The Obama administration is still in denial about the message the American people sent Washington last Tuesday. In letters to Ohio Governor-elect John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker, obtained by Reuters, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood threatened to take away stimulus money from the states unless they used it for President Barack Obama’s high-speed rail plans. LaHood wrote: I respect the authority of governors to make decisions for their states. If, however, you choose not to participate in the program, we would like to engage in an orderly transition to …
For the most part the progressive movement is unhappy with the proposal from President Barack Obama’s fiscal commission report. But one area that they will embrace is the report’s call for $100 billion in defense cuts. Fortunately, the American people have a strong ally in presumptive-House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA). McKeon released a statement last week promising: America remains a nation at war. More than 150,000 of our sons and daughters are deployed around the globe in the fight against Al Qaeda and its terrorist allies. The top …
The Conference Board, a global research association, made a splash with their 2011 global outlook. The group’s most interesting claims are that emerging markets will drive “global growth” and that China could pass the U.S. on one measure of economic size as early as 2012. The Conference Board is making two mistakes many observers make, and which the media gladly eats up. First, the Conference Board projects China could have a larger economy than America when adjusting for purchasing power parity (ppp). PPP is a way to account for different …
Today, we at The Heritage Foundation will honor Veterans Day by pausing to remember those who sacrifice in defense of freedom for our country. Heritage honors all who serve past and present in the United States Armed Forces, their families, and all military retirees and veterans. We solemnly remember those fallen men and women who gave the last full measure of devotion and will also not forget those who have yet to come home and remain missing in action. On this national holiday we also take a closer look at …
The draft proposal issued Wednesday by the co-chairmen of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction panel has both strengths and weaknesses.. Heritage Foundation analysts are still poring through this preliminary document, and we will have more to say in the days to come. Already, we see the following: One great flaw in the proposal is the massive tax increase proposed by the co-chairmen, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo) and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. They would hike taxes to 21% of America’s economic output (i.e., gross domestic product or GDP), …
The President’s national security team prepared a solid speech for him to deliver at the University of Indonesia yesterday. The speech, intended as a follow up to his 2009 Cairo speech to the “Muslim world,” was first posted on the State Department’s America.gov website in its “as prepared for delivery” form. It was well-tailored to an Indonesian audience and avoided all the ill-advised religious language of the Cairo speech. Unfortunately, the President had some of ideas of his own. Judging by the changes posted in the revised speech he ad-libbed.
This fall the left ran millions of dollars worth of ads demonizing free trade and “foreign money.” Now President Barack Obama is in Asia negotiating the U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) with South Korea. The case for KORUS should be a slam dunk. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that U.S. exports would increase $10–11 billion annually, if the agreement passed. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that approving the KORUS would lead to an increase of 250,000 jobs, while a failure to enact the agreement would lead to …
Last month we detailed how the Obama administration has tried invoke the authority of “science” to support their pre-existing political policy proposals, despite the fact that on issue after issue there either is no scientific consensus, or the preponderance of scientific evidence did not support their side. Today, Politico adds more details to the Obama administration’s efforts to manipulate science to support their offshore drilling moratorium: The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban …
Twenty five years ago, President Reagan’s Attorney General Ed Meese sparked a national debate about the meaning of the Constitution that set the stage for the revival of constitutionalism in this country. On July 9, 1985, speaking before the American Bar Association, Meese issued a stinging critique of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in the areas of federalism, criminal law, and religion in the public square. The Court, he argued, rejects the idea that the Constitution has a fixed meaning, thereby leaving the justices free to concoct mock constitutional principles …
Last Saturday, two criminals attacked and brutally beat Oleg Kashin, 30, a prominent Moscow journalist. Because he suffered more than 50 blows with a metal bar, he would have died were he not rushed to the emergency room and operated on multiple times. Kashin is a political reporter for the popular Moscow daily newspaper Kommersant. The journalist suffered a broken skull, a severe concussion, a broken jaw, and a broken ankle. Assailants broke his fingers in the most brutal way imaginable, tearing out digits and forcing the doctors to amputate …
