Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again made news at the U.N. General Assembly yesterday by suggesting that 9/11 terrorist attack was orchestrated by the U.S. government in a plot that somehow would boost its economy and help Israel. The U.S. delegation walked out before the tiny tyrant could finish his regurgitation of various half-baked conspiracy theories. It will be interesting to see what other delegations walked out, rather than listen to such nonsense. Ahmadinejad also announced that Iran will host a conference on terrorism next year. That should be a fascinating …
The legislative agenda of the House Republicans for the next Congress has been unveiled this week. “Pledge to America” is a policy statement encompassing a wide range of issues from economy to health care to the plan to keep the nation secure at home and abroad. The pledge highlights the importance of a strong national defense and the need to fully fund a robust ballistic missile defense program to protect the U.S. homeland against strategic attack. The document rightfully acknowledges that today’s world of existing and emerging new independent nuclear …
As expected, President Obama touched on one of his favorite subjects in his lengthy address to the United Nations General Assembly today: nuclear disarmament. He claimed that: As we pursue the world’s most dangerous extremists, we’re also denying them the world’s most dangerous weapons, and pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. Earlier this year, 47 nations embraced a work-plan to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. We have joined with Russia to sign the most comprehensive arms control treaty in decades. We have …
Give the proponents of New START credit for “staying on message” regarding the reasons why they think the Senate should consent to the ratification of this strategic nuclear arms control treaty with Russia. These are the same tired arguments the Obama Administration has been making for months, and are now made again in The Washington Times op-ed by former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and former Senator Jake Garn. So let’s revisit the arguments. First, they argue that the strategic nuclear verification regime incorporated into the predecessor treaty, called START, …
Regulators have begun issuing some of the hundreds, if not thousands, of regulations necessary to implement Obamacare. Among them is a new restriction on health reimbursement accounts that exemplifies the lunacy of the entire health care scheme. Health reimbursement accounts (HRA) provide tax breaks for deposits used to pay medical costs, including basic over-the-counter (OTC) remedies such as pain relievers, antihistamines, and topical antibiotics. But effective Jan. 1, 2011, reimbursements from the accounts will be allowed for over-the-counter medicines only if they are purchased with a prescription.
The news that Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, is set to testify Friday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is crucial to the panel’s investigation of allegations that the Obama administration has not enforced the nation’s civil rights laws in a race-neutral manner. The testimony by Coates, a career government lawyer, is expected to shed light on whether DOJ: Discriminated against white voters in dismissing the voter-intimidation case against two members of the New Black Panther Party and the party itself that arose from …
Should Americans be forced into mandatory participation in a government-run long-term care Ponzi scheme? Or is a taxpayer bailout of another congressional misadventure a better idea? These may be the choices confronting a future Congress if the Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) Program is left intact. CLASS is a new government-run, long-term care entitlement for eligible workers created under Obamacare. The main concern with existing entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—is that millions of Americans have been promised a benefit that is simply unaffordable to deliver. Instead of …
Americans appear to be taking a cue from the Obama Administration on foreign policy and the U.S.’s role in global affairs. Much like President Carter’s contention that a “national malaise” had befallen Americans in the late 1970s, making everyone depressed if they were not so already, President Obama’s constant refrain that the United States has much to be humble about and should act accordingly, has taken a toll on Americans’ view of their role in the world. The new opinion poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that …
Last month, we highlighted wasteful spending in Bell, Calif., that resulted in paying the City Manager nearly $800,000 a year. There is a silver lining for Bell residents. This gross misuse of public funds prompted an investigation by prosecutors and what they found was amazing. They found that not only was the City Manager, Robert Rizzo, grossly overpaid, but the city council failed to oversee his actions, which resulted in Rizzo making unauthorized city loans to himself. Prosecutor Steve Cooley was justifiably outraged by these findings saying:
By now, most Americans who have been following the effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) realize that the health care overhaul is going to cause health insurance premiums to increase. Even President Obama admitted that his health care plan was “going to increase our costs—we knew that.” However, the number of provisions in Obamacare that will increase premiums is likely far larger than most people realize. In recent research, Heritage analysts Brian Blase and Rea Hederman, Jr., highlight a dozen ways in which Obamacare will raise …
