Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson With the latest push for a $15 minimum wage, it is worth revisiting why many economists and politicians feel it is bad economic policy. Scott Morefield describes some of the consequences of doubling the minimum wage. The first objection is that it will destroy jobs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that upwards of 1.4 million jobs will be lost if the $15 minimum wage goes into effect. Raising the minimum wage helps those who keep their jobs, but…

Kerby Anderson This administration has declared a war on terror, but they aren’t thinking of a war on Islamic terrorism. No, they talk about a war on “violent extremists” in America. You might think they want to go after Antifa and other groups that have been rioting and vandalizing. But I don’t think they are the target either. There is a great deal of ambiguity in defining who are the targets of this new domestic war on extremists. And I…

Kerby Anderson Attacks on free speech are increasing so much so that even liberals are concerned about people who say that free speech is dangerous and needs to be controlled. Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University. He acknowledges that many may view him as a “free speech purist” but reminds us that his views used to be the mainstream view of free speech. He also explains that “public or private censorship does not produce better speech….

Kerby Anderson Do we have a crisis at the border? Earlier this month, the Biden administration acknowledged that it was a challenge but downplayed that it was a crisis. This statement shows how politicians change the rules and criteria in order to fit their narrative. Alejandro Mayorkas serves as the secretary of Homeland Security in the Biden administration. She rejected reporter questions about the crisis on the border by merely saying that it was a challenge. But it was the…

Penna Dexter On three successive days last week, three disturbing stories appeared in my inbox. The first reported that Amazon is blocking sales of the book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. The author is Ryan Anderson, who made a name for himself as a brilliant scholar at the Heritage Foundation and was recently appointed president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. We occupy a bizarre moment in history, when lots of people believe — and…

Kerby Anderson Research shows that Americans have less and less in common with each other. But there is a problem that the majority of Americans share: knowing what to believe. In 2019, Pew Research Center found that 64 percent of Americans have a hard time discerning truth when listening to elected officials. Eight-in-ten Americans believe Republicans and Democrats disagree about basic facts. The inability of both parties to agree on basic facts seems to be one of the only things…

Kerby Anderson Although it is difficult to predict the future, there are many trends that we can see coming. That is the premise of the book, Seven Gray Swans, written by Chuck Bentley. A black swan is an extremely unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected. By contrast, a gray swan is an obvious danger we tend to ignore. He describes seven gray swans that are on his radar right now. The first is universal basic income. Before…

Kerby Anderson When a liberal who is a former Democratic adviser warns that the nation is headed toward a totalitarian state, we need to pay attention. Naomi Wolf has served as an advisor to Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign in 1996 and recently voted for Joe Biden – a decision she is starting to regret. She has been posting warnings on Twitter for months, but she reached a larger audience of conservatives when she appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” She told…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about the decision by Amazon to no longer provide the book by Dr. Ryan Anderson on transgenderism. Ironically, Anderson didn’t even know his book was pulled until a reader told him. He logged onto Amazon and was greeted with a message that it was not a functioning page. That’s because free speech isn’t a functioning principle at that e-commerce company. Did Amazon and Jeff Bezos merely give into the woke mob? That is hard to…

Kerby Anderson Last year, Amazon began removing books the gatekeepers felt took the wrong side of the ongoing LGBTQ debate. Some of them weren’t the sort of books most small bookstores would deem to have on their shelves because of their mean-spirited tone. Then came Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. When I interviewed her on the book three months ago, we talked about some of the negative controversy that resulted in Target pulling the…

Penna Dexter It’s well known that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, supplying over half of all reported U.S. abortions. But the organization’s annual report shows that it’s also the second largest provider of hormone therapy to individuals who identify as transgender or who have gender dysphoria. Although this is called Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy, there’s no effort to affirm anyone’s biological gender. This therapy involves providing physically healthy teenagers with hormones designed to interfere with the natural…