Two weeks ago the Obama Administration celebrated the first successful U.S.-China military-to-military talks of the new administration. Then this past Sunday, they found out relations with China were not always going to be so easy. Five Chinese ships harassed the USNS Impeccable in international waters off the cost of Hainan Island forcing it take emergency defensive maneuvers. In the New York Post Heritage senior analyst Peter Brookes places the incident in context: Beijing claims Impeccable was violating its sovereignty by conducting operations within China’s 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as …
Democracy itself is under attack from union bosses. Teamsters President Jim Hoffa issued a press release Wednesday saying, “Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?” He’s trying to excuse the inexcusable. Hoffa and other union bosses want to strip away workers’ right to a secret ballot election when deciding whether their workplace will join a union. The “card check” bill in Congress would let unions bypass the election process. Hoffa’s comment echoes the head of Utah’s AFL-CIO, who recently called a secret ballot guarantee, “unnecessary and …
Senator John Kerry stressed that the economy cannot be a scapegoat for not implementing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas reductions. He went so far as to call doing nothing a “suicide pact”. Forget cost and forget the recession, says Kerry: “Climate change is not governed by a recession, it’s governed by scientific facts about what’s happening to Earth. And you either accept the realities of the science or you don’t. You don’t enter a mutual suicide pact because the economy is having a hard time right now.” Senator Kerry …
In the first two months of 2009, there were about 200 fatalities in Afghanistan including 29 U.S. troops. But in January alone, over 1,000 people have died in Mexico’s escalating drug war. Fueled by a $25 billion a year industry, Mexico’s two largest drug cartels have an estimated combined 100,000 foot soldiers battling each other and Mexico’s own 130,000 strong army. The increased violence has not been confined to Mexico. Phoenix, Arizona, has seen a spike in Mexican drug-smuggling related kidnappings and Atlanta, Georgia, has become the principal distribution center …
Words can’t describe what occurred at yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. After encouraging the audience to applaud his remarks on the Employee Free Choice Act, Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) was forced to scold union members when they become belligerent — hissing, booing and even throwing things at Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMnmpD1fwnw[/youtube]
The authorization for E-Verify ends today but the future of the program is still up in the air. E-Verify is an online system that allows employers to check whether or not there new employees are eligible to work in the United States. There are 80,000 employers currently participating in this voluntary program, with the exception of employers in Arizona and the U.S. government. Though Congress failed to re-authorize E-Verify in time, the FY 2009 appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security had conflicting language about the true end date …
Several leading European and Canadian health economists, physicians and scholars — in Washington recently for the Galen Institute’s conference, “Lessons from Abroad for Health Reform in the US” — met with analysts from the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think-tank leaders. They wanted to explain why Americans should be concerned when officials push for government-controlled, universal health care coverage that includes innocuous-sounding but largely intrusive and prohibitive health measures. “We were told single-payer health care would be a true liberation for Canada when they enacted it 40 years ago, and …
The European Union (EU) is once again lecturing America on its economic policies, and thanks to President Obama’s policies and his allies in Congress, the EU is right and America is wrong. Europe, like the United States, is plunging into recession. France saw a stunning 13.8 percent decline in industrial production since last year; Sweden’s drop was 22.9 percent roughly matching the drop in the U.K. The U.S. responded to its recession by adding a $1 trillion plus fiscal stimulus on top of a nearly $1.5 trillion deficit for 2009. …
Catering to a Congress that is largely hostile to international trade, USTR nominee Ron Kirk used his confirmation hearing testimony to assure the Senate Finance Committee that the administration plans to take a tougher stance on trade this year. Instead of focusing the trade agenda on looking for new opportunities to open markets with willing trade partners and leading multilateral trade negotiations to an ambitious conclusion, the administration vows to make trade policy “socially accountable.” Not only does this mean the U.S. will more aggressively use enforcement measures to protect …
Pyongyang has accused the U.S. and South Korea of using the ongoing annual joint military exercise Key Resolve/Foal Eagle as preparations to mount a preemptive attack on North Korea. Pyongyang warns that “a war may break out any moment due to the reckless policy of confrontation” pursued by the U.S. and its allies. What has not been mentioned, and is a lost public diplomacy opportunity for Washington and Seoul is that North Korea has also been engaged in its annual Winter Training Cycle. The North Korean exercise typically begins with …
