Column

Want a soda? You’ll pay more for one in Philadelphia, because local politicians decided to tax it five years ago. They’re “protecting” people, they said. The tax would “reduce obesity” and “lower diabetes rates.” But their main goal was to bring in more money, which they said would “fund early childhood education” and “help a lot of families.” I reported on this five years ago, right after the…

Discerning observers of the current political scene who are familiar with the culture and sensibilities of early 20^th Century America understand something the millennials cannot. We have seen this move before. Before Bill Clinton coarsened American culture with his womanizing, Donald Trump would likely not have survived his own self-inflicted his wounds, according to political…

If one is mixing chemicals, getting the formula wrong can produce disastrous results. It is the same with international diplomacy. For decades the left was wrong about the Soviet Union and China, believing that what the U.S. did or did not do would have a positive influence on communist dictators who jailed and executed opponents of their regime, and still do. Though the Soviet Union is no…

This week, the Burning Man festival -- a convocation of large groups of men and women seeking sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and other forms of hedonistic bliss -- was flooded. It seems that a half-inch of rain swamped the event, which takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, turning the dust into deep and sticky mud. The images of barely clad neo-hippies struggling to walk through the muck…

Colorado has a popular Democratic governor, Jared Polis. He’s a rare Democrat who says, “I’m for more freedom and lower taxes.” But is he really? At least he’s willing to come to Stossel TV to debate. Refreshingly, Polis supports charter schools. He even founded two. Unfortunately, his state’s school choice program only applies to government schools. Florida, Arizona, Utah, Indiana, West…

When they engage with the national media, Republicans expect that the exchanges will be skeptical, if not openly hostile. The press works for the Other Party. Democrats expect the media to be the wind beneath their wings, and get upset when journalists don't help them at every turn. 

This past week, the nation noted the 60th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The speech is without question a historic landmark, both in terms of recalling the unique stress of the time and in terms of King’s eloquence in capturing the situation. But beyond being interesting, why do we bother at all with history?

This week, the Biden administration announced that Medicare would name some 10 prescription drugs it would subject to direct price negotiations. The drugs include Jardiance (diabetes), Entresto (heart failure), Imbruvica (blood cancer) and Stelara (psoriasis). If the companies that created the drugs refuse to kowtow to Medicare, they will be forced to withdraw from Medicare and Medicaid…

It was just a matter of time before choice became mandatory. Last week, a federal judge denied a request by parents of students in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland, to be able to remove their children from classrooms when books containing LGBTQ+ characters are read aloud. Christian and Muslim parents had sued the school system, claiming such books force religious…

President Joe Biden, we keep hearing, is a deeply empathetic man. This has been the pitch for Biden for decades: not much in the way of brains, not a tremendously resourceful politician, awkward on his feet — but he cares. Or maybe, just maybe, Biden was never an empathetic man. Maybe he simply trafficked in ersatz empathy, all the while feeding his own narcissism.

Legacy journalists are upset about the decline of what they call "democracy". They whine about Supreme Court power, small states electing senators or simply that they can’t change the Constitution as easily as their side wants. The Washington Post is so frustrated that it launched a series digging into the issue, calling it "IMPERFECT UNION." The Post headlined its more than…

WASHINGTON -- There was a curious report in The Washington Post late last month. I saw it in no other newspaper. It began thus: “When Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, launched his attempted mutiny on the morning of June 24, Vladimir Putin was paralyzed and unable to act decisively, according to Ukrainian and other security officials in Europe.” Did you get…

This week, Tablet released a fascinating conversation with historian David Garrow, author of a massive unauthorized biography of former President Barack Obama in his early years titled “Rising Stars.” By all rights, the book should have been a massive hit upon its release in 2017. Instead, it underperformed. The revelations contained therein never hit the mainstream.

We are told climate change is a crisis, and that there is an “overwhelming scientific consensus.” “It’s a manufactured consensus,” says climate scientist Judith Curry in my new video. She says scientists have an incentive to exaggerate risk to pursue “fame and fortune.” She knows about that because she once spread alarm about climate change. Media loved her when she published a study that…