As states roll out their newly mandated high-risk pools under ObamaCare, a troubling trend is emerging. Pennsylvania and Maryland released documents on their state websites earlier this summer that implied their plans would cover elective abortions. Additionally, New Mexico posted a draft summary of its high-risk pool services that listed elective abortion as among its covered services. The initial reaction from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House was complete silence. It was not until the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) called out …
The debate over health care reform has been a theoretical affair, full of abstractions that contradict one another. Amid all the ambiguity, one fact is unequivocal and unprecedented. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, every American will be compelled to purchase health insurance, or else – the “or else” being a fine collected by the Internal Revenue Service should you fail to ante up. “The mandate,” as it’s known, has its origins in the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which grants Congress the authority to regulate interstate commerce. …
Responding to North Korea’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, I blogged a series of recommendations – one being that we should ratify the long shelved Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). It has many economic benefits, and would demonstrate “no retreat by the U.S. from Northeast Asia,” I argued. One skeptical reporter responded with a “like that will happen.” Well, this weekend KORUS got a shot of life. At the G20 summit in Toronto, President Obama and South Korean President Lee vowed to get it done over the …
At a hearing in March I asked Secretary Tim Geithner whether the US was at risk for losing our AAA credit rating, as a Moody’s quarterly report had indicated. He point blank responded that there is “not a chance” that this would happen to our country. I wish I could share his confidence, but given how things have unraveled in the past few months, I believe that America needs to take a step back and seriously reevaluate the way the government does business these days. While the Administration pushed through …
In the wake of the moratorium on offshore drilling projects that President Obama announced late last month, The New Orleans Times-Picayune has attempted to measure the cost of so much disruption to one of Louisiana’s core industries. The result? A conservative estimate – assuming a shutdown of just six months – suggests the moratorium could cost the state $2.97 billion and 7,590 jobs directly related to the oil industry. That is not counting all the other industries indirectly related to oil production and exploration. The story states that each job …
What can be done to advance American strength? The list is long and the mission is urgent. It starts with this: Strengthening America must become a priority. That is not the case at present as anyone who takes the trouble to read the Obama administration’s new 52-page National Security Strategy (NSS) will learn. True, the document proclaims a “commitment to renew our economy, which serves as the wellspring of American power.” But can anyone seriously argue that America’s economic dynamism is being enhanced, rather than debilitated, by the accumulation of …
In some respects, the recent attempted Times Square car bombing and the arrest of Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized citizen, point to a significant success in America’s Global War on Terror. In the aftermath of 9/11, our government quickly reformed the Intelligence Community and established the Department of Homeland Security, moves which have been successful in making it more difficult for foreign terrorists to enter the country and carry out attacks. U.S. military action has weakened al-Qaeda Central. But this has also created a new challenge: the battlefront has shifted from …
During this past Wednesday’s mark-up of the Fiscal Year 2011 National Defense Authorization Act my fellow conservatives on the House Armed Services Committee stood strongly on the side of the American people, vociferously fighting for security, liberty, and freedom through our Defend America First platform. One of the issues debated on Wednesday, which many of us have deemed most detrimental to our Republic, is the disgraceful actions apparently undertaken by the disloyal defense lawyers involved in the John Adams Project. We have called for an immediate and thorough investigation of …
At today’s Senate Foreign Relations hearing on the START Treaty (a U.S.-Russia nuclear arms pact) that President Obama is seeking Congressional approval for, I asked Senator Kerry a simple question. Should it be the goal of the U.S. to have a missile defense system that renders nuclear threats by other nations useless, including Russia? To my disappointment, but not surprisingly, Senator Kerry said no. And with his response, Senator Kerry proved why Americans have a hard time fully trusting the left to put American interests first in foreign affairs. While …
In the last week, the government-backed mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac asked the taxpayer for $19 billion to stay afloat. Add that to the $127 billion in bailouts they have already received since September 2008, and we are now talking about a whopping $146 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars being used to prop up these failed entities. In more than a year and a half we have heard nothing from the Administration about a plan to implement real reforms to stop the bleeding. This Democratic Congress, …
