President Trump announced what he calls the biggest oil deal in history: an agreement that could give the United States a controlling interest in the output from 17 Venezuelan oil fields containing a reported 65 billion barrels. The arrangement could reshape American energy security, revive Venezuela’s battered petroleum industry, and shift influence in the Western…
Ghislaine Maxwell’s Latest Challenge: Finality, Fairness, and the Epstein Files
The Jeffrey Epstein saga has produced an almost endless supply of sealed files, suspicious timing, institutional embarrassment, political opportunism, and questions that refuse to die. This week, however, a federal judge answered one question quite firmly: Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction is staying put. U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected Maxwell’s attempt to overturn her five…
The $103,265 H-1B Fee Proposal and the Future of Skilled Immigration
Washington has discovered a way to make immigration paperwork cost more than some houses. As The Hill reports, the Department of Homeland Security formally published a proposed rule yesterday that would add a $103,265 fee to every cap-subject H-1B petition, including petitions under the advanced-degree exemption. The charge would come on top of the filing…
The U.S.-Canada Tariff Dispute and Its Economic Stakes
For two countries that share the world’s longest international border, the United States and Canada are doing a remarkable impression of neighbors arguing over whose tree dropped leaves into whose yard. Unfortunately, this disagreement involves 50 percent tariffs, billions of dollars in trade, and enough economic collateral damage to make an ordinary property-line dispute look…
Hoekstra & the Strains in U.S.–Canada Relations
The diplomatic temperature between the United States and Canada was already running warm before a growing number of Canadians decided that Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador in Ottawa, should be shown the door. An official House of Commons petition, opened July 21 and sponsored by Green Party MP Elizabeth May, has collected more than 105,000…
Reconsidering America’s Childhood Vaccine Recommendations
Childhood vaccines have somehow become one more subject that Americans are expected to discuss while wearing political jerseys. Question the government too aggressively, and one side calls you an anti-science crank. Defend established vaccines too confidently, and the other side assumes you receive handwritten Christmas cards from pharmaceutical executives. Such is the calm, reasonable state…
Visa Revocations and the Limits of American Entry
The Trump administration announced that the State Department has revoked more than 175,000 visas since President Trump returned to office, marking a significant expansion of immigration enforcement. According to the department, the affected foreign nationals violated visa conditions, committed crimes, defrauded Americans, abused the immigration system, called for violence against Americans, or threatened national security.…
Mail-In Voting, Executive Power, and the Supreme Court
Another election year, another courtroom battle over voting rules. At this point, constitutional lawyers might as well keep overnight bags packed beside their desks. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to suspend lower-court rulings blocking portions of the President’s executive order on citizenship verification and mail-in voting. The request would allow the administration…
Trump’s New Canada Tariffs and the Debate Over Fair Trade
The latest chapter in the increasingly tense U.S.-Canada relationship involves trade barriers, dairy quotas, provincial liquor bans, automobile policy, and, hovering strangely in the background, wildfire smoke. President Trump has signed three proclamations imposing additional 50 percent tariffs on a range of Canadian imports beginning August 19. The duties will affect nearly $20 billion in…
The Air Force One Leak Investigation and the Boundaries of Press Freedom
The Justice Department’s attempt to identify confidential sources behind The New York Times’ reporting on the Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet has created a serious clash between two legitimate public interests: protecting national-security information and preserving a free press capable of investigating the government. The Hill reported that the DOJ sought communications records connected to…
The Independent Christian Conservative 