The economic question which people ask me most often these days is whether the media can talk the economy into a recession.

For months I’ve been warning that economic growth was slowing down. Now it’s undeniable: The economy has slowed … and people are trying to figure out where to place the blame.

This is going to be kind of hard for me to say, but for once, I don’t think the media is to blame. This slowdown is not driven by falling consumer confidence, the sort of thing that the media can influence.

No, this slowdown is driven by a slowdown in big-ticket capital spending: factories, power plants, gigantic earth movers, ships, planes, etc. which are not performing well. Decisions about those items are made by serious analysts with serious spreadsheets, not by watching cable pundits.

There’s no need to point a finger at the media on this one.

Want to move the needle back to boom again? Stop the policy uncertainty.

Sebastian Gorka talks with Richard Grenell, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, about the “Trump Doctrine.”

Protests have continued in Hong Kong, even as the territory’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam formally withdrew from consideration the bill that would have allowed residents of Hong Kong to be extradited to China for criminal trial.

Yet, just a day earlier, China’s President Xi reiterated his call—as the Wall Street Journal reported—“for a determined fight to overcome any risk or challenge that endangers Communist Party leadership or harms China’s sovereignty and security.”

So, who to believe? What should we expect from Beijing regarding Hong Kong? The only certainty is that the People’s Republic of China is playing the proverbial “long game.”

In response, we need a long-haul policy of containment and coexistence, speaking firmly but without provocation.

Beijing is developing another 100-year strategy.

Our response will require doing more than words. It will require ships and submarines, missiles and planes, and a cyber- and space force.

Is the United States really serious?

Xi is watching what we build, not what we say.

Townhall Review – September 14, 2019

Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter remembers 9-11 and comments on how the media seems to want to forget.

Hugh Hewitt talks with Senator Tom Cotton about President Trump’s decision to cancel his meeting with the Taliban.

Sebastian Gorka and Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family, talk about Drew Brees, NFL quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, who publicly supported “Bring Your Bible to School Day” and the flak he has received.

Sebastian Gorka talks with Richard Grenell, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, about the “Trump Doctrine.”

Kurt Schlichter talks with American Greatness editor Liz Sheld about the GOP’s narrow victory in a special election in North Carolina.

Phil Cowan, Salem host in Sacramento, CA., talks with Greg Burt, Legislative Director of California Family Council, about the California State Assembly proving itself more radical than hard-left Governor Gavin Newsom.

Mike Gallagher and Michelle Malkin, author of Open Borders, Inc., talks about how illegal alien “sanctuary anarchy” is defiantly spreading across the country.

Dennis Prager looks at a recent CNN town hall for Democrat presidential candidates on the climate debate.

Is the Bible—and its teaching about marriage and the family—now hateful?

Some today seem to think so.

When NFL quarterback Drew Brees promoted Bring Your Bible to School day in partnership with Focus on the Family, activists in the LGBTQ world struck back hard.

They accused Brees of partnering with a “hate” group that does harm to homosexuals.

The attack on Brees was gratuitous—a cheap shot deserving a penalty. And Brees should not backtrack here. Teaching that marriage is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman isn’t hateful. Neither is helping people believe anything Scripture teaches about sexual sin. This is what virtue and health look like, actually.

It’s right to support marriage, the traditional family, and the sexes. Focus on the Family is doing great work. They can take their hits.

People of religious conviction everywhere must have the courage to stand firm in the pocket.

Seth Leibsohn invites Professor Wilfred McClay, author of The Land Of Hope: An Invitation To The Great American Story, on his history book, and the current state of education.

After the recent CNN “Climate Change Townhall,” one gets the impression that the candidates are no longer running against Trump but instead running against beef.

Kamala Harris and Andrew Yang both called for either cutting back meat consumption dramatically or even nudging most of the world to go vegetarian completely. Beto O’Rourke says people who eat meat are part of the problem—and Cory Booker went full veggie a long time ago.

But the science behind The Vegetarian Myth, is rebutted by an eponymous book by former vegan Leirre Keith. Turns out that all that soy they’re pushing at us is much worse for the environment. The rain forests are generally being slashed and burned for soy farming, not for pasturing cows. Grass-fed cows maintain sustainable pastures with deep roots—whereas highly subsidized, shallow-rooted annual grain crops can leave soil vulnerable to run-off and depletion.

The war against beef has deep roots itself—in progressive ideology, but its scientific roots are rather shallow.