In addition announcing the launch of a research rocket, three Iranian-made satellites, and a tactical shift on a proposed International Atomic Energy Agency deal on uranium, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threw another disingenuous curve ball yesterday by claiming that talks were underway with the United States for an exchange of prisoners. In an interview on state television Tuesday, Ahmadinejad was asked about the fate of three American hikers detained in Iran and claimed that the United States, not Iran, was at fault: “They have arrested our citizens for nothing… this is very …
With the victory of Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-MA), Democrats are turning to a secret “Nuclear Option” to push ObamaCare through the Senate and avoid a Republican filibuster. Now it appears, though, that Republicans have a procedural tactic of their own to fight back. The Hill reports today that “Republicans say they have found a loophole in the budget reconciliation process that could allow them to offer an indefinite number of amendments. Though it has never been done, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) says he’s prepared to test the Senate’s stamina to …
Following his speech, Senator McConnell sat down with us In The Green Room, where he discussed how the Administration should be handling Guantanamo Bay detainees and reflected upon how the Administration’s “wrong-headed” approach to terrorism led to the mishandling of the case of Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
President Obama’s FY2011 budget confirms his administration’s plans to phase out the successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. There are two clear indicators of this in the budget: the elimination of future funding for the program and the effective consolidation of the “three-sector approach” into two sectors. With regard to the elimination of funding, page 1244 states: The Budget proposes to continue to provide private school vouchers for only those students currently enrolled in the program…it is expected that this will be the final request for Federal funding to support the …
Listening to Washington, you would never know that today’s hot topics include Climategate, Glaciergate, and an increasingly bitter debate about what we really know about our capacity to accurately forecast global climate change. In his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama asserted that there is “overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change.” The Director of National Intelligence and the Pentagon are following the President’s lead in Lemming-like fashion. In his testimony to Congress, Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, stated, “We continue to assess that global climate change …
On Tuesday, February 2, President Obama released his budget forecasting a deficit for 2010 of $1.6 trillion for the year and $9.1 trillion from 2010 through 2020. The next day the Moody’s credit rating agency announced Obama’s budget policies were so profligate and irresponsible as to risk the credit rating of the federal government. The United State has long been recognized as the best credit risk in the world, with a rating of Aaa on Moody’s scale. Obama’s fiscal policies may “test the Aaa boundaries” according to Moody’s, as it …
Iran’s government today announced the successful launching of a research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trumpeted the launch as a “very big event” and promised on state-controlled television that “The scientific arena is where we could defeat the (West’s) domination.” The launch of the Explorer-3 rocket is part of Iran’s ambitious space program, which concerns many Iran-watchers because the same technology used to launch research rockets and satellites can also be used to deliver warheads in ballistic missiles. Significantly, the launch was …
Facing the stark reality of double-digit unemployment and the failure of his first $862 billion economic stimulus, President Barack Obama unveiled his second stimulus plan last month including a mix of subsidies and government-subsidized loans targeted solely at small business. Obama’s Second stimulus will be funded in part by roughly $33 billion from the TARP, that will be then redirected to community banks through the Federal Small Business Administration (SBA). While the aim of promoting job growth through the “acceleration” of small business creation and expansion is laudable, businesses do …
President Obama reaffirmed his willingness to expand the commercial nuclear energy in the United States when he said in his State of the Union address that we should be “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.” He backed it up by including an additional $36 billion in loan guarantees to nuclear energy projects. On top of the $18.5 billion allotted under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT 2005), the total amount in loan guarantees now stands at $54.5 billion. Is this good or …
Al-Qaeda’s strength in Africa is expanding. Cells in northern Africa are spreading southwards to Nigeria, eager to recruit impressionable Muslims to join their international terror network. In the wake of January’s violent clash between Christians and Muslims in the diverse city of Jos, al-Qaeda’s immediate reaction was to equip and train young Muslims for jihad. According to the Washington Post, Abdelmalek Droukdel, leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) announced that al-Qaeda is prepared to provide training, manpower, munitions, and various other resources to push Nigeria’s young men into …
