Opinion

On April 25, U.S. President Joe Biden announced his intention to seek re-election in 2024.

“The question we’re facing,” Biden says in his announcement video, “is whether in the years ahead, we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”

“I know what I want the answer to be,” he continues, “and I think you do, too.”

Of course, it’s not about what anyone “wants” the answer to be. It’s about what the answer actually is.

The number of our rights doesn’t change, because we don’t get our rights from presidents, elections or constitutions.

On April 14, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Airman First Class Jack Teixeira with copying and sharing information “connected with” or “relating to” the “national defense.”

The government alleges that Teixeira is the man behind “leaks” of classified information which worked their way from the Massachusetts Air National Guard to a Discord chat server for gamers and thence to social media, and finally and unfortunately only very partially, to the U.S. “mainstream” media.

In early April, Twitter added a “State-Affiliated Media” tag to National Public Radio’s account on the social media platform, putting it in the same league as Russia’s RT, China’s Xinhua and other government-funded “news” outlets.

Within a few days, under withering criticism from, among others, NPR CEO Jack Lansing (who came to NPR after running other U.S. state-affiliated media such as Voice of America and Radio Free Europe), Twitter backed off a bit and changed NPR's label to “Government Funded.” What’s the difference?

There isn’t one.

You have to work with what you have. You have to play the hand you have been dealt. You have to make the best of your circumstances. Complaining about your situation is unproductive and a complete waste of time.

Regardless of your circumstances, chances are that you are not maximizing your potential. There is a solution for every problem and every problem contains an opportunity. Spending any time being envious of another’s lot is a total waste of energy.

On Thursday, Feb. 23, the two-week-long, non-stop religious revival at tiny Asbury University in rural Wilmore, Ky., saw its official end. Starting with about 20 students who stayed after a regular campus chapel service, tens of thousands had been drawn from across the country in that short span to participate in almost radically simple prayer, singing and worship.

By then, this “awakening” was reported to have spread to several other religious colleges.

In February I began hosting town hall meetings, inviting those who call Oklahoma’s 3rd Congressional District home, to discuss the issues most pressing in Washington and at home in Oklahoma. While there is a lot happening across the nation, there was one topic that came up time and time again that greatly troubles me: President Biden’s 30 by 30 Initiative.

U.S. President Joe Biden “stresses that Silicon Valley Bank is not getting a bailout,” The Hill reported on March 13.

“No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” he said of the federal government’s decision to cover depositor losses in excess of $250,000. “Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.”

U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, no stranger to finding himself under political fire, has been hunkering down beneath a new barrage after turning over 40,000 hours of U.S. Capitol security camera footage (from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot) to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

“The speaker is needlessly exposing the Capitol complex to one of the worst security risks since 9/11,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) whined.

“The footage Speaker McCarthy is making available to Fox News is a treasure trove of closely held information about how the Capitol complex is protected.”

On Feb. 27, Reuters reports, the White House gave federal agencies a 30-day deadline to ensure that all government-owned devices are TikTok-free.

The supposed, but seemingly evidence-less, reason: Because a Chinese company owns TikTok -- a smart phone app for creating and sharing short videos -- the Chinese government may be using it to spy on Americans.

Well, OK. Ban TikTok from government devices.

But does that really go far enough?

At Riverside School, our school board, our teachers and staff, many of our parents and I were disappointed that our recent bond proposal did not pass. We are teachers, though, and as most everyone knows, we are individuals who don’t easily give up on seeing that our students have the best we can give them.