This week, Politico’s Florida correspondent Gary Fineout reported a “rumbling” that Governor Ron DeSantis “isn’t ready to run for president and may wait things out,” but in all likelihood, remains “on the path to running for president.”  DeSantis should heed the rumblings.  The second-term Republican released his book, The Courage to Be Free, on February 28 and embarked on a national book tour with the obvious intent to stir public interest in a presidential bid. The rollout appeared successful, with plenty of news coverage and reports of gangbuster first-week sales. But everything ..read more

In February 1939, 22,000 Americans gathered in Madison Square Garden for a rally supporting Nazi Germany and American fascism. Of course, those words were not emblazoned on the promotional fliers. The German-American Bund billed the event as a “Pro-American rally” and “Mass Demonstration for the True Americanism,” coinciding with George Washington’s birthday. Yet what participants got was a giant portrait of America’s first president flanked by Nazi swastikas, chants of “Heil Hitler,” and a flood of anti-Semitic remarks. When a Jewish protester rushed the stage, he was beaten by Bund members ..read more

American trade and economic policy have undergone a significant shift since 2016. While the George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations pursued and maintained free-trade agreements that were similar in nature, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’s been different since Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017 and Joe Biden in 2021. But while both Trump and Biden have veered away from an older free-trade model, the similarities largely end there. Where the Trump administration tended to act unilaterally and deplo ..read more

If you want to know what happens after a private equity firm plunders one of its hospital acquisitions, visit Delaware County in southeast Pennsylvania. Earlier this month, Crozer Health laid off 215 workers, or 4 percent of the workforce, at its four hospitals in the suburban Philadelphia county amid reports it is late paying its bills, including rent on its hospitals.   Crozer’s owner is a privately held company, Prospect Medical Holdings, headquartered in Los Angeles. Prospect Medical’s purchase of Crozer in 2016 was financed by Leonard Green & Partners, which is an L.A.-base ..read more

He’s dead and yet still everywhere. With the many mosques, schools, and even sports complexes that bear his name, it is impossible in Oman to escape Sultan Qaboos bin Said, who died in 2020 after ruling for 50 years.  When I visited in December, it was eerie to feel as if Qaboos was still walking among us. He remains everywhere: his face is in people’s homes, his name on their lips. There is still genuine admiration for him because, unlike the many strongmen whose rule produced disaster, Qaboos genuinely served Oman, transforming his country from a wasted empire—that once held Zanzibar ..read more

“People are voting with their feet,” Governor Ron DeSantis said in Iowa this month, boasting about Florida’s fastest-in-the-nation population growth. “What we’ve seen is a great American exodus from states governed by leftist politicians imposing leftist ideology and causing their societies to decay.” And he assured the audience during a stop on his book tour that Florida’s population boom wasn’t just New York retirees looking for sunshine in Boca Raton. “That happened for sure, but when you have people uprooting from California to come 3,000 miles,” he argued, “that is a result of leadership ..read more

When the history of “woke” attitudes, sentiments, and policies is written, two events of different kinds and magnitude will be remembered. Both took place in the San Francisco Bay Area in the past week. The first and by far the most important is the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which did not collapse from wokeness no matter what Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, and The Wall Street Journal said.  We don’t know precisely what caused this financial institution to go from being the hot bank for the tech set to a puddle of assets that, at the time of this writing, no one wants to buy. Was the ..read more

During a March 9 House Intelligence Committee hearing, Representative Darin LaHood dropped a bombshell: the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted multiple unlawful searches of his name as part of the controversial program “Section 702.”   Should the FBI’s targeting a House member prompt Congress to kill Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act? This program is, after all, supposed to be about preventing attacks on Americans from international terrorist networks and adversarial nations. But despite having his privacy trampled, LaHood wants to keep the program in p ..read more

Recently a federal judge requested a briefing on whether the right to abortion is protected by the Thirteenth Amendment. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has been criticized for asking for the brief. She is simply doing her job, while also placing on the political agenda one of the strongest arguments for abortion rights.  In 2020, abortion opponents blocked the entrance to a reproductive clinic, some chaining themselves together in chairs. They were charged with criminal conspiracy and violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (“FACE”) Act by interfering with ..read more

In 2018, national elections roiled Malaysia and brought what seemed like a landmark change to the Southeast Asian state. The country had been a longtime autocracy, run essentially by the same coalition since it gained independence in 1957. That coalition had used extensive gerrymandering, handouts of state funds, control of most broadcast and print media, and other tactics to ensure its hold on power. Despite a crackdown on opposition politicians and civil society before the 2018 elections and a reelection war chest reportedly amassed through flamboyantly shady deals, Prime Minister Najib tun ..read more