In Haiti three days after the earthquake, the terrible reality of death and destruction settles upon the nation and the world. The preliminary estimates of fatalities appear to be range between 45,000 and 50,000. Three million Haitians, one-third of the countries population, appear severely impacted. Access to clean, uncontaminated water and food is increasingly difficult. The principal port is ruined and the one international airport is overwhelmed. The U.S. and all others are truly in a race against time. In his first major leadership challenge in the Americas, President Obama has …
This month, Congress will face every shopaholic’s worst nightmare: a maxed out credit card. After a year of seemingly endless government spending, the Senate must now vote to increase the limit on how much debt the federal government can carry. Lawmakers really have no option but to pass this unfortunate legislation, but the need to raise the debt limit should serve as a wake-up call to Washington to finally address this problem. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Ranking Member Judd Gregg (R-NH) have authored legislation which would …
For decades, General Motors, Chrysler and Ford have been notoriously lumped together at Detroit’s Big Three but these days Ford is distancing itself from the pack. But the reality is the separation began a few years ago when former Boeing executive Alan Mulally took control of Ford. “Alan Mulally came in 2006 and said, ‘This idea of producing vehicles that people don’t want to buy and forcing them into the market is insanity…By doing that he got a head start on everybody else,” AutoNation Inc Chief Executive Mike Jackson said …
Last spring, President Obama proposed $11.3 billion worth of discretionary spending cuts. Today’s Washington Times notes that Congress accepted $6.9 billion worth of these cuts, a 61 percent success rate. In a $3.6 trillion federal budget, that comes to just 0.2 percent of the federal budget. But there is a larger issue:100 percent of the savings from these “cuts” were automatically shifted into new spending. Total federal spending was not reduced by one dollar. Here’s why: By the time President Obama released his proposed cuts, Congress and the White House …
A new book has revealed sensational details about Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008, claiming that French President Nicolas Sarkozy bullied Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili into signing a vague and unenforceable ceasefire agreement, which eventually saw Russia illegally annex large parts of Georgia’s territory. Sarkozy is quoted as saying: “Where is Bush? Where are the Americans? They are not coming to save you. No Europeans are coming, either. You are alone. If you don’t sign, the Russian tanks will be here soon.” This is just another insight into the …
Considering the atrocious abuses of human rights committed by the Iranian government against those who speak out against its tyranny, it comes as no surprise that Iran, according to a Wall Street Journal investigative report, “has been conducting a campaign of harassing and intimidating members of its diaspora world-wide.” Farnaz Fassihi reports that Iranians living abroad, have received ominous emails from Iranian security forces, warning that their families will be in danger, if their actions against the regime persist. Many Iranian citizens have been detained at airports and interrogated as …
On Monday, The New York Times carried an op-ed by Heritage Foundation scholar and former US Attorney General Ed Meese titled “Stacking the Deck Against Proposition 8.” In that piece, Mr. Meese criticized a series of pre-trial rulings issued by Judge Vaughn R. Walker in the landmark same-sex marriage case currently underway in federal court in San Francisco. One of those rulings involved Judge Walker’s controversial decision to broadcast the trial to other courthouses and post video recordings of the Prop 8 trial on the Internet. On Wednesday, the US …
There may be valuable political conclusions to be drawn from the current tiff between Google and the Chinese government, but there certainly isn’t anything new on the economics or business side. Perhaps the main reason the PRC wants foreign technology and know-how is to drive foreign (and some domestic) companies out of business. Google’s threat to stop its China service entirely has prompted broad discussion of the struggle of many multinational firms in the PRC. The discussion is well summarized by James McGregor, “There’s a sense China is saying, ‘We …
Facing rising populist anger over his administration’s billion-dollar bailouts, President Barack Obama proposed a $117 billion tax over the next 12 years on financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” the President said. The President is half right. Taxpayers are going to get their money back from the banks that received bailout money … but don’t expect to see any of the money the Obama administration poured into General Motors and Chrysler at the behest of their …
In the wake of widespread public backlash over his eleventh-hour deal to get increased federal taxpayer Medicaid funding for his vote, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has been hitting the media circuit, assuring reporters that he won’t vote for any merged health care bill that funds abortions with taxpayer dollars or has a government-run health insurance plan. “There is zero chance (of a public option),” he said to The Chadron Record. “I’ve made it so clear. It isn’t going to happen.” But Sen. Nelson has already allowed a “public option” to …
