Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. It Won’t Be Pretty, as the Post-Gates Era Begins at the Defense Department – Jim Carafano Coolidge only president born on the Fourth of July – Julia Shaw U.N. Budget Cuts: Why Not Eliminate the Conference on Disarmament? – Brett Schaefer The Election Deal – Murray T. Bass Here’s a debt reduction plan: Collect billions from tax cheats – Tony Pugh Reax To Appellate Decision Upholding Health Law – Andrew Villegas …
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) didn’t come to Washington to make friends. And after calling on his colleagues to skip their week-long Fourth of July vacation, he might even have a few enemies. A day after making a passionate speech on the Senate floor, Johnson was leading a group of 10 Republican colleagues to oppose the Senate’s upcoming recess until lawmakers take action on the debt. Expect more fireworks today. Heritage welcomes author James Delingpole for a noon event on his new book, “Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors.” Delingpole writes …
Here is a quick Independence Day quiz: Who is the only president to share a birthday with America? Which president gave one of the best defenses of The Declaration of Independence and America’s First Principles? Who said “Some principles are so constant and so obvious that we do not need to change them, but we need rather to observe them.” Did your answer William Henry Harrison? No? Good, because the correct answer these questions is Calvin Coolidge.
For 233 years, Independence Day has been the celebration of the day we declared our independence from the tyrannical reign of King George III. Since Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence it has been a symbol of freedom known worldwide. Thomas Jefferson noted, in a letter to John Adams in 1821 that: [T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who …
On December 23, 1783, General George Washington resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Army to Congress, which met then in the State House in Annapolis. Both Washington and Congress recognized the importance of the occasion, and the ceremony was carefully organized by a Protocol Committee headed by Thomas Jefferson. The scene was described by James Tilton, delegate from Delaware: Tuesday morning, Congress met and took their seats in order, all covered. At twelve o’clock the General was introduced by the secretary, and seated opposite to the president, until the throng, …
Amid the political noise out of Washington, June’s opinion polls picked up a growing public disquiet over ever-greater government spending and intrusion. These expressions of concern reflect the resiliency of the spirit of 1776, which we celebrate on Independence Day. The just powers of government, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed on July 4, 1776, flow from the consent of the governed. Government’s purpose, the Founders agreed, is to secure the fundamental rights and sovereignty of the people. Heritage constitutional scholar Matthew Spalding writes: “The Declaration of Independence announced to the …
The Fourth of July presents the occasion not only to celebrate our great country, but also to reflect upon its meaning. The division between today’s liberals and conservatives is not irreducible to policy differences. It is indicative of a deeper debate about the meaning of America. Such debates are not new. Calvin Coolidge, our 30th president, often celebrated America’s birthday (which was also his) by defending America’s principles against the challengers within the “progressive movement.”
