An opinionated 16-year-old girl has created a national debate in France over the line between freedom of speech and incitement against a religion. Her statements about Islam on social media prompted outrage, death threats, and eventually forced her to move schools.  It all started with an Instagram livestream on January 18th in which the girl,

President Donald Trump’s new budget proposal is nothing but red meat for his Republican base. The $4.8T spending plan is chock full of buzz words aimed at soothing the worries of budget hawks including “eliminating duplicative programs” and “eliminating programs with no proper federal role.” It also contains lofty assurances of changes to food stamps,

Alec Baldwin portrays President Trump on SNL. We’ve all seen him do it. His latest role is that of a political consultant for the campaign of a Democrat challenger in Senator Cornyn’s bid for re-election. Because there is nothing Texans like better than an actor from New York telling them who they should vote for

As we’ve previously discussed here, the violent crime and gang violence situation in Baltimore Maryland hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down since the new year began. Charm City recorded an average of more than one murder per day through the month of January. Admirably, community leaders and the local churches once again teamed up

With billionaire presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg suddenly showing up at 15% in a new national poll, it’s time for pundits to start breaking out the oppo research folders. And one person showed up immediately with a doozy. It’s reportedly the audio of a speech that he gave fairly recently (in 2015) at the Aspen Institute.

The spotlight was placed on a piece of little-known legislation in recent weeks having to do with how an employee or student wears his or her hair. The CROWN Act uses the acronym for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair. So far, the issue has been a focus due to hairstyles made

This weekend marked the return of the retooled XFL, the brainchild of professional wrestling bigwig Vince McMahon. Since the last, short-lived experiment in football league alternatives to the NFL (the AAF) didn’t even finish its first season, many fans are probably hoping this one does a bit better. Personally, I was particularly enthused to see

If you’re a conservative-leaning independent voter in New Hampshire, you may have gotten an unusual phone call this weekend. Having your phone ringing off the hook in the Granite State in February is nothing new, obviously. (Some people have probably just shut their phones off entirely by now.) But there’s at least some novelty in

Something rather remarkable happened in New York City on Friday, though it largely flew under the media radar. Ever since New York’s new bail reform and criminal justice reform laws went into effect at the beginning of the year, crime rates have been rising steadily in all but two categories of major crimes. (Murder and

A leftover from yesterday. We all have our brain-freeze moments, and she’s not terribly bright to begin with, but how does an economics major cough up “Milton Keenes” when referring to Keynes (pronounced “canes”)? It’s like a diehard baseball fan praising legendary Yankees slugger “Baby Roth.” Or “Babe Gehrig,” maybe, since she’s obviously thinking of

It’s Oscars time again. This year the biggest Hollywood awards ceremony has successfully sold out the advertising inventory, thanks to a lack of controversy leading up to the big night. The usual complaints of the nominees being too white and male is present this year but at least there isn’t a scandal over the choice

I came across this on Twitter today and at first suspected it was satire but so far as I can tell it’s not. An Australian academic named Patricia MacCormack has  a new book out titled, “The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene.” The idea is that the earth would be better off

Via the Daily Wire, I’ve seen some weird things during the Trump era and expect to see many more but “Chris Matthews delivers a red scare on MSNBC after a Democratic debate” is out of left field even by the new standards. It’d be like a Fox News primetime host attacking the GOP’s leadership as

A few hours after Juan Guaido met with President Trump at the White House this week, Venezuela’s intelligence service arrested five American citizens (and one permanent resident) who were oil executives with CITGO. The executives have been detained in the country for two years: The “CITGO 6” — Tomeu Vadell, Gustavo Cardenas, Jorge Toledo, Alirio

No one’s watching tonight to see an argument about policy. Those differences, minor as they are between candidates, have already been hashed and rehashed in the umpteen previous debates. The only reason to watch is drama. We might get some drama. The reason, of course, is that no fewer than three credible big-name candidates are

I’m gonna be charitable and assume that Gaetz doesn’t really support this exceedingly stupid idea. It’s something he’s saying to impress Trump, like 90 percent of the things of he says. Watch, then read on. Matt Gaetz wants Mitt Romney expelled from the Republican Party: “I don’t know what the difference is between Mitt Romney

Who could have guessed that the most enjoyable news story of the decade would materialize within the first five weeks of 2020? Each new iteration of incompetence feels like a thick new patch of grass to run barefoot through. I frolic in their shame. And in the joy of knowing that we as a people

The fall-out from this year’s State of the Union address continues. Divisions are deep and entrenched, to understate the atmosphere on Capitol Hill. Traditions and decorum are long gone. One incident from Tuesday night’s event that has not made many headlines is that one of Speaker Pelosi’s guests was escorted out of the room because

Today on The Ed Morrissey Show (4 pm ET), we have another great lineup for the news of the day! The show will be streamed on Hot Air’s Facebook page and embedded here and on the show page for those who are not on Facebook. Join us as we welcome: Duane “Generalissimo” Patterson won’t be able

The State of the Union address delivered by President Trump Tuesday night was like no other I’ve seen. Most of all, the messages it delivered were effective. The Democrats in attendance resorted to behavior indicating they now realize the future may not be so bright for them on Election Night 2020. Speaker Pelosi led them

Click over to Axios and read the whole thing, as it runs only a few sentences. I’m trying to imagine how I’d react to it if I were a Republican senator intent on voting to acquit. I feel like I wouldn’t have reacted … great. Not great. Key bits: “I take an oath before God

With the Iowa caucus results so far showing Joe Biden solidly in fourth place, it’s really no surprise that his campaign wanted to cast some shade on the process. And yesterday Kate Bedingfield, the Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director for the Biden campaign, went on CNN and said, “We have real concerns about the

“The best is yet to come,” Donald Trump had just said, when Nancy Pelosi provided it to him. Even before Trump turned to walk off the stage, the House Speaker made a show of tearing up his speech while the cameras were still pointed at the dais: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripped up

James Carville is sounding the same alarm that a lot of Democrats have been sounding over the past month, but he’s doing it at full volume on national television. Appearing on MSNBC, Carville said things were not going well and wondered aloud why Tom Perez was still in charge of the DNC. “The polling averages

It appears, at least at times, as if the editorial board at the Washington Post has finally given up on the dream that some sort of Groundhog Day miracle is on the way and two-thirds of the Senate will somehow vote to expel President Trump from office. But that doesn’t mean that they’re going to

A Montana state legislator opened a can of worms with a remark he made on Friday during a gathering of state Republican party members in Helena. Then he doubled down on it Saturday to a reporter. The gathering was a standard political one meant to kick off the election season and offer training for party

I’m posting in the other thread but here’s a handy dandy collection of live results updated moment to moment by Decision Desk HQ. Three different numbers! First: Here are the results from the “final alignment” thus far. (Read the other post if you don’t know what that term means.) Second: The results from the “first

What is the theoretical limit to how dumb oppressive government regulations can become? We’re probably closing in on that number in the state of New York now that 2020 has begun. As of the beginning of the year, you now need a permit to stare up at the night sky in a number of state

Ed: After two straight 2-0 weeks, it falls to me to write the final NFL open thread post of the season. With my postseason record at 6-4 and only this game left, I’ve wrapped up the playoff crown, after Jazz beat me for the regular-season title. It’s been an unusual season, with not just one but two

It was St. George Tucker who issued the first warning about the threat of a powerful executive. “The limitations which the constitution has provided to the powers of the president, seem not to be sufficient to restrain this department within its proper bounds, or to preserve it from acquiring and exerting more than a due