Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Important budget questions were discussed this week at a widely attended event by the Institute to Reduce Spending that featured Chairman of the House Budget Committee Dr. Tom Price, R-Ga., as well as a panel of experts (I was delighted to be among the panelists). Price explained that the goal of fiscal policy and of…
Heritage Action for America's Mike Needham wrote earlier this week on the speaker race: When Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced he would resign as speaker, conventional wisdom in Washington dictated Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., would be the next to wield the gavel. But for those outside Washington, the inevitability seemed tone-deaf and ultimately unrealistic. As…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is finishing up new regulations that could ultimately shut down payday lenders, and there’s no indication they’ll change course. Some members of Congress have tried to stand up for the state-regulated version of the industry, but the tide is against them. Last year, an advocacy group launched an ad campaign during…
Are you skeptical of human-caused global warming or climate change like many respected scientists and climate experts? Then you should be prosecuted like a Mafia mob boss, according to 20 academics at ivory towers like Columbia, Rutgers, and the University of Washington. Apparently, these professors either don’t believe in the First Amendment or are profoundly ignorant…
With the threat of a government shutdown largely averted (at least until December), Congress is turning to address other must-pass measures it has skirted this fiscal year. Chief among them is the authorization for highway and transit spending, which is set to expire at the end of October following its latest $8-billion bailout in July….
Is the world becoming safer or more dangerous? Few people would select the first option. It doesn’t take Russia launching air strikes in Syria (to cite only one recent example) for most to admit that tensions are rising. So why in the world are we cutting defense spending? And not by small amounts. The U.S. military—which is…
In last Friday’s press conference, President Obama called Vladimir Putin’s incursion in Syria “an act of weakness.” It’s his pat answer when Putin misbehaves. The White House likes to portray the Kremlin as a place filled with petulant children who don’t understand what’s in their own best interest and will one day rue their misguided…
Many on the left are in a ferment over Alabama’s closure of some part-time Department of Motor Vehicles offices. It’s being done for budgetary reasons, but liberals are claiming it’s being done to raise a “barrier for poor and minority voters” in getting an ID to vote, according to the Washington Post. Former Secretary of…
The tech industry, now one of the largest private-sector lobbying forces in Washington, D.C., hasn’t had much to say as Republicans scramble to find a new speaker for the House of Representatives. But this is changing, as one of the most tech-savvy members, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is “considering” putting his hat in the ring….
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 on where we live and where we moved to in 2014…
A politician being cynical is not exactly a “man bites dog” story, as seven years of President Barack Obama has taught us. But when the president goes in front of a Hispanic audience and praises the Bush immigration law he personally helped scuttle, cynicism reaches new heights. Obama was much more honest, though, about his…
It’s almost winter in Paris, and soon the City of Lights will be blanketed beneath a heavy layer of foreign bureaucrats and climate change negotiators. On November 30, hundreds of unelected representatives of international powers will descend under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). According to recent press reports,…
Assassinations of two international aid workers in Bangladesh over the last ten days have raised concern that global terrorists are taking advantage of political polarization in the country and linking up with local extremist groups to destabilize the South Asian democratic nation. On Sept. 28, an Italian aid worker was gunned down while jogging in…
On Sept. 30, 2015, in O’Bannon v. NCAA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued an opinion holding that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)’s rules barring compensation to student-athletes for use of their name, image, or likeness (NIL rules) violated federal antitrust laws. In so holding, the appeals court largely affirmed…
What difference can around 40 votes make? In the case of who will be the next speaker of the House of Representatives, it turns out, quite a big one. When the House Freedom Caucus, which consists of around 40 House members, announced Wednesday that it would support Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., that meant the frontrunner,…
Last week I attended the National Emergency Management Association annual forum in Miami. As Hurricane Joaquin formed in the Atlantic, I had a unique opportunity to observe the 50 state emergency management directors’ plan for Joaquin’s potential landfall. One could easily identify the emergency managers from East Coast states. They were the ones standing in…
Update: According to The Seattle Times, “[t]he Mercer Island School District reinstated the game of tag following an outcry from parents” on September 25, 2015. A school district in Washington state has banned tag, the popular game, because it’s too violent for today’s children. School district officials told a local television station that students are…
When Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced he would resign as speaker, conventional wisdom in Washington dictated Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., would be the next to wield the gavel. But for those outside Washington, the inevitability seemed tone-deaf and ultimately unrealistic. As it turns out, they were right. The people’s voice was heard loud and clear…
California’s attempt to reduce the so-called pay gap through its recently passed Fair Pay Act will hurt women. Women should be paid the same amount as men when they perform the exact same job. No one disputes that. Equal pay for equal work has been the law in California for 66 years. But now, under…
Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, who will retire at the end of October, will not be leaving office without one final push for parental choice in education. Boehner has been a strong supporter of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP), which was the first bill he presented to Congress as Speaker of the…