Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
This morning, the Mississippi House passed a bill, HB 1523, protecting religious freedom. If the House disposes of a procedural maneuver that has delayed a final vote until Monday, the bill will go to the governor’s desk for his signature, as the Senate passed the bill earlier this week. The bill is good policy and the governor should…
The March employment report showed continued growth in the labor market. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics found unemployment ticking up 0.1 percentage points, the good news was greater labor force participation and 215,000 new jobs created during the month. The payroll survey found widespread job growth throughout the service sector. The retail trade (+48,000),…
The Charlotte City Council passed an ordinance Feb. 22 that was a direct attack on the long-acknowledged truth that maintaining sex-specific bathroom facilities preserves the privacy and safety of women and girls. If enacted, this ordinance would have allowed men to choose—based on feelings rather than biological facts—to enter restrooms reserved for women and girls….
On Oct. 1, 2013, President Barack Obama lauded the opening of the Affordable Care Act’s new health insurance exchanges and claimed, “You’ll find more choices, more competition, and in many cases, lower prices.” In his latest paper tracking choice and insurer competition in the exchanges, Heritage Foundation senior fellow Ed Haislmaier reports that fewer insurers are…
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court delivered a win for the Sixth Amendment right to counsel in Luis v. United States. Five justices—Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote a plurality opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote a separate concurring opinion—sided with challenger…
With the 2016 election season well underway, millions of voters across the country have already cast their ballots in primaries and caucuses. Republican and Democratic candidates are locked in close races for the highest office in the land, and every vote cast makes a difference. The Heritage Foundation’s voter fraud database catalogues over 400 cases…
At this moment, someone’s computer and personal data are being held hostage. Many have recently become victims of the cyber-tactic known as ransomware, including hospitals, schools, police departments, government agencies, and private citizens. Ransomware is a type of malware that infects a computer hard drive or server and locks down or encrypts the information stored on…
After a four-month hiatus, the Justice Department has announced it is resuming its much-criticized “equitable sharing” program, which disburses hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state, local, and tribal law enforcement organizations that seize property and money under highly controversial civil asset forfeiture laws. Law enforcement agencies’ favorite method of bypassing restrictive state forfeiture…
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released its updated budget estimates for 2016 to 2026. As expected, the report reiterates the grim projections reported by Congressional Budget Office in January. The message is clear: Spending, deficits, and debt are rising at an unsustainable rate that is leading the nation down a path to fiscal disaster….
Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., thinks sending innocent people to federal prison is a joke. He has written the “Flamethrowers? Really? Act” after learning that the federal government had not yet criminalized flamethrowers—it’s named for a television comedy sketch. While flamethrowers can be dangerous, they are not linked to any actual national interest. The bill would…
In an order Tuesday afternoon, the Supreme Court asked the petitioners and Obama administration to file supplemental briefs in the consolidated challenge to Obamacare’s requirement that nonprofit employers provide employee health insurance coverage that includes potentially life-ending drugs and devices. Many employers, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, Priests for Life, and religious…
A federal judge has ruled that a law enacted by Puerto Rico’s government to charge Wal-Mart more than three times the rate it charges other companies is patently unconstitutional. Wal-Mart is the only company on the island with revenues anywhere close to the $2.75 billion level to which the law applies. While Governor Garcia Padilla suggested…
It now seems highly likely that the next president of the United States will have the opportunity to nominate someone to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court created by the sudden passing of Justice Antonin Scalia. That may not be the only vacancy the president will have the opportunity to fill. By the…
In a second loss in less than two weeks, a federal court has once again ruled against the Obama administration, this time in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) tussle with Judicial Watch over the Clinton email fiasco. Previously, on March 22, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Justice Department and the IRS…
I recently stood on the Estonian-Russian border. It was freezing cold and snowing lightly. Looking south along the Narva River, I could see the Estonian city of Narva on the right and the Russian city of Ivangorod on the left. I was standing on Freedom’s frontier. This river, maybe 100 yards across, is the dividing…
The battle over whether to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia has escalated since President Barack Obama submitted U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Merrick Garland as his nominee. Though Senate Democrats continue to push for hearings and one GOP Senator, Mark Kirk of Illinois, met with…
President Obama has made a couple of about-faces when it comes to offshore drilling in the Atlantic. After coming under pressure from environmental activists, the Obama administration has denied access to energy resources and job creation by prohibiting offshore drilling in the Atlantic. In 2010, the Obama administration lifted the ban on drilling on the…
It is the end of the road for Rebecca Friedrichs’ challenge to the requirement that teachers who opt out of union membership must nevertheless pay fees to the local union for a “fair share” of the costs of collective bargaining. In Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the Supreme Court announced in a one-sentence opinion that…
As every 10-year-old who ever got a sweater for a birthday present has been told, “it’s the thought that counts.” That seems to be the guiding principle at the Department of Energy and the California Public Utilities Commission when it comes to solar power. The latest example is the $2.2 billion Ivanpah solar thermal plant…
This piece has been adapted from Crystal Wright’s new book: “Con Job: How Democrats Gave Us Crime, Sanctuary Cities, Abortion Profiteering, and Racial Division.” It’s well known how in 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, assistant secretary of labor to Democrat President Johnson, warned that the black family was on the verge of a “complete breakdown” because of…