Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's News

Republicans are reeling from the massive electoral defeat they’ve just suffered. Some argue that emboldened Democrats will inevitably overreach, handing Republicans the presidency and Congress in two years.

Perhaps.

But the most troubling implications of this election are long-term. Americans voted for avowed socialists. And they supported a candidate whose family has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

That’s more than a political problem. It’s an educational and cultural one.

For decades, our schools and our culture have taught generations of Americans that their country is irred...

There are many reasons for the stinging repudiation Republicans suffered at the polls this week. But none is more important than this:

As President Reagan understood, elections are about the future. Always. They’re about what voters want and need — and what politicians propose to do about it.

Any politician will run into trouble if he or she forgets that. Elections aren't about them. They're about the voters.

And any party that ignores voters’ priorities — offering no real accomplishments, no solutions, and no plans — is asking for defeat.

This election was ugly. Its...

Waking up to the shocking realities of Tuesday’s election—confused, resentful, and a bill of long-avoided realities—one might say we have all the conditions of a blackout or a hangover.  Let us then take cues from those 12-Step programs—and realize there is a problem, we are its cause, and our principles must be put above personalities.  2026 is a rude awakening, but it can commence our recovery.  Our nation, and the West, cannot afford denial.

The party’s and the movement’s ideals, taught from Lincoln to Coolidge to Reagan to Trump—as he campaigned in 2016 and 2024—...

Ronald Reagan used to quote the philosopher Montesquieu: “The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principle upon which it was founded.”  Reagan cited this point to warn us as more and more policies were enacted violating our principles of self- and limited government.  Later in his career, Reagan would also warn about our decayed and degraded state of knowledge about our own history.

Indeed, today, Americans’ knowledge about history and civics is at record lows, helping explain our new acceptance and promotion of literal socialist policies and politics in America.  Our education system, our schoo...

It's election day 2026, the midterm elections. What is at stake? Lots of governorships across the country. The control of the United States Senate, the control of the US House of Representatives, the future direction of Congress.

There are huge issues at stake. You know that's true in every election, but we know it's particularly true in this midterm election, 2026.

The future of our country is very much on the line, as is the future of states, the future of Congress. You just go down the list. America's role in the world is very much on...

Our long midterm election cycle has almost come to its end. What will follow it?

A long national nightmare – if voters don’t take Democrats at their word.

Their party no longer represents a loyal opposition. They have nominated House and Senate candidates who openly espouse the deadly ideology of Marxism, which imposes poverty and tyranny everywhere it has ever been tried. Their nominees now openly oppose the only Jewish state, perhaps our most strategic ally, while sympathizing with radical Islamists.

One Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, claims Iran is less of a th...

In 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a famous speech called “A Time for Choosing.”  A few years earlier, Paul Harvey delivered a famous broadcast entitled “The Testing Time.”  In those days of a heated fight against Marxism abroad and an aggressively expansive welfare state at home, we needed to be warned about a lot of decisions before us.

Both Marxism and the welfare state are here at home now. We are in such times again—times that are testing us, times where we are forced to choose, once again, not between right and left but up or down.

These time...

Barack Obama was back on the campaign trail in the run up to the election. And, as he so often does before an adoring crowd, he indulged his penchant for mockery.

Obama ridiculed President Trump’s White House renovations, joking that they looked like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” The crowd roared.

But perhaps Obama revealed more about himself than about the president. To make Trump the target, he made regular Americans the butt of the joke — people who happily patronize Cheesecake Factory on a night out.

Maybe they’re relatives of the “bitte...

Turnout, turnout, turnout. Everybody —everybody—agrees this year’s elections on November 3 come down to turnout.

If the ordinary GOP voters and the new voters Donald Trump brought to the Republican party show up on or before November 3, Republicans will hold on to their majority in the Senate and perhaps even the House. A blue tidal wave will be averted.

That is a big “if.” History tells us the midterms for a president in his sixth year can be tough.

If the GOP gets a “thumpin’”—President Bush’s description of what they got in 2006, it will...

In the 25 years since deadly terrorist attack shocked the entire world on September 11, 2001, our nation has been forced to have a conversation about Islam.

And from the George W. Bush administration to the Obama administration and the Biden administration, there's been one degree or another of evasion, both by these political leaders and by our cultural and intellectual elites.

The true nature of Islam is rarely acknowledged.

All this underlines the importance of an important new book by Eyman Ibrahim, the title of the book, “Sharia versus the US Constitution: Why Americans Must Ch...

Minnesota's massive fraud scandal could deliver a stunning Senate upset.

I’m referring to contest between longtime NFL broadcast professional Michele Tafoya and the Minnesota’s Lt. Governor, Peggy Flanagan. They’re squaring off in the senate race.

Tafoya demonstrated decades of quick on-camera thinking in her debate with Flanagan this week, combining it with a deft slash at Flanagan’s greatest vulnerability. That is: Flanagan’s apprenticeship as lieutenant governor to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz during the tidal wave of fraud that swept across Minnesota after Covid-era “look-the-other-way” policies became a feature, not a bug, in Minnes...

Ignoring the riots in France will not constitute the first time we downplayed important lessons from Europe at our peril.

Note the banners under which the protestors are rioting—the expanse includes every radical left-wing organization from the Revolutionary Socialist Party to Resiste Palestine to the International Communist League.  Palestinian flags and keffiyehs are everywhere. What do those movements have to do with what started out as a protest over education conditions? 

Everything.

The omni-cause of anti-Western civilizational sentiment is found in every part of today’s amalgamated left, yoking socialists’ Marxist philosophy to Islam...

Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin recently said something truly shocking. Speaking at the University of Chicago, she argued that Trump administration officials should be prosecuted—not because they’d actually done anything wrong, but to send a “deterrence message” to young people who might otherwise work for the administration.

She’s not alone. Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon has called for her Republican opponent to be “locked up” and “punished in jail.”

This is nothing more than mean-girl politics, but with real power behind it: vilify and ostracize anyone outside your group. Except now, instead of banishment from...

Scandal has once again hit CBS News, at least as defined by the rest of the Protection Racket Media. CBS reporters complained to Semafor's Max Tani that managing editor Bari Weiss has asked them to investigate Abdul El-Sayed’s many connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon. 

Instead, these ‘reporters’ want to make this race about Trump. At CNN,  Dana Bash tried to make Mike Rogers answer for Trump’s ridicule of El-Sayed. Rogers pushed back hard enough to make Bash retreat while saying, “ I don’t want to debate with you” after bringing it up i...

Every time there is an election, we often are dismissed for saying, “This election is the most important of our lifetime.”  We shouldn’t be.  Never before has the opposition been more entrenched in, or succumbed to, a radical Marxism and Islamism than it is now. If it wins, it would put asunder everything Secretary of State Marco Rubio was lecturing about regarding the importance of Western Civilization when he was in Greece.

In years past, many took comfort by glibly quoting Ronald Reagan’s warning about losing America, speaking about a day where our sunset years would be s...

Earlier this month, with a majestic view of the Acropolis of Athens behind him, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered an address in which he declared the enduring achievements of Western civilization, setting out a defense of the West while warning of the incalculable loss if that prized civilization were to be destroyed. 

It was a tour de force. As a statement of American power, it was clear and candid. Secretary Rubio met the moment and spoke with remarkable candor. Western civilization now faces an existential crisis and those who would defend the West had better seize t...

Michigan voters face a stark choice for U.S. Senate: Mike Rogers, a former congressman, state senator, and FBI agent. Or Abdul El-Sayed, whose radical views should alarm Americans.

Consider his hostility toward Israel. In last week’s debate, he repeatedly refused to say whether Iran, our adversary, poses a greater threat than Israel, our longtime ally. He’s described Israel as “bloodthirsty” and opposes sending it defensive weapons.

There are troubling questions, too, about his family’s associations. His half- sister, a University of Chicago professor, wrote that her family had longstanding ties to Egypt’s Mu...

Ken Paxton won the nomination to the US Senate in Texas despite personal baggage from the end of his marriage. His estranged wife, state senator Angela Paxton, took the extraordinary step of endorsing the Republican ticket – and reminded voters what really matters in this midterm cycle.

“In a general election,” Ms. Paxton explained, “it’s not as much about the individual players on the team. It’s getting the whole team across the finish line.” She never mentions her husband or the Senate race specifically but declares her intention to vote for the full GOP ticket. To do otherwise, Ms...

Democrats had one job to do in this cycle: Don't be crazy. But: Rather than offer a rational alternative to Donald Trump, the party has embraced Marxist revolutionaries and sympathizers of radical Islam as endorsed candidates.

And voters have noticed. A CBS poll from this summer indicated that 60 percent of Democrats held positive views of socialism. However, two successive polls from Center Square show a majority of voters have serious concerns about Democratic Socialists taking control of the Democrat Party.

This data shows Republicans have a real opportunity to get voters to deliver a harsh...

Pollsters and the media are predicting a blue wave. They point to President Trump’s low approval ratings and Democrats’ lead in congressional polling.

But this election is no foregone conclusion.

For one thing, summer Senate polls in recent election cycles have often overstated Democratic support. A polling lead isn’t a victory.

For another, Republican committees and outside groups have a huge financial advantage. Some major Democratic donors are withholding money from the national party, still angry about how their donations to Kamala Harris’s campaign were spent.

That leaves less mon...

There are certain things we just take for granted, or at least those of us of a certain age take for granted. Among those is the fact that when you get in a car, there’s a radio with the AM band. 

In the United States, that’s not an accident. It is at least partly because of federal mandates—going back to the early age of radio and automobiles.

There are some very important national security issues at stake here: 

I grew up in Florida. Look no further than the Cuban missile crisis f...

Now that the Democratic Socialists of America and their allies have engaged a non-hostile take-over of the Democratic party, prepare to see more and more professional Democrats try to deflect and project. This week, Donna Brazile wrote an op-ed saying the DSA is not a concern because House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will have the spine to prevent them from enacting their agenda.

That would be much more convincing if elected leaders of the Democratic party told us this. The only denunciations of the socialist growth within the Democratic party are from un-elected commentators—like Brazile.  Hakeem Jef...

The ugly face of Islamic terrorism has showed that face again.

I’m referring, of course, to the attempted hijacking of the FlyDubai plane by the co-pilot.

It was an extremely close call, averted only by heroism.

This is an enormous worldview issue. It comes down to the fact that civilization is and always is an achievement. Civilization is also more vulnerable than people think. 

Civilization built this aircraft—able to withstand the stressors put on it in the terrifying descent.

And civilization established the rules—rules having to do with...

Social media influencer Hasan Piker is now the face of the Democratic party.

Piker wears his Mao jacket and hoses his Twitch audience down with absurd political takes. Piker uses social media to monetize the worst impulses of the extremes in American politics. In the course of doing so, he personally carried the most radical major-party candidate in memory — Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed—to that party’s nomination for the United States Senate.

Piker has now gone so “supernova radical” that some Democratic leaders have tried to rebuke him without even naming him—including House Minority Lea...

One week after Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu reminded the United Nations of the Entebbe terrorist attack, an international pro-Palestinian plane hijacking where four Israeli hostages and Netanyahu’s brother were killed, another hijacking of a civilian airliner destined for Israel was attempted.  Media has downplayed it, but it took courage and honor for the civilian passengers to subdue the terrorist and rescue the plane, their families, and fellow passengers.

Had the terrorist been successful, no doubt there would have been celebrations throughout the Islamist world—from Gaza to the West Bank, and in New York, just as th...

Ronald Reagan used to quote the philosopher Montesquieu: “The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principle upon which it was founded.”  Reagan cited this point to warn us as more and more policies were enacted violating our principles of self- and limited government.  Later in his career, Reagan would also warn about our decayed and degraded state of knowledge about our own history.

Indeed, today, Americans’ knowledge about history and civics is at record lows, helping explain our new acceptance and promotion of literal socialist policies and politics in America.  Our education system, our schoo...

British police arrested five young men near an air base used by American forces. They were suspected of explosives offenses and preparing a terrorist act.

Today, all five are out on bail. Authorities call them British nationals but won’t release their names. Police are investigating possible foreign-state involvement. Iran denies any role.

The public’s been told almost nothing. And while investigators are still working out what happened, every suspect has been released.

Police say bail conditions are strict. But armed officers responded. Bomb disposal experts examined the scene. If the threat was...

25 Years After 9/11 The Americans and British are still wrestling with the big challenge we face and a crucial question:

Is the big challenge Islam?—or Islamism?

The Economist magazine recently published a notable cover story.

Where they argued —and I quote: “Islam poses no serious danger. But Islamism and the fear of Islam do.”

Then they argue Islam is not a threat, but Islamism is. They define it as a fringe ideology in Islam, the belief that government and society should be guided by Islamic principles.

The problem for that the...

We all learned it – or should have – in civics class. Congress makes the laws. The executive branch enforces them. And judges interpret them. But some federal judges in Minneapolis have forgotten it. 

Patrick Schiltz, until recently chief judge of Minnesota’s federal district court, just gave a remarkable 90-minute interview to the New York Times. Schiltz and other judges were sharply critical of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And as cases poured in, the judges met, consulted, and developed templates for court orders. 

Consider that. Judges personally opposed to administration policy were coordinating their rulings on...

In New York City this week, the United Nations is hosting 81st session of the U.N. General Assembly.

World leaders, you can count on this, will be discussing the deal President Trump announced with Denmark and Greenland they will allow the U.S. to deploy military throughout virtually all of the nation of Greenland.

President Trump posted: “The United States will forever have the complete ability to do what is necessary in Greenland.”

This is a big win for the U.S., Greenland - which is a semi-autonomous region of Denmark – and it’s b...

Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, in June of 2016—with promises of compassion. More than 100,000 assisted deaths later, the reality looks far different.

Last year, Canada had more MAID deaths than America had gun homicides -- despite America’s much larger population.

And now troubling questions are being raised about MAID. 

The family of eighty-three-year old Bridgitte Stegemann says she rejected assisted suicide because of her Christian faith. Later, they say, she lacked the ability to consent and wept inconsolably after learning she was scheduled to die.

  Forty-eight hours later...

With CNN, Politico, and MS NOW in high dudgeon over being denied access to the White House, you’d think it was the end of democracy.  What it is is the end of hypocrisy.

For years, CNN and her confederates have been unified in distorting the news when it comes to Donald Trump, and burying news about the Biden administration. So much so that their behavior hardly gives them any moral high ground.  We should recall well their efforts to stifle reporting on Joe Biden’s mental condition as well as their complicity in covering up the story...

The Supreme Court has long recognized that parents — not the state — have the primary right to direct their children’s upbringing.

But Massachusetts apparently wasn’t listening.

In December 2024, the state took a 15-year-old girl named Sophie from her home. Her school had been helping her socially transition. When her Catholic parents refused to use a male name or support a gender transition, they lost custody. Her family says they’re now barred from contacting her.

This is un-American. Massachusetts doesn’t care more about Sophie than her parents do. And holding traditional Catholic bel...

It seems like every morning lately brings a new warning about artificial intelligence along the lines of, “We’re all going to die!”

Dario Amodei—Anthropic’s chief executive—struck the panic chord in a recent essay, arguing AI was advancing too quickly for researchers to continue building it safely.

Then billionaire tech investor David Sacks struck back. In a post on X, Sacks rejected the “AI doomerism,” landing a roundhouse punch:

“Stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission,” Sacks wrote.

“Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. S...

205 Democrats voted early this month to leave the door open to packing the Supreme Court.

Everyone needs to be paying attention.

The original Constitution was silent as to the number of justices on the high court, but from 1866 to 1869, a combination of three statutes and one constitutional amendment put a constitutional imprimatur on the number nine. 

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868, by the necessary number of states then, and Secretary of State William Seward formally proclaimed the Fourteenth Amendment as part of the Constitution on July 28, 1868.

Less than a y...

After commemorating the 25th anniversary of 9/11, let’s remember the adage: when you lose something, do not lose the lesson. 

Did we learn the lessons of 9/11?

Those lessons include understanding the difference between good and evil, and never to confuse the two—calling evil good or good evil.  That has not been learned.

There are vast networks of terrorists in the world—all who want to destroy America and her allies. Much of the terrorist intellectual mindset now has great support in America, itself. Whether we are speaking of allies of the Muslim Brotherhoo...

Last week, Americans commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks carried out by Islamist extremists.

Afterward, our leaders rightly emphasized that America’s quarrel wasn’t with Muslims generally. And millions of peaceful, patriotic Muslims have made America their home.

But tolerance can’t require us to ignore a legitimate question about assimilation. Some beliefs found in significant parts of the Islamic world — about the treatment of women, Jews, religious minorities, or those who leave the faith — are completely at odds with American principles.

America has always welcomed immigrants of every faith. But immigratio...

Social media influencer Hasan Piker is now the face of the Democratic party.

Piker wears his Mao jacket and hoses his Twitch audience down with absurd political takes. Piker uses social media to monetize the worst impulses of the extremes in American politics. In the course of doing so, he personally carried the most radical major-party candidate in memory — Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed—to that party’s nomination for the United States Senate.

Piker has now gone so “supernova radical” that some Democratic leaders have tried to rebuke him without even naming him—including House Minority Lea...

When Gloria Steinem died last week, she was mourned across popular culture as a feminist icon. 

But her legacy was a mixed one. Many feminist reforms of the civil rights era were necessary and right — including laws against sex and pregnancy discrimination. 

But Steinem’s brand of feminism also had an anti-male streak that still poisons relations between the sexes today. She popularized the line: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”

Steinem promoted the idea that women find their greatest fulfillment through work outside the home—and Generations of women and...

The morning of September 11, 2001 was stunningly beautiful. It was a promising day as it started, and yet it would end as a day of horror that would be indelibly etched into the American psyche. Those beautiful skies carried mass murder and terror. Through those skies flew airliners turned into massive bombs, carrying human passengers who were exploded into dust. 

The sight of the airliners flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, smoke rising from the Pentagon, and then the towers burning and twisting and falling—all of it shown on television screens over and ove...