Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's News

25 years ago this week, radical Islamists slaughtered nearly 3000 people in New York, Washington DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The deaths took place in Shanksville when a few dozen Americans stood up to fight the Islamist terrorists and thwarted their plans to drive Flight 93 into either the White House or Capitol Hill. Let's roll became a mantra to fight back against extremists determined to destroy America and Western values of freedom and self-governance. The question we face now is, when did we stop rolling? This somber anniversary arrives as radicals make serious inroads into American politics. In New Jersey, just across from ground zero, a Democrat nominee with previous ties to Al-Qaeda and the Sheik behind the first World Trade Center bombing will likely win a seat in Congress. In Michigan, a Democrat spent the weekend at a conference held by an unindicted co-conspirator in a money laundering scheme that benefited Hamas. Ronald Reagan warned that freedom is only one generation away from extinction. Let's roll.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

September 11 is not a normal day on the calendar. Nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered by Islamist terrorists. Yet 25 years later, retired Port Authority police officers are asking Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stay away from the commemoration at Ground Zero. Thirty-seven Port Authority officers died that morning. Now their surviving brothers are pleading: “Please allow us to remember in peace.” Hochul angered the 9/11 community by illuminating One World Trade Center for Muslim American Heritage Month. Mamdani faces a petition opposing his attendance signed by more than 96,000 people—including grieving families. Both intend to attend anyway. Ground Zero—especially on the 25th anniversary of that dark day—does not belong to politicians. It belongs to the dead and their families, the cops and firefighters who walked into hell while everyone else ran away. They do not owe elected officials a backdrop or a lesson in tolerance. One day. One place. No politics. They’ve earned that. Let them have it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Americans who remember that day also remember its aftermath. Along with the shock, horror, suffering and death, there was resolve: We would never forget what happened. And we would never let it happen again. Thankfully, nothing on that scale has happened since. But too many Americans seem less alert to the threat of radical Islamism. A for-profit sharia finance industry operates across America. A North Texas school was established and staffed by relatives of convicted Hamas operatives. And New York’s current mayor has been photographed with an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. For those of us who remember the terror of 9/11, these developments are almost unbelievable. And they’re frightening. Because we know what happens when people forget the past. They risk repeating it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Some people did something,” one prominent Islamist member of Congress put it.  An Islamist candidate for US Senate wrote: those we killed in our response to 9/11 were equally to be mourned as victims just as the Americans killed on 9/11 were. He has also campaigned with a popular broadcaster who claimed the US deserved 9/11.  The Islamist Mayor of New York has posted on X there is no moral difference between those who were killed on 9/11 and those we killed in response. This is how we lose the distinction between good and evil which, many thought, would never be confused again after 9/11. Elie Wiesel wrote, “history is to civilization what memory is to individuals.”  For those of us who remember 9/11 accurately, we can never forget it, nor the fact that vast numbers of people with a medieval ideology still want us dead.  Those engaging in moral equivalence about it are the handmaidens of hate. If ignored, they will be the authors of our destruction—which, Abraham Lincoln reminded us, can only come from within.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

September 11 is not a normal day on the calendar. Nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered by Islamist terrorists. Yet 25 years later, retired Port Authority police officers are asking Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stay away from the commemoration at Ground Zero. Thirty-seven Port Authority officers died that morning. Now their surviving brothers are pleading: “Please allow us to remember in peace.” Hochul angered the 9/11 community by illuminating One World Trade Center for Muslim American Heritage Month. Mamdani faces a petition opposing his attendance signed by more than 96,000 people—including grieving families. Both intend to attend anyway. Ground Zero—especially on the 25th anniversary of that dark day—does not belong to politicians. It belongs to the dead and their families, the cops and firefighters who walked into hell while everyone else ran away. They do not owe elected officials a backdrop or a lesson in tolerance. One day. One place. No politics. They’ve earned that. Let them have it.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, you probably grew up knowing that socialism doesn't work. It sees its control and most importantly seeks to replace God with government. But this ideology is now moving to the very center of our nation's political life. I was born under socialist Islamist regime. I remember when my father's company was taken over by the government. I couldn't wait to turn 18 and escape and find freedom in the West. As these ideologies gain an even stronger foothold in America, we must respond with calm courage and biblical conviction. Silence in the face of evil is not faithfulness.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is among the leftist Democrats who seems to have learned nothing and forgotten everything. Last week, Hochul visited the Islamic Cultural Center School of New York — whose imam blamed Jews for destroying the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. What’s more, Hochul appeared wearing a hijab. Perhaps she thought she was just respecting a religious tradition but she’s dangerously misguided. The hijab is a symbol of female submission, reflecting the view that women’s bodies are sinful and must be covered lest men be tempted. Our Constitution protects religious liberty, so Muslim women are free to wear hijabs. But it’s ironic and outrageous that left-wing women — who accuse conservatives of plotting a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” — embrace a symbol of the very female oppression they claim to fear.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And the IRGC may have never faced a situation as desperate as its predicament at the moment. Yes: The conflict with Iran has gone on longer than Donald Trump anticipated. The shock and awe campaign in March did massive strategic damage, but the regime has managed to survive. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have gone nowhere. Trump finally landed on the most rational approach left. The naval blockade has eliminated Iran’s income from black-market oil. Scott Bessent’s economic D-Day has stripped the IRGC of any other financial resources. The Iranian rial has collapsed. Domestic discontent with the regime will keep increasing to existential levels. The siege of Iran provides the best chance for success in eliminating a regime that has waged war against the US for 47 years. Trump needs to exercise strategic patience to see this strategy to a successful conclusion – and so do the American people.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

UPS will not ship human embryos. But it will ship the drug designed to destroy those innocent human lives. A shareholder proposal asks UPS to examine the legal, regulatory, and reputational risk of distributing abortion drugs, particularly mifepristone. The company's answer is that a carrier cannot know what is in every package. UPS ships firearms under dedicated accounts, contractual agreements, shipper verification, adult signature, and direct-delivery rules. It plainly knows how to identify a product category and apply scrutiny when it decides to. The Comstock Act has been federal law since 1873, and bars common carriers from transporting drugs intended to produce abortion. More than twenty states now restrict these drugs, including Georgia, where UPS is headquartered. Firearms are constitutionally protected. This shipment of abortion drugs is already addressed by federal statute. What a strange moral code. UPS needs to get out of the abortion business.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Islamic Republic is reeling as summer closes. Operation Economic Outcast is squeezing an already flustered and failing regime. As that regime grows increasingly desperate, there are warnings that Iran may well be considering one or even many “October surprise” attacks on Israel, the United States or anywhere that its weapons or terrorists can reach. America’s military is certainly prepared—but the public ought to be braced, too. Aging revolutionaries in Tehran whose dreams and fantasies lie in ruins around them are unlikely to surrender power and go quietly into exile. So: the idea of a grand gesture through suicidal attacks has to appeal to the remnants of the once powerful but now nearly spent regime. Fanatics with nothing to lose pose a specific kind of threat—and it’s not a rational one. Americans should support Trump, the efforts of Operation Economic Outcast and the military as the Islamic Republic plays out its last few, desperate moves.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since the election of the first Islamist to Congress eight years ago, few have wanted to speak candidly out about what Ilhan Omar was saying and stood for—lest they be labeled Islamophobic. Since that time, political Islam, Islamism, has grown and grown—from the election of a mayor in New York City to several congressional candidates from the East to West Coasts, some of whom win their elections this year. This includes a congressional candidate from Flight 93 Todd Beamer’s hometown who was the righthand man to the Blind Sheikh.  In Michigan, Democrats have nominated an Islamist, looking to serve as U.S. Senator. El-Sayed has defended Sharia law in America, campaigned with Hamas supporters, and is speaking at a Muslim Brotherhood aligned conference next month. Islamophobia is the irrational fear of Islam. We do not fear a religion whose adherents give this country their effectual support, as George Washington put the test of religious tolerance. But there’s a growing number who wish to exploit our political system for their Islamist subversion. That fear is not irrational.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

While I was visiting the Middle East several years ago, a highly placed government official who's a Muslim himself asked me a troubling question. Why is the Muslim Brotherhood outlawed as a terrorist organization in Saudi Arabia, in Bahrain, in the United Arab Emirates, in Jordan, in Egypt, and yet allowed to flourish in America? Founded in Egypt in 1928, the brotherhood's history is drenched in blood. It was spawned and inspired groups like Hamas, Al-Qaeda, ISIS. Now Congress designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity. This designation act would finally name the brotherhood for what it is and disrupt its financial networks. Contact your representatives, senators, ask them to support this bill.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Freedom stood up for reality—and the crowd went nuts. Enes Kanter Freedom attended a WNBA game with a T-shirt that defined a woman as an “adult human female.” The shirt provoked a profane response from Chicago Sky players, leading the league to eject Freedom from the arena. In every possible sense.  When was the last time anyone saw a player in the NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL lose their minds and their focus over a T-shirt in the stands? This is the second time in a week for the WNBA in which a team either threatened to expel or outright expelled fans for wearing T-shirts that only expressed support for biology as the definition of "women." This isn't a sports league. It's a struggle session with cardio. It is the cult of progressivism in microcosm, where dissent has to be silenced and truth banished. It may be a clown show at the WNBA, but writ large, it really is a danger to freedom … not just Enes Kanter Freedom.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The most amazing development on the American political landscape right now is the emergence of socialism. Yeah, I said it, socialism. Just recently, CBS News launched a major investigative study looking into political support for socialism. Among the key takeaways are the fact that among those who identify as Democrats, 58% have a positive view of socialism. 58% positive view of socialism. Only 32% of Democrats said they had a positive view of capitalism. It gets worse. Among respondents with a college degree and even higher 71% say they have a positive view of socialism. The most obvious influence over these students is leftist professors teaching leftist ideologies, The culture of elite education is teaching university students wrong lessons about the economy, and it's doing so in so many different ways. Students increasing support for socialism shows it, as do the polls. It's a seismic development when you think about the future of civilization and the future of the United States of America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Abdul El-Sayed is Hasan Piker and Hasan Piker is Abdul El-Sayed. That’s the bottom line for Michigan voters considering the race for the  open Senate seat in the upcoming election. El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee. Piker is the progressive, regressive, transgressive Twitch streamer—a vulgar, hate-filled, racist “streamer,” an online ranter who hates Blacks, Whites, women with seemingly equal passion. He thinks the United States deserved 911, None of this is a hidden secret. El-Sayed attached himself to Piker’s hip in order to win the Michigan Democratic primary. If El-Sayed somehow fools the Michigan electorate into sending him to D.C. in November, Piker will push aside Bernie Sanders and AOC as the key “kingmaker” in the Democratic Party. El-Sayed is going to be facing GOP nominee Mike Rogers, a seven-term congressman from Michigan. Working in Rogers’ favor, Michigan doesn’t want to become known for the craziest hater in the Senate since the Civil War.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Massachusetts recently passed an abortion law, becoming the 10th state that allows for an abortion to take place right up to the moment of birth. Let us step back to consider that the entire abortion movement and language used to justify it is shrouded in lies and code words.  The word abortion, itself, is a euphemism designed to obscure the killing of a child; the word fetus is used to disguise the object of that procedure, to keep clear a conscience from fully considering what—and who—is being “ended” … or killed. Reverend Jesse Jackson once asked: “What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the abortion of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience?”  He said, “It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind.”  Let us pray it is not too late to ask, and answer, that precise question.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“There are no normal Democrat men,” Clay Travis observed about a recent campaign video from Abdul El-Sayed. The Michigan Democrat wants to ensure that. El-Sayed’s campaign produced a “Blue’s Clues” themed video to promote mail-in voting. It reveals something profound about the contempt with which El-Sayed and Marxists see voters and citizens in a free society. Marxists infantilize everyone as part of their claim to power. The proletariat cannot be trusted to act in their own interests, which is why private property must be abolished and the means of production seized. This is a pure form of Marxist expression. The Democratic Socialist platform reeks with infantilization. Don’t like paying your bills? The government will do it. Don’t like to work? The government will feed you. Don’t want to pay rent? The government will seize property and shelter you—as the Marxists in charge see fit to do so. American voters need to see this for what it is: Contempt for people who make their own choices. Call this video what it is—Reds’ Clues.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August 10, Massachusetts became the 11th state in the union to pass legislation with absolutely no limits on abortion. Democratic Governor Maura Healey hosted a signing ceremony and a lengthy press conference. We need to understand what we’re talking about here: There’s a basic worldview collision between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the culture of life, every single human life is respected from the point of fertilization until natural death, making something like abortion not only wrong, but morally unthinkable. The culture of death is so absolutely enraptured with personal autonomy that it can be used to deny or even take the life of others. Just days before Governor Healy signed this radical abortion legislation, she signed a Family Welfare Act that included expansions for child welfare in Massachusetts. The governor said then, and I quote, "Every child deserves the opportunity to grow up safe, supported, and set up to succeed." Understand this, she actually means every child outside the womb and no child inside the womb. This is just haunting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A furor erupted in the WNBA recently, after Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham called it “common sense” to ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. The league’s collective bargaining agreement says that only women are eligible to play in the WNBA—but never defines what a “woman” is. The commissioner calls the issue “nuanced,” while the players association calls for diversity and inclusion. Now they’re being taken at their word. Two former NBA players say they’ll declare for the 2027 WNBA draft—exposing the absurdity of rules that refuse to acknowledge biological reality. The WNBA has brought all this on itself. It’s time to define “woman” — or risk sidelining female athletes in the league created specifically for them. There’s nothing “nuanced” about protecting women’s sports. It requires only courage, clarity, and plain common sense.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Americans already suspect that higher education is a politicized grift. And Jason Arday’s story won’t convince them otherwise. Arday was celebrated as the youngest black person ever appointed to a professorship at Cambridge — despite a history of fabulism that defies belief. He’s claimed to have been nonverbal until age 11; unable to read until 18; to have run 600 miles in 65 days; raised more than $7 million for charity; survived a coma; and beaten cancer. Neither Cambridge nor Simon & Schuster, publisher of his autobiography, apparently thought to verify his claims. He’s resigned after a plagiarism scandal and a pending investigation about his academic qualifications and honorary appointments. Here’s the lesson: Rather than making academia more inclusive and equitable, DEI has exposed just how corrupt the whole enterprise has become.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez recently told a credulous Jonathan Karl of ABC that “Woke 1.0 was crazy,” when asked about certain Democratic Socialists of America candidate positions from the recent past.  She then went on to state “[D]uring Covid, there was a huge opening of the Overton Window. We were shut down….I think that during lockdown…rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.” It didn’t occur to Karl to ask what Covid had to do with nostrums like abolishing the police, men could be women, Thanksgiving should be cancelled, riots (if from the left) were peaceful.  Of course, the answer is: Nothing.  And if Woke 1.0 is now passe, why? And is it better than Woke 2.0, which now includes defending and marching for terrorist organizations, including the day after they slaughtered hundreds of innocents, including dozens of Americans? AOC is a member of the DSA. Their party has a number Marxist caucuses today. If Woke 1.0 is outdated, beware of Woke 2.0. It’s better labeled Marxist-Islamism. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's recent primary for the United States Senate seat that is open in Michigan. He's the most radical Democratic nominee for the Senate since the Civil War. He'll face GOP congressmen and army veteran, FBI, special agent as well, Mike Rogers in the fall. El-Sayed campaigns with an Islamist supporting extremist by the name of Hasan Piker, who's also a racist and a misogynist. That El-Sayed hates the state of Israel is not open for debate. He does. Most Jews and many non-Jews believe that El-Sayed is antisemitic to the core. Rogers v. El-Sayed is the most important race of 2026. Michigan's collective common sense will be tested over the next three months. Will they vote for an experienced, responsible, serious legislator who understands the world and America's role in it and support Mike Rogers? Or will they vote for the radical who cares for “from the river to the sea” more than he does the national security of the United States?   My money is on Mike Rogers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced the people will advise him on his judicial appointments. Notably, not even one of the mayor’s 18-person Judicial Advisory Panel is Jewish. This is no small feat in a city where one in eight residents is Jewish – and between thirty-five and fifty percent of the city bar is Jewish. In fact, the odds of this omission of a single Jew occurring by chance has been estimated at four ten-thousandths of one percent. Alone, this exclusion would be disturbing. But it’s part of a broader pattern. Mamdani has reversed orders barring city agencies from participating in boycotts or divestment efforts targeting Israel, and omitted historic Jewish neighborhoods from a map highlighting immigrant enclaves. Antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine for a sick society. It’s rearing its ugly head in New York City.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Democratic Socialists of America want a revolution. They want to eliminate the police, empty jails, socialize medical care and housing, and eventually take their revolution through the entire society. As for the nation's constitutional system, nothing less than a new revolution will do. They're demanding the abolition of the Electoral College. They want to eliminate the Presidency. They want to eliminate the Senate. On their website, they also have an article promising to rip up the “old rulebook.” That “old rulebook” is called the Constitution of the United States of America. Brace yourselves for a political transformation that has the potential to reshape the entire American political landscape, throw away the U.S. Constitution, destroy the free market, eliminate private ownership of corporations and real estate, and build a brave new world. Comrades, you have been warned.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reliable reports from a variety of sources confirm President Trump had ordered a major escalation of combat with Iran for this past weekend only to call it off Saturday night.  President Trump knows the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps lies and that they cheat.  There’s no reason to believe that they’ll not lie and cheat again. It is who they have always been. Since the revolution in 1979, the Iranian regime’s negotiators have fooled both Presidents Carter and Obama in comprehensive fashion, other presidents to some degree, but they have never fooled Donald Trump. Until this past weekend at least. Can we still pull of a win against the terrorist regime in Tehran? Yes.  But only the president can do that. Not our allies. Not his advisors. Certainly not the legacy media. Trump has been surprising and indeed startling his critics for his nearly dozen years in politics. I’m hoping he has at least one more huge surprise in store.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan, the Democratic party has gone from Barack Obama denouncing those who said America deserved 9/11 to campaigning with those who say just that, like Hasan Piker, the left’s most famous podcaster.  As the political philosopher Jerry Garcia wrote: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”  El-Sayed is the latest success endorsed and campaigned for by the Marxist-Islamist axis of the Democratic Socialists of America. This juggernaut is proving unstoppable in taking over the Democratic party. A generation ago, a real political philosopher, Harry Jaffa, pointed out: That with the fall of the Berlin Wall, utopian communism would no longer be seen as simply a threat from abroad—but a more “deadly and dangerous phase” here at home could follow. Quite right—a wall can stop people, but not their ideas.  That enemy is here, and potent.  The two-party system is now looking Republican on one hand and Marxist-Islamists on the other.  We cannot simply wish this away or ignore it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As most Americans know, the Democratic Party has begun a dangerous flirtation with the Democratic Socialists of America. What’s shocking is how far and how fast the rot has spread. To his credit, Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi is pushing back with a pledge called the “Promise to America.” Its three core principles are simple common sense. We’re capitalist, not socialist. We want safety, not lawlessness. And we’re proud, not ashamed, of America. Here’s the disturbing part: of the 212 House Democrats, only 13 have signed on. That tells you how mainstream socialist ideas have become in the Democratic Party, and how radicals have intimidated the moderates. It’s shocking that these simple principles are now controversial in a major American political party. That should concern every voter who values freedom. Let’s hope it’s a wake-up call.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How can you spot a racist? It's easy to do, especially in the Protection Racket Media. Just look for those who bring race into arguments as non-sequiturs in order to demagogue people whose opinions fall outside the elites' comfort zone.  Thus we come to Howard Bryant and the Guardian. Reporters asked Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham to take a position on male intrusion on women’s sports. Cunningham opposed it as the “common sense” position. In response, Bryant offered a bizarre rant in which he claimed Cunningham was “anti-Black” as well as “anti-transgender.” This follows an equally bizarre essay from USA Today columnist Nancy Armour, which argued that Fever star Caitlin Clark should absorb more fouls without redress because Emmitt Till got lynched in the 1950s. Rather than address the real issue, sportswriters pulled a race card on both women.  Sports media has become a new haven for craven and woke demagoguery. Don’t trust them.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I’m sure many of you saw it or at least heard about it: Anthony Fauci pled the Fifth. The former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health was appearing before a Senate committee on Wednesday—and he went on to say nothing; he plead the Fifth well over 100 times. But that doesn’t mean it was for nothing. It may well result in further action. Simply put: Fauci was granted a pardon by President Biden. In accepting that pardon, Fauci no longer has the liberty to refuse to testify. But I would like to express a brief word of appreciation here. And that would be to Senator Rand Paul. Sometimes Rand Paul is brilliant. Sometimes he is a pain, frustrating me to no end. And sometimes I want to give him a medal. That was this week. That was Rand Paul at his best … his very, very best. He just has not given up on this issue. Thank you, Senator Paul.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mentalist Oz Pearlman was featured at the recent, rescheduled dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association. The choice of a “mentalist” for the entertainment portion of the program was apt. Performers in that category combine psychology, suggestion, observation, misdirection and showmanship to create the illusion of mind reading. For the reporters in the room, Pearlman could even be categorized as continuing education. Members of the legacy media are relying on the practices employed by Pearlman to draw conclusions about President Donald Trump. Keep your eyes and ears open for reporting in print or on broadcasts that relays what the president or vice president is “thinking” or “feeling,” as opposed to what they have said or done. And that’s not "reporting," of course. It’s guessing. The appearance of a mind-reader among the Beltway’s news business elites was just so “on the nose.” Did any of the assembled reporters even notice the mirror in the room?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s been attributed to George Carlin that if fascism ever comes to America, it will come with a smile.  Ronald Reagan said it will come in the name of liberalism. But what of communism? Recently, Shannon Bream of Fox News, interviewed the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Megan Romer. Last weekend, the New York Times gave her a glowing profile.  She comes off friendly, affable and…smiley.  What elite media never reports, Ms. Romer is a proud member of the “Red Star Caucus.”  The Red Star Caucus defines itself as “a Marxist-Leninist caucus in the DSA.” The new DSA platform, which the DSA proudly promotes and admits to, and it’s not just incarceration of criminals, but our entire constitutional structure. As we consider the bloody history of communism, we should recall the words of the great writer Hilaire Bellow talking about those watching from beyond the grave. He reminds us: “we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond; and on these faces there is no smile.” This Marxist/DSA threat is nothing to smile about.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of the West and President Donald ’s reputation within it through the centuries will depend on the outcome of the ongoing battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran. America is decisively winning that battle, but it has not yet won it. If President Trump perseveres, that will not happen. If he abandons the battle, it could be the worst foreign policy debacle for the United States since the end of the Vietnam War, rivaling even that of catastrophe of President Joe Biden’s command to American forces to quickly depart Afghanistan in 2021. Iran is run by religious fanatics. That is the defining threat Iran poses to the region and indeed the world. Most of the West doesn’t want to deal with the implications of a theocracy bound up in medieval theology and run by fanatics in possession of WMD. President Trump is willing to do this and he’s acted on it. Now he must finish the job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Abolish the Electoral College. Replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress. Eliminate the Senate. Seize ownership of “essential industries.” These are not just hysterical claims about the Democratic Socialists of America. This is the platform the DSA adopted and published. DSA co-chair Megan Romer confirmed on Fox News Sunday that the DSA and its candidates will pursue those goals, and by any means necessary. These DSA activists and candidates do not want to just win elections. They want a toehold for a revolution. It is not a game to them, nor a pose, and the events of the last century make very clear what the outcomes of such a revolution will be. Even winning an attempted revolution against the constitutional order would devastate the country, and the DSA does not plan on losing it.  When communists tell you who they are, believe them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Until now, hard-left influencer Hasan Piker was perhaps best known for appearing to use an electric shock collar on his dog during a livestream. Now he's making news again—for addressing the College Democrats of America convention dressed as Mao Zedong. Piker has called Mao "one of the great leaders of this world." Yet Mao's policies are widely estimated to have caused the deaths of between 40 and 70 million people. Had Piker shown up dressed as Hitler, the outrage would have been immediate—and rightly so. Mao deserves no better.  Piker’s appearance, and his denunciation of mainstream Democrats for compromising with so-called fascists, reflects the extremist rhetoric gaining ground on the left. Unless Democrats of good faith confront that radical fringe, their party risks losing itself. Let's hope it's not already too late.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 New York has recently created their version of Canada’s assisted suicide regimen, and it has put religious providers squarely in its crosshairs. Several groups have banded together to stop the Medical Aid in Dying legislation as it forces them to participate in suicide.  Hochul tried to deny this, claiming faith-based providers can opt out of the program. Catholic nuns discovered, however, that the law requires all providers to coordinate assisted suicide in their facilities and to give access to doctors performing it.  Starting next month, any healthcare provider who declines to prescribe suicide pills could still have to tell terminally ill patients about their “right” to kill themselves, help them meet the requirements for obtaining suicide pills, and direct them to a provider willing to prescribe the lethal drugs. The death cult on the Left continues to expand its reach and its authoritarianism. We need to stand with the Catholic sisters – again – and fight for life.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

President Trump was a guest on my program last week. He put the number of Iranians massacred by the regime over two days in January at 52,000! —so we know the ruthlessness of the men in charge in Iran. In light of that, it is entirely understandable that the Iranian people are reticent to take to the streets again. And this has become clear: the current public faces of the rump regime in don’t have any authority over the killers with the guns. Eli Lake is among the most respected national security reporters in the U.S.  He explained to me last week how the history of regime collapses tells us we ought to be watching for splits within the ranks of those men with guns. That’s how revolutions against dictators begin and then gain momentum—when a cadre see the end game and don’t want to be on the wrong side when everything falls apart. Watch closely. It only takes a few people to crack the whole of the IRGC tyranny.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A new Pew Research Center survey contains a shocking finding: Nearly half of Muslim Americans view Hamas favorably. That's right—Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for murdering at least 46 Americans and taking others hostage on October 7, 2023. Overall, 44 percent of Muslim American respondents expressed a favorable opinion of Hamas. This disturbing trend coincides with an increasingly assertive Islamist presence across the United States. In parts of Brooklyn, amplified calls to prayer now ring out from mosques beginning at 5 a.m.. They include the declaration, “There is no god but Allah.” Religious liberty is a cherished American freedom. But it’s time to realize that many Islamists view such public displays not simply as religious expression, but as symbols of cultural and political ascendancy, here in America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The late philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that the power of toxic ideologies, like fascism and communism—once they take hold—can prove impossible to reform. Now add apocalyptic theocracy to that fascism and you have a rough understanding of Iran’s leadership. The West, and hopefully many in the Trump administration, are learning that now. As the Wall Street Journal and others reported, Iranian leadership plotted its third assassination on President Donald Trump last week.  This, after the United States had already decimated Iran’s military.  Federal courts have previously identified two other plots to assassinate Donald Trump, as well as several of his former cabinet officials. While many Americans recoil at notions of regime change in Iran, Iranian leadership has no such compunction about trying to affect regime change in America—and via assassination.  And: It appears almost nothing will shake Iran’s fascist theocracy into moderation or civility. This is who and what we are fighting in Iran.  Let’s complete the job and help make gentler the life of this world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Graham Platner ended his bid to represent the people of Maine in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday night. He would have done well to begin his consideration with earnest engagement with the Bible. Really. Specifically, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 8, verse 17, where it says: “For nothing is secret that will not be revealed, nor anything hidden that will not be known and come to light.” Now more than ever, every candidate must be warned again about this truth and then again and again. Indeed, it’s inevitable for every candidate in every race in which any opponent has the means to dig deep. Every would-be candidate ought to subject himself or herself first to the gauntlet of self-scrutiny and then to a gauntlet of “friendly” professionals who specialize in digging up “opposition research.” If an unflattering story exists, it can be found, and it will be found. And it will be on every front page. Platner’s saga is already a tale worth telling. “Nothing that is secret will not be revealed.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talking politics with your average young male these days, chances are you will hear all kinds of odd theories coming from the Pied Pipers of Podcastistan. You will hear them mentioning “experts” nobody heard of until about 10 minutes ago or until they were discovered by these podcasters because of their contrary, and often, conspiratorial thinking. Young men, especially, are attracted to this novel “wisdom,” and they are so prone because, as they will tell you, mainstream institutions have been untruthful over the years. But because some institutions that we used to rely on and respect have been taken over by partisanship and been wrong doesn’t mean that all normative thinking and scholarship is a lie or cannot be trusted, or that people nobody have ever heard of are the replacements of true wisdom. We dismiss and ignore this fallacious thinking at our collective peril. The task of the serious is to be able to discern truth from fiction and greatness from mediocrity. In these critical times, that task has never been more important than now.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when the Left plucks a ‘working class man’ from obscurity and pushes him for high office? In an era of Democratic desperation, mainstream media creates narratives to protect him, even at the expense of their stated values. Graham Platner’s rise and fall stains all the institutions of the Left. Democrats and the media tried to bury or downplay Platner’s checkered past, including his Nazi SS tattoo, his record of disturbing public comments and his moral depravity. Don’t be fooled by the sudden shift in media coverage. Everything that outlets like Axios and the New York Times reports as “news” today had been reported weeks and months ago by independent media. The Times cooked its own report in early June to protect Platner. Every elite media outlet perpetuated the “working class” lie about a man who lives off his wealthy parents. The insistence by Democrats and media to make excuses for Platner exposes the corruption of both. The Nazi tattoo told us all we needed to know.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Teaching Constitutional Law is a joy. Every semester since 1996, my students hear that Con Law ought to be their most interesting class during their three years of law school. This year the Court issued 67 majority opinions. Because district court judge issue bolts-from-out-of-the-blue on a regular basis, there’s a perception abroad that the judiciary becoming politicized. Our highest court, however, is an enormous force for stability in the country that just turned 250 years old. The most significant of this term’s cases may well turn out to be NRSC v. the FEC, which held that the provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act restricting the amount of money a party can spend in direct coordination with a candidate’s campaign, those restrictions were unconstitutional, and that breathes much-needed life into the two major political parties which indeed need the lift. The Supreme Court has gone about its work successfully and will be back at it in October. The “republic of laws not men” carries on.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A specter is taking over the Democratic party and haunting America...Marxist and Islamic Socialism. A new crop of Democratic party candidates truly stand for and believe in the worst and most dangerous ideologies of the past.  These candidates are winning nominations and likely winning races for mayor, for Congress, and for Senate—from Los Angeles to Washington, DC; from Colorado to Michigan. Even a cursory look at their platforms and speeches reveals admissions of support for Marx and Mao and Stalin, and Islamist organizations from Hamas to Hezbollah. This juggernaut of alien and anti-American ideology has a motor, and it has momentum; even the Democratic front-runner for President and the Democrat’s former nominee, Kamala Harris, is in regular consultation with one of its leaders, seeking favor and advice from Zohran Mamdani.  The toxic ideology, from which millions died, and fled from in Europe, Asia, Lebanon, and Iran, cannot be replanted here.  But just now, due to enfeeblement or sympathy, no force within the Democratic party can stop it.  The job must be left to us.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As you celebrate this 4th of July weekend, I hope you get time to slow down and relax. Enjoy the day with friends, family, and loved ones in your world. As you do, remember that even these things are the fruits of freedom, the benefits of a stable government, civilizational order. For 250 years—a quarter of a millennium now—our nation has benefitted from these gifts. Yes: There is plenty to be concerned about as we look at the health of our nation in recent days. We are—and this is not hyperbole—more polarized today than the upheavals I lived through in the late ’60s and early 1970s. We have a lot of work to do. And yet—I really believe this—we have a lot to be thankful for. America is still as my old friend, Bill Bennett has said the last best hope. On behalf of Salem Media, have a great 4th of July.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the nation approaches our 250th anniversary, it’s important for us to take a moment to recognize and appreciate the role that Christianity played in the foundation of the American experiment. Broadly speaking, there is simply no question that the basic worldview behind the foundation of our republic was the biblical worldview of Christianity. And it didn’t begin here exclusively, but it goes way back in history into the great foundations of Western civilization. Is America a Christian nation in terms of explicit constitutional arrangement? No. But I think it's safe to say it wasn’t considered necessary at that point for such a claim to be made. Our Founders did not foresee a secular age coming, but in that secular age there are now important arguments to be made—arguments about the meaning and the dignity of life, about marriage and family and religious liberty.  As we mark 250 years, it’s up to us now to continue to make those arguments and to make them loudly, make them we must. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, the USA turns 250. It comes at a time when our nation has become more sharply divided than any other in living memory.   One man’s wisdom calls to us from an even more bitterly divided moment in American history. Six weeks before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln spoke to the bitter divisions of his day and how the American soul could look to the Lord for grace to heal them.  “With malice toward none with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds,” Lincoln wrote in his 1865 second inaugural address. He sought to work for a “just and lasting peace” through faith—first in the Lord, and then in the potential of the American spirit to prevail. Events vindicated Lincoln in his prayer for America. We must cling to our faith with no less strength in these times.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it’s worth honoring our glorious Constitution—the longest-surviving written charter of national government in world history. Rarely have so few gotten so much so right. The Constitution protects our inalienable rights, reflecting the truth that our freedoms come from God, not government. It enshrines the principle of “We the People,” affirming that power belongs to citizens, not rulers, and that government exists to serve the people, not the other way around. Because the Framers understood the temptations of power, they divided authority among three branches of government, each designed to check the others. They also balanced the powers of the federal government and the states. Our Constitution ensures that Americans live under the rule of law, not the rule of men. May it ever be so.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Americans celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday, we’ve received a special and quite unexpected gift: a spontaneous outpouring of affection from the rest of the world. Visitors from across the globe are attending World Cup matches here, and many are posting videos expressing their delight with what they’re finding, and what we so often take for granted. Our safe streets and parks. Our barbecue. Ranch dressing. The wonders of LongHorn Steakhouse. Unlimited refills. But above all, the kindness and friendliness of the American people. Too often, tourists fly into New York or Los Angeles and assume they’ve seen America. Now they’re discovering America’s heartland, and the enormous heart of its generous, welcoming people. At 250 years old, America is still inspiring admiration, gratitude, and affection around the world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just recently, Ken Paxton secured the nomination for the GOP looking to represent Texas in the US Senate. Paxton will be facing a state senator and Presbyterian seminarian James Talarico. The question is, as the New York Times put it, are Texans ready for Talarico's kind of Christianity? Ruth Graham and David Goodman begin by talking about Talerico's pastor, Jim Rigby at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Austin. The article begins, "Jim Rigby, a pastor who rarely uses the word God, is a key to understanding the Senate candidate trying to pull off something unusual in Texas." Later, the reporters refer to a sermon where Pastor Rigby refers to "the creative impulse of the universe, which can be called God, but doesn't have to be called God." I do not think that the majority of people in Texas understand the Bible in those terms.  What we're talking about here is light years outside of biblical orthodoxy. So let's ask the question. Is Texas ready for that?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As we celebrate our 250th anniversary as a nation, it is worth reflecting on what got us here and has kept us going, living as we do under the longest-lasting constitution in world history. From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution, our country’s Framers set about establishing this most successful of political governing structures because they understood a few truths. Given low polling about American pride these days, they are truths about which we may need to ask: are they still self-evident? We began this experiment declaring a recognition of something higher than man— “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” and a Creator—endowing us with a right to self-government and a recognition that we human beings are all equal, especially in our inequality before God.  Rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are not given or tolerated by government or man, but God. Our founding authors all understood and enshrined this for us. But, too many here have forgotten or unlearned this.  Sadly, just now, we need a great re-learning.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.