Michael McKenna

Gimmicks won’t shrink the federal government

The Congressional Budget Office projected in August that the tariffs imposed by the administration would raise nearly $4 trillion over 10 years.

August 31, 2025

Buchanan deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom

A few days ago, Rep. Riley Moore sent a letter to President Trump suggesting that now would be an optimal moment to give the presidential Medal of Freedom to Patrick Buchanan.

August 27, 2025

Why silence beats strong opinions in today’s political circus

At least officially, the presidential election of 2020 had the highest rate of turnout (of voting-age population) since the 1968 presidential election.

August 24, 2025

Little of DOGE’s work likely to survive

The DOGE guys seemed well-meaning, but hardly anything they did will survive.

August 20, 2025

Finding hope in the middle of life’s journey

In the face of loss, the great poet William Wordsworth encouraged us to reconcile the nostalgia and sadness with our primal impulse to keep going.

August 17, 2025

Silicon Valley’s China chip problem undermines America’s AI dominance strategy

Despite saying in April that it would restrict the sales of Nvidia's advanced H20 chips to China, Team Trump has decided to grant export licenses that allow Nvidia and AMD to sell those chips to China.

August 13, 2025

Trump’s TikTok delays undermine his China hawks while Intel controversy grows

Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter last week to the chairman of the board at Intel asking questions about the chipmaker's new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan and Mr. Tan's ties to Chinese companies.

August 10, 2025

Gerrymandering is destructive no matter who does it

A few weeks ago, Team Trump decided that reopening the redistricting of House districts in Texas would be a good idea, ostensibly because it would provide an extra five GOP votes in the House.

August 6, 2025

E-Verify, a choke point for stopping illegal immigrant employment in America

President Trump promised during his campaign that, if elected, he would finish the job he had started in the first term -- namely, he would fix America's broken immigration system.

August 3, 2025

How many dead are enough in Gaza?

A few days back, this column addressed the attack by Israeli soldiers on Holy Family, the only Roman Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis killed three people and wounded several others.

July 30, 2025

American energy is essential to American dominance

I recently wrote a column arguing that increased American production of oil and gas was part of the reason we were able to attack Iran with impunity a few weeks ago.

July 27, 2025

Catholic churches under siege around the world

About a week ago, for reasons known only to them, Israeli forces attacked Holy Family, the only Roman Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip.

July 23, 2025

Trump’s quiet revolution changed everything, now it must survive its own zealots

In the wake of the first victories of the French Revolution, Maximilien Robespierre decided that the threats to the revolution were too numerous and too serious to allow for due process.

July 20, 2025

Republicans must prepare for a post-Trump future now

Now that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has become law, the Republican Party is faced with a few uncomfortable facts.

July 16, 2025

The Justice Department’s Orwellian about-face on Epstein

Last week, Team Trump decided and announced, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, that Jeffrey Epstein didn't engage in blackmail, didn't have a customer list and died by suicide.

July 13, 2025

Why is Trump’s energy supremacy important?

In 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed a complete oil embargo against the United States in direct response to America's support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War.

July 9, 2025

Trade deals, tariffs, and tall tales: Trump’s negotiating circus continues

One of the few entertaining elements of living and working in Washington is that every once in a while, someone says something so aggressively ridiculous and nonsensical that it cannot be ignored.

July 6, 2025

They died for freedom, not federal control: The forgotten price of American independence

As we careen toward the final July 4 before the quarter-millennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence, we should think about the real cost of the Revolution paid by those who fought it.

July 2, 2025

Mamdani is a gift to Trump and the Republican Party

Zohran Mamdani won the New York City Democratic primary for mayor, immediately becoming the favorite to win the general mayoral election -- and an object of both adulation and concern.

June 29, 2025

Destruction won’t kill ideology: Why bombing Iran won’t stop its nuclear ambitions

A lot of people are confidently predicting that President Trump has successfully threaded the needle between corroding Iran's ability to build and launch nuclear weapons and destabilizing the regime in Tehran.

June 25, 2025