Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
In advanced number theory, there are “countable infinities” (which go on forever), “uncountable infinities” (which are infinitely larger), and finally, there are the biggest infinities of all, which are called “federal rules.” In truth, no one knows how many federal crimes and liabilities Americans are subject to because these pseudo-laws are buried in an ever-expanding…
“Donald Trump will be a tyrant!” So my neighbors claim. I live in Manhattan. Feel for me. Yes, Trump says wild things, like riffing about “terminating” parts of the U.S. Constitution. But I don’t think he means it. As Joe Rogan said to Trump when candidate Trump came on his show, “You say a lot…
When Donald Trump is sworn in next week, America will have a president for the first time in four years. The Joe Biden era hasn’t been a presidency but an interregnum, with seemingly no one in charge in Washington. The sign on Harry Truman’s desk used to say, “The buck stops here.” Where did it…
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello. This is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. I want to talk today very briefly about the matter of Trump trolling. I’m kind of…
A focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion has damaged the effectiveness of the U.S. military and hurt recruitment numbers. Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee grilled President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, on Tuesday. One exchange in particular highlighted the wrongheaded thinking that infects some in the current U.S. leadership…
It is bad enough that President Joe Biden has pardoned hundreds of drug dealers, embezzlers, thieves, and other dangerous criminals; commuted the death sentences of dozens of murderers; released ruthless terrorists from Guantanamo Bay so they can unleash more brutality into the world; and to top it all off, given his son a “get-out-of-jail-free card”…
Wildfires are inevitable. The apocalyptic devastation seen in Los Angeles isn’t. The Palisades Fire started recently in west Los Angeles. Driven by intense Santa Ana Winds, the fire quickly spread into the residential area of Pacific Palisades. That fire, along with others in LA, forced more than 175,000 residents to flee. The fire destroyed more…
As officials investigate what caused Los Angeles’ devastating fires, I know the answer. It was the homeless. The Los Angeles Fire Department reports that 54% of fires in 2023 were started by homeless. They responded to almost 14,000 fires that year alone related to homelessness. Regardless of whether the Pacific Palisades fire was directly started…
California’s Democrat Party elites are feeling the burn of their own failures to protect their state from devastating, uncontrolled fires. No politician’s reputation has been sullied as much as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s. As the wildfires in Los Angeles continue to rage, Newsom has sputtered and flailed—sometimes literally. He’s becoming the object of ire for appropriately…
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We’re into about the fourth or fifth day of the Los Angeles fires, and people are…
Actress Sara Foster captured the rage of many Angelenos who have watched their city burn from the Palisades to Altadena in one social media post: “We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. Our vegetation was overgrown, brush not cleared. Our reservoirs were emptied by our governor because tribal leaders wanted…
The inclusion of aliens, legal or illegal, in the population used for apportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives and for redistricting (i.e., drawing new boundary lines for congressional, state legislative, and local city council and county commission offices) unfairly dilutes the votes of U.S. citizens and distorts their representation and political power within legislative…
Sprawled across our beautiful nation, more than 500 million acres of public land are entrusted to the Department of the Interior. A nearly incomprehensible amount of natural resources rest under our feet, a testament to the rich natural heritage Americans are heir to. This year, a man who embodies the true spirit of the American…
A surprising number of federal government employees admit they are gearing up to act like a deep state, opposing the incoming second administration of Donald Trump. Most Americans, even many of the elites who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, are willing to support Trump's administration, according to an RMG Research survey commissioned by the…
Sometimes, ostensibly discrete global events come into focus and form a unified pattern. When that happens, the world suddenly starts making sense. Here are some examples of “disparate” occurrences: The governments of Europe’s three most powerful countries suddenly complain that Elon Musk’s X is allowing conservatives to communicate and unite on a global basis, Facebook…
Extended periods of hot weather and drought create ideal conditions for hard-to-fight forest fires. Although climate models predict that such weather conditions generated by human-caused global warming will increase the incidence of wildfires, recent wildfires cannot be blamed exclusively—or even primarily—on global warming: Weather-driven conditions conducive to forest fires have existed for millennia as a…
Kash Patel, President reelect Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI chief, heads into Senate confirmation hearings next week. His critics will warn ominously that Patel would turn the FBI upside down. As well he should. The FBI’s decent, diligent field agents might be the people most betrayed by their bosses in Washington, D.C. The bureau’s leftist command…
The times, they are a-changing. The balance of power in the perhaps eternal battle between the experts and the masses has been shifting starkly, even wildly, with the former losing and the latter gaining clout. That’s been most visible in the series of announcements and selfies emanating from the gaudy precincts of Mar-a-Lago. The experts…
The late, great Andrew Breitbart was one of the most quotable conservatives of his era. “Walk toward the fire,” he exhorted his fellow activists. “Don’t worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks.” It was good advice when Breitbart said it…
Embrace the chaos—that’s my formula for dealing with Trump 2.0, especially on the world stage. If you thought that the second time around President-elect Donald Trump was going to be more congenial toward our allies in the international community, Tuesday you got your wake-up call. During a Mar-a-Lago press conference, Trump explained how he plans…