National Public Radio’s dismissal of Juan Williams is a powerful indictment of NPR’s practices and corporate culture. Small wonder voices are once again calling for the federal government to defund NPR—which gets 16% of its budget from tax payers. The Heritage Foundation has long called for such defunding. A veteran journalist, Williams is a liberal with whom I disagree more often than not. His integrity, his bravery, his refusal to be intimidated by peer pressure cannot be doubted, however. He has written thoughtful books on the civil rights movement and …
There is some good news about the rate of teenage parenthood in America. It’s on the decline again. According to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday, between 2007 and 2008, teen birth rates decreased by 2.4 percent. From a long-term perspective, the drop is even more dramatic. Between 1991 and 2008, the teen birth rate fell by nearly one-third. In only two years during this period, from 2005 to 2007, were there slight upticks in the number. The other main findings of the report …
This morning, the media world was shocked to learn that Juan Williams was fired from National Public Radio (NPR) as a result of opinions he expressed last night on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. Williams has been a long-time contributor to Fox News, where he offers unabashed center-left commentary. The controversy is hard to figure out. During the segment in question, Williams defended Muslims from being painted with broad strokes, even though he had also felt the personal twangs of fear when on an airline with a religiously-garbed Muslim post-9/11. Many …
Thanks in part to prominent female leadership in the Tea Party, the upcoming elections look to be “profound” for the conservative woman and their core issues. “It’s exciting that conservative women have found their voice,” said Penny Nance, chief executive of Concerned Women for America. “We are hoping that this is the year of the conservative woman.” Nance joined Steve Bannon, director of the The Tea Party Trilogy, at this week’s Bloggers Briefing, a meeting hosted by The Heritage Foundation. The second of Bannon’s three newest films — “Fire from …
With a struggling economy and stagnant unemployment rate, the last thing the United States needs is any public policy that will hurt job growth. Unfortunately, Obamacare’s new federally mandated, essential benefits package will diminish new job opportunities, especially for low-income workers. This is expected to occur because the new law requires employers to offer health care coverage or pay a penalty. And they can’t offer basic health plans. Instead, all job-based health plans must include what the government determines to be “essential benefits.” Since benefits that employers provide to their …
The suicide bomber attack on the Chechen Parliament in Grozny Tuesday morning cast further doubt on the Russian leadership’s declarations that the strategic North Caucasus region, Russia’s soft underbelly, is stabilizing. More trouble is in stock for Moscow and her South Caucasus neighbors (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), as the violence in Chechnya, Daghestan and elsewhere escalates. According to Al-Jazeera, six people were killed and 10 were wounded Tuesday morning during an assault on Chechnya’s parliament, a symbol of Russia-backed power. Chechnya is ruled by 34 year-old Ramzan Kadyrov, a pro-Kremlin …
Yesterday, the Council for Affordable Health Insurance (CAHI) released its annual report on health insurance mandates in the states. They report that mandated benefits—i.e., medical procedures that states require insurance providers to cover—across the 50 states are on the rise, jumping from 2,133 in 2009 to 2,156 in 2010. But that’s just part of the story. The report also shows that mandated benefits increase the cost of health insurance and by how much. This should come as no surprise. Requiring insurers to offer a higher value product comes at a …
Cap and trade legislation is dead. The left abandoned the policy this summer when it became clear it was a liability. Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) told Politico: “You can’t use cap and trade anymore because it is like manure on the trough. It’s defined, and people are opposed to it.” But that doesn’t mean the left has abandoned plans to hike up our nation’s energy costs in a vain attempt to save the world. All they did was pick a new a set of government mandates and repackage it as …
By now most people are familiar with the ongoing debate about how far government should be able to go in monitoring Internet communications. Such was the topic of a recent discussion at the Voice of America building in Washington, D.C. Judging by the remarks of the event’s panelists, especially those of Ambassador Philip Verveer, the State Department’s Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, there seems to be a considerable diversity of opinion within the government itself on the issue of cyber security. There are some very good reasons for …
When asked about his reaction to the signing of a Russian deal that promises to deliver two nuclear power plants to oil-rich Venezuela, President Obama answered: We have no incentive nor interest in increasing friction between Venezuela and the US, but we do think Venezuela needs to act responsibly. Our attitude is that Venezuela has rights to peacefully develop nuclear power,” he [Obama] said, “adding that as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty it must also meet its obligations not to weaponize those systems. For all the many rebuffs …
