As we pointed out on Monday, State Department Legal Advisor nominee Harold Koh’s praise for the “Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials” is misguided in several respects. One of these is that the Convention requires all signatories to criminalize the “counseling” of the commission of the illicit manufacturing of, or trafficking in, firearms. What would happen if the Senate ratified the Treaty – which President Clinton signed in 1998, and which the U.S. already abides by spirit – without …
Writing in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Education Secretary Arne Duncan argued that the focus of school reform efforts should be doing what’s best for kids: “We must close the achievement gap by pursuing what works best for kids, regardless of ideology. In the path to a better education system, that’s the only test that really matters.” That’s refreshing to hear, since politics too often gets in the way of reforms that work best for children. But at this point, how can anyone take Secretary Duncan at his word?
Before Thomas Jefferson penned in The Declaration of Independence, writing that we are endowed with “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” it was philosopher John Locke who believed “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.” Indeed, private property rights are critical to a nation’s economic growth and prosperity. Whether or not a country has established private property rules is a key indicator in The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. But property rights also play an …
Shmuley Boteach asks some brilliant questions in his article today in the Jerusalem Post that examined President Obama’s handshake diplomacy, like: ALL THIS LEADS to one important question. Suppose Obama succeeds in building friendships with Chavez, Castro, Ahmadinejad and the Taliban. What then? Does America still get to feel that it stands for something? Will we still be the beacon of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world, or will we have sold out in the name of political expediency? And do any of us seriously believe that presidential …
Then-Senator Obama: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqg7ThZB04[/youtube]
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is tentatively scheduled to testify before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee about DHS immigration enforcement policies on May 6, 2009. Given Secretary Napolitano’s novel interpretations of federal law, the Heritage Foundation will be posting a series of questions (and suggested answers) for the Secretary. Questions for Napolitano: # 1, The Future of State and Local Immigration Enforcement In numerous public statements over the last four months, Obama Administration officials have made comments that appear to question the importance of and use of state and local …
Heritage Foundation Religion and a Free Society fellow Ryan Messmore comments on Earth Day at crosswalk.com: The concept of stewardship involves taking care of something that belongs to somebody else. For Christians, stewardship of the environment recognizes that “the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (Psalm 24:1). … Practices that actually generate worse suffering among people cannot be justified as good stewardship. Yet too often this is what happens in the name of environmental protection.
Throughout last year’s campaign, President Barack Obama expressed skepticism about the value of free trade, sending signals that America’s commitment to free markets would die with his administration. These fears were only worsened when the Obama administration passed an Omnibus spending bill that has already caused a job killing trade war with Mexico. But now there is a glimmer of hope. Politico reports: During the [Summit of the Americas], President Barack Obama directed U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to lead a review of the ultracontroversial Colombia deal to “identify and …
Great post by the New York Times John Tierney titled Use Energy, Get Rich and Save the Planet: When the first Earth Day took place in 1970, American environmentalists had good reason to feel guilty. The nation’s affluence and advanced technology seemed so obviously bad for the planet that they were featured in a famous equation developed by the ecologist Paul Ehrlich and the physicist John P. Holdren, who is now President Obama’s science adviser.
Last week we helped detail how teachers unions were trying to kill the charter school movement in New York. Yesterday the New York Times profiled one teacher’s involvement in the big labor/school choice war: After months of soul-searching, Kashi Nelson left her career as an assistant principal in North Carolina at the start of 2008 to teach seventh- and eighth-grade social studies at a Brooklyn charter school, convinced that the freedom to innovate would translate into better education for students.
