Chad Bianco couldn't fly to Mar-a-Lago, wreathe President Donald Trump in honeyed words, bestow the Riverside County Peace Prize upon him and hand-feed him his favorite dish — a Big Mac? — from a platter of 24-karat gold.

Security, logistics and all of that.

So the Republican candidate for California governor did the next best thing: He ...Read more

If a federal bureaucracy falls in the middle of Washington, D.C., and no one notices, did it really matter?

Just more than a year ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order closing the Department of Education. Officially shuttering the agency would require an act of Congress. But Trump directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to ...Read more

It was reported last week that the Iranian missile inventory has been depleted from about 5,000 to a thousand or so, and that the U.S. and its allies are now firing one or two Patriots at each incoming airborne threat, in place of the clusters unleashed at the start. In other words, both sides are experiencing munitions shortages.

But my longer...Read more

The state of American democracy took another dark turn under the Trump administration this month. The Federal Communications Commission effectively rubber-stamped Texas-based Nexstar Media Group Inc.’s merger with Tegna Inc., creating a broadcast behemoth capable of reaching four in five American television households.

The $6.2 billion deal ...Read more

Earlier this month, as I waited to pick up a prescription at my local CVS, I watched a man leave without his elderly father’s medication. The pharmacist had tried several tricks to lower the cost. It wasn’t enough. When the man heard the bottom line, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and, after a long, awkward silence, walked away.

That�...Read more

With the world’s largest sporting event, the World Cup, slated to begin in June, the United States should call a truce in the campaign of terror being waged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies against immigrants and others.

Major sporting events have long relied on the so-called “Olympic Truce,” which dates ...Read more

Washington — a city built from scratch to be the nation’s capital — has always been a battleground for a so-called “American architecture.” From the city’s creation in the 1790s, grandiose classical intentions were a distinct part of it. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, the first and third presidents, respectively, were active...Read more

With the Iran war threatening supplies of critical, energy-intensive materials, one might assume the U.S. government was prepared for this risk and has been working hard to soften the blow. In the case of aluminum, that assumption would be incorrect. Instead, Washington is making things worse.

The United States has spent much of the past decade...Read more

Frustrated legislators tucked an unusual provision into the recently passed $839 billion defense appropriations bill, demanding answers from the Pentagon on its proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense project. Defense officials were given until early April to detail planned expenditures over the next two years and must report annually ...Read more

We have a saying here at Bloomberg, and it’s one we brought with us to New York City Hall: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” The federal government is now in danger of proving just how much truth those words hold.

For more than a century, Republicans and Democrats have agreed on the need for objective data to inform ...Read more

Singapore-based Crypto.com said recently that it was cutting 12% of its workforce, the latest company among a growing cohort from Atlassian Corp. to Block Inc. to cite artificial intelligence adoption for job losses.

But what’s lacking in these pronouncements is the evidence of how, exactly, AI is replacing workers. Comprehensive data on ...Read more

If during his last days American biologist Paul Ehrlich had followed events in Singapore, he would have heard something remarkable. Fertility fell to a record low last year, confounding efforts to shore it up. Politicians described the development as an existential challenge.

Ehrlich, who saw population control as vital to humanity’s ...Read more

In the summer of 1868, the 14th Amendment was ratified, granting birthright citizenship to “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.”

Crafted in the aftermath of the Civil War, the landmark legislation was aimed at providing citizenship to formerly enslaved people. The amendment directly undid the ruling of the 1857 U.S. ...Read more

KINMEN, Taiwan — From this tiny outer island of Taiwan, which lies less than two miles from the Chinese mainland, one can view the high-rise towers of the Chinese port city of Xiamen.

Looking out over an extensive beach and through the mist at China, I realize Xiamen could probably be reached from where I stand by a good swimmer. From this ...Read more

It’s too early to say whether two major special-election upsets — the narrow defeat of a highly-favored Republican in a Tampa Bay based Senate seat, and a Democrat’s victory in a South Palm Beach County House district — are anything more than a continuation of the fact that Democrats tend to do better in special elections.

But these two...Read more

Once upon a time in California, I went to the Orange County fairgrounds to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger give the signal for a wrecking ball to drop onto a vehicle.

The audience went wild, and Schwarzenegger went on to become governor and deliver on his promise to roll back a car tax increase, thereby blowing a $4 billion hole in the state budget...Read more

Voter fraud conspiracies are like methamphetamine running through MAGA veins, stirring up equal parts passion and paranoia.

President Donald Trump, of course, is the king pusher of this particular addiction, pathologically certain he won the 2020 presidential election (he did not). In his second term, and in advance of the November election, ...Read more

It’s almost disappointing to see backers of Michigan’s Millionaires Tax fail in their bid to get the measure on the November ballot.

It would have been good to have the debate about the wisdom of this progressive eat-the-rich dream, and then finally put it to rest at the ballot box.

Even better would have been seeing the advertising ...Read more