Not Evil Just Wrong, a documentary by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer, which premiered last Sunday at The Heritage Foundation and 6,000 other locations in 27 countries, asks some tough questions of Al Gore and his film, An Inconvenient Truth. The title of Gore’s film is telling because it implies that its content is “the truth”: it plays into mainstream environmental rhetoric which claims that the debate as to whether human-created Co2 is warming the planet to a dangerous degree is over and the science is settled. The trailer for …
It has been an interesting and puzzling couple weeks watching the White House communications office at work. First, on October 11, Anita Dunn publicly rebuked Fox News on Howard Kurtz’ CNN show calling it the “research arm of the Republican Party.” Then, we learned Ms. Dunn counted Mao Zedong as a “favorite philosopher” and it seemed like a score was settled and everyone would move on. But the White House stepped up their attack on Fox News last Sunday by sending Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod …
Senate Analysis – An extension of unemployment insurance benefits will occupy the Senate for most of the week. Not only is extending jobless benefits the wrong way to address the lack of jobs, but Senators are likely to attach more misguided policies – like an extension of the homebuyers tax credit – to the provision. It should be noted the Senate had planned on taking up some version of Obamacare this week. Another significant slip in the timetable is noteworthy, especially after the Senate failed to invoke cloture on the …
House Analysis – Questions remain as to whether Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are able to whip up the necessary votes to pass a robust Health Care public option out of the House. This will certainly be topic of discussion during the week. It is expected to be another light legislative week though as much of the action is waiting to be played out in the Senate. Major House Floor Action – The main piece of legislation for the week is H.R. 3854, the Small Business Financing and Investment …
A study out of Stanford analyzes factors that lead to California’s lower per-capita electricity consumption. Proponents of regulation and cap and trade often point to the “success” California has had reducing per-capita electricity consumption (Note the reduction is relative to per-capita consumption in the rest of the U.S.). The study finds that the vast majority of the difference in electricity use is explained by factors other than policy. For instance, the mild weather and California’s relatively higher use of natural gas for space heating, led to a 15.8% reduction in …
There is one thing that people across the ideological spectrum can agree on when it comes to the issue of energy—the United States needs to produce far more clean energy from a source that does not rely on the whims of tyrants in far off parts of the world. Fortunately, there is a technology out there that produces clean, emission free energy without the need for raw materials imported from unstable countries. Our green energy future is a nuclear future. I believe that we need to provide for a regulatory …
As Vice President Joe Biden completes his arm-twisting tour of Central and Eastern Europe, the Czechs have announced that they are ready to participate in America’s new missile defense plan, but only in the context of NATO. In the clearest sign yet of dissatisfaction with their second-class treatment by the new Administration, the caretaker Czech Government announced that Czech participation in the new missile defense architecture will no longer be on a bilateral basis. It is clear that President Obama sent Biden to Central and Eastern Europe to paper over …
Not only do government wage controls not work, they usually backfire. Perhaps worse, like a lot of ill-conceived government schemes, they often punish the wrong people. The Federal Reserve yesterday announced a bank pay limits affecting every bank employee in America in (over)reaction to controversy to big bonuses at a few big banks and insurance companies. On the backfire “front,” the government has tried three times in recent decades to limit executive pay:
Pastor Freddie Garcia, founder of Victory Fellowship in San Antonio, Texas, was known for accepting the very people others gave up on. A former drug addict himself, Pastor Garcia approached broken lives with humility and determination. Today, Heritage remembers his life as one of great faith and self-sacrifice. Faith-based and community groups across the country recognize Pastor Garcia and Victory Fellowship as the moral center of the faith-based movement. Over the course of four decades, 13,500 addicts were transformed into men of integrity and service. Out of this, recovered substance …
CNBC reported on Obama’s Pay Czar earlier this week: Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. As the Heritage Foundation has explained before, wage controls don’t work . Policy based on envy and disdain rather than sound economics will do nothing to aid a recovery.
