Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Editor's note: We're hearing from so many enthusiastic members of The Daily Signal's audience that we decided to begin running some of your correspondence. Here is a batch on issues overseas. You’ll find our address below. —Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: I’m writing to express my concern about human rights violations in North Korea and to…
In just eight years, the Obama administration was responsible for creating 22,700 new burdensome regulations on the American people. During this time, federal agencies seized more power than ever in creating laws on their own, going largely unchecked by Congress. Regulatory overreach became a hot-button issue during the 2016 election as the American people grew…
America’s greatest statesmen did not think that national holidays were merely about family dinners, watching fireworks, or getting a three-day weekend. These occasions, to the contrary, were needed to encourage all citizens to together raise their gaze above the enthrallment of their private lives, so as to see or imagine something greater than themselves and…
The Texas Association of Business—the state’s largest business advocacy organization—cites economic studies of dubious quality in projecting a loss of $964 million to $8.5 billion of gross state product if Texas were to strengthen its Religious Freedom Restoration Act in its current legislative session. In reality, the economic impact of changes to this law is…
What does Robert Lighthizer, President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. trade representative, have to do with pension and health care benefits for one group of retired coal miners? Nothing. But that hasn’t stopped congressional Democrats from holding up a necessary waiver on Lighthizer’s confirmation by insisting on attaching it to a completely unrelated bill that…
Live Action, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending abortion and protecting the right to life, has released videos and findings that demonstrate the urgent need for Congress to defund America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. According to a report released in January, a Live Action investigation revealed that “Planned Parenthood lied to the media about…
Washington is abuzz with the saga of former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation, the Russia connection, and the melodrama of who knew what, when, and what they did about it. There are, to be sure, myriad aspects of this story that will consume the media, the Hill, civil society, and the like for a…
President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch is a solid originalist and textualist when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and statutory authority. This alone is reason to believe he will be a good Supreme Court justice, but his strong rulings on religious liberty only bolster his qualifications. On this issue, he has…
With President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans taking steps to undo Dodd-Frank financial regulations, one agency at the heart of Dodd-Frank has become the object of increased attention. That agency is known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It was created by the Dodd-Frank law passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Those…
If restricting local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests is supposed to make communities safer, as some immigration advocates and law enforcement officials suggest, I’d like to hear them reconcile their beliefs with the actions of Texas’ Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez. Hernandez, sworn in as the newly elected…
Recent news about U.S. colleges has not been flattering. We’ve seen a tidal wave of stories from campus protests and violent riots, to sexual assault and purported millennial “safe spaces.” But obscured by the attention-grabbing headlines is the reality that many students are actively engaged in campus communities that foster cultural and intellectual diversity, encourage…
Children born to unmarried, cohabiting parents—both in the United States and across Europe—are nearly twice as likely to see their parents split up, compared to children born to married parents. A new study from the Institute for Family Studies and Social Trends Institute examines family stability among cohabiting and married-parent families from numerous countries across…
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a town hall event in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., spent about an hour offering her vision for congressional action and fielding questions. As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and acting chair of the House Budget Committee, Black has a significant role…
While the House and Senate plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, members of Congress are hosting town hall meetings with their constituents and have been greeted by hostile crowds. These folks seem to have amnesia about Obamacare’s glaring failures. Here’s a quick refresher on Obamacare’s top four broken promises. 1. Costs are exploding. President Barack…
Almost right out of the gate, the Trump administration is facing its first arms control challenge from Moscow. Russia has reportedly deployed its new cruise missile in an apparent violation of the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in effect since 1988. The treaty prohibits the possession of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of…
As the new administration seeks to reduce the regulatory burden on the energy market, one critical change is to liquidate the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The government-controlled stockpile of crude oil is a waste of taxpayer money and ignores how the private sector more effectively responds to price changes. President Gerald Ford and Congress created the…
Some media outlets reported last week that President Donald Trump called the Obama administration’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, with Russia a “bad deal.” Well, Trump is right: New START is advantageous to the Russians and does not advance U.S. national security interests. Because of the way the treaty limits were negotiated,…
Contrary to recent calumnies that “criminal justice reform is dead,” the 115th Congress has the means, backed up by bipartisan and public support, to continue its work to address problems in the federal criminal code. Only Congress can enact much-needed mens rea (Latin for “guilty mind”) reform and address overcriminalization, the overuse of criminal laws…
It’s already been eight years since the Great Recession, yet the U.S. economy has been just inching along, with its productivity flagging and millions being locked out of the labor market. One critical underlying factor for this lack of economic dynamism has been the startling decline of America’s economic freedom, an unfortunate legacy of Barack…
Ordinary black people cannot afford to go along with the liberal agenda that calls for undermining police authority. That agenda makes for more black crime victims. Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t work. In 1990, New York City adopted the practice in which its police officers might stop and question a pedestrian. If…