Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Judge James Ho serves in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He made news the other day when he announced that he would no longer be hiring law clerks from Yale Law School. To understand why he announced this, we need to go back to a commentary I wrote six months ago. A law professor at Yale put together a panel that included Monica Miller (a secular progressive associated with the American Humanist Association) and Kristen Waggoner (a…

Kerby Anderson Access to abortion has become a campaign issue in part because of the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. A recent article argued that black women will no longer have easy access to abortion in some states, with the implication that this will be bad for the African American community in this country. Alveda King wonders how “abortion access can benefit black females when it so starkly impacts black babies”? Of the roughly 930,000 abortions performed…

Kerby Anderson What should our elected officials do with the FBI? Charles Cooke tries to make the case for dismantling the FBI. Some suggest that the FBI and Justice Department merely have a few “bad apples.” Others argue that these bureaucracies are a whole orchard of bad apples. The current examples of FBI overreach are significant. He begins with a quote from New York Times columnist Bret Stephens who is appalled at the fact that a high-profile politician could be…

Penna Dexter Last week the Republican party unveiled its legislative priorities. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy released the “Commitment to America,” a four-pillar agenda for the GOP should it retake the House. It’s a sort of Republican platform for the midterm elections presented by the man who will likely be Speaker if the House flips to the Republicans. The plan emphasizes economic prosperity, national and border security, constitutional rights, and holding the current administration accountable. Specifically, it promises to do…

Kerby Anderson Twenty years ago, I did an interview with Bernard Goldberg on his book, Bias. I bring it up because his analysis has stood the test of time. At the time, he was the first media insider to reveal what many of us suspected about the background and attitudes of the people who determine what you read, see, and hear in the media. There were other studies (like the Lichter-Rothman studies) that also provided insight. But Bernard Goldberg’s book…

Kerby Anderson One commentator has suggested that the November election would be a “fentanyl election.” That term might be confusing, so let me unpack its meaning. Voters in these midterm elections are concerned about many issues ranging from inflation to crime. But one of the principal concerns is the lack of border security. Drugs are on the minds of Americans, especially fentanyl. It’s a synthetic opioid that is supposedly 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and useful in…

Kerby Anderson Some prominent figures over the last few weeks have made some puzzling statements about abortion. In fact, some would call them misleading or even deceitful, but I would rather give them the benefit of doubt. Perhaps they never thought much about abortion until the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs forced them to think about the topic. Pro-life activist Lila Rose was on the Dr. Phil program with Phil McGraw. He disputed the fact that life begins at conception….

Kerby Anderson Many colleges and universities have speech codes and other policies that narrow the realms of permissible speech. And what started on campus has made its way to the broader society. This was a topic on my radio program when one day I was interviewing the president of a Christian college and the next day I was interviewing Nadine Strossen (former president of the ACLU). Both were against the suppression of speech even though they come from different political…

Kerby Anderson It’s relatively rare for an academic paper to generate a conversation in the popular culture. But that is what happened when James Sweet published a column on the history and impact of “presentism.” He is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the current President of the American Historical Association. He criticized the idea of “presentism,” which is the tendency to view events in the past through the lens of contemporary politics. He received quite…

Penna Dexter In their effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Western governments have set aggressive deadlines. By 2030, the European Union wants a 55-percent reduction and the Biden administration promises a 50-52-percent drop in net greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide. The trouble is that fossil fuels and nuclear power currently provide 80 percent of the world’s energy needs and we are far from being on track to replace them. Author Helen Raleigh grew up in Communist China. In an op-ed for the…

Kerby Anderson “Attacks on pro-life churches and pregnancy resource centers could become a daily occurrence.” That is the conclusion of a study done through the Religious Freedom Institute. They hired a former intelligence expert to analyze the various crimes against pro-life organizations (pregnancy centers, churches) that have occurred since the May 2 leak of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision. The study concluded that such attacks would become routine if liberal district attorneys and a complacent Justice Department refuse to prosecute…