Commentary | The Arizona Sun Times

Commentary: Aileen Cannon Is a Portrait of a Judge in the Fractured Double Reality of American Justice

April 4, 2024 RealClearWire

The residents of Fort Pierce, Florida, are not accustomed to seeing dark SUVs and flashing motorcycles speed down the town’s main thoroughfare bordering the shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Part beach getaway, part working class community, the city is located about 60 miles north of the luxurious Palm Beach estate of the most famous – and frequent –criminal defendant in recent history: Donald J. Trump.

The former president has become a regular visitor to the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, more specifically, the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon who is presiding over the so-called classified documents trial.

Commentary: National Council of Teachers of English Hosts Seminar on How to Teach ‘Gender Queer’

April 4, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

The National Council of Teachers of English, a professional development organization, hosted remote training to instruct K-12 teachers on how to teach the controversial book “Gender Queer” in their “classrooms, libraries, and communities.”

The NCTE, which boasts 25,000 members around the United States, hosted a panel including “Gender Queer” author Maia Kobabe and an “LGBTQIA+ Advisory Committee” to discuss how to incorporate the pornographic book into school curriculum.

Commentary: New Details Emerge of Afghanistan Chaos

April 3, 2024 RealClearWire

New testimony from those who witnessed firsthand the confusion and chaos of the Afghanistan withdrawal further contradicts President Biden’s assertion that the hurried and violent end to the longest war in American history was an “extraordinary success.”

In a transcribed interview before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, former Foreign Service officer Samuel Aronson said the very opposite in living, harrowing color. “Let me be clear,” he told lawmakers behind closed doors, “I cannot call this evacuation a success.”

Commentary: Biden’s Big Bet on Military Abortions Falls Flat

April 3, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, President Joe Biden has made it a top priority to use any and all administrative actions to promote and pay for abortions with taxpayer money.

No single related action garnered more attention than Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s announcement that the Defense Department would use taxpayer funds to pay for abortion travel. Now, a new Pentagon report finds that the Biden administration’s abortion travel policy for service members and dependents was used only 12 times from June through December.

Julie Kelly Commentary: Ties Between Judge Merchan’s ‘Child’ and Adam Schiff Represent Major Conflict in Hush Money Trial

April 2, 2024 Julie Kelly

At the end of 2019, Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was leading the first impeachment effort against President Donald Trump.

Commentary: With ‘Friends’ Like Obrador, Enemies Like Putin, Xi, Kim Jong are Old News

April 2, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

In a recent 60 Minutes interview, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador—who prefers to be known as AMLO for short—issued to the Biden administration blackmail demands that sounded more like existential threats.

AMLO warned the U.S. that the current influx of some 10 million illegal aliens through the southern border will most certainly continue—unless America agrees to his ultimatums.

Commentary: Supreme Court Takes on California’s Uber-Disclosure Laws Aiming to Crack Down on ‘Dark Money’ Ads

April 2, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

When you watch a political ad, often you’ll see a disclaimer of who the ad was paid for by, usually a political action committee, but what about the donors to the committee? Or the donor’s donors?

That’s the bridge that a San Francisco campaign finance law seeks to cross — now being challenged at the U.S. Supreme Court in No on E v. Chiu — and to prohibit an incredibly common practice in campaign finance, which are donations from anonymous sources.

Commentary: Big Tech Wants to Sneak Its AI Agenda Through State Legislatures

April 2, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Connecticut State Sen. James Moroney with Texas State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione

Most conservatives are aware Big Tech is an insidious force in American life. Tech giants censor free speech, promote wokeness, and fund far-left groups. A number of Republicans at the federal level want to curtail the massive power Big Tech wields in our country.

However, at the state level, many Republicans are lining up to serve the interests of the tech giants. Big Tech knows that there’s little appetite at the federal level to do its bidding. So corporations like Microsoft are now lobbying state legislators to enact the AI regulations they want. It’s a campaign few Americans know about, but it could dramatically impact their lives.

Commentary: Society’s Dangerous Embrace of Stupidity

April 1, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Stupidity is what our schools are about. They do not teach young people about the glory of Melville, if they teach Melville at all, but about how Melville does or does not fit into some gridwork of identity politics, so that the work of art and intelligence itself, Moby-Dick, is left on the shore like a beached whale, dead and stinking, while onlookers in their stupidity hold their noses and pass by.

Commentary: Easter Is the Greatest Holiday of All Time

March 31, 2024March 31, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Among world religions, only Christianity has a founder who professed to be the Messiah—the Son of God—who gave his life to save mankind.

The Easter weekend starts with Good Friday, the day God’s son Jesus was crucified to fulfill His plan to provide salvation from sin for those who believe in Christ. Easter Sunday is the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the third day from his crucifixion death, and the completion of God’s plan for all to know who Jesus was.

Commentary: The Resurrection of Jesus Is the Most Important Event in History

March 31, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Christians around the world will commemorate the most important event in our faith’s history this Sunday, but the Resurrection of Jesus isn’t just important to those who believe a Nazarene who walked the earth 2,000 years ago is the Son of God. The secular world’s history also turns on this pivotal event, which inspired so much progress that we take for granted today.

Christianity turned the values of the Pagan Roman world upside-down. The Romans considered the early Christians subversives—many called them “atheists” because they didn’t worship any pagan gods—and put them to death for refusing to worship the emperor. After some emperors adopted the faith, Emperor Julian attempted to revive paganism, but lamented that the Christian ethic had transformed the empire.

Commentary: The Side of Homeschooling People Don’t Talk About Enough

March 31, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

As a veteran homeschooler, I am well aware of what a marathon this lifestyle can be. There’s no break when you live and work in the same place.

It’s time to take a deep breath and assess the situation. Burnout is a normal part of homeschooling. Everyone experiences it at one time or another, and it’s often associated with feelings of being distracted, overworked, and overwhelmed.

Commentary: Self-Servant Leadership

March 31, 2024 RealClearWire

“With all due respect, guys, I’m here for the families of Abbey Gate.”

Said the man in the cool blue suit at a congressional hearing last week in Washington.

Back straight, eyes serious, spool of white hair parted to one side, he looked authoritative. Here was the Ivy League grad finally freed from the oversized camouflage utilities once draped like a battle tunic over his squarish frame.

Commentary: The Biden EV Plan Needs American Mining

March 30, 2024 RealClearWire

The Biden administration has just supercharged the electric vehicle (EV) revolution. With its finalized tailpipe emissions rule, the administration expects that by 2032 70% of new U.S. car sales will be electric.

This lightning-fast transformation of the nation’s car fleet faces myriad challenges but perhaps none are greater than sourcing the minerals needed for millions of EVs and addressing the nation’s alarming reliance on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains.

Commentary: The Myth of the Pagan Origins of Easter

March 30, 2024March 31, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

You may not get any chocolate bunnies this Easter, but you’re bound to stumble across an article or meme suggesting that the story of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead is just a reincarnation of some pagan myth. Whether it’s Ishtar, Osiris, or Attis, these claims are tantalizing but devoid of scholarly content–much like the sugar rush of the chocolate bunny, with its deficit of actual nourishment.

Claims like these are at least as old as James Frazer’s The Golden Bough, published in 1890. However, they circulate routinely in new packaging. Unfortunately, the public tends to remain ignorant of the results of alternative scholarship. Sensationalism (like sex) sells. So does controversy. And when the sensation or the controversy revolves around beliefs that millions believe in whole-heartedly, sorting fact from fiction becomes increasingly difficult.

Commentary: In 2024, Digital Is Everything in Politics

March 30, 2024 RealClearWire

As the 2024 election heats up, now is the time for campaigns to invest wisely. Questions abound: Do you invest in cable news advertising? Door-to-door canvassing? Social media? Something else?

For answers, I look back to the past. In 2000, I oversaw the South Carolina Republican Party’s history-making effort to post real-time presidential primary results online. The election night vote-counting for the epic Bush vs. McCain battle played out on screens across the world – not just in the South Carolina GOP’s vote tabulation center. On that night, the ground shifted beneath our feet.

Commentary: Voters Be Beware That Google Interferes in U.S. Elections

March 29, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

A brand new investigation has found that Google interfered in American elections at least 41 times over the last 16 years.

Published on March 18, the Media Research Center Special Report traced election interference efforts by the world’s most popular search engine all the way back to the 2008 election of former President Barack Obama.

Commentary: The Ever-Continuous Villaining of Joe Biden and His Minions

March 29, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

I’ve discussed the “hero’s journey of Donald Trump” here in this column multiple times — and it turns out I couldn’t get away from it even if I wanted to. Every day we hear a drumbeat of evidence that the Left — the media-governmental-intelligence Deep State complex that has declared war on the entire world, with the free American people its primary enemy — has gone absolutely off the deep end.

Villains gonna villain, y’all. And these villains are villaining like the clock is running out on them.

Commentary: My Friend Joe

March 28, 2024 RealClearWire

I write now, in the worst pain and shock, with news of my friend Joe Lieberman’s death just moments ago. I write because I know what his critics will be quick to write, what news reports have already re-circulated.

Commentary: The Plague That Besets Our Schools Is Extensive

March 28, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

The year, now a quarter old, reveals that the country’s rapid slide into educational purgatory is moving apace. Leading off the grossness parade is a school in Oklahoma where students lick and suck the armpits and toes of their fellow students in the name of charity. (This may garner a shrug in San Francisco, but Oklahoma?!)

While no district personnel were directly involved, video footage from Deer Creek High School in Edmond, OK, showed mid-teens participating in and watching the disgusting events unfold.

Commentary: Americans Don’t Know About Laken Riley’s Murder

March 27, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

How do we stop tragedies like the murder of Laken Riley if Americans do not even know the details of her horrific yet completely preventable homicide?

Thankfully, highly politically engaged citizens know well the details of Laken’s vicious murder on the University of Georgia campus one month ago. In broad daylight, the 22-year-old nursing student was out jogging when she was brutally slain in an unprovoked attack. Jose Antonio Ibarra has been charged with her murder.

Commentary: ‘Vice President J.D. Vance’ Could Be Just the Ticket We Need

March 27, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Donald Trump has locked up the necessary delegates for the Republican presidential nomination, which means it’s time for every political junkie’s favorite quadrennial game: Veepstakes!

Every four years, commentators, political consultants, and elected officials all chime in with their takes on who a presidential candidate’s running mate should be. Perhaps the candidate ought to select a veep from a swing state. Perhaps the candidate ought to select someone who fits a certain demographic box. Maybe the candidate ought to pick someone with a very similar political philosophy—or perhaps someone whose ideological bona fides assuage any lingering concerns that party loyalists might harbor about the man at the top of the ticket. Or maybe it’s really as easy as picking someone who the presidential nominee simply likes and vibes with on a personal level.

Commentary: The Many Ways a Porous Border Means Crime Without Boundaries

March 27, 2024 RealClearWire

When President Biden’s supporters attacked him for describing the man who allegedly murdered Georgia co-ed Laken Reilly as an “illegal,” they shined a light on one of the most contested words in American politics.

The progressive push to describe border crossers as undocumented or unauthorized can also serve to downplay and obscure the massive issue of crime perpetrated and spawned by the influx of millions of migrants since Biden was elected – often in ways that leave the migrants themselves as victims.

Commentary: Will DEI End America or America End DEI?

March 26, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

At the nexus of most of America’s current crises, the diversity/equity/inclusion dogma can be found. The southern border has been destroyed because the Democratic Party wanted the poor of the southern hemisphere to be counted in the census, to vote if possible in poorly audited mail-in elections, and to build upon constituencies that demand government help. Opposition to such cynicism and the de facto destruction of enforcement of U.S. immigration law is written off as “racism,” “nativism,” and “xenophobia.”

The military is short more than 40,000 soldiers. The Pentagon may fault youth gangs, drug use, or a tight labor market. But the real shortfall is mostly due inordinately to reluctant white males who have been smeared by some of the military elite as suspected “white supremacists,” despite dying at twice their demographics in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they are now passing on joining up despite their families’ often multigenerational combat service.

Commentary: Elon Musk is Right, We Are in a Fight to the Death for Free Speech

March 26, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Elon Musk on March 21 in a post on the X platform outlined what he called “centrist” positions on issues like securing the border, protecting American cities, reducing federal spending, ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) reverse discrimination policies, ending youth transgender surgeries and protecting freedom of speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution, saying these are not “right-wing” positions.

Musk wrote, “This is a battle to the death with the anti-civilizational woke mind virus. My positions are centrist: … Secure borders … Safe & clean cities … Don’t bankrupt America with spending … Racism against any race is wrong … No sterilization below age of consent … Is this right-wing?” In a second post in the thread, he added, “And, although it shouldn’t need to said, I believe in the Constitution and freedom of speech.”

Commentary: With RNC Shakeup, MAGA Brings Accountability to the Republican Party

March 25, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Michael Whatley and Lara Trump (composite image)

An insidious institutional rot has long afflicted the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement. Historically, this has presented a vexing problem for grassroots activists desperate to change the status quo. Now, after Herculean efforts by players big and small, it appears that the rabble-rousing of the MAGA faithful is finally paying off.

New Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley and Vice Chairwoman Lara Trump have brought immediate change to the institution, working with senior Trump campaign advisor Chris LaCivita to streamline this leviathan. Whereas former RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney-McDaniel did not make the systemic changes needed to support a modern campaign infrastructure, the new team has wasted no time taking a hatchet to overpriced, underworked, and misaligned elements of the organization.

Commentary: Unraveling Allegations of Biden Family Influence Peddling Through Tony Bobulinski’s Testimony

March 25, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

The entertainment committee never sleeps. Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski came to Congress a few days ago to testify before the House Oversight Committee about Hunter, his uncle Jim Biden, and the “Big Guy,” Mr. 10 percent, Joseph R. Biden himself. It was an extraordinary performance. Calm. Deliberate. Detailed. Deadly. Mr. Bobulinski’s written statement shows what care he took in marshaling facts and evidence.

Commentary: DOD Must Strengthen Support for Veterans

March 25, 2024 RealClearWire

Veterans have positively impacted the success of our nation since its inception. Our nation’s service members make up every aspect of our society and represent every ethnic group at some level. Military service is highly regarded by the vast majority of our nation. For many, it provides a chance to grow, transform and serve something greater than themselves. Countless veterans continue their service to their country as leaders in business, government, and their communities. Their inherent leadership skills coupled with a time-honored ethos make them first-round draft choices for any organization.

Although many veterans find the path to the next chapter of their life a rewarding and exciting time, too many struggle, often because civilian and government organizations have little to no real understanding of military service’s attributes. Some of our nation’s most successful businesses have active recruitment of veterans and veteran resource groups in their companies. This isn’t sentimental – they have benefitted from that investment. Many more could benefit from a more in-depth understanding of what veterans truly offer.

Commentary: Big Pharma’s Wokeness

March 24, 2024March 24, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Big Pharma is not your friend. Whether it’s hiking up drug prices or bribing the Swamp, the pharmaceutical industry works against the people’s interests. Many Americans are aware of Big Pharma’s greed and the power it wields over Washington, D.C., but fewer are aware of just how left-wing the industry is. It serves as a cash cow for the left and pushes woke ideas on its employees and the country at large. This may explain why Democrats, who act like they hate Big Pharma, serve the industry’s interests.

While the drugmakers spread their cash around all of DC, they overwhelmingly prefer Democrats. In recent elections, Big Pharma donated significantly more money to Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. From 2016 to 2022, the industry gave a whopping $29 million to Democratic candidates. This trend stands true for the current election cycle, with more cash going to Democrats once again. This favoritism extends to the presidential race. The drug lobby has donated four times more money to Joe Biden than it has to Donald Trump. And the industry’s generosity to Team Blue doesn’t end with individual candidates. Its chief lobby, PhRMA, also gives millions to liberal campaign arms like the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

Commentary: The Human Tragedy in Haiti

March 24, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Since late February, gang violence in Haiti has surged, overwhelming government and security forces and plunging the nation into further turmoil. The United Nations estimates that armed gangs now control 80 percent of the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince.

The recent wave of violence in the Caribbean nation’s ongoing gang wars erupted as multiple armed groups banded together, pledging to oust Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who came to power after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and announced postponing Haiti’s elections again last year.

Commentary: Biden EPA’s Latter-Day Prohibition Targets Auto Industry

March 24, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Not since Prohibition has the federal government sought to ban a product as popular as the internal combustion engine.

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency released its final emissions standards rule, requiring that 70% of new vehicle sales be pure battery-powered electric or hybrids by 2032.

Commentary: Biden’s Border Blowup

March 23, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Some 8 to 10 million illegal aliens from all over the world, as expected, have flooded across the border since Joe Biden took office.

A demagogic candidate Biden, remember, in 2019 invited those massing at the southern border to “surge” into the United States without specifying they first needed legal sanction: “We immediately surge to the border all those seeking asylum.”

Commentary: Gov. Al Smith and the Anti-Trump Republicans

March 23, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

As I’ve watched some of President Donald Trump’s former appointees and allies say they can’t support him in 2024, I was reminded of a similar scenario in American history.

In 1936, Former New York Gov. Al Smith decided that he could not support President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s re-election.

Commentary: Dressing Traditionally Matters

March 23, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

It doesn’t take a fashion designer’s sense to notice the decline of American clothing in the last few decades. The neat suits and dresses of yesteryear have been replaced with stretchy athleisure, the hats and coats vanished in favor of sweatshirts and leggings.

Quite honestly, I don’t think fashion and clothing is all that important. Sure, we’ve lost some aesthetics and have nearly erased any sense of modesty. But in the end, clothes are still just clothes, right?

Commentary: Biden’s DOJ Thumbs Nose at SCOTUS on Key J6 Felony Charge

March 22, 2024 Julie Kelly

Donald Trump filed his brief Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his argument that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. Noting the lack of historical precedent and dire ramifications for the future, Trump’s attorneys warned that “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”

Oral arguments on the groundbreaking question are set for April 25; a final opinion, which could be announced in late May or sometime in June before the current SCOTUS term ends, represents a do-or-die situation for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president for the events of January 6 and his alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The case is now on hold awaiting a decision by SCOTUS.

Alan Dershowitz Commentary: Fani Willis Must Still Be Disqualified

March 22, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Just as predicted, Judge Scott McAfee tried to cut the baby in half, but the baby died, because his split-the-difference opinion makes absolutely no sense legally or factually.

It is obvious that Judge McAfee started his decision-making process by deciding the result he wanted: disqualifying special prosecutor Nathan Wade, but retaining Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her entire office. In order to reach that bizarre result, he had to rely on the testimony of Willis, which he knew was totally untruthful.

Commentary: A Huge Double-Digit Decline in the Share of Black Voters Saying Biden’s Policies Have Helped Them Could Shake Up 2024 Election

March 21, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

After supporting Democrats for decades, Black Americans are poised to make a marked shift away from the left thanks to the Biden Administration’s dismal economic record and abandonment of the working-class.

A striking New York Times/Siena College poll from early March shows the share of Black Americans who say Biden’s policies have “helped them personally” has taken a forty-one-point nosedive since last November’s Times/Siena battleground state poll.

Commentary: The Gift of C-SPAN in an Era of Partisan Media

March 21, 2024 RealClearWire

Forty-five years ago today, future vice president Albert Gore Jr. stood in the well of the House of Representatives to discuss an innovative development in television programming. There was nothing remarkable about that in itself: Al Gore had been a newspaperman before becoming a Tennessee congressman and had a genuine interest in both new technology and mass communication.

Except that there was something momentous about Gore’s speech that day. It was the first time that remarks delivered on the House floor by a member of Congress were televised. It was an event long envisioned by a 38-year-old Indiana-born, Purdue-educated, U.S. Navy veteran who had worked as a White House and Capitol Hill aide before returning to journalism. His name was Brian Lamb. As the Washington bureau chief of the trade publication Cablevision, Lamb had dreamed of creating a nonprofit cable network that would focus exclusively on public affairs, particularly Congress. It was called C-SPAN, and on March 19, 1979, that dream became reality.

Commentary: It’s Time for GOP to Unite Behind Trump

March 20, 2024 RealClearWire

For the first time in my 94 years on earth, I fear for the future of our democracy. I see the federal government using its enormous powers with contempt for the governed instead of with the consent of the governed as our founders envisioned.

Fundamental change in America is occurring by executive order or the force of the government’s police powers instead of through the legislative process required by the Constitution. From this, I fear that free market capitalism may be replaced by big government socialism. I also fear the erosion of our rights and freedoms, including parental rights, freedom of speech and religion, and due process.

Commentary: Why the ‘Language Watch?’

March 20, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

Who is in charge of the language? Not us conservatives, that’s for sure. We are flotsam flowing with the waters formulated by the liberal establishment and culture. We are using their language constructs. No longer.

We are creating a series of short videos, about one minute each, plucking a phrase from those polluted waters and explaining why it is polluted, propagandistic, and not worthy of use in a society that more than ever needs a common language not loaded with political narratives. We are calling the series “Language Watch.”

Commentary: The Vast and Rapid Expansion of Mail-In Balloting Facilitates Election Skulduggery

March 19, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

In the absence of an extremely unlikely recovery of public confidence in the President and the Democrats, the voters will attempt to return the White House and the Senate to the Republicans in November. As to the presidency, Trump is the beneficiary of an accelerating collapse in the traditional Democratic coalition that rested on a foundation of white working class and minority voters.

Commentary: If H.R. 7521 Was Only About TikTok, the Bill Would Only Apply to TikTok

March 19, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

“The TikTok bill gives Biden the power to ban websites & apps run by ‘a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity.’ Given that Biden routinely smears political opponents as being under the control of Putin, the danger should be obvious.”

That was entrepreneur David Sacks on X (formerly Twitter) on March 13 noting the fact that H.R. 7521, which has easily passed the House and is now on a fast track in the U.S Senate will give the President, right now it’s Joe Biden but also future presidents, can force divestiture of any website or application or else have it removed from hosting services if the President determines it is run by “a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity” including Russia, China, North Korea or Iran.

Commentary: A Call for All Americans to Help Stop Veteran Suicides

March 19, 2024 RealClearWire

Later this month will mark a year from a day that shocked the Veteran community. On March 27, 2023, I along with many Americans were saddened to learn of the unfortunate passing of Navy SEAL Veteran Douglas “Mike” Day.

Commentary: Eight Resources to Get People Started in Homeschool

March 19, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

If you’re feeling unqualified to homeschool, you’re not alone. The question of what and how to teach stressed me out early on in my homeschooling journey.

I found that having a good curriculum did a great deal to reduce my fears of not being qualified to teach. I wanted to strike a balance between bookwork, memorization, and fun interactive activities. I wanted to make sure to impart to my kids the basic body of knowledge necessary for a good education, yet I didn’t want to burn them out with endless worksheets.

Commentary: Biden Administration Abuses U.S. Intelligence Community to Undermine Netanyahu’s Leadership

March 19, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

President Joe Biden and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Something reprehensible happened this week during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s annual worldwide threats report. In addition to discussing threats to our country from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and terrorist groups, the report questioned the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said large protests in Israel demanding his resignation could drive him from power.

Commentary: Crafting a New Image for Justice in America

March 18, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

American flag behind barbed wire and fence

Were I of a more entrepreneurial bent, I might go into the statuary business. I would specialize in those statues of “Justice” one sees, or used to see, decorating the façades of courthouses. The old-fashioned, now deprecated models featured a berobed and blindfolded female figure holding aloft a pair of scales. The symbology, now on its way to the graveyard of discarded ideas, was simple but noble. Justice was blindfolded because she was no respecter of persons. Neither rank nor party nor sex nor ethnic origin would figure into her calculation of guilt or innocence. She held scales to emphasize her devotion to impartiality.

Since those ideals have long since been superseded, my thought was to go into business producing new statues of Justice. The figure could still be female, or at least identify as female, but it should probably be obese and sport dreadlocks. She—or “she”—should not be wearing a robe but rather a T-shirt and dungarees. Instead of a blindfold, this new figure of justice would sport a pride-flag pin and a WinBlue membership card. She would still brandish scales, but one side would be loaded down with affidavits, subpoenas, and indictments.

Commentary: Electric Transmission Buildout Could Cost Americans Trillions of Dollars

March 18, 2024 RealClearWire

Though windmills and solar panels get the headlines, the big energy topic in Washington is electric transmission. Whether it is Congress’s newfound interest in permitting reform, the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Grid Deployment Office, or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) upcoming final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, how to build and pay for long-range transmission to connect generators to customers is considered the final piece in the quest to meet net-zero goals.

Like so many issues in Washington, the need for more transmission lines is accepted without question and the costs are not considered. But for American consumers, especially low-income and elderly, as well as small businesses and energy intense manufacturers, building new transmission lines could result in much higher monthly bills and leave them on the hook for stranded assets.

Commentary: 10 Things to Know About the Real St. Patrick

March 17, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

On March 17, people around the world will celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by parading in green hats, sporting images of shamrocks and leprechauns – tiny, grinning, fairy men – pinned to their lapels. Patrick’s picture will adorn greeting cards: an aged, bearded bishop in flowing robes, grasping a bishop’s staff and glaring at a coil of snakes.

The icon refers to one of Patrick’s legendary miracles in which he is said to have prayed to banish all snakes from Ireland. However, as a historian of medieval Ireland, I can assure you that the real St. Patrick, who lived and worked in the fifth century, never saw a snake or wore a shamrock.

Commentary: The 10 Senate Seats Most Likely to Flip

March 17, 2024 RealClearWire

The 2024 presidential election has grabbed most of the headlines recently, but the Senate races are taking shape under the radar. Here is a preview of the 10 most likely to flip.

Commentary: Cabrini Film Calls Audiences to Dedicated Service and Unwavering Faith

March 17, 2024 Arizona Sun Times Staff

On International Women’s Day, March 8, Angel Studios’ latest film, Cabrini, was released in theaters across America. The movie tells the incredible true story of the first American saint, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, and her mission to help vulnerable, impoverished, and destitute immigrants in the United States.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, millions of Italian immigrants came to America, most through Ellis Island, in search of their American dream. But many who journeyed in search of opportunity were met with poverty, desperation, and difficulty. Italian immigrants were ostracized from society, perceived to be of inferior intelligence, and struggled to speak English.