Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
After almost a year, a bill designed to safeguard religious liberty has gained significant support but little momentum in the House of Representatives. With 164 cosponsors, the First Amendment Defense Act is a popular piece of legislation in Congress. Still, that popularity hasn’t provided the elevation needed for the bill to advance out of committee,…
A nonprofit legal organization that advocates freedom of religion is demanding that the Internal Revenue Service explain how it audits churches. “The freedom of religion is too important to … allow an administrative agency with enormous power like the IRS to just do as it pleases, with no accountability,” Erik Stanley, Alliance Defending Freedom senior…
“I think most business owners’ gut feeling is: ‘It’s not going to be good,’” Rod Dion, who owns a small business in Albany, N.Y., said of New York’s new law hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour. “I think there is a lot of concern, because I don’t think any of us understand what…
The Republican Study Committee isn’t the newest conservative caucus on the congressional block. But it's the oldest, it's still the biggest, and on occasion, its members will throw their weight around on Capitol Hill. The new executive director of the caucus, Scott Parkinson, wants the RSC to use that political clout to build policy consensus among House Republicans….
KYIV, Ukraine—In a televised address Sunday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced he would step down Tuesday, marking the end of a two-month-long political crisis. “We cannot allow destabilization of the executive branch during a war,” Yatsenyuk said. Ukrainian forces are still battling combined Russian-separatist forces in a 2-year-old war that has killed more than…
The mainstream media coverage said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, faced intense opposition back home for his stance of no hearings and no votes for a Supreme Court nominee, but a town hall video shows a different picture. “We want to thank you for being courageous and holding that position because many people, elected officials, go…
As many Senate Republicans continue to oppose holding hearings for President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is urging Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby to move the White House’s nomination to the Export-Import Bank’s board of directors, according to a GOP Senate staffer. The staffer told The Daily…
Officials are calling for education reform after bribery indictments against Detroit public school officials and a supplier alleged $2.7 million in fraudulent spending, even as Michigan’s governor signed off on nearly $50 million in emergency spending. “Principals are in positions of public trust and have an obligation to act in the best interest of their schools…
One of President Barack Obama’s former top Justice Department officials behind Operation Choke Point said Thursday the program had “unintended but collateral consequences” on banks and U.S. consumers. “Unfortunately, as the investigations continue, so too have one of the unintended but collateral consequences of such vigilance: mass de-risking,” wrote Michael J. Bresnick, who previously served as…
Sen. James Lankford has made a small vocabulary victory that he believes will have a significant impact on religious liberty. The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it plans to replace the term “freedom of worship” on all naturalization materials with “freedom of religion.” The Oklahoma Republican began pushing DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to make…
Policy leaders are reflecting on the legacy and future of NATO this week, the anniversary of the alliance’s creation 67 years ago. One of them is Luke Coffey, director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. “[U.S.] involvement in NATO means that Europe stays relatively secure and calm. And we’re…
After more than a decade at the helm of her bookstore, Ann Kinner faces an uncertain future because of new measures at the city and state level to raise the minimum wage. On June 7, San Diego residents will vote on a ballot measure to raise the city’s minimum wage to $11.50 an hour in…
Merle Haggard, the country music icon who died Wednesday, credited President Ronald Reagan for playing a central role in helping him realize his dreams. “He was a wonderful man in my life. He gave me a second chance at life in the form of the pardon he gave me,” Haggard said in a CMT interview after Reagan’s death in…
KYIV, Ukraine—The Ukraine war is going into its third year, and leaders in Washington and Kyiv are bracing for the possibility that Russian military brinkmanship may be the new status quo in Eastern Europe. In Ukraine, some worry the time soon may be ripe for an uptick in the Russian-backed war in the eastern part…
Confronting critics who say she is conducting a “witch hunt,” the chairman of a special House panel investigating the supply of tissue from aborted babies to researchers said in an interview with The Daily Signal that the panel can’t do its job without understanding the roles of all those involved. “We know that it's important…
The lead researcher in a study that concluded that fracking in Ohio didn’t contaminate groundwater told The Daily Signal that, contrary to her previous remarks, donors to the study did not pull funding because of “specific disappointment” with those results. Amy Townsend-Small, an assistant professor of geology at the University of Cincinnati who conducted the…
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., wants to build broad, bipartisan support for taxpayer funding of a nonprofit foundation with the audacious task of combating and ultimately eliminating the modern slave trade, known as human trafficking. Conservatives, however, argue that Corker’s bill would duplicate current government programs and not sufficiently guard against the use of funds to…
Conservatives who are normally at odds with Senate leadership are turning out to be important allies in their ongoing campaign to block President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. When the Senate recessed in March, conservative groups quickly mobilized activists across the country to reinforce the Republican blockade against Merrick Garland. Organizations like FreedomWorks, Heritage Action,…
In his most recent round of clemency, President Barack Obama has reduced the sentences of 61 federal prisoners, allowing most to be freed within months. The White House described those who won commuted sentences as mostly “low-level” drug offenders: 12 had been convicted of firearm crimes, eight of drug trafficking, and six of conspiracy or…
Freedom is pizza, and swimming, but it can also be frustrating, confusing, and not so limitless. “Freedom for me was a little disconcerting because it’s not easy to shed the inmate mentality,” said Dana Bowerman, 45, a recently released federal prisoner. “I felt other, different, less than. I sometimes catch myself thinking, I shouldn’t be…