Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is speaking live at Heritage Foundation right now. Newt’s address caps Heritage Foundation’s Protect America Month that started with a speech by Mitt Romney on June 1. Newt’s speech comes while the Senate is debating President Barack Obama’s defense authorization bill that looks to cut missile defense and scale back on important modernization programs like the F-22 fighter aircraft and the Army’s Future Combat Systems. UPDATE 10:10 AM: Newt jumps out of the box in saying what the conservative approach is all about—keeping the nation safe, …
Last week, Michigan’s Bureau of Labor Market Information announced that their state’s unemployment rate spiked in June, hitting 15.2%, the highest rate since mid-1983. Five other states, Rhode Island (12.4%), Oregon (12.2%), South Carolina (12.1%), Nevada (12%), and California (11.6%) all have either matched or surpassed their all time unemployment highs. Nationwide, a total of fifteen states are now suffering from 10% unemployment. The Federal Reserve predicts that double digit unemployment will envelope most of the country later this year. But despite the weakness of the economy nationwide, one region …
Friday’s terrorist bombing of Jakarta’s JW-Marriott and Ritz-Carlton is truly a reminder not just to Indonesia, but to the world, that however well we may be preventing terrorist attacks, there is another team on the field. Terrorists can adjust tactics, morph organizations, and strike in unexpected ways at unexpected times. Details are not yet sifted in Jakarta, but indications are that the July 17 attacks were the work of Al Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), or splinter groups thereof. Police are focused on the possibility that suicide …
Major Senate Floor Action – The Senate will continue work on the National Defense Authorization Act, which provides the blueprint for our military’s priorities. Major fights are expected on F-22 funding and missile defense. Major Senate Committee Action – The Finance Committee has postponed their markup of a controversial health overhaul bill. Even without a markup, work on revenue raisers will continue behind closed doors. Several committees will focus on global warming, including Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works, and Agriculture. The Senate Commerce Committee will hold the most ridiculous …
If you dig through the giant 1,018-page House Democrats’ Tri-Committee Health Bill, you’ll find a new “czar.” The bill would place a federal “Health Choices Commissioner” at the helm of the newly-created Health Choices Administration. The Administration would run a brand new national health insurance exchange. For one official, the Commissioner would exercise enormous control over health insurance. While the House sponsors of the bill want the Commissioner to keep closer watch over the insurance industry, this amounts to an enormous concentration of power in one person. It would also …
Remember when China was going to stop buying American bonds and the world was going to end? This hand-wringing was always wrong-headed; perhaps now it will finally cease. In May, net official Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasuries jumped $38 billion. This is the flip side of the return of large-scale capital inflows into the PRC, after these were interrupted by the financial crisis. Net official Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasuries do not constitute the last word. They miss some less direct Chinese purchases of Treasuries and all Chinese purchases of other …
A large crowd of opposition supporters today transformed an official prayer ceremony in Tehran into a show of strength, chanted “azadi, azadi” (“freedom”), and voiced continued support for Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who defiantly continues to criticize the ruling regime. Mousavi made his first official public appearance since the election when he attended the Friday prayer led by one of his key supporters, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. While Rafsanjani sternly criticized the rigging of the elections and violent repression of the security services, police fired tear gas …
While America debates rising deficits, rising debt, and reckless spending bills, the mood in Washington is understandably sour. For the Americans fortunate to have jobs in this recession, there is still a sense of anxiety about what is around the economic corner. For their jobless friends and family, there is only the hope that the White House and Congress are doing everything in their power to turn the economy around. And how are President Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner responding to this mission? By using taxpayer dollars to hire “Humor …
This week’s TIME magazine cover story, Unfaithfully Yours, dramatically laments the collapse of marriage: “There is no other single force causing as much measurable hardship and human misery in this country, as the collapse of marriage. It hurts children, it reduces mothers’ financial security, and it has landed with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the nation’s underclass,” writes Caitlin Flanagan. Flanagan’s clarion call is backed by demographic trends that have now reached a point where nearly four of every ten babies is born out of wedlock …
In the news this morning: • rank-and-file Democrats resist President Obama’s attempt to take over health care, • Congress drops “card check” provisions–an Obama-backed power grab by unions, • Congressional Budget Office calls White House health care dreams prohibitively expensive. That’s from the front pages of Politico, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Taken together, they show a picture of a Democratic congressional majority running away from a President trying to push this country way, way left. Not according to NPR.
