Will President Obama really nominate billionaire Chicago gal pal Penny Pritzker to head his Commerce Department? “It’s a done deal,” according to a White House source close to the Chicago Tribune. As further confirmation, Pritzker resigned abruptly from the Windy City’s school board late last week. The crony fix seems to be in. Taxpayers, beware. […]

Shortly after I did my first TV special on education, “Stupid in America,” hundreds of union teachers showed up outside my office to yell at me. They were angry because I said union rules were a big reason American kids don’t learn. The union (SET ITAL) is (END ITAL) a big reason kids don’t like […]

“At CPAC, the Future Looks Libertarian,” read a dispatch on Time magazine’s website. “CPAC: Rand Paul’s Big Moment,” proclaimed The Week magazine. Meanwhile, the New York Times headlined its story about the annual conservative political action conference “GOP divisions fester at conservative retreat.” George Will, a man who actually knows a thing or two about […]

After reading Dr. Thomas Sowell’s latest book, “Intellectuals and Race,” one cannot emerge with much respect for the reasoning powers of intellectuals, particularly academics, on matters of race. There’s so much faulty logic and downright dishonesty. Many intellectuals attribute the behavior patterns of blacks to “a legacy of slavery” or contemporary racial discrimination. But when […]

With over two million children now schooled — usually quite well — at home, the education establishment and the teachers unions find themselves leaking students at an alarming rate. Driven by bad public education, the threat of school violence and a virtual prohibition against values-based learning in government schools, more and more Americans are taking […]

PARIS — The European Union’s $13 billion bailout plan for Cyprus has nothing to do with socialism but rather with much greater stakes. This is the EU attempting to outmaneuver an uncharacteristically flat-footed Vladimir Putin and Russia in a key battleground, over long-festering issues: transparency, corruption, and support of Syria and Iran. This is also […]

Within the next few months, Justice Anthony Kennedy will likely rule that same-sex marriage is mandated by the Constitution of the United States. The ruling will offend both common sense and Constitutional law. But it will nonetheless become the law of the land. With it, states will be forced to recognize same-sex marriages; same-sex marriage […]

On March 13th, the Commerce Department announced a 1.1 percent increase in food and services retail sales, doubling a prior Dow Jones survey of economists that forecast an increase of just 0.6 percent. This new data has led to a fresh wave of enthusiastic commentaries that the US economy is set for a strong recovery. […]

A remarkable book titled “Gifted Hands” tells the personal story of Benjamin Carson, a black kid from the Detroit ghetto who went on to become a renowned neurosurgeon. At one time young Ben Carson had the lowest grades in his middle school class, and was the butt of teasing by his white classmates. Worse yet, […]

The Telegraph, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, noted how Catholicism has spread its wings by appointing Pope Francis as its first non-European pope since A.D. 741. Yet countries such as Iran are still clamping down on religion by incarcerating Christians and putting them on trial for their faith. According to Fox News, “five men […]

For the first time, I am wondering about the long-term viability of the Republican Party. I say this not as an advocate of its demise or restructuring but as an observer of troubling signs. The Republican Party is thought to be the institutional vehicle for the advancement of conservative policies, but for decades, the conservative […]

Last week, Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio announced that he had reversed his position on same-sex marriage. The reason was that his son had come out to him and his wife as gay. This is not the first such instance. Periodically, we hear about Republican politicians whose child announces that he or she is […]

It’s worth remembering that President Obama decided not to let his new Obamacare scheme take effect until 2014. At the time of its passage in 2010, it seemed politically wise to delay its implementation. Republicans won the election of 2010 and lost that of 2012. But the full impact of the new law will begin […]

San Francisco Supervisor David Campos is about to introduce a law to end the city’s 8-foot “bubble zone” around reproductive health clinics in favor of a new 25-foot “buffer zone.” It’s hard to imagine City Hall entertaining a law to curb the free speech expression of union representatives, Critical Mass bicyclists or anti-war activists, but […]