Spero News, Houston, TX (2026)

04/23/2019

Star Parker explains how a free country enables anyone to transform themselves at any time: With all the attention the national debate between socialism and capitalism is getting, a new book has arrived on the scene that casts valuable perspective.

The book is "Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement," written by Forbes Magazine publisher Rich Karlgaard.

Karlgaard takes on the cult of youth that is capturing so much of our popular culture, particularly on the left.

He reminds us in this important book that life is about learning, accumulation of wisdom, self-renewal and, in the best cases, prevailing against adversity. These are all the fruits of age and experience.

A late bloomer, says Karlgaard, is "a person who fulfills their potential later than expected; they often have talents that aren't visible to others initially. The key word here is expected ." And he goes on to tell stories of individuals who faced frustration and even disillusionment in their youth and went on to great achievement later in life.

This, in contrast to "early bloomers" — personalities such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who, at age 23, was the youngest self-made billionaire to ever appear on Forbes Magazine's billionaire list.

But what is missed by those who look with awe at these youthful achievers is that the most important lesson to be learned is often the exact lesson that is missed.

That lesson is that youthful success should be taken with humility and gratitude, because it is the product of natural gifts and good fortune.

The late bloomer, on the other hand, who struggles to find his or her way, who has the character to transcend disappointment, build anew and, in the end, accumulate valuable wisdom is the model in life who should get far more attention than is afforded in our culture.

What lessons lie here for the socialism vs. capitalism debate?

Just as the individual early bloomer benefits from natural gifts of talent and circumstance, similarly, the youth of the nation inherit the bounty that is the result of the work of previous generations.

And just as the phenomenon of renewal lies with the late bloomer overcoming and rediscovering and reinventing oneself, similarly, national renewal lies with a free economy and the ability to change and adapt.

We have a good example in energy.

In the 1970s, everyone thought the world was running out of oil. Then-President Carter declared a national energy crisis and in 1977 established the Department of Energy.

There was great concern about both diminishing supplies of what was thought to be a limited natural resource and U.S. dependence on foreign oil imports.

But today, the United States is producing more oil and gas than it ever has in history. This all thanks to technological innovations having everything to do with the creativity of free individuals and nothing to do with government and politics.

The U.S. is now projected to be totally energy independent by next year.

There is also a lesson here about planning.

Socialists would have us believe that good planning can solve all our problems...read more...

With all the attention the national debate between socialism and capitalism is getting, a new book has arrived on the scene that casts valuable persp ...

04/18/2019

Newt Gingrich explains how the West can rebuild Notre Dame by comparing it to what happened with the Campanile in Venice collapsed in 1912:

As Callista and I sat watching the terrible fire in Paris that was burning the Cathedral of Notre Dame, our thoughts went back to the many times we had visited Paris. We always visited the great Cathedral. On a number of occasions, we went to Mass there. One unforgettable Mass, they had brought the great bells down from the bell towers, and they were placed right in the middle of the Cathedral. We were sitting just a few feet from one of the bells. When they rang it during Mass, you could feel it in your bones – the vibrations were so powerful.

Notre Dame is one of the greatest examples of gothic architecture. When you stand inside, you feel lifted to the heavens by the very shape of the building. Consider that prior to 1900, the overwhelming bulk of visitors lived in small houses. The scale and majesty of Notre Dame must have been overpowering.

Such a symbol of Western civilization and Christianity cannot be allowed to disappear. As President Trump said, “It's one of the great treasures of the world… it might be greater than almost any museum in the world.”

President Trump noted the tragic fire transcends politics, saying Notre Dame Cathedral “is beyond countries, that's beyond anything. That's a part of our growing up. It's a part of our culture. It's a part of our lives. That's a truly great cathedral. And I've been there, and I've seen it, and … there's probably no cathedral in the world like it.”

Callista and I were delighted when French President Emmanuel Macron said, “We'll rebuild this cathedral all together, and it's undoubtedly part of the French destiny and the project we'll have for the coming years.”

President Macron appealed for international support to help rebuild this great monument to our way of life.

Here in the United States, Monsignor Walter Rossi of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (the largest Catholic Church in America) announced the Basilica was helping raise support for Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris:

“The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in solidarity with the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, is welcoming donations through a special online collection in the wake of the devastating fire on April 15, 2019.

“The National Shrine, also called America’s Catholic Church, is facilitating donations and prayer intentions through a special website at www.SupportNotreDame.org to support Notre Dame and those affected by this tragedy.

“The devotion of the faithful made the Cathedral of Notre Dame a welcoming place of worship and pilgrimage for more than eight centuries and now will rely on the generosity of the world to rebuild this sacred place of worship.

“The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception encourages those whose lives have been touched by this iconic Cathedral, to support the effort to resurrect and rebuild this church which has touched the hearts and souls of the world.”

Over Christianity’s long history, many cathedrals and churches across the world have been destroyed and rebuilt.

The best example of a determination to rebuild, however, is in Venice, Italy. ...read more

As Callista and I sat watching the terrible fire in Paris that was burning the Cathedral of Notre Dame, our thoughts went back to the many times we h ...

04/17/2019

Star Parker explains why Democrats are hypocrites about illegal immigration: No one can accuse Donald Trump of not being able to grab attention.

He lobbed his latest political hand gr***de, announcing that he is considering shipping off illegals who have been arriving in droves at the U.S.-Mexico border to sanctuary cities.

These are municipalities with ordinances directing local authorizes to not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement being carried out by Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

States, cities and localities that have assumed sanctuary status are invariably Democratic and liberal strongholds.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, among the burgeoning list of Democratic presidential hopefuls for 2020, said on "Meet the Press" that he welcomes the proposal. Washington is home to a long list of sanctuary cities including Seattle and Spokane.

"We relish it," he said. "We're built as a state of immigrants. We've welcomed refugees."

Seattle mayor Jenny A. Durkan expressed similar sentiments in a Washington Post op-ed: "We will not allow a president who continues to threaten our shared values of inclusion, opportunity, and diversity to jeopardize the health and safety of our communities."

This is interesting to me, having just left Seattle after a several-day visit there on a speaking engagement.

My experience was just the opposite of the glowing, warm and inclusive community of opportunity conveyed by the governor and the mayor.

The most intense experience one gets in downtown Seattle is the massive, grotesque problem of homelessness.

The omnipresence of homeless individuals in Seattle's central district is overwhelming. And one cannot escape a feeling of incongruity by the proximity of these homeless to fancy downtown restaurants.

Forbes Magazine reports the Seattle/King County area has the nation's third largest homeless population, after New York City and Los Angeles.

According to a recent article in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, Seattle spends more than $1 billion annually struggling with its homeless problem, "nearly $100,000 for every homeless man, woman, and child in King County ..."

And yet, the article continues, "the crisis seems only to have deepened, with more addiction, more crime, and more tent encampments in residential neighborhoods. By any measure, the city's efforts are not working."

The author, Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the Seattle-based Center for Wealth, Poverty & Morality at the Discovery Institute, surveys what he calls the "ideological power centers" driving the discussions in Seattle about how to deal with their homeless.

Not surprisingly, they are all on the left, and, of course, one socialist city councilwoman explains it as "how deeply dysfunctional capitalism is." Seattle-based corporations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks and Boeing, in her analysis, "drive up housing prices, and push the working class toward poverty and despair — and, too often, onto the streets." ...read more

We should appreciate that along with the disintegration of our core social institutions such as family and community is the unraveling of our country itself.

03/21/2019

Police threaten to arrest Catholic journalist for not using 'proper' pronouns for transgenders. William Donohue explains:

A s*xually confused teenage English boy, Jackie Green, now 25, decided when he was 15 to “transition” to a girl. Never mind that this is impossible—Jackie still possesses a Y chromosome and will never menstruate—he is now the subject of a big debate in London.

The reason this bizarre issue is in the news is because a journalist, Caroline Farrow, referred to him as a him and not a she. For this violation, Farrow has now been summoned to appear before the police and could wind up in prison.

This all began last September when Farrow appeared on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain” with Susie Green, mother of the s*xually confused boy, Jackie. They debated whether it is appropriate to tell the parents of a s*xually confused child whether their child has “transitioned.” Green is an advocate for the s*xually confused and defends keeping the parents in the dark. Farrow disagrees.

After the debate, Farrow wrote a few tweets wherein she referred to Jackie as a him and not a she. Susie Green quickly filed a formal complaint with the police under the Malicious Communications Act, a hate crimes statute.

After a six-month-long investigation, Farrow was notified on March 18 to attend a police interview. If found guilty, she could be sent to the slammer for two years...read more >>

A s*xually confused teenage English boy, Jackie Green, now 25, decided when he was 15 to ?transition? to a girl. Never mind that this is ...

03/20/2019

Newt Gingrich describes what is missing from Robert Francis 'Beto' O'Rourke's campaign:

Robert Francis O’Rourke’s first few days as a presidential candidate reminded me how much we miss the great talent of Tom Wolfe.

Wolfe had an amazing, profound capacity for looking beneath the glitter, the fakery, and the hypocrisy that defines much of our culture. Wolfe’s 1970 publication of Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers challenged the political correctness and hypocritical posturing of the liberal elites.

Wolfe would have loved Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke. He would have understood from the opening moments of the “Beto Bandwagon,” that there is a “me-centered” nature of O’Rourke’s existence.

I must confess the evolution of O’Rourke since losing the Senate race to Ted Cruz has surprised me. It was clear he was a champion of the Left. Like the narrowly defeated Democrats in Georgia and Florida, he seemed to have gained more stature from defeat than the vast number of Democrats who actually won in 2018.

However, I thought he would take his $80 million donor base, his charm, and his remarkable nationwide name-ID (especially for a defeated candidate) and develop a thoughtful moral cause larger than himself.

For the first few days after O’Rourke’s loss to Cruz, I compared his position to that of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln had served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives. O’Rourke had served three terms. Lincoln lost narrowly to an incumbent senator. In those days, voters elected members of the state legislature, who then elected senators. Republicans got a small majority of the popular vote to the legislature, the makeup of the legislature saved Senator Stephen Douglas from defeat.

However, this parallel seemed to collapse after Election Day.

Lincoln shrewdly understood that his candidacy had to be about a cause much larger than himself. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were published and widely read among Republican activists. Lincoln emerged as a very thoughtful critic of slavery and a leader of moral stature. His speech at Cooper Union on February 27, 1860 was widely reprinted verbatim in northern newspapers and solidified his position as a moral and thought leader (Harold Holzer’s book Lincoln at Cooper Union: The Speech That Made Abraham Lincoln President is one of the best books on leadership and strategy I have ever read).

I assumed O’Rourke would recognize that his donor base and name identification were only a springboard – that he would have to define a moral cause large enough to justify an outsider nomination and election to be president. I was wrong.

First, we had “Beto the Traveler.” As one reporter commented, it was like watching Jack Kerouac creating On the Road as a 21st century venture in finding yourself. As Beto wandered from town to town, it almost looked as though the great leader from Texas was seeking meaning in other people and other moments. It was the opposite of Lincoln’s composed, disciplined, mature approach to leadership.

Then we got the maximum liberal establishment buildup. Vanity Fair gave him the full cover magazine launch with photos by Annie Leibovitz (nothing says “establishment approval as an icon” better than a Leibovitz photo shoot). In the glowing, fawning Vanity Fair article, we learned that O’Rourke had a “near-mystical experience” during a major rally in his Senate race.

This all out media launch set the stage for O’Rourke’s modest announcement to Vanity Fair that “Man, I’m just born to be in it.” He later clarified that it was the presidential race and not the presidency, but it was still a telling comment.

Unlike Lincoln, for whom the cause was freedom and the union, the O’Rourke candidacy is about O’Rourke...read more >>

Robert Francis O’Rourke’s first few days as a presidential candidate reminded me how much we miss the great talent of Tom Wolfe. Wolfe ...

03/20/2019

Star Parker asks: What happens when liberal fascists ambush Chelsea Clinton?

I recently joined the board of the Leadership Institute, which sponsors Campus Reform, an important website for college news. Campus Reform is a "watchdog to the nation's higher education system," exposing bias and abuse on college campuses.

American universities have too often dangerously devolved into institutions of political indoctrination rather than institutions of higher learning. According to one recent study of the 60 highest-rated liberal arts colleges in the nation, more than 10 professors are registered Democrats for every registered Republican.

Campus Reform monitors universities in hopes of keeping speech free and maintaining vestiges of the pursuit of truth.

Politicization of universities is indicative of a nation that has lost a sense that there is truth and that it is incumbent upon man to seek it, grasp it, live by it and use it to improve our world.

Students now show up at universities already armed with what they have accepted uncritically as true — gleaned from the internet, Hollywood and other fertile corners of popular culture. Universities simply serve as platforms for them to advance their political agendas and get official stamps of approval for their careers.

A recent example is the pathetic display of two New York University students who cornered Chelsea Clinton at a vigil noting the tragedy of the murder of 50 Muslims in New Zealand.

They stuck accusing fingers in Clinton's face, claiming that her condemnation of the anti-Semitism of Rep. Ilhan Omar somehow fueled anti-Muslim bigotry and contributed to what resulted in the massacre of innocent Muslims in New Zealand.

According to these ignorant young accusers, Clinton's criticism of Rep. Omar was about being anti-Muslim, anti-black and misogynist.

Back in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his most famous speech, in which he shared, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

In a very strange turn of history, after that great struggle to fix what was broken in America and make this a greater, more just country, we have gone backward.

The color of one's skin, one's s*x, one's ethnicity, one's religious heritage and the kind of s*xual partners one chooses have become the only things that matter in today's popular left-wing culture.

Content of character and quality of thought — core requirements of a responsible citizen in a free country — no longer matter in our bizarre world gone crazy.

Clinton said nothing about Omar's race, s*x or religion. She only criticized, very legitimately, Omar's slanted and distorted take on Israel and the source of its support in America.

Somehow today, appreciating that America is a uniquely great nation invites the label, from this same left-wing crowd, of "white supremacist" — which, as a black woman, I find amusing...read more >>

The retreat into labels, identity politics, is the lazy man's formula for justice.

03/12/2019

Star Parker says that the US is becoming less white and threatens Republicans. But Parker believes the GOP can still win if they follow some of her tips: The Pew Research Center has produced a projected profile of what the American electorate will look like ethnically in the 2020 elections.

The portrait shows a continued trend of America becoming an increasingly nonwhite nation and electorate.

Pew projects that 66.7 percent of eligible voters in 2020 will be white. In the presidential election in 2016, 71 percent of voters were white.

In 2000, 76.4 percent of eligible voters were white, 10 points more than Pew projects for 2020. When President Reagan was elected in 1980, 88 percent of the electorate was white.

A number of factors are driving the ethnic changes of the country. One, of course, is the large Hispanic immigration of recent years.

But another key factor is fertility rates. Whites are having fewer children than blacks and Hispanics.

The political implications of these changes are profound.

Nonwhite Americans vote disproportionately for Democrats. So, if voting patterns of nonwhite Americans stay consistent, every year it will become more difficult to elect Republicans, as ethnic and racial minorities become an increasingly larger percentage of the electorate.

In 2016, Donald Trump won 58 percent of the white vote. However, he lost every other ethnicity by large margins.

He won 8 percent of blacks, 29 percent of Hispanics and 29 percent of Asians.

Not surprisingly, this picture translates into the makeup of today's 116th Congress.

Racial and ethnic minorities now hold 116 seats in the current Congress, compared with the 63 seats they held in the 107th Congress in 2001.

And, again, the political implications are profound. Ninety percent of these seats held by racial and ethnic minorities are Democrats.

The last election added nine members to the Congressional Black Caucus, bringing it to 55 members, the largest it has ever been in history. The CBC today is more than 50 percent larger than where it stood in 2001.

This now makes the Black Caucus a formidable left-wing bloc to be reckoned with.

This was on display recently in the failure of the House Democratic leadership to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar, as originally intended, for her anti-Semitic remarks.

Even though it is reported that Omar was prepared to accept the House resolution initially put forth by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the CBC pushed back against this and, together with other far-left-wing elements in the Party, succeeded in getting a revised, much-watered-down resolution.

Is it inevitable that the nation will move left as the country becomes less and less white?

Not necessarily — if Republicans do their work. ...read more

Blacks are more conservative and less liberal than the typical Democrat.

02/19/2019

Ken Blackwell says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal is already here and how Americans who oppose it can fight back:

oliticians in Washington are often immersed in endless political fights with little regard for the impact of the policies they are actually fighting over. We see this with taxes, regulations, spending, trade and other issues. The decisions they make often have unforeseen consequences in communities and small towns.

This week, the left’s new rising star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and her allies, introduced their far-reaching radical “Green New Deal.” These ideas are not only being discussed in Washington, but they are actually well under way and causing great debate and conflict in many communities throughout the United States.

In New York, Governor Cuomo and his green energy bureaucrats have imposed mandates to reduce carbon emissions. Appealingly entitled Clean Energy Standards (CES), these mandates call for over 50 percent of the state’s utilities to generate electricity through renewable sources by 2030. In addition, Governor Cuomo issued an executive order mandating over 2,000 megawatts of energy be generated, also by 2030, using offshore wind.

How is all of this being paid for you might ask. Well, by the same folks who always pay – you, the taxpayer.

Indeed to fund the CES, New Yorkers will pay an increase of $3.6 billion in electricity costs according to a report by Continental Economics. That’s just to get things going. By 2050, New Yorkers will be subsidizing Cuomo’s green new deal to a tune of over one trillion dollars, “providing scant, if any, measurable benefits” the report states.

Footnote: U.S. per person CO2 emissions have declined to their lowest levels in over six decades. The U.S. Energy Administration reports that from 2005-2017 U.S. energy related emissions are down 14 percent.

But it’s not just about the numbers, the money and the costs. There is tremendous environmental and community impact experienced by the deployment of green energy. Utility scale solar facilities, not built in the desert, require destruction of the land – trees and farms – and they can permanently alter the character of the community.

There is additional risk from muddy runoff, which can impact roads, streams and tributaries. Water is needed for cleaning the panels so solar companies often have to tap into water sources impacting local wells and aquifers. If decommissioning is not handled appropriately, when their use is complete, these solar fields can be left to rot causing additional environmental damage, waste of land and taxpayers being left to pay the clean-up costs. ...read more

Politicians in Washington are often immersed in endless political fights with little regard for the impact of the policies they are actually fighting ...

02/19/2019

Jason Riley explains why Trump's supporters do not mind deal-making with Democrats, despite what Ann Coulter thinks. Do you agree? In economics, the law of diminishing returns describes the shrinking benefits associated with additional capital expenditures. Beyond some point, the disadvantages of increasing your investment start to outweigh the advantages. Alas, there is a political corollary to this concept that the White House has been ignoring but maybe shouldn’t.

We all agree that illegal immigration was the defining issue of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. At rally after rally, he promised his supporters that he would construct a “beautiful” wall along the southern border and make Mexico pay for it. Mr. Trump is convinced that his hard-line stance is a big reason he won, and there’s a case to be made that immigration played a larger role in 2016 than in any presidential race in recent memory.

For decades, conventional wisdom held that immigration restrictionism was a political loser. People might like to complain about the undocumented population, but exit polling showed that they ultimately voted on other issues. This included Republicans, who repeatedly rewarded pro-immigration candidates in national elections. Ronald Reagan spoke dismissively of “the illegal alien fuss” and wanted to “make the border something other than a locale for a 9-foot fence.” He quipped that Hispanics are “Republicans who don’t know it yet.”

George W. Bush—first as governor of Texas and later as president—channeled Reagan’s big-tent Republicanism and worked to portray the GOP as racially and ethnically inclusive. In 2004 he won more than 40% of the Hispanic vote en route to a second term. Even GOP presidential hopefuls since who were nominated but lost, such as John McCain and Mitt Romney, were well to the left of Mr. Trump on how to handle immigration and border security.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, has attempted to make illegal immigration a wedge issue on par with abortion and guns. Some of his supporters care about little else, and the president has gone to great lengths to ensure that their concerns are heard. Putting aside the merits of placing additional physical barricades on the border, the question now facing the administration as another government shutdown looms is whether the political capital being invested in this issue is still producing positive returns for the president. Or has his wall rhetoric become counterproductive?

The first signs of trouble for the White House were the midterm elections. Mr. Trump made border security a dominant theme, yet Republicans lost 40 seats and control of the House. Last November, public opposition to a new border wall stood at 59%, according to a CBS News poll. Today, it’s 60%, according to a Gallup survey released earlier this month. Given how hard the president has worked over the past two months to make the case for a wall, it’s remarkable how few minds he has changed. ...read more

In economics, the law of diminishing returns describes the shrinking benefits associated with additional capital expenditures. Beyond some point, the ...

02/18/2019

Pat Buchanan describes how Democrats are in danger of division with a rising minority of Leftist minorities: Both of America's great national parties are coalitions.

But it is the Democratic Party that never ceases to celebrate diversity — racial, religious, ethnic, cultural — as its own and as America's "greatest strength."

Understandably so, for the party is home to a multitude of minorities.

It is the domain of the LGBTQ movement. In presidential elections, Democrats win 70 percent of Hispanics, Jews and Asian-Americans, and 90 percent of African-Americans.

Yet, lately, the party seems to be careening into a virtual war of all against all.

Democratic Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring of Virginia have both admitted to using blackface.

Northam imitated Michael Jackson's "moonwalk" in a 1984 dance contest. Herring, in 1980 at the University of Virginia, did a blackface impression of rap icon Kurtis Blow, who called it ugly and degrading.

The resignations of both have been demanded by Virginia's black leadership. Northam and Herring, however, are defying the demands.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, only the second black ever to win statewide office, has been charged by two women with r**e. And the demands for his resignation are growing louder and most insistent.

Yet if Fairfax is forced out, while the white governor and white attorney general get a pass, black leaders warn, all hell is going to bust loose.

The Democratic Party of Virginia was already convulsed over all the monuments, statues, schools, parks, highways and streets that bear the names of slave owners, Confederate soldiers and 19th- and 20th-century segregationists.

Across the Potomac, Ilhan Omar, the first ever Somali-American to serve in Congress, and a Muslim, ignited a firestorm last week when she gave this as the reason Congress faithfully votes the AIPAC line on Israel: "It's all about the Benjamins, baby."

The reference is to $100 bills, on which Ben Franklin's face appears. The line is a rap lyric from a 1997 song by Puff Daddy.

Omar was saying Congress has been bought. ...read more

Both of America's great national parties are coalitions. But it is the Democratic Party that never ceases to celebrate diversity — racia ...

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