After months of mounting frustration with Pakistan over its unwillingness to crack down on Afghan Taliban leaders finding sanctuary on its soil, Pakistan appears to be coming through with cooperation that could help turn the tide in the war in Afghanistan. Following last week’s revelation that the number two Taliban leader, Mullah Baradar, was captured in Pakistan earlier this month, fresh reports indicate that at least three other senior Taliban leaders have also recently been arrested in Pakistan. These include Mullah Abdul Kabir, a deputy prime minister in the former …
As recent as last summer an article in The Independent, citing assessment from the lead economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that “The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production.” The 2008 report urged that we are at a crossroads and we need to transition rapidly to a low carbon fuel economy. It’s certainly not a new argument; it was a consensus in the 1970s …
The Obama administration’s decision to remain neutral in the dispute between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands is a shameful decision that will go down very badly across the Atlantic. As The Times has just reported, Washington has point blank refused to support British sovereignty over the Falklands, and is adopting a strictly neutral approach. In the words of a State Department spokesman: We are aware not only of the current situation but also of the history, but our position remains one of neutrality. The US recognises de …
Of all the isolated places on earth, North Korea is a strong candidate for the most dismal. Yet it is the case in the information age that no country can be 100 percent hermetically sealed from the rest of the world. Even in North Korea, cracks are appearing in the government’s information monopoly, which should provide hope that no audience is entirely beyond the reach of U.S. international broadcasting. Societies such as North Korea, Iran and Venezuela, where information is tightly controlled by repressive governments, do present valuable opportunities for …
In preparation for the Health Care Summit, President Obama unveiled his first official health care proposal. It is intended to reconcile the differences between the highly unpopular House and Senate bills. Curiously, President Obama’s latest iteration of the liberal health policy agenda includes more federal power: the power to control “private” health plan premiums. Price Controls. According to the President’s proposal, a new “Health Insurance Rate Authority” would oversee rate review for private insurers, so that “if a rate increase is unreasonable and unjustified, health insurers must lower premiums, provide …
Was the stimulus (A) a job creation bill or, (B) a liberal spending wish list? A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) study suggests that option B is closer to the truth. Small wonder it did not bring unemployment down. Obama publicly argued that America needed the $862 billion bill to create jobs and singled out “green job” spending as the key to an economic recovery. The stimulus itself, however, looked a lot like not letting “a good crisis go to waste” and pouring public money at liberal special interests. Remember …
President Obama’s health care summit is set to begin at 10 AM and end at 4 PM. Throughout the summit, Heritage experts will provide their analysis. We will keep this post at the top of the Foundry, so check back often for our latest reaction to the summit. 4:34 – Senators Barrasso and Coburn were both medical doctors, and they just made the case that a health care system based on catastrophic insurance with health savings accounts would be preferable to a health care system based on comprehensive insurance. Senator …
Today’s White House-sponsored health care summit is an insult to the intelligence of every honest American. President Barack Obama’s communications minions are still trying sell his plan as an “opening bid” in the health care debate. But as Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus asks: “With whom is he bidding? The public dance is with Republicans, but this is hardly serious. The White House does not enter Thursday’s summit expecting Republicans to make a deal.” In fact, the President’s recently-unveiled plan is specifically designed to be passed without a single Republican …
“The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming. That conclusion is not a partisan one.” – Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson. Forget being partisan or not. That conclusion of settled science isn’t existent. It hasn’t been for a long time, but they are especially bold words in light of the climate scandal involving the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and the flaws uncovered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Yesterday, the Senate Minority Committee on Environment and …
Tomorrow, President Barack Obama will host a summit to discuss health care reform, but as Heritage’s Nina Owcharenko notes in this video, if the President is serious and sincere about making the summit a success, he should simply start over. Owcharenko, who is Heritage’s Deputy Director of the Center for Health Policy Studies, says that the fundamental direction of the President’s plan is flawed.
