Category: The Hill
How much money will the $1.8B Powerball winner actually bring home?
The headline jackpot rarely reflects what a lottery winner ultimately keeps.
Grenell slams musician for canceling on Kennedy Center after Trump name add
Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell on Friday sent a letter to jazz drummer Chuck Redd denouncing his decision to cancel a planned show at the venue after President Trump’s name was added to the building. “Your dismal ticket sales and lack of donor support, combined with your last-minute cancellation has cost us considerably. This is…
If voters don’t feel relief, the economy isn’t fixed
The concerns of many Americans about their economic well-being may be at the highest level since the Great Depression. Politico recently reported that 46% of Americans say their cost of living is the worst that they can remember, including over one-third of Trump voters. Nothing better exemplifies this than the many “30-somethings” who are unable to purchase a home.
Financial anxieties center around affordability, which is the proxy for evaluating whether the economy is meeting the public’s needs. Affordability is the degree to which households can responsibly pay for essential goods and services.
In the end, the nation’s affordability dilemma is about the confidence people have in the country’s economic future.
Gregg Ip, an economic commentator for the Wall Street Journal, says that affordability cannot be measured solely by economic data, but must also account for perceptions of financial security.
President Trump opined that concerns about affordability are a “hoax” created by Democrats for political purposes. Most Americans would disagree. While the runaway inflation of the Biden presidency has moderated, widespread concerns about affordability persist. According to a recent Politico poll, nearly half of the nation found the cost of their groceries, health care, utilities, and housing to be unaffordable. About half of the respondents said food costs are difficult to manage, and more than a quarter skipped medical appointments because of the cost.
In the 2026 midterm elections, it will be incumbent upon Republicans and Democrats to make an affordability agenda “job one.” These agendas should be the yardstick voters use to cast their vote for members of Congress and state officials.
The U.S. affordability crisis is multidimensional, requiring a dual-track strategy that combines structural reforms with immediate and affordable relief for the most vulnerable citizens. Each party’s affordability agenda should demonstrate when households will realize cost-of-living relief, avoid another round of inflation, provide market incentives for innovation, supply expansion and productivity gains, demonstrate distributional fairness, and stress choice over federal mandates.
Restoring an affordable economy will require that failed federal policies be reversed and the president and Congress focus on fixing long-term root causes.
To make goods and services more affordable, public policies should aim at increasing private-sector housing construction, modernizing domestic energy regulations, expanding production, encouraging competition in the health care insurance market, avoiding deficit spending that can rekindle inflation, rolling back regulations that increase consumer and business expenses, and devolving social and educational programs to the states to tailor taxpayer-friendly solutions to local challenges.
The nation’s affordability dilemma is not only about the price of goods and services. It concerns the relationship between costs, income, and the perception of financial security. In the end, it is about the confidence people have in the country’s economic future.
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Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images
When households and businesses feel “squeezed,” they lose faith that public or private institutions are protecting their interests. A September 2025 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that just 17% of Americans trusted the federal government to do the “right thing” most of the time. Similarly, the July 2025 Gallup survey reported that less than 30% of Americans had confidence in U.S. institutions.
The major impediments to addressing the high cost of living are deep ideological divides over causes and solutions. Progressives emphasize government mandates and regulations, subsidies, and deficit spending. Conservatives stress fiscal restraint and market-driven solutions. Adopting common-sense economic reforms requires compromise and the rejection of left and right extremism driven by grievances and rage.
There is no more important issue for voters than which candidates and parties will boldly tackle the affordability challenge. Success will be influenced by policies that encourage business investment and innovation and workers keeping more of their income.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
Herod promised moderation — and then he slaughtered the innocent
Everyone loves the three wise men at Christmas. Gold, frankincense, myrrh, the star, the long journey — these are the images we place on mantles and church bulletins. But almost no one pauses to consider the politics happening behind the scenes. Matthew’s Gospel is not merely a nativity story; it is a collision of kingdoms. At the center of that collision is a tyrant who sounds far more familiar to modern ears than we might like to admit.
Herod is remembered for one thing: He murdered infants. That is the brutal fact we cannot ignore. But before he unsheathed the sword, Herod did something else — something more subtle, more political, and more recognizable.
Just as Herod spoke the language of worship to mask his intentions, the Democrats speak the language of ‘common sense’ to mask theirs.
He promised moderation. He promised cooperation. He promised unity.
And he lied.
“Go and search carefully for the Child,” Herod told the wise men, “and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.” It was a trap. A manipulative plea for compromise. A tyrant asking the righteous to meet him halfway.
Herod never intended to worship Christ. He planned to kill Him. And that is where the story begins to sound painfully modern.
False moderation
Herod’s modern-day heirs still use the same script. Every election season brings a fresh wave of polished slogans: “Commonsense reproductive health care.” “Protecting basic rights.” “Defending freedom.” “Stopping extremism.”
The tone is moderate. The goal is not.
These same Democratic voices champion abortion through all nine months, fund the industry, defend it in court, and celebrate each victory that preserves the so-called right to end a child’s life. Behind the rhetoric of calm reason lies a fixed reality: Every restriction — no matter how small — is treated as an existential threat.
President Donald Trump proved this. He rejected national restrictions, announced he would not sign a bill banning abortion, and embraced the state-by-state approach, even calling a heartbeat bill too restrictive. And the left still branded him a radical intent on a national ban and criminalizing abortion.
The charge did not depend on his position. It depended on leftists’ strategy. If the destruction of the innocent is nonnegotiable for them, then every effort to restrain it is labeled “extremism.” Herod does not distinguish between cautious men and bold ones.
The illusion of safety
Many have assumed that careful posture protects influence. The evidence says otherwise. No matter how tempered the proposal, no matter how limited the step, no matter how deliberately “reasonable” the tone, the same accusations appear: “Outlawing women.” “Criminalizing health care.” “Taking away rights.” “Extreme.”
The strategy is simple: Anything that restricts the regime’s power is given the same label. If the political cost is identical regardless of the position taken, then the logic of compromise collapses. Because what, precisely, is being purchased?
If moderation brings no peace, if restraint brings no goodwill, if cautious measures earn the same condemnation as courageous ones, then moderation is not a shield. It is simply paying the price for a position you do not hold.
Herod offered cooperation. The wise men showed respect. On the surface, it looked like stability, but when God revealed the truth, the wise men acted decisively: “Being warned in a dream … they departed for their own country another way.”
They did not return to negotiate. They did not report back with updated information. They simply refused to play the tyrant’s game. And that refusal protected the Christ-child. Their greatness was not in their gifts but in their clarity. When a ruler is committed to killing the innocent, cooperation is complicity.
New actors, same script
The modern Democratic regime does not offer moderation. It claims moderation while rejecting every limit placed before it.
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Photo by: Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A heartbeat bill? Extreme. An ultrasound requirement? Extreme. Parental notification? Extreme. A 20-week ban? Extreme. Nothing is ever reasonable unless it preserves abortion without limits.
Just as Herod spoke the language of worship to mask his intentions, the Democrats speak the language of “common sense” to mask theirs. The tone is polished, but the aim is unchanged: keep the machinery of death running while demanding that others surrender the moral clarity that might restrain it. Herod promised a partnership he never meant to honor. The Democrats promise moderation they never intend to practice.
The question that returns every year
We have no shortage of latter-day Herods. They still promise moderation, still demand cooperation. They still insist that if only convictions are tempered, peace will come.
But Christmas testifies otherwise. Herod was never going to worship Christ.
The Democrats who champion abortion are never going to tolerate restrictions. The accusations will fall on anyone who lifts a finger for the unborn, no matter how small the effort may be. If the cost is the same either way, then only one path honors God, protects life, and is politically wise: Let us refuse the tyrants by avoiding the negotiation altogether.
If the weight of truly treating abortion as murder is inevitable, then let us play the wise man and embrace our convictions.
2 hospitalized after ICE officers shoot driver during operation in Maryland
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on Wednesday shot a migrant who drove a van toward them while fleeing an immigration enforcement operation, resulting in a crash that injured his passenger, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS said in a statement that ICE officers were conducting a targeted operation in…
US launches strike against ISIS in Nigeria
The United States on Thursday launched strikes against ISIS in Nigeria, President Trump announced, citing the targeting of Christians in the region. “Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent…
Bolsonaro endorses son’s presidential election bid
Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday endorsed his son Flavio Bolsonaro for the 2026 presidential election from a hospital bed in Brasilia after undergoing treatment for a hernia. “With the commitment of not allowing the popular will to be silenced, I make the decision to nominate Flavio Bolsonaro as a pre-candidate for the presidency…
