• Hugh Hewitt: Hellscape at Sea
    Jun 24 2024

    “Hellscape.” That’s a dramatic word—but that is what awaits China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy if it is ordered to invade Taiwan by Xi Jinping.

    We know this because US Navy Admiral Samuel Paparo, who heads up PACOM, told us this through The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin:

    “I want to turn the Taiwan Strait into an unmanned hellscape using a number of classified capabilities,” Paparo told Rogin. “So that I can make [PLAN’s] lives utterly miserable for a month, which buys me the time for the rest of everything,” he continued.

    “Classified capabilities” means we can’t know the details or even the outline of the details. But Paparo did add “I can’t tell you what’s in” the plan to stop the Chinese invasion, “But,” he added, “it’s real and it’s deliverable.”

    The more that senior military figures like Paparo and figures in the intel and tech communities spell out the scenarios for the public through responsible outlets and the more Congress throws the spotlight on our most powerful enemies, the better off every American is.

    More from the senior brass, please. And soon.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 min
  • Seth Leibsohn: Protecting Life
    Jun 21 2024

    A new Gallup poll reveals that 32 percent of voters will vote exclusively for a candidate who shares their views on abortion. And, pro-choice voters dominate that record-high finding.

    There is nothing wrong with being a single-issue voter, but our concern is that this cows pro-life candidates to play down their pro-life views. The truth is, Americans are evenly split on being pro-choice and pro-life; in fact, majorities and pluralities of Americans regularly identify as pro-life.

    Only one-third of Americans support abortion in every and all circumstances—which means late term, and based on nothing but caprice. That, however, is the Democratic party position. Ask Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or any Democrat running for office where they would put a limit on abortion, you will get stonewalled—they will not answer.

    That is the extreme position. Rather than hide, we should expose this gruesomeness more. Our party and country were founded to protect life. That is something to be proud of and speak more about, not less.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 min
  • Albert Mohler: The United Methodist Church Disunited
    Jun 20 2024

    Let's just call it “the exodus of the faithful.” The United Methodist Church recently lost more than a million members—in a single day.

    In just one vote, the United Methodist Church experienced a massive exodus as a group of African Methodists declared they could abide the United Methodist Church's theological liberalism and moral revolt no longer.

    With that single vote, the Ivory Coast Annual Conference of the UMC just left the church taking 1.2 million members and declaring that “the new United Methodist Church which distances itself from the Holy Scriptures is no longer suitable.”

    The issues cover the entire LGBTQ waterfront.

    The Ivory Coast Annual Conference declared that the United Methodist Church “is not based in any biblical and disciplinary values,” and that it “is now based on sociocultural and contextual values, which have consumed its doctrinal and disciplinary integrity.”

    Well, they didn't mince words. The Methodists there in Africa serve as an example of what biblical faithfulness and gospel witness requires.

    God bless them.

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    1 min
  • Carol Platt Liebau: Biden Offering Citizenship for Multitudes of Illegals
    Jun 19 2024

    The Biden administration recently made a big splash about the President’s supposed mandate to reduce asylum claims from illegal immigrants at the border.

    But it’s important to look — not at what the administration is saying — but at what it’s actually doing. President Biden is now offering a path to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants married to US citizens. It would be one of the most sweeping immigration programs in decades. It’s effectively amnesty.

    This is in addition to the administration closing more than three hundred fifty thousand asylum cases since 2022. That decision has removed any requirement for illegal immigrants claiming asylum to touch base with authorities. They can travel throughout our country without being tracked, or risking deportation.

    So don’t be fooled. The Biden administration has no interest in addressing illegal immigration. Claims to the contrary are just election year theatrics.

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    1 min
  • Hugh Hewitt: Judge Merchan’s Partisan Disguise on Full Display
    Jun 18 2024

    Here’s the number one reason Trump should win on appeal:

    Juan Merchan, he’s the New York Manhattan trial judge who presided over the hush money trial of former president Donald Trump. The trial that returned 34 felony convictions. Merchan ought never to have accepted the case in the first place.

    Why: Because Merchan had made contributions to President Biden’s reelection campaign and to two anti-Republican and anti-Trump political action committees—something New York law absolutely prohibits.

    They were small, a total of thirty-five dollars, and they were illegal. One dollar, a million dollars—illegal.

    Merchan was free to remove himself—and he should have.

    I’ll cite just one section from New York’s rules governing judicial conduct:

    Section 100.5(A)(1): “Neither a sitting judge nor a candidate for public office to judicial office shall directly or indirectly engage in any political activity…”

    It goes on to absolutely prohibit political contributions.

    Merchan got a letter of admonition, a caution from the State Bar, but he asked an advisory committee whether or not he could take the case in an appeals court on an interlocutory appeal before the court said yeah, go ahead.

    Well, Merchan’s refusal to recuse will be studied by appeals court now in light of his many rulings against Trump in the course of the trial.

    Is there any doubt, outside feverish anti-Trump circles, that Merchan was compromised by his donations?

    Merchan is a partisan, and a robe doesn’t disguise the team jersey with the great big “D” he is wearing underneath it.

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    2 mins
  • Carol Platt Liebau: The Real Minimum Wage Is Always Zero
    Jun 17 2024

    No state can impose a twenty-five percent increase in its current minimum wage without expecting job creators to respond. So far, it’s been only two months since California raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers to twenty dollars per hour, but the negative impact is already clear.

    There have been massive job losses—up to ten thousand. Chipotle raised its menu prices by roughly seven percent and Chick-fil-A’s prices increased an average of eleven percent. Red Lobster filed for bankruptcy and Rubio’s closed a third of its restaurants.

    These outcomes were entirely predictable. Restaurants run on narrow margins. If the cost of paying employees rises, they have only a few options: Raise the cost of their food, cut employee hours, stop hiring — and fire workers.

    California’s experience recalls the sage observation of economist Thomas Sowell: the real minimum wage is always zero.

    Young California workers are paying the price.

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    1 min
  • Hugh Hewitt: Biden is No “Friend of Israel”
    Jun 14 2024

    President Biden can continue to refer to himself as a “friend of Israel,” but in recent weeks and indeed months, he has not been that.

    He once was a solid friend of Israel. He is no more.

    You don't treat allies in an existential war the way America has Israel under Joe Biden.

    Yes, we have had incredibly difficult allies in all our modern wars: Every post-invasion government in Iraq, every government in South Vietnam; Charles de Gaulle and Chiang Kai-shek in World War II for example, not to mention Joseph Stalin

    The key rule about allies in wartime was enunciated by Winston Churchill, who loathed Stalin, but welcomed the then USSR to the right side when the Nazis invaded Russia: “If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”

    Presidents do not turn against an ally they care about, especially one fighting for its life.

    Even if you can't stand their Prime Minister.

    “Friends” don’t slander friends.

    The Biden administration is certainly no friend to Israel.

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    1 min
  • Carol Platt Liebau: Bragg’s Lawfare Backfires
    Jun 13 2024

    Chalk it up to the law of unintended consequences. The Biden campaign welcomed Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Donald Trump.

    They expected the conviction to destroy Trump’s standing in the polls. They didn’t realize their lawfare would help Trump erode Biden’s last remaining advantage—his fundraising.

    In the first day after the guilty verdict, Trump raised $53 million dollars. His May total was an eye-popping $141 million dollars—almost twice as much as he raised in April. Trump had raised $124 million from 2021 through April of 2024. Now he’s more than doubled that figure.

    For context: Biden’s raised some $195 million to date.

    Given his sorry record, all Biden can do is demonize Trump. If the former president can summon the discipline to focus on a policy agenda for the future, he’s sitting in the catbird seat.

    It certainly looks like he’ll have the resources to get his message out.

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    1 min