Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks has long been an advocate for Vice President JD Vance. Before the 2024 GOP convention, Banks urged President Donald Trump to pick Vance as his running mate. Now Banks says, "After President Trump, [Vance] is the next best thing" and is a lock to be the next Republican nominee for president. "JD Vance…

"We got so screwed by Biden, as a party," former Obama adviser David Plouffe is quoted saying in a New Yorker excerpt from Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." The supposition of the piece, headlined "How Joe Biden Handed…

We've gotten a new tidbit of information about efforts by the Biden White House and some in the press to cover up President Joe Biden's age-related infirmity. It comes from a new book, "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America," by reporters Tyler Pager, Josh Dawsey and Isaac Arnsdorf of the New York Times, Wall…

JB Pritzker, the billionaire hotel heir who since 2019 has served as governor of Illinois, wants to be president. Like many Democrats, Pritzker believes his party has not been tough enough in opposing President Donald Trump. Now, he is urging them to take to the streets to engage in mass protests, mobilization and disruption so that Republicans "…

Amid ongoing tension on other geopolitical matters, this week offers cause for worldwide celebration with the annual observance of World Intellectual Property (IP) Day.   Although its focus remains global, the yearly celebration paradoxically highlights IP’s value within the United States specifically.   The reason for that…

Here is a simple fact: The Democratic Party does not like to renominate presidential candidates who lost in the last election. Just look at history. The 2016 losing Democrat was Hillary Clinton; the party moved on in 2020. Before that, John Kerry was the losing Democrat in 2004. He made some noise about giving it another try in 2008, and the party…

The case for protectionism revolves around a host of doom-and-gloom myths that we should not accept.  "We don't make anything anymore!" I don't know how many times I've heard defenders of President Donald Trump's new tariff regime bleakly note that the U.S. economy is a mere husk of its glorious old self.  Is our manufacturing…

Think about prominent assassinations and attempted assassinations in American and recent world memory.   Think of Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, John Lennon, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and, more recently, Donald Trump.   Even more recently, think of Luigi Mangione, who murdered United Healthcare executive…

If you haven't watched the Bret Baier interviews on Fox News with Elon Musk and the other executives who have given their time and expertise to exposing the rampant fraud and inefficiency of our federal government, I urge you to do so. It will infuriate you – and that's what we need right now. These Department of Government Efficiency…

If you believe the political rhetoric, you probably think America's industrial base has been hollowed out, gutted or "shipped overseas." Across the ideological spectrum, people say U.S. manufacturing is in decline. They argue mostly about who's to blame and how many tariffs we need to fix the problem. This widely told tale is wrong. For…

There are a lot of questions these days about poll numbers, both President Donald Trump's and those of his Democratic opponents. First, job approval. The president's rating has tipped slightly underwater, by 0.4%, in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. But what is striking about Trump polls is the wide variation in approval between the different…

There's trouble ahead for New Yorkers distressed about crime levels. New York City's Democratic establishment, including leading mayoral candidates and the City Council majority, are determined to downsize or eliminate the city's jails altogether. They've drunk the decarceration Kool-Aid – and they're convinced that jails do more harm…

Consider the following inverse relationship, and its obvious implications.   As the federal workforce has grown and government power has expanded over recent decades, public trust in government has plummeted to record lows.   While most government employees are conscientious, well-intentioned, hardworking people, too many are…

All in Washington are acting like their hair is on fire in response to the Department of Government Efficiency requirement that federal employees list what they accomplished last week. Many are acting like they can't think of anything, like they may need to "phone a friend" to get an answer. But the deeper problem with the federal workforce…

This week, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, raised the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump over the Justice Department's decision to withdraw the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams. The Trump administration is engaged in "an attack on the Department of Justice for engaging in…

President Theodore Roosevelt famously captured his foreign policy approach with the adage, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”   President Donald Trump, in stark contrast, pursues his foreign policy agenda by speaking loudly while also wielding a big stick.   Under either approach, an effective United States foreign…

America's debt crisis is no longer a distant concern; it's an immediate threat with immediate consequences. Some politicians – perhaps realizing that it's become more difficult to ignore the problem and avoid repercussions – are turning to executive action. This includes the Trump administration's embrace of Elon Musk…

Federal investigators have recovered the black boxes from the passenger jet that crashed into the Potomac River last week. These boxes – actually orange in color to improve the likelihood they can be found in wreckage – will help get to the truth behind the worst U.S. aviation disaster since 2001. But federal officials…

It's a truism that it is extremely difficult to govern with a tiny majority in the House of Representatives. When there are no vacancies, there are 435 members; if everybody shows up, it takes a bare majority, 218 votes, to pass a bill. In practical terms, a majority party needs well over 218 seats to ensure it can win party-line votes. There will…

Donald Trump isn’t just draining the swamp.  In some cases, he’s prosecuting it.   And the public is loving it.   So much for the longstanding tradition of “lame duck” second-term presidencies.   This week, the Trump administration began the process of downsizing our oversized and overpaid…

On Feb. 1, the Democratic National Committee will gather in suburban Maryland to elect a new chair. Every indication suggests they still don't fully appreciate what happened to them in the 2024 election. The two main contenders are Ken Martin, who is head of the Minnesota state Democratic Party, which is actually known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor…

As expected, Joe Biden handed out 10-year blanket pardons to his corrupt family, which had profited in the millions from influence-peddling schemes.  The venality is breathtaking. The corruption is one thing. But pardons he gave government officials like Mark Milley, Anthony Fauci, Bennie Thompson, Liz Cheney and others has create an unprecedented…

Breathtaking: There's no other word for the sheer ambition and scope of Donald Trump's second inaugural address. President Trump is back with all the confidence of a man delivered from death for a purpose. Voters save his political life and legacy, too, by reelecting him in the face of every accusation and criminal charge against him. Trump has…

President Donald Trump has thrown the Justice Department's Jan. 6 Capitol riot prosecutions out the window. But a week before Trump became president, the Department essentially did the same to its own investigation of Trump. The Department's hand-picked Trump prosecutor, Jack Smith, quit and released a report on the investigation that resulted in the…

This week marks the milestone end of the Biden/Harris administration, and for beleaguered Americans and our friends across the world, it arrives not a moment too soon.   As we dust our shoes of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and welcome Donald Trump’s return, that milestone offers an important opportunity to assess the lessons of the…

New Yorkers, Chicagoans, Denverites and other blue-city residents should feel scared as they watch Los Angeles neighborhoods obliterated by fire. These other cities could be next, victims of the same dysfunctional one-party government that puts woke priorities ahead of disaster prevention and readiness. It doesn't have to be a fire. Imagine floodwaters…

In the days leading up to the November 2023 presidential election in Argentina, a hundred "leading" economists from around the world, including progressive favorite Thomas Piketty, published an open letter warning that "radical right-wing economist" Javier Milei would inflict "devastation" and social chaos on his country…

President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced last week in the bookkeeping case brought against him by Alvin Bragg, the elected Democratic district attorney of Manhattan. The sentence was effectively nothing. Although Trump had been convicted of 34 felonies, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to what is called "unconditional discharge," which…

On Monday, journalist Glenn Greenwald asked on X, "Is there a single person in DC or media acting as if Literal Adolf Hitler is about to assume power in 2 weeks in order to end American democracy, install fascism, and create a white supremacist dictatorship? Is it possible those who said this for years never believed it?" You can answer…

Shortly before Milton Friedman's death in 2006, I had the privilege of interviewing him over dinner in San Francisco. The last question I asked him was: What are the three things we have to do to make America more prosperous? His answer I have never forgotten: "First, allow universal school choice; second, expand free trade; third and most importantly…