Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week may have marked an inflection point for international religious freedom. Historically, governments that strongly protect religious freedom have been a rarity. It is no small thing, then, that essentially all countries are now willing at least to pay lip service to the idea, enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that religious…
Historian Jacob Burckhardt once warned against being deceived by “terrible simplifiers.” If he hadn’t died in 1897, you might be tempted to think he was writing about defenders of President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The left consistently characterizes all DACA recipients as though they were innocent, law-abiding Phi Beta Kappa college…
While violent civil conflicts have prevailed elsewhere in the Middle East since the Arab Spring of 2011, Tunisia has pursued a transition to democracy without bloodshed. In 2014, the country made massive strides, adopting a new constitution, and then holding its first full parliamentary and presidential elections under that constitution. As with any young democracy,…
“If it wasn’t for my artwork and God, there’s no way we’d be having this conversation right now.” I’m in Colorado on a three-way phone call with Valentino Dixon, inmate No. 91B1615 at New York’s Wende Correctional Facility, and his 27-year-old daughter, Tina Dixon, a first-grade teacher in Ohio. Faith, family, and drawing—golf courses, jazz…
Economic freedom enables the sharing economy, and in a groundbreaking new multinational study, the Swedish think tank Timbro finds a strong relationship between free markets and the sharing economy. The Timbro Sharing Economy Index is the first global index of the sharing economy, estimating the size and usage of the sharing economy in each country….
While the Trump administration remains committed to repealing Obamacare, Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has additional ideas for how to boost health care in the United States. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal’s Genevieve Wood, he shares his thoughts. Plus: A new study indicates adults are spending over 11…
When I read that the economy is growing strongly, it makes me happy. But in politics, good news is not enough. You have to decide who gets credit for it. President Ronald Reagan, no ordinary politician, kept a plaque on his desk that said, “There is no limit to what a man can do or…
In the coming days and weeks, there’s going to be a lot of analysis of the vision for American economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo laid out at the Chamber of Commerce on Monday. Most of it will be wrong. Pompeo delivered a near-perfect speech. It described America’s strengths and…
The war on history continues in Texas. An agency in the city of Austin recently released a memo suggesting renaming numerous streets and roads, removing statues, and generally eliminating references to the Confederacy. But the recommendations from Austin’s Equity Office didn’t stop with Confederate figures. Perhaps most absurdly, the memo suggested renaming Austin because Stephen…
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar recently outlined an ambitious health care policy agenda that is positively Reaganesque. In the spirit of the late President Ronald Reagan, Azar emphasized that the Trump administration’s major health care policy initiatives would rely heavily on harnessing the creative powers of federalism and reaffirming state innovation, the…
Another weekend, another lemonade stand shut down. Over Memorial Day weekend, the city of Denver brought us the story of Jennifer Knowles and her three sons’ lemonade stand being shut down. Over this past weekend, the state of New York brought us the story of Brendan Mulvaney, a 7-year-old boy from Ballston Spa in Saratoga…
Does an administrative agency have the power to rewrite an act of Congress? The answer to that question in the headline ought to be a resounding no. Yet, by deferring to administrative agencies over the meaning of federal law, the federal courts have for decades empowered the executive branch do exactly this. Agencies now rewrite…
In a quest to uproot Confederate names and statues, Austin, Texas, discovered the problematic legacy of Stephen F. Austin, who died before the Civil War. Jarrett Stepman joins us to discuss the latest push to eradicate history. Plus: There’s an uproar at the University of Virginia over hiring a Trump aide to be a one-year…
Poverty is no mystery, and it’s easily avoidable. The poverty line that the Census Bureau used in 2016 for a single person was an income of $12,486 that year. For a two-person household, it was $16,072, and for a four-person household, it was $24,755. To beat those poverty thresholds is fairly simple. Here’s the road…
If you ask most young people today if they have any hobbies, you will receive one of four answers: 1. “No.” 2. “What do you mean?” 3. “Yeah. I play video games/watch TV/watch movies.” 4. “Yeah…” and then they may actually cite a hobby. The fourth is the least common. Dan Scotti, lifestyle writer at…
Senate Democrats have done an about-face on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination. At first, they had no doubt that Kavanaugh was nothing less than an existential threat to the Constitution. If he were confirmed, they said, millions of lives would be lost and the future of America would be nasty, brutish, and short. Now,…
Socialism is expensive. In a new cost analysis, Charles Blahous, formerly a member of the Medicare board of trustees, concludes that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill (S. 1804) would cost a breathtaking $32.6 trillion over 10 years. Given the growing commitment of House and Senate Democrats to this agenda, Blahous’ analysis is…
Less than a third of the way into his upcoming book on nationalism, Israeli philosopher and scholar Yoram Hazony warns about the growing censorship constricting debate in Western societies when the opinion in question runs counter to the views of politically correct liberalism. Facebook wasted no time in making his case for him. “There is…
Earlier this month, the Catholic Church of Divine Mercy in Managua, Nicaragua, was under siege. For 15 hours on July 13, government-sponsored paramilitaries opened fire on student protesters at a nearby university. Students have been at the forefront of the demonstrations against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega since they began in April. Explosives, snipers, and machine…
Listen above to the full podcast, which features an interview with Ana Quintana on Nicaragua’s crisis and a discussion of a news article that casts a dark shadow on Catholic hospitals in rural areas, or read the lightly edited transcript of the interview with Quintana below. Daniel Davis: Is Nicaragua becoming the new Venezuela? In…