Today in San Francisco, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker will begin presiding over Perry vs. Schwarzenegger, a case that could erase the will of California’s voters by finding Proposition 8′s refusal to recognize same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. But as Heritage Foundation Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and Ronald Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese explains in today’s New York Times, some of Judge Walker’s pre-trial rulings have already made history: But most disquieting for supporters of traditional marriage is a series of pretrial rulings issued by …
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to do what Congress couldn’t: regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases because allegedly “greenhouse gases threaten both the public health and the public welfare, and that greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to that threat.” To prevent this backdoor policy that would grant the EPA unprecedented authority over American economy, Congressman Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) introduced legislation on Friday that would prohibit the agency from implementing national greenhouse gas emissions standards. In his press release, Congressman Pomeroy said, Regulation of greenhouse gas …
Last Friday the Bureau of Labor and Statistics released its monthly jobs report showing that the U.S. economy shed 85,000 jobs in December, but due to the fact that 661,000 individuals left the labor force, the unemployment rate stayed at 10.0%. The Obama administration again spun the report by stressing that the rate of job loss continues to decline. But as Heritage fellow James Sherk explained last year, it is not job losses but lack of job creation that is driving our double digit unemployment rate. Unemployment is unlikely to …
We would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our redesigned blog, The Foundry, now available at www.foundry.org. The Foundry is the conservative policy news blog that offers the latest and greatest from The Heritage Foundation. Every day, Heritage experts and analysts provide insight into the day’s news, using well-crafted research, data, charts and analysis. You’ll also find commentary on breaking news, national policy, congressional events and the White House. If you’ve been a regular reader of The Foundry, you know about the great content we have to …
Our Tweet of the Week comes from Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Rep. Flake has his own “best of” feature. He highlights the “Egregious Earmark of the Week.” Last week, he put the spotlight on a $600,000 earmark for coastal tidal gauges in Alabama. From Rep. Flake, here’s the Tweet of the Week: @JeffFlake: The Tide may be nat’l champs, but this week’s egregious earmark shows the tide has yet to turn for earmark reform. http://bit.ly/6KkMjh You can follow The Heritage Foundation on Twitter @Heritage.
The Senate is not expected to return to Washington until Tuesday, January 19th, however, the House will be back in town this week for a short session beginning on Tuesday, January 12th. At this time it is unclear what legislative issues will be taken up. We will update you if new information becomes available.
In a Christmas Eve vote, the American people watched a U.S. Senator betray his pro-life principles for $100 million. The version of Obamacare that passed the Senate is the one to watch—it changes current law and allows taxpayer dollars to fund plans that cover elective abortions for the first time in years—and with the hair’s-width margin by which it passed, it may well emerge from the negotiations between the House and the Senate. The only thing that stands between Americans and a law forcing them to fund abortion coverage against …
On the campaign trail Barack Obama promised if he were elected president, he would create 5 million “green collar” jobs. Today President Obama announced $2.3 billion in tax credits for a clean energy economy will ostensibly create 17,000 jobs. “Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” he said in a speech this afternoon. Make no mistake; this government-run plan will kill more jobs than it aims to create. There are a number of serious problems with the goal to create green …
American commentators, like Michael Barone, are starting to focus on the fact that, while the recession has hurt the private sector, it’s helping the public one. A Rasmussen poll found that 46 percent of government employees say the economy is getting better while just 31 percent say it’s getting worse. In the private sector, those proportions are reversed. While the private sector economy has lost millions of jobs, the public sector one has been stable. But anything the U.S. can do, Britain, in this context, can do worse. The Sunday …
The Malaysian “street” needs an education. The Malaysian High Court’s decision to overturn a three-year ban on the use by Christians of the word Allah was correct – based both on the freedom of Malaysians to practice their faiths, and also based on the facts. Unfortunately, public protests and violence over the decision has led to its suspension pending the hearing of a government appeal. This is a political debate in Malaysia, not a religious one. My opinion is probably not going to be of much use in that political …
