A trigger warning of this sort could only mean one thing: Leonhardt was preparing his fragile readership to confront a heresy that had become so undeniable that not even the New York Times could suppress it. 

The article, “Thousands Believe Covid Vaccines Harmed Them,” written by acclaimed global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli, probably did trigger the most thoroughly enbubbled New York Times readers. One could imagine legions of pink-hatted Karens reading it and then tossing the Gray Lady into the fireplace before darting to the New York Times comment section to issue anti-anti-vaxxer screeds. 

But the report, which is a disorienting blend of COVID vaccine horror storytelling and COVID vaccine apologism, left me in a rage for a different reason.

Approximately three years ago, I suffered what appears to be permanent hearing loss in my left ear following my second Moderna shot. Like a sap, I actually believed the government and legacy media line about vaccine safety and efficacy. (I also believed claims that masks reduced the spread of infection and that the virus had a natural origin, both of which turned out to be false.) 

In the years since, I’ve spent thousands in medical expenses in order to determine the cause: more than a dozen blood panels, a CT scan, allergy tests (the one where they stick the needles in your back), and visits to numerous ear, nose, and throat doctors. In the end, not one doctor could say what happened for sure, only that there had been “an event” that caused my ear to whoosh like the ocean for a few days before giving way to a persistent “buzz” and a feeling of fullness.

Now, I’d always suspected that either COVID itself or the vaccine could have played a role in my hearing loss, but I never had the nerve to ask one of these doctors point-blank. After all, the white coats on cable news not only ridiculed skeptics of COVID vaccine orthodoxy but treated them as if they were social terrorists (I’m looking at you, Peter Hotez). 

Who can forget the New York Times report in April 2021 (the very month I decided to get the first dose) that attempted to cast all vaccine skeptics as paranoid religious freaks who were beyond the appeal to reason? It was in this environment of extreme coercion that I chose to take an unnecessary vaccine — young, healthy men were not at risk of dying from the disease and vaccination didn’t stop the spread of infection — that left me half-deaf. 

Not that I’m special. Indeed, nearly everyone knows someone who has suffered a health episode following the shot. The stories recounted in the Mandavilli report aren’t news to anyone who hasn’t been covering their ears for the past three years. On the contrary, they are immediately familiar. 

Take the story of Dr. Gregory Poland, editor of the journal Vaccine. The New York Times reports, “A loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but … his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.” Mandavilli reports that he “has since sought solace in meditation and his religious faith.”

Then there’s Dr. Ilka Warshawsky, a 58-year-old pathologist who lost hearing in her right ear following a COVID booster shot. She has since suffered from vertigo and tinnitus. 

Shaun Barcavage, a nurse practitioner in New York City, experienced symptoms suggestive of postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which has now been linked to the COVID vaccine. He has attempted to obtain government help, but has been dismissed at every turn. “I am told I’m not real. I’m told I’m rare. I’m told I’m coincidence,” he said.

The focus on the injuries of medical professionals was intentional — Mandavilli herself said so in the comment section of the article. This is laudable because for years the public has been force-fed the views of only a certain kind of scientist and medical official, while highly credible dissenters within the scientific community, such as Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who authored the Great Barrington Declaration, were censored and systematically smeared by the Anthony Faucis of the world. In the case of the vaccine and other issues related to the pandemic, a robust public discourse between health officials could have prevented so much suffering in both public health and the economy. 

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But as we know, the legacy media was only ever interested in politicizing the pandemic by framing it as yet another front in “the resistance.” Their refusal to investigate and report facts that contradicted their contrived narrative is the fundamental cause of the distrust and cynicism toward the vaccine — not “anti-vax conspiracy theorists.” We were all made dumber for their efforts, and some of us suffered real damage as a consequence.

Make no mistake, the New York Times’s willingness to report on COVID vaccine injuries is a welcome development. But in terms of regaining the public’s trust, it’s too little, too late.

Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, and the National Catholic Register.

Polls in May don’t predict results in November with exactness. However, the numbers rightly elicit concern among Democrats. Their candidate clearly is behind at this point in the race. He cannot lose those five states and hold any plausible path to victory.

In an important way, the two candidates have switched roles since their first match in 2020. A number of persuadable voters placed the blame for the upheavals and anxieties related to the COVID-19 pandemic on Trump. His own personality also received constant attention. While exhilarating to his base, his acerbic and mercurial demeanor enraged opponents and exhausted persuadable voters.

In 2020, Biden presented himself as the calm, statesmanlike alternative to Trump. When he did campaign at all, he often focused on bringing back dignity and stability to the office. A return to normalcy held powerful sway over a significant segment of the electorate that fall.

Now, Biden sits in the Oval Office. The return to normalcy never materialized. Instead, his tenure has involved the worst inflation in 40 years. Its early moments included an inept, disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. And Biden’s supposed calm stability has looked more like aged insufficiency, a man whose mental and physical energy no longer can rise to the task of the world’s most powerful executive office.

Now, people remember the Trump years more fondly. They even see it as a time of stability in at least one important way — the economy. People’s financial lives tended to be better during the majority of his term and the continued stresses of the moment remind voters constantly of that fact. 

The economic point matters greatly. The Times/Siena poll makes clear that family finances now stand as the main issue driving voter preferences. Yes, there are voters who care about immigration, abortion, and wars in Europe and the Middle East. Those will play an important part in how voters decide to cast their ballots this fall. But Democratic strategist James Carville’s phrase, coined for former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, remains remarkably predictive: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Biden’s defenders have tried to tell people that things are great. They point to easing inflation and strong hiring numbers. However, people have yet to get over the shock of inflation that started back in 2022. And they still live with its after-effects, witnessed with every grocery trip or car repair. To tell voters all is fine ignores this reality and belittles voters in the process of trying to woo them.

Thus, people seem to be thinking in a way similar to 2020. They don’t like how things are and would like change. This general disposition helped Biden secure many votes from men and women in 2020. Especially important in that story were those who did not particularly like either candidate and among whom Biden seemed to do very well.

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Those voters still exist in significant numbers, as few beyond the most politically infatuated Americans hold any excitement for the rematch that is the 2024 presidential race. But if the American people still do not care for the state of the country, that will fall on the incumbent.

The same wind that sailed Biden’s campaign to victory four years ago now seems poised to return Trump to the White House. If the Biden campaign refuses to see that basic dynamic, it only will have added another reason for deserving defeat.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

And as her political career begins its downward trajectory into oblivion, the governor regularly debasing herself for the benefit of former President Donald Trump, Noem has become a walking cautionary tale, a real-life warning about the corrupting influence of power. 

When Noem came to the House of Representatives in 2010, a beneficiary of the “red wave,” she was restrained and composed. She behaved as one would hope for someone entrusted with the tremendous duty of serving in the most powerful legislative body in the world. Noem gave the impression that she was at least tangentially serious about responsible and practical governance. She was low drama and not in any way prone to self-inflicted scandals, incendiary rhetoric, or any of the overtly cynical fundraising gimmicks that are so popular today among members of Congress. For her diligence and maturity, she was awarded increasingly influential committee assignments. She was a reliable and loyal Republican but didn’t always vote the party line. Noem seemed to have a mind of her own. She appeared the rare grown-up in a body of immature lowlifes.

Even if it wasn’t authentically her, that dignified iteration of Noem is long gone.

Now, where once there was an ostensibly serious legislator, there is a MAGA-rebranded performer, a profoundly unserious person whose only apparent aspiration in public life is to become Trump’s 2024 running mate by any means necessary. Noem determined somewhere that the key to upward mobility lies in Trumpworld, so she has embraced the former president and his movement in a bear hug, remodeling herself in his image. She’s now a bomb thrower. She is addicted to cable news appearances. She attacks fellow Republicans, including even the wingers, for being insufficiently devoted to Trump. And nowhere is Noem’s headlong descent into this especially sleazy and shameless carnival barking style of self-promotional politics more apparent than in the recently aborted press tour for her new memoir, No Going Back.

Amazingly, the book itself was hardly the worst of the tour, even with its anecdote about the time she executed a puppy or its certainly fraudulent claim that she once met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. No, the worst was Noem, who has apparently forgotten how to take responsibility and tell the truth — virtues she brags about extensively in her memoir. 

The low point of the book tour came last week when CBS News’s Margaret Brennan asked perfectly reasonable questions about Noem’s dubious tales from North Korea. The governor likely never met Kim and has since had that “anecdote” excised from her book. But rather than act like an adult and admit error, Noem wouldn’t even say whether she had met Kim, responding instead to Brennan’s queries with petulance, resentment, evasions, and plain old-fashioned whataboutism.

“Did you meet Kim Jong Un?” Brennan asked bluntly. 

“Well, you know,” Noem responded, “as soon as this was brought to my attention, I certainly made some changes and looked at this passage, and I’ve met with many, many world leaders. I’ve traveled around the world.” 

“So you did not meet with Kim Jong Un?” Brennan asked.

Noem answered, “No, I’ve met with many, many world leaders, many world leaders. I’ve traveled around the world. I think I’ve talked extensively in this book about my time serving in Congress, my time as governor, before governor, some of the travels that I’ve had. I’m not going to talk about my specific meetings with world leaders. I’m just not going to do that.” 

Brennan kept after it, noting that Noem narrated the audiobook.

“You didn’t catch these errors when you were recording it?” the news anchor asked.

“As it was brought to my attention, I took action to make sure that it was reflected,” said Noem, who then launched into a self-pitying rant alleging that no one ever asks President Joe Biden about his lies and falsehoods.

Brennan soldiered on, not letting herself get distracted by the governor’s whataboutism. She said, “You’re not taking responsibility for the mistakes in the book?”

“I am saying that this book is very, very good,” Noem said before returning to her canned response. “And I’ve met with many world leaders, and that either world leaders that I’ve met with that are in this book, there are many that I met with that are not in this book.”

The governor’s appearance was every bit as pathetic as it reads. It was also a clarifying moment. Noem has devolved. There’s no question about it. Take it from someone who has followed her public career since she was first elected to the House. That bright-eyed freshman congresswoman is long gone. In her place stands a caricature of modern politics as warped and absurd as any. Gone is the woman who came to Congress with a reputation such that she was selected immediately to help incoming House Speaker John Boehner orient her fellow freshmen lawmakers. In her place is a governor with a questionable record of nepotism and a penchant for starring in ethically dubious infomercials. In place of that freshman congresswoman is a governor who does not seem even the slightest bit interested in governing.

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Witnessing in real-time the disgraceful career implosion of a once-seemingly dignified legislator has been like watching a cautionary tale come to life. This is what happens if you stay in power for too long, children. You become a joke. It’s sad. Noem should have gotten out while there were still parts of herself worth salvaging.

Between the quiet backbencher from 2010 and whatever we’re all gawking at today, the Noem of the Tea Party is unrecognizable from the Noem of today — both literally and figuratively.

Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Hill. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.

The connection made in its mere three words is telling. Those who created it declare that their cultural and political identities act as a kind of religion. Making this claim implicitly rejects traditional manifestations of faith.

This rejection includes, for many, a dark streak of antisemitism and, thus, the outright hatred of one religion. But it also rejects other traditional religious expressions, especially Christianity, as inadequate at best and the supporters of bigoted oppression at worst. The sign, therefore, must be seen in light of the increase of the “nones,” those who do not identify with an organized religious faith.

But we must not take the extent of this rejection too far. This shift in society does not mean that our age is rejecting religion. It really means that many have shifted the conscious source and purpose of their faith.

By saying “Activism is Worship,” student protesters mimic many elements of traditional organized religions. First, they hold to a set of doctrines that define who belongs and who stands outside their faith. Their doctrines mostly involve the political and social views of the contemporary progressive Left. Thus, they focus their dogmas on matters of sex, sexuality, and race. They even have a liturgy of sorts found in chants such as, “From the river to the sea….”

Moreover, by saying that their worship includes or even is activism, they communicate a certain eschatology — a view of history’s last things. They believe in a heaven and a hell. But both are here in this world. Hell is the past and, to a great degree, the present. It is found in the lingering existence of perceived oppressions that run contrary to their doctrines, including the intransigence of traditional Christianity. Heaven is the utopia they seek to establish here on Earth. It is one that they can, to some degree, articulate in great abstraction, but the concrete particulars seem ever-evolving to become more demanding, wherein one wonders if their full accomplishment would be a theoretical victory and a real-life act of self-destruction.

This assessment does not mean that organized religion has no place for social and political reform in this world. Christians have engaged in social movements throughout American history. The abolitionist movement owed a large part of its adherents to believers formed in the Second Great Awakening. The Temperance Movement that resulted in the 18^th Amendment was largely Christian in its arguments. Ministers formed a core leadership component of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. And the church makes up much of contemporary advocates for the rights of the unborn.

Yet the Left’s current social activism is a religion lacking in essential elements. It lacks a God who stands above and beyond societal trends, giving His followers a permanent standard of justice with which to approach the culture. It lacks an understanding of eternity, one that recognizes our human limitations and thus places ultimate hope for the good beyond ourselves.

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Finally, this new religion lacks the concept of grace and mercy. It is a harsh, unrelenting demand for perfection personally, socially, and politically. What Christianity, in particular, holds to is much different. It declares the good news that our inborn fallibility is met with the unmerited favor of God. That does not relieve us of the duty to make this world the best we can make it. But it does make it so we do not believe we must be our own gods in perfect power and might. Instead, it calls on us to lean first on the power and love of another, therefore also permitting, even demanding, that we be merciful toward others in a similar fashion.

This new form of leftist worship exposes not just problems in our country’s religious faith but also in our political practice. A politics taken from this new religion is one doomed to following trends, not truth, forcing utopia, not the reachable common good, and doing the above in a graceless, tyrannical fashion. Let us hope the country as a whole does not go down this path.

Adam Carrington is an associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College.

The latest example of this game of pin the climate blame on the energy producers is a new “Joint Staff Report” from the Democratic minority members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the majority members of the Senate Committee on the Budget.

The two committees, respectively, are supposed “to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the federal government and all its agencies,” and “to develop a concurrent resolution on the budget to serve as the framework for congressional action on spending, revenue, and debt-limit legislation.” What does any of that have to do with the fossil energy producers and, purportedly, “Big Oil’s Campaign of Climate Denial, Disinformation, and Doublespeak”? Who knows? And it matters not: attacking the energy producers is a guaranteed winner among numerous left-wing constituencies, including many journalists and ideological pressure groups.

First on the list of accusations: Two news enterprises reported that as recently as the fall of 2015, “Big Oil companies … knew that burning fossil fuels was a major contributor to climate change” but “internally did not dispute the findings but tried to dismiss them as ‘hyperbolic’ and ‘journalistic malpractice.’” This purported perfidy depends crucially on whether the actual evidence supports the common assertion that a climate “crisis” is upon us. The evidence for that stance is vastly weaker than commonly asserted. And so in the view of the authors of the joint staff report, a skeptical view of the “climate crisis”/“major contributor to climate change” argument — the kind of ordinary disagreement that is a natural manifestation of a system of free speech — is an example of “deception, disinformation, and doublespeak.” Wow.

The joint staff report is asserting that the fossil fuel producers “knew” things years ago that were not known then, are not known now, and are the subject of sharp disagreement in the scientific literature — a state of affairs virtually certain to remain with us for a very long time because the determinants of shifts in climate phenomena are massively complex. Again: Precisely who is engaged in “deception, disinformation, and doublespeak?”

And about that purported knowledge on the part of U.S. fossil energy producers “that burning fossil fuels was a major contributor to climate change.” In 2022, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels were about 4.7 billion metric tons, or about 8.7% of the global total of 53.8 bmt. Assume that all those U.S. GHG emissions were to be eliminated, and apply the Environmental Protection Agency climate model: Even under extreme assumptions, the temperature effect in 2100 would be about 0.119°C, an impact that would be barely detectable. 

And so the “major contributor” rhetoric is little more than propaganda. Precisely who is engaged in “deception, disinformation, and doublespeak?” 

And on and on it goes. The fossil energy producers have “perpetuat[ed] doublespeak about the [effect] of natural gas” in terms of GHG emissions, the Democrats claim. Doublespeak? Since 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have declined by 3%, largely because of the substitution of natural gas in place of coal and other fuels. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, GHG emissions have increased by 61.7%. So mindless is this attack on the fossil energy producers that the politicians behind it have lost sight of their own GHG “climate” objectives. 

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And the most amusing of all is the accusation that fossil energy producers have engaged in lobbying “either directly or through their trade associations against pro-climate legislation and regulations that they publicly claimed to support.” The politicians seem to have forgotten that the First Amendment continues to protect “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” into associations, whether focused on “trade” or other endeavors, “and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Individuals and groups — and businesses — do not forfeit the latter right merely by exercising the former. How unusual is it for an organization to support a given policy goal publicly but to believe that a specific proposal is perverse?

Pay no attention to such political propaganda as the joint staff report. It is a classic example of traditional Beltway dishonesty, misdirection, and disdain for the wealth and massive human benefits yielded by private enterprise generally and the fossil energy industry in particular. More fundamentally, it is an attack on the freedom and independence from political coercion that private property and market economic activity — capitalism — create. It is fundamentally totalitarian, and should be given the contempt that it deserves.

Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

As a consequence, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the son of a poor, black single mother in rural South Carolina, is the most likely person to become the next vice president of the United States of America. Long considered a leading contender in the Trump veepstakes, Scott is currently the betting market favorite to be tapped for the role. 

Scott could be seen as a younger, more dynamic version of former Vice President Mike Pence due to his conservative Christian bona fides and governing experience. But unlike Pence, Scott brings the real potential to expand the GOP voting base, particularly among black Protestants, by emphasizing his rags-to-riches personal story centered on faith. 

The Washington Examiner spoke with Scott on Wednesday about the effect his presence could have on the national GOP ticket, particularly among Christians.  

Washington Examiner: You are widely rumored to be on the short list of potential running mates for former President Trump. You just spent the weekend in Mar-a-Lago, and betting markets consider you the favorite for the slot. How would your presence on the ticket solidify the Christian vote?

Scott: I’m a big believer that God has a plan, and the Lord, not just the people, chooses our leaders. What I bring to any conversation about leadership is that I’m someone who is a strong advocate on behalf of Christians and someone who is a strong defender of our beliefs. I’m someone who has lived the American dream and used biblical principles to overcome the challenges in my life, which is incredibly important. 

No. 2, I started small businesses and built those businesses based on the Book of Nehemiah, where we learn that multitasking is a necessary component for human flourishing, especially as a business person. Having a sword in one hand and a brick in the other, I used the Book of Nehemiah to build very successful businesses. We were No. 2 out of 15,000 Allstate agency owners in the country. 

I started a real estate company using the same model, and it’s still running today. The fact of the matter is that when you use biblical principles not as only a shield but as a weapon, you can actually do a lot of good for your community and your country, but most importantly, you can honor the Lord on how you do business. 

So, what I bring to the table is someone who has actually put the Gospel into operation both for heaven but also for earth. 

Washington Examiner: White evangelicals went big for Trump in 2020, while Catholics were split, and black Protestants went heavily for Biden. Why should these groups go with Trump in 2024?

Scott: If you look at the Democrats these past several years, one thing you’ll see is they’ve taken God out of the platform. And if you purge God out of the platform, you take with him biblical principles that have always been universally accepted and that represent the natural law of the universe. When you think about Galatians 6:7 that says, “Whatever a man sows, he shall also reap,” that’s just a law of the harvest. It is undeniable and unbreakable: What you sow, you reap. If you think about Proverbs 22:7 that says, “The borrower is the slave of the lender.” You know what? If our nation had leadership that understood that, maybe we’d have less than $35 trillion in debt. Catholics, evangelicals, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, Native American — all Christians lose under the guiding propositions of the Biden administration. 

But we actually gain under the Trump administration. Think about Matthew 25. In reflecting on “the least of these,” the best way to meet their needs is to have a healthy, prosperous nation where we have more margin in our paychecks and in our schedules. To reinvest in our communities is to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We meet those needs when we have an abundance of resources. 

The other thing is if you think about the reality of Deuteronomy 30:19, which says, “I give you this choice between blessing and cursing life and death, choose one,” well, I think in this nation, it is a time for choosing. And the choice we make today will either cement the biblical and Judeo-Christian foundation of America or it will further question that foundation. The attack we are seeing on America today comes consistently and primarily from the Left. They are the ones who reinforce that we are not a people created by God or given inalienable rights that come from God. 

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Washington Examiner: This past Sunday, during an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press, host Kristen Welker attempted to catch you in a “gotcha moment” about accepting the results of election outcomes. The Democrat-friendly news media have repeated the false claim that you “dodged” in your answer. Would you like to set the record straight?

Scott: You have to understand that it’s very hard to prove or disprove something that hasn’t happened. It’s a rebuttal presumption of validity. We should assume our elections are fair. Any assumption otherwise is to assume something you can’t prove because it hasn’t happened. So, ultimately, having to rebut something based on the presumption of an outcome is impossible to do. President Trump has said it and I will continue to say that we expect honest elections in this country. Because of that, my presumption is that elections will be fair. 

Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, and the National Catholic Register.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last month a stringent new rule that would effectively force power plants to shut down if they don’t implement expensive new carbon capture technology by 2032. This out-of-touch rule is neither technologically nor economically feasible.

And while we shouldn’t turn our back on implementing commonsense carbon capture technology to help lower emissions, we simply cannot force a transition overnight. The EPA’s decision will end up hurting our energy industries, cutting jobs, and forcing consumers to fork over even more of their hard-earned dollars to heat and light their homes.

For the last 15 years, the United States has led the world in decreasing carbon emissions. Contrast that with communist China, which continues to lead the world as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In fact, China continues to build six times more coal-fired power plants than any other country. This equates to roughly two new coal power plants being built per week.

If the United States has any hope of competing with China or any other energy-producing nation, we must invest in all sources of domestic energy.

I represent Ohio’s 5th Congressional District, which is home to more than 86,000 manufacturing jobs — the most in the state. When I meet with local manufacturers, they repeatedly tell me they need more power to compete domestically and globally.

It’s true: We need more power to keep factories humming, workers employed, and to simply keep up with growing energy demands.

And if the Biden administration continues its quest to mass deploy electric vehicles, we’re going to need much more power to keep up with the demand.

As it stands, our electric grid can barely keep up with the hot summer months, let alone provide enough power to charge hundreds of thousands of new electric vehicles or keep up with the latest energy guzzlers: artificial intelligence and crypto mining. Giant data centers needed to support these industries are putting a massive strain on the electric grid. Energy companies will need more natural gas, nuclear power, and clean coal to keep data centers running, while also providing enough energy for everyday consumers to keep their lights on.

The Biden administration must wake up. We need much more power to compete, and that means we must invest in domestic energy sources.

Unfortunately, since his first day in office, President Joe Biden has waged war against the domestic energy industry. By canceling the Keystone XL pipeline and recently banning the export of liquefied natural gas, he has catered to the loudest, most extreme voices within his party. The EPA’s carbon capture requirement is just the latest in a long list of examples.

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In Congress, we’re already working to overturn this misguided decision. I’m proud to join my colleague on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Troy Balderson (R-OH), in cosponsoring his Congressional Review Act. If enacted, this bill would reverse the EPA’s overreaching rule and ensure power plants can remain operational for years to come.

And as we look to continue pushing back on these rules and regulations flying out of the Biden administration, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has a unique role to play. As a senior member of the committee, I’ll continue working with my colleagues to advance policies that invest in an all-of-the-above energy strategy where the federal government doesn’t pick winners and losers — one that isn’t out of touch with the basic realities of energy production and consumption in this country.

Bob Latta is a U.S. representative for Ohio. He serves as a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a member of the House Energy Action Team, and a member of the Conservative Climate Caucus.

The answer is clearly the employee who racially and sexually demeaned his coworker. Yet in President Joe Biden’s administration, the CEO is the one getting punished. 

On May 1, a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law when he said that unionization comes with downsides. 

In January, the same NLRB forced Amazon to rehire a worker who insulted his colleague on the grounds that federal labor law protected him.

Rarely will you see such a double standard — and rarely is the reason so obvious. 

The current NLRB, stacked with Biden’s appointees, will do almost anything to prop up labor unions. Under Chairwoman Lauren McFerran, the board has followed the example of the president, who has declared himself the most “pro-union president in history.” 

The NLRB’s treatment of Amazon shows how one-sided this union favoritism really is.

The episodes quoted above happened in the context of the union campaign to organize Amazon. The company is one of Big Labor’s biggest targets, both because of its prominence in the economy and its large number of employees. Unions have been trying to organize Amazon for the better part of a decade, and their record is mostly one of failure.

Enter the employee who cursed out his colleague. After his tirade, which happened in 2020, Amazon fired him. The reason was simple: no worker should be subjected to such offensive insults, and in fact, federal law protects workers from harassment in the workplace. However, the NLRB argued that since the worker made his comments during a unionization campaign, he was protected under the National Labor Relations Act.

In other words, the NLRB said that practically no rhetoric is beyond the pale when unions are involved. If a worker supports a union — or is even in a heated dispute with management — he can say anything he wants, no matter how nasty or repulsive, and the company is powerless to intervene. 

According to the NLRB, if a company such as Amazon fires that worker, they have to rehire him — and even give him back pay. That’s because the NLRB now calls such offensive comments “protected speech.”

But what about the free speech rights of CEOs? Federal labor law explicitly states that when employers express any argument, view, or opinion about unionization, it is protected speech, so long as it doesn’t include a threat of reprisal or promise of benefits to workers. That makes sense: employers have the right to tell workers about the downsides of joining a union, just as unions have the right to tell workers the opposite.

That’s exactly what Jassy did: give his opinion that unionization hurts workers — an opinion backed up by decades of experience. But, according to the NLRB, companies and their leaders now can’t say a negative word about unionization, even to third parties. That makes the NLRB’s recent ruling even more extreme. When Jassy talked about the downsides of unionization, he wasn’t talking to workers, nor was he addressing the company’s managers or board. He was simply talking to reporters.

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By punishing Amazon’s CEO, the NLRB may as well be saying that companies and their managers no longer have the right to speak freely — that they should stay silent, period. At the same time, the NLRB has said that pro-union workers can spew disgusting epithets in the workplace with abandon — and without fear of being punished for obvious hate speech.

Lauren McFerran’s labor board is putting union demands ahead of constitutional rights, respectful workplaces, and common sense. That’s what Biden wants, but the next president should clean house at the NLRB, starting at the top.

Matthew Mimnaugh is a fellow at the Institute for the American Worker and former chief counsel at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

That’s the term long used by the Department of Agriculture to describe those in their prime working years who are not disabled, not living with a minor, and not pregnant, among other criteria. Since the 1990s, ABAWDs have faced more stringent standards for collecting food stamps than single parents, disabled individuals, and the elderly. Unlike those groups, ABAWDs are generally expected to work or participate in education or training for at least 20 hours per week to continue collecting food stamps after a few months on the rolls.

The part-time “work requirement” is a legacy left by welfare reforms signed into law in 1996 by then-President Bill Clinton and supported then by majorities of both parties in Congress.

A generation later, most people, including most Democrats, still think that makes sense. A February 2023 YouGov poll found that “two-thirds of Americans (68%) say that people who receive assistance from welfare programs in the U.S. should be required to work or participate in job training programs if they are able to.” Democrats (64%) and independents (61%) strongly agreed.

An April 2023 ballot measure in Wisconsin, a swing state, showed even greater support for work requirements for “able-bodied, childless adults.” Almost 80% of Wisconsin voters said they should at least “look for work in order to receive taxpayer-funded welfare benefits.”

But policymakers in Washington are, unsurprisingly, out of step with popular opinion. A recent Brookings Institution seminar sunnily titled “Securing the safety net for working-age adults” makes clear that inside-the-Beltway liberals think the terms “able-bodied” and “without dependents” are far too rosy. Their first order of business, in fact, is to replace ABAWD with a title that better conveys a desperation for government benefits.

At the seminar, Neera Tanden, domestic policy adviser to President Joe Biden and former head of the Center for American Progress, summarized the desire to change “the fundamental framework and narrative” in order to reshape “people’s understanding about who this population is.”

Wendy Edelberg of the Brookings Institution called ABAWD a “misnomer” and suggested the group really constituted “low-income working-age adults who do not have dependent children and who do not receive disability-related benefits.”

Sharon Parrott of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities called them “non-elderly adults without minor children at home who don’t at least now receive disability benefits,” while readily admitting that this “was a mouthful.”

Longtime policy expert Robert Greenstein suggested this group is constituted of “poor, non-elderly adults who are not raising children and do not receive disability benefits.”

Naturally, proponents didn’t offer the risible acronyms that would accompany those lengthy titles if one ever made it into federal law: LIWAAWDNHDCAWDNRDRB, NEAWMCAHWDALNRDB, and PNEAWANRCADNRDB, respectively.

But regardless of the new acronym or title, their message was clear — single adults capable of work deserve far more government benefits. No longer cast as “able-bodied,” there’s no presumption of working to stand in the way of benefit collection. Instead, the group is simply “poor” or “low-income” and thus deserving of more taxpayer-paid benefits.

Some noted that, despite being “without dependents” or “minor children at home,” many are noncustodial parents, as if that status should merit new benefits. That they are “at least now” “without disability benefits” or “government-determined disabilities” suggests that, despite being fit for employment, many really belong on disability rolls that already count 12 million U.S. adults.

Liberals’ policy “solutions” are sadly predictable. They not only want the part-time work requirement eliminated, but they also want the rebranded group to qualify for new federal benefit checks, even if they are not working. Never mind, as Greenstein admitted of past “general assistance” programs for childless adults, that “states have scaled back these programs sharply or eliminated them altogether” in recent decades. Despite the federal government’s growing debt and inability to afford current benefit promises, federal taxpayers should pick up this large new tab, too.

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In the end, the proposed new titles are more than just “a mouthful.” They reflect how, for a growing number of liberals, the American dream of progress through work should be replaced with guaranteed government benefits, even for adults capable of working.

That used to be a fringe view, such as when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) suggested in her Green New Deal that even adults “unwilling to work” deserve government-provided economic security. But it has now entered the liberal mainstream, promoted by those who dubiously think that replacing ABAWD with LIWAAWDNHDCAWDNRDRB somehow helps make their case.

Matt Weidinger is a senior fellow and Rowe scholar for the American Enterprise Institute.

The Drop: How the Most Addictive Sport Can Help Us Understand Addiction and Recovery explores surfing and its relationship to drugs. It presents the sport as a natural way to heal addiction and trauma, two things that millions of people are struggling with.

Too often, the treatment for depression or anxiety is medication. Ziolkowsky is offering something different. His vision includes surfing as a form of therapy for veterans and surf camps to teach children the benefits of going offline and into the water.

Ziolkowski argues that surfing, like drugs and alcohol, offers passage into a “liminal state.” It’s a place in between heaven and earth. Drugs and intoxicants also offer an escape to an in-between place but in a far more dangerous and deadly way.

Ziolkowski grew up in Florida, where he won surfing competitions. He also started smoking marijuana and eventually graduated to alcohol and cocaine. He observes that an addict’s first hit and a surfer’s first wave are linked in the brain through the “thrill of being gathered up and borne along as if by magic.” This is why many famous surfers have had addiction problems. Ziolkowski wants to change that, keeping the drop-ins and waves and tossing aside the artificial enhancers.

Ziolkowski is a writer with a Guggenheim Fellowship and a doctorate in English literature from Yale University, and the writing is both sharp and lyrical. He is also a very good reporter, providing short and compelling biographies of great surfers such as Kelly Slater and Andy Irons and explaining the neuroscience of addiction.

The famous psychiatrist Carl Jung once said that spiritus contra spiritum. Translated as “spirit against spirit,” it means that the religious spirit of God can be used to combat the “spirits” of drugs and alcohol. Viewing a spectacular photograph by surf photographer Ron Stoner, Ziolkowski wrote of something similar: “The stirring perfection of it, the sense of amplitude, of space and light as alive — the fact that such glory exists on earth.” Drugs can’t compete with that.

In the second half of The Drop, Ziolkowski examines how surfing has become more mainstream in America since the 1960s. While some have argued that surfing is a libertarian activity — “you paddle out alone, you fend for yourself” — Ziolkowski more accurately observes that “surfing is a highly tribal activity, with bylaws and mores passed down as a kind of shared history among peers.” This tribe has expanded in recent decades and become more altruistic, with surf organizations serving veterans with PTSD and children with special needs. Ziolkowski’s description of veterans and autistic children coming to life through surf therapy is inspiring.

At one moment of clarity after years of surfing, Ziolkowski decided to separate himself from the drug culture that was a part of surfing, as well as the stupid and dangerous idea that great writers like him all had to have addiction problems as part of their stories. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hunter Thompson — Ziolkowski had bought the story that to be creative was to be addicted.

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His account of how he freed himself from that dangerous myth is beautiful. He envisions pulling his old self out of the water — of saving himself from the fallacy that art requires intoxicants:

“I metabolized this moral [of drugs and art] so completely that, many years later, when I finally and decisively quit, it was like psychic surgery: I had to plunge into and seize myself, drag me out of the underground steam of this story about the drunken, visionary poet into which I had waded blind, becoming a votary of it, someone in whose veins flowed intoxicants. I rested on the bank beside myself, watched as I opened my eyes and sat up.”

Mark Judge is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi. He is also the author of God and Man at Georgetown Prep, Damn Senators, and A Tremor of Bliss.