When is a negotiation not a negotiation? And a rejection not a rejection? Apparently in the Alice in Wonderland exchange of notes and replies between the United States and Russia. President Obama sent a secret letter to the Russian president suggesting if Iran did not have a nuclear and ballistic missile program the United States wouldn’t need to build a missile defense shield. The Russians replied that they had no interest in trading anything to prevent the United States from building missile defense sites in Europe. They were just dead-sent …
If you’re a member of Congress, it’s tough to vote or even argue against any bill that has harsher criminal offenses or penalties. No legislator wants to give his reelection opponent the opportunity to label him as being “soft on crime.” Two bills scheduled to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee today – the Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act (FERA) – have titles that make them sound salutary and even necessary. Such misleading labeling makes it even more difficult for committee members …
The Boston Globe reports: Fifteen gay and lesbian residents from Massachusetts who wed after this state legalized same-sex marriages plan to file a discrimination suit today, challenging a federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Six same-sex couples and three men whose husbands have died – one of the deceased was retired congressman Gerry E. Studds – said in the suit that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act treats them like second-class citizens and is unconstitutional. The complaint is being filed in US …
The Obama Administration finally seems to have noticed that all of their policy announcements so far have only fueled economic despair, not alleviated it. So President Barack Obama took the rare opportunity yesterday of offering some investment advice to the American people: “What you’re now seeing is profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal, if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.” In other words, Obama wants Americans to Buy! Buy! Buy! But before you rush out and …
Washington – Congressman Aaron Schock, at the ripe old age of 27, visited the Conservative Bloggers’ Briefing at Heritage today and spoke on a range of issues, but told a particularly interesting story regarding a visit with President Obama to the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Illinois last month. The giant plant on the east bank of the Illinois River is home to the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines. As reported previously, CEO Jim Owens said, in response to Obama’s …
The American dream used to consist of the one underlying principle that every generation had the opportunity to do better than the generation that preceded it. Sometimes this dream is realized in grand fashion as it is with our President, who was raised by a single mother with a father he barely knew living on another continent and who had access to school choice programs. Sometimes it simply means making a little more, living in a better neighborhood and sending your kids to a better school or even college through …
As the world continues to deal with the global economic downturn, Pascal Lamy, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, publicly urged all nations to overcome protectionist instincts as they work to return growth to their national economies. Lamy made his remarks while speaking to the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian think tank. Director-General Pascal Lamy said protectionist instincts are completely understandable in the current economic climate but that such regulations would be equivalent to “shooting their own foot.” “People want to protect their jobs, they want to protect …
The Obama administration’s Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has had a very busy first six weeks. His agency, which handles most domestic energy leasing, has already canceled many onshore oil and natural gas leases. Interior has also slowed to a crawl any progress on new offshore oil leases, and has done the same for oil shale in Colorado. The pro-energy promise of 2008, when President Bush and Congress belatedly began to respond to skyrocketing pump prices by allowing increased domestic production, has already been reversed. In this short span, …
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy This morning on the Today show, Jim Cramer, who hosts CNBC’s Mad Money and is a former hedge fund manager made some bold statements on the Obama Administration’s response to the economic crisis. Given Jim Cramer’s history of support for liberal causes and leaders, this was another example of bipartisan opposition to the President’s economic agenda. MATT LAUER: Famously in October, Jim, you told people if you need this money in the next five years, get it out …
Senate Rejected an Economic Disaster Bleak Cap and Trade Future: EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said she planned to move the country toward a “carbon constrained future.” Any scheme, whether cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, that raises the price on carbon dioxide will raise energy costs while generating enormous sums of tax revenue for the government that American families and workers will ultimately pay for. They will be left with high energy costs, high prices, and low incomes. Lieberman-Warner: Last year, the Senate rejected cap-and-tax legislation that would have capped CO2 emissions …
