RealClearPolicy Articles

Is there an honest politician left in America? Maybe John Fetterman. Maybe. But after watching the coverage, reading the headlines, and listening to the commentary surrounding the ICE incident in Minnesota, it’s hard not to feel disheartened—because what this episode reveals isn’t just dishonesty on the left, but futility on the right. What happened in Minnesota was a tragedy. The killing of Renee Good was a tragedy. Full stop. A 37-year-old woman should be alive today. Any decent person—Democrat or Republican, left or right—should be able to say that without...

Over and over again, we’re told to be outraged. An individual is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He is later released. And before the facts can catch their breath, Democratic politicians and activist megaphones are already screaming ‘abduction’, ‘fascism’, and ‘state violence’. Cue the mob. Cue the cameras. Cue the chaos. It plays out over and over again. Remember the viral video of a woman screaming 'I'm a U.S. citizen' as ICE agents pulled her from car in the Florida Keys? The media and politicians pounced – ICE...

All across the country, people are piecing together a living from freelance jobs, contract work, gig platforms, and small businesses. In fact, more than 74 million Americans now earn income outside a traditional 9-to-5 job. Yet, under current law, those same workers often have no legal mechanism to access the benefits historically associated with full-time employment. While the way people work has changed dramatically, the way we deliver economic security has not. For decades, labor policies assumed a standard employment relationship in which an employer provides both wages and benefits, such...

President Trump made good on his promise to make America the “crypto capital of the planet” by signing the GENIUS Act into law, the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins. The law confirmed Washington’s firm embrace of crypto, enacting clear rules and distinctions from traditional banking the industry direly needed. The Act replaced the previous patchwork of fuzzy and unpredictable state and federal regulations which, under the Biden Administration, held crypto back through uncertainty as well as a myriad of particularly brutal SEC lawsuits against issuers and...

At first glance, the Protect Third Party Litigation Funding from Abuse Act sounds like something conservatives and free-market advocates should naturally support. Transparency. Guardrails. Consumer protection. Keeping banksters and financiers from gaming the legal system. Admittedly, on first read, it seemed reasonable. It even triggered a little nostalgia. Back in the early 2000s, conservatives spent years butting heads with the trial bar, pushing tort reform, and trying to rein in lawsuit abuse that drove up healthcare and insurance costs. Seen through that lens, cracking down on...

There’s been a lot of sound and fury over the deadly encounter in Minneapolis between an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent and a woman named Renee Good. But what exactly are these protests about — and why do so many seem to be marching against the rule of law rather than for justice? Let’s get a few facts straight. Last week, during what the federal Department of Homeland Security described as its largest immigration enforcement operation ever, ICE agents were executing lawful removals and arrests in the Twin Cities. These are not our...

We live in an age with virtually unlimited choice when it comes to digital streaming, with industry leaders like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Paramount+, and HBO Max competing for subscribers. Right now, Netflix is in the spotlight because the company is in the process of acquiring Warner Brothers-Discovery (WBD) signature assets – its massive catalog of movies and shows and its film and television studios, including HBO Max and HBO. The deal, if successful, will provide more choice and greater value for a consumer market eager for more content with one click. The House...

Starting soon, formerly homeless Americans will face the prospect of going back on the streets because of a sudden change in federal policy. As many as 170,000 could lose their housing in 2026. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced that it will drastically alter its $3.9 billion Continuum of Care homeless assistance program, which has helped millions of people move from homelessness to stability. The program that has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support provides housing that people with low incomes can afford and connects them to...

The Justice Department has fired a shot across Big Tech's bow. In a recent speech, Dina Kallay, a deputy assistant attorney general in the department's antitrust division, criticized Big Tech for using supposedly "free" patent-licensing initiatives to poach smaller competitors' technologies. Her remarks come at a pivotal moment. The Alliance for Open Media -- a consortium led by Amazon, Meta, Google, and other tech giants -- just announced a new video-streaming format called AV2 that could soon be embedded in televisions and...

Venezuela’s future will not be decided by speeches, sanctions, or symbolic elections alone. It will be decided by whether the country is reintegrated into the global economy in a way that creates durable incentives for stability and democratic governance. The uncomfortable truth is that democracy in Venezuela will not survive on political process alone. It requires commerce and credible security guarantees. Without those, the vacuum will be filled by America’s adversaries. For two decades, Venezuela has been hollowed out by state control, corruption, and economic isolation. The...

College football is foundational to college athletics and our country. It supports every sport, anchors school identity, and remains one of the most unifying traditions in American life. For a long time, the system was not perfect, but it worked. Scholarships provided student-athletes with opportunities they otherwise might not have had, and many of these young people go on to be some of our country’s greatest leaders. But I had no idea how broken college athletics is until very recently, when I was pulled into LSU’s football program. I learned way more than I ever wanted to know...

The holiday season is often associated with joy, generosity, and connection. Yet, it also marks a peak period for financial fraud and scams. Cybercriminals exploit the surge in online shopping and charitable giving, deploying sophisticated schemes through phone calls, text messages, and emails that promise rewards or threaten consequences. This is not a seasonal phenomenon; it is a thriving, year-round enterprise. In 2024, consumers reported losses exceeding $12.5 billion to scams, a 25% increase over the prior year. Bitcoin ATM-related fraud alone accounted for $250 million,...

The Federal Trade Commission’s war on alleged Big Tech monopolies suffered a major defeat last month, when a judge ruled in favor of Meta at trial.  But the FTC’s troubles might not be over yet: In continuing to pursue cases using former Biden FTC Chair Lina Khan’s European Union-esque approach to antitrust, the FTC could be setting itself up for more pain. Future losses would likely include FTC’s case against Amazon, where the agency alleges that Prime customers want to unsubscribe from the service but that Amazon makes it too complicated. That allegation is...

For years, radicals and industry insiders pushed a ridiculous narrative about wind turbines which I exposed in the documentary “Blown Away: Exposing the Wind Scam.” These massive windmill projects are exorbitantly expensive, harmful to the environment, produce little power, and ruin gorgeous natural vistas, from the deserts to the oceans. Some of the most egregious abuses involve the offshore wind farms that mar some of America’s most pristine seascapes. These projects cost taxpayers billions in subsidies and do grave harm to marine ecosystems. These ocean projects...

There’s a particular sound a broken machine makes. The gears still turn, the belts still hum, but nothing useful comes out the other side. You get motion without output. Noise without purpose. That’s what Congress feels like today. For much of the 20th century, Congress produced legislation that reshaped American life: the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act. These weren’t symbolic votes or partisan showpieces. They were structural laws that still govern daily life. Today, the machinery looks busy, but little comes...

Clever, rent-seeking attorneys are successfully misusing public nuisance laws to win big paydays from corporate victims. As usual, these litigations against members of the business community end up costing consumers and family breadwinners. The centuries-old doctrine of public nuisance has long been defined as an unreasonable interference with a right common to the public. It was originally used to address simple problems that impacted peoples’ daily lives, like when someone obstructs a public road or water way. But modern-day tort litigators have invoked public nuisance to attack...

If the world’s future is powered by semiconductors and designed by advanced AI chips, then it will be printed on polysilicon; the purest manmade material and the foundation for any semiconductor chip. Without it, advanced technologies and electronics would not exist. Importantly, the U.S. currently faces a decision: to rely on imported polysilicon from China to unlock the electronic economy, or to protect and expand existing capacity across the U.S. and allied nations to feed the growing demand for chips, and therefore for polysilicon. The ongoing Section 232 investigation into imported...

It has become all too familiar to see a news story about another violent and tragic attack done by a person with a significant criminal history, which makes you wonder, “How could they possibly be on the streets?” In Nashville this month, a man was charged with raping a woman (who died from her injuries) outside of a church. He had been previously arrested 15 times, including for sexual battery, but these were almost all dismissed or not pursued by prosecutors. In November, a Chicago man with 72 prior arrests set a 26-year-old woman on fire on a Chicago train. Another Chicago man,...

Millions of older Americans struggle every day to afford the medications they need. Too often, they make impossible choices: splitting pills, skipping doses, or forgoing prescriptions altogether because of the price. President Trump recognizes the problem. His administration is weighing whether Medicare should cover GLP-1 medications for weight loss, a decision that could have major implications for access and cost. The White House has also recently worked with several pharmaceutical companies on voluntary "most favored nation" deals, which will secure more affordable access by expanding...