Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
President Barack Obama revolutionized the way campaigns are run with the use of social media, but it turns out Facebook may have been in the tank for Obama all along—and may have broken the law. Hans von Spakovsky joins the podcast to explain the situation. We also discuss liberal outrage over the Trump administration’s decision…
Covering the pro-gun control March for Our Lives in Washington, CNN ran a headline that read, “They’re marching through the same streets as Martin Luther King Jr. did—hoping for similar change.” The article then quoted a 16-year-old as saying, “The civil rights movement was started by teenagers.” How can we expect to properly deal with…
A marked difference in the Trump administration’s handling of the recent Austin, Texas, bombings was the refusal by federal law enforcement to leap to conclusions that would have driven a partisan, political agenda. As we’ve seen in the past, the Fort Hood ambush was inaccurately labeled as workplace violence. The Orlando nightclub attack was first…
The history of guns, gun control, and the Second Amendment is the topic of this week’s episode of “The Right Side of History,” a podcast dedicated to exploring current events through a historical lens and busting left-wing myths about figures and events of America’s past. This week, hosts Jarrett Stepman, a contributor to The Daily…
I was born in Los Angeles in 1984. The year marked the beginning of the crack cocaine epidemic that would sweep the nation, springing from South Central Los Angeles. The black community was hit hardest. The crack epidemic was a major factor in black fetal deaths increasing by 25 percent, lower birth weights increasing by…
A trade war with China would inflict far more damage on the American economy than could be recouped from tariffs and other protectionist levies. That’s the problem with the Trump administration’s unilateral action, taken under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, to levy punitive tariffs on up to $50 billion of goods from…
Controversy continues to swirl around how the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal data from over 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge and used it to target ads to individuals in an effort to help Donald Trump be elected president in 2016. But a more serious case of apparent misconduct involves Facebook data going…
America’s growing trade deficit has generated a lot of talk in recent months. The Trump administration says our trade deficit, now valued around $560 billion, indicates America is losing at trade. I decided to calculate my trade deficit. Like the U.S., I consume or buy more than I sell. I added to my trade deficit…
Warning signs were abundant prior to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, last month—so why wasn’t it prevented? Aside from protocol failures and lack of sufficient school security, Amy Swearer points to three specific traits that tend to mark school shooters. Swearer joins the podcast to explain what those are. Plus: “Roseanne” makes a major…
The Justice Department’s indictment of nine Iranian hackers shows that the educational sector is becoming ground zero for foreign intelligence and influence operations. It also demonstrates that we need to do more than just “name and shame” if we are going to stop these attacks. Here are the basics of what happened last Friday. The…
It is becoming increasingly fashionable for those who support gun control to compare the post-Parkland, student-driven movement to the civil rights movements of earlier generations. “Young people said, ‘We will not tolerate what our ancestors have tolerated. We’ve had enough and we’re willing to fight for it and we’re willing to march in the streets…
Here’s a question for you: In 1950, would it have been possible for anyone to know all of the goods and services that we would have at our disposal 50 years later? For example, who would have thought that we’d have cellphones, Bluetooth technology, small powerful computers, LASIK, and airplanes with 525-passenger seating capacity? This…
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt may be just a lawyer, but so far he has done more to bring sound science to the EPA than any scientist ever affiliated with the agency. And, apparently, he’s just getting started. Since taking the reins at the EPA and despite not having a full complement of presidential…
America has continued the heated debate as to what must be done to adequately protect our children at schools. Some (mistakenly) just say “ban guns,” or at least the ones they don’t like. Others (I am afraid equally mistakenly) say just put more guns into schools. The answer is more complex, however, and will take…
Liberal politicians are fuming at the Trump administration’s decision to include a citizenship question in the 2020 census. Why should this be controversial? Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, sat down to explain why Trump is on the rational side of this issue. Plus: Mark Zuckerberg agrees to testify before Congress, Indiana…
Here’s a win for limited government and the rule of law, tailor-made for tax season. In Marinello v. United States, a 7-to-2 majority of the Supreme Court limited the government’s sweeping interpretation of the tax code’s criminal catch-all provision, which prohibits “corruptly … endeavor[ing] to obstruct or impede the due administration” of the tax code….
Ireland’s strong economic fundamentals and business-friendly approach make it a popular destination for foreign corporations, and they bring with them jobs and billions of euros in tax revenue. Some are concerned, however, at what they see as an over-reliance on corporate tax revenue and multinational companies, which could bring cloudy skies as international competition heats…
Last Wednesday, House leadership released a 2,232-page omnibus spending bill that keeps the federal government open through October. This bill was negotiated completely behind closed doors by just four people: House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. These four people wrote a…
Kids converged on D.C. over the weekend to protest school shootings and guns, yet the most effective policy solutions went unmentioned. Jarrett Stepman, who went to the march, joins us to share his observations and discuss why students aren’t really the ones driving this movement. Plus, we discuss President Donald Trump’s new actions against Russia,…
When Republican congressional leaders went to the White House on Jan. 23, 2009—just three days into Barack Obama’s presidency—to discuss legislation, he helpfully reminded them that his policy preferences necessarily had to prevail because “elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” Obama is out of office now, but the regrettable consequences of…