Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Alaska’s open-pit Pebble Mine sits on 55 billion pounds of copper, 67 million ounces of gold, and 3.3 billion pounds of molybdenum—$500 billion in value. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants to keep it there. The EPA is proposing significant limitations on extraction—before the Pebble Limited Partnership, the developers of the mine, have even filed…
Gov. Rick Perry, R-Tex., will send around 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas border under his gubernatorial authorities to help the Texas Department of Public Safety deal with the illegal immigration crisis. Before anyone screams that this is unprecedented or the radical militarization of the border, be assured it is not. In 2006–2008, all four…
During an interview Sunday with Meet the Press, Secretary of State John Kerry claimed credit for North Korea being more “quiet” than last year. Kerry, however, misinterprets the regime’s characteristic alternating between provocations and charm offensives as the U.S. having achieved “progress.” When North Korea ratcheted up tensions last year, it was to intimidate the…
Today President Barack Obama issued an executive order barring federal contractors from what it describes as “discrimination” on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Employers should respect the intrinsic dignity of all of their employees, but today’s executive order undermines our nation’s commitment to pluralism and religious liberty. Today’s executive order does not…
Senators Marco Rubio, R-Fla.,and Mark Warner. D-Va., have introduced the Dynamic Repayment Act of 2014. The proposal would establish an income-contingent based repayment system that would require every borrower of a federal student loan to pay 10 percent of his monthly income upon graduation, and would garner those payments through paycheck withholding. Student debt is…
Several bills have advanced in Congress as part of a piecemeal approach that signifies the beginning of a process to reauthorize the Higher Education Act, which covers federal student aid and accreditation among other areas. One bill, the Advancing Competency-Based Education Demonstration Project Act introduced by Reps. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.,, Susan Brooks, R-Ind.,, and Jared Polis,…
See the history of the Export-Import Bank—from its inception in 1934 through the current debate over its reauthorization—in The Daily Signal’s interactive timeline. Use the arrows to advance or jump to an event using the scrollbar at the bottom.
File it under “things you don’t see very often.” A press release from Republican Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, declaring, “I appreciate the efforts of Secretary Kerry….” Accolades from across the aisle have been few and far between for an administration that has suffered an almost endless string of foreign-policy reversals…
Let me begin by saying I love baseball. I grew up playing whiffle ball nearly every summer afternoon in a vacant lot in suburban Chicago, and I played seven years of Little League. I regularly ditched high school, dodged the truancy officers, hopped on the El and spent my afternoons in Wrigley Field – this…
It became her mantra. The U.S. border with Mexico, Janet Napolitano would say, “has never been more secure.” First uttered in 2010 during Congressional testimony, she repeated it often for the remainder of her tenure as Homeland Security Secretary. Even four years ago, not everyone agreed. True, illegal border crossings had dried up in some…
You can tell a lot about a piece of legislation by looking at who is for it and who is against it. The battle over whether to keep the Export-Import Bank alive is a case in point. The Ex-Im Bank was established during FDR’s administration to encourage more trade with the Soviet Union. The Soviet…
Last month, with thousands of children streaming across our southern border and thousands more detained in poor conditions, President Barack Obama declared the situation a “humanitarian crisis.” I agree. Yet Obama’s concern would carry more weight if he hadn’t helped bring about the crisis in the first place and if his plans for amnesty weren’t…
Were you aware that your opposition to Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama is due at least in part because of your “racial animus,” and not because you disagree with their policies and abuse of their constitutional authority? That, anyway, is Holder’s latest claim, which shows how disconnected the attorney general is from reality….
Want to solve the border crisis? Stop what’s causing it. Simply throwing money at programs to absorb illegal immigrants will not end the humanitarian crisis on our border. In fact, without tackling the root causes, more children will be brought by human traffickers to the U.S. What are the causes? An uptick in violence in…
Yesterday, hundreds of innocents from all over the world lost their lives in the skies over Ukraine. This horrible tragedy is a clear reminder of how very far from peace this part of the world remains. Only one capital can end the needless conflict. It’s not Washington. It’s Moscow. Before the downing of flight MH-17,…
The Service Employees International Union likes to present itself as the champion of the little guy. But officials of SEIU Healthcare — “the fastest-growing union of health care, child care, home care and nursing home workers in the Midwest” — aren’t averse to a little high living. For example, in fiscal 2013, officials of SEIU’s…
Over the past 20 years, the Index of Economic Freedom, a data-driven policy guide published by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, has emphasized that the right policies for economic growth must be fought for with enduring commitment. In recent years, Australia has cemented a spot among the world leaders in economic freedom,…
Two of the four Russian firms targeted for economic sanctions by President Obama this week received substantial subsidies from the Export-Import Bank. The financial ties highlight the complications inherent in U.S. taxpayer-financing of state-controlled outfits overseas. The president’s announcement of new sanctions on Wednesday followed weeks of warnings that Russia would face consequences for the…
In July, the Obama administration announced a renewed effort to ensure high-quality teachers are equitably distributed among schools. The administration asked states to create and publish plans that detail how they will ensure disadvantaged children have access to effective teachers. Specifically, the administration is encouraging states to revisit No Child Left Behind’s Title I requirement…
Millennials don’t seem to think getting married and having children is very important to society. According to a recent Pew survey, only 29 percent of 18-24-year-olds and just 35 percent of those 25-34 agree that “society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority.” Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean today’s…