Venezuela’s authoritarian populist president, Hugo Chavez, is threatening to cut off oil sales to the U.S. The latest dispute follows Colombia’s presentation of evidence regarding the presence of an estimated 1,500 FARC fighters on Venezuelan soil with the complicit support of Chávez and his government. Thundered Chavez: If there was any armed aggression against Venezuela from Colombian territory or from anywhere else, promoted by the Yankee empire, we would suspend oil shipments to the U.S. even if we have to eat stones here!
The Washington Post has arrived at the conclusion, in a July 26 editorial, that the New START arms control agreement with Russia should be ratified this year. Arriving at this conclusion, however, has resulted from the Post misunderstanding important details about the treaty and failing to recognize that the Obama Administration’s general approach to arms control is seriously flawed. Starting with the specifics, the Post asserts that New START will reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads from the levels required under the current Moscow Treaty with Russia by …
Like many federal efforts in Washington, last week’s reintroduction from House Democrats to create a public health insurance option, which would become part of the 2014 insurance exchanges created by Obamacare, is a bureaucratic redundancy. Stuart Butler points out that the health reform law already has its own “public option” through expanded powers to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Calling the House bill a “smokescreen” for the nation’s opposition against a public option, Butler says the real story is in the “OPM alternative.” “Far from being an alternative, it …
The World Tribune’s Gregory Copley has broken the news that “U.S. powerlessness and EU confusion” have opened a “window of opportunity” for Turkey to seriously consider acquiring nuclear weapons. Just last month, Turkey defied its traditional allies, including the United States and Israel, by voting against a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, in punishments for Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. Further, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has displayed growing Islamist sympathies and exercises an undemocratic stranglehold on power, raising legitimate questions about Turkey’s commitment to …
A just released report by the Sutherland Institute introduces a metric—the Self-Reliance Index—that can be used to track people’s reliance on government and lack of self-sufficiency. You might call it the opposite of The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Dependence on Government. The report notes, “Government aid only creates an illusion that aid recipients are well-enough off. Just as a student who hires someone to help them get ‘A’s’ is not truly an ‘A’ student, a person who depends on government to fulfill his or her needs is not out of …
Yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a vague threat against U.N. members that try to enforce the June 9 U.N. Security Council resolution that authorized inspections on Iranian ships and aircraft suspected of carrying prohibited materials for Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missile programs: “You should know whoever takes a decision against the Iranian nation, such as the so-called inspection of the Iranian ships or so-and-so toward its aircraft, will immediately receive Iran’s reaction,” he warned in a speech broadcast live on radio. Ahmadinejad’s warning is part of a heavy-handed Iranian …
A Colorado federal court last week struck down another of Congress’s well-intentioned but poorly drafted criminal laws—a law that exemplifies some of the root problems of overcriminalization. In a well-reasoned opinion [2010 WL 2802691 (opinion not yet available on the Internet)], the court held that the broad offense in the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 – criminalizing lying or making any misrepresentation about whether a person received a military medal or other award – violates the First Amendment right to free speech. Such conduct is reprehensible, but this criminal offense …
The posting of over 90,000 classified US government documents by Wikileaks has raised fresh questions about the US strategy in Afghanistan. Leaking of classified information, particularly on this scale, has the potential to damage US national security interests and in general should be discouraged. Much of the information from the classified US government documents released over the weekend by Wikileaks was already known to those observing the war over the last nine years. The challenges the US faces in fighting a counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan and in obtaining full Pakistani …
It is established practice in Washington that if you have to release bad news, it is best to do it on a Friday … the later in the day the better. So not only did the White House schedule the publication of the “Mid-Session Budget Review” for last Friday, but they then released it three hours late to ensure that as few reporters as possible were left in the nation’s capital to cover it. But Heritage’s dedicated budget team patiently waited the Obama administration out, and their analysis shows that this …
House Cloakroom: July 26-30, 2010 Analysis: One week remains in the House before members head home for the August recess. There is a variety of legislation that could be coming to the floor, but the main theme of the week will be attempts by the House leadership to pass the FY 2010 War Funding Supplemental to provide emergency funds to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate late last Thursday evening passed the scaled back request they had originally passed in May of $58.8 billion and rejected the House …
