Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce took an important step toward rescinding some of the most burdensome regulations levied under the Every Student Succeeds Act (the replacement for the No Child Left Behind Act) by the Obama administration Department of Education. Reps. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., and Todd Rokita, R-Ind., formally introduced…
Is Pakistan getting serious about uprooting Islamist terrorism? There are some encouraging signs of late. A day before the public release of a think tank report, “A New U.S. Approach to Pakistan: Enforcing Aid Conditions without Cutting Ties”—drafted by Husain Haqqani of the Hudson Institute and myself, with the input of several U.S.-based Pakistan experts—The…
This weekend, President Donald Trump criticized U.S. District Judge James Robart for his halt of the president’s immigration order—a ruling issued without any accompanying legal analysis. Now, key Senate Democrats are threatening to use the remark against Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants to use…
Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat. “Millions of voters said this was the single most important issue to them when they voted for me for president,” President Donald Trump said last Tuesday night. And Trump then went on to make one of the best choices of his young administration. Judge Neil Gorsuch of the United…
This week, the Transportation Security Administration’s PreCheck program expanded to include 11 new domestic and foreign airlines. With the inclusion of these airlines, the total number of airlines participating in the expedited security process has been brought to 30. The PreCheck program allows passengers to pass through security checkpoints while wearing their shoes, belts, and…
The Trump administration followed through on Friday with a new round of sanctions on Iran, two days after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn announced that it was “officially putting Iran on notice” for a missile test and its hostile regional policies. The sanctions were targeted at 13 individuals and 12 entities for their support for…
On June 23, the British people voted to leave the European Union. Earlier this week, Britain took another mighty step on the road to regaining its independence when the House of Commons voted, by a smashing margin of 498 to 116, to back Brexit. The vote was necessary because the British government lost a series…
Macedonia has a population smaller than Queens and is roughly the size of Vermont. It is stuck in the southern Balkans, wedged between a hostile Greece and sometimes revanchist Albania and Bulgaria. It is not the center of the universe. So why are some members of Congress having to ask our Macedonian ambassador, Jess Baily,…
President Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act, and on Friday he signed two executive orders to get that process moving. All Americans should be encouraged by this start, especially since the president is only two weeks into his administration. One of Friday’s executive orders deals with a single Obama administration rule, but…
Can a person go to jail for a crime that he had no intent to commit, and that the government admits he did not know would occur? Jack and Peter DeCoster, father and son executives of the Quality Egg business, have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider their jail sentences for a crime committed…
President Donald Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court—Neil M. Gorsuch—is a terrific choice to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Heritage Foundation legal scholars and others have noted a number of similarities between the two great judges, and one of them is their sensitivity to issues of overcriminalization. If confirmed to the bench, Gorsuch would carry…
Should comments made by President Donald Trump during the campaign about Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl result in a military court dismissing the charges against the Army soldier? Eugene Fidell, the top flight defense counsel for Bergdahl, has filed a motion to dismiss the charges and specifications against his client because then-candidate Trump called Bergdahl a…
As Congress comes closer to repealing Obamacare, proponents of the law have mounted a vocal defense of it, touting both its necessity and popularity among those it has helped. But public opinion polls tell a different story. Obamacare was passed in 2010 amid controversy, and has not done very well since. Because some of its…
Right now, we in Congress have the chance to reset the clock, to go back to a time when policies helped people and where regulations were not used to pursue ideological aims. This is exactly what the Congressional Review Act was designed to help ensure. Signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, the…
This week, I had the pleasure of being at the White House when President Donald Trump introduced his nominee to be associate justice of the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It shouldn't surprise anybody that the president delivered on a promise made during the campaign when he…
A number of promises were made to pro-life voters in 2016, not the least of which was that if given control of Congress, Republicans would defund the country’s largest abortion provided, Planned Parenthood. But the only way for the GOP to keep that pledge is by passing the reconciliation bill to repeal Obamacare. The longer…
In 1964, students at the University of California, Berkeley joined together to fight for their right to free speech. Last night, a group of over 1,500 protestors showed up on that same campus to shut down a speaker with whom they disagreed, and about 150 of them started a riot. Clearly, the culture of tolerance…
Breitbart News' Milo Yiannopoulos' speech at University of California, Berkeley was canceled Wednesday night. Here's the account of what happened directly from UC Berkeley's statement (emphasis mine): The violence was instigated by a group of about 150 masked agitators who came onto campus and interrupted an otherwise non-violent protest. The decision to cancel the event was…
Liberals are up in arms over a possible executive order from President Donald Trump protecting religious freedom. A draft copy of the executive order was leaked to LGBT groups and liberal media outlets in an attempt to prevent the president from issuing it. But the president should not cave. He should stand up to the…