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Wesley Smith Texas Testimony

Wesley J. Smith Testifies Before Texas State Senate

Discovery Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith appeared before the Texas State Senate Committee on Health and Human Services to advocate in favor of SB2089. The purpose of the bill is to improve Texas’s medical futility provisions and to make end of life healthcare disputes between patients, providers, and their families cooperative rather coercive, which Smith currently believes to be the …

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Seattle’s Revolt of the Elites

In Seattle, people are losing patience with city leadership over the homelessness crisis, but the frustration is running in both directions: the city’s political, cultural, and academic elites are conducting their own revolt — against the people.

Since the release of Eric Johnson’s documentary Seattle Is Dying, which depicts an epidemic of street homelessness, addiction, crime, and disorder, city elites have launched a coordinated information campaign targeted at voters frustrated with the city’s response to homelessness. Earlier this month, leaked documents revealed that a group of prominent nonprofits — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Campion Advocacy Fund, the Raikes Foundation, and the Ballmer Group — hired a PR firm, Pyramid Communications, to conduct polling, create messaging, and disseminate the resulting content through a network of silent partners in academia, the press, government, and the nonprofit sector. The campaign, #SeattleForAll, is a case study in what writer James Lindsay calls “idea laundering” — creating misinformation and legitimizing it as objective truth through repetition in sympathetic media.

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President Donald Trump greets British Prime Minister Theresa May upon her arrival, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017, to the West Wing entrance of the White House in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, via Wikipedia.org Commons

How Theresa May Can Get a Better Brexit Deal — and How Trump Can Help

Last week, British prime minister Theresa May failed for a third time to secure a majority in Parliament for her Brexit deal. Now she faces an ever-narrowing set of options. ... Yet, as she must realize, delay by itself offers no hope of a fundamental change in the dynamics of the negotiation and, therefore, no realistic hope of resolving the political crisis now engulfing Britain. Read More ›
Chinese Yuan and US dollars on the map of China. Trade war between US and China, economic sanctions

U.S. Trade Deal with China Imperfect, but Both Sides Benefit

The U.S. and China are edging closer to finalizing a trade deal that should end the tariff penalties that are at the heart of a year-old trade war. But a comprehensive deal that includes remedies for China’s theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfer from American companies doing business in China may not be in the cards in closing Read More ›

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A Brewing Rebellion in the Emerald City

For the past five years, like many of its West Coast counterparts, Seattle has endured a steady expansion of homelessness, addiction, mental illness, crime, and street disorder. But the activist class—a political and cultural elite comprising leaders in government, nonprofits, philanthropy, and media—has enforced a strict taboo on declaring the obvious: something is terribly wrong in the Emerald City. Last month, veteran Seattle reporter Eric Johnson of KOMO violated that taboo with a shocking, hour-long documentary called Seattle is Dying, which revealed how the city has allowed a small subset of the homeless population—drug-addicted and mentally-ill criminals—to wreak havoc. Johnson’s portrait is backed up by evidence from King County homelessness data, by city attorney candidate Scott Lindsay’s “prolific offender” report on 100 homeless individuals responsible for more than 3,500 criminal cases, and by my own reporting on the homelessness crisis. Read More ›
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Universal Basic Income? Fear of AI Fuels a New Argument for Socialism

With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic candidates for president floating wilder trial balloons than a psychedelic circus, I’m surprised they have not (yet) picked up on the universal basic income (UBI). The UBI (guaranteed income for employable people who choose not to work) is far and away the favorite “solution” among those strong AI enthusiasts who expect machines to replace human work. They expect vast swaths of the country to be out of work for good. So far, the only candidate plugging UBI is entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Yang is more idea-oriented than his Democratic opponents and he has made UBI central to his presidential campaign in the key state of Iowa. His plan would offer $1,000 a month per person. I suspect it’s only a matter of time before other Democratic candidates pick up on this platform plank, on the assumption that their likely voters will imagine it as free money. Read More ›
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When “Compassion” is Contempt

The Washington legislature is one step closer to legalizing homeless encampments statewide. Last week, Democratic lawmakers passed through committee legislation, introduced by Representative Mia Gregerson, that would usurp the authority of city governments and legalize camping in all “plazas, courtyards, parking lots, sidewalks, public transportation facilities, public buildings, shopping centers, parks, [and] natural and wildlife areas” throughout the state. Read More ›
Chinese Yuan and US dollars on the map of China. Trade war between US and China, economic sanctions

Edging Closer to a Trade Deal

The United States and China are edging closer to finalizing a trade deal that should end the tariff penalties that are at the heart of a year-old trade war. It’s also hoped that the deal will include enforcement and penalties for China’s national security-related intellectual property (IP) theft and espionage, and provide structural changes that would end forced technology transfer and protect trade Read More ›

Benji Backer on Fox News

Watch: 2018 Chapman Fellow Benji Backer Appears on Fox News to Discuss the Flaws of the Green New Deal

President of the American Conservation Coalition and Chapman Fellowship alum Benji Backer joins Todd Starnes on Fox Nation to discuss the flaws of the proposed "Green New Deal" as well as the need for more conservatives to act on environmental issues. Read More ›