Obama’s “reset button” with Russia has been an integral part of America’s new innocuous and ineffective diplomatic approach, and has culminated in the nuclear arms reduction treaty, New START. But the current disconnect between the negotiations surrounding this treaty and Russia’s human rights record is troubling. Boris Nemtsov, former Russian deputy prime minister and founder […]
Centrally planned job creation and scientific research pose many of the same problems: extraordinary expense, a pattern of politically shaped insider transactions, and less than promising results. This occurs for substantially the same reason: government attempts to pick winners and losers in developing fields ignore the discipline of the marketplace and the wisdom of personal […]
More than any other day of the year, families by the millions will give thanks today for America’s abundant and affordable food supply. The impressive bounty on display contrasts sharply with claims that more stringent federal regulations are needed to ensure food safety. Despite the fact that America’s food supply is superior to every other […]
As truly an American holiday as Thanksgiving is, it was not actually made a formal federal holiday until 1941. And it wasn’t even routinely celebrated nationally on the fourth Thursday of every November until after President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Address in 1863. Still, the holiday does have a strong basis in our nation’s history—a history […]
Hope is not a strategy. Last month’s elections made that clear. Through the year, polls consistently revealed the unpopularity of Obamacare, deep concern about excessive spending, and misgivings about how the things are going in Iran and Afghanistan. Yet all the way up to the elections, progressives hoped that Americans would somehow like Obamacare, think […]
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Debt Reduction Task Force – a highly diverse group of private individuals – has laid out a comprehensive approach to closing the deficit and slowing the rise in national debt. They do this through a combination of spending reductions, many though not all of which are excellent and transformational (about […]
The Associated Press reported yesterday that “cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-approved federal security details.” The article goes on to report that while the rest of the public is still subject to either a […]
On the way to a defense ministerial in Bolivia, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was asked about Iran’s growing presence in South America, particularly in Bolivia and Venezuela. He answered most cautiously: Bolivia, obviously, can have relationships with any country in the world that it wishes to. … But I think Bolivia needs to be […]
Stories of corruption in India have filled the news in recent days. First there’s the corrupt Communications and Information Technology Minister, whose scam to pocket money from telecommunications firms may have topped $37 billion. Then there were accusations that politicians, officials, and contractors had pocketed more than 70% of $2.5 billion meant for flood relief […]
Legislation to vastly expand the regulatory powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) failed to advance in the Senate last week as proponents had expected. A vote may be rescheduled when Congress reconvenes after the Thanksgiving recess. But if lawmakers are truly vested in optimizing food safety, they will look beyond bureaucratic tinkering and […]
