Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
It’s been a year since the House Select Committee on Benghazi began its work, and although the committee has produced an interim report and its share of headlines, it has not come close to completing its mission. And, according to the committee, most of the delay can be traced to the snail’s-pace response from the…
Neither Djibouti, on the east coast of Africa at the entrance to the Red Sea, nor Antarctica are all that close to China. Yet, China is intent on establishing a presence in both areas. To support its growing Indian Ocean presence, which recently included deployments of submarines, including a nuclear-powered attack boat, China reportedly is…
Heritage's Michael Sargent wrote about the Highway Transit Fund earlier this week: Transportation funding could hit a dead-end at the end of the month. On May 31, the Highway Trust Fund’s authorization to pay for the nation’s highway and mass transit projects will expire. Even worse, the fund is running a $13 billion cash flow…
On April 15, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller for the Eastern District of California ruled the federal statute prohibiting marijuana for all purposes was rationally justified and the defendants had not met their burden of being discriminated by enforcement of federal marijuana laws. The defense had petitioned the Court to reschedule marijuana from…
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.” —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises The Daily Telegraph reports that on May 12 “Greece avoided an unprecedented default to the International Monetary Fund [IMF] after raiding its emergency cash account at the Fund, in a major sign the…
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, John Roth, has dealt a serious blow against the Obama administration’s defense in the lawsuit filed by 26 states against the immigration amnesty plan announced by President Barack Obama on Nov. 20, 2014. That plan is currently on hold due to a preliminary injunction order issued by Federal…
The Obama administration has zeroed-out funding for any new scholarships in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, meaning the program, which provides scholarships to children from low-income families to attend a private school of choice, will slowly atrophy over time. On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the program….
Facebook recently announced plans to require its vendors to pay workers at least $15 per hour, offer at least 15 days of paid vacation and provide a $4,000 “baby bonus” to new parents if it doesn’t offer paid parental leave. This is worth celebrating—but not for the reasons the White House did. Facebook Chief Operating…
In commemoration of the 12th annual North Korea Freedom Week, The Heritage Foundation hosted a panel discussion on human rights violations in North Korea. The discussion emphasized the importance of maintaining focus on the issue and sustaining the momentum generated by the United Nations commission of inquiry (COI) into human rights violations in North Korea….
On Tuesday night, an Amtrak train travelling on the Northeast Corridor crashed near Philadelphia, killing at least seven and injuring over 200 others. The tragic derailment occurred on Amtrak’s most-travelled line. Our prayers are with the passengers and their families, as well as the rescue team that was dispatched to the scene. It is still unknown…
America is becoming the land of overregulation, with its entrepreneurial vitality increasingly drained by the massive expansion of the administrative state. According to a new report by The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Economic Freedom and Opportunity, The number and cost of government regulations continued to climb in 2014, intensifying Washington’s control over the economy and…
Despite the fact that the U.S. House of Representatives has voted down repeated attempts to encourage the recruitment of illegal immigrants into the military, we are seeing yet another attempt to encourage such recruitment recently inserted into a must-pass defense funding bill. Even worse, the push to recruit illegal immigrants is happening at a time…
American law enforcement is under assault. While seemingly every action taken by law enforcement of late is under intense public and media scrutiny, presumptions have taken precedence over objective analysis and broad conclusions have replaced reasonable assumptions. These presumptions undermine the public’s faith in law enforcement and the ability of law enforcement to effectively maintain…
Kim Jong-un continued his reign of purges, having Minister of Defense Hyon Yong-chol executed for treason and showing disrespect to the North Korean leader by falling asleep at a military event. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported that Hyon was executed at the end of April by a firing squad using anti-aircraft artillery as hundreds…
Today marks the second anniversary of the conviction of Kermit Gosnell, the late-term abortionist who brutalized women and routinely killed living, breathing infants in his rundown West Philadelphia clinic. Later today the House is scheduled to vote on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, H.R. 36, which would limit late-term abortions after 20 weeks, include…
Many Catholics were cheered this week upon hearing that the dictator of Cuba Raul Castro has told the pope he might return to the folds of the church. When the game is cheating the devil out of souls, deathbed conversions are considered the ultimate Hail Mary pass. So hopes were lifted when Castro, upon meeting…
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) narrowly voted to include a provision that supports President Obama’s harmful and unlawful immigration actions. The provision, Section 538 of the National Defense Authorization Act, does little itself but merely expresses support for what the president has already done. First, President Obama unilaterally decided to give pseudo legal status,…
A left-wing confab wants to rewrite the rules for how Americans do business with each other, their government, and the world. The Roosevelt Institute is hosting a conference to highlight their new report, Rewriting the Rules. The premises of the effort are a wise observation and a foolish conclusion. Wisely, the authors realize that economic…
Transportation funding could hit a dead-end at the end of the month. On May 31, the Highway Trust Fund’s authorization to pay for the nation’s highway and mass transit projects will expire. Even worse, the fund is running a $13 billion cash flow deficit this year and is expected to exhaust all its money sometime…
Lawmakers rely on projections from federal agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation to assess the current path of the federal budget and how alternative policies could affect that path. That is why a recent study showing the Social Security actuaries have consistently overstated Social…