Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Many supporters of Israel are understandably upset with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that seeks to encourage governments and businesses to boycott goods and services from Israel in response to perceived human rights or other alleged abuses. For example, hardly a school year goes by nowadays without various student governments at American colleges voting to…
Over the weekend, Boko Haram carried out attacks in several towns in the northeast of Nigeria attempting to derail the presidential and National Assembly elections. In the village of Buratai, the insurgent group set houses on fire and shot people as they fled the flames, killing at least 25 individuals. Two more attacks took place…
One of the great ironies of our politics is that the American Civil Liberties Union is now actually hostile to traditional American civil liberties. This is the conclusion one must draw from a letter the organization has sent to the House of Representatives, seeking to defend two District of Columbia laws that, under the guise…
The Federal Communications Commission’s Feb. 26 regulation imposing highly restrictive regulations on the Internet (“Open Internet Order”) threatens to undermine the vibrant economic growth and innovative consumer offerings that have characterized the largely unregulated Internet sector. Unless and until the Open Internet Order is thrown out by the courts or displaced by a new law…
“By nearly all accounts, our federal lands are in trouble, both in terms of fiscal performance and environmental stewardship.” That was an assertion made earlier this month in a study released by the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). The study focused on the difference between state-managed public lands and federally managed public lands. The…
An influential teacher spoke out against Common Core—and I share her concerns.
On March 25, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted a final rule amending Regulation A that will help mid-sized companies seeking to raise capital to grow but do very little to help small entrepreneurial start-ups. This new rule is usually called Regulation A-Plus. The securities laws require any company that issues stock to register…
Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken to The Washington Post to tell the nation that, in the words of the headline, “Pro-discrimination ‘religious freedom’ laws are dangerous.” Notice the scare quotes around “religious freedom.” But the reality is that the only person in favor of discrimination in this debate is Tim Cook. It is Tim…
Senators prudently left Washington for a two-week Easter recess last Friday without saddling Americans with $500 billion in new debt over the next twenty years. Last week, the House passed the irresponsible Pelosi-Boehner deal, legislation which permanently repeals the sustainable growth rate formula (which determines how much Medicare pays doctors) and adds $141 billion to…
Let’s say you were a financial adviser, and a family came to you with the following situation. They make the median family income in the United States—$52,000. But last year they spent $61,000. That’s right, $9,000 more than they’re making, and it all went on the family credit card. That’s bad enough, but then you find out they…
Many wonder how right-to-work laws will affect Wisconsin. To see how, consider another question: Do monopolies help or hurt customers? Until now, unions have had a monopoly in many Wisconsin workplaces. They didn’t have to persuade workers to purchase their services; they could force them to. Anyone who didn’t pay dues — averaging about $700…
While the United States moved out of Yemen last week, this week a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of a reported 10 mostly Arab states moved into Yemen with airstrikes aimed at the continuing chaos there. The immediate—but not the only—target of the coalition air campaign is the Houthi rebels who recently swept out of northern Yemen,…
In the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory in Israel, American leaders—both conservatives and liberals—should rethink their approach to the Middle East. Conservatives need to recognize more clearly who our enemies are; liberals need to learn to recognize our friends. Over the last six years, conservatives have made two errors regarding the Middle East. First, they’ve…
Earlier this month, the House Budget Committee proposed spending almost $3.8 trillion in fiscal year 2016—one-fifth of the country’s total economic output. Yet much of that huge amount will be spent with little regard to efficiency and accountability. The sad truth is that, for many federal programs, we have no way of knowing whether they…
As part of the 5-year anniversary White House celebration of his health care law, President Obama included his goals for health reform going forward. Among those goals is a blindly ambitious attempt to link health care payments to value. The Obama administration wants to base payments on quality and to incentivize doctors to spend more…
The mainstream media has launched an all-out blitz over a new law that protects the fundamental freedom of Indiana citizens from unnecessary and unreasonable government coercion. The media’s gross mischaracterizations of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act ignore the truth: Religious Freedom Restoration Acts prevent government discrimination against religious free exercise and simply provide a…
The Highway Trust Fund—which provides funding for building and maintaining the nation’s roads and bridges as well as transit, such as buses, streetcars, light rail and metros—will exhaust its operating funds by the end of May. Now more than ever, it is important for the nation to rethink the way it invests in transportation. As…
When Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took to Twitter last night to echo opposition and concern from the NCAA about Indiana’s new religious freedom law, some were puzzled—especially since Schumer had sponsored a national religious freedom law that closely matches Indiana’s new law. “.@NCAA if you’re looking for a new place to hold 2021 #FinalFour –…
Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared all terrorism in Pakistan “unacceptable” and offered $250 million to aid refugees displaced by the Pakistani military offensive against Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in North Waziristan. The Pakistani military has repeatedly tried to assure Washington that it is committed to cracking down on all terrorist…
Alejandro Mayorkas, a deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, gave favorable treatment to high-ranking political officials in helping them secure special EB-5 visas, according to the department’s inspector general. According to the inspector general, Mayorkas “exerted improper influence in the normal processing and adjudication of EB-5 immigration program benefits.” The inspector general found…