Every New Year offers many opportunities for improvement

January 6, 2026

As we begin 2026, the 250th year of our country’s existence, and we look at the current state of affairs, we realize how far the country has moved away from our original values and traditions. Many wonder if the country can possibly move back to the traditions and values that made it great. And will it? 

Quite a few troubling things have happened in recent years. One of the most recent is the election of Zohran Mamdani as the Mayor of New York City. He identifies as a Shia Muslim and a democratic socialist. And he took the oath of office on the Islamic Quran when he was sworn in early on January 1, not on the Bible, as is customary.

He is not the first Muslim to serve in public office, of course, but is the first one to serve as New York’s mayor. He ran on and was elected on a radical, non-traditional platform of socialist/communist concepts. Yet he had wide support in the election, showing that lots of New Yorkers are fully behind his heavy socialist/communist beliefs and intentions, which run contrary to the traditions of America.

We have seen this attitude of moving away from traditions creep into education, resulting in many students graduating from high school underprepared for college or life in general. School systems and teachers improperly made changes in curricula and grading standards, and that has produced students with lower abilities, and non-traditional, and often inaccurate, beliefs.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2025 showed some of the worst scores ever. As reported in Newsmax magazine, some of those results are: 

* High school seniors reading comprehension is the worst since the early 1990s.

*More high school seniors were deficient in math and reading than in any previous NAEP assessment.

* High School seniors recorded their lowest scores ever.

* Only one in three U.S. high school seniors is adequately prepared for college math.

Perhaps as a result of these less well-prepared graduating seniors, many colleges and universities dropped using SAT or ACT scores for undergraduate admissions. Because so many students’ scores were below the acceptable level, admission requirements had to be eased, or students would not be admitted. Students were then admitted based on elements other than their academic abilities and learning level, such as the much loved, but dangerously foolish DEI concept — diversity, equity and inclusion.

Speaking to the change in the educational culture over recent years, Brian Mueller, president of Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, noted that “It’s very dangerous when we have 20- and 21-year-olds in our country who don’t understand 20th-century Western civilization and its history.”

And, there is a generation gap where younger generations have different ideas about such things as work ethic, moral values, the respect they show others, political views, religious beliefs, free speech, and marriage and having children.

Where crime is concerned, people’s attitudes towards dealing with criminals is somewhat troublesome. A poll in 2025 asking about the best way to fight crime showed that only 25 percent of respondents thought tougher sentencing was the most effective way to reduce crime. More mental health and addiction services were preferred by 28 percent, 22 percent liked a greater police presence as the best approach, and 16 percent thought more community programs were best. Harsh punishment for serious crimes is a better support for law and order.

The high number of violent crimes — such as murder, rape, and assault — committed by persons previously convicted of crimes, but given light sentences, or no sentences, ought to be a wake-up call to the soft-on-crime prosecutors and judges in office, of which there are far too many. Hopefully, it will be.

During the Biden administration the Justice Department indicted Venezuelan “President” Maduro and his wife for crimes against America, offered a huge reward for his capture, but nothing happened. Last weekend, the Trump administration sent military and law enforcement personnel there and arrested the Maduros after those crimes continued in Trump’s first year of office, despite warnings and actions to stop the drug boats smuggling drugs into the U.S. 

Venezuelans in Venezuela, America and all over the world, are thrilled and celebrating that the man who ruined their country and their lives has been arrested. But American leftists are outraged, either not knowing or not caring that similar actions have been legally and constitutionally taken by former presidents Biden, Obama, Clinton and both George Bushes.

There are some signs of returning to the better days. In higher education, for example, civics and traditional American values are showing up, again. Harvard, Brown and Princeton universities are tightening up acceptance requirements. 

Law professor Jonathon Turley commented that those changes to lower standards was an “ill-conceived and poorly supported movement to achieve greater equity and diversity by eliminating standardized testing in higher education.” “In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college,” Turley added.

If our country is to remain strong and the leader of the world in individual freedom and sensible, productive ways of doing things, we must restore the traditional values that built the nation and successfully sustained it for more than 200 years.

Some areas of controversy of 2025 will continue into 2026

December 23, 2025

As the end of 2025 draws near, there are a few things of interest that will still be with us after the New Year arrives.

There is a proposed $6.2 billion merger of two large media organizations, Nexstar and Tegna. If this deal goes through, the merged company would be the largest TV organization in the country, and would reach more than 80 percent of U.S. households. 

Opposing the merger are some conservative groups, including the Conservative Political Action Conference, Newsmax, and the Zionist Organization of America. Their argument opposes the huge degree of coverage the company would have, viewing it as a threat to viewpoint diversity, particularly at the local news level.

On their side is the Telecommunications Act of 1996, amended in 2004, which limits the degree of television ownership at 39 percent, which is slightly less than half of the 80 percent level of ownership the merger would represent.

The Federal Communications Commission Chairman (FCC), Brendan Carr, has supported raising the cap, which would allow the merger to go through.

However, a legal analysis by appellate scholars titled "The FCC Lacks Statutory Authority to Revise the Telecommunications Act's 39% National Ownership Cap for Television” concludes that the FCC does not have the authority to raise, eliminate, or waive the long-standing 39 percent cap. Only Congress has the authority to make such changes, the analysis states.

Given what we have seen in the news and on social media involving the controlling of certain ideas that the media organizations dislike, having one giant voice that covers 80 percent of the country is a very dangerous prospect.

And, as we have seen, questionable court actions have only added to the concerns that our legal system is sometimes driven more by politics than it is by the law and the Constitution. This trend may continue in 2026.

Federal district judges have been issuing orders with nationwide effect. One example: U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to immediately halt efforts to remove criminal illegal aliens until he has more time to consider whether Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was illegal. And, there are other instances where a district judge has also intervened in a presidential action.

There are 94 federal judicial districts and each one has at least one district judge, who is appointed for a life term. In total there are more than 670 federal district judges in the U.S. And as some of these judges see it, each of them, having judicial authority over a very small area of the country, somehow has the power to overrule the President of the United States.

A theory on what has led to many judges making rulings and taking other actions beyond their actual authority is the existing assumption that judges hold absolute immunity for their actions. There are cases where obvious errors and deliberately improper actions by judges have been ignored. Judicial immunity has been awarded to judges by other judges.

However, in a fairly recent 6-3 ruling stemming from Trump's bid to end birthright citizenship, the court said nationwide injunctions issued by district court judges "likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts."

"Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them," said Justice Amy Coney Barrett, author of the opinion.

"When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too," Barrett said in the opinion joined by five other justices on the court.

Unwanted pregnancies that are ended by abortion is a topic that is frequently in the news. Many people favor abortion, and many others oppose it. There is a great deal of emotion on both sides of that discussion.  

This part of the column is not about abortion, per se; it does not speak for it or against it. It is to address a fairly recent and very serious related issue.

Nine states — including New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland, and Oregon, plus the District of Columbia — already allow abortion up to the moment of birth.

California passed a bill that would allow infants to be “aborted” up to 28 days after birth, and Governor Gavin Newsom signed it. Maryland tried to pass a similar law, but it was defeated.

A language device used to “justify” this horrific idea is replacing the term “prenatal” in the written law with the term “perinatal.” “Prenatal” means before birth, but “perinatal” includes a period after birth. This subtle change legalizes infanticide, or murdering newborn children.

How any of us may feel about abortion, this is not permissible or acceptable. It is more than a little frightening to learn that some people in this country would try to justify killing living babies. Could this conceivably be extended to a full year, or more?

While there are other on-going problems in the country, it is possible that one or more of the three issues discussed will be resolved next year. Certainly, we can cross our fingers for that.