Conservatism is in decline. True, it’s not dead — in 2025, a larger share of Americans described themselves as conservative (35%) than liberal (28%) — but this seven-point difference is the smallest Gallup has measured since 1992.

This is bad news for American politics. As a philosophy, conservatism possesses the key virtue that’s ...Read more

If you take the long view, America’s economic outlook is pretty bleak. Like a lot of rich countries, it is overwhelmed by debt it has no plans to reduce. Even more troubling is its aging population, which will reduce growth and leave fewer people to pay all that debt.

There is only one hope: a sudden increase in productivity that will boost ...Read more

Few any longer dispute that America’s public debt is growing unsustainably and that, sooner or later, the task of reining it in will be unavoidable. Oddly, this presumption of inevitability has bred a kind of complacency. In the end, whether we like it or not, the problem will have to be solved. Therefore, it will be solved. So what’s the ...Read more

In one respect, the soaring national debt is a lot like the weather. Everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything about it.

Nobody, that is, but Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican.

Eight years ago, Sen. Paul introduced his “Penny Plan Balanced Budget,” an effort to balance the federal books within five years. Under his ...Read more

The Supreme Court has again dealt a devastating blow to voting equality in the United States.

On Wednesday, in Louisiana v. Callais, six justices effectively nullified a 1982 federal statute that prohibits states from running or establishing election systems, such as election districts, that have a discriminatory effect against voters of color....Read more

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is pleasing President Donald Trump by supporting a ridiculous indictment of former FBI Director James Comey over a benign photo.

Maybe Blanche thinks this foolishness will prevent him from being 86ed like Pam Bondi was, but even she didn’t try to sell a case of some seashells by the seashore. Blanche is ...Read more

Iran is again playing the four-corners stall game with its latest peace proposal — a sign that American leverage is paying off. President Donald Trump and the United States should continue to put maximum pressure on the regime to exacerbate the Iranian economy’s free-fall.

News outlets reported this week that Trump had rejected an offer ...Read more

The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has struck down Louisiana’s newly created majority-Black congressional district, narrowing the scope of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ruling is consequential not only for Louisiana but for how the nation understands representation, race and the future of redistricting.

At its core, ...Read more

Less than 48 hours after an attempt on President Donald Trump’s life, some Republicans in Congress asked that the president’s proposed ballroom, now with a price tag of $400 million, be paid for with tax dollars instead of private donations as a national security need.

Both funding sources are ridiculous, but putting the burden squarely on ...Read more

The British monarch came before Congress to jointly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the former American colonies throwing off his "five-times-great-grandfather" to become the independent United States. But the speech by King Charles III was enough to make Americans want to swap their current president, a wannabe king, for the real thing again...Read more

A colleague recently emailed me a picture of a seemingly political gesture that was roiling her office and asked me what I thought. The picture was of a 10-by-3-inch sticker, openly affixed to an employee’s desk, stating “Make America Blue Collar Again” in big red, white and blue block letters.

Her company is tucked away in a small, ...Read more

Most Americans think of the Bill of Rights as a bespoke 1789 creation for a nation that was, in the signature “Hamilton” lyric of Lin-Manuel Miranda, “young, scrappy and hungry.”

Not so fast, said the great-great-great-great-great grandson of King George III before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday.

King Charles III knew his audience. “...Read more

Almost 250 years after the American Revolution, it took a visiting British monarch to remind Congress what the rebellion stood for.

On his first state visit as king, Charles III didn’t pull any punches, although his Tuesday speech to a joint session of Congress was delivered in soothing British tones with gentle humor and dry understatement. ...Read more

Here’s one of those remarkable coincidences: Immediately after the president and first lady called for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be kicked off ABC’s air after he made a cruel joke at their expense, the entirely independent investigators over at the Federal Communications Commission, in an entirely unrelated move, have decided that it ...Read more

Indiana has shown the nation how to protect citizens from foreign adversaries at the state level.

This leadership follows a congressional report showing foreign adversaries are actively influencing American academia — shining a spotlight on Indiana and Purdue University, in particular, as both a model for reform and a case study in risk.

The...Read more

According to Department of Justice officials including FBI Director Kash Patel, the indictment of David M. Morens for using his personal email account on official business is all about protecting the sanctity of government communications and upholding the federal Freedom of Information Act.

"Circumventing records protocols with the intention of...Read more

As a law professor and sometime libertarian, I’m of three minds about news that the prediction-market platform Kalshi has banned three candidates for public office for placing bets on their own races.

My first thought is purely libertarian: Kalshi is a private entity, free to set its own rules and do business or not with whomever it pleases, ...Read more

Carbon dioxide is plant food, so you might think pumping the atmosphere full of it would be better for plants. The trouble is that CO2 is also the world’s most prolific greenhouse gas, trapping heat in a way that creates more problems than it solves for many sensitive plants. This is bad news not only for those plants but for the people who ...Read more

Eight candidates for California governor shared a stage for 90 minutes Tuesday night, their second of three scheduled debates before the June 2 primary.

My colleagues Gustavo Arellano and Mark Z. Barabak joined me to decide who the winner was, or if there was a winner at all.

Arellano: The real MVP in this debate? State Supt. Tony Thurmond.

...Read more

The Voting Rights Act has been near death since 2013, and Wednesday the Supreme Court administered the coup de grâce. In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court’s conservative majority effectively ruled that states are now free to redraw congressional districts so as to eliminate many Black Democratic members of Congress.

...Read more