Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week, a federal district court in Alexandria, Va., upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s cancellation of six trademark registrations held by the Washington Redskins for being disparaging to Native Americans. Judge Gerald Bruce Lee considered if the name “Redskins” is offensive and whether the trademark registration cancellation violates the team’s…
In 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa captured headlines around the world. As the epidemic has waned since then so too has the world’s attention. Yet recent developments highlight that the fight is not yet over, and remind us that the international community needs to maintain its vigilance or risk the disease becoming endemic…
Medicare is in serious need of fundamental reform. The old way in which Medicare reimbursed physician services was broken and needed to be scrapped. It was understandable that Congress wanted to find a permanent solution to the Medicare “Doc Fix” rather than relying on another short-term patch. The “Doc Fix” that was enacted in March…
The guiding fiscal principle of President Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Package was simple: “Spend it as fast as you can.” Programs operating under that principle are almost predestined to flunk a cost-benefit test—and the federal Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) has proved to be no exception. University of Chicago researchers have documented that WAP is yet another…
What if America’s most patriotic holiday was not July 4, but December 25? It could have been the day the British crown got its best Christmas gift ever. All it would have taken was a simple slip by a colonial rebel. His rifle, crashing to the frozen ground, discharges… the shot echoing clearly through the…
When love wins, it doesn’t take prisoners. It has been more than a week since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states, and already those with religious objections to same-sex marriage are facing punishment. Aaron and Melissa Klein, an Oregon Christian couple who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian…
The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, was “intended to be an expression of the American mind.” Although not intended as such, it was also an expression of the American character. Woven throughout the text are insights into the minds and virtues of those Lincoln called the “once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed…
During our last era of high immigration, remembered now as the “Ellis Island” age, our leaders would use the Fourth of July to stump for something once quaintly known as Americanization. Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Louis Brandeis—they all did it, with stirring speeches about bringing new immigrants fully into the American dream. Presidential candidates, take note. One of…
The Obama administration puts a lot of stock into negotiating with hostile regimes. Consider its seemingly endless negotiations with Iran over that nation’s illicit nuclear weapons program. But even as those negotiations drag on, Iran’s ally Syria has systematically violated the 2013 agreement it negotiated with the administration. In that agreement, codified in a U.N….
While the White House winds up its deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, angst abounds in U.S. national security circles. Contributing to the anxiety over how the Tehran regime will act in the future is knowledge of how the Pyongyang regime has acted in the past. For years, the North Korean government dabbled…
President Barack Obama has pitched his new overtime regulations as a way to raise wages. However, even economists who support the change admit that’s unlikely to happen. Instead, they expect employers to cut workers’ pay by an offsetting amount. So how will this new overtime rule affect the economy? Primarily by forcing salaried workers to…
To say that conservatives haven’t had much to cheer about at the Supreme Court lately is an understatement. Much has been said—and rightly so—denouncing the judicial acrobatics required to save Obamacare and strike down state bans on same-sex marriage. So I wanted to take a moment to spotlight a case where the court got it right: Michigan v. EPA. As the saying…
Imagine if, on Sept. 12, 2001, I had written a column predicting that within less than 15 years, the president of the United States would be offering the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism a path to nuclear weapons and tens of billions of dollars. You’d have thought me a lunatic. But that’s what President Obama…
The Greek citizens have rolled the dice and voted overwhelmingly to reject the “austerity” referendum. This was a way for voters to stick a finger in the eye of their creditors. The left around the world has responded to the vote with thunderous applause—and is selling the results as a vote for “the little guy.”…
In less than a week, authorities have issued two reports of an active shooter in high-profile areas of Washington, D.C. Last Thursday, the Navy Yard was placed on lockdown after someone reported the sound of gunfire in one of the buildings (the same location where a shooter killed 12 in 2013). On Monday, employees and…
As Congress and the Obama administration clash over the Department of Defense’s budget, few Americans will probably think of the former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. This would be a mistake, as many of the current budget battles within the Pentagon have parallels that can be drawn to Laird’s tenure as secretary of defense. From…
In June, NBC News released a poll with the following question: Which is more important to you: Protecting American industries and jobs by limiting imports from other countries, or allowing free trade so you can buy products at low prices no matter what country they come from? As we noted at the time, this question…
The Heritage Foundation's Hans von Spakovsky wrote about sanctuary cities and Kate Steinle's murder this week: After admitting to shooting and killing 32-year-old Kate Steinle, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal alien, was asked why he had come to San Francisco. He responded that “he knew San Francisco was a sanctuary city where he would not…
The Obama administration continues to have difficulty in gaining support for its failing strategy to defeat the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey inadvertently ignited a firestorm on Tuesday when they testified before the Senate Armed Services…
Today, the Army is announcing that it is cutting another 40,000 soldiers, leaving the United States with an Army that is smaller than before Sept. 11, 2001. However the cuts themselves aren’t news—Army leaders have been forecasting this cut for years due to the dramatic budget cuts they are facing. What Americans should be worried…