Clive Bibby: We told you so

The about face admission from The NY Times and The Washington Post that Hunter Biden’s laptop revelations are real is small comfort for Donald Trump and those 70 million American voters who believe the 2020 US Presidential election was stolen.

It does however say quite a lot about the audacity of these same media outlets that their “Road to Damascus” conversion may well endanger their own credibility, if not their survival as a respected source of the truth.

It beggars belief that the media led contribution to Joe Biden’s victory may not lead to criminal indictments at the highest level.

Yet going on the experiences of the last 5 years, it is clear that these seemingly corrupt institutions have become emboldened to the extent that they believe they can get away with betrayals of this magnitude. Let’s hope they are all held to account.

Victor Davis Hanson: Trump’s Constructive Chaos

Almost daily, President Trump manages to incense the media, alarm the world abroad, and enrage his Democratic opposition. Not since Ronald Reagan’s first year in office has change and disruption come so fast from the White House.

Let’s consider foreign affairs first. In response to North Korea’s nuclear threats to hit the American West coast, Trump promised Kim Jung-un utter destruction.  And for sport he ridicules him as “rocket man.” 

ISIS is now on the run. The terrorist group has given up on its once-promised caliphate—in part because Trump changed the rules of engagement and allowed American generals at the front to use their own judgment and discretion on how best to destroy their enemies. 

Karl du Fresne: Donald Trump and the decline of objective journalism

One consequence of the Trump presidency is that it has accelerated the decline of detached, objective journalism.

Most people outside America, me included, despise Donald Trump. This has apparently made it permissible for the media to abandon all pretence of neutrality and to treat him as fair game for contempt, disgust and ridicule.

Nicholas Kerr: Trump and our divided country

Let me preface my comments. First, I didn’t support Trump, but I’m an optimist, and like Obama, Clinton and others said following the election, I think he deserves a chance.

Second, I don’t call myself conservative. In fact I try to avoid the use of labels. As I explained in my blog post “Less labels, more meeting of minds,” I don’t think they help debates or conversations. Labeling a person or policy as left-wing or right-wing, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, introduces biases and barriers and does nothing to advance a discussion.

Guy Benson from the US: DeVos Confirmation Blow to Teachers Unions

Despite furious lockstep opposition from Senate Democrats and two Republicans who are among the few in their party who receive campaign contributions from teachers' unions, Betsy DeVos was confirmed to be the next Secretary of Education. Critics' objections to her nomination questioned her qualifications and suggested that she was hostile to public education, while others cited her family's wealth, and sought to assassinate her character.  

Instances of hypocrisy and eye-widening double standards were commonplace.  In spite of this pitched partisan battle - which required Vice President Pence to break a 50-50 Senate deadlock; the first time in our nation's history this step was needed to conclude a cabinet confirmation fight - DeVos was gracious in (narrow) victory.

Guy Benson from the US: Trump White House Demonstrates How Not to Roll Out a New Policy

The White House has significantly altered President Trump's executive order to temporarily pause the influx of non-citizen entrants from seven majority-Muslim countries into the United States. 

It was revealed over the weekend that Team Trump failed to adequately consult with relevant lawyers and agencies prior to implementing the new policy, and that a small handful of political aides overrode the Department of Homeland Security's initial legal judgement that green card holders (legal permanent residents) should be exempt from the moratorium. The ensuing firestorm forced the new DHS Secretary -- who reportedly first reviewed the order's finalized content as Trump signed it into effect on television -- to retract the LPR overreach.

Matt Ridley: How Brexit is different from Trumpit

The big difference is that Britain seeks more, not less, free trade.

In the week that Theresa May reveals the trajectory of Brexit and Donald Trump enters the White House, these two “revolutions” are once again linked by coincidence of timing. For much of the rest of the world, and even in the minds of many people in Britain, the result of last June’s referendum and the outcome of last November’s presidential election are part of the same phenomenon: a revolt against globalisation by a forgotten, provincial, working class.

Richard Epstein from the US: Scott Pruitt And The Environment

Scott Pruitt, Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, has raised more hackles among progressive Democrats than any other Trump cabinet nominee. Typical of the ferocious opposition to his candidacy is the screed prepared by the Sierra Club that deems him a mortal threat to the safety of the planet because, as Attorney General in Oklahoma, he has “spent his time in office working to allow big polluters to do whatever they want, rather than protecting the health, clean air and water of his constituents.” 

Democrats like Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii have insisted that his nomination is “a four-alarm fire” because Pruitt is a pawn of fossil fuel companies whose cardinal sin is denying the conclusion of “climate scientists” that human emission of carbon dioxide is creating a global warming crisis.