From the right: Stone Speaks Out at His Own Risk

If he were prosecuting Roger Stone, admits National Review’s Andrew McCarthy, he’d be “delighted” that Stone “continues to speak out publicly.” After all, Stone’s “lunatic theories, spun nightly on cable TV,” make Special Counsel Robert Mueller “look downright judicious.” His latest: Mueller’s real aim is to impeach both President Trump and Vice President Pence, so as to install first Nancy Pelosi and then Hillary Clinton as president. The judge hearing Stone’s case is considering a gag order, warning him against conducting “a public-relations campaign.” But “the fact that it is not in Stone’s interest to keep talking does not vitiate his First Amendment right to do so.” If the judge does restrain Stone, it would be “a boon for prosecutors obsessed with maintaining investigative secrecy and avoiding criticism.” But “that doesn’t make it right.”

Conservative: A Standing Ovation for Abortion?

New York’s Reproductive Health Act, which legalizes abortion “all the way up to birth, for any reason,” got a standing ovation in the state Senate chamber when it passed, notes Ashley McGuire at USA Today. The left may be celebrating, but the law “is wildly out of step with American sentiment on the issue.” In fact, support for late-term abortion “continues to decline.” Moreover, polls show most Americans don’t think abortion at any time “is something to celebrate.” Indeed, she suspects that “seeing Democrats vigorously applaud abortion for 7-pound babies makes most Americans queasy.” Bottom line: “Democrats are further away from the American people on abortion than they’ve ever been in history.”

Foreign desk: Sanders Dead Wrong About Venezuela

The Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl says that “poorly informed leftists” are “peddling the notion that the political crisis in Venezuela is the product of yet another heavy-handed US ‘intervention’ in Latin America.” Sen. Bernie Sanders even compares it to US support for coups a half-century ago. On the contrary: The movement to “oust the disastrous populist regime founded by Hugo Chávez is being driven by Venezuela’s own neighbors,” who until recently had very little help from Washington. In fact, this is “a 21st-century model for diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere” in an “era of US retreat and dysfunction” and “the fading of US will to topple toxic regimes.” But though it “won’t fulfill the Sanders-style stereotypes of US interventionism,” there’s now “a decent chance” the regime “will be forced out by sanctions and diplomacy.”

Security beat: Aim for the Moon — not Mars

For the sake of national security, “the modern-day snake oil sales people in and around our space program must be stopped,” charges Douglas Mackinnon at The Hill. Meaning those who demand we “invest tens of billions of dollars” to send humans to Mars. Frank Borman and Bill Anders, both part of the Apollo 8 mission that first orbited the moon in 1968, have branded calls to colonize Mars “nonsense.” A journey to the moon takes three days; to Mars would take three years and cost $200 billion. And for what? To “plant a politically correct United Nations flag on the surface and maybe stay for a month or two.” Take careful notice, says Mackinnon: China and Russia “are pointing all of their space resources at the moon for two practical reasons: military and economic superiority.”

Tech watch: End of Net Neutrality = Broadband Growth

Contrary to all the doomsday predictions, the Federal Communications Commission recently reported that the end of net neutrality in 2017 “helped boost the growth of broadband and close the digital divide,” reports Johnny Kampis at Real Clear Policy. Indeed, “the number of Americans lacking access to fixed terrestrial broadband service of 100 megabits per second download and 10 Mbps upload” has “plummeted 56 percent,” which the FCC calls “a stunning drop.” Meanwhile, “competition is increasing” — the number of Americans with at least two wired broadband providers more than doubled — and the Internet “is humming right along.” In fact, “wireless providers increased their capital investment in 2017, while prices went down an average of 11 percent.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann