President Obama unveiled a long list of economic policies during the State of the Union address that he wanted Congress to focus on this year. Click here to join us right now for our “Lunch with Heritage” chat. We are joined by Bill Beach, Heritage’s Director of the Center for Data Analysis, and he is taking your questions on the President’s proposals. Lunch with Heritage feat. Bill Beach
The president’s energy agenda took a hit on Thursday, as yet another stimulus-backed energy company filed for bankruptcy. Videos have surfaced since then showing both Obama and Vice President Biden praising the company’s promise, drawing the attention of congressional investigators. As Scribe reported yesterday, Ener1 submitted a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan as part of a refinancing agreement after suffering numerous setbacks late last year. Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel received a $118 million grant from the Energy Department to produce its lithium ion battery technology. The president singled out EnerDel for praise during a speech …
In discussing the Department of Defense’s upcoming budget request, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated “our approach was to use this as an opportunity to maintain the strongest military in the world, to not hollow out the force.” In reality, America’s enemies will quickly determine that the United States will not be able to cover its responsibilities worldwide. The Secretary’s projections, which account for only preexisting Obama Administration cuts, include a reduction of Army ground forces from 562,000 to 490,000 troops—despite the fact that U.S. military readiness is already in a …
Millions of American homeowners face foreclosure, but at least one sort of housing crisis has been remedied: No longer will research rats suffer the indignities of crowded cages. That is to say that the federal government has ordered labs to provide precisely measured living quarters for all rodents used in federally funded research. Thus, a female rat and her offspring must be housed (for their short, genetically altered lives) in lodgings that feature no less than 124 square inches of floor space and 7 inches of head room. By comparison, …
The future is not bright for the U.S. military. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave America a glimpse of the half-trillion dollars in defense spending cuts requested by the Obama Administration and detailed how the U.S. military’s capabilities would be affected in practical terms. The result is a slashed and burned military that woefully lacks the forces it needs to meet America’s security challenges on a global scale. On the ground, in the sea, and in the air, American forces will shrink drastically — the Army will shrink by 72,000 …
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today laid out details of a plan to cut a half a trillion dollars from defense spending. That’s in addition to the half-trillion in cuts required under the Budget Control Act. The Wall Street Journal reports that, as part of the plan to cope with funding cuts and reduced troop levels, the U.S. military plans to increase the U.S. fleet of unmanned drones by 30 percent and increasingly rely on special-operations teams based around the globe. Unfortunately, that won’t be sufficient to manage America’s defense needs. …
George Soros, a billionaire investor and major backer of President Obama, stands to reap a windfall from legislation promoting natural gas-powered vehicles. The White House unveiled a proposal on Thursday that would do just that. The proposal would offer incentives for companies to buy and use trucks powered by natural gas. Obama announced the effort at a UPS facility in Las Vegas that received stimulus funding to buy natural gas vehicles and build a fueling station for them. The proposal is remarkably similar to the New Alternative Transportation to Give …
Editor’s note: Earlier this month, the Huffington Post published a “commentary” on the F-35 by four left-leaning defense analysts. Clearly, none of these men are fans of the joint strike fighter. Unfortunately, their commentary focused mostly on sliming James Jay Carafano—one of the nation’s leading national security experts—and insinuating that his employer, The Heritage Foundation, is a shill for Lockheed-Martin. Their charges are as bogus as they are shrill. Dr. Carafano wrote a measured response to this piece, which the Huffington Post has thus far not seen fit to print. It …
According to information obtained by a liberal environmentalist group, the White House deliberately misled the public about the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010. The month after the spill, the administration announced that about 25,000 barrels per day of oil was being leaked into the Gulf. That estimate turned out to be wildly off the mark. About 53,000 bpd were being spilled. According to emails obtained by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the administration falsely reported the …
It’s been said before, but it must be repeated. Hispanics are not single-issue voters. Despite the narrative reinforced over and over by the Hispanic media and the Latino lobby, Hispanics are concerned about more than just immigration reform. This was recently confirmed in an ImpreMedia Latino Decisions tracking poll that revealed that the economy, not immigration, is the issue of most concern to Hispanics. Of course, you won’t hear too many of the President’s surrogates mentioning this latest poll, because it’s far easier to cast conservatives as anti-Hispanic for being …
