Yesterday, American B-2 stealth bombers, F-16s, F-15s, and Harrier attack jets bombed both Libyan air and ground defenses including Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s massive residential compound in Tripoli. “We judge these strikes to have been very effective in significantly degrading the regime’s air defense capability,” Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, director of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday. But the fact that these operations could be successfully undertaken by coalition forces was never in doubt. The problem is that these operations by themselves will not be decisive in either eliminating …
After proclaiming a cease-fire, Colonel Muammar Qadhafi’s regime cynically ordered its troops to attack Benghazi, the leading rebel stronghold, in defiance of the U.N. Security Council resolution prohibiting attacks on civilians. The regime hopes to consolidate control in Libya’s second-largest city before the U.N.-backed military forces can begin counter-attacks. Once entrenched in the city, Qadhafi’s thugs can wreak vengeance on opposition supporters with minimal risk of attack from U.N.-backed forces pledged to halt civilian deaths. Qadhafi seeks to exploit the fact that he is much more willing to shed Libyan …
Coloring President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2012 are the undeniable shades of masked fiscal disaster and a want of long-term solutions. According to analysis (pdf) by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the President’s budget would result in $1.43 trillion and $1.16 trillion deficits for FYs 2011 and 2012, respectively, adding two more years of annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion. Total spending would increase by 57 percent over the next decade, from $3.7 trillion this year to $5.8 trillion in 2021. Net interest alone mushrooms …
Should it be any surprise that in a state like Wisconsin that has been under the thrall of liberals for far too long, a local judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the collective bargaining law recently passed by the legislature? Or that the judge sees nothing wrong with interfering directly in the legislative process? Judge Maryann Sumi issued her one-sentence order without a written explanation. The complaint filed by Democratic District Attorney Ismael Ozanne claims that a meeting of the Joint Committee of Conference on the collective bargaining …
Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal reported on the soaring rate of food stamp participation in the western United States. The author notes that this recent growth comes from “a region that has always prided itself on self-reliance and [held] … disdain for government handouts.” Regrettably, this story of growth is not that new for the food stamp program as a whole. Ever since the program began in the 1960s, participation rates have been on an upward trend. And recession or not, in the last decade the rolls have increased nine out …
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has a powerful ally in the fight to eliminate wasteful duplication in government programs: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced the two lawmakers are teaming up for a bipartisan, House-Senate effort to eliminate overlapping and unaccountable government services that cost taxpayers more than $100 billion a year. A recent Government Accountability Office report on government waste revealed the extent of duplication. Now the two Republicans want Congress to do something about it. Cantor has directed House committee chairmen to look at the GAO’s recommendations for …
It’s official: There are now 100 countries that offer Taiwanese citizens visa-free travel. Malaysia has the honor of hitting the century mark—following closely behind Australia and Montenegro, which announced their decisions last week. An EU visa waiver for Taiwan went into effect this past January. The U.S. has still not made it across the finish line. The Obama Administration is lumbering behind, weighted down by bureaucracy, a sclerotic and out-of-date Taiwan policy, and inattention. Taiwan is now under the 3 percent visa refusal rate—an ill-conceived requirement to begin with, but …
March 8, 2011, marked the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, which the U.N. commemorated following its annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The U.S. State Department spared few bells and whistles in its celebration of this milestone. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton penned an opinion piece published on the Bloomberg Newswire on “investing in women” as a strategy for economic growth. With its melodramatic title, “Women’s Work-More Earn-Less Plan Hurts,” the op-ed relied on fuzzy numbers and typical liberal assumptions, touting U.S. efforts to …
In my maiden Senate floor speech, I focused on the budget and economic issues we face and how our burgeoning debt and deficit is directly linked to the sluggish pace of job creation and economic growth in states like Ohio. As I said during the speech, I believe the twin challenges of our time are to revive the American economic miracle and stop the reckless government spending that threatens to extinguish the American dream. One affects the other. Without a growing economy and more jobs we simply cannot reverse the …
Americans are rightly concerned about the United States’ ability to remain a global leader. In Iowa, Republican presidential aspirants have voiced concerns over President Obama’s lack of decisiveness, and the battle over the U.S. budget currently underway on Capitol Hill has caused people to question whether the United States can afford a dominant position in global affairs. The proposed cuts in international broadcasting sound disturbingly like the end of an era, as did the news reports of the space shuttle’s last flight. Both have been proud symbols of the American …
