Polls show most Americans support the COVID-19 relief bill. But this bill comes with a slap in the face for people who believe in racial equality and want everyone to benefit.  Section 1005 of the bill offers women and minority farm owners a total debt forgiveness of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per farmer. No strings or other requirements…

This grim and underreported number defies belief:  In 2020, the American murder rate increased by a record 31%.   To place that number in horrifying perspective, the previous record increase was a comparatively miniscule 13% in 1968.   The murder rate increases were even more grim in the nation’s ten largest cities,…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House will vote to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. There's no doubt there needs to be an extensive investigation of the events surrounding the riot. But what is striking is that, even as Pelosi calls for an investigation, a number of government agencies are stonewalling…

Republicans are "radicalizing against democracy" because they rely on our constitutional process when governing. This is the essence of Chris Hayes' recent Atlantic piece contending that the GOP is descending into authoritarianism. The MSNBC host notes, without any suggestion of self-awareness, that "the Constitution puts a wind at…

The Democratically controlled Senate spends thousands of collective hours conducting an impeachment trial against a president who is no longer president. The acquittal is predetermined, as in the first impeachment effort a year ago – and known to be so to the Democratic prosecutors. The constitutionally mandated presiding judge …

On Jan. 21, President Biden's first full day in office, White House press secretary Jen Psaki began her briefing with this: "When the president asked me to serve in this role, we talked about the importance of bringing truth and transparency back to the briefing room." Now, the administration's position on opening schools shut by COVID lockdowns…

The corruption of the Renaissance Church prompted the Reformation, which in turn sparked a Counter-Reformation of reformist, and more zealous, Catholics. The cultural excesses and economic recklessness of the Roaring '20s were followed by the bleak, dour and impoverished years of the Great Depression. The 1960s counterculture led to Richard Nixon…

There were roughly 25,000 National Guard members in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President Joe Biden. It has been normal practice to have some National Guard in town for inaugurations, but 25,000 was far more than any number from the past. Of course, nerves were raw after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, but there is little doubt that mobilizing…

Democrats started trying to remove President Donald Trump from office before he entered office. Now they are proposing to remove him from office after he leaves office. How do you remove an ex-president? He's already gone. That is the bizarre question posed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's obsessive quest to re-impeach Trump with just a few days left…

I’m old enough to remember 2008, when Barack Obama’s election and Democratic Congressional supermajorities supposedly signaled the dawn of a new and permanent liberal governance.   Heck, I’m old enough to remember 1992, when Bill Clinton’s victory supposedly passed the proverbial torch from a more conservative Greatest…

Amid the current hysteria of toppling statues and renaming things, we keep mindlessly expanding the cancel culture. We are now seeing efforts to ban classics of Western and American literature. These hallowed texts are suddenly being declared racist or sexist by preening moralists. Or, as one Massachusetts high school teacher recently boasted on…

In his 1981 diatribe against contemporary American architecture, "From Bauhaus to Our House," Tom Wolfe notes that seemingly every American child "goes to a school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution center warehouse." Anecdotally speaking, this still seems to be the case…

The year 2020 is now commonly dubbed the annus horribilis — "the horrible year." The last 10 months certainly have been awful. But then so was 1968, when both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Tet Offensive escalated the Vietnam War and tore America apart. Race and anti-war riots rocked our major…

After Nov. 3, the meaning of some words and concepts abruptly changed. Have you noticed how new realities have replaced old ones? Media cross-examination of the president is now an out-of-date idea. The time for gotcha questions has come and gone. Why ask a president whether he is a traitor or a crook when you can focus on his favorite flavor of milkshake…

House Democratic leaders are trying to keep the espionage scandal surrounding Intelligence Committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell under tight control. But it's going to be an uphill battle. Republicans are pushing harder and harder to learn more about Swalwell's relationship with Chinese spy Christine Fang. And the Democrats' strongest ally &ndash…

Take our 12-Question Christmas Quiz and test your knowledge of White House Christmas traditions. (Answer key may be found at the bottom) 1. The first White House Christmas party was held in December of 1800 for which one of the following groups? a. Children of “official” Washington b. The Washington diplomatic corps…

Joe Biden will be our next president. But he will face Nemesis in a way that few other presidents have ever encountered the cruel Greek god. Biden's hubris and that of the media/Democratic Party fusion almost guarantee such divine retribution. Once the last of the other Democratic primary candidates dropped out and Biden was nominated, all prior negative…

Governor Andrew Cuomo is reported to be on Joe Biden's shortlist for attorney general of the United States, though Cuomo claims he's not interested. A savvy response, considering he might not be Biden's final choice, and if he is, he'll have to undergo Senate scrutiny. He's got a lot to explain.  Not because of an unsubstantiated accusation of…

There is as yet no known, easily accessible cure for COVID-19. Over the past year, lots of old and new drugs and supplements – Ivermectin, azithromycin, Remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, aspirin, Pepcid and others – have shown at least some anecdotal value in ameliorating the effects of early…

One of the more appalling moments in the recent history of the House of Representatives occurred recently in the Capitol Visitor Center. Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave her weekly news conference and said that she had changed her position on the issue of passing a coronavirus relief bill. For months, as millions suffered the economic devastation associated…

The Rev. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat vying for one of Georgia's two contested Senate seats, claims his Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler, is running "smear ads." She is "taking things I've said out of context from over 25 years being a pastor," says Warnock. Loeffler warns Warnock is a "radical liberal"…

After the 2016 presidential election, I wrote an exceptionally unpopular op-ed for The Washington Post headlined, "We must weed out ignorant Americans from the electorate." In it, I noted that "never have so many people with so little knowledge made so many consequential decisions for the rest of us." My assumption has always been…

A half-century ago, progressives used to push limitless free expression, blasting conservatives for their allegedly blinkered traditionalism. They boasted of obliterating once-normal boundaries in art, music and literature to allow nudity, profanity, sexuality and anti-American boilerplate. Now? The left is Victorian – increasingly…

It is with heavy hearts that we share the sad news of the passing of our friend and Center for Individual Freedom board member Bruce Herschensohn.  Bruce was an extraordinary man who lived a remarkably accomplished life.  He moved so many people as a film-maker, writer, author, TV commentator, presidential advisor, professor, U.S. Senate…

One must read to the end of The Washington Post's editorial, "Abolish the electoral college," before hitting on the real reason the Post's editors want to upend the long-standing constitutional institution. "Mr. Trump's election was a sad event for the nation," notes the Post, "his reelection would have been a calamity."…

Donald Trump is nearing a crossroads. Those who allege that he has endangered the tradition of smooth presidential transitions by not conceding immediately after the media declared him the loser suffer amnesia. When Trump was elected in 2016, the Washington establishment lost its collective mind. The top echelon of the FBI and CIA were still spreading…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D – New York) never has been one whose visage might be confused with Ronald Reagan’s trademark sunny demeanor.   As the dust settles following this year’s elections, however, Schumer has assumed an even more dour expression than normal.  The shock of realizing that a new Democratic…

Remember the debate over the meaning of the phrase "defund the police"? Repeated over and over on the progressive left, it seemed pretty clear – it meant that cities should no longer fund, and thus effectively abolish, their police forces. But some Democrats worried that embracing such a radical proposal might hurt them politically…

Political unity is an ugly, authoritarian idea. No free place has domestic political unity, nor should it aspire to it. What "unity" really means, of course, is capitulation. America is once again being subjected to the inane brand of pseudo-patriotic sloganeering we saw during President Barack Obama's tenure. Now, as then, the media will…

I once wrote that whenever Donald Trump exits office, he will likely leave as a "tragic hero." Over two millennia ago, the Athenian tragedian Sophocles first described the archetype in his portraits of an angry and old but still fearsome Ajax, and heroic but stubborn and self-fixated Antigone. In the iconic John Ford Western "The Searchers…