Column

President Donald Trump loves a Sharpie pen, and now he has all the more reason to love the company that makes them. The president signed the flurry of executive orders he issued the day he returned to office with a Sharpie. He’s used them for years, finding them more reliable than fancier pens. Now we know they have another merit, too: They’re almost entirely made in America.

One more time: There is no such thing as free lunch. Government has no money. It acquires the money used to pay for things one of three ways: taxing, borrowing or printing. Democrat senators, with three exceptions, voted against keeping the federal government fully running because they want to add back spending reduced under the so-called Big Beautiful Bill; they want to spend even more; and…

Have you heard how young people suffer now? Scroll TikTok, Instagram, etc., you see the same message: “Young people today can’t get ahead!” One popular meme says when baby boomers like me were young, “A family could own a home, a car and send their kids to college, all on one income.” “That’s a fantasy,” says economist Norbert Michel. “We are much better off than we were.” My new video takes…

The nation is rightly traumatized by the horrible assassination of Charlie Kirk. The media is filled, also rightly, with give and take trying to understand what can and should be done so that we don’t see more of the same. But unfortunately, much of the expression that I hear is informed by the same misguided sense of right and wrong that brought to fruition the horrible act.

As the Trump administration takes on the latest wave of left-wing violence, an obituary reminds us what happens when political killers get away with their crimes. The law never caught up with Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur. She died last Thursday, age 78, an honored guest of Cuba’s Communist regime — and honored, disgracefully, by tenured radicals in America’s universities, too.…

“Mental health is declining,” says psychologist Jonathan Haidt. This week, his book, “The Anxious Generation,” is number one on The New York Times bestseller list. His book has been a bestseller for more than a year. Haidt argues that smartphones and social media have “rewired childhood” and made kids more anxious and depressed. My son agrees. He brings Haidt’s argument to schools.…

Over the years, our government has expanded dramatically, all with the objective of improving our lives. Yet, with all of this, confidence that Americans express in our country and its major institutions has plummeted. Of 18 of the nation’s major institutions, per a recent Gallup survey, there are only three in which 50% or more now express a “great deal or quite a lot” of confidence.

Some parents abuse their kids. Child welfare workers are supposed to stop that to protect the kids. But bad things often happen while they watch. “Children have a right to safety,” says Tim Keller. “If home is a danger, we as a society have to step in and protect those children.” Keller, legal director of the Center for the Rights of Abused Children, is a libertarian. “It’s surprising to hear…

The much-publicized exchange between Bed Bath & Beyond chairman Marcus Lemonis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom is a lesson for the whole country. We shoppers look back fondly on the marketing acumen that, starting with one store in 1971, built Bed Bath & Beyond into a retail giant that once had 365 stores nationwide.

Everything has a political angle now. The left gets worked up by a jeans ad. The right gets worked up by Cracker Barrel removing both the cracker and the barrel from their logo. Red and blue, colors on the light spectrum and in nature, are now political. A 23-year-old transgender gunman killing children is political. The prayers offered are maligned as useless. It is all political.

At this point in his second term, President Donald Trump has higher approval ratings than Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in their second terms. According to the Real Clear Politics average of presidential approval polls, Trump, on Aug. 13, 2025, had a rating of 45.8%. G.W. Bush on Aug. 13, 2005, registered a 43.2% rating. Obama, on Aug. 13, 2013, stood at 43.8%.

The economy can be both very complex and very simple. In simplified terms, consider two buckets. One is the public sector, and one is the private sector. As more money flows into the bucket of the public sector and fills it up, the private sector bucket does not fill up. However, the private sector utilizes money more efficiently and contributes to economic growth for its citizens. As the…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is upset with Texas. There’s a reason he should be upset. California companies are pulling up in droves and moving to the Lone Star State and elsewhere. But that isn’t what’s bothering him. Newsom cares about politics and power, not markets and business. He’s upset that the Texas state legislature is moving to redistricting that could add up to five Republican…

Last week, I examined the reaction to and the consequences of a possible indictment of former President Barack Obama over “Obamagate,” the false claim that “the intelligence community” concluded a) Russians interfered in the 2016 election (which is not in dispute), b) they did so to help elect candidate Donald Trump, and c) Trump “colluded” with the Russians to get elected.