As President Obama and Russian President Medvedev met in Moscow July 6-8, arms control and missile defense were key issues. Both sides agreed to a preliminary framework for a treaty to replace the START Treaty, which expires in December. However, since before Obama arrived in Moscow, President Medvedev has been tying arms control to the U.S.’s abandoning of the third site in Europe. The third site, a missile defense system proposed by President Bush, includes ten interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic to protect our allies …
No, this is not a post about the Sotomayor hearings. Yesterday there was another widely-attended Senate hearing. Another room was packed, interested parties cramming into every available seat to hear what the nominees had to say. But, what they heard was little, at best. Mignon Clyburn and Meredith Baker, Democratic and Republican respectively, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. They are nominees to serve as commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission. These issues, net neutrality, the internet, media ownership, and consumer protection, are amongst the most important that the FCC …
Just to show that it is not above dealing with any shady dictatorship – and not just North Korea or current Iran – the United Nations Development Programme just completed a deal to manage a $1.5 million donation by the Libyan government “to build a school of Muammar Abu-Mnyar Al-Gaddafi in the Gaza Strip” to replace the school “destroyed during the Zionist aggression to Gaza.” Oh, and Dr. Aisha Muammar Al-Gaddafi was appointed “the Libyan Goodwill ambassador in to the UN’s Development Program” because she embodies the “highest ideals and …
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is about to release a new study reporting links between Venezuela and increased cocaine trafficking. The report notes that shipments of cocaine transiting Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela increased from 60 metric tons in 2004 to 260 metric tons in 2007. (The State Department says 300 metric tons in 2008.) The report will also highlight sustained links between Venezuela and the narco-terrorists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to the GAO, corruption in Venezuela’s National Guard “poses the most significant threat.” The National Guard …
The Washington Post reports: Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would worsen an already bleak budget outlook, increasing deficit projections and driving the nation more deeply into debt, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning. Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose “the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the …
President Obama has repeatedly signaled he would not support a health care reform bill unless it includes long-term cost savings. He recently promised to “take on key causes of rising [health care] costs – saving billions while providing better care to the American people.” But will the current health care reform proposals actually curtail costs? Recent estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) say no. The 10-year price tag for the House version currently stands at $1.3 trillion.
A Boston Globe headline today reads Boston Medical sues state for funds. Replace “Boston Medical” with “Local Hospital X” and “state” with “federal government,” and you’ll have tomorrow’s headline. And it will dominate newspapers across the country, should Obamacare become law. First, though, some history. When Massachusetts passed their health reform law in 2006, one of the major reform elements was an agreement between state and federal officials that would redirect federal Medicaid funds which were previously flowing to “safety net” institutions, like Boston Medical Center, for uncompensated care. They would instead use …
Investor’s Business Daily writes: It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal. When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee. It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Instapundit reader Patrick Ying then …
The gripping health care reform drama unfolding on Capitol Hill has a surprising ending—Medicaid dies. At least Medicaid as you have come to know it. The gasping audience, however, will be left to figure out whether it was murder or an accident. The 1,018 page House Health Care bill being rushed through Congress authorizes putting 11-15 million more people into Medicaid. The Congressional leaders are doing this with the full knowledge that state budgets cannot even handle their share of the current obligations of the program. Congress is also taking …
The Republican senators questioning Sonia Sotomayor about her decision in the Ricci v. New Haven case have done a fair job detailing the legal issues. But no one has gone into the details of what really happened in that case, or the fact that by ruling as she did, Sotomayor attempted to create a new rule that would have given carte blanche to local governments and other employers to resort to the worst kinds of invidious discrimination for base political reasons. The prime instigator of the discriminatory treatment of the …
