On January 15, British Petroleum (BP) agreed to form a joint venture with Russia’s state-owned Rosneft to develop three of Rosneft’s offshore exploration blocks in northern Russia. The two companies will jointly explore for oil and gas in the Russian Arctic, one of the world’s last remaining unexplored hydrocarbon basins. Rosneft will receive BP shares equivalent to a 5 percent stake, valued at $7.8 billion, while BP will receive a 9.5 percent stake in Rosneft, in addition to the 1.3 percent it already owns. Hailed by First Deputy Prime Minister …
The House of Representatives will soon vote on full repeal of Obamacare. In an attempt to defend the health care overhaul, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner writes this morning that, in light of continued unacceptably high unemployment, “Given where we are, we must do things that help bolster the recovery, and repealing the Affordable Care Act would be a step in the wrong direction.” Geithner is right that Congress should act to improve the economy, but leaving Obamacare in place would do the opposite. Repeal of Obamacare is the only way …
Vanderbilt University Medical Center made a welcome decision last week and removed from its nurse residency admission application a requirement that students admitted to its women’s health track agree to participate in training to provide abortions. The decision came just 24 hours after attorneys at the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal group, filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) challenging the requirement. Events moved so quickly after the complaint was filed that it is not at …
Gas prices are nearly 40 cents per gallon higher than what they were last year and show no sign of falling any time soon. Although there are plenty of ideas that could help lower prices, the Obama Administration is doing much more harm than good. We’ve written in great detail about the Obama Administration’s attack on offshore drilling. They announced that the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will not be part of the government’s 2012–2017 Outer Continental Shelf program, effectively banning drilling in those areas …
It was a strange way to kick off the Martin Luther King weekend. But last Friday night, President Obama slapped hundreds of Cuba’s political prisoners’ right in the face. That’s when the administration announced it will make it easier for Americans who support Castro’s government to send money there and visit the island for propaganda purposes. Travel restrictions will be lifted or relaxed, as will remittances and charter flights. It’s a deplorable change — and totally unnecessary. After all, the Castro brothers’ thugs do a good job making their victims …
On the eve of the scheduled vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a bill to repeal Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a report yesterday entitled: “At Risk: Pre-Existing Conditions Could Affect 1 in 2 Americans: 129 Million People Could Be Denied Affordable Coverage Without Health Reform.” The report’s “findings” are misleading and wildly inaccurate. The report implies that without Obamacare’s prohibition on insurers applying preexisting-condition exclusions, nearly half of the entire U.S. population would be at risk of being denied health insurance because …
The votes from last week’s mostly peaceful referendum are now being counted. Early results indicate that Sudan—Africa’s largest country—will soon split in two. Some countries (such as Iran) have reluctantly accepted the likely outcome, while simultaneously criticizing the idea of self-determination. At the same time, some American commentators such as Daniel Larison have criticized America’s role in supporting southern Sudan’s independence as “folly”. Although the international legal concept of national self-determination is a rather recent one (emerging as an international doctrine after WWII in order to facilitate decolonization), the deeper …
In fiscal year 2010, the first full fiscal year under the Obama Administration, the federal government issued 43 major new regulations. According to the Administration’s own estimates, the total cost of these rules was $28 billion. Only two of the new rules reduced measured regulatory costs, and then by only $1.5 billion. On net, the Obama Administration inflicted $26.5 billion in new regulatory costs on the economy last year, an all-time record. This was on top of the $1.75 trillion in existing regulatory costs already inflicted on the U.S. economy …
Dr. Martha Boone is no ordinary urologist. For more than a year she has led a grassroots campaign against Obamacare — and for good reason. Boone’s livelihood depends on it. As the House prepares to vote on repeal today, Boone is struggling with the consequences of the law. Just this week, for example, she learned the cost of health insurance for her five employees was increasing 27 percent. How will she cover the increase? It’s a question weighing on her mind. We traveled to Atlanta last year to speak to …
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates just returned from a visit to China after the recent restoration of military ties between the two countries. While he was there, China’s military leaders unveiled a new stealth fighter jet. The Chengdu J-20 prototype of a future stealth fifth-generation multirole aircraft clearly caught the attention of U.S. defense officials. Secretary Gates told reporters that the Chinese “clearly have potential to put some of our capabilities at risk,” and while the U.S. military has known that China sought a stealth fighter, the J-20’s development outpaced …
