Today, President Barack Obama concluded, and Attorney General Eric Holder announced, that the administration will not defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purposes of federal law, and clarifies that no state has to recognize a homosexual marriage from another state. The President’s announcement is refreshing in its honesty, at least insofar as it drops the farce that the administration has been offering anything even remotely approaching a vigorous (and professional) defense of the federal statute. On this …
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released its report on H.R. 2, the House-passed legislation that would fully repeal Obamacare. The takeaway message was that American taxpayers simply cannot afford Obamacare. CBO’s initial scoring of Obamacare analyzed its effects from 2010 to 2019, including only six years of full implementation, since main spending provisions do not go into effect until 2014. The new document reports on 2012 to 2021, including an additional two years of full implementation. This still fails to show the true 10-year cost of the law, but …
As Middle Eastern and North African governments totter and fall, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has his sights set on the real crisis: getting Hollywood to produce more films on global warming. As reported in the Guardian: Ban has been on the phone to Gaddafi and other leaders in the Middle East from Hollywood, where he is trying to raise the profile of climate change and – who knows – maybe pitch a movie. You might think that Secretary-General Ban’s priorities are a bit backwards. Perhaps he could fit in …
With chaos erupting in North Africa and the Middle East, it’s easy to forget the many challenges the U.S. faces in the region. On Monday, Somali pirates seized an American yacht off the Horn of Africa. The next day all four Americans onboard were murdered by their captors. Piracy is one of the most common and most complicated issues for the international community. According to The Heritage Foundation’s Maritime Security report, each year, 21,000 commercial ships sail through the Gulf of Aden and Suez Canal, transporting over 10 percent of …
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing the reputation for moving forward with plans Congress cannot accomplish. Last Congress, Representative Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) tried to expand the powers of the EPA by introducing legislation that would replace the term “navigable waters” in the Clean Water Act with “waters of the U.S.,” which would significantly expand what the EPA could regulate. Reforming the Clean Water Act is necessary, but this is the wrong way to go about it. Congress rejected the Oberstar-Feingold approach, but now EPA …
The Washington Post reports today that “the daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates.” But there are a number of big differences between our national debt now and the debt in 1946. The Post reports: “State and municipal governments from Sacramento to Madison to Harrisburg have racked up about $2.4 trillion in debt, or more than 15 percent of GDP.” …
Last week, students in several Wisconsin school districts were unable to attend school when classes were cancelled due to thousands of striking teachers throughout Madison and surrounding districts. While most teachers have returned to their posts today, protests continue in opposition to Governor Scott Walker’s (R) proposal to reform collective bargaining and pay down Wisconsin’s $4 billion deficit. As part of a budget repair bill that has stalled in the Senate, education employees would have to contribute 5.8 percent of their salaries to cover the cost of their pensions and …
I don’t usually feel a personal connection to a Supreme Court decision, but as the parent of three children, I was elated (and relieved) to see the Court come to the right conclusion today in Bruesewitz v. Wyeth. The Court’s holding that state tort suits against vaccine manufacturers are preempted by federal law is absolutely crucial to maintaining the continued availability of the many vaccines that protect the lives and health of tens of millions of Americans, particular school-age children like mine. The parents of Hannah Bruesewitz sued the manufacturer …
The Obama Administration hasn’t had their boot on the neck of just BP but also the entire Gulf economy. Federal Judge Martin Feldman is now doing the same to the Obama Administration. A few weeks after Feldman held the Interior Department in contempt of court for ignoring his ruling to put an end to the job-killing drilling moratorium, he ordered the Interior Department to get moving on new permits one way or the other. Judge Feldman gave the Administration 30 days to act on five permits, emphasizing that the Administration …
Today the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the connection between an international convention to eliminate chemical weapons and a suburban Philadelphia love triangle. Remarkably, the first and apparently only person prosecuted under the United States’ implementation of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention is Carol Anne Bond, a Lansdale, Pennsylvania, woman who used chemical irritants to cause a slight burn on the thumb of Bond’s formerly close friend after the friend bore Bond’s husband’s love-child. Today the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case (Bond v. United States). Neither Bond …
