Will Trump take on the deficit?

Once more, the Congressional Budget Office has warned that federal deficits will continue to rise until current laws are changed. But so far, President Donald Trump shows no signs of making the deficit a priority or of undertaking the hard bipartisan work that will be required to make the necessary changes.

Moral Compass Exceptional in U.S.

Donald Trump is president in part because many Americans disliked his predecessor's habit of refusing to recognize the exceptional nature of our government and the American people. Too often, former President Barack Obama cited our nation's challenges - and there are many - in equating us with other, much more deeply flawed countries.

Proposed casino legislation dictates more bankruptcy, education losses for Illinois

In Illinois, Lincoln's essential premise of "government of the people, by the people and for the people" has been corrupted into "government of the casinos, by the casinos, and for the casinos"-as exemplified by the new casino legislation in Senate Bill 7. In 2015, U.S. Congressional hearings highlighted that much of the Illinois bankruptcy was precipitated by $35 billion to $100 billion in giveaways since 1990 to gambling interests - diverting funds particularly away from essential education funding. For example, the original 10 Illinois casino licenses worth $5 billion were given away for only $25,000 each to political insiders, including one insider who thereafter went to prison.

Count Gorsuch: Kathleen Parker

Judge Neil Gorsuch speaks as his wife Louise and President Donald Trump stand with him on stage in East Room of the White House in Washington after the president announced Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court. People for the American Way claims he's an ideologue "far outside of the judicial mainstream who has a record of warping the law to serve the powerful over the interests and constitutional rights of ordinary Americans."

The people must trump bureaucracy

If he didn't understand it previously, Trump certainly has learned his most dangerous political foes are not Democrats in Congress, but the vast federal bureaucracy. Among the new president's first actions was to order a freeze on hiring in the government, with the exception of the military.

The media botched this story last week – and that’s bad for everyone

White House press secretary Sean Spicer holds up paperwork highlighting and comparing language about the National Security Council from the Trump administration and previous administrations, at the White House on Jan. 30. The Trump administration has launched a raft of ill-considered, reckless and wrongheaded foreign policy initiatives in its first two weeks, from banning entry by citizens of a country that is its partner in war to needlessly alienating the leaders of two of the closest U.S. allies . One thing Trump has decidedly not done, however, is downgrade the participation of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the deliberations of the National Security Council.