Immigration reform now seems certain to pass the Senate within days, in an amended bill that could win as many as 70 votes from both parties. The results will improve life for millions of undocumented workers and their families -- but the costs will not be negligible, including a "surge" that will rapidly double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol to 40,00 agents, along with much more fencing and surveillance technology.
Where did the panic over mad cow disease go? Off the front pages, for sure. A few years ago, respected journalists warned of a looming public health disaster as Americans consumed deadly hamburgers. They accused the beef industry and government regulators of colluding to hide the problem of mad cow disease.
Does having health insurance make people healthier? It's widely assumed that it does.
Obamacare advocates repeatedly said that its expansion of Medicaid would save thousands of lives a year. Obamacare critics seldom challenged the idea that increased insurance coverage would improve at least some people's health.
While recognizing that it's important to fight terrorism with all of the tools at our disposal, the American people are having a hard time finding good guys in the story about the National Security Agency's surveillance program.
Government officials from the president on down have defended the program and claim it has prevented several terrorist attacks. However, questions have been raised about some of those claims, and just 35 percent of Americans believe the officials are telling the truth. A larger number (45 percent) believe they are just trying to justify the surveillance program now that it's been made public.
As Americans obsess over NSA spying, abuse by the IRS and other assaults on our freedom, I can't get my mind off the thousand other ways politicians abuse us.
The battle has been joined, and the citizens of the great American Republic are streaming to the fight against the immense and powerful dragon beast, “Big Government.” How the story will end, no one knows but God Himself, but today the battle rages openly for the soul of the nation with liberty itself at stake.
Little victories in curbing health care costs can add up. In truth, they seem little only next to the titanic $2.6 trillion Americans spend a year on health care. So let us salute them.
Are Americans becoming more libertarian on cultural issues? I see evidence that they are, in poll findings and election results on three unrelated issues -- marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage and gun rights.
Start with pot. Last November voters in the states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana, by a 55 to 45 percent margin in Colorado (more than Barack Obama's margin in the state) and by 56 to 44 percent in Washington.
Nearly a dozen years after the passage of the Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, informed debate over the balance between liberty and security is long overdue. That includes a public examination of how widely and deeply the National Security Agency (and other elements of the "intelligence community") may monitor Americans' telecommunications without violating the Bill of Rights.
One of the strangest artifacts of American culture is the spiked heel as a symbol of female power. Many waitresses at America's casinos feel otherwise.
Another week, another controversy in official Washington. While each of these stories has its own cast of characters and internal dynamics, it is now possible to identify a unifying theme.
"Gentlemen do not read each other's mail." That's what Secretary of State Henry Stimson said to explain why he shut down the government's cryptanalysis operations in 1929.
At this very early point in the 2014 race for the U.S. House, small Republican gains -- as in, less than five seats -- look likelier than a similarly small gain for Democrats. That’s because the Republican targets just look a little better than the Democratic ones.
This week, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the National Security Agency's data mining violates our Fourth Amendment right to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers" and is "tyranny that our founders rebelled against." Good for him.
If the national tax revolt has bookends, the first bracket was placed 35 years ago this month. That's when California voters passed Proposition 13, a law curbing tax increases.
The NorCal Tea Party last month filed class action litigation against the Internal Revenue Service in federal court in Ohio, based on the unconstitutional profiling and harassment of conservative, religious and other liberty-minded organizations in their applications for non-profit status. By its own admission, the IRS has been profiling and discriminating against hundreds of groups based on their political viewpoint.
Barack Obama's appointments of Susan Rice as national security adviser and Samantha Power as ambassador to the United Nations have naturally triggered speculation about changes in foreign policy.
Anti-government protests in Turkey have produced a social movement like no other. The lit match was not the death of a heroic dissident, a corrupt election, high unemployment or the other usual-suspect grievances. It was the government's plan to replace precious park space in downtown Istanbul with a shopping mall and replica of army barracks from the Ottoman era.
Many pundits assumed that this would be the year that comprehensive immigration reform became law. The conventional wisdom was that President Obama's re-election and his strong showing among Hispanic voters would force Republicans to go along.
Now, halfway through the year, the prospects for immigration reform have dimmed significantly.
Over the last seven decades, 115 veterans of World War II have served in the United States Senate. This week, the last of them, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, died.
