Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi convened its second hearing Wednesday focusing on the security of U.S. embassies and other high-risk diplomatic posts. Clearly, security was grossly inadequate in Benghazi, Libya, where four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, lost their lives in a terrorist attack. The hearing comes as several organizations have revealed persistent problems…
Senator Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., recently issued a report entitled “The Science of Splurging,” which provides several examples of how the Environmental Protection Agency wastes millions of dollars on meaningless projects, frivolous luxuries, and outright employee fraud. Here are just some of the examples: Contractor “Man Caves.” The EPA’s Office of Inspector General found that contractors…
In 2013, Laos and China forcibly repatriated nine North Korean children. Now, the fate of these children is in question. Recent reports from North Korea suggest that at least two of the children may have been executed, and the remaining seven children are allegedly imprisoned in Camp 14, a brutal forced labor camp. North Korea…
It is a measure of the importance attached by Congress to U.S. international broadcasting in the battle space of ideas that the 2014 Omnibus Bill, which passed the House yesterday, not only funds fully the agency that oversees it — the Broadcasting Board of Governors — but adds some $6 million on top of its funding request. The BBG requested…
The spending bill, released and passed this week, wasn't exactly the greatest holiday gift for taxpayers … From Heritage budget expert Romina Boccia's column earlier this week: At more than 1,600 pages, Congress’s $1.1 trillion behemoth spending bill funding almost all government agencies through September 2015 has arrived. … The “CRomnibus” spending bill represents a strange…
A cool new graphic from Foodstorage.com ranks how prepared each state is for disasters. The chart compares how much money the state has for disasters to the likelihood that state will face a disaster. The outcome is interesting because regardless of their ranking, most states are unprepared for emergencies. One of the main reasons for…
Following a unanimous vote in the National Assembly’s Infrastructure Committee, Nicaraguan officials have begun preparations for the so-called Interoceanic Grand Canal, which will connect to Lake Nicaragua by means of a 177.7 mile (286 km) waterway. President Daniel Ortega signed an agreement for the ambitious construction project with Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company…
Why does the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory war against hydraulic fracturing look like the Natural Resources Defense Council’s 2007 agenda for eliminating domestic oil and natural gas development? Because it is. President Obama is coordinating with far-left environmental activists to wage an all-out assault on American oil and natural gas. The NRDC’s unjustifiable access to such…
Teachers’ unions in Florida continue to threaten the educational opportunity of thousands of the state’s most vulnerable children. But there is some good news: Last week, Leon County Circuit Court Judge George S. Reynolds III granted parents of these children the right to intervene on behalf of their children’s scholarships, which are awarded through the…
A Dec. 2 Report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reveals more on how law-abiding businesses have been unfairly and illegitimately targeted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – the primary federal bank regulator – as part of Operation Choke Point. This report builds on a March report by the same committee…
Cars began transiting through Hong Kong’s Admiralty district overnight for the first time in 75 days, as police finally brought an end to that city’s cry for democracy. But Hong Kong’s communist overlords in Beijing will not enjoy their victory forever. There were still a few hundred “randomly walking” through the streets of the Asian…
When a wave of inversions hit earlier this year, there were a variety of Congressional proposals to stop them. They were mostly feckless because none of them fixed the root of the problem, which is our broken corporate tax system. Inversions occur when a U.S. business merges with a foreign business and moves the combined…
It is no secret that the Obama administration has a tense relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to sharp differences on key foreign policy issues and clashing world views. But an Israeli press report last Thursday suggested that the White House is considering going beyond the usual criticism and is mulling stronger actions….
Many legislators complain about the Environmental Protection Agency on various matters ranging from their excessive water power grab in their “Waters of the United States” rule to their attempt to go around Congress to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, the omnibus makes many of these complaints about the EPA look hollow—the “CRomnibus” actually would provide about…
U.N. nations are immersed in their second week of climate talks in Lima, Peru. The goal is to lay groundwork for a binding international climate agreement in Paris next December committing nations to greenhouse gas emissions cuts and “climate financing” for developing nations. This is the 20th such conference since 1995 and it stands as…
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty. Since that time, annual means-tested welfare spending has increased by 16-fold, now costing taxpayers nearly $1 trillion a year. And the omnibus bill keeps spending at this sky-high level. The means-tested welfare system is massive and is the fastest growing part of government spending. The…
In last minute, high pressure negotiations over spending bills on Capitol Hill, the House often caves to the Senate’s higher, irresponsible levels of spending. On Tuesday, they did it again. This time, they caved with the omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2015 spending. Higher spending levels emerged on a variety of programs that merit…
This time of year, we hear a lot about the importance of being thankful and giving back. Rarely, though, do you see an example as pure and perfect as that of ex-NFL star Jason Brown. Brown, who hails from Henderson, N.C., played football at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and quickly was…
The new spending bill, or as it’s been dubbed on Twitter, the #CRomnibus, doesn’t include even a temporary waiver provision to give some schools a reprieve from new and problematic federal school meal standards. The USDA’s new school lunch and breakfast requirements, implementing the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, have been a disaster. The overly prescriptive…
The omnibus appropriations bill the House will take up Thursday includes a measure to reauthorize Brand USA, the troubled corporation created by Congress to promote international visits to the U.S. The charter for Brand USA is due to expire at the end of 2015, but the House has proposed reauthorizing it through 2020 and adding…