“Either he doesn’t get it, or he doesn’t care,” Sheila Jackson, parent of a D.C. Opportunity Scholarship recipient, said upon hearing the news that President Obama’s budget eliminates funding for the popular program. Jackson sounded torn about which was worse. “I was appalled,” she told Scribe. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program provides low-income families in one of the worst public school systems in America with vouchers to attend private schools of their choice. More than 1,600 students are benefiting this year alone. Jackson’s daughter, Shawnee, has had a scholarship since …
Joseph Kelley knew something was wrong when his son Rashawn flunked first grade. “I knew he knew his alphabet forward and backward, he knew how to count to 100 forward and backward,” Kelley said. He had taught Rashawn these things himself. Rashawn’s teachers were surprised to find out that he knew how to read; they hadn’t noticed. At the time, Rashawn was attending a public school in Washington, D.C. Kelley decided to sit in on his son’s classes to learn the teachers’ vocabulary and techniques so he could tutor Rashawn …
“The principles of our republic must be protected vigilantly at home and defended fearlessly abroad,” Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner states in a special message for Independence Day in this week’s Heritage in Focus podcast. “Read the Declaration of Independence,” Heritage scholar David Azerrad urges. “It’s the philosophical soul of America.” In this week’s Heritage in Focus, Dr. Feulner wishes you a Happy Independence Day. Then, the Assistant Director of the Center for Principles and Politics, David Azerrad, explains why we celebrate Independence Day on the fourth of July rather …
This week the U.S. Supreme Court rounded out its session by striking down an Arizona law that provided publicly funded candidates with funds matching those of their privately funded opponents. Heritage expert Hans von Spakovsky explains in more detail here. Campaign finance reform nerds of the conservative persuasion cheered, but the decision actually has far-reaching implications for all Americans’ First Amendment rights, even if they never run for office or even bother to vote. A Wall Street Journal report notes today: The majority [of Supreme Court justices] is reaching these …
If a Hollywood villain wanted the thrill of hundreds of millions of dollars at his fingertips, he wouldn’t have to stage a high-stakes heist. He’d just have to become a bureaucrat. In the 1988 movie Die Hard, villain Hans Gruber and his crack team of code-breaking and martial arts experts take the guests of a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza building hostage. Their objective: to steal $640 million from the company’s vaults while distracting the cops with elaborate demands. Their problem: John McClane, the tough and resourceful New York …
At a recent Heritage event, author Ron Miller said it’s time for black conservatives to admit they’re conservative, even to themselves. In his new book, Sellout, Ron Miller describes the ways in which conservative policies actually best embody the goals and values that many black families hold privately. In a special Heritage in Focus podcast released this week, Ron Miller discusses how conservative policies in the areas of school reform, welfare and the encouragement of family life are actually the best solutions for the problems plaguing America’s low-income black communities. …
Hillary Clinton will be feted this Friday at a “world summit” event hosted by Tina Brown, the editor in chief of Newsweek. This week Brown relaunched the magazine with a cover story featuring Hillary as one of the “150 Women Who Shake the World.” Clinton and other public figures such as Christiane Amanpour and Nancy Pelosi as well as pop culture icons like Mia Farrow and Susan Sarandon own the message on strong women. They embody the identification of so-called “women’s issues” with left-leaning politics. But conservatives don’t have to …
In a move one blogger called “Huck Finning the Constitution,” the 112th Congress left out the infamous “three-fifths compromise” in their much-publicized reading of the Constitution on the House floor. The “three-fifths compromise” is a clause in Article I, Section 2, which states the number of Congressional representatives from a state will be calculated, in part, by including “three fifths of all other Persons” who are neither “free Persons” nor “Indians not taxed,” and was understood to apply to the counting of slaves. This clause was later nullified by Section …
Today on the Senate floor, John Kerry (D-MA) informed 15,304,498 voters from 16 states that their democratic voice is better left unheard. Kerry’s remarks came during a speech in which he urged the ratification of the ill-conceived New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) with Russia. Kerry and other Senate liberals are striving to ratify the treaty during this winter’s lame duck session, the last chance for Senators who have received their walking orders from the voters to pass the kind of legislation that got them kicked out of Washington in …
Wall Street Journal opinion columnist James Taranto has thrown down the gauntlet on tax reform. This week he challenged a pro-tax-hike liberal to put his money where his mouth is. Francis Dummer Fisher wrote a letter to the New York Times last week saying that rather than indulge in consumerism, he would like his unused cash to be collected as taxes by the government to “buy better schools, more federal research on health, public roads without tolls, [and] financially sound Social Security.” But Taranto points out that Mr. Fisher doesn’t …
