The Senate is engaging in a debate today on a Wyden/Grassley Amendment to the War Supplemental spending bill that will further restrict the rights of minority members in the Senate to slow passage of expensive legislation and controversial nominees. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have an amendment to end the rights of Senators to place a so called “Secret Hold” on nominations and legislation. A hold is the threat of a filibuster and a means for one member to force the Senate to follow its own rules. …
Three American hikers who apparently strayed across Iran’s border with Iraq have become pawns in Iran’s cynical game of foreign policy blackmail. Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal and Sarah Shourd have been held in prison since being arrested last July on a hiking trip, after Iranian officials alleged that they crossed the poorly-marked border. Last week their mothers were allowed to travel to Tehran to meet with their imprisoned children, a sign that Iran’s thuggish regime believes that its bargaining leverage will be enhanced by publicizing the hostages’ plight. Iran’s Intelligence …
On Friday, May 21, 2010, Admiral Dennis Blair (ret.), the Director of National Intelligence resigned. What really matters in his resignation, however, is not Dennis Blair but the Obama Administration’s chaotic counterterrorism strategy—one that is proving incapable of effectively preventing acts of terrorism against Americans. President Obama has made it clear to the American public that he has changed course on counterterrorism matters. Terrorism is now viewed largely as a matter for law enforcement, not an actual war on terrorism. His actions demonstrate this new strategy. For example, he would …
As a world leader, the United States cannot be lackadaisical about the power of symbols and images. Ronald Reagan knew this and as one of his first official acts as president, he turned the lights back on the monuments in Washington, which had literally been darkened by President Carter during the energy crisis. One wonders what Reagan would have thought about the symbolism of the U.S. pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, and – for that matter — about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s current visit to China in the …
Earlier this month while in Brussels, Vice President Joe Biden told the European Parliament that while “some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, DC as the ‘capital of the free world’ … it seems to me that this great city, which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title.” How revealing. The European Union is a profoundly anti-democratic institution, created and forced …
Whatever prospects lie ahead for cap and trade legislation moving through the Senate might not matter if the Environmental Protection Agency continues forward on its path to regulate carbon dioxide. The EPA’s endangerment finding, which took place earlier this year, gives the agency the authority to use Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases (GHGs). New restrictions on automobiles were the first step in what could eventually be a long, economically painful set of regulations imposed by unelected government bureaucrats – unless Congress steps up to the plate and stops …
Thomas Jefferson established an academy at West Point because he wanted an institution to train Army officers which would be beholden to no political party. Cadets learn their responsibility is to live the academy motto—“duty, honor, country.” That said, it is unfortunate that President Barack Obama chose to make the centerpiece of his remarks at West Point last week a partisan diatribe—with another dose of “anything but Bush” rhetoric. Even more disappointing, the President outlined the main elements of the Obama Doctrine: greater reliance on international institutions; substituting soft power …
We’ve been warned. In 2004, the Commission to Assess the Threat of the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) reported that “EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences.” Yet, Congress has done next to nothing to protect the U.S. from an EMP attack. As my colleague, Baker Spring explains an EMP can occur when a nuclear weapon is detonated high in the atmosphere above the Earth. The resulting explosion interacts with the Earth’s magnetic fields, sending a pulse, …
Chapter 5 of One Nation Under Arrest is titled “Criminalizing Kids.” This chapter includes stories demonstrating that it is not just adults who face the dangers of overcriminalization. The prevailing mindset among most legislators and government policy makers is that criminal law and criminal punishment are generally the best tools to “solve” any important problem. As a result, more and more children have been victimized by overcriminalization. The Boy Scout motto is “Be Prepared,” but not even Miles Rankin’s Scout Master could have prepared Miles for the injustice this twelve-year-old …
“The lights are turning red,” droned the song by the Eagles. They could have been singing about Iran, which continues to make US foreign policy look like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. In last minute deal making with Russia over sanctions on Iran, the US caved to Moscow objections over selling advanced air and cruise missile defenses to Tehran. This is a particularly disruptive retreat by Obama’s State Department, one that makes an Israeli military strike more, not less, likely. Meanwhile, Iran continues to play rope-a-dope. The speaker of …
