Vice President / Director of Communications at The Heartland Institute
Jim is the Vice President and Director of Communications at The Heartland Institute. Prior to joining Heartland, he was an ink-stained newspaperman for 16 years with many stops in "old media."
Latest posts by Jim Lakely (see all)
- Ill Literacy, Episode XXIV: The Crooked Path to Abolition (Guest: James Oakes) - February 3, 2021
- Ill Literacy, Episode XXII: 1620 (Guest: Peter W. Wood) - December 8, 2020
- Ill Literacy, Episode XXI: The Zealot and the Emancipator (Guest: H.W. Brands) - December 1, 2020
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 Carbon Tax Scheme Is Just an Old Democratic Way of ThinkingH. Sterling Burnett, Freedom Pub Establishment Republicans who last held positions of influence in the 1980s are now claiming to represent “conservatives” in the climate change debate. No surprise, they are pimping for a tax on carbon dioxide emissions as the “market-based” solution to a problem most Republicans don’t believe exist. Donald Trump and today’s Republican Party are way past the days of “me-too” compromises with Democrats on the Road to Serfdom. READ MORE |
 Vaping: How Government Regulation Can Kill Innovation Shall Not Be Infringed: The New Assaults on Your Second Amendment Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America’s First Constitution The Heartland Institute offers free email subscriptions to all of its newsletters and public policy newspapers. Subscribe
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 Roadmap for the 21st Century: Rightsizing GovernmentPeter Ferrara and Lewis Uhler The tenth and final paper in the Roadmap series, developed by the Working Group on Rightsizing Government, discusses the need to reduce spending and restore economic growth by “rightsizing” the national government. The Roadmap authors discuss economist Gerald Scully’s work on the optimal size of government; finding ways to restore economic growth in the United States (thereby maximizing GDP); and balancing the federal budget and paying off the national debt. READ MORE |
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 Socialism: Marking a Century of Death and DestructionRichard Ebeling, Left Exposed In the Soviet Union, not one corner of everyday life – its form, content, quality, or characteristics – was free from the control and determination of the all-powerful and all-encompassing socialist state. Its design and attempted implementation were truly “totalitarian.” Not one country that followed the Soviet revolutionary model in the hundred years after the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 practiced anything noticeably different in form or content. READ MORE |
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 Featured Podcast: Richard Bishirjian: Why American Higher Ed Is Failing and How to Fix ItHeartland Research Fellow Teresa Mull speaks with Dr. Richard Bishirjian, author of The Coming Death and Future Resurrection of American Higher Education and founding president and professor of government at Yorktown University from 2000 to 2016. They discuss how regional accreditation requirements are stifling schools’ abilities to innovate and offer students a much more affordable higher education. Bishirjian also delves into the number of ways government is crushing higher education and offers students suggestions for avoiding debt and gaining an education in an era when student loan debt is spiraling out of control. LISTEN TO MORE |
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Read Heartland President Joe Bast’s blog post on Pruitt’s statement. |
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 TWO WEEKS AWAY! HEARTLAND’S NEXT CLIMATE CONFERENCEThe most important conference on climate change held in 2017 is taking place on Thursday and Friday, March 23–24, in Washington DC. An all-star line-up of scientists, economists, and elected officials will explain how and why the Trump administration should reset climate policy away from the fake science and alarmism of the Obama years and toward real science and data. Speakers include Don Easterbrook, Ph.D. (Western Washington University), Myron Ebell (Competitive Enterprise Institute), Bette Grande (former state legislator, ND), Mary Hutzler (Institute for Energy Research), Patrick Michaels, Ph.D. (Cato Institute), Lord Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon, Ph.D. (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and many others. Space is limited, so reserve your place today! REGISTER HERE |
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 GOP Premium Penalty to Replace Obamacare Tax Penalty?Michael Hamilton, Consumer Power Report The latest bill favored by House GOP leaders – the American Health Care Act (AHCA) released on March 6 – appears to make unnecessary concessions out of the gates. Even if passing AHCA proves to be the only politically viable path forward for replacing Obamacare – and I think it is too early to grant it this status – Republicans should claw back ground they obviously should have kept all along. For example, Republicans pride themselves on removing the individual mandate and tax penalty for individuals who don’t buy insurance, but the GOP leadership’s latest draft bill replaces the Obamacare mandate with a premium penalty. READ MORE |
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 Lessons from a Comparison of the Tea Party Rallies and Recent Leftist RalliesRob Natelson, The Daily Caller When the patriot-members of the Tea Party protested in 2010 and 2012, they were invariably peaceful and the participants cleaned up after themselves. In contrast, the “Occupy” movement left tons of litter in its wake, and more recently the Black Lives Matter movement and those protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline resulted in the destruction of public and private property and sometimes even riots and looting. What does that say about their character? READ MORE |
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 Supreme Court Vacates Lower Court Transgender Bathroom RulingTeresa Mull, School Choice Weekly The Trump administration reversed guidelines from the Obama administration directing schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choosing. Trump’s move affected a case scheduled to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding a transgender teen’s claim his Virginia school discriminated against him. READ MORE |
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 Environment & Climate News – Pruitt Appointment Signals Big Changes at EPAThe April 2017 edition of Environment & Climate News is available online in PDF format. In the edition, read why President Donald Trump’s appointment of Scott Pruitt as administrator of the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) indicates big changes are in store for the agency and the businesses, states, and people affected by its rules. READ MORE |
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| Bonus Podcast: Meg Morely: Pipeline Protests Heartland Institute Research Fellow Isaac Orr and Policy Advisor Meg Morely discuss the tactics used by anti-pipeline activists to stall or cancel pipeline construction projects. They talk about the cancelling of a proposed pipeline expansion that would have transported greater volumes of oil form North Dakota to Superior, Wisconsin, and the scene of the protest for the Dakota Access Pipelines – which was littered with environmentally dangerous trash LISTEN TO MORE |
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 Escaping Obamacare PurgatoryMichael Hamilton, Washington Times Mischaracterizing Republican proposals to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a blood sport Obamacare proponents play at patients’ expense. The game requires leaving out truths, which some would term a “sin of omission,” and introducing falsehood, a “sin of commission.” Republicans have nothing to apologize for. Their plans for replacing Obamacare would more sustainably give patients financial assistance, expand treatment and insurance options, and establish safety nets for people with pre-existing conditions READ MORE |
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 Study’s Claims Linking Leukemia to Oil and Gas Aren’t CredibleIsaac Orr, Denver Post In her new study, Dr. Lisa McKenzie of the Colorado School of Public Health claims to have identified a link between childhood leukemia and oil and natural gas development. The research has already generated a flurry of headlines and outrage against the traditional energy industry, but serious flaws in the study discovered by top medical professionals in Colorado have led them to condemn the research, calling its conclusions “misleading.” READ MORE |
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 Help Us Stop Wikipedia’s Lies!Have you visited Heartland’s Wikipedia page recently? The good news is that it is more complete than it was just a couple months ago, after leftists took it over and trashed it. Most of the new information is accurate and unbiased. But the lies and libel about our positions on smoking and climate change remain. Other conservative and free-market sites suffer, too. Wikipedia refuses to make many of the changes we request and deletes and reverses the changes made by others. We need your help! READ MORE |
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 Invest in the Future of Freedom!Are you considering 2016 gifts to your favorite charities? We hope The Heartland Institute is on your list. Preserving and expanding individual freedom is the surest way to advance many good and noble objectives, from feeding and clothing the poor to encouraging excellence and great achievement. Making charitable gifts to nonprofit organizations dedicated to individual freedom is the most highly leveraged investment a philanthropist can make.Click here to make a contribution online, or mail your gift to The Heartland Institute, 3939 North Wilke Road, Arlington Heights, IL 60004. To request a FREE wills guide or to get more information to plan your future please visit My Gift Legacy http://legacy.heartland.org/ or contact Gwen Carver at 312/377-4000 or by email at gcarver@heartland.org. |
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