President Obama has made health care reform among his very top priorities. Good. The health care system is deeply troubled from soup to nuts. Cost, access, availability, insurance, budget pressures are all very serious issues. It is therefore disconcerting to learn over the weekend through the President’s health care reform speech that he, underneath his well-crafted talking points, apparently doesn’t have a clue. Bold, effective bi-partisan health care reform is within our grasp, but only if the President jettisons some of his extremist views. The possibility of a resounding success …
Sec. 142 Building on the Success of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program so All Americans Have Affordable Health Benefit Choices (b) Sense of the Senate.—It is the sense of the Senate of that Congress should establish a means for all Americans to enjoy affordable choices in health benefit plans, in the same manner that Members of Congress have such choices through the Federal employees health benefits program. – Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, the “Affordable Health Choices Act” Should Congress actually follow this guidance from the …
On the eve of Friday’s election in Iran, President Barack Obama told reporters: “We are excited to see what appears to be a robust debate taking place in Iran. Whoever ends up winning the election in Iran, the fact there has been a robust debate hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways.” But almost immediately after the polls closed, election authorities miraculously claimed to have counted millions of paper ballots and named the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then went …
Major Senate Floor Action – The Senate will be considering the conference report for the Iraq and Afghanistan War Supplemental bill. The Senate is set to except language that would allow the release of prisoner abuse photos, but only after the Obama administration promised to use executive authority to block them. There is also a $100 billion IMF bailout in the bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will bring a tourism bill to the floor that will create a government marketing firm to promote tourism to the United States.
The Hill reports today: Energy panel Republicans are levying accusations of witness intimidation against Democratic Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the key authors of the contentious House climate change bill. Republicans have seized on a letter – a copy of which was obtained by The Hill – that Markey penned to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff asking FERC to investigate the actions of a major energy company on the same day that the company’s CEO was set to testify before the energy panel on the dangers of …
Besides being a poorly-reasoned decision that threatens independent political activity, the Supreme Court’s holding this week in Caperton v. Massey Coal Company should raise concerns among liberal advocacy groups that are trying to get Sonia Sotomayor confirmed. Taken to its logical conclusion, Caperton might require her to recuse herself in large number of cases. In Caperton, a liberal majority led by Justice Kennedy decided that a newly-elected West Virginia Supreme Court justice had to recuse himself from a case involving the Massey Coal Company. Massey’s CEO had spent $3 million …
Last week, House Republicans identified a list of $69 billion worth of spending cuts over five years. This might sound good, but in actuality it spends 99% as much as President Obama this year, and 97% as much as the president over the next five years. At The Corner, Heritage fellow Brian Riedl lays out some more aggressive steps conservatives could take to control exploding Washington spending: It’s easiest to start with the most blatant waste: $55 billion in annual program overpayments; $25 billion in unused federal property; $17 billion …
The House of Representatives is prepared to pass the President’s energy tax, also known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act – or “ACES”. ACES is a fitting name for this particular bill, because it gambles with the future of the American people. In Blackjack, the dealer might have an ace showing, but one card in the dealer’s hand is always hidden. In this case, the hidden card is the real costs of this bill to the American taxpayer. What the taxpayer doesn’t know is that the odds for …
Below in its entirety is a commentary on accused spy Walter Kendall Myers written by Heritage’s Vice President for Communications Mike Gonzalez. It appeared in today’s Washington Times. Walter Kendall Myers, the State Department analyst accused of spying for Havana for 30 years, made me lose my innocence soon after I started working at the department in late 2006. I learned because of him that, while many Foreign Service Officers are patriots who put their private political beliefs aside while in government service, there is a substratum of officials whose …
