Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter We’re officially in Lent, the period of 40 days, which comes before Easter in the Christian calendar. It’s a time of preparation for Easter, and, in many Christian traditions, a season of remorse. I think Lent can serve a good purpose even for people who are not in liturgical churches and don’t observe or think about it much. During Lent we can take our hearts through a process to get them ready for Easter. Christians are often uncomfortable with a whole…

Kerby Anderson A week ago, I talked about entitlement spending and the impact it would have in the future, unless Congress was willing to modify the trajectory of Social Security and Medicare. Entitlement spending is a major contributor to the increasing federal debt. Are we headed toward a debt crisis? The US national debt now exceeds $31.5 trillion. We must service the interest on that debt. When President Joe Biden took office, the annual interest payments were $549 billion. According…

Kerby Anderson The proposed mandate for electric cars has a tragic human cost that most Americans know almost nothing about. Professor Siddharth Kara writes about it in his book, Cobalt Red. Mark Mills wrote an excellent three-page summary of the book so that you might be spared the horror of reading about what take place in cobalt mines. Cobalt is necessary for lithium batteries in electric cars, but also essential for smartphones, laptops, and a variety of toys. Three-fourth of…

Kerby Anderson The current debate about the federal budget centers on whether the government is too big and too inefficient. Most Republicans argue that the federal government is too big. Many Democrats ask: “Where is your evidence that government has grown too big?” John DiIulio is a co-author of a significant book about American government. He explains that government grows larger by using three types of what can be called “administrative proxies.” The first are state and local governments. The…

Kerby Anderson The gas stove controversy last month illustrates how the establishment media uses a controversy to malign conservative media and members of Congress. You may remember how it started. The commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned that 40 percent of US homes have a “hidden hazard.” He went on to explain, “Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” Many in the conservative media warned that gas stoves could be banned. Senators Ted Cruz (a Republican)…

Kerby Anderson I recently read an op-ed in The Hill (a political website covering Congress) with the dramatic title: “Congress is set to expose what may be the largest censorship system in U.S. history.” I assumed it was a bit of exaggeration from a Republican member of Congress. But then I saw that it was written by Jonathan Turley, George Washington law professor, who is hardly a Republican supporter and not given to hyperbole. He was talking about the House…

Penna Dexter There’s been much written lately about Jamie Reed’s piece for the online publication, The Free Press. Ms. Reed, who describes herself as “a queer woman, politically to the left of Bernie Sanders, now married to a transman,” worked for four years as a case manager at Washington University Transgender Center at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital. She left last November because she had come to believe that the treatment patients are receiving at her clinic and others is…

Kerby Anderson Today I want to talk about a subject that apparently both parties would rather not discuss. That’s entitlement spending. Rarely do voters want to talk about it either. In fact, whenever I do talk about it, I usually get a call from some listener who objects to calling Medicare and Social Security as “entitlement” spending. I explain that this is what the government calls it, so we must use accurate terms. Medicare is the federal health-insurance program for…

Kerby Anderson As we are learning more about transgenderism, the psychological conclusions validate some of the perspectives from authors I have mentioned in this commentary. Dr. Ryan Anderson wrote his book, When Harry Became Sally, to provide some perspective on the scientific, medical, and legal debates. Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, warned that young women identifying as transgender were likely doing so because of social contagion. She focused part of her book on the…

Kerby Anderson Apologies are important, especially when wrong actions hurt another person. That is why Kevin Bass, an MD/PhD medical student wrote an op-ed in Newsweek with the title: “It’s Time for the Scientific Community to Admit We Were Wrong About COVID, and It Cost Lives.” He supported authorities who called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters. But he admitted that “we in the scientific community were wrong.” He says part of the problem was the fact that: “We made science…

Kerby Anderson “To know only one country is to know none.” That insight by Seymour Martin Lipset is so important that Jonah Goldberg believes it should be pounded into the heads of every high school student. He suggests that: “Whenever you hear people talk about America as uniquely or exceptionally flawed—or superior—the first question you should ask is, “compared to whom?” He provides several examples. Yes, America has a murder problem. But it is worth putting that tragedy in perspective….