The renewed push to ban individual stock trading by members of Congress reflects more than a cyclical ethics debate or a momentary populist impulse. It signals a deeper institutional reckoning over whether public office can continue to coexist with private financial maneuvering in markets lawmakers directly influence. For years, Congress has relied on disclosure rules,…
America Doesn’t Need More Drama; It Needs Adults in the Room
If there’s a unifying theme in Washington lately, it’s this: everyone wants accountability, just not for themselves. Whether it’s a shaky ethics probe, a cell-phone-records carve-out, a D.C. National Guard face-off, or the Justice Department playing investigator of the investigators, the common thread is that too many leaders seem allergic to the hard work of…
Truth, Justice, and the Fine Art of Not Looking the Other Way
Washington suddenly seems to be rediscovering the concepts of truth, justice, and responsibility. And honestly? It’s about time. For a town that couldn’t find its own moral compass with a GPS, a map, and three tour guides, we’ll take the progress where we can get it. President Trump’s administration has been busy trying to broker…
Keep the Filibuster and Beat the Shutdown the Right Way
President Trump is right about one thing: Washington’s broken. The endless gridlock, the political posturing, and now another government shutdown. It’s enough to make any sensible American want to throw the rulebook out the window. But there’s one rule we can’t afford to toss: the Senate filibuster. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, it slows things down.…
The Grijalva Mess Is a Bad Look for Washington
The State of Arizona has done something extraordinary, and not in a good way. It has sued the United States House of Representatives. The reason? Because the House, under Speaker Mike Johnson, still hasn’t sworn in Adelita Grijalva, the Democrat who won September’s special election to fill the late Raúl Grijalva’s seat. Her election is…
Senate Republicans, the Nuclear Option & What’s at Stake
So, here’s the scene in Washington: President Trump has a lineup of nominees—ambassadors, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, the whole alphabet soup of federal posts—cooling their heels in political purgatory. Many of them had already survived the gauntlet of committee hearings, some even with bipartisan nods of approval. You’d think that would earn them a reasonably quick…
One Big Beautiful Bill or One Big Mess?
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has officially crossed the legislative finish line, signed into law yesterday by President Trump in what is already being called one of the most sweeping policy packages in modern American history. Clocking in at nearly 2,000 pages and covering everything from border security and energy independence to student…
The Independent Christian Conservative 