By Stephen Dinan Hundreds of patent examiners appear to have cheated on their time cards yet were still rated as above average employees — and some were even given bonuses by their bosses at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, the agency’s inspector general told Congress in devastating testimony Wednesday. More than 100 examiners appeared to have ditched at least one full day’s worth of work each week, acting Deputy Inspector General David Smith said, adding that the agency, despite repeated warni... Read more

Last Thursday, Democratic senators took control of the floor of the legislative chamber and spent nearly 15 hours discussing gun control. There’s nothing odd about this, except for the proposal they were insisting on. They hope to cross out the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, and perhaps other amendments as well. The most charitable thing we can say about their latest gun proposal is that it’s a cheap political gimmick. It was first rolled out after the San Bernardino terrorist attack, inte... Read more

With the passage of a federal education law that returns a significant amount of authority to the states, lawmakers and state school officials across the country are readying for an opportunity to reshape local education policies without the onerous requirements of No Child Left Behind. Signed into law last month, the Every Student Succeeds Act puts strict limits on federal influence in schools, giving states more say over how they evaluate teachers and over academic standards. States will look ... Read more

The jihad waged by radical Islam rips at France from within. The two mass-murder attacks this year that finally induced President Francois Hollande to concede a state of war are only what we see. Unbound by any First Amendment, the French government exerts pressure on the media to suppress bad news. We do not hear much about the steady thrum of insurrection in the banlieues: the thousands of torched automobiles, the violence against police and other agents of the state, the pressure in Islamic e... Read more

In the com­ing weeks, the House and Sen­ate will vote on a ma­jor over­haul of the fed­er­al edu­ca­tion law. The fi­nal text of the Every Stu­dent Suc­ceeds Act, de­signed to re­place No Child Left Be­hind, was re­leased Monday. If a bi­par­tis­an co­ali­tion of law­makers has its way, it will be headed for the pres­id­ent’s desk be­fore the end of the year. Next Amer­ica summed up a few high­lights of the full bill. 1. First, the ba­sics. If passed, the law would reau­thor­ize the na­tion’s El... Read more

Conservative reformers have had major successes, notably on welfare in 1996. But when a reform doesn’t turn out as hoped, they need to adapt. A case in point is No Child Left Behind, which the GOP Congress is now preparing to leave behind. This week the House plans to debate the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which lapsed in 2007 and needs revision. A bipartisan compromise has emerged from the Senate and House that isn’t perfect but would represent the largest devolution of feder... Read more

The economic recovery is barely worthy of the name, and there is evidence that inequality in America is increasing. Ignoring the first rule of statistics—correlation is not causation—progressives see this as a new reason to expand government. Reduce inequality and the growth rate will increase. But there is more assertion than fact in the claim that increased inequality results in slower growth. Some studies suggest that to be the case, others point out that so many factors determine an economy’... Read more

The Federalist: Top Nine Myths About Trade Promotion Authority And The Trans-Pacific Partnership By: Scott Lincicome June 9, 2015 The current debate over Trade Promotion Authority proves, once again, that the classic description of the anti-globalization movement—as “largely the well-intentioned but ill-informed being led around by the ill-intentioned and well informed”—still holds true. Despite the tireless efforts of trade policy experts to explain why TPA and the U.S. trade agreements it’s in... Read more

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The House is expected to vote today on a bill to eliminate the annual cuts in Medicare payments to doctors that Congress has been postponing for more than a decade — the so-called “sustainable growth rate” (SGR) cuts. (UPDATE: The bill passed the House by a 392–37 margin.) The bill would result in $145 billion in new federal spending, above current law. It would also require wealthier seniors to pay for more of their own Medicare coverage, and would restrict the ability of seniors to buy supplem... Read more