Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
As country star Garth Brooks sang “The Dance,” the final song of his concert Friday night in Minneapolis, a woman near the front of the stage held up a sign. It read: “Chemo this morning. Garth tonight. Enjoying the Dance.” The sign referred to Brooks’ song and fan Teresa Shaw’s treatment for cancer. What the…
A House oversight committee continues to seek emails related to the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of tea party and other conservative groups, “but there’s nobody in the Justice Department willing to work with us,” a congressman on the panel said yesterday. That impasse, along with related roadblocks in the Department of Justice’s investigation of the IRS…
Former Sen. Jim DeMint is skeptical that President Obama will be able to work with the new Republican congressional majority. DeMint, now president of The Heritage Foundation, said Obama showed “very little interest” in working with the opposite party when DeMint was representing South Carolina in the Senate, and he fears the president will not…
Wondering how libertarians view the world? The Daily Signal caught up with John Stossel, host of “Stossel” on the Fox Business Network, to hear how the political perspective applies to controversial issues such as Ebola, the economy and drug legalization. “Legalization is not about moral implication,” he said while speaking on the issue of drug…
On the 60th anniversary of CBS News’ “Face the Nation” today, former President George W. Bush talked to host Bob Schieffer about his time in the White House and a new book he wrote about his father, former President George H.W. Bush, called “41: A Portrait of My Father.” But the biggest news may have…
The last continuously serving Vietnam War draftee, who remained on active duty for 42 years, has retired. According to the Army Times, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Ralph Rigby served since he was drafted to fight in Vietnam at 19. According to the Times, when Rigby was drafted, he joked about moving to Canada. His mother was…
Despite blunt warnings from Republicans, President Obama made it clear that he will not wait for Congress to act on immigration. “I’m going to do what I can do through executive action,” he said this morning on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” In explaining why he can’t delay, Obama told CBS News’ Bob Schieffer, “Every…
If ever a motto expressed pride in state autonomy, it’s Iowa’s: “Our liberties we prize, and our rights we will maintain.” That dedication to local control undergirds the growing opposition to Common Core—the latest effort to centralize education through national standards and tests that will define what is taught in every public school classroom in…
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota cities have circled the wagons in a controversial property rights case that pits municipal authorities against homeowners who are challenging the constitutionality of Winona’s rental ban before the Minnesota Supreme Court. Mankato, Rochester and St. Paul joined the League of Minnesota Cities in urging the state’s top court to uphold…
Squatting, the practice of occupying a house you don’t own, is a problem in downtrodden Detroit. But when Charlie LeDuff, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter at Detroit’s Fox 2 News, showed up to investigate one local squatter, he not only found an amazing story but also helped police serve justice.
For many Americans, buying American-made products is a priority. But in today’s global economy, it’s increasingly harder to define what “made in America” even means. In the words of Mike de Vere, president of the Harris Poll, “What many consumers don’t know is that companies very traditionally seen as American, from GE to John Deere…
Russian authorities never threatened American journalist David Satter. For years, the Moscow correspondent for the London Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal wrote with impunity, regularly filing stories that would have cost his Russian colleagues dearly if they had written them. But last year, Satter’s luck ran out. On Christmas morning, following the instructions…
Republicans swept into control of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, but that only begins to tell the story of a midterm election that turned into an electoral rout. From Nevada to New Hampshire, Republicans won resounding victories in state-level elections. Combined with unexpected victories in gubernatorial races in Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts, the Republicans are…
Aides to conservative members of the U.S. Senate say their bosses are rallying around a strategy to prevent President Obama from taking executive action to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country: Use government funding bills to withhold the money the president needs to implement his plan. At the same time, some of the…
HBO host Bill Maher wasn’t on the ballot in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District this week, and his efforts to make himself a player in the race fell flat. Maher, the host of “Real Time,” targeted the suburban Twin Cities seat held by Republican Rep. John Kline for his much ballyhooed “Flip-a-District” national campaign. “John Kline,…
RICHMOND – Martha Boneta’s eight-year battle with an environmental group over a conservation easement on her farm in Virginia’s Hunt Country moved closer to resolution yesterday as another organization agreed to take over enforcement activities. Boneta and representatives of the Piedmont Environmental Council appeared at a meeting of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s board of trustees in…
House Speaker John Boehner today warned President Obama in stark terms to think twice before “burning himself” with executive action to allow millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country. “When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself and [Obama] is going to burn himself if he continues down this…
Republican candidate Ed Gillespie trails Democratic Sen. Mark Warner by 16,727 votes in Virginia’s razor-thin U.S. Senate race. It’s so close the Associated Press won’t call it. The margin between Gillespie and Warner is much smaller than the 53,396 votes for Libertarian Robert Sarvis. So, was Sarvis a spoiler? On Thursday’s Varney & Co. on…
On Tuesday, Saira Blair of West Virginia became the youngest state lawmaker-elect in the nation. Blair is an 18-year-old freshman at West Virginia University. According to the Wall Street Journal, she is an economics major and “hopes to become a financial planner.” She ran as a Republican on what she calls a “fiscally conservative platform,”…
As the dust begins to settle after what one commentator called Republicans’ “wall-to-wall shellacking” of Democrats tied to President Obama’s policies, conservatives are focusing on how the election results will affect policymaking in a gridlocked Washington. Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and Heritage Action for America CEO Mike Needham explored the consequences of Tuesday’s midterm…