What does Vice President Joe Biden do on a hot summer day in Washington, DC, while a major environmental disaster has left the Gulf of Mexico in ruin? Host a beach party for journalists at his house, of course! And go ahead and get the Democratic National Committee to pay for it, too. With squirt guns, watermelon, and the Vice President himself, sliding down a waterslide, how could he go wrong? (Nevermind the oil spill! Let’s get some sun!) The party held last Friday underscores a troubling trend in the …
As the U.N. Security Council finally prepares to vote on the long-awaited Iran sanctions resolution, Tehran has escalated its efforts to undermine sanctions efforts. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned today that if a fourth round of sanctions is imposed, Iran will drop its nuclear fuel swap deal with Brazil and Turkey and rule out future talks on the nuclear issue. Ahmadinejad whined: “I have said that the US government and its allies are mistaken if they think they can brandish the stick of resolution and then sit down to talk with …
Turkey may no longer be the friend the United States once knew. The Washington Post reports that thousands gathered in Istanbul on Saturday, shouting “Damn Israel!” in protest of the clash between Israeli forces and “peace activists” on a Turkish-flagged ship. The protest, together with dangerous shifts in Turkey’s foreign policy and inflammatory rhetoric from its prime minister, lead to questions about the country’s posture toward the West. The Washington Post reports: The incident occurred as Turkey has been strengthening ties with Muslim governments in the region — becoming more …
Tax hikes helped the U.S. economy go from downturn to depression in 1932.Throughout the mid-30s there were glimmers of economic recovery until taxes were raised again in 1937, helping send the economy into another recession. So, why would it be smart to raise taxes now during such a fragile economic recovery? Art Laffer, once a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, explains why tax hikes in 2011 are going to depress output, production and reported income. The result, he says: a dreaded double-dip recession. On or about Jan. …
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was at the Shangri-La Dialogue (aka the Asia Security Summit), and according to The Washington Post, he has engaged in sharp exchanges with the Chinese participants. Who was Gates’ interlocutor at Shangri-La? None other than People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Major General Zhu Chenghu, who bluntly stated that “You, the Americans, are taking China as the enemy.” What is striking is that General Zhu is the same officer who, in 2005, broached the idea that China’s nuclear “no first use” policy might not apply if …
According to the columnist Robert J. Samuelson, the new Obama poverty measure “fails.” It flunks the test of “political neutrality,” and is based on “misleading statistics that not one American in 100,000 could possibly understand.” That’s because the new calculation would measure poverty on a sliding scale. Thus, if the average income of families in the United States’ increases so too does the poverty threshold. Talk about keeping up with the Jones. This new measure provides the perfect climate for left-leaning politicians to promote equalization of wealth through redistribution. This …
President Obama, joined by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is holding a televised Town Hall Meeting today on the benefits of his big health care law with senior citizens in Wheaton, Maryland. The President’s public relations offensive will be coordinated with unions and a bevy of liberal interest groups, ranging from the AARP to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The President’s appearance is specifically designed to put the national spotlight on a “ milestone” provision of the unpopular national health law: A $250 rebate to help senior citizens pay …
The U.S. is currently participating in the Review Conference for the International Criminal Court in Kampala, Uganda, at which three amendments are under consideration that would negatively affect U.S. interests if passed. Regardless of what happens in Kampala, the Obama administration has said that it will not seek ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Court. However, a number of non-governmental organizations ardently support the International Criminal Court and continue to urge the U.S. to join. There are numerous legal and policy objections to such a course of action. …
This morning White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and budget director Peter Orszag will release a memo directing all federal agency heads “to develop plans” to cut at least 5 percent from their budgets by “identifying programs that do little to advance their missions or President Obama’s agenda.” This spasm of fiscal responsibility can mean only one thing: the Obama administration is about to go on another wild spending binge. And sure enough Politico reports that while Blue Dogs in the House managed to whittle what was a $200 …
Among the slew of strategy documents from the Obama administration this spring, full of academic analysis and verbal flourishes, Congress has rightly detected a certain lack of substance. Case in point: The question of whether the U.S. government needs a Center for Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy. According to the National Security Council in its National Communication’s Strategy the answer is “No.” According to the House Armed Services Committee in its report accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011 (H.R. 5136), the National Security Council has done …
