Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Reports from China indicate that retired senior leader Zhou Yongkang is under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the equivalent of the “Internal Affairs” division of a police force. The investigation into Zhou constitutes a major event in Chinese politics. No other Politburo Standing Committee member has…
Is Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., really that outraged about the supposed impeachment chatter? >>> If Conservatives Try to Impeach Obama, He’ll Have the Last Laugh
Cuban dissident Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera personifies courage. The petite Afro-Cuban dissident has suffered beatings, imprisonment and sexual harassment at the hands of Raul Castro’s goons in Cuba. And yet she was in Washington Wednesdaycalling for world support for the Cuban people, knowing full well that, as she said, “I will pay for this once…
Senator Rob Portman (R–OH) proposed reforms to Social Security and Medicare in The Wall Street Journal last week. Reforms to both programs “can not only help close the debt, it can also create a stronger economy,” Portman argues. He specifically proposes “adjusting Social Security and Medicare’s retirement ages, means-testing benefits for upper-income retirees, and supporting…
A medical exam room is where most parents are presented with “their options” regarding life. It’s where they are overwhelmed with the unpleasant diagnoses that their unborn child has a life threatening genetic disorder. And, it’s where they are first presented with the challenges and trials that will mark their child’s entire time on earth….
The chairs of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees made a deal on Monday to authorize $15 billion in additional spending in response to recent revelations of scandals at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). All spending in the bill would be authorized as “emergency spending,” despite several of the bill’s provisions failing to…
Americans will get to have their say on the Environmental Protection Agency and its proposed regulation to fight climate change this week. The agency will hold public hearings in four cities to fulfill its promise to get stakeholder input and let everyday Americans comment on the proposed rule. But whether the agency takes the input…
One argument keeps coming up in favor of reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) is that letting the bank expire would amount to unilateral disarmament. This argument doesn’t really mesh with reality. Proponents of this line of thinking claim that the United States must subsidize exports to stay competitive since other industrialized countries do the same….
Medicare’s true cost is the biggest problem in Washington and the one most ignored. The long-awaited 2014 Medicare Trustees report is out, and the “spinning “ is well underway. But the media is not yet reporting another big finding – this one by the Medicare Actuary and revealed on the same day: Taxpayers face a…
“Japan needs Korea as a strategic partner and friend,” said Takeo Kawamura, senior member of the House of Representatives in Japan at an event on alliances in Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation. In recent years, tensions between Japan and South Korea—two of America’s key allies in Asia—have increased. But rather than dwelling on downward…
“You didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” In the case of the ongoing crisis along America’s southwest border, that someone is President Obama. When the president used his pen to sign the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, memorandum on June 15, 2012, he effectively rolled out the welcome mat to those…
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled against a challenge to Obamacare’s individual mandate based on the origination clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court held in NFIB v. Sebelius (2012) that Obamacare’s individual mandate was constitutional because it was a tax. The Constitution also says tax legislation must originate in…
Can people respect each other and treat one another civilly even while disagreeing about marriage? No, according to New York Times domestic correspondent Josh Barro. As The Daily Signal reported, on viewpoints that Barro considers “anti-LGBT”, he thinks that “we need to stamp them out, ruthlessly.” The problem is that much of what Barro considers…
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed several different payroll tax proposals to shore up Social Security’s finances, and the results are not very appealing. The Social Security trust fund ran a $71 billion deficit in 2013 that is on pace to quadruple by 2032. Some have called for a payroll tax increase, but CBO found…
The Obama administration released Tuesday a new report warning that with accelerating climate change comes accelerating costs: Costs will increase by 40 percent each decade of inaction on climate change. The report fails to mention, however, that the administration’s climate policies come with much steeper price tags. Nor is there any action that will actually…
Senators John Barrasso (R–WY), James Inhofe (R–OK), David Vitter (R–LA), and Roger Wicker (R–MS) rightly criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed regulations for new power plants at a congressional hearing last week. The regulations for new plants, announced in June, set thresholds for CO2 output that would effectively eliminate new coal power plant construction….
Russian violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty come as a surprise to only those who have not been paying attention to foreign policy in the last few decades. In a recent National Review piece, Mark Schneider, senior analyst at the National Institute for Public Policy, and Keith B. Payne, former deputy assistant secretary of defense,…
The most recent Census Bureau report on fertility in the United States, published this month, shows an increase in both unwed first births and children born into poverty. Over 40 percent of all children are born outside marriage today, a historical high. In 1994, only 30 percent of first births were to unmarried women. By…
The growth of educational opportunity through school choice over the last ten years suggests American education is moving in the right direction. Last week, The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity released the first annual “Index for Culture and Opportunity,” tracking 31 leading social and economic indicators that reveal the state of America’s…
Does President Obama want to be impeached? Well, no. But he and his political chieftains apparently want voters to think that Republicans are scheming on how to impeach him. Every failed political leader and movement need a straw man and as November approaches, liberal politicos want to paint various Republican statements and efforts to curtail…