Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Recent attacks in Brussels by terrorists and their connection with a plot to attack a Belgian nuclear power plant raise the question of whether nuclear material could ever be stolen to create a dirty bomb. There’s a lot of misconception about what a dirty bomb is and how one may be used in a greater…
A multi-county grand jury has indicted Oklahoma Sheriff Bob Colbert and Captain Jeffrey Gragg on three felony counts of bribery and extortion and recommended that Colbert be removed from office. The sheriff, according to the indictment, conspired with a captain in his office to extort $10,000 from a driver arrested on suspicion of possessing drug…
The University of Michigan is one of our nation’s premier institutions of higher learning. Young people from all over the country move to Ann Arbor every year to obtain an education and to have their ideas challenged by exposure to fellow students from many walks of life. Or maybe not. Last Thursday afternoon, a number of…
As The Atlantic has reported, “[d]isclosures from the Panama Papers are rocking the global political elite.” Although not all of the activities alleged in the papers may ultimately be determined to be unethical or illegal, it is instructive to look at the connections between many of the people named in the papers and the scores of their…
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its analysis of the’s 2017 budget proposal. As expected, CBO’s analysis of the administration’s latest proposal shows that it is bloated with more spending and a massive tax hike. Under the president’s plan the size and scope of government would continue to grow at an unsustainable rate for…
On March 30, the Supreme Court heard arguments in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. This case is one of a collection of land use cases that trickle into the Court from time to time, all representing the same problem: The Clean Water Act drastically limits the rights of landowners to build or…
One of the most persistent myths about international trade is that American manufacturing workers can’t compete with foreign workers who are paid much less. That pessimistic view seemed to be confirmed earlier this year, when Carrier announced plans to move 2,100 jobs from Indianapolis to Mexico. Every time a U.S. manufacturing facility closes, it’s headline…
In a loss for voters, the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously against two residents of Texas who had argued that the Texas legislature diluted their votes when it used total population to redraw state Senate districts. In Evenwel v. Abbott, the Supreme Court allowed states to use total population in redrawing district lines, even though…
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, has signed the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, a law that guarantees religious freedom in the wake of last year’s activist Supreme Court decision redefining marriage for the country. The left, big business, and even Planned Parenthood weighed in against the legislation. Mississippi policymakers, reflecting the…
New polling data is shedding light on the widespread impact of pervasive property seizures under civil asset forfeiture laws. In both Utah and Florida, a substantial percentage of respondents—nearly one in ten, in fact—acknowledged that either they themselves or someone they knew had property seized without criminal charges being filed. Civil asset forfeiture laws enable law…
Recently there have been some who have questioned NATO’s importance in the 21st century. Europe is currently experiencing a belligerent and aggressive Russia with old-school 18th-century imperial ambitions. The answer is—very important. Europe is currently experiencing a belligerent and aggressive Russia with old-school 18th-century imperial ambitions. While Russia’s actions in Ukraine may seem unimportant to…
According to proponents of gun control, more guns in America equals more murders and a more lawless society. Every time there is a mass killing involving guns, liberal politicians rush to call for more restrictions on guns. Those in favor of disarming the citizenry claim that fewer guns will mean less gun crime. This assertion…
President Ronald Reagan delivered his famous Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) speech over three decades ago. In it, Reagan emphasized the need to develop a comprehensive layered ballistic missile defense system for the United States. Reagan understood the importance of “rendering … nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” Reagan took important steps to develop a comprehensive layered…
Whoever occupies the Oval Office in 2017 will face security threats around the world—including in Asia. Stability in Asia is currently being threatened by North Korea’s growing military capabilities, China’s increasingly aggressive behavior, historical animosities, and rising nationalism. Withdrawing from the world and raising the isolationist drawbridge didn’t work in the 1930s and wouldn’t work…
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., is in Israel on his first foreign trip as Speaker of the House. As much as security and geopolitical relations will be at the forefront of the visit, the economic bonds between the two free-market democracies need attention, too. Vibrant economic growth is vital to Israel’s resilience and an important element…
Beginning in 1478, the Spanish Inquisition systematically silenced any citizen who held views that did not align with the king’s. Using the powerful arm of the government, the grand inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, and his henchmen sought out all those who held religious, scientific, or moral views that conflicted with the monarch’s, punishing the “heretics”…
George Mason University has announced it will rename its law school after the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. This stands in stark contrast to Georgetown Law Center, which sadly was embroiled in controversy over whether to even mourn the passing of this conservative legal icon. As an alumna of George Mason Law, I am…
“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this,” Madison writes in Federalist 51, “You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” That meant that, in addition to performing its proper constitutional functions,…
Out of control spending drives national debt to unsustainable levels and the government knows it. The recently published 2017 fiscal year House Congressional Budget Resolution even features a chart titled “Spending is the Problem.” But Congress needs to practice what it preaches. The very same document proposes spending $57 billion more on discretionary programs than…
Millions of Americans are faced with rising healthcare costs and higher taxes, unstable and expensive health insurance exchanges, mountains of red tape, and arrogant bureaucratic attacks on personal and religious liberty. These and other mounting problems, as Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert E. Moffit shows in a comprehensive Heritage paper, plague the Affordable Care Act….