Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

American Thinker

When medals matter more than flags: Inside the rise of Olympic nationality swaps
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

When medals matter more than flags: Inside the rise of Olympic nationality swaps

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker The Winter Olympics have wrapped up, reportedly drawing their highest ratings since Sochi in 2014. I didn't watch. Between niche “sports” invented to fill broadcast hours and athletes apologizing for the country they represent, the Games increasingly feel less like national competition and more like a global spectacle. But the larger issue isn’t ski mountaineering or media melodrama. It’s nationality itself. Twelve years ago, during the Sochi Olympics, I wrote about what I called “nationality fluidity” - athletes competing for countries far removed from where they were born or trained. American-born siblings skating for Japan. An Italian competing for Germany. A Vermont native skatin...
Read More
Nurses, heal thyself: A growing strain of TDS in hospitals
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

Nurses, heal thyself: A growing strain of TDS in hospitals

By Brian C. Joondeph, M.D. | Commentary, American Thinker A failure of medical ethics that seems to be spreading. Physician, heal thyself!” Jesus said to those gathered in the synagogue at Nazareth. The admonition was aimed at hypocrisy and moral blindness — a warning that those who presume authority must first examine their own conduct. Today, someone needs to repeat those words to health care professionals who have allowed Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) to corrode their ethics and professionalism. That warning applies just as much to nursing as it does to medicine. Nursing emerged as a modern profession in the mid-19th century under the leadership of Florence Nightingale. In 1893, the Nightingale Pledge codified the profession’s moral...
Read More
What the polls say about immigration that corporate media won’t acknowledge
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, National

What the polls say about immigration that corporate media won’t acknowledge

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker If one relied solely on corporate media coverage, one might conclude that President Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts are wildly unpopular, resisted by an outraged public, and politically suicidal for Republicans.  Night after night, TV viewers see images of angry protesters, breathless commentary about “authoritarian crackdowns,” the familiar ‘Trump is Hitler/Nazi/fascist’ trope, and sympathetic portrayals of activists blocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The media narrative is clear: Americans are revolting against deportations. But polling tells a very different story. A recent Rasmussen Reports survey shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans support President Trump’s eff...
Read More
Stop the bleeding: Fraud, tariffs and the reality of a $1.8 trillion deficit
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

Stop the bleeding: Fraud, tariffs and the reality of a $1.8 trillion deficit

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker The U.S. federal government finished Fiscal Year 2025 with about $7 trillion in outlays and just over $5 trillion in revenues, leaving a deficit of roughly $1.8 trillion -- a gap that adds to the exploding national debt and threatens economic stability.  Under current trajectories, deficits are projected to remain near this scale for the foreseeable future, absent dramatic policy changes. What if, as some argue, the solution is staring us in the face: eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse across government programs and pair that with stronger tariff revenues?  Could that alone balance the budget without cutting core programs or raising taxes? Is this wishful thinking or a real possibility? There...
Read More
Is a transhuman future taking shape while we look the other way?
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

Is a transhuman future taking shape while we look the other way?

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein recently warned about a danger that few in politics or tech are willing to face. On The Joe Rogan Experience, he described artificial intelligence (AI) as acting more like a living system than just a traditional tool. Speaking about the rapid evolution of AI, Weinstein argued that it might now be crossing a threshold where it functions less like a tool and more like a living system -- something that grows in complexity, evolves, adapts, and ultimately starts to influence the humans who created it. AI is truly complex, not just complicated, so new and unpredictable behaviors will emerge. It may be a new branch on the tree of life, as Weinstein suggests, without the physical limits that usua...
Read More
The Trump engine fires on all cylinders while Congress idles
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

The Trump engine fires on all cylinders while Congress idles

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker President Donald Trump has been back in office for almost a year -- roughly 315 days -- and has governed with the urgency of a turnaround CEO. He hit the ground running, signing executive orders immediately after inauguration and maintaining a pace unmatched in modern politics. But what becomes of all this action? Executive orders can be reversed the moment a new president arrives unless Congress codifies them into law. That’s the key difference between temporary executive action and lasting legislative reform. According to Ballotpedia, “As of November 25, 2025, President Donald Trump had signed 217 executive orders, 54 memoranda, and 110 proclamations in his second presidential term, which began on January 20, 2025.” Yet...
Read More
Joy Reid discovers the Y in XY stands for “Yikes!” when she envisions locker-room reality
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

Joy Reid discovers the Y in XY stands for “Yikes!” when she envisions locker-room reality

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Joy Reid, the fired MSNBC commentator who swung from defining women as ‘a social construct’ and invoking Nazi Germany when anyone challenged transgender orthodoxy, now says she would “freak out” if she found a man in a women’s locker room. https://twitter.com/TheFive/status/1991506817138999298?s=20 A belated moment of honesty, it seems, yet it only underscores how privileged it is to hold ideological positions until they actually affect you. That’s the essence of one of the left’s modern pastimes – virtue signaling. Nothing reveals the hollowness of progressive politics faster than the moment when theory collides with biology. In a clip shared widely on X/Twitter, Reid admitted that yes, if she walked into the ...
Read More
Why birthrates might quietly reshape America’s political future
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

Why birthrates might quietly reshape America’s political future

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Politics may be downstream from culture, but culture is downstream from cribs.  In the U.S. and across the West, who’s having children today will shape who’s running the country tomorrow. In the U.S. and other Western democracies, shifts in fertility, family structure, migration, and well-being are quietly redrawing the political map. Start with the simplest but most potent fact: elections are not won by ideas alone, but by people. This means new people - babies born, children raised, immigrants integrated, voters replaced. As conservative commentator Grant Mercer recently put it in his article “Womb Wars: The Future Belongs to Conservatives,” the left may be fighting for ideas, but if it fails to reproduce the ...
Read More
From border hawks to benefit brokers: How Democrats flipped on illegal immigration
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

From border hawks to benefit brokers: How Democrats flipped on illegal immigration

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Let's waltz through the decades with Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden, comparing their former stern warnings with their current soft-shoe routines. Buckle up, because this flip-flop parade will be an inconvenient sashay through their past statements. Back in 1996, Senator Chuck Schumer was the sheriff of congressional fiscal responsibility, wielding his gavel like a six-shooter. “People say, why can't you stop illegal immigrants from coming here? The number one answer we give our constituents is when they come here, they can get jobs, get benefits against the law because of fraud,” he declared during a U.S. House session. Fast forward to 2025. Last week, Schumer and his caucus sh...
Read More
Situational Outrage: How Democrats Normalize Political Violence
No Comments
American Thinker, Approved, Commentary, National

Situational Outrage: How Democrats Normalize Political Violence

By Brian C. Joondeph | Commentary, American Thinker Two recent House votes reveal a troubling trend about the current stance of one of America’s major political parties. In June, following the assassination of Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, the House acted swiftly and unanimously to condemn political violence. The vote was clear and bipartisan, with every member present indicating that killing a public official is beyond partisan bounds. Weeks later, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a resolution to condemn his murder and reject political violence split the House. Leadership urged support, but many Democrats voted no, abstained, or stayed away. Progressive leaders used the moment to disparage Kirk’s life and work. The split was so sharp that House cons...
Read More