On Wednesday, March 4, the Supreme Court will hear the King v. Burwell case. It is likely to deliver a death blow to ObamaCare when the decision is announced in a few months. About the only good thing ObamaCare demonstrated is that the federal government should be kept from taking over sectors of the nation’s economy that are working just fine without it.
On Wednesday January 21, in his first speech on the floor of the senate as the Chairman of the Senate’s Environment & Public Works Committee, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) used a poster supplied by The Heartland Institute to drive home the point that the theory of man-made climate change is highly contested.
The good news as 2015 debuts is that President Obama has managed to very nearly decimate the Democratic Party, leaving it weaker in Congress and throughout the nation than it has been in memory. The bad news is that he has weakened the nation in the eyes of the world. He is not trusted by world leaders and his next two years in office will only encourage our enemies.
On December 11th 2014, Senator Tom Coburn gave an emotional farewell address on the Senate floor. In his speech, Coburn reflected on his time as a congressman, explained his worldview, gave advice to colleagues and gave thanks to those that helped and supported him.
Perhaps the only thing government loves more than spending our money – is taking it.
Political analysts are rapidly reaching a consensus that the recent election was a repudiation of President Obama’s failed policies, and although environmental issues were not the primary focus of the elections, the attention they received indicates a strong rejection of the Obama administration’s environmental policies.
Budgets/Taxes · Featured · Politics
Decades of disappointment should have taught us that the Republican Party’s big wins Tuesday will change little or nothing that comes out of Washington, DC in a substantive way.
Featured · Government · Legal Affairs · Politics
The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) outlaws the testing of nuclear weapons. So far, 183 countries signed the treaty, but it cannot become a binding international law until it has been ratified by all states capable of developing nuclear weapons, of which there are 44 specified in the treaty. Of these states, three (India, Pakistan, and North Korea) have not signed the treaty, and a further six (China, Egypt, Israel, Iran, and the United States) are yet to ratify it.
Featured · Government · Politics
In my last post I discussed the apparent inversion of the responsibility of the executive branch of government, namely that it has taken on a far greater role in domestic policy while turning its back in large part on its traditional responsibility for foreign affairs. The result has been an over-mighty presidency at home, a weakened and ineffectual Congress, and a rudderless foreign policy. While I challenged the American public to rise against the tide of executive overreach, I did not thoroughly address what Congress itself can do to challenge the siphoning away of its traditional powers. There is in fact a great deal it can do.
Featured · Government · Politics
It was long the case that American presidents held less power on domestic issues than the Congress. The executive branch could only enact the laws of the legislature with a limited tendency to veto. The president’s real power lay in setting foreign policy, as he had much more freedom of action in that arena than on the home front wherein the checks and balances of the Constitution were in full force. That traditional balance has been overridden in the current political system. The fault for this breakdown of traditional magisteria of influence lies with both the executive and the legislative branches.
Featured · Government · Legal Affairs · Politics
Author and former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy joined the Heartland Institute on June 12th to talk about his new book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment, with a packed and lively crowd of Heartland supporters. McCarthy was incisive and exceptionally convincing.
Featured · Government · Politics
Limiting the term of office served by elected politicians has been a controversial issue in the United States for many years. At one time the federal government had no term limits, with the president and Congress allowed to remain in office as long as they could get reelected. Today, the president is limited to two terms, but congressmen and senators are still free to run again and again. And they do.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Politics
Conservatives need to wake up and start thinking past the rapidly passing age of Obama.
Environment/Energy · Government · Science
While this week’s Senate Climate Action Task Force all-night marathon may seem like the ultimate comedy, real climate scientists are crying over the event. It’s not just because of the numerous basic science mistakes made by the senators.
Environment/Energy · Featured · Regulation · Science
Democrats have decided to lean-in, not back-away, from so-called clean energy. Despite the embarrassing history of government-funded green-energy failures, “wealthy environmentalists are pushing Democrats to take bolder positions on climate change”—and global warming, as an issue, provides the impetus for more green-energy spending.
The Boston Globe reported on a recent “summit between Washington’s liberal elite and San Francisco’s climate intelligensia” that included “Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, six other senators, and … Al Gore.” The Globe points to new efforts by Democrats to “make global warming a central issue during the midterms.”
The last remaining glimmer of Obama’s political capital and personal appeal, and thus his ability to help vulnerable Democrats in the 2014 elections and beyond, is flowing into the septic tank of Progressive history.
We are weeks away from being fully immersed in the 2014 election cycle. Predictions abound, likening the 2014 cycle to 2010—when the House flipped from Democratic to Republican. Only this time, it is the Senate that has the potential to change. Twenty of the 33seats up in 2014 are currently held by Democrats—more than half of whom are in trouble.
Land of Lincoln: Thy Wondrous Story reminds us that there’s no time like the present for students and Illinois citizens to immerse themselves in the rich history of our state.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Liberty · Taxes
A survey conducted by the R-Street Institute and the National Taxpayers Union shows that voters across the ideological spectrum oppose the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA). If signed into law, the[…]
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Health Care
If the President can rewrite and make up the law, then the bonds of democracy are broken completely. We are no longer governed by laws adopted through the democratic process, but ruled instead by authoritarian, Third World-style decree.
NEWS: The Heartlander
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