Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
This week’s U.S.-South Korea summit will be scrutinized for signals of the strength of the relationship and divergence in approaches to North Korea. The elections of U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in upended their countries’ policies toward the bilateral alliance and North Korea, producing uncertainty and concerns in both capitals. Both…
Americans are still waiting for a border wall, but France is set to get a wall of their own by the end of the year. Unlike the American iteration, this barrier won’t be erected on the French border. It’s set to surround the Eiffel Tower to shield it from terrorist attacks. Last month, the Paris…
The Trump administration’s investigation of steel imports as a possible national security concern is the latest in a line of aggressive actions designed to boost the economy. The target of the so-called Section 232 probe is, in large part, imports into the U.S. from China. In recent testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, the…
Time heals all wounds—except, it seems, in the research world. Opponents of parental choice in education, like publicly funded K-12 scholarships and vouchers, are not satisfied by new research findings showing that private school choice is working. It’s not enough that students using a voucher to attend private school are catching up to their peers…
A highly controversial rule from the Obama administration may finally be on its way out. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is going to put an end to the Obama administration’s federal power grab known as the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule. Specifically, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers are…
America’s entrepreneurial dynamism has been falling, and the cost of inaction grows daily. According to a recent study by the Economic Innovation Group, America “suffers from a problem of too little creation—not too much destruction—perhaps for the first time in its history.” Over the past decade, our economic and job creation engine has run out…
Single-party dominance has made California a little crazy. After a “Calexit” secession effort failed when its leader decided to move back to Russia, the deep-blue state has now turned to other methods to resist the change in political fortunes. On Friday, the California Assembly narrowly failed to pass a plan to bring single-payer health care…
The Heritage Foundation has been on the road in Spain’s southern region of Andalucía promoting economic freedom. One stop was Seville, a city that is sorely in need of hearing that message. Seville has been an important urban center since the Middle Ages. It was from the nearby Atlantic port of Cádiz that Christopher Columbus…
USA Today published an article last week about outgoing National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O’Neill. O’Neill reflected on her eight-year term as NOW president. However, most of the article granted O’Neill a very public forum to criticize President Donald Trump, and specifically his pro-life policies. O’Neill spent a considerable amount of time claiming…
The world was shocked last week by the death of an American citizen, Otto Warmbier. Warmbier, who had been detained by North Korean authorities on trumped-up charges for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster, was sentenced to 15 years hard labor. While serving out his unjust sentence, Warmbier fell into a comatose state, only to die…
Large-scale cyberattacks against Ukraine on Tuesday reportedly hit government ministries, including the Cabinet of Ministers, several banks, a state power distributor, the Ukrainian postal service, a state-run aircraft manufacturer, and Boryspil airport in Kyiv, among other targets. The cyberattacks have also affected companies outside of Ukraine, including an advertising firm in the United Kingdom; Maersk,…
In a 7-2 decision on Monday in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, the Supreme Court overturned a Missouri policy that discriminated against a church simply because of its religious character. Citing a provision in its constitution that bars aid to religious organizations, Missouri had disqualified Trinity Lutheran Church’s preschool from a competition…
This week, the nation’s highest court made two decisions that could profoundly affect the future of educational freedom in the United States. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer that the state of Missouri violated the Constitution when it excluded Trinity Lutheran’s preschool, because of its religious…
On June 27, the European Commission—Europe’s antitrust enforcer—fined Google over $2.7 billion for a supposed violation of European antitrust law that bestowed benefits, not harm, on consumers. And that’s just for starters. The commission is vigorously pursuing other antitrust investigations of Google that could lead to the imposition of billions of dollars in additional fines…
In last week’s decision in Murr v. Wisconsin, the Supreme Court upheld the Wisconsin State Court of Appeals’ ruling that two waterfront lots should be treated as a single unit in a “regulatory takings” case. In a blow to constitutionally guaranteed property rights, the decision denied a family just compensation for having the value of…
My “Rewriting American History” column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write…
The open-borders lobby long has sought to muddy the issue of immigration by deliberately—and dishonestly—omitting the word “illegal” whenever possible and conflating all immigrants, legal and otherwise. “Human beings can’t be illegal,” they insist. The liberal media all too often have been complicit in the effort to sidestep the distinction, but it’s a distinction with…
The United States Senate has just 35 working days until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, and that’s assuming Mondays and Fridays are indeed used for deliberation. One thing is totally clear: There isn’t time to deal with the issues that demand immediate attention. The only appropriate response is to cancel, or…
“Drain the swamp!” It was the battle cry of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Many Republican members of Congress echoed that call as well, riding it to victory—and control of both legislative chambers. The American people rallied around the cry because it reinforced their impression of what Washington had become: a swamp infested with special-interest groups and power-hungry bureaucrats. They rallied,…
After midnight on Feb. 27, 2014, dozens of Russian marines left their barracks in Sebastopol. Heavily armed and dressed in civilian garb, they stormed the regional parliament and started a war in Ukraine that still simmers today. Russian President Vladimir Putin is fighting a different kind of conflict against his enemies in the West, and Ukraine has…