Last week President Dmitry Medvedev met with American foreign policy veterans including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who champion better U.S.-Russian relations, and positively assessed the Obama Administration’s latest moves. Medvedev said resetting the U.S.-Russian relationship should not be limited to words but should extend to practical deeds. Clearly, Moscow cannot help but enjoy the proposals initiated by the former and present-day U.S. opportunists to revisit the missile defense plans for the Czech Republic and Poland, to freeze the process of the NATO accession for Ukraine and Georgia, …
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus tackled health care reform in an op-ed this Sunday, and her article nicely laid out many of the key areas of dispute and offered some interesting ideas for compromise. But in doing so, she exposed the internal contradictions of those arguing for a “public plan” and why a public plan cannot be part of reform. Marcus writes: Should there be a public insurance option? This is a question that evokes near-religious fervor and that could crash the whole enterprise. Republicans hate the notion of a …
Rory Cooper has drawn attention to the fact that the DVDs that President Obama gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit here earlier this month won’t play in Britain. It’s worse than that: Brown is blind in one eye, and is reported to be suffering vision problems in the other. The gift of DVDs was not only cheap and unworthy of the Anglo-American Special Relationship: it was also spectacularly tactless. Brown’s gifts to Obama, by contrast, showed the dignity and care that statesmen – and especially great allies …
The Washington Post editorializes today: As President Obama and many of his supporters articulated it during the 2008 campaign, the case against President George W. Bush’s foreign policy emphasized his highhanded treatment of countries with which we disagree. Too often going it alone in pursuit of asserted national interests, the United States under Mr. Bush showed contempt for international law, which alienated existing friends and repelled potential new ones. The new president has made a number of gestures toward correcting America’s standing in the world. But on at least one …
The ethanol mandate taught us that energy subsidies for commercial energy projects can lead to unintended consequences and ultimately be counterproductive. Yet Washington’s attempts to address America’s energy questions continue to rely heavily on preferences, mandates, and subsidies for energy commercialization. This is causing energy experts from across the political spectrum to begin questioning the role of subsidies in energy policy. Is this an area where liberals and conservatives might agree? The Heritage Foundation and Nonproliferation Policy Education Center are hosting an event tomorrow, March 24th, with leading analysts from …
The AP reports, you decide: WASHINGTON – Barack Obama’s optimistic campaign rhetoric has crashed headlong into the stark reality of governing. In office two months, he has backpedaled on an array of issues, gingerly shifting positions as circumstances dictate while ducking for political cover to avoid undercutting his credibility and authority. That’s happened on the Iraq troop withdrawal timeline, on lobbyists in his administration and on money for lawmakers’ pet projects.
Heritage senior fellow James Carafano recently traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border and filed a series of reports which will be featured here throughout the week. It is the fastest growing county in Arizona, with a population of over a million. Pima County’s other mark of distinction is that has more border with Mexico than any other part of the state—about 130 miles of it. All that might suggest that Pima County (over 9,000 square miles straddling the south-central part of the Arizona) would be bearing the brunt of border security …
This Saturday a bus filled with about 40 people pulled into a cul-de-sac in Fairfield County, Connecticut where a pastor and a steelworker disembarked and made their way to the front door of one of the large homes in the neighborhood. The protestors did not make it to the door however, as they were met by a security guard working to protect the home’s owner: AIG executive Doug Poling. The identities of most current and former AIG employees remain private, for now, but for those executives whose names are known, …
Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) has a heart felt plea for “health care reform now” on the Washington Post op-ed page today. And it is true, the American people want health care reform. But the op-ed is strikingly devoid of details, and the one it does include, “universal health care” is not encouraging. Conservatives are the first to admit that there are major problems with our current health care system, especially the accelerating government takeover of health care spending. There are alternatives to government run health care. The health …
