Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
For a brief moment the State Department got its reaction right to the Palestinian knife attacks against Israeli citizens last week. A very brief moment. Then it was back to business as usual. Posting on Oct. 15, the State Department on its official twitter account correctly characterized the attacks, advertising remarks by Secretary of State…
Fox News host Sean Hannity has some advice for the Republican Party: If you want to keep conservatives engaged, start keeping the promises you made to them on the campaign trail. In an interview with The Daily Signal, Hannity says he would give the GOP-controlled Congress a “D-minus” in the effort category because they’ve shrunk back…
Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, says Edward Snowden has caused a huge trust gap between the American people and their government and between the U.S. and our allies. In an interview with The Daily Signal, Hayden also talks about the impact of social media…
The president now plans to continue a U.S. ground force presence in Afghanistan to help hold off the Taliban until he leaves office. This is an uncommon turnaround for a president who hasn’t changed his mind on foreign policy since drawing his (much-ballyhooed and promptly ignored) “red line” in Syria. So what does this rare…
My 13-year-old son told me at the dinner table the other day that Franklin Roosevelt was one of America’s “greatest presidents” because “he ended the Great Depression.” He’s usually a good student, so I checked where he got this tripe, and sure enough, the fairy tale was right there in his American history book. The textbook tells kids that the New Deal ended…
Recently, the acting head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Principal Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, gave a very long speech for the “Community Policing Summit,” hosted by the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey. The speech was a longer and more detailed version of remarks delivered repeatedly by Obama administration officials these…
“We will manage the wave of change in the Middle East. Just as we have an ideal in our minds about Turkey, we have an ideal of a new Middle East.” That was the boast made three years ago by Ahmet Davutoglu, then Turkey’s foreign minister, today its prime minister. Events have not justified his confidence:…
Russia is not the only country that feels free to intervene in Syria on behalf of the Assad regime and attack U.S.-supported Syrian rebels. Cuba and Iran, two countries eagerly courted by the Obama administration that have recently signed controversial diplomatic agreements with the United States, also are deploying troops to join the fight there….
Not many people make a habit of carrying large amounts of cash around. After all, thieves could steal it. How ironic, then, that a growing threat to your money is the people you’d call if your money was stolen: the police. And all because of a little-known law-enforcement tool known as civil forfeiture. It allows…
“We must provide a good education for every boy and girl—no matter where he lives,” President Lyndon B. Johnson declared in 1964. President Johnson sought and ultimately secured passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which would be a major element of the education component of his War on Poverty. Ineffective Title I…
When serious military historians ponder Barack Obama’s record as commander-in-chief, there’s little likelihood of heated debate. Let’s just say they’re not likely to award him a spot in the pantheon of military masterminds. In assessing the president’s legacy, historians will have plenty of legitimate topics to tussle over: his power as a politician, his practice…
Last month, as the Michigan Senate debated a host of reforms to the state’s civil asset forfeiture laws, the Michigan State Police released its Asset Forfeiture Report, the annual publication required by state law that details Michigan’s drug-related forfeiture activities. The report aggregates data from 629 local police departments, sheriff’s departments, and multijurisdictional task forces,…
Much of the media today roundly disparage any business-person who even voices his or her religious beliefs regarding same-sex marriage. This is the consistent narrative by which many presumptuously judge small business owners’ (often wedding vendors) motives in affirming their religious convictions as animating their business lives. Critics reject out of hand their claims that they…
Earlier this week, Stephen Moore wrote on internal migration in America: The so-called “progressives” love to talk about how their policies will create a worker’s paradise, but then why is it that day after day, month after month, year after year, people are fleeing liberal blue states for conservative red states? The new Census data…
Sell too many cherries, and the federal fruit police might come knocking at your door. Washington’s fruit and vegetable marketing orders give cartels the green light to restrict the supply of certain fruits and vegetables. The feds then act as the enforcer of the regulations developed through these cartels. Marketing orders were center stage in…
John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, sat down with The Daily Signal Thursday to discuss national security, the Middle East, and what questions 2016 candidates should have to answer. 0:13—What Bolton thinks about President Barack Obama’s decision to leave troops in Afghanistan. 1:04—What question Bolton would ask presidential candidates about national security….
Police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances converged at my office complex. As I stood in awe with my colleagues, someone said “There’s an active shooter in the building over there!” In disbelief I searched Twitter for clues. I found one tweet: Report of active shooter on 5th floor of skyline complex on Rt.7 in Fairfax…in…
In the hours after Reagan’s passing, the most praise many insiders could muster was he was a nice guy who told funny jokes. This was pervasive in the cable and network coverage during the following days as well. He was not entirely and not always under siege during his years away from Washington beginning in…
Social Security beneficiaries will not see a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) to their benefits this year. Social Security beneficiaries won’t see a boost in their benefits because there has been no measurable increase in the cost of the basket of goods that is used to calculate changes in the cost of living. In fact, the index measuring…
President Barack Obama’s decision to extend U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan is welcome news. It would have been preferable for him to drop all arbitrary deadlines for withdrawal and commit to keeping the 9,800 U.S. troops in place until a reassessment of the ground situation is taken next year. But this is certainly a step…