In last week’s Republican primary debate, a Jacksonville, Florida, resident asked the candidates what role their religious beliefs would play in their decision-making as President. The issue of religious faith continues to be important for many voters. As I suggest in a recent WebMemo, questions about religion that relate to a candidate’s potential conduct in office—questions like the one asked by the audience member in Jacksonville—may be useful. Questions about personal religious piety may be less so. Questions about a candidate’s personal practices when it comes to prayer, church attendance, …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Time for a red-tape rescue – Ed Feulner Debate continues on balanced budget amendment – Trish Choate Test cheating rooted in centralization – Lindsey Burke Bill Clinton Does ‘Jim Crow’ – WSJ Let’s hope N.C.’s voter ID bill lives to fight another day – Pat McCrory Pakistan racing to placate China: An analysis – Seema Sirohi Levin and McCain: We have no idea how much debt deal cuts defense – Josh …
President Obama opened his speech to the National Council of La Raza yesterday by publicly acknowledging the Hispanic group’s close ties to the White House, a relationship that has aligned the two on nearly every policy issue during his presidency. “Right off the bat, I should thank you because I have poached quite a few of your alumni to work in my administration,” Obama said to laughter. “They’re all doing outstanding work. … Latinos serving at every level of my administration.” Those alumni have rewarded La Raza generously with taxpayer funding. …
Is President Barack Obama trying to perform an end-run around Congress in order to implement restrictions on political speech? It’s a question that 27 senators put to President Obama in a letter this week in which they urged him to reconsider a draft executive order (EO) that would require government contractors to disclose political contributions. In the letter, the senators cite to Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, who raised concerns over the underlying purpose of the executive order: Given similarities between the draft EO and some …
Pennsylvania residents in this year’s gubernatorial race will be casting their votes for school choice regardless of their political affiliation. In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, author Bill McGurn reports that both Democratic candidate Dan Onorato and his Republican opponent, state Attorney General Tom Corbett, are proponents of school choice. It is promising to see states opening more opportunity for the educational futures of children. For decades, the federal government has poured increasing amounts of money into public education under the guise of “reform,” yet test scores and achievement indicate no …
In the wake of the historic election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, observers have expressed interest in the strategy behind his online campaign. Three members of the Scott Brown team visited The Heritage Foundation yesterday to talk about the campaign’s incredible success. Afterwards, we sat down with Robert, one of the chief architects of their web strategy.
In a relatively unnoticed State Department press briefing yesterday, Acting Department Spokesman Robert Wood announced a delegation of new media executives that left for Iraq on an official, government-paid trip on Sunday. According to Wood, the purpose would be to “explore new opportunities to support Iraqi Government and nongovernment stakeholders in Iraq’s emerging new media industry.” All in all, this is a well thought out trip, and yet another implicit admission by the President that another thing he inherited from his predecessor is a budding democracy in the Arab world, …
