Fang Zhe/Xinhua/Photoshot/Newscom The United States Senate declined to support Secretary of Defense nominee and former Senator Chuck Hagel today, after failing to reach consensus to clear a Senate procedural hurdle. Even before the vote, the White House was quick to label requests for further information on Hagel’s finances “unconscionable” and urge confirmation without delay. Apparently […]
President Obama talked about voting rights in the State of the Union address, claiming we are “betraying our ideals” when any American has to “wait for five, six, seven hours just to cast their ballot.” He announced a “nonpartisan commission to improve the voting experience in America.” While there may have been some Americans who […]
With current funding for government operations scheduled to run out March 27, the House is beginning work on another Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year. As they do this, they must take firm steps toward their commitment to balance the budget in 10 years. That means delivering […]
President Obama’s refusal to balance the budget will soon leave Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security bankrupt. That’s according to Representative Tom Price (R-GA), who spoke at The Bloggers Briefing yesterday and sat down for an interview with Heritage’s Jackie Anderson. Price and other congressional leaders have been advocating a strategy to balance the budget and save […]
New Capabilities for the Military? During his speech tonight, President Obama, in a brief passage, pledged to provide the military with new capabilities. This pledge was brief because it included no specifics about the kinds of new capabilities he has in mind. This is not surprising for two reasons. The first reason can be found […]
Photo credit: Paul Horsted Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom Representative Joe Courtney (D–CT) recently penned an open letter to the man who wrote the movie Lincoln. The film depicts a divided Connecticut state congressional delegation, with three members voting to uphold slavery. Courtney declares that cannot stand. He clarifies that, in 1865, Connecticut’s representatives voted unanimously to […]
In North Dakota, people have jobs. That state led the nation in job creation last year, and its unemployment rate is only 3.2 percent (compared to the national rate of 7.9 percent). Why? One word: energy. As Nicolas Loris, Heritage’s Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow, writes in a forthcoming paper: Technological advancements in directional drilling […]
North Dakota led the nation in job creation in 2012, according to a new report released by Gallup. The state has an unemployment rate of 3.2 percent, the lowest in the country according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s largely due to the energy boom created when new fracking technology and sensible state regulations […]
Photo credit: Newscom As wages in China rise with economic growth, some companies are beginning to look elsewhere for what was once China’s selling point: cheap labor. It just highlights the power that free trade provides—growing economies and raising living standards. Consider that wages in China are five times greater than they were in 2000, […]
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released a statement Thursday expressing concern with the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) recent proposed update to the anti-conscience mandate in Obamacare. As Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB, explained: [The proposal] appears to offer second-class status to our first-class institutions in Catholic health care, […]
