Skip to content

Rich Tucker

Latest News

GOP 2016 Debate

RNC Dumps NBC Over Debate Debacle

The RNC is pulling the plug on NBC, after the network’s sister station botched a GOP debate this week. However, the organization plans to go ahead with a debate on that day, probably on a different network.

Students at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth hang out in the quad on campus on April 26, 2013 in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Free Stuff? Sorry, Can’t Afford It

We need to “make every public college and university in this country tuition free,” Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed Socialist from Vermont, declared. Front-running Hillary Clinton added, “My plan would enable anyone to go to a public college or university tuition free. You would not have to borrow money for tuition.” Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was also on board. “We can talk about affordable college, making college debt free, and all the issues,” he said. They’re wrong.

Hillary and Bernie Debate Getty Joe Raedle

‘Climate Change’ Heats Up Democrats, Chills Voters

On a day when National Security Advisor Susan Rice partially blamed climate change for the conflict in Syria, Democrat presidential candidates lined up to warn about the international dangers of climate change. The big question is control. “Climate change” is a way for politicians to assert it. If that’s what voters want, they should select somebody from the Democratic debate. If not, they’ll need to look elsewhere.

Players watch horse racing at the Race Book at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey, 25 May 2007. The hotel, which opened in 2003 and features 2,000 rooms, touts itself as the first Las Vegas style resort in Atlantic City. Gambling has been legal in Atlantic City, one of the few such cities in the United States, since the first casino opened in 1978. AFP PHOTO/SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read

Allowing States to Set Gambling Policies

Anyone who’s watched five minutes of football this year is well aware that there’s gambling going on. Ads for FanDuel, DraftKings, and other “fantasy sports for cash” sites fill every commercial break. But even as you’re picking (and wagering on) you weekly fantasy team, some lawmakers want to “protect” you from gambling — by enacting the Restoration of America’s Wire Act.

Olivier Douliery/Getty Images/AFP

‘Everything We Provide is Fresh,’ Planned Parenthood Leader Tells Undercover Camera

As members of Congress consider whether to defund Planned Parenthood, a new video highlights the abortion provider’s booming business in baby organs.

“We’ve just been working with people who want particular tissues, like, you know, they want cardiac, or they want eyes, or they want neural,” Dr. Carolyn Westhoff, Senior Medical Advisor for Planned Parenthood for America tells a hidden camera. “Certainly, everything we provide–oh, gonads! Oh my God, gonads. Everything we provide is fresh.”

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Houston We Have a Problem: Trump Tops Cruz in Texas Poll

Donald Trump is now the frontrunner in Texas, polling at 24 percent, roughly what he gets nationally. Sen. Ted Cruz drops to second in his home state with 16 percent. Longtime Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a non-factor, polling just 4 percent alongside Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

AP Photo/Jim Cole

Chait: ‘Stench of Death’ Clings To Rand Paul Campaign

In New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait writes: “[Rand] Paul finds himself languishing in every metric of campaign success: polls, fund-raising, insider support, media attention. Two pre-postmortems today convey the stench of death that clings to Paul’s once-buoyant presidential hopes. … “Paul

Joe Biden Mexico Talk AP

Biden: Dems Should Be Poor, Like Me

“Folks, we ought to start in our own party,” he told a liberal gathering this week. “You ought to be demanding of all of us, all of us, because at least in our own party fights among ourselves, in primaries, that we adhere to a policy that doesn’t rest on millionaires and billionaires.”

AP Photos

Remaking a Remake: The ‘Bond’ We Need

We need a new Bond. No need to be tied to convention here; the era of middle-aged white British men is over. In the spirit of the Jenner clan, the 21st Century cries out for an androgynous Bond. Maybe Miley Cyrus? Also, the name “James” is too 20th Century. Something like “Jamey” would be more appropriate, and allow Bond to swing easily between male and female, as necessary or desired.

Dairy farmers, Anthony Paudoie and his father Jean-Louis, harvest wheat in a field with their harvester on July 14, 2014 at a farm of Le Pin, near Nantes, western France. The Loire Atlantique department is the second milk producer in France with 840 million liters of milk per year.

The Big Ratchet: How to Feed a Hungry Planet

In her book The Big Ratchet, Ruth DeFries explains how humanity went from hunger to plenty by making more efficient use of Earth’s resources. Even with more people than ever before, “Our current problems are more about abundance than about lack of food. Our species has never had to grapple with such surplus,” she writes.

Chris Christie

Chris Christie: Straight Shooter Fires Wide in Presidential Announcement

Americans used to say “you can’t fight City Hall.” But at least they could see City Hall, and had an idea who they were fighting against. These days, edicts come from Washington bureaucrats hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. There’s no recourse, no choice but to comply. Small wonder anxiety abounds. Yet Christie’s version of Washington would look distressingly similar to today’s bureaucrat-driven behemoth.

Carsten Rehder/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Humans Misbehave, Economists Misunderstand, Governments Overreact

Since humans don’t behave the way models say we should, those economic models make a lot of bad predictions. “Virtually no economists saw the financial crisis of 2007-08 coming,” he admits (although another behavioral economist, Robert Shiller, did warn about soaring housing prices). “Worse, many thought that both the crash and its aftermath were things that simply could not happen.” The answer is to empower people through free markets.