Political Commentary & Opinion
Analysis, commentary, and opinion essays on politics and policy from The Daily Signal’s contributors and experts.
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news
Nearly 80,000 Illegal Aliens Had Arrest Records Before Winning DACA Approval
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who successfully enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program carried prior arrest records, according to data released by the Trump administration. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—the agency under the Department of Homeland Security that is tasked with managing the country’s legal immigration system—released a report Saturday detailing the arrest… -
news
‘Doing My Duty as Citizen’: Christine Blasey Ford Accepts ACLU Courage Award
Christine Blasey Ford accepted an award for courage Sunday night from the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU honored Ford, who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assaulting her when they were teens, by giving her the Rodger Baldwin Courage Award at the ACLU of Southern California’s Bill of Rights Awards Dinner. Ford works as… -
opinion
Congress Shouldn’t Get Paid Until It Does Its Job. Why This Bill Is a Great Step.
Congress is likely to vote next week on its second continuing resolution of fiscal year 2020. Another continuing resolution will prevent a government shutdown, but there’s not much to celebrate. The fact that a month-and-a-half into the new fiscal year none of the 12 annual appropriations bills have been enacted is a sign of how… -
opinion
New Program Aims to Help Young Adults Grow in Faith, Maturity Before College
Should students go straight to college after high school? Tommy Nelson, senior pastor of Denton Bible Church, would argue no. “If they are Christian kids [in college], they are ganged up upon by their seniors and they’re now in a survival mode. I mean, you lose your faith, you lose your virginity, you lose your… -
opinion
1 Year After Sex Change, This Teen Regrets His ‘Frankenstein Hack Job’
Less than a year after having gender surgery, Nathaniel now says, “This whole thing was a bad idea. I am 19 years old, and I feel as though I have ruined my life.” It’s heartbreaking each time I get a letter from someone who underwent gender-change surgery and regrets it, especially someone as young as… -
opinion
We Hear You: Oberlin College’s ‘Lawsuit Mess’ With a Local Bakery
Editor's note: Welcome back to some of the intriguing missives from The Daily Signal's mailbag. Don't forget to write us at [email protected].—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: I enjoyed reading the transcript of Rob Bluey's enlightening podcast interview with Cornell law professor Bill Jacobson of the Legal Insurrection website about the judgment in the case of… -
opinion
The Green New Deal Isn’t Just Expensive. It’s Also Bad Environmental Policy.
We’re not hearing much about the Green New Deal these days, but it’s still a priority for some candidates, as anyone who’s attended a recent Bernie Sanders rally can attest. Criticism of the Green New Deal tends to center on cost and rightly so. It would be extremely expensive. Researchers estimate it would take more… -
opinion
US Government Should Call for Release of This Uighur Academic
Tashpolat Tiyip, a distinguished Uighur scholar of geography, may face imminent death unless the U.S. government jumps in. Vanished in 2017 after he was detained on his way to a conference in Germany, Tiyip was reportedly given a secret trial and sentenced in September 2017 to a suspended death sentence, along with five other members… -
news
Backed by Soros Cash, Radical District Attorneys Take Control in DC Suburbs
Radical social justice activists will serve as the top prosecutors for three major Washington, D.C., suburbs—including the two wealthiest counties in the U.S.—after George Soros’ political action committee poured $2.1 million into ordinarily sleepy local races. In Virginia’s Fairfax and Arlington counties, the “reformer” attorneys ran on platforms far to the left of the Democratic incumbents, beating… -
opinion
Disney Again Faces Up to Its Racist Past
Disney has come a long way. Like most American girls, we grew up on Disney princesses. In 2009, when the animated feature “The Princess and the Frog” told the story of Tiana, Disney’s first black princess, we joined other black women across the globe in saying, “It’s about time.” This week, Disney once again is… -
opinion
Pop Star Spars With Salvation Army, Demands Donation to LGBT Group
It’s two weeks until Thanksgiving, but the NFL’s halftime singer is already calling time out. Ellie Goulding, the musician who was scheduled to perform at the turkey day game, is threatening to pull out of the show if the Cowboys’ spotlighted charity—the Salvation Army—doesn’t fold on its Christian beliefs. Either give a donation to an… -
opinion
This Web Designer Shouldn’t Have to Wait to Be Free to Create
They say anything worth having is also worth waiting for. We should know. We waited over three years for the Arizona Supreme Court to rule that the city of Phoenix cannot use fines and jail time to force us to create custom artwork that violates our beliefs. Issued in mid-September, that court decision was a… -
opinion
What Happened to California Republicans?
From 1967 to 2019, Republicans controlled the California governorship for 31 of 52 years. So why is there currently not a single statewide Republican officeholder? California also has a Democratic governor and Democratic supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. Only seven of California’s 53 congressional seats are held by Republicans. In 1994, then-Gov…. -
opinion
Why I Resigned in Protest When a Conservative Professor Was Punished
In 2018, I resigned as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and an overseer of its law school to protest the shameful treatment of law professor Amy Wax. Her sin, in the eyes of her detractors, was to question the wisdom of racial preference policies that brought to the law school, in her… -
opinion
Sorry, Hillary: Margaret Thatcher Was Indeed a ‘Gutsy Woman’
When all you have is a social justice hammer, everything looks like an identity politics nail. At least, that’s what former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made clear this week. While promoting her new book Tuesday, “The Book of Gutsy Women,” co-authored with her daughter Chelsea Clinton, the two-time presidential candidate explained why they chose… -
news
College Newspaper That Apologized for Covering News Won’t Print Another Point of View
A student newspaper that apologized to readers for “retraumatizing” them through its coverage of a disrupted campus appearance by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions also declined to publish a different take on the incident in a letter from a College Republicans chapter. Dominic Bayer, vice president of the College Republicans chapter at Northwestern University in Evanston,… -
opinion
How ‘Medicare for All’ Would Make Your Health Care Worse, Not Better
Health care costs are too high. Too many Americans don’t have the option to see the doctors they want to. But the solution isn’t “Medicare for All.” Watch the video above to find out more. -
opinion
Army Modernization Is Better Late Than Never
The U.S. Army is the world’s premier land force. Its primary role is to defeat enemy forces through conventional warfare, but it can perform an ever-widening range of functions. But these additional capabilities require steady investment and recruitment to be effective. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army engaged in thousands of operations and had to… -
opinion
‘Save Our States’ Is Fighting to Keep the Electoral College Alive
In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote—and lost the election. Cue a renewed interest from the left in demolishing the Electoral College. Now 15 states and the District of Columbia have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Trent England, director of Save Our States, joins the podcast to discuss what his group is… -
opinion
I Grew Up in West Germany. Here’s How Different Life Was in the East.
On this day 30 years ago, the wall confining East Germans to state surveillance, centralized control, and economic deprivation gave way to freedom. The Berlin Wall offered us a natural experiment—one that showed which political system best enables people to thrive and flourish. East and West Berlin gave us a tale of two cities, made up of similar people…