In the early 2000s, a widow named Sandy Meadows was demoted from her job in a supermarket floral department because of a Louisiana requirement that she possess a state florist's license. In 2001, Abigail Burroughs, a young woman with cancer, died after repeatedly requesting—and being denied—the…
In the early 2000s, a widow named Sandy Meadows was demoted from her job in a supermarket floral department because of a Louisiana requirement that she possess a state florist’s license. In 2001, Abigail Burroughs, a young woman with cancer, died after repeatedly requesting—and being denied—the…
On MSNBC's Morning Joe Tuesday, editor at large Bill Kristol discussed the idea of reintroducing liberty into the political discourse following a presidential election where the idea was absent on both sides.
State-run North Korean media—the only kind there is in that Stalinist country—often make hay of bad news out of the South. When a ferry sank off of South Korea in 2014, killing 300, for example, it drew attention to shoddy rescue efforts. And now with Seoul in the midst of a bona fide political…
When awful floods inundated large swaths of Louisiana last month, thousands of Americans volunteered to travel to the southern state to aid in recovery efforts. Now that terrible flooding has inundated parts of North Korea, meanwhile, Kim Jong-un's regime is "deploying" 100,000 residents to the…
A thought-provoking email in response to my editorial, "The Self-Destruction of the American University:"
Justice Anthony Kennedy, while dictating one of the most sweeping social changes in history in his opinion in the Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage across America, waxes magnanimous towards foes of the expansion of the millennia-old definition of marriage. He said those who…
On June 15, 1215, a band of frustrated and rebellious nobles forced King John to sign a “Great Charter” at Runnymede, a swampy field twenty miles west of London. At the time, few would have suspected the importance of the document, which was annulled by the Pope a mere nine days later.
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal talked about religious liberty on NBC's Meet the Press this morning:
Late Thursday, the White House released via Twitter President Obama's annual statement commemorating the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. As he has in several previous statements, the president cast the decision as critical in "ensuring that our daughters have the same…
The Islamist terrorist attack on the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which, so far, has resulted in 12 deaths and many more wounded, should come as no surprise. The satirical weekly has been the target before, having been fire-bombed back in late 2011 after running a…
Hong Kong
School bakes sales, that is, and the authority to regulate them. Agrarian types thought, quaintly, that authority as to the suitability of chocolate should be reserved to the states. Those who dreamed of a mightier union thought otherwise.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Obama administration has violated federal law in its implementation of Obamacare. Specifically, it has violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a law passed (almost unanimously) twenty years ago by a Democratic House and Senate and signed…
The Associated Press reports:
Outgoing White House press secretary Jay Carney says he felt “liberated” when he left Time magazine to work for the Obama administration. At a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor a block from the White House Thursday morning, Carney was asked about his transition…
Twenty-five years have passed since a lone man stood in front of Chinese tanks and dared to defy Beijing’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. His bold challenge to the Chinese Communist Party was one of history’s most profound reminders of the insatiable human desire to live free even in the…
Martin Gross, a trustee on the Brandeis board, responds to the faculty outrage over Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
Support for the decision of Brandeis University not to award Ayaan Hirsi Ali an honorary degree, after previously announcing it would do so, has coalesced around the notion that while Islamic radicalism can be criticized, even condemned, one cannot criticize Islam itself. By condemning both, and…
The distinguished intellectual historian Jeffrey Herf, whose Ph.D. is from Brandeis, has written an eloquent and powerful letter to Brandeis president Fred Lawrence. Prof. Herf concludes:
In his speech today at the United Nations, President Obama continued his administration’s odd and somewhat schizophrenic policy with respect to freedom, human rights, and democracy.
The hot dog is in decline in America, writes Paul Lukas at Bloomberg, and one thinks, "What isn't?" What institution, anyway. If everything were not in decline, then what would there be for journalists to write about (see Andrew Ferguson on George Packer and Haynes Johnson) and what would…
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress declared independence. George Washington declared that day that “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves....The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct…
Today, speaking at the Brandenburg Gate, President Obama paid appropriate tribute to the brave East Germans who rebelled 60 years ago against Communist dictatorship:
President Obama's statement on the passing of Baroness Margaret Thatcher:
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on California’s Proposition 8, which defines marriage as being between couples of the opposite sex. Today they’re hearing them on the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman at the federal level. Like Roe…
According to an annual report for 2012 just released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), DHS processed a total of 205,895 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests during the year. The report, presented by Acting Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer Jonathan R. Cantor, shows that DHS…
In his second inaugural address, President Obama made every effort to tie his political philosophy to the ideals and principles of the American Founding, even as he made clear how little he understands those ideals and principles. The gist of Obama’s speech was that only government can grant…
Jim Manzi recently delivered this talk on science, knowledge, and freedom at Harvard University, which features interesting colloquy with Harvey Mansfield:
Next week the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union will meet in Dubai to figure out how to control the Internet. Representatives from 193 nations will attend the nearly two week long meeting, according to news reports.
William Kristol: "The 9/11 Generation."
Two lasting memories. The first, from the White House on the evening of September 11, 2001:
It was inevitable that after the massacre in a Colorado movie theater, the matter of gun control would come up and that the president would weigh in on the subject. And, according to this report by Michael A. Memoli in the Los Angeles Times, he has:
It was perhaps inevitable that our Fourth of July celebrations last week might have seemed anti-climactic after the four-day festivities a month ago accompanying the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Fireworks, however spectacular, cannot compare with the thousand-boat flotilla on the Thames cheered on by…
Speaker of the House John Boehner's Fourth of July tribute to the Declaration of Independence:
On the day that the Supreme Court released its Obamacare ruling, my daughter and I had the opportunity to visit the Reagan Ranch. Located in the mountains in the Central Coast region of California, the ranch is where President Reagan spent nearly one out of every eight days of his presidency. As…
A German court has ruled that male circumcision is a crime. "Who cuts boys for religious reasons is liable to prosecution for assault," a report in the German-language Financial Times Deutschland reads, via Google translate. "Neither the parents nor the right to freedom of religion guaranteed in…
A notional woman named “Julia” recently made her debut on the Obama campaign’s website. Julia, it seems, needs help at every stage in her life, and if the president has his way, the government will be there to assist her in, among other things, getting a college education, finding a job, securing…
President George W. Bush was back in Washington today, to mark the opening at his Bush Institute in Dallas of the “Freedom Collection.”
On March 28, 2011, Barack Obama defended his decision to intervene days earlier with military force in Libya, arguing that for the United States to stand by without responding would have been “a betrayal of who we are.”
Caroline May reports that "More than 2,500 evangelical and ministry leaders from a range of denominations have signed a letter to President Obama voicing their opposition to the administration’s new mandate requiring that all health insurance plans contain contraceptive coverage."
Yesterday, I asked Senator Dick Durbin if he thinks Obamacare's contraception/abortifacient mandate still violates the religious liberty of Catholic churches, like the Archdiocese of Washington. Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said he didn't know. But Durbin said he did know one…
The Washington Free Beacon is now up and running. What is this new outfit? Matthew Continetti, editor in chief of the Free Beacon, explains:
The conventional wisdom says Mitt Romney is the candidate that President Obama and his allies fear, while they’re allegedly salivating at the thought of facing Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. Of course, conventional wisdom didn’t have Santorum coming from sixth place in the polls with three weeks…
Rep. Adam Kinzinger defends America's mission in Afghanistan on the House floor. "The greatest disinfectant to terrorism is freedom," Kinzinger says.
John Kerry announced today on Morning Joe that he believes the media should take some responsibility for keeping the Tea Party and its ideas out of our public discourse:
The New York Times reports that "China already has some of the world’s most far-reaching online restrictions," and now it's getting worse.
Conservatives searching for a foreign policy (think skittishness on winning the war in Afghanistan) should take note of President Ronald Reagan's approach, as Jennifer Rubin reminds us:
Conservatives searching for a foreign policy (think skittishness on winning the war in Afghanistan) should take note of President Ronald Reagan's approach, as Jennifer Rubin reminds us:
Today is the anniversary of the earthshaking election victory of Solidarity in Poland—and the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Bob Kagan remembers Ron Asmus, a freedom fighter, at the Washington Post:
As Ben Smith notes, Mongolian president Elbegdorj Tsakhia correctly states in Foreign Policy that "so-called 'realists'" got the Middle East wrong:
And so, despite his doubts and dithering, President Obama is taking us to war in another Muslim country. Good for him.
Where the political shockwave inspired by Tunisia's democratic rebellion will lead we don't yet know. We do know what set Tunisia's revolt in motion: the end of Arab fear. When an oppressed people snap fear's psychological bonds, they shatter the tyrant's most potent weapon.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy writes up the boss's remarks at a philanthropic conference:
Perhaps the most basic measure of a country’s character is whether people, when given the chance, flood into the country or risk life and limb to escape from it. By this measure, Muslims are flourishing in America. Meanwhile, though Christianity predates Islam by centuries in the Middle East,…