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Won’t somebody please think of the children?

National Columnists

After stripping its citizens of the right to self-defense, locking down millions under COVID-19 totalitarianism and treating freedom of speech like a roadblock to socialist utopia, Australia has decided to take its already well-established love of government overreach and crank it up another notch. Starting this week, the Australian government will enforce a total ban on social media for everyone under the age of 16, with platforms that fail to comply facing tens of millions of dollars in fines. Predictably, the pundit class and advocacy groups applauded the government with the usual ...

How to end Obamacare, improve coverage

National Columnists

Few people lie awake at night worried about the federal debt. So the Republicans’ plan to allow “temporary” COVID-19-era enhanced subsidies for Obamacare to expire because of their exorbitant cost won’t win many votes. It will save Uncle Sam money. A staggering 93% of premiums are currently paid directly by the federal government to the insurance companies, reports the Paragon Health Institute. But will it win votes in the coming midterm elections? No. Obamacare is an utter failure. It was supposed to bend the cost curve. But premiums for a family of five can exceed $50,000 a ...

We are at crossroads with grading

National Columnists

The recent Harvard report on grading practices has drawn a lot of attention from colleges and universities across the country, particularly for its claim that grade inflation remains a critical issue. The rising number of A grades assigned to students has prompted calls to return to traditional in-person exams and other lecture components, such as calling on students. However, much of the public perception regarding Harvard students’ large proportion of A’s, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Beth McMurtrie, is “unsympathetic, painting Harvard as a college full of ...

Trump is right on gas-powered cars

National Columnists

President Trump likes to tout his accomplishments, and saving the gas-powered car should be high on the list. The president is ending a government campaign against the internal combustion engine, one of the defining mechanisms of our age. This uneconomical push for electric vehicles over gas-powered ones ignored consumer preferences and relied on high-handed executive overreach. The New York Times said Trump has thrown “the weight of the federal government behind vehicles that burn gasoline,” although all he’s really done is lift the federal thumb from the scale in favor of ...

Adulthood does not remove fear

National Columnists

For most of my life, I believed bravery belonged to people who felt certain. Heroes in stories seemed steady. Leaders seemed equipped. Even the adults of my childhood seemed to wake each morning with confidence about who they were and what they were doing. I assumed that once I grew up, that clarity would arrive for me, too. What arrived instead was the realization that every grown person is improvising. Every leader is managing more than anyone sees. Every parent is hoping they guessed right. Life reveals that bravery is not a posture built from certainty. It is an act built on fear ...

Trump right to wage war on cartels

National Columnists

While I am willing to criticize the President, and such criticisms have cost me jobs and opportunities over the years, there are also many things he has done that I agree with. As an aside, the poor man zone of punditry on the left and right is being the person willing to praise and criticize from inside the tent. Going all in and all against is what sells. Nuance does not. But let me now make a nuanced case for the president. The legally meritorious argument is simply stated. Narcotics trafficking is a federal crime. Drug traffickers have been running drugs into the United States for ...