The president’s energy agenda took a hit on Thursday, as yet another stimulus-backed energy company filed for bankruptcy. Videos have surfaced since then showing both Obama and Vice President Biden praising the company’s promise, drawing the attention of congressional investigators. As Scribe reported yesterday, Ener1 submitted a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan as part of a refinancing agreement after suffering numerous setbacks late last year. Ener1 subsidiary EnerDel received a $118 million grant from the Energy Department to produce its lithium ion battery technology. The president singled out EnerDel for praise during a speech …
Beneath the President’s bully pulpit in the House of Representatives last night must be a very thick carpet under which Barack Obama managed to sweep a great number of inconvenient facts and issues in the Americas. When it came to our Hemisphere, north and south, he told us not to worry. A single sentence sufficed to sweep every issue under the carpet: “Our ties to the Americas are deeper.” No need to worry about the Americas, right? Wrong! For starters, we ought to ask why the Obama Administration currently has …
In this week’s Heritage in Focus, Heritage director of communications, Rory Cooper, discusses the president’s State of the Union address. Click here to listen. What’s Heritage’s take on the State of the Union? What’s something Americans should have heard in the speech, but didn’t? What’s the best way to put our country on the right track? Make sure to listen to hear answers to these questions and more!
In yet another display of disdain for the Anglo-American Special Relationship, the Obama administration has weighed in on the mounting tensions between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Just two days after Prime Minister David Cameron issued a robust statement in the House of Commons vowing to defend the sovereignty of the Falklands, the US State Department has undercut Britain yet again with a deeply unhelpful statement that plays into Argentina’s hands. In response to a question on the Falklands at Thursday’s State Department press briefing, a US government spokesman supported direct …
Philip H Gordon, US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, has just delivered a speech in Berlin outlining “the state of transatlantic relations”. His remarks, given at the Korber Foundation on January 11, are a scene-setter for the Obama administration’s European policy in “its final year in office before elections this November.” Like most pronouncements on Europe coming from the Obama presidency, it is fixated on Washington’s dealings with the European Union, as well as with Hillary Clinton’s “reset” of relations with Moscow. This is hardly surprising coming from a …
Over the past 50 years, 10 U.S. presidents have made annual budget requests to Congress, projecting deficits both big and small. But no other president compares to Barack Obama when it comes to the size and scale of the current budget deficit facing the United States. The country is facing an 8.3 percent estimated average national deficit of a two-term Obama administration — the biggest of the past 50 years. By comparison, the current estimate for Obama is nearly double the percentage under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — and …
Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter really missed the mark last week with a commentary singing the praises of “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal”, as the headline stated. Alter’s limited discussion of a couple of the scandals that have plagued the administration comes up short, while a laundry list of dishonest and ethically questionable policies escape mention. Obama, Alter declares, “has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.” Alter begins his piece with a reference to defunct solar company Solyndra. He insists the administration’s handling of …
What is the American idea? That all depends on whom you ask. According to President Barack Obama, it’s the notion that the federal government is the answer to America’s problems, and that through its intervention–by sheer force of spending–it can create a brighter future for all Americans. There’s a different view, though, that has again found its voice in the past year. It’s the idea that America is at its best when its people are allowed to be free and produce, not thanks to the government or even in spite …
When President Barack Obama began his Midwest “jobs tour” in August, he set out to campaign for the passage of a yet-to-be-released plan to turn around the country’s stagnant economy. But after the details of that plan emerged–more stimulus spending and higher taxes–and when the Democrat-controlled Senate put the measure up for a vote this week, the President’s plan was defeated. Even members of the President’s own party opposed more taxing and spending as a way of pulling America out of its unemployment ditch. Take Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), for example. The …
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blocked a vote on President Barack Obama’s American Jobs Act tonight. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had pledged to offer an unchanged version of the President’s American Jobs Act as an amendment to the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Bill (S. 1619). Reid stopped a vote on the President’s so called jobs bill by filling the amendment tree. Last year I wrote about Reid’s obstructionism and argued that Reid’s strong arm tactics by constantly filling the amendment tree as a means to block out all amendments were against the spirit …
