Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter It was not a good look for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand when, on the Detroit debate stage, she challenged fellow presidential candidate, Joe Biden regarding his position, as a US Senator back in 1981, against expanding a childcare tax credit to families who could afford for one parent to stay at home.  Senator Gillibrand’s ammunition was an opinion piece he wrote for the Daily Times of Salisbury Maryland — 38 years ago. “I do not believe,” wrote then-Senator Biden,…

Kerby Anderson Should the government step in to make sure big tech companies respect free speech? Dennis Prager argues, “Don’t Let Google Get Away with Censorship.” He understands the reluctance many conservatives have about government regulation. So, he tries to make the case for intervention. He does know something about censorship. So far, YouTube has placed 56 of his videos on their restricted list. These videos include prominent lawyers, politicians, and researchers. Many of them have been on my radio…

Kerby Anderson Many members of Congress have been talking about the Green New Deal throughout most of this year. Green Party candidates originally proposed this idea more than a decade ago. Now many Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress have been proposing it as a way to address climate change. What would it cost? That is a question that the Competitive Enterprise Institute asked and set out to answer. They wanted to get a reasonable estimate about “What the…

Kerby Anderson As I mentioned earlier this week, the Democratic presidential candidates disagree on a number of key issues. But there is one issue where there is unanimity. All of these Democrats want you to pay for abortions. That is the argument Alexandra Desanctis makes in a recent column. There may be some disagreement among the candidates about whether to implement Medicare for All. There is even disagreement about which plans being put forward qualify as Medicare for All. But…

Kerby Anderson Can a state ban a presidential candidate from the ballot? This is no longer a hypothetical question. Two weeks ago, the governor of California signed a law that would prevent Donald Trump’s name from appearing on the California primary ballot unless he discloses his tax returns. Governor Newsom argues that we live in “extraordinary times and states have a legal and moral duty to do everything in their power to ensure leaders seeking the highest offices meet minimal…

Kerby Anderson Less than a month from now will be the third set of Democratic presidential debates. The field will be smaller next time, but the question is whether the debate and discussion will be motivating for primary voters. Mark Penn, writing in The Hill, referred to the previous debates as a “panderfest.” He knows something about Democratic politics since he served as a pollster and adviser to former President Clinton and has written some important books looking at social…

Penna Dexter In each season of the television show, “The Bachelorette,” a young woman successively sends bachelors home until she finally chooses one. This season, there was extra drama in that the bachelorette,Hannah Brown, openly declared she’s a Christian and was even shown praying.  One of the bachelor candidates, Luke Parker, is also an outspoken believer. Hannah eventually gave Luke the boot from the show after he told her he was saving sex for marriage and hoped she would not…

Kerby Anderson A generation ago, driving on American roads was much safer than in many other countries with lots of open roads (like Canada and Australia). That is not the case anymore. David Leonhardt reports that our vehicle fatality rate is about 40 percent higher than the fatality rates in Canada and Australia. He says he was unaware of this country’s outlier status until he began to report on the rise of driverless cars. As you might imagine, many people…

Kerby Anderson If you have ever listened to a Dennis Prager radio program, you know he often talks about the differences between liberals and conservatives. And you would also know that he dedicates one hour to what he calls “the happiness hour” where he explores why people are happy or unhappy. So it is not surprising that he recently wrote a commentary on the subject: “Liberals and Conservatives Are Unhappy for Different Reasons.” He says that unhappy conservatives generally believe…

Kerby Anderson Steven Pinker (Harvard University) says that the left and the right at least agree on one major point: “The world is getting worse.” His new book goes into some detail to show that simply is not true. In a recent op-ed, he reminds us that, “Such gloominess is decidedly un-American.” Unfortunately, we fool ourselves by comparing rose-tinted images of the past with the scary headlines of today. Here are just a few statistics worth considering. The homicide rate…

Kerby Anderson Lots of young people say they believe in socialism but when asked to define it they don’t often give an accurate answer. But what do people who are socialists believe and what do they want to implement in this country? Jarrett Stepman went to a socialism conference and came back with a number of observations. The Socialism 2019 conference had the tag line, “No Borders, No Bosses, No Binaries.” That should give you a good idea of the…