After thousands of Americans attended hundreds of townhalls this summer, after the President of the United States delivered a rare speech to a Joint Session of Congress, after endless coverage of legislative markups in the relevant congressional committees, what if the Senate began actual floor votes on the health care overhaul and the drive-by media refused to cover it? Couldn’t happen? It already is. This week the Senate is set to vote on a measure that would approve spending for almost one quarter of Obamacare’s $1 trillion price tag. Sen. …
Cap and trade is nowhere near dead but it’s not the only weapon in the arsenal against capping carbon dioxide emissions. Another significant threat to United States energy policy is the possible climate treaty that could supplant the Kyoto Protocol as the new treaty to combat global warming. Just as scary, if not more so, is how an international treaty could affect U.S. sovereignty. In preparation for the December 7-18 summit, The Heritage Foundation will be covering all the details – up to, during, and after the conference. From energy, …
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving forward with micromanaging regulations that would regulate greenhouse gases and slow economic growth. However, one judge is warning the EPA not to overstep its legal authority. Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia told a forum: “[…] agencies choose their policy first and then later seek to defend its legality. This gets it entirely backwards. It’s backwards because whether or not agencies value neutral principles of administrative law, courts do, and they will strike down …
Senate Analysis: Late last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the next week would be devoted to S.1776, the Medicare Physician Fairness Act. The $247 billion so-called “doc fix” was originally included in the massive health care overhaul being crafted behind closed doors. By moving the measure separately, the Obamacare will appear to less. It’s a classic Washington bait-and-switch designed yet again to hide the true cost of liberal programs. Major Senate Floor Action:
While Time Magazine has set up shop in Detroit to chronicle the continuing decay of one of America’s great industrial cities, the Wall Street Journal has found a teachable moment 90 miles northwest in Michigan’s capital city: government cannot tax and spend its way out of deficits and joblessness. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Michigan’s 15.2% unemployment rate is the worst in the country, with the state having lost 750,000 jobs since 2000. Shockingly, since 2007, two families move out of Michigan for every one family that moves in. …
If you liked how the government shoved its nose into high finance, “green” energy, automaking and health care, you’re gonna love what it does with your local news. That’s the prospect opened by a new study from an old-line bastion of objectivity, the Columbia School of Journalism, on how the storied trade of news reporting won’t survive unless Team Obama comes to the rescue. Now “at risk,” former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. and Columbia communication professor Michael Schudson melodramatically declare in an op-ed in today’s Post, is …
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: Andres Contreras, aged 16. Victims: Anthony Castro, Alejandro Salazar and Pedro Flores. Crimes: Murder and eight other crimes. Crime date: March 27, 2005 in Tulare County, Calif. Summary During a two-day crime spree in 2005, Andres Contreras, a …
This report was undertaken in response to litigation and legislation against the use of life-without-parole sentences for juvenile offenders. Following several challenges in state supreme courts, interest in the issue has only grown since the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases challenging life-without-parole-sentences for juvenile offenders on Eighth Amendment grounds. Recent years have also witnessed the introduction, in several states, of legislation prohibiting the practice. California’s experience with such legislation is typical. California Misled In 2007, State Senator Leland Yee introduced a bill to radically alter the sentence …
According to the New Haven Register, newbie Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told her fellow Yale Law School alums that her Supreme Court nomination acceptance ceremony wardrobe was subject to the White House’s prior approval. Justice Sotomayor’s remarks were delivered privately on Saturday at her 30th Yale Law School reunion. The New Haven Register interviewed an attendee at the event, Connecticut State Sen. Ed Meyer: Meyer recalled that Sotomayor grew teary at moments when discussing the nomination process, but kept the crowd laughing. Sotomayor even explained that she’d gone shopping …
Early this morning, the President and first lady attended parent-teacher conferences at the Bethesda and Northwest D.C. Sidwell Friends School campuses for their daughters, Sasha and Malia. The exclusive school boasts a strong academic program in a safe and nurturing learning environment. Upon arriving in D.C. last winter, the First Family carefully weighed their options and chose to have the girls attend private school in the district – a preferable alternative to the unsafe and ineffective D.C. public schools. And like the Obamas, nearly 40 percent of members of Congress …
