.

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The birthrate in the United States has been falling for 15 years and is well below the replacement level of 2.1 babies per woman. Nearly every year since 2007, the number of babies born has fallen, such that we already have fewer children than we did at the 2010 census. With the lockdowns’ anti-family effect, this child shortage is especially acute with the youngest children.

It's a sick and declining society that doesn’t want to continue itself. America's cities today fit this bill.

Living up to the promise of our declaration

Washington Examiner

July 04, 12:00 AM July 04, 12:01 AM

We date the beginning of our nation not from the first shots fired against the kingdom of Great Britain in Lexington and Concord in 1775 but from 1776, when delegates, elected by popular vote, issued the Declaration of Independence. In doing so, the United States of America recognizes that our legitimacy comes not from brute force but from the consent of the governed.

"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," the declaration begins. "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."

THE SUPREME COURT SAVED THE CONSTITUTION FROM BIDEN

The Constitution, ratified 12 years later, is not perfect, but in the almost 250 years since the declaration was published, our nation has largely lived up to this promise.

Take that radical assertion "that all men are created equal," a right the founders acknowledged came from God, not the government, and for good reason because the government took centuries and a Civil War to bring about equality in reality. The same Supreme Court that wrongly decided Plessy v. Ferguson and Dred Scott eventually overturned Jim Crow laws across the country. It has only been 103 years since the 19th Amendment enfranchised half the country, and in the time since, Republicans and Democrats alike have nominated women as presidential candidates, vice presidential candidates, and Supreme Court justices. Kamala Harris, a woman of black and Asian descent, is one heartbeat away from the presidency.

Even liberals who lambasted the Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action forget this is progress, not retreat, from realizing the equality of men, regardless of race.

In replacing a thousand-year-old monarchy with a republic, the U.S. also succeeded in regularizing a transition of power that was not only peaceful but also predictable. No longer was control of the Americas contingent on a mad king or an infant prince in a cradle — we, the people, got to choose for ourselves.

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Our national birthday should also serve as a stark reminder that a sound currency takes decades to make and mere moments to depreciate. To finance the Revolutionary War, Congress flooded the country with cash, resulting in ruinous, double-digit inflation. Happy to capitalize on the chaos, the British government counterfeited our currency to compound the price instability. This "Continental" currency eventually collapsed entirely, giving way to the Spanish dollar as the de facto reserve currency. Only when Alexander Hamilton crafted a new currency on a fixed gold and silver standard was an American dollar back in business.

Benjamin Franklin famously said the government created by the Constitutional Convention was "a republic, if you can keep it." While the system as written by the founders is as sound as ever, keeping it is contingent on the governed. We get the republic for which we vote, and to quote one great Republican, freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction.

Climate hypocrites are all tell, no show

Washington Examiner

August 23, 07:14 AM August 23, 07:15 AM

Many celebrities are full of sermons about how you need to save the planet. Often, they are the very same ones maximizing their own carbon footprints by flying on private jets. This has long been known, but the internet has now made it significantly easier to quantify their hypocrisy.

Data from ADS-B Exchange, for example, show that director and climate activist Steven Spielberg had burned at least $116,000 worth of jet fuel in 2 months on his private jet, which represents an emission of 179 tons of carbon dioxide. If extended over the course of a year, that consumption alone represents 66 times the carbon footprint of the average American, and that's before counting any driving or electricity use by Spielberg. (Guess what — his house is probably a lot bigger and more electricity-hungry than yours.)

But we don't mean to single out the famous director. He is in very good company, along with Prince Charles, Bill Gates, Kylie Jenner, Drake, and many, many others.

Taylor Swift turns out to be the queen of carbon pollution — her documented use of jet fuel in the first seven months of this year, according to the U.K.-based organization Yard, emitted 8,293 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. That implies an annual carbon footprint almost 900 times that of the average American. That's just her jet use, not even counting anything else she does. Oh, and by the way, she wasn't even on tour during that period!

John Kerry's jet has only emitted about 20 times the average American's annual climate footprint — and in fairness, that took him about 18 months. Kerry is Biden's climate envoy. He is a very important person. He needs a private jet to go overseas to receive important climate awards for being such a great champion of, you know, the climate.

And at least Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis sort of tried. They have been spotted driving around in a new 2022 electric Hummer. Too bad that massive battery-powered vehicle, on average, causes more carbon emissions per mile than almost any gasoline-powered passenger car on the market.

It's almost enough to make you think these people do not believe a word they say about climate change.

Which brings us to Gov. Gavin Newsom's new climate proposal in California. The editors of the Los Angeles Times are practically drooling over Newsom's proposal for more ambitious climate goals. He wants to change the 2030 goal from 40% below 1990 emissions levels, to 55% below 1990 levels. Never mind that the state isn't even coming close to meeting the 40% goal. Somehow, bigger promises make up for the lack of actual emission reductions. If California Democrats were your parents, they'd skip your school play and then make up for it by promising you a pony that they'd never buy.

Politicians and celebrities may not walk the walk, but they are dead serious about you sacrificing your lifestyle. Think of Saint Augustine, who famously characterized his own cavalier attitude toward sin during his youth with the wry faux-prayer, "Give me chastity, Lord — but not yet." The prayer of the climate preacher seems to be, "Give chastity to everyone else, Lord — but not to me!"

Fortunately, you can ignore the performative virtue-signaling of these preening narcissists — both the politicians and the celebrities. The solutions to carbon emissions are already with us. If the planet is really in peril, then it's worth keeping all those dams and nuclear reactors in operation, and building new ones besides. Even a carbon-spewing electric Hummer becomes green if it's powered by good old nuclear. And fusion reactors are on the horizon, too.

Meanwhile, you are already doing far more to save the planet than Gavin Newsom, Taylor Swift, and John Kerry combined, just by leading a modest, ordinary life. Pat yourself on the back. And if that's not enough for you, go plant a tree.

Despite what most Democrats say, the US is worth fighting for

Washington Examiner

March 14, 12:00 AM March 14, 12:09 AM

A recent poll showed that large numbers of Democrats and young people would rather flee the United States than “stay and fight” if the nation were attacked. This alarming revelation has caused many to criticize Democrats, but the bigger focus should be on why they are wrong.

The simple answer is that this nation, by any standard based on human history, is one of the most, if not the most, blessed, prosperous, free, and humane nations ever to exist.

The Quinnipiac poll in question, released March 7, found that 55% of Americans would “stay and fight” if they “were in the same position as Ukrainians are now,” finding their nation under attack by an invading army. Only 38% said they would “leave the country.”

Those aren’t awful numbers. But among those aged 18-34, a 48%-45% plurality say they would run away. Among Democrats, a 52%-40% majority would flee.

It is easy to scoff at Democrats’ seeming lack of patriotism or courage. As for young people, many are probably suffering from the toxicity of school systems steeped in ideologies left over from the Soviet era. Teachers trained to disseminate "wokeness" have taught young people the lie that their country is uniquely, inherently, and intractably racist, repressive, etc. One can only hope that at some point, these young people's brains recover from this washing and that they are able to appreciate the objectively grand reality around them.

Regardless, a free people with any sense of self and of pride should feel a duty and an inspiration to defend their homeland from assault. Moreover, the U.S. isn’t just any homeland — it is truly exceptional in ways that should readily inspire devotion to it and fortitude on its behalf.

Start with the least important measure — namely, Americans' material standard of living. This regularly and significantly outpaces that of all but the smallest and wealthiest European countries, not to mention that of less-developed parts of the world.

Indeed, judging by the whole history of mankind, Americans are blessed to live in what is by far the most prosperous time and place ever known. The common objections to this fact are simply not serious. For example, “income inequality,” an unimportant concern in any event when everyone prospers, is not nearly as bad in the U.S. as people make it out to be. And that oft-invoked narrative about two decades of “wage stagnation” is just based on the mistaken use of the wrong dataset in measuring inflation. Before Bidenflation hit, Americans were consistently raising their effective incomes and standard of living.

Then, there are the issues of human rights. Here, it is almost enough to look at the competing models, China and Russia, to recognize how good Americans have it. But that's not all — they are also better off than those who lived here in the past.

More people are voting in the U.S. than ever before. More nonwhite people have more opportunities, higher incomes, and more savings than ever before. More protections exist to prevent discrimination against racial and sexual minorities than were imaginable even a quarter-century ago.

Americans enjoy the cleanest air and water since the Industrial Revolution began. The amount of forested land in the U.S. has been stable for more than a century, despite a tripling of the human population. The U.S. has a vibrant system of national parks, more and cleaner energy resources than ever, and greater food production, with more efficiency, than at any time in history.

Before the pandemic hit, U.S. life expectancy had been steadily growing, reaching 79 years in 2020 — nearly 10 years longer than it had been half a century before.

All those considerations are enough to make one treasure and want to protect the blessings of life in the nation that has made them possible. Yet even these are superseded by the liberties Americans enjoy.

Even today, despite the advent of “cancel culture” and related ills, Americans massively outpace Europeans, and even more so the rest of the world, in their degree of freedom to speak openly and practice their faith. Americans also enjoy legal protections and procedural guarantees against unjust imprisonment that remain a model for mankind.

All of these goods make America what it is: the envy of the whole world and a continuing example for it.

Thank goodness the U.S. is not and will not likely soon be under attack. But if it were so threatened, every American should be eager to fight for his or her country’s cause. Today, even more than yesterday, this land is worthy of every last measure of their devotion.

A missed opportunity on infrastructure

Washington Examiner

August 07, 12:08 AM August 07, 12:08 AM

Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Rob Portman of Ohio should all be praised for their efforts to produce bipartisan legislation that invests in the nation’s roads and bridges. But the final product is also a missed opportunity that includes far too many wasteful partisan projects, fails to credibly pay for itself, and fails to reform our nation’s inefficient infrastructure construction process.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, as the bill is known, does include $110 billion for roads and bridges and another $11 billion for road safety. This is good. The $25 billion for airports, $17 billion for ports, and $65 billion for high-speed internet are also most likely wise investments.

But then the bill starts veering off into progressive priorities that look more like Green New Deal waste than productive investment in capital formation. The legislation spends $39 billion on public transportation that should be able to fund itself. It spends $66 billion on unproven passenger rail projects, $15 billion on electric vehicles, and $21 billion on “environmental remediation.”

All this new spending would not be so bad if it were paid for through spending cuts to other programs and increased revenues through user fees. But it is not.

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney may have claimed on the Senate floor that “this is a bill which is paid for,” but the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and Congress’s official scorekeeper, the Congressional Budget Office, all disagree. They all say the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act adds something between $256 billion and $351 billion to the debt over the next 10 years.

Most disappointing is the failure of the legislation to meaningfully reform the federal government’s infrastructure procurement process. A recent study of Interstate highway construction spending found that spending per mile of construction has increased three-fold since the 1960s. So despite better technology and better access to resources, U.S. infrastructure development is only one-third as efficient as it used to be. If we could just figure out a way to be as efficient as we were 60 years ago, then we could functionally triple our infrastructure spending power without raising actual spending by a dime.

The biggest factor driving the inefficiency of our infrastructure system is the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970. Ostensibly created to help the federal government plan better, NEPA has empowered radical environmental activists to abuse the system. They can stop or delay any federally funded project in federal court. According to the federal government, the average NEPA review of a federally funded project takes over 4.5 years, and the average cost is $4.2 million.

Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota have introduced common-sense legislation that would streamline the NEPA process by both limiting such lawsuits and setting a time limit on how long federal agencies must spend complying with NEPA planning regulations.

It was inspiring to see both parties finally come together and produce legislation that funded some long needed capital investments. Hopefully next time they’ll find a way to pay for these investments and make some common-sense reforms that will make those investment dollars much more efficient.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky has made a mockery of the CDC

Washington Examiner

August 02, 12:00 AM August 02, 12:01 AM

It cannot be easy to lead the agency that handles infectious diseases in the midst of an international pandemic. Still, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should at least be able to prove she is up to the task. Dr. Rochelle Walensky has repeatedly proved herself unfit and unreliable. She needs to go.

This week, under her direction, the CDC changed its guidance to encourage fully vaccinated adults to put their masks back on in certain situations. This flip-flop is not based in science but in hysteria. Vaccinated adults are not at any more risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus and its variants now than they were two months ago when Walensky declared that there was no longer any reason for vaccinated adults to wear masks.

When pressed about the guidance change, Walensky blamed the unvaccinated, who now make up the majority of coronavirus cases and deaths. But this does not justify the CDC’s recent decision. Why should the vaccinated be punished for the bad decisions of the unvaccinated? The former people are safe from the virus and no longer need to worry. Walensky admitted as much herself.

Walensky, then, has eliminated one of the biggest incentives for getting vaccinated — freedom from such restrictions. This will make vaccine-hesitant people less likely to go out of their way to get the shot.

To make matters worse, Walensky also endorsed a vaccine passport system that would require people to prove they are fully vaccinated, or that they recently tested negative for the coronavirus, to gain access to public venues such as restaurants and bars.

These are both serious errors in judgment, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from Walensky. Back in March, she declared vaccinated people “do not carry the virus” at all. The next day, the CDC had to clarify that the data on this was not clear. And now we know that vaccinated persons can, in fact, transmit the virus, even though it is extremely unlikely that they will fall ill from it.

Perhaps her worst failure, however, was her wishy-washy approach to school reopenings. Walensky switched her position on whether social distancing in the classroom was necessary, not once, not twice, but three times. First, she said that three feet of social distancing would be sufficient. Then, it was six feet, and then back to three feet. She offered no scientific reasoning for any of these authoritative statements. That's because she wasn't following the science, but the teachers unions, which successfully bludgeoned Walensky into changing the CDC's draft guidance on school reopenings.

Under Walensky’s guidance, the CDC has become untrustworthy, illogical, and prone to reversing itself based on political nonsense. Its guidance has changed so many times, often in spite of scientific data, that the public can hardly know what to believe. The CDC needs better leadership if it is to maintain even a shred of credibility, and Walensky has proven that she is incapable of using the power entrusted to her.

Yes, critical race theory is being taught in public schools

Washington Examiner

July 12, 12:01 AM July 12, 04:48 PM

While we all debate what critical race theory is and whether lawmakers should ban it from public schools, every honest person should agree on one thing: This theory is behind the curricula in school districts all over the country, shaping the minds of unsuspecting, malleable children.

Just this week, the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo reported that 30 public school districts in 15 states are teaching a book, Not My Idea, that tells readers that “whiteness” leads white people to make deals with the devil for “stolen land, stolen riches, and special favors.” White people get to “mess endlessly with the lives of your friends, neighbors, loved ones, and all fellow humans of color for the purpose of profit,” the book adds.

There are plenty of other examples that prove racial essentialism and collective guilt are being taught to young students. In Cupertino, California, an elementary school required third graders to rank themselves according to the “power and privilege” associated with their ethnicities. Schools in Buffalo, New York, taught students that “all white people” perpetuate “systemic racism” and had kindergarteners watch a video of dead black children, warning them about “racist police and state-sanctioned violence.” And in Arizona, the state’s education department sent out an “equity toolkit” to schools that claimed infants as young as 3 months old can start to show signs of racism and “remain strongly biased in favor of whiteness” by age 5.

If that’s not enough evidence, the nation’s largest teachers union outright endorsed the teaching of CRT to public school students in an agenda item it passed last week. The National Education Association vowed to “share and publicize” information “already available on Critical Race Theory — what it is and what it is not” and fight back against legislation that would ban CRT from school curricula.

Knowing full well that it cannot escape from the facts, the Left has taken to distorting reality. Many, including the head of the second-largest teachers union, have tried to claim CRT is not being taught in public schools at all.

“Let’s be clear: Critical race theory is not taught in elementary schools or high schools. It’s a method of examination taught in law school and college that helps analyze whether systemic racism exists,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said during a conference just days after the NEA passed its agenda item endorsing CRT.

This is a lie. CRT left the universities long ago and has been infiltrating the culture ever since, manifesting itself in corporate diversity and equity seminars, political activist groups such as Black Lives Matter, and now in school curricula. The book, Not My Idea, for example, adapted the idea that “whiteness” is a form of “stolen land and riches” from an original CRT legal text written by Cheryl Harris in 1993, as Rufo pointed out.

The purpose of CRT has always been the same: to teach people that America is an irreparably racist nation built on racist institutions upheld by racist people. It is a sinister and toxic ideology, and it is being taught to children in the schools that we, the taxpayers, fund. Don’t let the Left fool you into thinking differently.

Biden's embrace of Saudi prince shows that his only principle was defeating Trump

Washington Examiner

July 09, 12:00 AM July 09, 07:51 AM

At this point, it may be fair to say President Joe Biden’s criticisms of his predecessor have nothing to do with principles. It was all politics, all the way down.

From flip-flops on immigration to vaccines, it has become clear that most positions Biden staked out against former President Donald Trump during the 2020 election were not Biden's positions at all. Biden stood where he stood because standing against Trump was his only guidepost.

Now that Trump is defeated, those past Biden stances mean nothing. And also, those past Trump "offenses" no longer offend Biden anymore. Biden has shown already he's perfectly happy to maintain the exact same policies as Trump, policies Biden condemned just a matter of months ago as barbaric and regressive, so long as they're politically advantageous.

The latest example of the president flip-flopping on a campaign-year talking point comes in the form of a little-publicized event involving a member of the Saudi royal family.

To wit, the State Department and the Pentagon hosted private meetings with the brother of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman.

The Associated Press described the politics:

The high-level sessions with Prince Khalid, a younger brother and confidant to Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince, renewed complaints that the administration was giving the Saudis a pass in the Khashoggi killing, given that nation’s strategic importance as a Middle East power and a top oil producer. “US still has their back, no matter how awfully they terrorize their citizens,” Sarah Leah Whitson, who leads the Arab rights group Democracy for the Arab World, tweeted Tuesday in a criticism of Biden administration policy.

Prince Khalid bin Salman met this month with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. It’s an impressive roster.

The meetings themselves are not exactly scandalous, but it’s a bit rich considering Biden’s election year foreign policy pitch.

Recall that the then-Democratic primary candidate said explicitly in 2019 that he’d make Saudi Arabia pay for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“I would make it very clear we were not going to, in fact, sell more weapons to them,” Biden said. “We were going to, in fact, make them pay the price and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.” Biden also said there is “very little social redeeming value in the present government in Saudi Arabia,” and, in reference to Yemen, said he would “end the sale of material to the Saudis, where they’re going in and murdering children.”

Later, he promised during the 2020 presidential campaign that he’d center his administration’s foreign policy on “human rights and American values,” stating explicitly that the Saudi royal family had violated both of those principles when it had Khashoggi assassinated.

Things must have changed, huh? Apparently.

Biden has gone from threatening to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” to having members of his administration explain the White House’s position is that there's “no precedent for the U.S. punishing a top official of a country with which it has a partnership.”

Again, it seems the stuff Biden said on the campaign trail was just a lot of talk. If Trump did it, Biden opposed it, regardless of the situation, the context, or whether it was the realistic thing to do. Critics said Trump wasn’t hard enough on Saudi Arabia, so, by God, Biden said he would make a “pariah” of the country. How’s that for tough? Here’s a word of advice: Tough usually looks better when you follow through.

Biden talked a big game, but now he is president. Things are just different, OK? Saudi Arabia represents several strategic interests in the Middle East. We can't just make a "pariah" of the crown prince now, can we?

That's a good question for the guy who promised to do just that.

In a cancel culture, anonymity must be a civil right

Washington Examiner

July 06, 12:00 AM July 09, 07:51 AM

Anonymity, in ordinary times, is a tough topic to wrestle with. These days, however, it’s easy: Dissent, and thus democracy, will only survive in today’s culture if anonymity is preserved.

That’s why the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision striking down California’s donor disclosure law was correct and crucial.

In Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, the court struck down California’s law requiring all charities and other nonprofit organizations to disclose their donors. California, in defending its law, was in effect trying to demolish the precedent set in NAACP v. Alabama, in which the court barred Alabama from requiring the NAACP to disclose all of its members.

Freedom of association is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. Supreme Court jurisprudence holds that if a government wants to regulate it, the government needs a compelling interest, and the regulation needs to be narrowly tailored. California’s law clearly didn’t meet these standards.

Democrats and their media allies portrayed it as a win for “wealthy donors.” It’s an odd characterization for a coalition of charities and nonprofit groups that includes the ACLU and the NAACP.

The Democrats say they just want to stop rich people or corporations from paying front groups to advance billionaire-friendly or corporate-friendly policies. But considering that the billionaires and corporations all support the Democrats’ agenda, it’s hard to take that seriously.

When we look at the original defendant in this case, it’s easier to see what is going on. Rob Bonta’s name is on the case because he was appointed California’s attorney general in April. But when California’s law first went to federal courts, the state attorney general was Xavier Becerra. Becerra is, from top to bottom, a culture warrior.

He zealously prosecuted pro-life activists, went after nuns and Catholic hospitals that were insufficiently on board with Planned Parenthood’s agenda.

This is not just a California thing. This is obviously the Democratic Party’s agenda. Consider that President Joe Biden selected Becerra as health and human services secretary even though his only experience in “healthcare” is serving as an abortion extremist. Becerra’s predecessor as California’s attorney general was Kamala Harris, who proclaimed she wages war on pro-lifers “as a prosecutor.”

So now consider why these happy culture warriors would want to force disclosure of all donors to nonprofit organizations: They believe that government can and should repress the groups they see as blocking their idea of progress.

Fight for gun rights? You’re a bad guy. Stand up for the unborn? You’re an enemy of women. Oppose the teachers unions? You’re on the list.

Biden, Harris, Becerra, and Bonda want to use the power of the state to crush dissent.

Meanwhile, their allies in corporate America and the largest media outlets take up the cancel crusade with relish.

Donating to a Republican politician or a conservative ballot initiative is cause for dismissal and “cancellation” already. That one might donate anonymously to a disfavored charity, perhaps even something so disreputable as a pro-life clinic for pregnant women, is intolerable for our thought police in the press and state or federal government.

They must have all conservatives out of hiding so they can take care of us.

Thank God for the Supreme Court standing up for anonymity.

Communist China at 100

Washington Examiner

July 05, 10:07 AM July 05, 10:07 AM

On Thursday, Xi Jinping addressed his 1.4 billion citizens in celebration of the Chinese Communist Party’s centenary. Xi said he would spare no effort in ensuring that China becomes a “great modern socialist country” by 2049. Those who sought to restrain China’s advance, Xi said, would face a bloody riposte.

China intends to displace the United States as the preeminent global power, ordering the world around autocracy and feudal mercantilism. The U.S. has a duty to stop China's march.

Were Xi to succeed, it would mean China’s ability to leverage trade in return for political appeasement. It would mean Beijing’s ability to set the rules of international order in subservience to its interests.

How can the U.S. ensure that our and the world’s interests sustain in the 21st century?

A strong economy and credible military will be important. But so also must we engage in some introspection. The measure of China’s challenge demands that we reconsider some of the easy choices we make as citizens and in government.

Amid our widening partisan fracture, it has become clear that too many view even the very act of debate as up for debate. Conservatives see our First Amendment freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly under attack. Liberals see Donald Trump looming once again on the political ramparts, ready to unleash another mob. All of us see rising crime and disorder. Very few of us want to pursue serious bipartisan solutions. But it will be near impossible to constrain Chinese authoritarianism if we forget what makes America so special: our freedom, our small communities that exist within our larger community of the nation.

We must do better. Pausing before leaping to offense. Pausing before leaping to hyperbole and conspiracies. Pausing before insulting each other. Pausing to consider each other and the country before ourselves. Ironically, China’s unique challenge appears to be one area where we can begin to strengthen our national bonds. With bipartisan support, the Senate recently passed a major bill that would invest and insulate areas of strategic vulnerability with regards to China. Let us hope the House of Representatives now endorses this legislation.

Second, what patriotic responsibilities do we expect of our biggest companies?

It is outrageous that titans of the American economy have made themselves poodles of the Chinese Communist Party. Hollywood and the NBA are perhaps the worst offenders. Always proclaiming their human rights credentials at home, they are equally proud to provide cover for China’s grotesque human rights abuses. But the rot spreads further. Firms such as Coca-Cola, Hewlett Packard, Pepsi, and Walmart dedicate entire sections of their websites to what they say is their unbreakable commitment to human dignity. But when asked for their response to what China is doing in Hong Kong, for example, they remain silent. Nike CEO John Donahoe recently encapsulated this dynamic. Nike, he said, is “a brand of China and for China.” Americans must start asking themselves: is it patriotic to buy from businesses that support a regime dedicated to subjugating American values and a better American future?

Third, what do we need our military to do?

If the objective of our military is to ensure the deterrent-defense of the U.S., our allies, and our interests, we need to have a frank conversation. Because when it comes to the threat posed by China, we continue to prioritize the military-industrial complex over and above what is needed to defeat China. Let’s examine two specific examples.

For a start, the aircraft carriers. Costing billions of dollars apiece, the Navy’s aircraft carrier fleet remains the darling of the admirals. Unfortunately, the carriers also appear to be the darling of the People’s Liberation Army missile forces. Carrying 6,000 Americans and jets that might struggle to get anywhere near Chinese forces (see our F-35 friend below), the carriers are increasingly vulnerable to a range of potent Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile platforms.

Then there’s the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Long delayed, fraught with resolved and unresolved weaknesses, and projected to approach $1.75 trillion in lifetime costs, the jet’s utility in a prospective conflict with China is also highly questionable. The F-35 is a boondoggle. Many members of Congress like it because it creates jobs and pleases Lockheed Martin.

Our point is simple. China has a clear game plan as to how it will subjugate America in the 21st century. Xi just laid it out. If we’re not so keen on seeing Xi reign supreme, Americans better start asking some hard questions.