Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
That nature abhors a vacuum is a cliché but also a postulate about the immutable laws of nature. And once again, we’re seeing the unchangeable rules of the physical world being replicated in human action—especially in foreign policy. Exhibit A is Europe east of the Fulda Gap, where Obama appointees are still dictating American policy…
A major insurance company has decided to entirely withdraw from all of Obamacare‘s health insurance exchanges in 2018. According to the Washington Examiner, the experience with Obamacare has been a financial disaster for Aetna, one of the nation’s largest insurance companies. The insurance giant sustained almost $700 million in losses between 2014 and 2016, and…
A consistent theme from the earliest days of the Trump administration was the intent to lower the amount that America pays for United Nations peacekeeping. During her confirmation hearing, Ambassador Nikki Haley repeatedly said that the U.S. contribution to the peacekeeping budget was too high and should be lowered to 25 percent. The current U.S….
The United States today faces a rising number of threats to national security from around the world, whether it be from North Korea, ISIS, or Russia. To deter and counter these threats requires a strong ground combat force, and it is the shared responsibility of the executive branch and Congress to adequately resource that force….
As with most presidential elections, South Korean voters predominantly voted their pocketbooks in Tuesday’s national election. While the election featured the usual struggle between a conservative market-based growth strategy and liberal redistributionism, voters this time were driven in large part by a desire to end their nation’s endemic political corruption. After 10 years of conservative…
Jakarta’s Chinese Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, more popularly known as Ahok, was found guilty of blasphemy by a panel of five judges in Indonesia and sentenced to two years in prison. This latest application of blasphemy laws calls into question the commitment to religious freedom in a country often held up as an example…
Editor’s note: This commentary contains language, although used in historical context, that may offend some readers. May Day celebrations were held all across the fruited plain, with leftist radicals and unionists worshipping the ideals of communism. Communism is an ideology calling for government control over our lives. It was created by Karl Marx, who—along with…
While the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is on the retreat in some parts of the Middle East, its reach in the Western world remains a serious threat. A recent arrest in New Jersey shows just how vigilant the U.S. must remain. In February, police charged Gregory Lepsky, 20, with attempting to provide material support to…
President Donald Trump has promised to make a “big decision” in the next two weeks on the Paris climate accord after promising to “cancel” the agreement during the campaign last year. Fundamentally, the Paris Agreement is a costly and ineffective approach to addressing global warming. There are compelling economic, environmental, and legal reasons for Trump…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott acted to protect the citizens of Texas on Sunday when he signed into law SB 4, a bill to punish (and deter) local cities and counties like Austin from implementing sanctuary policies. Abbott and the legislators who sponsored this bill are trying to stop the Lone Star State from being a…
Congress’ power of the purse is one of its bedrock responsibilities listed in Article 1 of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed this power on several occasions, including in a 1976 case when the Court declared, “The established rule is that the expenditure of public funds is proper only when authorized by Congress, not…
Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old former investment banker running for office for the first time in his life, won elections Sunday in a landslide and will soon become the next president of France. It will be a stretch, however, to say that it was his globalist ideas that carried the day. Macron took 66 percent of…
Editor's note: We got some great feedback about our video report on the effects of the border wall built near San Diego, and this week's mailbag leads off with your comments.—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: Kelsey Harkness did a really good job covering the border wall in San Diego ("Underreported: How Building a Border Wall Changed San…
The April jobs report is in, and the Trump administration is taking a victory lap. That’s because the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an increase of 211,000 jobs (up from an unimpressive 79,000 in March) and a drop in the unemployment rate from 4.5 percent to 4.4 percent—the lowest rate since May 2007. In addition,…
On April 22, 2016, the United States and 170 other countries signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which seeks “to combat climate change and adapt to its effects.” This international measure commits signatories to shift their energy industries away from fossil fuels that cause “greenhouse gas” emissions, and toward renewal resources like wind and…
Coming into office, President Donald Trump declared defeating and destroying ISIS to be his top foreign policy priority. In contrast with the Obama administration, he had no hesitation defining precisely the root of the threat: Islamist terrorism—not vaguely phrased “violent extremism,” “workplace violence,” or “manmade contingencies.” This definition of the threat also needs to come…
With the myriad U.S. interests at stake in foreign policy, where exactly do human rights fit in? Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to this question on Wednesday while discussing the role of values in U.S. foreign policy decision-making. Now I think it’s important to also remember that guiding all of our foreign policy actions…
By passing the American Health Care Act by a vote of 217-213, the U.S. House of Representatives has taken a major step in the process of repealing and replacing Obamacare. It’s now time for the Senate to act. In paving the way for successful House floor action, the House Rules Committee adopted an amendment enabling…
The taxpayer-subsidized “safety net” for agricultural producers represents a long-standing policy failure that would make a Soviet central planner blush. The current “safety net” doesn’t just protect farmers from major crop losses, such as from recent snowstorms in the Midwest. Instead, it’s a system to ensure agricultural producers, primarily large agribusinesses, are given handouts when…
President Donald Trump said he’d promote commonsense policies that would “Make America Great Again” and would stand up to politically correct bullying from the left. So why isn’t he doing that in the case of religious freedom? Twice now, he has failed to stand up for commonsense policy on religious liberty when liberal opponents lashed…