Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics had encouraging news for Americans. The June jobs report contained some of the best labor market figures since the recession began. Employers added 288,000 net new jobs, and the unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 6.1 percent—the lowest since the financial crises worsened in September 2008. Unlike previous…
Obamacare had a bad week at the Supreme Court. Actually Obamacare has had a pretty bad four years. Not surprisingly, most Americans still don’t like Obamacare. So the Obama administration’s allies are insisting that the unpopular law is working very well, thank you very much. For example, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says, “The…
The abortion-inducing drugs Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to cover simply aren’t the same as vaccines or blood transfusions. In a Washington Post op-ed published Monday, activist Sandra Fluke argues that the Supreme Court decision to allow Hobby Lobby to not offer four potentially abortion-inducing drugs and devices mandated by the Department of Health and Human…
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. One of the most monumental laws in American history, it was intended to stop the horrendous, widespread discrimination that was still occurring 100 years after the Civil War ended slavery. This is a time to celebrate the tremendous gains we’ve made…
Critics of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision have been quick to frame the 5-4 ruling as a battle against access to birth control. But as Hobby Lobby President Steve Green explained in an exclusive interview in March, that’s not the case. We do not have a problem with contraceptives. … There are 20 that are…
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has finally released details of the long-awaited third arrow in his economic reform commonly known as “Abenomics.” As with each of the first two arrows, there is debate as to whether the third arrow, also known as the Japan Revitalization Strategy, will be enough to jumpstart Japan’s economy and…
One of the Export-Import Bank’s largest investment partners, BNP Paribas SA, pleaded guilty on Monday to violating U.S. sanctions against Sudan, Iran and Cuba. This was the second report of criminal activity involving parties to the bank in the past week. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, officials of BNP Paribas, a French bank…
Recent military gains by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham are likely to inspire the Taliban to step up its fight in Afghanistan both to take advantage of the U.S. being distracted with the Iraq crisis and to demonstrate the al-Qaeda/Taliban nexus in South Asia is alive and well and capable of retaking territory…
>>> Q&A: How the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby Decision Affects Obamacare
Clearly, ISIS was not in the plan. The Obama Administration was caught flat-footed by the triumph of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in northern Iraq. The White House is now scrambling to catch up to fast-moving events on the ground to prevent a disastrous outcome in the war that it mistakenly declared had…
Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court ruled against the coercive Obamacare HHS mandate, prohibiting the government from forcing two family businesses, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, to provide coverage of potentially life-ending drugs and devices. The Court held that the HHS mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as it applied in this case. In…
Aggressive mapping is nothing new for China. With the release of a new 10-dash map last week, however, China has reinforced its already unreasonable claims on areas in the South China Sea. China’s original nine-dash line map shows its claim to 90 percent of the South China Sea, encompassing the hotly contested Spratly and Paracel…
Support for school choice is on the rise, but Americans hold a “dim view of the federal government’s performance in K-12 education,” found the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice in its newly released “2014 Schooling in America Survey.” The survey found 58 percent of Americans think that K-12 education has gotten off on the “wrong…
Despite large stimulus packages and near-zero interest rates since 2009, the U.S. still fails to achieve a sustained economic recovery. According to a third and final estimate from the Commerce Department, the U.S. economy contracted at a 2.9 percent annual pace in the first quarter of 2014, the sharpest pullback since the recession ended five…
In a Fox News appearance last night, anchor Megyn Kelly blasted activist Sandra Fluke’s comments that the Supreme Court decision on Hobby Lobby was about restricting “women’s access to reproductive healthcare.” >>> Ignore Sandra Fluke’s Scaremongering on Hobby Lobby Decision >>> VIDEO: Do Hobby Lobby Critics Know the Drugs at Issue? >>> The Fight Isn’t Over:…
Where will the Islamist rampage that is storming across Iraq stop? There is no easy answer to that question. Carl von Clausewitz, the great 19th century Prussian military theorist, coined the term “culminating point” to describe the moment when an attacking army overreached, stretched itself too thin and became vulnerable to counterattack. Clausewitz was reflecting…
A lot of folks, including my colleague Steve Moore, say that soccer is boring and un-American. I’m here to tell you why they’re wrong. Steve, like many critics, bemoaned the lack of action and scoring in soccer in his piece headlined “Why Americans (Rightly) Hate Soccer.” But there’s so much to enjoy throughout the 90…
Summer is here and school is out. For many parents this means toys everywhere around the house and never-ending debates to get the kids to put their stuff away. Or, some parents may choose to just pick up after their kids. Like America’s kids, Washington is quite good at putting out new government programs and…
Protected lands and rare species are hurting the U.S. Border Patrol’s ability to keep the United States-Mexico border secure. Much of the border areas in South Texas are considered national wildlife refuge areas, which are protected lands overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Lower River Grande Refuge, for example, runs for 275…
There’s no doubt about it: Soccer is the world’s favorite sport. That is reaffirmed every four years when the world stops to watch the World Cup. There are many reasons why soccer is loved by so many, but one is the game’s simplicity. All you really need is a ball. Goals, shin guards and uniforms…