It's an all but foregone conclusion that the House of Representatives will impeach Donald Trump, and it is almost as certain that the Senate will not convict him. For those convinced of the president's venality, the latter prospect makes it imperative that the formal indictment in the House -- the articles of impeachment -- be detailed and all-...Read more

Ever since my book, "The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini," came out, people have asked if I have tried any impossible escapes of my own. I'm going to try one here. I'm going to try and write about President Donald Trump without invoking politics. Wish me luck.

It is stunning how many people have read the book -- a story about the great ...Read more

No matter how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the three consolidated immigration cases heard Tuesday, the fact that the Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals program came down to an up or down vote of six men and three women is itself a lesson in how Washington works -- which is to say, not well.

Only the most anti-immigrant extremist believes...Read more

Ah, America, where any boy born in the hills of Kentucky and raised in a West Virginia home with an outhouse can run for president.

Even if he's served a prison term for his role in a mine explosion that took the lives of 29 men, after managing to retire from his coal company with a pension valued at $15.7 million.

We're talking about Don ...Read more

Here we go again investing all kinds of hope and hype in the public impeachment hearings scheduled to start Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee. You would think after the letdowns of the Brett Kavanaugh and Robert Mueller hearings, that we in the media would know better -- that TV hearings don't change the culture in a flash as ...Read more

Maryland vape shop owners, much like their counterparts across the country, are distressed. They've seen the popularity of their products decline significantly this year. Their sales have fallen as much as a fourth to a half in the last six months alone.

The "why" of this isn't hard to discern: Once regarded as a safer alternative to smoking ...Read more

I have good news for younger generations worried that they won't be able to claim their Social Security benefits because we older generations have ripped them off and will be leaving nothing behind: Your fears are unfounded.

Don't just take my word for it. Consider the work of my colleague Charles Blahous at the Mercatus Center at George Mason ...Read more

Since the beginning of the year, seven states have executed 19 men convicted of murder. That ranks among the lowest annual execution totals since the practice resumed in 1976 after a U.S. Supreme Court decision, according to statistics maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center. But it's only November, so there's still time for more. In ...Read more

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO, has an easy justification for his decision to run political ads on the platform no matter what lies they tell. He doesn't want to play censor, so it's up to the public to decide what's true and what's false.

Twitter took a different path. Rather than promote or police false claims in political ads, it decided to...Read more

Donald Trump has embarked on a halfhearted campaign to recruit African American support in 2020. Even a president who shuns reality knows it's ridiculous for Republicans to spend a lot of energy on black voters.

And for Trump, it's worthless.

Perhaps that is why his "Black Voices for Trump" rally in Atlanta on Friday seemed so disingenuous. ...Read more

With friends like Rudy Giuliani, who needs the State Department? Not Donald Trump. And as long as we're on the subject, who needs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? Or the full Senate? Or any of the other pillars of the U.S. government that were created to both support and oversee the executive branch.

The Senate Foreign Relations panel ...Read more

While impeachment inquiries rage on and the 2020 race heightens, we need not forget the policy battles we've been fighting for years that affect Americans, regardless of immigration status, each and every day.

Since 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program has shielded young immigrants who came to the U.S. as children ...Read more

Only a few months from now, populist Democratic progressives around the country hoping to elect one of their own to the White House will need to choose between Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Do they back the angry Democratic socialist, or the feisty, anti-corporate populist who wants to break up the ...Read more

Even before his ill-advised mockery of President Trump's request for "a favor" from new Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) was seen by Republicans as blinded by bias against Trump. And now that Schiff is leading the initial phase of the House impeachment inquiry, he has become ...Read more

On a dark and drizzly autumn evening almost exactly eight years ago, Michael Bloomberg revealed his true colors to the world. It was Oct. 1, 2011, and the then-New York City mayor -- having used some of his $53 billion fortune to simply go around the law meant to bar his third term -- was down in Washington performing the role of enlightened ...Read more

BEIJING -- On every visit I've made to China, I've looked at issues connected with rule of law, a concept interpreted very differently here and in the USA.

On this trip, I decided to check out a joint program between Temple University and the law school at Tsinghua University, one of China's finest, a program that is celebrating its 20th ...Read more

As the House's impeachment inquiry enters a public phase this week, investigators have a problem. Potentially crucial witnesses, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security advisor John Bolton, have declined to testify. Mulvaney, who remains director of the Office of Management and Budget, failed to ...Read more