Washington has apparently rediscovered a legitimate part of the immigration debate, one often treated as the untouchable third rail of the issue—birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and foreign visitors. Currently, the United States seems to grant citizenship to all children born to parents who are unlawfully in the United States—a practice followed by virtually no other modern nation. The practice raises a problem in principle because it runs against our deep respect for, and valuation of, citizenship. Birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens and foreign visitors is …
Progress is often a matter of higher, faster, further—profits are higher, computer chips are faster, cars run further on a gallon of gas. In Washington, progress is often measured by more and more—spending more than ever and being more cynical than ever. The liberal leadership in Congress has set a new standard for progress. Not content with having pushed the budget deficit over $1.4 trillion with an Olympic-sized spending spree, the House of Representatives will rush back from its August recess next week to vote on another bailout package, this …
The President signed Obamacare into law last March as an attempt to get spending and costs under control, but the new law will likely fail at this mission. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reports that, in recent months, Americans have already begun to cut back on health care usage, which has the potential to lower the cost of medical care and insurance premiums. In a truly ironic turn of events, Obamacare may actually keep spending on its upward trajectory. The drop in health care usage could be a result …
We have posted several videos from this summer’s Second Amendment Task Force this week. Today’s final installment is of remarks by Dave Kopel, Research Director at the Independence Institute. During his address, Kopel discussed the Kagan nomination in the broader context of the fight to protect gun rights. He specifically discussed the development of the Fourteenth Amendment and the role it can play in the defense of the Second Amendment.
According to Iran’s Fars news agency, Iran has obtained four S-300PT air-defense missile systems. Fars claimed that this report was first revealed last year by another news agency—one linked to Hezbollah—and that Iran never disputed the story. The report claimed that two of the four systems came from Belarus; details about the source of the other two systems were not provided and have not been reported elsewhere since the Fars claim. Belarus has denied any involvement in such a deal. In fact, the story begins well before last year. According …
Almost as soon as the 2010 Social Security trustees report comes out today, various groups will claim that the program is fiscally healthy because its trust fund won’t run out until sometime in the 2030s. Sadly, the reality is very different. The trust fund contains promises to pay—not real money. Those promises are in the form of special issue U.S. Treasury bonds, so they have legal standing, but there is no Scrooge McDuck-like vault filled with cash. Instead, as Bill Clinton’s OMB noted back in 2000:
This Tuesday voters in Missouri, by a 40-point margin, approved a ballot measure rejecting the individual mandate at the core of President Barack Obama’s health care law. Asked what the vote meant to the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said: “Nothing.” Yesterday in San Francisco, federal judge Vaughn Walker gave the exact same weight to a California ballot measure that affirmed marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. Specifically Judge Walker overturned the California Marriage Protection Act after concluding, as a matter of fact, that the …
The taxpayer-funded, $10 billion public-education bailout moved one step closer to reality today when the Senate voted 61–38 on a cloture measure, clearing the path for bill consideration toward the end of the week. Since the House has already left for recess, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will have to call members back for a vote, which she has promised to do. Do teachers need lawmakers to leave the beaches and head back to Washington? Not if we’re to believe reports from school districts about their summer hiring. Mike Antonucci of the …
Today’s decision by a federal district judge in San Francisco striking down state constitutional protections for marriage and inventing a spurious federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage is an example of extreme judicial activism. Moreover, it is an affront to the millions of California voters who approved Proposition 8 in 2008 after months of vigorous public debate. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The people of California, and the United States, have made clear in numerous ways that they have not consented to the redefinition …
Using the classic Washington fib that “It’s paid for,” Congress is spending an extra $26-billion to bail out state governments (who already got the lions’ share of last year’s failed $787-billion “stimulus” bill). The House will rush back from a six-week recess to spend the money next week—an urgency that they instead should show to fix the economy by removing the twin threats of Jan. 1 tax hikes plus a bundle of job-killing regulations. The $26-billion won’t fix the jobs crisis in the private sector, but instead gives job security …
