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  • Monthly Archives: March 2009

    Heartland Update: A Californian and an Environmentalist

    This morning’s breakfast had two very interesting speakers: climate skeptic Congressman Tom McClintock from California and Canadian author, columnist and environmentalist Lawrence Solomon. Solomon is a founder and managing director of the Energy Probe Research Foundation and is a strong advocate of renewable energy and written a book against urban sprawl. When Congressman McClintock addressed the audience he emphasized that the actual threat of global warming is a big one, but not because of temperature and more so because of what the radical environmentalist movement can do to control the … More

    Morning Bell: Cutting Defense is No Solution to Economic Woes

    A core principle of the political left in this country is that our current levels of defense spending have harmed, and will continue to harm, our economic prosperity. So last month while he was defending the $700 billion Wall Street bailout program, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) said: “The biggest ongoing threat to fiscal sanity in this country, I believe, is an open-ended, ever expanding military budget that goes far beyond what is necessary.” Frank’s assertions about the scope of defense spending in the United States are just flat out wrong. At … More

    Heartland Global Warming Conference 2009

    Last night, The Heartland Institute’s second annual International Conference on Climate Change kicked off where more than 70 scientists from around the globe specializing in climate issues will confront the subject of global warming. Joining the scientists will be economists, journalists, legal experts, bloggers, policymakers, and policy analysts to discuss the severity of man-made global warming and analyzing the costs and benefits of implementing any policies to reduce carbon dioxide. The keynote speakers included the Honorable Vaclav Klaus, President, of the Czech Republic and European Union and well published atmospheric … More

    First Lady’s Teaching Moment

    The thought keeps coming to mind: First lady Michelle Obama is a natural to champion the 1,700  D.C. schoolchildren from low-income families whose tickets out of failing public schools –  scholarships to attend a school of their choice — are on the hit list of congressional Democrats. One reason is Mrs. Obama’s gift for inspiring young folks,  as when she recently welcomed dozens of  local kids to the White House. The scene:  the East Room.  The date: Feb. 18. The occasion:  a visit by 180 D.C. students. The first lady spoke after the … More

    Cap and Trade Was Never About Climate

    The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel reports today that the businesses in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership are beginning to realize that the cap and trade was never about global warming: “People are learning,” says William Kovacs, vice president of environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which has been cautious about embracing a climate plan). “The Obama budget did more to help us consolidate and coalesce the business community than anything we could have done. It’s opened eyes to the fact that this is about … More

    Pushing the Wrong Buttons

    Friday night, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a dinner in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss US-Russian relations. As a token, Secretary Clinton brought a yellow box with a button and the words “reset” on both sides in English and Russian. Apparently, the State Department got the Russian word for “reset” wrong and instead it said “overload”. This is highly symbolic, as incompetence and haste in foreign affairs are the enemies of wisdom, or as the Russian proverb goes, “Measure seven times before cutting”. … More

    Securing Trade and Stopping Terror at the Northern Border

    Heritage analysts Jena Baker McNeill and Diem Nguyen report: On January 15, the United States Northern Command Joint Task Force-North accidentally released to the public a briefing that expressed concerns over terrorists entering the U.S. from Canada. While the report was taken offline and out of public view shortly thereafter, this briefing is one of many reports centered on U.S./Canadian security policies, including a recent request by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for information relating to the mechanisms and programs currently in place at the U.S. northern border. While the … More

    Wheels Are Off The Wagon

    President Obama has dismissed criticism of his economic policy in the past as “political” and has said “that’s what right now we don’t have time to do.” The President does not have “time” to listen to conservative criticism of his economic policies. Fair enough, apparently Washington doesn’t change overnight. But does the President have time to address criticism from some of his strongest supporters? Stuart Taylor, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, Managing Editor at Newsweek, contributor to National Journal and a self-identified “Obama-admiring centrist” joined the chorus of … More

    North Korea: Closer to Its Target

    The Obama administration this week again questioned the workability of America’s still-developing defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Only days earlier, though, the  U.S. commander in the Pacific said that if North Korea tests a long-range missile, the military not only would track it but could well blow the missile out of the sky.  President Barack Obama only had to give the order. “And [if] we hit what we’re aiming at, that should be a source of great confidence and reassurance to our allies and partners,” Adm. Timothy Keating, who heads Hawaii-based … More

    Letterman on Obama’s Tax Hikes

    The late night comedy shows are beginning to notice that President Barack Obama loves raising taxes. Check out this David Letterman clip from earlier this week: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F45hXrpa7n8&feature=channel_page[/youtube] You can view his whole monologue at CBS here, which also includes a great joke about Obama’s investment advice.