On November 9th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. In preparation for oral arguments, JLWOP: Faces & Cases will be an on-going series on The Foundry that will tell real stories about juvenile offenders who are currently serving LWOP sentences. Defendant: Rudolfo Sandoval (17) Victim: Ryan Briner Crime: First degree murder Crime date: May 5, 2004 in Ventura, California Summary Rudolfo Sandoval shot and killed a random victim with a shotgun. Facts Rudolfo Sandoval was a member of …
Whenever government throws billions of dollars at the economy, one would certainly expect to find some jobs at the end of those dollars. President Obama has worked hard to convince the nation that the mega fiscal stimulus he signed into law produced some 650,000 jobs. This PR blitz is amazing in the face of an economy that has shed 3.4 million jobs since Obama was sworn in, the unemployment rate is pressing toward 10 percent, and the Obama jobs gap – the gap between where he promised we would be …
While Frank Sinatra wanted to wake up in a city that doesn’t sleep, today’s New Yorkers are looking to live in states where taxes aren’t so steep. New York, whose state and local taxes are among the highest in the nation, is bleeding residents due in large part to the state’s extraordinarily high tax rate. According to a new study by The Empire Center for New York State Policy: From 2000 to 2008, in both absolute and relative terms, New York experienced the nation’s largest loss of residents to other …
Over the summer The Washington Post called Europe’s experience with cap and trade as “Exhibit A” of what not to do on climate. Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Iain Murray brought evidence to the jury – that jury being Senate Environment & Public Works Committee. Murray detailed the failures of the EU cap and trade scheme. Despite the European Union establishing an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in the year 2000, the United States has had similar or better emissions reductions than most countries: “According to the United Nations Framework Convention …
Among the fallacies in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s health care bill is the pretense that bureaucrats are smarter than the rest of us. An unelected bureaucrat would be given czar-like control over our lives, our health, and our pocketbooks. Even super powers. This new all-powerful “health choices commissioner” would be entrusted with more power than most superheroes. The laundry list of that special power is proof that it’s a government takeover of health care. This presidential appointee will both control the new government-run insurance plan AND decide how private insurance companies …
Members of Congress too often just forget: Medicaid is a welfare program. It is also one of the most poorly performing of all the federal welfare programs. Instead of doing anything innovative or imaginative to fix it, Members of Congress are intent on ramping up Medicaid spending and expanding it. Many currently uninsured Americans are going to be in for a rude surprise when they discover that they won’t be enrolling in superior private health plans, but rather Medicaid, courtesy of the U.S. Congress. The Chief Actuary at the Centers …
Very soon, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on legislation ( H.R. 3962). That 1990 page bill, if enacted, will have an unprecedented impact on our economy, the federal budget, and the lives of all Americans. You can read that bill right here. Here is a crucial question: Do members of Congress have any idea how this massive legislation will really affect us? Does anyone in the Speaker’s Office or in the Congressional leadership really know how moving the various parts of health care legislation will interact with …
Last week repairs on the Vietnam Memorial commenced to replace the worn, yellow grass with fresh sod, improve the irrigation system and restore the bronze fixtures around the memorial – including the flagpole, a statue of three soldiers and the base of the directories to help visitors find names on the wall. Particularly worth noting is how it’s being funded: not by the taxpayer but by a private memorial fund. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund took over the duties from the National Park Service “because of scarce funding from the …
Iran’s theocratic dictatorship once again has thrown up an obstacle to diplomatic resolution of the nuclear stalemate. The New York Times today reported that Iran has rejected the U.S-conceived, U.N.-backed plan for temporarily easing tensions over Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. After initially reaching an “agreement in principle” to export roughly 70 percent of its known supplies of low-enriched uranium, Tehran once again has backed away from the P5&1 proposal and instead has presented a counter-proposal (details yet to be revealed) that is sure to fall short of what is …
It is all too common for members of Congress to recognize the problem with entitlement spending, talk about it, but then decide to kick the can down the road, leaving the toughest choices for future generations to make. But Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) has been a long-time advocate of paving a new road to ensure a sustainable fiscal future for the United States. On Thursday, Congressman Ryan spoke about the comprehensive proposals in his bill, “A Roadmap for America’s Future,” at the Tax Policy Center. Although the discussion centered primarily …
