Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
A group of 11 conservative and libertarian think tanks on Sept. 18 launched “The Ideal U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Agreement: A Free Trader’s Perspective.” Published by the Cato Institute, and its primary authors, Dan Ikenson and Simon Lester of Cato, it is not a plan for a free trade area, or a plea for one. It…
The last few weeks of coverage of the accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have been a perfect example of why the American people don’t trust the media. The sheer breadth of wild and reckless reporting on the situation has been extraordinary, even by the media’s increasingly low standards. There have been a staggering…
After less than 10 years in the classroom, Common Core could soon be on its way out. The Obama administration introduced Common Core in 2010, imposing burdensome new standards and tests in an attempt to create uniform educational content across the nation. Despite loud objections from parents, teachers, school leaders, and state officials, 46 states…
California may think it’s progressive, but its latest push for social engineering is downright insulting to women—not to mention unnecessary. Both the California Senate and Assembly have passed SB 826, a bill that would require every company based in California to have at least one woman on their board by the end of 2019. By…
The civil war in Syria has killed over 100,000 civilians, displaced millions more, and produced a historic migrant crisis that affects Europe to this day. But the situation could get even worse if things go wrong in Idlib, a city in eastern Syria. We discuss with Luke Coffey of The Heritage Foundation. Plus: One Democratic…
The economy is thriving under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Wages are up, scores of jobs are being created, and small businesses are more optimistic than ever about the future. Making those tax cuts permanent and passing additional pro-growth tax reforms would help sustain higher economic growth, creating long-term benefits for all Americans. Even…
When I read Christine Blasey Ford’s account of being assaulted when she was a teenager, I felt sick to my stomach. How could you not after reading how she was trapped in a room and pinned down as a boy groped her and tried to rip her clothes off? This is a serious allegation. Ford…
On Monday, when Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh confronts allegations from his accuser Christine Blasey Ford, it won’t just be his future on the line. The future of the #MeToo movement will stand trial, too. The scenario could play out in a few different ways: First, Ford could provide enough evidence to prove her allegations,…
While questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about abortion during his Senate confirmation hearings, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., grossly misstated statistics about abortion deaths before Roe v. Wade. “In the 1950s and 1960s, two decades before Roe, deaths from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 and 1.2 million. That’s according to the Guttmacher…
I have a message for virtue-signaling men who’ve rushed to embrace #MeToo operatives hurling uncorroborated sexual assault allegations into the chaotic court of public opinion. Stuff it. Your blanket “Believe Women” bloviations are moral and intellectual abominations that insult every human being of sound mind and soul. A certain class of never Trump-harumphers are leading…
At 5 o’clock on Aug. 14, New York City turned its clocks back to the 1930s. The Taxi and Limousine Commission officially stopped issuing licenses to most for-hire vehicles, effectively declaring war on Uber and Lyft in an effort to protect taxis from competition. This is the first of many steps that aim to constrain…
Over the next several weeks, Heritage Foundation experts will publish short articles on the budget and federal spending. The next 12 months are a critical time for adjusting the spending outlook. In the last spending agreement enacted in the spring of 2018, Congress intentionally designed the spending limits so that they will be broken or…
Hurricane Florence pummeled the Carolinian coast, claimed 37 lives, and displaced hundreds of thousands of families from their homes. And to hear a lot of pundits tell it, humans are to blame and the Trump administration is doing nothing about it. They have attributed this storm and the frequency of similar natural disasters to climate…
It’s amazing how similarly “real” socialism turns out, every time it’s tried. In George Orwell’s book, “Animal Farm”—essentially the story of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, told through farm animals—there is an incredible moment where the animals, who suffer under the system of communism that they’ve created, come to a horrible realization that everything has…
It is almost impossible to overstate the damage done to America’s moral compass by taking the charges leveled against Judge Brett Kavanaugh seriously. It undermines foundational moral principles of any decent society. Those who claim the charges against Judge Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford are important and worth investigating, and that they ultimately, if believed,…
The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness joins us to discuss how the politicization of the #MeToo movement has been so concerning, and the importance of due process. Plus: We discuss the low ratings of the Emmys, and the politics of the show. We also cover these stories: Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said of Christine Ford’s…
So much of our reasoning about race is both emotional and faulty. In ordinary, as well as professional, conversation, we use terms such as discrimination, prejudice, racial preferences, and racism interchangeably, as if they referred to the same behavior. We can avoid many pitfalls of misguided thinking about race by establishing operational definitions so as…
Sept. 19 is the 222nd anniversary of the publication of President George Washington’s Farewell Address. Appearing in newspapers nationwide, it announced Washington’s intention to retire from public life after his second term. For most of American history, the Farewell Address was required reading in grade schools across the nation and was continually invoked in the…
Twitter made headlines recently when it denied the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan group, the ability to promote four tweets that—according to Twitter—contained “hateful content.” What was that hateful content? The legally correct phrases “illegal alien” and “criminal alien.” To be clear, those who follow the Center for Immigration Studies on Twitter were able…
Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, recently wrote an op-ed for Fox News about legislation they have proposed to address the serious security concerns regarding the threat of hostile drones. They warn that federal law enforcement does not have adequate authorities or capabilities to protect the general public and key government facilities from…