Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Recently, I attended the White House Prison Reform Summit. The fact that both the president and the vice president were at the event indicates the importance that the Trump administration ascribes to this issue. And statistics quoted by Vice President Mike Pence explain why our existing prison system should trouble us all. According to the…
The NFL took a big step this week in making football great again. They announced that, starting this next football season, players and personnel coming onto the field will not be able to kneel or otherwise protest during the national anthem. Now it’s true they said that players can stay back in the locker rooms….
Middle-class Americans, stuck in Obamacare’s insurance “markets,” are desperate for relief from skyrocketing health insurance costs. Innovative state governors and legislators, as The Heritage Foundation has urged, need Washington’s help to provide it. Relief cannot come quickly enough. For 2019, insurance executives are saying that individual market premiums could increase by 30 percent nationwide. In…
The House passed a prison reform bill Tuesday overwhelmingly on a bipartisan vote of 360 to 59. Now, the Senate will consider the reforms—which, if enacted, would help individual inmates, their families, and communities; increase public safety; and reverse the trend of skyrocketing spending at the Bureau of Prisons. The Formerly Incarcerated and Re-enter Society…
By now, you’ve likely heard the story of Michael Rotondo, a 30-year-old college dropout from Camillus, New York, who refused to move out of his parents’ house. For months, they have encouraged him to find a job and have offered to help him find a place to live on his own. “There are jobs available…
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced this week that the U.S. and China had agreed to cool down the brewing trade war, following a joint statement from U.S. and Chinese officials. That’s a positive first step. Mnuchin confirmed that the planned tariffs under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 on $150 billion of Chinese…
? “When I ran for office, I pledged to stand for life. And as president, that’s exactly what I’ve done,” says President Donald Trump. Mallory Quigley of the pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony List joins us to discuss Trump’s record on life. Plus: A Yale student wrote an op-ed explaining how being in foster care…
It’s being reported that House Republicans plan to vote on several immigration bills in June in order to head off a discharge petition by a group of party moderates that would force a vote on amnesty. Those bills, as I noted previously, are in fact amnesty bills. And as is generally the case with amnesty…
In early May, President Donald Trump submitted a rescission request to Congress to roll back more than $15 billion in spending. The House initially seemed poised to pass the package before Congress’ Memorial Day recess, but now, CQ reports that consideration of the package will be delayed until at least June. Congress has less than…
Hungary’s maverick prime minister, Viktor Orban, is once again stirring the pot of goulash. Four years ago, Orban gave his critics ammunition when he said he was constructing an “illiberal democracy.” This month he doubled down, declaring liberal democracy dead and urging other European leaders to stop trying to revive the corpse. Instead, Orban exhorted…
Educrat (ED-yoo-krat): noun, usually pejorative. A government school official or administrator whose primary function is to spend tax dollars telling other parents what to do with their children. Beltway education bureaucrats abhor families who choose to keep their kids out of public schools—unless it’s to grandstand over gun control. Behold Arne Duncan, longtime pal of…
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a ruling in February establishing new congressional voting districts for the state’s residents. That ruling abolished the voting districts established by the state Legislature in 2011. Why? The justices felt the 2011 districts were political gerrymandering and discriminated against Democrats. Of course, the elected Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices are mostly…
“You’re looking at a country which is the most radical actor on the global stage since the French Revolution.” China is plowing forward with an agenda of economic aggression, empirical ambitions, and a complete disregard for international law and customs. How did this happen? It turns out to be a toxic combination of long national…
This is a lightly edited transcript of an interview on The Daily Signal podcast Monday. Since the interview was recorded, House GOP leadership announced there will be a vote on the Goodlatte-McCaul bill in June. Katrina Trinko: Immigration was supposed to be dead as an issue, but in recent weeks a number of Republicans have…
Antonia Okafor is now a gun rights supporter and political commentator. But in college, she found her political beliefs shifting from left to right. She explains what happened. Plus: A new study indicates that political correctness may have helped President Donald Trump win the election.
Over the weekend, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who led U.S.-China trade negotiations, announced a trade war between the two countries was “on hold.” This progress will surely bring a sigh of relief for American farmers—and short-term stability to international markets as tensions rightly de-escalate. Working Backward The two sides have been negotiating over bilateral trade…
It doesn’t take a genius to realize the U.S. budget process is broken. The biggest reason for that is that too much spending is growing on autopilot. Now, Congress wants to double down by budgeting even less frequently. Speaking to the Washington Examiner this month, Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who co-chairs the Joint Select Committee…
If you’re ambivalent about the crisis of pornography in America, The New York Times can change that. Almost instantly. The paper jolted an entire nation into caring with its jarring February exposé, “What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn” (warning: extremely graphic). If their stories don’t shock, repulse, sober, and motivate you, nothing will. What…
If you want to understand the moral sickness at the heart of leftism, read the first paragraph of the most recent column by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne: It’s never right to call other human beings ‘animals.’ It’s not something we should even have to debate. No matter how debased the behavior of a…
Last week, a teenager stole his father’s shotgun and .38-caliber revolver, smuggled them into his Santa Fe, Texas, high school under a trench coat, and proceeded to murder 10 innocent people before surrendering to police. It’s another devastating reminder that human beings are capable of inflicting horrific pain on each other, and that while the…