Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Why did America just drop the mother of all bombs? There is the glib answer: Because we can. Then there is the technical answer: Because it was right for the job. The U.S. military on Thursday dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb, the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, on an Islamic State, also known as…
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s visit to Moscow Wednesday put him squarely on the map as one of the main players in the Trump administration. In the matter of a few days, Tillerson has not only placed the relationship between the United States and Russia on a new footing, he has also defied critics who…
Since 9/11, national security officials have made it a goal to improve information sharing between federal agencies. Unfortunately, those efforts are still falling short. Earlier this week, inspectors general of the intelligence community, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Justice released a joint report detailing the importance of information sharing between law enforcement agencies….
In a recent letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, six U.S. Senators asked for an investigation into whether the United States Agency for International Development was promoting the Open Society Foundations’ left-wing policies abroad. State Department career officials gave the senators the runaround, but if Tillerson does launch the probe, he need look no further…
If you’re in need of a great dinner party topic, try taxes. We pay taxes, we complain about paying taxes, and we admit to not understanding the complicated code that dictates how much we pay. Sounds like we have a lot in common, so let’s chat. In anticipation of Tax Day next week, and Capitol…
The month of March brought with it the lowest number of apprehensions along the U.S. southern border since at least the year 2000. This decrease can be credited to the strict enforcement policies that have been put in place since President Donald Trump took office, coupled with the now-credible threat of deportation that illegal immigrants…
Over the past few months, there has been much public commotion and blowback against the news media. News anchor Chris Cuomo nicely, though unwittingly, predicated the problem live on CNN back in 2014: “We couldn’t help [Hillary Clinton] any more than we have; she’s gotten just a free ride so far from the media; we…
The average American has little knowledge of the extent to which our institutions of higher learning have been infected with a spreading cancer. One aspect of that cancer is akin to the loyalty oaths of the 1940s and ’50s. Professors were often required to sign statements that affirmed their loyalty to the United States government,…
Last week on April 5, a mob of Hindu vigilantes beat a man to death for transporting cattle in northern India. Cows are sacred in the Hindu religion, but India is a multicultural country with many non-Hindu citizens. This incident, along with the recent appointment of Hindu nationalist priest Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of…
Last week, following on the precedent set by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2013, Senate Republicans removed the last vestige of the filibuster for judicial nominees. As it currently stands in the Senate, no judicial nominee—from the lower courts to the Supreme Court—is subject to the filibuster. In popular parlance, eliminating the filibuster…
Attorney General Jeff Sessions paid a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border today during a trip to Nogales, Arizona, where he spoke to a group of Customs and Border Protection agents and prosecutors. He referred to the southwest border as “ground zero” in the fight against “transnational gangs like MS-13 and international cartels [that] flood our…
On Friday, New York decided to become the first state to offer four years of tuition-free public college to its residents. Starting in the fall of 2017, any student from a family who is making less than $100,000 annually can qualify for free tuition, under certain conditions, such as a requirement to maintain a minimum…
Apparently the mainstream media doesn’t have a problem being seen as the “opposition party” to President Donald Trump, to use the phrase of Trump adviser Stephen Bannon. On Tuesday, the White House Correspondents’ Association announced that the comedian to be featured at the group’s fundraising dinner—the biggest annual event for D.C. political journalists—is Hasan Minhaj….
The most headline-grabbing observance of Women’s History Month last month may have been “A Day Without a Woman.” On March 8, the feminist-led event marked International Women’s Day by staging “a demonstration of economic solidarity” in which women were encouraged to take the day off, avoid shopping, and wear red. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department…
After a record-breaking year for drug interdictions in 2016, the Coast Guard is continuing to make significant strides in countering the illegal drug trade in 2017. On Feb. 16, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Joseph Napier, assisted by the coast guards of Trinidad and Tobago, seized 4.2 tons of cocaine with an estimated value of $125…
Today, many people argue that trade disproportionately hurts poor Americans. They say free trade creates a wage gap between low- and high-income earners, and constructs barriers that make it increasingly difficult for the less fortunate to climb the economic ladder. But recent data from The Heritage Foundation shows that this simply is not true. The…
Last week, Arizona leaped to the front of the education choice pack. Already a leader in school choice, being the first state to create education savings accounts back in 2011, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has now signed into law an expansion of the program, transforming it into a near-universal option for students across the state….
It couldn’t have been a more beautiful day for a Rose Garden ceremony to swear in Neil Gorsuch as the newest associate justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. And one decision, made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell just over a year ago, is the reason it was all possible. Not guaranteed, but possible. When…
Foreign aid can help advance U.S. national interests, for example, by promoting our values globally or by demonstrating to the world the goodwill of the American people. Calls to eliminate funding outright often fail to weigh this important function. But our lead aid agency has itself been jeopardizing this effort, and risking all-important public support,…
On April 6, President Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike against the Syrian airfield used by the warplanes that launched last week’s chemical attack against Syrian civilians. This strike was an appropriate, proportional, and carefully calibrated response for the Assad regime’s repeated use of illegal chemical weapons. While it was a bold tactical strike…