In a series of three letter rulings – here, here, and here – issued in May, the Internal Revenue Service has reached conclusions that flout the plain meaning of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The rulings involve California’s domestic partnership law, which dates to 1999 and has been expanded by the legislature on several occasions over the past decade. The result of the IRS interpretations is that domestic partners in California and several other states will be treated as the equivalent of married couples for the purpose of assessing …
It looks like the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats are taking the tough talk beyond just BP and Matt Lauer. The problem, of course, is that Americans have learned something in the last 18 months: President Barack Obama and his Administration like to talk the talk, they just don’t walk the walk very well. Politico reports that the liberals have realized the problem with getting traction on their amnesty proposal isn’t that the proposal is flawed; rather, the problem is they are using the wrong words to describe it. Out: …
Paul Krugman will forever deny Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s role in the housing bubble, but there is a reason Americans are now more skeptical of Washington than ever. But the Obama administration does not care what Americans think. Instead they want to do for food what Fannie and Freddie did for housing. First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move website reports: As part of the President’s proposed FY 2011 budget, the Administration announced a new program – the Healthy Food Financing Initiative — a partnership between the U.S. Departments of …
For decades now the secular Left has constantly pressed at every opportunity to keep any semblance of religion away from anything that is somehow connected to government. There must be a complete and unbridgeable separation of Church and State, they always say, a misreading (and misuse) of a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1801. That wall “must be high and impregnable,” the Supreme Court ruled in 1947. “We could not approve the slightest breach.” As a result, we can’t have prayers in public schools, at football games or graduations, and …
It seems that weak negotiating with Russia is becoming a habit for the Obama Administration. After signing a one-sided arms control deal with Russia on April 8th, the Administration is now touting a new United Nations Security Council Resolution that imposes a new round of sanctions on Iran in response to Iran’s ongoing nuclear program. The problem for the Obama Administration regarding the new Resolution is that it had to acquiesce to Russian demands that Russia’s trade with Iran not be impinged. This apparently includes in the area of arms …
Many feel Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went overboard while visiting Quito on June 8 and courting populist President Rafael Correa. Reported The New York Times, “Clinton woos a Leftist President, while Foreign Policy observed ‘Dearest Hillary’ charms Ecuador’s President Correa. Before the Secretary traveled to Quito, veteran diplomat Roger Noriega warned: The high-level visit to Quito is clearly part of a charm offensive to coax Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa out of the camp of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. However, no rapprochement is worth asking Secretary Clinton to turn a …
In perhaps President Obama’s most stealth campaign to date, the federal government has been slowly tightening its grip on the education sector to little fanfare. Rather than working through the democratic legislative process, this Administration has circumvented Congress to enact an ill-conceived education agenda that will weaken accountability, reduce transparency and minimize choice while only adding to the national deficit. For close to four decades, the federal government has operated under the seemingly simple premise that increased spending on education will translate into academic achievement. This line of thinking has resulted in …
At a hearing in March I asked Secretary Tim Geithner whether the US was at risk for losing our AAA credit rating, as a Moody’s quarterly report had indicated. He point blank responded that there is “not a chance” that this would happen to our country. I wish I could share his confidence, but given how things have unraveled in the past few months, I believe that America needs to take a step back and seriously reevaluate the way the government does business these days. While the Administration pushed through …
The US Government looked on in shock this week when Turkey defied its traditional allies including the United States and Israel, and voted against UN sanctions for Iran. Ankara had already tried to stall a fourth round of sanctions by negotiating a flawed nuclear deal with the atomic ayatollahs. U.S. defense secretary Robert Gates has said that Turkey’s strategic drift away from the West is due, in part, to the European Union’s reluctance to accept them into the alliance. Turkey has been a key NATO ally since the ‘50s, and …
Diane Macedo over at FoxNews.com points out that one publishing company–Wilder Publications–has put warning labels on their editions of the United States Constitution. The warning label on “Foundations of Freedom: Common Sense, The Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, The U.S. Constitution” reads: “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and interpersonal relations have changed …
