Despite atheists' attempts to keep our national motto ("In God We Trust") from being engraved on the walls of the new 580,000-square-foot Capitol Visitor Center, the inscription was indelibly etched recently in large, bold and deep letters. And the Pledge of Allegiance soon will follow. It's about time that good news came out of Washington. But this shouldn't be shocking news or even a contested... Read more.

In a perfect world, no working American would get sick with the H1N1 virus. Alas, perfection eludes us. In a slightly less perfect world, workers in America who got the flu would not infect friends, colleagues and total strangers, because their bosses would recognize there's a benefit to their businesses and the employees still standing when highly contagious workers are allowed to recover at home... Read more.

Those of us who are not true believers in expanded government are certain of the following: If the 1,990-page House Health Care Bill becomes law, the average American will receive worse health care, American physicians will decline in status and income, American medical innovation will dramatically slow down and pharmaceutical discoveries will decline in number and quality. And, of course, the economy... Read more.

Rush Limbaugh was convicted of racism in a kangaroo court of "objective" media and dropped as a potential owner of the St. Louis Rams football franchise. His accusers claimed he once said slavery "had its merits" and that the assassin of Martin Luther King deserved a "Medal of Honor." The story circulated on the Internet and was eventually picked up by the major media,... Read more.

NEW YORK — A goliath of gray, huge beyond human proportions, the USS New York sits in the Hudson River, here to be commissioned (Nov. 7) in the city that gave it its name. This is a warship — or, more prosaically, an "amphibious transport dock" — with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center in its bow. Judging from its islandlike size, 7.5 tons is the steel equivalent... Read more.

She is an outstanding writer, a great political analyst, a popular blogger and an award-winning journalist. But those are not the best adjectives to describe Yoani Sanchez. Courage is what makes her different. After all, writing, analyzing politics, blogging and practicing journalism are much more difficult where she does it. Freedom of expression is a rare commodity in Havana. Yet Sanchez, 34, insists... Read more.

The world thinks better of the United States, we are told, because Barack Obama is in the White House. Maybe the world is wrong. It's fanciful, of course, to speak of what "the world" thinks about anything. It's safe to say that among Norwegian prize givers and Canadian avant-garde filmmakers, Obama is extremely popular. And certainly among bien pensant Americans, the advent of Obama is viewed... Read more.

Redistributionists — from the old Soviet propaganda machine to Hillary Clinton — made the right pitch, but with the wrong idea in mind. The Soviets and Mao Zedong, as well as Clinton and other modern liberals in this country, have done their best to promote the idea of selfless giving. The USSR touted the "New Soviet Man," and China had its counterpart, people who were happy to... Read more.

PIERRE, S.D. — It's already the front edge of winter in America's Great Plains. Here, where the air is clear and crisp, there is a passion for walking behind a good dog while hunting pheasants, and a good "alibi" for missing a fast-flying bird is an art form. "It was too low for a good shot" or "I didn't want to hit the dog" will get the taleteller extra credit for... Read more.

WASHINGTON — These are vexed times. The country is at war on two fronts. Rogue states are edging toward acquiring strategic nuclear weaponry. We have been through a very serious recession from which we may not emerge into the bright morn of economic health for years. The dollar is frail. The future of national health care, finance and corporate governance is in doubt. Yet that is not all. Over... Read more.

We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is "too high"— either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs. There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around,... Read more.

Not so long ago, there was a furious fight among different tribes in the White House, CIA and State and Defense departments over the correct war-fighting strategy. The coin of the realm back then was intelligence. Intelligence that pointed in the right policy direction was cherry-picked and shown to the public; covert players connected to undesirable conclusions were outed or disparaged. This fight... Read more.

Bill O'Reilly supports a public option in the health care debate, given that it will provide cheaper insurance to those who can't afford it and isn't intended to replace insurance providers as the status quo for the majority; Tommy Thompson, W.'s secretary for Health and Human Services and a former four-term governor of Wisconsin, has praised the Senate's proposed reforms. Dr. Bill Frist, the former... Read more.

There are a number of ideas in this world that never should be introduced to each other; "Christian" and "rock" are one example. "Movie" and "wholesome" are certainly another. And really, one thing we always have been able to count on is the boundless depravity of Hollywood. For this, I used to be grateful. Obviously, those of us with even a tenuous grasp of... Read more.

There will be no voluntary mea culpas from Rush's race slanderers despite the irrefutable fact that they spread poisonous and damaging lies with actual malice. To the left, Rush is the most prominent face of conservatism and the most influential opponent of President Barack Obama's destructive agenda and so must be stopped — irrespective of the despicable means employed. The left systematically... Read more.

What's with all the zombies lately? That could be a question about one of the hippest retro fads that pop culture has going these days. Inspired by horror genres of past, zombies have lurched back to pre-eminence in books like "World War Z," video games like "Left 4 Dead" and blockbuster films like "Zombieland." Even the highbrow producers at National Public Radio recently... Read more.

"What happened to global warming?" read the headline — on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and imminent as alarmists suggest. Indeed, as the BBC's climate correspondent Paul Hudson reported, the warmest... Read more.

My dear Mr. President, now that you pre-emptively have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I hope you see that it's time to go whole-shark fishing in Afghanistan or else cut bait and bring all our valiant guys and gals home. More dithering is simply not an option. There are only two ways to go here, either all in or all out. Staying in without the means to bring a just peace in the end is just fool's... Read more.