Independence Day has come and gone, unofficially marking summer’s halfway point. As the season heats up, millions of Americans are in search of making the most of their summer months. Many are escaping their daily routines in search of a little rest and relaxation. Some are headed off to beaches or campsites to experience the great outdoors, while others will embark on tours of historic cities. No matter the destination, all vacationers can benefit from one essential novelty – a simple book. Summer reading is a part of American culture. …
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen will be in the People’s Republic of China for much of the next week to engage in talks with his counterparts from the People’s Liberation Army. His visit comes amidst a thaw in U.S.–Chinese military-to-military relations, capped by the visit of General Chen Bingde, chief of the Chinese general staff. The Chinese have long seen military-to-military contact as a U.S. “ask”—particularly since 1999, when Congress imposed legal restrictions on precisely what sort of information could be shared. Therefore, Admiral Mullen’s …
President Obama will meet with congressional leaders tomorrow to resume talks on the debt limit. The rare Sunday meeting between top Republicans and Democrats could signal the start of “hard bargaining” after Thursday’s debt talks left the parties far apart. While Democrats want tax increases on the table in debt negotiations, Republicans have reiterated their “no tax-hike” stance — a position they reiterated following yesterday’s unemployment report that revealed only a measly 18,000 jobs were created last month. If that isn’t enough reason to keep Democrats from proposing tax increases, perhaps the ambiguity …
“People, who do not believe in man-made global warming, are so beyond the pale of reasonable human discourse, that the only just and fair penalty for them is death.” This may seem a bit extreme to you, but as James Delingpole, author of the new book Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors, observed in a recent Heritage event, it is the very tone that many in the green movement set in today’s global warming debate. Delingpole, whose book delves into the background of the organizations and individuals who have sought to push global warming …
Planned Parenthood Federation of America has gotten itself into a bunch of trouble this year. It all started with the a series of Live Action videos revealing the willingness of several Planned Parenthood affiliates to clandestinely assist sex-traffickers exploiting minor girls. Now documented misuse of federal health care and family planning funds and other concerns have led multiple states to de-fund the organization entirely. Americans United for Life (AUL), a pro-life public interest law and policy group, recently published a scathing report, “The Case for Investigating Planned Parenthood,” which documents …
When it comes to Arctic policy, the White House is delivering a series of self-inflicted wounds. Though it keeps cranking out more and more policy statements, the U.S. has invested little in addressing the emerging challenges of competition in the region. The Arctic, for example, can potentially be tapped to develop vast oil reserves. Sadly, the fact is the United States is poorly prepared to protect its interests. The Administration’s answer to the problem largely amounts to signing the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea—a treaty that has …
We asked The Heritage Foundation’s William Beach, Director of the Center for Data Analysis, to answer some questions about America’s economy and unemployment following the Department of Labor’s release of the June 2011 payroll report. Here are his responses: Question: How does this job market recovery compare to past recessions? Answer: By this point in every other recession in the post-war era the economy had recovered all or nearly all of the jobs it had lost. You have to go back to the 1930s to find a job market this bad. …
June’s job numbers– 9.2 percent unemployment and the creation of only 18,000 new jobs — has brought a fundamental shift in the White House’s message on the economy. The Heritage Foundation’s Michael Franc sums it up: “Bye-bye, hope and change. Hello, denial and defeatism.” In yesterday’s National Review Online, Franc writes: In a fleeting Rose Garden appearance [Friday], the president urged patience and advocated a less-than-inspirational economic agenda of Patent Office reform, a new bureaucracy (an “infrastructure bank), and extension of December’s payroll tax cut. (Why not? Look how well …
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it has finalized a pair of new regulations on power plants expected to produce massive economic damage and unemployment in coming years. The regulations aim to reduce pollution in down-wind states, and replace similar regulations created by George Bush’s EPA in 2005 and struck down by a federal court. President Obama was quite clear on the campaign trail that under his cap and trade plan, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” The EPA resumed the effort to regulate emissions after cap and trade died …
During his Twitter Townhall on Wednesday, President Obama admitted that government welfare has created dependency. He noted: I think we should acknowledge that some welfare programs in the past were not well designed and in some cases did encourage dependency.… As somebody who worked in low-income neighborhoods, I’ve seen it where people weren’t encouraged to work, weren’t encouraged to upgrade their skills, were just getting a check, and over time their motivation started to diminish. And I think even if you’re progressive you’ve got to acknowledge that some of these …
