Recent Viewpoints

Penna Dexter Who or what is to blame for the scale of the wildfires that destroyed massive swaths of Los Angeles this winter?  Some politicians point to climate change and fossil fuels. Two California legislators have filed a bill to allow insurers and homeowners impacted by the fires to sue oil companies for their losses. Lawmakers hope to cover damages the state is liable for through its underfunded insurance, the last resort for millions of Californians as state-imposed price controls…

Kerby Anderson Eight months ago, I wrote about the book, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, written by Victor Davis Hanson. In his book, he provides four historical examples: the city-state of Thebes, ancient Carthage, Byzantine Constantinople, and Aztec Tenochtitlan. The leaders believed their illustrious pasts would be enough to prevent their destruction. Alexander the Great, Roman Scipio, Muslim Mehmet, and the Spanish conquistador Cortés proved them wrong. The book is a warning to us today, but…

Kerby Anderson Earlier this month, I talked about the three hardest words for people to say. They are: “I don’t know.” It is especially hard for so-called experts to say those words. Often what we think we know is influenced by our bias. Good science and good research should always work to eliminate as much bias as possible. Professor Philip Tetlock (University of Pennsylvania) has been systematically tracking the predictions of pundits, politicians, stock market gurus, and sportscasters. One of…

Kerby Anderson Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In a recent column, he asks, “Are Schools Really Politicized?” Most of us know that the answer to that question is yes. But many progressive writers don’t agree. One of those writers is James Traub who has a book coming out next year on civil education. In an article in New Republic that he wrote previewing his book, he declared: “I Visited Dozens of Civics…

Kerby Anderson President Trump is always full of surprises, but the biggest surprise so far was his bombshell announcement that the U.S. would take over the rebuilding of Gaza. This is not going to happen for many reasons. You can’t just evacuate two million resident Palestinians. First, because nearby countries don’t want them. And second, a forced evacuation would likely be a violation of international law. The U.S. won’t implement Trump’s suggestion, but the proposed policy provides an important teaching…

Kerby Anderson Progressive activists often talk about the “long march through institutions.” For the last few weeks, we have seen a “fast sprint through institutions” by President Trump, followed by Elon Musk. The flurry of activity by the president and his administration has raised an important question. What are the limits to presidential authority? Yuval Levin provides “A Rule of Thumb for the Executive Power Debates.” Of course, we can find the limits to executive power in the Constitution, in…

Penna Dexter The Department of Education is not needed. More evidence surfaced recently in results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, given to 4th and 8th graders every two years. Average NAEP scores in both grades are down 2 points since 2022. A third of eighth graders scored “below basic” in reading, a record low. And math scores continue to drop. The money we throw at the problem is not helping. President Trump supports abolishing the Department of Education….

Kerby Anderson Mexico has been in the news because of issues ranging from immigration to tariffs. Victor Davis Hanson wonders whether Mexico is a friend or enemy or something else. He raises some good questions that often are ignored when the media talks about our neighbor to the south. Immigration and border security are the first issue. He argues that “Mexico seems to assume that it has a sovereign right to encourage the flight of millions of its own impoverished…

Kerby Anderson America keeps spending more and more money on public education. And all those tax dollars don’t seem to make a difference. Schools keep flunking. The National Assessment for Educational Progress is often referred to as “America’s Report Card.” But this isn’t a report card you would want to show anyone. The latest report shows that fourth and eighth grade reading scores declined by two points on average since 2022. Even more concerning is the fact that a third…

Kerby Anderson Tech CEO Chamath Palihapitiya on a recent interview reminded us why the world needs a strong America and what it takes to have a strong America. He began by saying that it was important for “Americans to take a step back and acknowledge this one truth. We are the single most important country in existence in the world.” He went on to argue that “there are two things that underpin that. We are the single most vibrant economy…

Kerby Anderson Once President Trump was back in office, he ordered a pause on federal grants so that the incoming cabinet could evaluate what was being pushed through in the last few months of the Biden administration. As you might expect, the reaction from Democrats and the legacy press was over the top. Fortunately, the editors of The Wall Street Journal decided to address what they called “The Spending Freeze Panic” explaining that the “pause on federal grants wasn’t illegal…