Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson For decades, Congress has been willing to give its legislative powers to the executive branch in general and the president in particular. Senator Mike Lee writes about why this has happened and what Congress should do to stop this dangerous trend. He reminds us that President Obama more than 20 times said he didn’t have the authority to rewrite immigration laws, and then did so in 2012 during the height of his reelection campaign. He speculates that a…

Kerby Anderson The Supreme Court justices might be forgiven for having a feeling of déjà vu. For the third time, the justices had to deal with a case in which the president was given power by Congress and then challenged because he used that power. First, it was the travel ban. Then it was the president’s national emergency declaration in order to build the wall. Finally, it was the oral arguments about whether a citizenship question could be put in…

Kerby Anderson President Trump’s opponents argue that there is no crisis at the border, thus we don’t need to build a wall or deploy troops to the border. Proponents, of course, argue just the opposite. Is there any way to evaluate these contradictory claims? One way, of course, is to look at the increasing number of men, women, and children crossing our southern border. The US border patrol reported that more than 76,000 migrants crossed illegally into the country in…

Penna Dexter Elizabeth Warren is perhaps not the most exciting candidate in the field of Democrats looking to challenge President Trump. But she’s formulating bold proposals other candidates must react to. She’s targeting a millennial voting block with proposals like universal child care, affordable housing, and now, a plan she claims would completely eliminate student loan debt for 75 percent of all borrowers and cut indebtedness for the rest. The plan would cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt…

Kerby Anderson Columnist David Brooks has a new book coming out, so he wrote a New York Times column about the “Five Lies Our Culture Tells Us.” He believes we have created a culture based on lies.  Columnist Robert Samuelson responds to David Brooks in a Washington Post column by telling him to “lighten up.” Let’s look at the five lies. They are that we believe that “career success is fulfilling” and that “I can make myself happy.” They also include the…

Kerby Anderson Today is the National Day of Prayer. It is a vital part of our American heritage. The first call to prayer happened before the American Revolution. In 1775, the Continental Congress called on the colonists to pray for wisdom as they considered how they would respond to the King of England. Perhaps one of the most powerful calls to prayer came from President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1863, he issued a proclamation for a day…

Kerby Anderson The Attorney General William Barr caused quite a stir the other day when he concluded the government had been engaged in spying. The sentence that generated the outrage was this: “I believe the government spied on the Trump campaign.” His statement led to another round of commentators arguing that this was merely surveillance not spying. But in a recent article in The Hill Kevin Brock explains that even attempting to make a semantic difference misses what was done….

Kerby Anderson Just about anyone who sets out to defend Western civilization will be criticized and vilified. Jonah Goldberg wrote about Western civilization in his book, the Suicide of the West. Ben Shapiro has recently written about The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great. In a future commentary, I plan to discuss Shapiro’s book but for now will merely look at two incidents that prove my point. First, when his book came out,…

Kerby Anderson While I was doing a radio program, news outlets were reporting that the Cathedral of Notre Dame was burning. My producer asked if we wanted to start covering it. Since I already had guests on the program, I suggested we wait and see if it was an accident or an attack. His response was that never occurred to him. So, you may wonder, what is wrong with me that I would consider the possibility that the fire might…

Penna Dexter The Washington Post reported this:  “A procession of clergy dressed in white carried a simple black cross through the streets of Île St. Louis on Friday, continuing a Good Friday ritual even while the charred hulk of Notre Dame Cathedral loomed behind them. Thousands of Parisians and visitors gathered for the “stations of the cross” devotion, a symbolic reenactment of Christ’s passion that commemorates the trajectory from his sentencing to his burial in 14 stops.” Human beings are moved by…

Kerby Anderson Funerals are starting to look very different. An article in the Washington Post predicts that “the funeral as we know it is becoming a relic.” Many of our time-honored rituals are being set aside. One of the first books I wrote was on the subject of death and dying. I noted then that we were a death-denying culture. The elderly used to die in our homes, but now we’re dying in hospitals and care facilities. And we tried to…