ANALYSIS/OPINION:

In October 2010, responding to demands from the open-borders lobby that he change immigration law unilaterally, President Barack Obama declared, “I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.”

In March 2011, he said that with “respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case.” Two months later, in May 2011, Mr. Obama conceded that he couldn’t “just bypass Congress and change the [immigration] law myself. That’s not how a democracy works.”

If those quotes from Mr. Obama weren’t front and center in Solicitor General Noel Francisco’s oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, they should have been, as the justices weigh the fate of Mr. Obama’s arguably unconstitutional Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

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If they were, the high court should have no choice but to rule in favor of President Trump’s efforts to end the program, which unilaterally extended to young people brought to the country by illegal immigrants protection from deportation, renewable every two years, but for all practical purposes on a permanent basis.

Ignoring his own admonitions, Mr. Obama on June 15, 2012, had his Department of Homeland Security issue a decree effectuating DACA, the only defense, legal or otherwise, for which is “the end justifies the means.” (Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t a presidential executive order. It was just a memo issued by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.)

Characterizing it as “prosecutorial discretion,” the quasi-amnesty was extended to people brought to the country before age 16 and are employed or pursuing employment or schooling and have no serious criminal record.

On Aug. 23, 2012, eight days after the first DACA applications were filed, the president of the labor union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel sued to halt the program. It has been percolating through the federal court system ever since, even as Mr. Trump has been seeking to overturn his predecessor’s act of dubious constitutionality.

The case now before the Supreme Court hinges on whether Mr. Trump dotted all the “i’s” and crossed all the “t’s” in the process of rescinding DACA in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act. The arcane 1946 statute spells out how federal agencies are supposed to take such actions.

“The case turns on whether this administration properly rescinded DACA as a matter of administrative law,” explained Hiroshi Motomura, a UCLA law professor.

Never mind that Mr. Obama and his DHS secretary didn’t follow the prescribed process of issuing a notice and seeking public comment before unilaterally implementing DACA. Hypocritically, Ms. Napolitano — now the president of the University of California system — filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to phase out DACA, citing that same lack of notice-and-comment process.

Given the double standard, this shouldn’t be a difficult decision for the Supreme Court to make. Apart from the likely unconstitutionality of DACA, since it was put on the books contrary to the legal administrative processes, it necessarily follows that it should be able to be terminated in like fashion.

Indeed, even the lower court judges who have ruled against the president’s efforts to phase out DACA have conceded Mr. Trump has the authority to do so, albeit insisting that he must follow proper procedures.

If the separation of powers and the rule of law still mean anything, the Supreme Court should not lend its imprimatur to this double standard, and it should invalidate DACA.

The fact that most of the amicus briefs filed in the three cases that were consolidated for Tuesday’s hearing were in support of DACA doesn’t make the program any less unconstitutional. Nor does the fact that an estimated 700,000 “dreamers” have availed themselves of its quasi-amnesty over the past seven-plus years.

If the Supreme Court strikes down DACA, as it should, it won’t lead to immediate mass deportations, as its apologists darkly suggest. Rather, it will force intransigent Democrats in Congress opposed to even modest border-security measures to the bargaining table with Mr. Trump.

Back in January 2018, the president offered Democrats a DACA-legalization deal that border hawks considered overly generous in exchange for full funding of a border wall and an end to chain migration. That deal, or one like it, likely will be put back on the table if DACA is struck down.

Sob stories aside, if Democrats were serious about wanting to protect the “dreamers,” and not just catering to the open-borders lobby, they would agree to the deal.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The Ronald Reagan-era rules of the War on Drugs are slowly unraveling, thanks in large part to innocence projects and the decriminalization of marijuana.

Indeed, the political classes’ lost art of mandating law and order means states and localities are shying away for busting people whose car ashtrays are laden with “roaches” or joints named Mary Jane.

Possession of “medical” marijuana is legal, and so is recreational use. In fact, you can buy, sell, trade and transport marijuana — and tip your peace pipe to the U.S. Constitution for the privilege.

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Now, though, comes a burning question: Should schools, public or private, have the right to conduct drug tests on students?

The question springs from an announcement by the principal of Stephen T. Badin High School in Hamilton, Ohio, where random drug tests are scheduled to begin in January.

“This is in best interests of the students,” Principal Brian Pendergest said. “The impact of drug use on young students and their families is stagger the ing, and our community is not immune to this issue. Being proactive on drug testing is the appropriate action on our part.

“We’re talking about a health and wellness issue, not a punitive issue,” he said. “For their own well-being, students should not be doing drugs. We want to help them make the right choices.”

The principal is correct about the staggering impact drug use has on communities, especially if he means illicit substance abuse, including opioids, codeine/soda pop mixers, tobacco, vaping and “synthetic marijuana.” No argument there.

Also, Mr. Pendergest is spot on regarding the “students should not be doing drugs” angle. No argument there, either.

He also said the results of the drug tests, which are mandatory, would be strictly confidential between the school, the student and the family. Each student will be randomly tested at least once per school year.

The plan, as it now stands, calls for a student’s first positive test to be discussed with the family and the third could be dismissal.

What do you think? Too tough? None of their business? A long time coming?

Begging for the “Just Say No” days of the 1980s and early ’90s?

Well, back then, lots of young people said no, but the grown folk were doing their own thing — smoking and dealing crack, smoking PCP until they inhaled their last breath, snorting cocaine from the West Coast to the East.

Now the opioid crisis is upon us, with folks old and young using what they know are deadly compounds. America’s opioid epidemic is so out of control, antidotes such as naloxone are part of first responder and schoolhouses across the country.

So, what’s a schoolhouse of 550-plus eighth- and ninth-graders to do? Just say no?

No. Badin, a Roman Catholic school, is trying to get a health-centered handle on things. But they can’t do it alone.

Parents, guardians and the faith community need to step up their games. They need to educate, educate, educate about drug use — and they need to do it now.

Know why? Singer Bobby Brown of the original New Edition group said recently that he tipped Nancy Reagan to the “Just Say No” angle. This is the same Bobby Brown who drank and drugged himself out of the music industry and out of Whitney Houston’s life (and recall that Houston was a substance abuser, too).

How well Badin High School’s mandatory drug testing plan works for students is anyone’s guess at this point. For sure, it could become legal fodder.

For now, let’s take it as a wake-up call — a much needed wake-up call.

⦁ Deborah Simmons can be contacted at [email protected]

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has made quite the splash with her new book, “All Due Respect,” hitting the shelves this week, within which she reveals that former Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly approached her in the White House in an attempt to recruit her to be part of a cell undermining President Trump.

Fox News reported, “Haley said that the two men ‘confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country’ and how ‘Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president’s decisions was because, if he didn’t, people would die. … This was how high the stakes were, he and Kelly told me. We are doing the best we can do to save the country, they said. We need you to work with us and help us do it. This went on for over an hour,’ she said.”

“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said,” she wrote in “All Due Respect.”

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Mrs. Haley described her reaction to the shocking request, as the BBC reported, “Ms Haley, 47, said she had refused the request from Mr. Kelly and Mr. Tillerson, and called it ‘dangerous’ and ‘offensive.’ ‘Instead of saying that to me they should have been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan,’ she told CBS. ‘It should have been — go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing. But to undermine a president … it is really a very dangerous thing and it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want. It was offensive.”

That’s an understatement. This action against a sitting president is not just politics nor should it be dismissed as “well-meaning” activity by patriots. Yes, it’s stupidity awash in arrogance, but it’s also much more than that.

Critically, it represents an internal plot to subvert the work of the president and demands an investigation. To what degree did this organizing and collusion against the sitting president extend? If they were reaching out to the U.N. ambassador, who else did they attempt to recruit and corrupt? What issues did they intervene in? What damage was done to U.S. interests? Are other recruited corrupt actors still operating in the White House? Did someone recruit Mr. Kelly and Mr. Tillerson, or are they the core tumor of this cancer?

Initially, there was no indication with the small element of the book that was dropped into the public if Ms. Haley warned the president of the plot. In subsequent interviews, she confirms that she did tell the chief executive. She noted in an interview with Sean Hannity that she told then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and the president.

In looking at the timeline, we see Mr. Tillerson was fired in March 2018. Interestingly, also in March, Mr. McMaster was ousted. But it wasn’t until December of that year, nine months later, that Mr. Kelly’s departure was announced.

In subsequent interviews, both Messrs. Tillerson and Kelly deny, in roundabout ways, undermining the president. Notably, however, neither man denies the meeting that Ms. Haley describes nor the content of the conversation she alleges.

In his alleged appeal to Ms. Haley, Mr. Tillerson insisted people would die if Mr. Trump wasn’t stopped. And he was right, people have died. Notably, the core of ISIS terrorists, and most recently Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of that global terrorist cancer, have met their deserved grisly ends. For good measure, we also dispatched its second in command and likely successor. May they all rest in pieces.

This disturbing revelation of Ms. Haley’s provides a microcosmic look at the diseased self-regard that is endemic of the Deep State leading it to believe that they, not the president of the United States, are in charge.

Here we have an allegation against previously well-regarded men behaving like snakes under a bed waiting to strike their target, while telling themselves (and others) that subverting the U.S. Constitution is A-OK because they are better than the people they are harming.

Every day we see how sloppy, idiotic and ineffective the “Masters of the Universe” really are. Their collusion, resistant cells and water carriers in the legacy media, continue to flop around attempting to frame the president with outlandish and preposterous allegations in an attempt to remove him from office. It also explains how and why the country had been sliding into economic disasters while overseeing general chaotic malaise and never-ending wars internationally.

The establishment’s goal now is to punish Mr. Trump and his supporters every day for exposing the dangerous and outlandish fraud they’ve perpetrated against the American people for generations. In the end, the president is not their only target — so are you. A comprehensive investigation into the activities of Messrs. Kelly and Tillerson is not only warranted but necessary to assure the American public that allegations of unconstitutional, and possibly criminal, conduct targeting the president will be taken seriously and acted upon.

• Tammy Bruce, president of Independent Women’s Voice, author and Fox News contributor, is a radio talk-show host.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

As an exercise in charity and patience, let’s give Rep. Adam B. Schiff the benefit of doubt — a courtesy the California Democrat certainly does not deserve.

But still, let’s assume Mr. Schiff has honest intentions. Forget all of his failed investigations and blown conspiracy theories of the past three years. Let’s assume he really just wants to preserve the integrity of the presidency and root out “abuse of power” by an elected official.

In this hard-to-believe fantasy world, what has President Trump done so wrong that the 2016 election must be overturned, the 2020 election must be canceled and Mr. Trump should be bounced out of office? What high crime has been committed that is so egregious that the legislative branch would be justified in beheading the executive branch? In an election year?

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You hear vague terms like “quid pro quo” tossed around. It is always wise to be highly distrustful whenever people start tossing around squirrelly phrases that don’t have a precise meaning. Even wiser to be even more distrustful when those squirrelly phrases are in a foreign, ancient or dead language.

“No one is above the law,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to say these days.

OK which law?

If you do a word search of the federal code, “quid pro quo” isn’t in there.

Funny thing, that “quid pro quo.” I have studied this very hard and asked around. For our purposes, “quid” is Latin for “investigate a political enemy.”

“Quo,” I have been informed, is Latin for “hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to a foreign country most of us cannot find on a map.”

(Quick side question: Why is a single working mother in rural Southside Virginia paying taxes to pay for military aid for a country she cannot find on a map? I would really like to see hearings held in Congress on this matter.)

Now lets just assume that “quid pro quo” is the high crime for which these goons have been desperately searching for the past three years.

Did, in fact, “quid” happen? No.

Did “quo” happen? Again, no.

Now is the moment when this latest scandal shifts into the “attempted” quid pro quo phase. Then comes the phase called “obstruction” of the investigation into the “quid pro quo” that did not happen.

Again, for the purposes of charity and an exercise in patience, we are giving Mr. Schiff the benefit of doubt that he actually wants to clean things up around here.

The legal case is a complete failure. So let’s consider the overall stink factor of what Mr. Trump did. The worst thing you can hang on him is that he urged the leader of a foreign government to investigate serious allegations of corruption potentially committed by a political opponent and his family in that foreign government.

Is that illegal, unethical or unseemly? Perhaps unseemly. But it is kind of hard to separate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s potential play-for-pay in Ukraine from the broader corruption that everyone says is in America’s best interest to clean up — especially if we are handing them hundreds of millions of dollars in hard-earned taxpayer money.

In addition, for the entirely of Mr. Trump’s political career, he has been the subject of the exact same shenanigans where political opponents turn to foreign operatives to dig up dirt to be used against him. And all the nonsense they supposedly dug up on Mr. Trump turned out to be false.

But the real killer thing about all this is why Mr. Schiff can never be given any benefit of the doubt as a remotely honest dealer.

Mr. Schiff and House Democrats want to remove Mr. Trump for launching an investigation to destroy a political opponent. But isn’t that precisely what Mr. Schiff is doing to Mr. Trump? And you are paying for every dime of it.

Indeed, the founders designed our federal government with the absolute worst, most dishonest and self-serving humans in mind. Mr. Schiff has certainly given them a run for their money.

But there is an election coming. There will be a reckoning. And all debts will be paid.

• Contact Charles Hurt at [email protected] or on Twitter @charleshurt.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

There are those who say vaping is a public health menace, that it’s designed to appeal to young people as a gateway to tobacco with no redeeming social values whatsoever. Others who say it’s a public health miracle that’s made it possible for tens of thousands of people addicted to cigarettes to quit and live healthier lives.

It’s not clear who’s right but the evidence thus far hews toward the idea that vaping, from the standpoint of public health, is largely beneficial. There have been a few deaths among young people but, as we’re now finding out, those can be attributed to carelessness, black market formulas based in oil rather than water, and the effort to get a quick high by employing a THC-like additive. They did not result, as the proponents of regulation and abolition led us at first to believe, because all vaping technologies are medically and scientifically unsound.

Vaping is 95 percent safer than smoking, according to some estimates. Unlike inhaling cigarette smoke, vaping is not carcinogenetic and not, as some have claimed, a proven gateway to teen smoking. Yet it’s under attack as never before.

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The hysteria over what’s been called “vaping-related lung illness” has generated enormous pressure on politicians from President Donald Trump on down to do something. That’s understandable but not necessarily right. The attack on the science showing that vaping generally leads to reductions in cigarette smoking and that favored vaping is very much a part of helping people quit is leading to a situation where even more people may die.

For more than a few years, the nascent vaping industry has tried to work with the government to set rules everyone can live with. They’re on board with an under-21 vaping ban, and the biggest player in the marketplace, Juul, has voluntarily agreed to withdraw its few flavored formulas from the U.S. market. No more mint, no more crème, no more cucumber, no more fruit and no more mango — even though studies have shown cigarette smokers find it easier to refrain from smoking if the vaping options available to them are flavored.

Juul mint was by far the most popular flavor amount young people, constituting 64 percent of youth e-cigarette use. Removing it from the market may do more to reduce underage vaping than any other action taken by the U.S. government to date. That will give the president the win he was looking for when he and first lady Melania Trump jumped into the debate with all four feet.

After all, he said it was about protecting our kids and that, along with the “under-21 ban” backed by Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, may get him what he wants, He talked tough and industry listened. Now that the primary teenage-enticing flavor is going to be unavailable, Mr. Trump and Dr. Stephen Hahn —the chief medical officer of the world-renowned M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas whom he’s nominated to be the next commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — should reconsider the proposed blanket ban on flavored vaping.

What’s been proposed is, as the man said, bad policy and bad politics. On the policy front, the e-cigarette is the most effective quit-smoking tool in history. Studies show most adults prefer flavors, meaning a blanket ban will probably do more harm than good in terms of public health.

Politically, a flavor ban hurts Mr. Trump’s bid for re-election. Mr. Trump won Michigan, a state with an estimated 423,000 vapers, by roughly 11,000 votes in 2016. Pennsylvania, which he won by 44,000 votes, has 457,000 vapers in the Keystone State. Polling commissioned by Americans for Tax Reform showed adult vapers to be a powerful bloc in a dozen swing states. E-cigarette users are almost always single-issue voters — to them its life or death, literally — and 4 of 5 said a politician’s position on banning, taxing or regulating vapor products would dictate their vote.

There are sensible policies that can deter youth use without harming adults who want to switch rather than quit. The president has hinted he might be coming around on many of them, like the “under-21 ban.” They also should remain inaccessible to customers without carefully placed precautions (staff assistance or lock and key) and be sold only where face-to-face age verification is possible.

Each of these measures, combined with Juul’s removal of youth-friendly mint from the marketplace, should put a stop to the youth vaping epidemic while leaving this medical technology miracle available for those who can’t quit cigarettes any other way. The vapers deserve a chance to prove they’ll work.

• Peter Roff is a senior fellow at Frontiers of Freedom, and a former U.S. News & World Report contributing editor who appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network. He can be reached by email at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

From 1967 to 2019, Republicans controlled the California governorship for 31 of 52 years. So why is there currently not a single statewide Republican officeholder? California also has a Democratic governor and Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. Only seven of California’s 53 congressional seats are held by Republicans.

In 1994, then-Gov. Pete Wilson backed Proposition 187, which denied state social services to undocumented immigrants. The spin goes that it backfired, alienated the Hispanic community and thus marked the road to Republican perdition.

Not quite.

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Prop 187 passed with 59 percent support. Mr. Wilson’s endorsement of the bill helped its passage, and his support of it aided his landslide 1994 re-election. Among minority voters, 52 percent of Asian and African-American voters supported Proposition 187. Some 27 percent of Latinos voted for it.

Liberal groups immediately sued in federal court. Just three days after the measure passed, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Proposition 187 from going into effect. A month later, U.S. District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer issued a permanent injunction. Prop 187 never became law.

In effect, two judges nullified the wishes of more than 5 million California voters.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had supported Prop 187. Yet in 2003 he was elected governor. So what caused the Republican demise?

Ironically, radical changes in California demography may have been brought about by Prop 187 — but not in the way many people think.

The state’s population has increased by nearly 10 million in the last quarter century. Yet the growth has been marked by the exodus of some and larger influxes of others.

When Prop 187 passed, there were an estimated 1.5 million undocumented immigrants statewide. In the 25 years since, millions of others have entered the state, and the current number of those still undocumented exceeds 3 million.

Some 27 percent of current California residents were not born in the U.S. Traditionally, first-generation immigrants favor larger, not smaller, government.

A cynic might argue that once a federal judge allowed undocumented immigrants to enjoy the full array of state services and entitlements, there were incentives for millions of other immigrants to enter the U.S. illegally, and California in particular.

Statistics suggest they did just that — often to the chagrin of Democratic politicians, the United Farm Workers and other liberal groups who worried about the negative effects of illegal immigration on entry-level wages, unionization and poor citizens’ access to overtaxed social services.

Oddly, conservative businesspeople were likely to favor permissive immigration policies in hopes of finding an ample supply of low-cost laborers while simultaneously diminishing the power of unions.

A technological revolution sparked a lucrative Silicon Valley renaissance. Suddenly, coastal California became one of the wealthiest corridors in the history of the planet. Big Tech drew in hundreds of thousands of hip young workers eager to come to California and join what was thought to be a global revolution.

Silicon Valley was seen as a uniquely progressive corporate paradise where one could get rich and stay woke all at once. Most techies supported big government, higher taxes and open borders, and had the money and wherewithal to not worry much about the ensuing costs and the catastrophic results for others.

By the turn of the century, the California treasury was relying on the tech industry for an enormous share of the taxes to fund its massive expansion of state services — and politicians often bowed to Big Tech’s political wishes.

As taxes climbed, schools eroded and funds for infrastructure were diverted elsewhere, millions of middle-class Californians fled. The total numbers of this continuing exodus are still in dispute. Many left in despair over climbing gas, sales and income taxes that seemed to worsen rather improve state infrastructure and services.

This tripartite demographic revolution proved disastrous for the Republican Party. The GOP lost much of its base to other states. Many conservative voters left for small-government, low-tax alternatives. Republican efforts to reduce taxes, limit some abortions and fund additional roads and dams had little appeal to the new gentry classes on the coast.

Will there ever again be a viable California Republican Party?

After three decades of radical progressivism, California residents are tiring of one-party straitjacket rule. The hard-liberal order normalized massive power blackouts, the nation’s highest array of taxes, the forest mismanagement that fuels deadly fires, an epidemic of homelessness in major cities, eroding schools, ossified infrastructure and soaring energy costs.

The final irony?

Those most hurt — and growing the most angry — are the immigrants who once fled to a different California that now no longer exists.

• Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, is the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won” (Basic Books, 2017).

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The House Democrats have started holding public hearings as part of their “impeachment inquiry,” but does anyone really care?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know exactly how this plays out. All but a few House Democrats vote to impeach President Trump, with all of the House Republicans voting against it. The impeachment then heads over to the Senate for trial where all the Senate Republicans, except for perhaps Mitt Romney, voting against Mr. Trump being removed. 

The crazy thing about this entire scenario is that if you or I, lay people when it comes to analyzing Congress, can easily predict this, then the actual “professional” members of Congress definitely know where this is headed as well. So, if they already know this, why move forward with it?

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The answer is simple: It’s the greatest political gamble of our lifetimes — with our taxpayer money.

Sadly, Democratic political veterans like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer know how this ends, with their team losing in major ways in 2020. Instead, Congress could be accomplishing things. There are piles of pieces of legislation that could have been focused on to potentially improve the lives of Americans, but instead, we’re stuck with hearing from leftists-on-Twitter’s newest heroes, people like Col. Alexander Vindman who have been the most recent anointed saviors from people who used to hate the military, but who jump to salute those who are suddenly anti-Trump.

To be honest, Democrats would have been better off trying to impeach the president on their ridiculous obstruction-of-justice claims that they were making throughout the Mueller investigation — at least they had some debatable evidence in that scenario. By claiming over and over again that the president obstructed by merely tweeting about it being a “witch hunt,” they created a narrative that could have been argued. And even though there was no debate whether or not a witness in that investigation (which the White House fully complied with) was intimidated (they weren’t) the Democrats could have had a platform that didn’t seem completely preposterous.

In the current impeachment scenario, the president is accused of covering up a phone call that he released the full transcript of — and we are still led to believe by talking points that the whistleblower is actually a whistleblower, not just an Obama holdover that did nothing more than created a dramatic hearsay account of something that is now public record.

So what exactly are the Democrats thinking? 

What do they hope to gain from this impeachment?

I think they’re looking at a crop of candidates who have no chance of defeating Mr. Trump in the 2020 election and realize this is their last chance to stop him. Whether it be Joe Biden, who seems to be too old to remember where he is when he’s not busy smelling women’s hair, or Elizabeth Warren, who after pretending to be a Native American most of her career now tries to pretend that she isn’t a socialist, or any of the other pile of unelectable candidates, the Democrats know their days in the White House are numbered. Impeachment is the 80-yard Hail Mary pass into a crowd in the end zone in the last seconds of a football game when the team is down by six points. Their loss is inevitable, but they’re just hoping to tie it up with a chance to win.

Unfortunately for Americans, this isn’t a game they opted in to buying tickets for. Their money is being wasted on this political game so that Democrats can attempt to eliminate their unbeatable opponent in a losing game. Worse yet is that numbers are showing that the more they push forward, the more Republicans win.

Mr. Trump’s approval rating with Republicans has maintained record numbers, rarely if ever dipping below 95 percent, and the fundraising numbers between his campaign and the RNC have far surpassed any campaign’s in any quarter throughout history. How you can be an adviser or consultant to a Democrat and watch this scenario play out without screaming “STOP!” boggles my mind.

In recent history, we watched Republicans get decimated after the Clinton impeachment hearings — and now the numbers that the GOP are putting up in spite of the Democrats efforts are incredible.

If you’re a Republican during these hearings, you aren’t paying attention to the silly political theater that Democrats are wasting your hard-earned money on. And if you’re a Democrat, you’re watching intently, hoping that the team you’ve bet on isn’t about to blow all your money and hopes on the future.

But we all already know how this turns out. The only question that remains is whether or not Don Jr. will run to follow his father’s two terms in 2024.

• Tim Young is a political comedian and author of “I Hate Democrats/I Hate Republicans” (Post Hill Press).

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Last week, a national debate erupted over whether Twitter was right to ban political advertising — with a few exceptions — or whether fellow social media giant Facebook made the right call in resisting such a ban.

Twitter’s decision is a direct response to overwhelming criticism over how it ensures that false advertising is not posted on its platform. Rather than try to create the necessary verification systems, Twitter officials decided to ban political speech entirely.

But this is hardly the only concern with how powerful social networks police themselves.

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Facing pending bipartisan regulation, Facebook officials are trying to diversify and shield themselves, rolling out a new news service for select users. The scary thing is that Facebook has more control over freedom of speech then we’ve ever realized.

Facebook sets arbitrary rules for what we can see and has the ability to hide certain messages by not promoting posts the site disagrees with through their algorithms. Facebook has far more ability to silence us than the government.

Since Facebook — and to an extent other social media sites — do not take free speech rights seriously, it is time for all Americans, not just as conservatives or liberals, to look for other platforms to find and express their thoughts and opinions.

New platforms have been launched, and new ones will launch over the next few years, promising to protect free speech or better shield user data from abuse.

Smart folks in the tech world will adapt to the market’s new demands and create outlets where free thought is valued. One interesting concept is a platform called “Thinkspot,” backed by a diverse group of thinkers including noted author and professor Jordan Peterson.

Thinkspot couldn’t be more different from traditional social media platforms, which rely on users to create the site’s content. Thinkspot has a top-down approach, where contributors create and share their content, and the community reacts and engages with it. This is not a site where commenters create and post memes and videos. Instead, users engage through written comments, allowing expression without diluting the opinions expressed. While it is still in a testing phase, all users will have the opportunity to become contributors down the road. The site will also continue to build out its list of contributors.

The hope is that Thinkspot won’t be the cesspool that other sites have become, where hateful comments, tasteless jokes and one-liner insults are rampant. What Thinkspot’s backers are trying to do is create a place where users can discover new topics and engage in conversations on topics they already care about.

Crucially, Thinkspot doesn’t impose arbitrary standards or subjective rules over what content can be shared. Unlike Facebook, the site doesn’t make up rules for what ideas can be shared. Contributors are established professionals who have a history of producing content related to their fields, be it through published works, a large online following or podcasts.

You may be wondering how content on Thinkspot is moderated.

Thinkspot is a platform for diverse thinkers to share their opinions without having to comply with fuzzy guidelines that are arbitrarily devised and subjectively enforced. The goal is to encourage discussion, not suppress it.

It is impossible to entirely prevent nastiness on the internet. But instead of trying to regulate it out of existence, Thinkspot’s founders have created a unique process to avoid it, including a minimum character count to encourage longer, more thoughtful posts and a voting system where other users can downvote a comment into a hidden section where it can only be viewed if users click on it.

The goal: fostering an environment where users will police each other, negating the need for an outside moderator to decide what is “appropriate” and what is not.

The internet remains a free market, where sites and platforms compete for visitors. If you prize free speech and user privacy, Facebook and Twitter are not meeting market demand. That alone creates a valuable opportunity for new platforms.

⦁ Matt Mackowiak is president of Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C.-based Potomac Strategy Group. He’s a Republican consultant, a Bush administration and Bush-Cheney reelection campaign veteran and former press secretary to two U.S. senators.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

According to a report by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), the teaching of U.S. history to American students lags behind all other subject matters.

The latest NAEP survey finds that proficiency levels for fourth-, eighth- and 12th-grade students are in the 20, 18 and 12th percentile, respectively.

Part of this, I suspect, is the way the subject is taught. History is boring to many students. It was boring to me in high school and college. Who wants to read about a bunch of dead white men one cannot view on video, or even in high-resolution photographs?

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I asked David M. Rubenstein about this. Mr. Rubenstein has so many titles and accomplishments, including co-founder and co-executive chairman of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group and chairman of the Board of Trustees for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

His new book, “The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians,” is a series of interviews with contemporary writers, including Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David McCullough, Robert Caro and Jay Winik. All have written highly readable biographies that metaphorically raise America’s Founders and other important historical figures from the dead, making readers feel they are in the same room where they speak to us today.

Why does Mr. Rubenstein think U.S. history has taken a back seat to every other subject? He replied: “To some extent it started after Sputnik in 1957 when people were concerned that our science and technology were not as good as the Soviets … then when China came along as an economic and technological threat … the emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) became a bigger deal. Also, I think parents said to their children ‘make sure you study something that will get you a job when you graduate.’ All of this made history go down and therefore we don’t teach it very much.”

Mr. Rubenstein tells me this is not in his book, but something he finds shocking: “Today you can graduate from any college in the United States without having to take an American history course and you can graduate as a history major in 80 percent of the colleges and not have to take an American history course.”

As if this were not stunning enough, he adds: “A recent survey revealed that if one is foreign born and wishes to become a citizen, you have to be a resident for five years. It used to be 14. After five years you take a test. Ninety-one percent of the people pass. The same test was given to native-born citizens in all 50 states by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. A majority failed in every state, except Vermont. This shows you how bad the situation has gotten.”

Mr. Rubenstein says when history is taught it is more about world civilizations than American history. While he says he doesn’t think learning about other countries is a bad idea, “it’s good to know your own history. I do find as I travel around the world that people know more about American history than people in the United States do.”

While he won’t comment on the role political correctness has played in the spinning of American history, the stories one hears coming from public schools and universities seems to confirm that the facts of America’s past are being revised to reflect a liberal and contemporary view. That is because some of the Founders owned slaves and explorers like Christopher Columbus are said to have wrecked a society of indigenous people and these “stains” can never be washed away, or at least seen in the context of their major achievements.

David Rubenstein’s interviews are a thrilling trip to the past and ought to be required reading for anyone who cares about America’s future because, as Shakespeare wrote, “What’s past is prologue.”

• Cal Thomas, a nationally syndicated columnist, is the author of “America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires, Superpowers and the United States” (HarperCollins/Zondervan, January 2020).

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

For decades, if not centuries, experts on the Middle East have talked about the need for the “reformation” of Islam. They envisioned a change like that of Christianity in the late Middle Ages that accelerated development of the Western world. Changes precisely of that scale are occurring right now in Saudi Arabia and, with few exceptions, attract no notice by the press.

Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) has been working on the reformation of Islam for years. His motives are as transparent as they are vastly ambitious. He intends to bring Saudi Arabia into the 21st century, to wean the nation off dependence on an oil-base economy, to attract foreign investment, to build a tourist industry and to emancipate women.

To accomplish this ambitious agenda, MBS first took aim at the Faustian bargain with Wahhabi clerics that was struck many decades ago by his royal forebears. In exchange for their support of the rule of the House of Saud, the deal granted Wahhabi clerics the power to enforce a stultifying version of Islam in Saudi Arabia and the means to export it abroad. The consequences of that arrangement have had vast and negative implications for Saudi Arabia and the world. 

The prince has not been subtle in his methods. Along the way he jailed 750 clerics until they recanted their ultra-conservative views, their preaching of jihad, and their prohibitions against all Western values and norms. The objective was achieved. The message was sent. The government and people of Saudi Arabia will no longer be held hostage by religious zealots.

The next target was the Muslim World League (MWL), a quasi-government religious organization established in 1962 to propagate the Wahhabi version of Islam. Muslim Brotherhood members played a large role in its founding, and the MWL was strongly associated with the Brotherhood. U.S. officials have testified that MWL has been linked to supporting Islamic terrorist organizations globally. 

The crown prince foreshadowed the transformation of the MWL during an interview in 2018 in which he explicitly acknowledged the right of the state of Israel to exist. He subsequently assembled 1,200 Muslim leaders in Mecca, along with scholars, academics and religious teachers from 137 countries. They issued the “Charter of Makkah” in May of this year.

 That charter reads, in part:

“All people, regardless of their different ethnicities, races and nationalities, are equal under God.”

“Differences among people in their beliefs, cultures and natures are part of God’s will and wisdom.”

“Religious and cultural diversity never justifies conflict. Humanity needs positive, civilized partnerships and effective interaction. Diversity must be a bridge to dialogue, understanding and cooperation for the benefit of all humanity.”

“We set aside preconceived prejudices, historical animosities, conspiracy theories and erroneous generalizations.” 

“All individuals must combat terrorism and injustice and reject exploitation and the violation of human rights.” 

Subsequent to the issuance of the charter, MBS intensified the fundamental changes regarding the rights of women and Saudi society. Women can now drive in Saudi Arabia. Women are increasingly represented in professions such as the law, and the government is calling for more. Women can move freely without the archaic requirement of being accompanied by a male relative or having his permission. A couple can now book hotel rooms without showing proof of being married. 

The former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Karen Elliott House, has recently reported from Riyadh that women participated in a city marathon in leggings and short-sleeve T-shirts, their faces bare. The paper ran photos of the joyful runners. There are even, in fact, public female wrestling matches. And for the first time, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States is a woman, Princess Reema bint Bandar, who replaced the brother of MBS.

To Western eyes these freedoms seem simple matters. But in a nation in which women were controlled by men for many decades, these are not small things. They are seismic. They mean more than some added personal freedoms. They mean women are now able to move into the workforce in all respects, and that Saudi society will have to accommodate their presence.

The economy envisioned by MBS, in which the participation of women is essential, is being transformed by a clear focus on diversification and on movement away from reliance on petroleum. Since 2016 the Saudis have inked $170 billion in non-oil deals and the shift away from oil is accelerating. But the crown prince knows full well that all the elements of his plan are linked. Willingness of Western companies to do business and to invest in the kingdom outside the oil sector will be predicated on their belief that the fundamental changes in the nation are real and will continue to grow. 

In September, the MWL secretary-general, Sheikh Dr. Mohammed al-Issa, met with a delegation from the American evangelical community in Jeddah. Both groups affirmed “their common values, pledged to bolster bilateral cooperation and stressed the importance of renouncing all forms of extremism and hatred and working together to build bridges of cooperation among peoples of all religions and cultures.”

After the recent killing of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, MBS congratulated President Trump on the success of the operation and called it a historic step in the fight against extremism and terrorism. The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a formal statement saying in part that al-Baghdadi had distorted the image of Islam and hailed his killing by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria. The Foreign Ministry then reaffirmed that Saudi Arabia will continue to work with its allies, including the United States, in fighting terrorism. 

If the 30 principles of the Charter of Makkah are not an exact equivalent of the 95 theses Martin Luther nailed to the Wittenberg church door in 1517, they are nevertheless an astonishing beginning. They have the potential to change the very nature of one of the most conflict-prone areas on our planet, and they deserve our support.

• Sam Faddis is a former CIA operations officer with experience in the conduct of intelligence operations in the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.