By Rebecca Grant: Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson is a breath of fresh air, and he’s scored major wins on everything from drug prices to “Made in the USA” factory standards.  Now it’s time for the FTC to take an important step related to national defense.  The FTC is reviewing public comment on a way to unwind the red tape left over from a 2018 merger by setting aside an unusual, outdated 2018 consent order imposed on the manufacturing [ Read More…]

Amid regular reports in conservative media about the exodus of jobs and people from California, the state’s affordability challenges, and its widespread homelessness, it might be tempting to write off California or regard its future as bleak. But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there is nothing wrong with California that what is right with California cannot fix. For starters, California epitomizes how free market capitalism has led to abundant prosperity and opportunity. This is especially true in the tech sector and [ Read More…]

The slides for this speech are also available as a PDF at the link here. Many thanks to Tony Hernandez, James Schenck and Jim Hayes for inviting Melissa and me back for your always excellent conference. This is the first DCUC forum in Asia, and we are pleased to be a part of it.  If you don’t mind I would like to start with a few housekeeping items. This 2023 Congressional Research Service study on American military bases in the [ Read More…]

Trump calls the blockade ‘unbelievably effective’ as Marines fast-rope onto ships and seize Iranian oil tankers On Tuesday, U.S. Marines from USS Tripoli once again fast-roped from their MH-60 Seahawk helicopters onto the deck of a suspicious container ship named Blue Star III heading for Iran. That makes a total of 39 vessels turned back, boarded or seized since April 13. Read here and below. “The blockade has been unbelievably effective,” President Donald Trump said on Sunday. Economic pressure is the main [ Read More…]

Speech was meant to celebrate America’s 250th birthday but arrived at time of tension King Charles III delivered the speech of his life before Congress on Tuesday.  Digging deep into his family history, his Christian faith, and his hopes for the ties between America and Britain, the speech by King Charles was originally scheduled to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.  It might end up saving the world’s most consequential alliance. Read here and below. Great Britain was once indisputably America’s number [ Read More…]

By Paul Steidler: This Wednesday evening, April 29, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will hold a controversial forum, “The Existential Threat of AI.” As an added draw to the doom and gloom, he has recruited two AI experts affiliated with China’s government, incurred the wrath of U.S. Treasury Scott Bessent, and received much other attention for the event. The forum, though, will do nothing for his Vermont constituents, who are saddled with some of the country’s highest electricity bills and hardly [ Read More…]

The Federal Communications Commission is ready to move satellite internet broadband into the modern era.  “We’re all gas, no brakes, when it comes to the space economy,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in an April 14 interview on CNBC.  Now the FCC is taking an important step: updating rules for how communications satellites share the electromagnetic spectrum allocated.  Spectrum deconfliction is based on a measure called Equivalent Power Flux Density (EPFD).  The current EPFD rule was written in 1997 and took effect [ Read More…]

As U.S. Navy forces seized an illicit Iranian oil tanker in the Indian Ocean, President Donald J. Trump authorized the U.S. Navy to “shoot to kill” if Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps navy fast boats try to lay mines or otherwise disrupt operations in the Strait of Hormuz.  “I’m hereby ordering that activity to continue but at a tripled-up level,” Trump posted Apr. 23.  The next morning, FOX News anchor Ashley Strohmier led off the discussion on Iran and China.  Highlights [ Read More…]

By Paul Steidler: Ever wonder where those daily and more frequent scam calls originate from? Increasingly, the answer is a foreign-based, sophisticated, industrialized facility where victims of human trafficking use sophisticated technology in well-organized campaigns to fleece America’s elderly and others. The Wall Street Journal documented these trends in an April 21 front-page story, “How Cybercrime Became a Leading Industry in ‘Scambodia’.” Cambodia is one of several countries with rampant industrialized scam operations. The story said, “U.S. authorities estimated annual [ Read More…]

Why should you read another book about Abraham Lincoln? Because you have never seen him as Matthew Pinsker reveals him in his new, deeply researched, provocative Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln. “At times a cold-blooded hatchet man” is how Pinsker describes our 16th President, who is so often portrayed as a lonely, politically naive man, frustrated and hobbled by his cabinet members and his generals. This is a deep dive into the back story of the man [ Read More…]