“Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth,” President Trump tweeted last month. “Their political system is broken and their politicians are either incompetent or corrupt.” There may be some basis for that overstatement, but when the …
Our Constitutional Republic
September 17 is Constitution Day, which celebrates the document that the American Founders designed to create a government with limited and enumerated powers. They did not design a democratic government, if democratic government is viewed as a government that carries …
U.S. National Debt Hits Crisis Levels
The U.S. government’s total public debt outstanding has nearly reached $22.6 trillion with two weeks left to go in the government’s 2019 fiscal year. That’s a very big number. Usually whenever anyone talks about the national debt, its size is …
Africans on the Move: Impressions versus Facts
A recent piece on African migration by Tanguy Berthemet in Le Figaro, a leading French daily newspaper, confirms that perceptions on the movement of people across borders bear little resemblance to reality. Using data and studies by various organizations (among …
Football Follies and Economic Realities
The antics of Antonio Brown prompted the Oakland Raiders to release the wide receiver, by some accounts the best in the NFL. As NBC announcer Al Michaels noted, Brown’s disruptive pre-season performance turned out to be a “connecting flight” to …
The Fonda Freedom Manifesto
When Peter Fonda passed away last month at 79, critic Peter Tonguette lamented that the actor never became the big-screen equal of his father. Son Peter “was known for boyish flamboyance” in films such as The Trip (1967), Easy Rider (1969), …
A Surprise Trillion Dollar Deficit
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government’s budget deficit for the first 11 months of its 2019 fiscal year was $1.067 trillion. During these months, the CBO reports, “revenues were $102 billion higher and outlays were $271 billion …
Liberty in Peril
If you were to go back to 1776 and ask the typical American to describe, in one word, the fundamental principle behind the new American government, that one word would have been liberty. The new government was formed to protect …
San Francisco Supervisors Bust Dangerous Domestic Terrorist Group
With atrocities such as the Oklahoma City truck bombing on April 19, 1995, Americans are well aware that terrorism is a domestic as well as international threat. Timothy McVey, responsible for the attack that took 168 lives, including 19 children, …
Axis of Politicians and Union Bosses Targets Independent Contractors of “Gig” Economy
The term “gig” is common parlance among musicians, who contract to play engagements at various clubs, festivals concert halls and such. One such gigging professional is tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander. He and other jazz artists might think it strange if …
Single-Payer Bureaucracy Shelters Deadly Misconduct at the VA
The headline in the Washington Post‘s reporting on the latest scandal at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was bad enough: “How Veterans Affairs failed to stop a pathologist who misdiagnosed 3,000 cases.” But there’s an even worse story contained …
Who Are the U.S. Government’s Biggest Creditors?
With almost $22.5 trillion in debt, the U.S. Treasury Department has a tough job in sorting out just who has loaned money to the federal government. That’s because around 30 percent of all the money the government borrows comes from …
