This last year has been a challenge for our society. But now we can add to those challenges the political challenges that have come against our nation in the last few months. Victor Davis Hanson wonders, “How Much Ruin Do We Have Left?”

The president and Congress are challenging the constitutional order and centuries of custom and tradition. Hanson reminds us that: “A nation’s institutions are its bedrock. Yet, the Electoral College and the Constitution’s emphasis on individual states establishing voting laws are under assault.”

“Already gone is the 176-year-old tradition of a pivotal November Election Day. The 152-year-old nine-member Supreme Court, the 184-year-old Senate filibuster, and the 62-year-old idea of a 50-state union are all being targeted by the New Democratic Party.”

Rewriting the election laws of every state, adding four additional members to the Supreme Court, ending the Senate filibuster, and turning the District of Columbia into a separate state seemed unlikely even a year ago. The political class seems ready to move forward on every one of these issues and much more.

Economic challenges lie ahead because the national debt has now surpassed $28 trillion. After military campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, our military seems more focused on the sort of people serving in the military. “Some of the politicized top brass seem more worried about the politics of their own soldiers than the dangers of foreign militaries.” And let’s not forget that our nation is being pulled apart by protests, riots, and daily claims of systemic racism.

America is on the brink, and I wonder whether the nation can stand much more.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. It is a vital part of our American heritage. The first call to prayer happened before the American Revolution. In 1775, the Continental Congress called on the colonists to pray for wisdom as they considered how they would respond to the King of England.

Perhaps one of the most powerful calls to prayer came from President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1863, he issued a proclamation for a day of “humiliation, fasting and prayer.” Here is some of that proclamation:

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”

In 1952, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed a resolution that declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, President Reagan signed into law a bill that designated the first Thursday of May as the time for the National Day of Prayer.

It is estimated that there have been more than 130 national calls to prayer, humiliation, fasting, and thanksgiving by presidents of the United States. There have been 60 Presidential Proclamations for a National Day of Prayer because every president has signed these proclamations.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. Please pray for this nation and its leaders.

Critical race theory is coming to a school district near you. First, it was being promoted through a bill in Congress. Now it looks like it will be funded through President Biden’s Department of Education.

Critical race theory rests upon a Marxist foundation but with a significant difference. Karl Marx focused on class conflict between capitalists and workers. The newer form of Marxism substituted race for class and sought a coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.

Stanley Kurtz has been warning that the Civics Secures Democracy Act would be used by activists and educators to promote critical race theory. Now the Department of Education proposed a regulation that directs grant money to prioritize applications that “support the development of culturally responsive teaching and learning.” I might mention that phrases like “equity” and “culturally responsive” are key buzzwords for critical race theory.

Christopher Rufo has been documenting how critical race theory is already arriving in the schools. A California elementary school forced first-graders to deconstruct their racial and sexual identities, and then rank themselves according to their power and privilege. A middle school in Missouri forced teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix,” based on the idea that white, Christian males were members of an oppressor class. Although he is just one investigative journalist, he has put together a database of more than 1,000 stories already.

Last year, President Trump issued an executive order banning critical race theory training in the federal government. President Biden rescinded the order on his first day and now appears to be promoting it in schools across the country.

Yesterday, I talked about the president’s pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions. I also argued that we aren’t going to reach that goal by walking, riding bicycles, and turning down our thermostats. His goal will require massive costs and disruption that they try to dismiss. I called it climate denialism.

Another reason why that goal won’t be achieved is due to what I call climate confusion. This administration is focused on the wrong areas. Less than a quarter of all the CO2 produced comes from “getting around” and “keeping warm and cool.” Those are chapters in a recent book by Bill Gates. Recently, I quoted from him because he is a climate change activist who has written a book about How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. Even if you concede the point that we need to reduce greenhouse emissions, all you have to do it read his book to see how monumental the problem is and how most of the focus by the administration is on the wrong areas.

Nearly a third of all greenhouse gases are emitted from “making things.” That would be the manufacture of cement, steel, and plastics. In order to make steel, you have to add just the right amount of carbon. One ton of steel produces 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide. To make cement, you need calcium from limestone that also has carbon. One ton of cement emits one ton of carbon dioxide. And you probably know that plastics are formed from carbon in oil and other fossil fuels.

What he calls “plugging in” (electrical generation) accounts for another 27 percent. Nearly two thirds (coal-36%, natural gas-23%, and oil-3%) of the world’s electricity comes from fossil fuels. Yes, you can get carbon-free electricity from nuclear power, but the environmental activists oppose that form of energy.

We are not well served from an administration that engages in climate denialism and suffers from climate confusion.

President Biden pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of this decade and to reach a goal of carbon zero by 2050. Even if we assume that is necessary to address climate change, what would be the impact on our country?

Anyone who criticizes such measures is usually tagged as a climate change denier. But David Harsanyi talks about another denial. He refers to it as “Biden’s Climate Denialism.” The president and his policymakers are in denial about what it would take to hit such targets. Here are a few facts.

Most of America’s energy (80%) is generated by fossil fuels and nuclear. A much smaller amount (20%) comes from renewable sources such as wind, solar, and hydropower. We aren’t going to reach the administration’s goals merely by walking, riding bicycles, and turning down our thermostats. It will require that we eliminate gas-powered cars, retrofit homes and buildings, and rebuild the nation’s electrical grid.

Here’s another way to look at the immensity of the problem. The pandemic and lockdown last year did reduce our country’s greenhouse emissions. The best estimate is that it only reduced carbon emissions by 5 percent. You can imagine what a 50 percent reduction would entail.

Of course, this country actually only accounts for about 15 percent of global CO2 emissions. Also, emissions in the US and Europe have been falling since 2005. By contrast, the rising emissions from China have swamped these declines. And China is building more coal-fired plants every day.

Proponents say the president’s goals are “technologically feasible and well within our reach.” That is simply not true. It will be hugely expensive and massively disruptive. The president is in denial about the magnitude of his climate goal.