President Donald Trump talks with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott as he tours a section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall in San Luis, Ariz., June 23, 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) The verdict on the U.S.–Mexico border wall President Trump promised to construct is decidedly mixed as the year comes to a close. The “big, beautiful

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE P resident Trump’s combative and defiant brand of nationalism enraged his critics — some within his own administration — as much as it buoyed his base. The narrative, which calcified to a stubborn degree these past four years, was that he coddled adversaries and cold-shouldered allies, leaving America isolated. Setting aside that

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE W ith controversy over the 2020 election still stirring, a notable development has escaped much attention. Not only has the national trend toward legalizing marijuana continued, a Rubicon has been crossed: Oregon adopted a ballot initiative that decriminalizes the possession of hard narcotics, including heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamines. No, it is not

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE O n Saturday morning, Belita Clover expects to be working at her store, The Octopus and The Fox, just as she’s done on the Saturday after Thanksgiving every year for nearly a decade. Small Business Saturday is typically one of the busiest days of the year at the small shop that sells

I have no known Polish or Hungarian blood or relations, though I have traveled in both countries, but the recent and continuing European Union criticism of Poland and Hungary for alleged human-rights or judicial-procedure deficiencies strikes me as a classic example of amnesia and present-mindedness inflicted on peoples and nations whose vast sufferings in the

The exterior of The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 30, 2020. (Katherine Taylor/Reuters.) Those who like power and privilege see crises as opportunities to get more of what they want. That includes politicians and bureaucrats, of course, but also college administrators. In today’s Martin Center article, Neetu

An 81-foot-tall granite colossus, the National Monument to the Forefathers, sits on an ordinary side street in Plymouth, Mass. If not for a few faded signs, you wouldn’t even be aware you were approaching it. Then, suddenly, it springs into view: A giant statue of a woman, “Faith,” standing atop a pedestal … Read More

A customer shops for a turkey at a Walmart store in Los Angeles in 2013. (Kevork Djansezian/Reuters) It’s not as bad as you might think. The cost of living in the United States is an increasingly salient topic in public-policy circles today. As Mark J. Perry from the American Enterprise Institute documents, child care, education,

Hollywood knows two registers when it comes to the white working class (WWC): sentimentalizing and condescending. WWCs are either cute, neighborly, and folksy, or they constitute a tawdry, alien life form. There are 130 million WWCs in our country, and yet nobody in Hollywood has the slightest grasp of them. With … Read More

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914) (Wikimedia Commons) 2020—Happy Thanksgiving! Be grateful that the secular activists in the judiciary weren’t dominant when George Washington was president, or we’d never have this great, and deeply religious, American feast. In the words of Washington: Whereas it is the duty of all nations to

Hollywood knows two registers when it comes to the white working class (WWC): sentimentalizing and condescending. WWCs are either cute, neighborly, and folksy, or they constitute a tawdry, alien life form. There are 130 million WWCs in our country, and yet nobody in Hollywood has the slightest grasp of them. With … Read More

Then-national security adviser General Michael Flynn delivers a statement at a daily briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., February 1, 2017. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) President Trump’s pardon not only ends any injustice to Flynn, but it restores the proper balance to the separation of powers. President Trump granted a pardon to Michael Flynn, his

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn arrives for his sentencing hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., December 18, 2018. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) President Trump announced Wednesday he has pardoned his former national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, ending a years-long legal battle with the government that began with the Russia investigation. “It is my Great Honor

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE A ccording to Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial

A woman who is five months pregnant attends a sonogram at a local hospital in Shanghai, China, September 12, 2014. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) It’s the ubiquity of abortion, not genetic testing, that’s creating ‘The Last Children of Down Syndrome.’ At America’s most august publications, it is not truth, but nuance — even artificial, manufactured nuance —

President-elect Joe Biden speaks to reporters as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris listens following an online meeting with members of the National Governors Association (NGA) executive committee in Wilmington, Del., November 19, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters) Joe Biden vowed on Tuesday to send a bill to the Senate that would set up a path to citizenship for

(maroke/Getty Images) New York City has generated some outrage for closing its schools. This made me a little jealous, though, because here in Fairfax County, Va., schools never opened to begin with. Just last week, the district scotched its reopening plan the day before it was supposed to take effect — after canceling two days’

Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) speaks at a committee hearing in Washington, D.C., June 10, 2020. (Al Drago/Reuters) Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) criticized Joe Biden’s cabinet picks on Tuesday as “corporatists and war enthusiasts.” Biden has nominated a host of Obama-administration veterans to posts in the executive branch. Notable choices include Antony Blinken, who

President-elect Joe Biden announces his national security nominees and appointees at his transition headquarters in Wilmington, Del., November 24, 2020. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) President Trump has signed off on President-elect Joe Biden receiving the classified President’s Daily Brief, or PDBs. A spokesperson for the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told The Hill that the

Democratic Senate candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock speaks during an Election Night event in Atlanta, Ga., November 3, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Reuters) The two cases contrast in important ways. Senator Dianne Feinstein infamously sneered that “the dogma lives loudly in” Amy Coney Barrett during the hearings on the latter’s confirmation to an appeals court, and added, “and

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that Texas and Louisiana may remove state Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood clinics, reversing lower court rulings that prohibited the states from defunding the abortion provider. The ruling came from the entire Fifth Circuit, reversing a previous ruling by a three-judge panel that had forbidden Texas from

Median household income has been on the rise since Trump’s election. Will it outlast his presidency? A single day often appears, in the fullness of time, to represent a moment of transition between two eras. One such day appears to be October 10, 2000, when President Clinton signed the legislation that permanently normalized U.S. trade relations

Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) arrives at the Senate GOP leadership election on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., November 10, 2020. (Erin Scott/Reuters) Two top Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee have asked the Justice Department to declassify notes from an FBI interview of Miles Taylor, who authored the anonymous New York Times op-ed about

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE J oe Biden is putting the band back together. As a Washington Post reporter tweets, the president-elect is “emphatically embracing the foreign policy establishment spurned” by Donald Trump. “Biden foreign policy begins with telling the world: ‘America’s back,’” explains what purports to be a straight-news piece, by another Washington Post writer. Biden,

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) The General Services Administration informed the Biden transition team on Monday evening that the Trump administration is ready to begin the transfer of power. GSA head Emily Murphy wrote in a letter that federal government agencies will now make resources available to the Biden team in preparation for the incoming president’s assumption of

A supporter of President Trump protests the election results in Philadelphia, Penn., November 8, 2020. (Mark Makela/Reuters) A group of Pennsylvania Republicans filed a lawsuit over the weekend to block certification of the state’s election results in an eleventh-hour attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the key battleground state. The emergency petition, filed in

(Wavebreakmedia/Getty Images) The Supreme Court is likely to decide later this week whether it will hear a case brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn against restrictions on worship put in place by New York’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo began his pandemic-response efforts in March with a series of wide-ranging executive orders attempting

French President Emmanuel Macron leaves after paying his respects by the coffin of slain teacher Samuel Paty in the courtyard of the Sorbonne university during a national memorial event in Paris, France, October 21, 2020. (Francois Mori/Pool via Reuters) Macron is pushing France to confront the implications of Islamism for liberal democracy. What are we

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I s President Trump plotting to circumvent the popular election in order to stay in power? I spent the better part of two weeks assuring people that this notion was too inconceivable to worry about. Shows what I know. At this point, there are reasons to worry. Undeniably. The idea would be

President Trump taps his phone screen during a roundtable discussion at the White House in Washington, D.C., June 18, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters) President-elect Joe Biden will receive the @POTUS Twitter account on Inauguration Day, even if President Trump refuses to concede, the social-media platform announced Friday. “Twitter is actively preparing to support the transition of