Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is heading to Poznan, Poland, next week to take part in the U.N. climate talks being held there. Kerry will serve as one of several congressional emissaries who have been charged with reporting back to President-elect Barack Obama. But just as Kerry tells Grist magazine that he hopes the talks will lay tracks for the much heralded Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen next December (where the successor to Kyoto is expected to be hammered out), the wheels appear to be coming off of the European …
It’s a scandal what Congress has arranged for the public to be taught inside its Capitol Visitor Center, the $621 million underground gateway and “educational experience” that opens Tuesday.In the Visitor Center’s Exhibition Hall, the theme is “E Pluribus Unum — Out of Many, One.” Initially, words etched in marble called that stirring phrase the nation’s motto. A bad plaster job now covers the reference, someone having noticed that, well, “E Pluribus Unum” is not our national motto. “In God We Trust” is. But so far that’s notably absent, along with other references …
Here’s an encouraging note as Thanksgiving gatherings give way to Christmas shopping during the current economic meltdown: When older adults feel grateful for what they have in tough financial times, they’re less likely to be depressed than fellow seniors or middle-aged Americans who don’t feel grateful. And when older adults frequently go to church or otherwise are more deeply involved in their faith, they’re more likely to be grateful during tough times than peers who aren’t. So, clinging to your faith is good for your mental health? That’s what the evidence …
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) told the Environmental Protection Agency that its national carbon capping plans were not welcome in the Lone Star State: Implementing such regulations would cripple the Texas’ energy sector, irreparably damaging both the state and national economies, and severely impacting national oil and gas supplies. … Costly regulation that reduces our ability to provide energy and other products to the nation will have a disproportionate impact on Texas. Reuters also reported: Despite its traditional oil-and-gas image, Texas also has more installed emission-free wind generation than any …
The chances our good that The Heritage Foundation will not love everything that President-elect Barack Obama does. So let us all celebrate Obama’s strong choice of University of California at Berkeley Professor of Economics Christina Romer as Chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers. We specifically hope that Mrs. Romer packs three specific papers she wrote when she departs for Washington: from the abstract for The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks: “This paper investigates the impact of changes in the level …
Throughout the presidential campaign Barak Obama apologists like Fareed Zakaria hoped that Obama was just lying to the American people about his protectionist stances on trade, and that if elected Obama would prove to be every bit the free trader that Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush have been. We still hold out hope that Zakaria is right on that count. The same cannot be said of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. This summer Pelosi single handily destroyed over three decades of U.S. credibility on trade by gutting the “fast track” guarantee …
Great little spoof of the auto bailout hearings from the guys over at Reason.tv. It would be funnier if it wasn’t so true: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRVRTTMwhK8&eurl=http://reason.tv/video/show/614.html&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
There is much talk these days of how conservatives need “new ideas” in these troubled economic times. And as we look at our nation’s troubled landscape, there is much work that needs to be done if we are going to return economic prosperity to the country. But as we sit down to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends and family, recalling the true story of the Pilgrims should remind us all that the core principles that have made this nation great are unchanging, and that we risk ruin if we abandon …
Today at the Conservative Bloggers Briefing, Heritage President Ed Feulner described a path back to dominance for conservatives that relies heavily on viral marketing and communicating via the Internet. He described an interaction in the last couple days with an unnamed Republican in Congress who gloated about “6,000 emails lauding his opposition to the TARP bailout.” Feulner asked the congressman what he did with the email addresses. The congressman responded, “Well, I read most of them.” Feulner sees this as a too-common and dangerously naive response on behalf of conservatives today. “Some of them …
Citizens and public officials earned an F, on average, in the most recent annual report on Civic Literacy, released by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute last week. More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took the test on Civic Literacy, and more than 1,700 of them failed. The average score was a 49%. More shocking, the average score of elected officials was 44%, meaning that our public officials performed worse than citizens selected at random. Less than 1% of those surveyed (21 of 2,508) earned an A on the test (90% or higher). This report builds …
