By: Star Parker – dailysignal.com – July 25, 2018 It is rare these days in Washington to see bipartisan support for anything, let alone for a major issue with far-reaching implications for the nation. This is why the bipartisan passage in the House, 360-59, of the First Step Act to reform our federal prisons is such big news. The 360...

By: Mary Papenfuss – huffingtonpost.com – July 31, 2018 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Monday that the U.S. Justice Department is launching a “religious liberty task force” — and Twitter erupted. The new unit will aid the department in fully implementing the religious liberty legal “guidance” issued last year under President Donald Trump’s direction, Sessions said in a speech at...

By: Berny Belvedere – nationalreview.com – August 2, 2018 Are we a hundred days from a Congress-realigning blue wave? Is a violent Democratic tide, thrust forward by the dreams of Resisters everywhere, coming to wash away Republican control in the House of Representatives? Some analysts define a wave election to be an overwhelming, mandate-issuing electoral romp — the kind that...

By: Ramesh Ponnuru & Michael R. Strain – nationalreview.com – July 26, 2018 Our economy is strong, as nearly every new release of economic data indicates. Industrial production is up. The unemployment rate is as low as it has been in two decades. Employment rates are growing and the disability rolls are shrinking. Measures of business confidence are bullish. Stocks...

By: Paul Kengor – spectator.org – July 18, 2018 Senator John McCain described the Trump-Putin press conference in Helsinki as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” “No prior president,” insisted McCain, “has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.” Easy there, senator. Your knowledge of meetings between American presidents and Moscow tyrants is...

By: Paul Kengor – spectator.org – July 6, 2018 Presidents Trump and Putin have announced the site for their first summit meeting: Helsinki. It’s a dubious choice, a place of bad history between American statesmen and Russian thugs. Hopefully it’s not a bad omen for Donald Trump. If Trump wants to nix perceptions that he’s soft on the Kremlin and...

By: David French – nationalreview.com – August 1, 2018 Last week FiveThirtyEight — an influential website known primarily for its sober-minded statistical analysis — published a remarkable attack on Catholic hospitals. It purported to expose how many American communities are dependent on Catholic care and how “bishops” shape their health-care choices. Here’s a key paragraph: In a growing number of...

By: Joe Perticone – businessinsider.com – July 28, 2018 “Owning the libs” is a tongue-in-cheek expression to either describe rattling Democrats and progressives or conservatives making their own missteps in the attempt to do so. The phrase has accelerated among online trolls, campus activists, and much of the conservative right. The deeper meaning behind the strategy and tactics being carried...

By: Nicholas Fandos & Kevin Roose – nytimes.com – July 31, 2018 Facebook said on Tuesday that it had identified a political influence campaign that was potentially built to disrupt the midterm elections, with the company detecting and removing 32 pages and fake accounts that had engaged in activity around divisive social issues. The company did not definitively link the...

By: JTA – timesofisrael.com – June 1, 2018 US President Donald Trump named Gary Bauer, the Washington director of Christians United for Israel, to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. “We have seen a disturbing rise in anti-Semitism and persecution of Christians around the world, but especially in the Middle East,” Bauer, a veteran of top Education Department posts...