Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, barks “Jump!” Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, obediently asks, “How high?” Despite a January 2021 puff-piece profile on CBS’ “60 Minutes” touting the Mainer’s supposed independence, the two-term King is an independent in name only. One is hard-pressed to recall the last time he…
Before the midterm November elections, Sam Bankman-Fried was a left-wing billionaire heartthrob. He properly grew up on the Stanford campus, where his parents were well-known left-wing activist law professors. He went to a tony prep school and on to MIT. Bankman-Fried mocked society’s bourgeois capitalist conventions by dressing and looking like a slob in cut-offs…
A former Navy SEAL who transitioned from male to female in 2013 decided to detransition this year, no longer lives as a woman, and regrets having advocated for being transgender. Chris Beck, now 56, discussed his transition and detransition on a video podcast with conservative director-producer Robby Starbuck posted Dec. 1. Deployed 13 times and…
Samuel Johnson’s “Dictionary of the English Language,” first published in 1755, defines the word “woman” as “the female of the human race.” And until Oct. 2022, the word “woman” was still defined as “an adult female human being” in the Cambridge Dictionary. What transpired on the topic during the intervening 267 years? Not much. Science…
In fiscal year 2022, Customs and Border Protection seized more than 14,000 pounds of fentanyl. The lethal opioid drug has become a leading cause of death in adults ages 18-45. “The fentanyl seizures continue to increase, each fiscal year, and we know that of those seizures, we’re probably only apprehending 5% to 10% of the…
One of the last serious border enforcement policies left under the Biden administration is just days away from being removed. If it can be believed, things look to become much worse at the southern border, where tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers are currently gathering. Title 42 is a public health policy implemented…
African heads of state, other high-level policymakers, and business leaders traveled to Washington for a three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which ends Thursday. The Biden administration boldly billed the summit, the second iteration since the Obama administration’s inaugural event in 2014, as a defining moment for U.S. policy toward the region. Regrettably, other than a series…
How discouraged should conservatives be about the results of the midterm elections, which returned Republicans to only a slim majority in the House and actually gave Democrats one more seat in the Senate? It’s OK to be dismayed briefly, but conservatives should shake it off and keep moving forward to reach the public policy goals…
I was a teenager when I first visited New York. The flight cost $15 on the Eastern Airlines Shuttle from Washington, D.C. You could buy your ticket from a flight attendant on board. She (and it was always a she back then) would roll a cart down the aisle with a credit card device on…
Ohio middle school English teacher Vivian Geraghty lost her job in August when she refused to call two students by new names and preferred personal pronouns. Geraghty was informed in August that two of her students were beginning to “socially transition” to another gender. A school counselor emailed Geraghty and several other teachers with instructions…
Congressional lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday aimed at banning the social media app TikTok nationwide. “TikTok is digital fentanyl that’s addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., said in a press release. “It’s also an increasingly powerful media company that’s owned by ByteDance, which ultimately reports to…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is asking his state’s attorney general to investigate how a network of private organizations is colluding with the Biden administration to facilitate the worst border crisis in American history. Abbott’s request comes just days after The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project documented the outsized role of non-governmental organizations. Those groups, operating more…
Congressional Democrats—with some Republican help—are close to passing a colossal spending bill, reports indicate. It’s bad news for America. The omnibus was on my list of lame-duck legislation to watch out for, and as of now the so-called omnibus bill looks like it’s on track to pass and land on President Joe Biden’s desk. As…
Once again, Congress has blown past the end of the fiscal year without passing appropriations bills, thus setting up a government spending fight just before Christmas. The defeated outgoing Democratic House majority is hoping some Hollywood-style flair will hide their true aim; namely, to stuff trillions of dollars in new spending down the throats of…
Remember when the idea that government-run health care could lead to “death panels” was scoffed at as absurd? Well, the absurd is coming closer to reality as Canada—which has a universal, publicly funded health care system—extends medical assistance in dying (MAiD) laws to include a wider variety of conditions. Since Canada passed its law in…
There are plenty of postmortems about Raphael Warnock’s defeat of Republican candidate Herschel Walker in the runoff for the Senate seat in Georgia. Yes, in the same state, Republican Brian Kemp won a decisive victory in the race for governor. And, yes, to be kind, Walker was not a great flag-bearer to draw voters, particularly…
People in the “news business” are very upset that interest in their work is fading, and business isn’t booming. But in sharply divided times, the “news” too often sounds like it goes from one extreme to another. It comes across as either viciously negative or mawkishly positive. It feels less like information and more like…
LGBT activist and Biden administration official Sam Brinton no longer is an employee of the Energy Department. The news came Monday after Brinton, who identifies as nonbinary and gender-fluid, was accused in recent days of stealing two suitcases—one each from airports in Las Vegas and Minneapolis-St. Paul. It wasn’t clear whether Brinton, 35, was fired…
Chumchal told The Daily Signal, “If I had this many incidents that the district didn’t consider ‘bullying’, how many other parents or students have submitted bullying reports left unanswered or ill-attended to?”
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation announced Thursday that Central States Teamsters’ private union pension will receive $35.8 billion in taxpayers’ money. Behind this bailout is a tragic history of reckless actions by self-seeking unions and muddied political favoritism that allowed the problem to fester for decades unchecked. What the Biden administration applauds as a “protection”…