Columnist.
All this talk about “draining the swamp” has the alligators worried. And some of the most aggressive gators in Washington, DC, are actually state governments: they’re perpetually hungry for more tax revenue to fuel their burgeoning bureaucracies back home. One juicy morsel they’d like to snap up is a bigger piece of the e-commerce pie. They’re asking Congress to pass a law to help them pocket sales taxes on goods their residents buy online from out-of-state businesses.
America is worth fighting for. Freedom is worth fighting for. Our ideas of individual liberty, free markets, traditional values and a strong defense are worth fighting for. These conservative ideas make America great and make life better for everyone. And we will always have to fight for these ideas because freedom is a threat to all of those on the Left who want power and control.
How to Fix American Health Care, Part 2
How to Fix American Health Care, Part 1
In less than three weeks’ time, when Donald Trump becomes our next president, he will take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. It is fitting, then, that Trump has committed to repealing and replacing one of his predecessor’s most infamous unconstitutional policies, the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. But he won’t be able to do it alone. Repealing Obamacare requires Congress to write legislation for the president to sign into law.
Once it had convinced the Supreme Court to redefine marriage for the entire nation, you would think the Obama administration would have paused and let the country catch its breath. It didn’t.
Two days before U.S. voters flocked to the polls, Nicaragua held its own elections. But the results there surprised no one.
Last night, the American people soundly rejected the failed liberal policies of Hillary Clinton and the broken legacy of President Barack Obama. Instead, they elected a candidate who vowed to restore their jobs, protect their borders, strive for peace, respect the Constitution, and make their country great again. Early on in the campaign, Clinton chose to ignore policy and focus on personal attacks. Federal overspending, failing schools, tax hikes, illegal immigration, and other issues Americans care deeply about were thrown aside for a personality-driven campaign.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting editorial critiquing the endorsement decisions of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, with regard to the coming presidential election. Several months ago, I took issue with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page for holding Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to different standards: understanding the anti-establishment appeal of the former while condemning the latter for campaigning on the exact same trends in American political life. This assessment included a mischaracterization of The Heritage Foundation’s work, which is nonpartisan research and development and promotion of conservative policies. Strangely enough, this week their editorial page included another misunderstanding, alleging that Cruz would find “Heritage Foundation echo chambers” a platform for his future political endeavors.
We have, unfortunately, come to expect our elected representatives to shirk hard decisions. So it came as little surprise when the Senate released the text of a continuing resolution late last week to fund the U.S. government that did not include key objectives sought by conservatives, such as stopping taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. Although there are many problems with this budget deal, only one is irreversible and permanent: allowing the Obama administration to cede oversight of the internet to foreign bodies. It’s troubling that the Senate has failed to include language prohibiting this transfer of power. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the nonprofit organization responsible for maintaining databases for internet domain names, essentially the phone book for the internet.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re running a restaurant (and if you are already, congratulations). Imagine, further, that every month you serve more and more of your food, but never restock the groceries, and never come up with a plan to buy more. At some point, your restaurant is going to hit a wall: You’ll need to restock everything, all at once, for a massive sum of money, lest you go out of business. Believe it or not, that’s pretty much the way Congress routinely funds the federal government. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires the legislative and the executive branches to agree upon a dozen different appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. And year after year, they have failed to meet this deadline.
No matter which party wins on Election Day, Americans are going to have to deal with a few zombies. That’s what I like to call the politically “undead” senators and representatives who lose their seats in November, but get to shuffle around the halls of Congress (and keep voting) for a month before Christmas break closes out the legislative year. They’re especially dangerous during a lame-duck session of Congress. That’s when our elected representatives — zombies included — gather to vote on legislation after the election but before the new Congress begins.
On June 23 citizens of the United Kingdom will have the opportunity to choose freedom, sovereignty, and independence from the European Union. Americans, knowing a thing or two about fighting for independence from a certain European nation ourselves, should cheer on our cousins across the Atlantic. The British exit from the continental government — or “Brexit” — has been a long time coming. The referendum is the first time in 40 years that the British people have had an opportunity to assess their membership in the European Union.
My father left my mother and four children when I was very young. As a boy growing up without a dad, I found it hard to imagine a father in heaven who really loved me and would never leave. And while my mother was persistent about taking us all to church, I disliked religion and believed churchgoers to be mostly hypocrites. It wasn’t until I graduated college, got married and began my career that I began to sense a deep need to be connected to both my father on earth and the one in heaven.
Around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, a 29-year-old man named Omar Mateen walked into a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and killed 49 people, wounding 53 more. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Mateen was an American-born Muslim and the son of Afghan immigrants.
This election season has made many Americans even more cynical about our democratic system of government. There is clearly political upheaval underway in America and around the world. This massive disturbance of the status quo has been fueled in large part by more people getting better, faster information from many sources on the internet.
Sneakers, sneaks, kicks, tennis shoes, running shoes: whatever you call them, everybody has a pair. (I’ll die before I call them trainers. This is America.) It seems that there are a thousand brands and types to choose from, whether for particular sports or just lounging around in comfort. But Congress is about to force men and women in the armed forces to wear just one.
Last week I had the good fortune to be in Texas discussing conservative policy solutions with hundreds of dedicated men and women in San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. One of the big topics of conversation was freedom in education: How can we offer young Americans the best education possible, while ensuring that each family can freely choose and afford the schooling that fits its needs?
The race for the GOP presidential nomination this year has been one of the most interesting in decades. Most candidates on the Republican ticket made a clear effort to cast themselves as outsiders, fed up with Washington’s failure to follow through on promises made in prior elections. The two finalists with the most electoral votes, Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, were the most outspoken against “business as usual” in Washington. Both campaigned on the need to end amnesty, repeal Obamacare, end Common Core, and rebuild the military.
