Editor’s note: Earlier this month, the Huffington Post published a “commentary” on the F-35 by four left-leaning defense analysts.  Clearly, none of these men are fans of the joint strike fighter.  Unfortunately, their commentary focused mostly on sliming James Jay Carafano—one of the nation’s leading national security experts—and insinuating that his employer, The Heritage Foundation, is a shill for Lockheed-Martin.  Their charges are as bogus as they are shrill. Dr. Carafano wrote a measured response to this piece, which the Huffington Post has thus far not seen fit to print.  It … More

According to information obtained by a liberal environmentalist group, the White House deliberately misled the public about the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010. The month after the spill, the administration announced that about 25,000 barrels per day of oil was being leaked into the Gulf. That estimate turned out to be wildly off the mark. About 53,000 bpd were being spilled. According to emails obtained by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the administration falsely reported the … More

It’s been said before, but it must be repeated. Hispanics are not single-issue voters. Despite the narrative reinforced over and over by the Hispanic media and the Latino lobby, Hispanics are concerned about more than just immigration reform. This was recently confirmed in an ImpreMedia Latino Decisions tracking poll that revealed that the economy, not immigration, is the issue of most concern to Hispanics. Of course, you won’t hear too many of the President’s surrogates mentioning this latest poll, because it’s far easier to cast conservatives as anti-Hispanic for being … More

Did World War II spending boost economic growth? Although some statistics appear to affirm this, wiser historical analysis demonstrates that artificial increases in output during the war masked a debilitated private economy. Meaningful growth increased after the war, when free-market mechanisms returned and marginal tax rates were reduced. Gross national product (GNP), the total value of everything produced by United States domestically or abroad, did increase during the war and trended downward as the war ended in 1945, falling considerably in 1946 and 1947. It would be shallow analysis, however, … More

The benefits of marriage are numerous: from increasing financial health to promoting child well-being, tying the knot can have a profound impact on individuals’ futures. According to a new survey, Americans overwhelmingly recognize the value of marriage to advancing society. (Article continued below chart) A new Rasmussen poll released this week shows that more than three in four Americans consider marriage an important societal institution. According to the survey, 78 percent of American adults say matrimony is at least “somewhat important” to society, including 60 percent who rate marriage as … More

A recent article by the Associated Press leaves the reader with the impression that there haven’t been any defense cuts since the 1990s and that defense spending has not been “on the table” in recent deficit-reduction efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth. The article states that the cuts to defense under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, beginning in 2013, are “the first outright cuts since the so-called peace dividend of the early 1990s.” In reality, defense budgets have already been cut, are being cut now, and … More

On Wednesday, the United States took the most aggressive military action in Somalia since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993. Three months ago, two foreign aid workers were kidnapped by a band of Somali criminals. After failed ransom negotiations and as one of the American hostages, Jessica Buchanan, was suffering deteriorating health conditions, President Obama on January 23 authorized a daring rescue mission. It was carried out with brilliant efficiency by Navy SEAL Team Six. In the carefully orchestrated operation, the SEALs safely whisked Buchanan and her Danish colleague Poul … More

During Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Obama largely glossed over the ongoing war in Afghanistan, where nearly 100,000 American soldiers are fighting to prevent the reemergence of a terrorist safe haven in the region. He did, however, deliver a misleading statement on the subject in declaring that “the Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.” The President’s inaccurate statement was duly noted by the Associated Press’s SOTU fact check, which highlighted findings of the latest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) … More

Last week, I again had the privilege of traveling to Guantanamo Bay to observe a military commission proceeding as an invited representative of a non-governmental organization (NGO), my employer, The Heritage Foundation.  And once again, I was disappointed by the lack of informed commentary from my fellow NGO representatives.   Perhaps the most disappointingly slanted account of the proceedings was published by Human Rights Watch’s Laura Pitter in Salon and entitled “Guantanamo’s System of Injustice.”   Pitter’s central theme is that there are “vast differences” between federal court and military commissions and … More

Monday on The Daily Show, comedian Jon Stewart interviewed Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The Secretary didn’t escape the hot seat in what turned out to be an interesting discussion regarding the implementation of Obamacare. One notable topic covered during the interview was the surprise proposal by HHS to let states determine their own definitions of “essential health benefits.” Obamacare explicitly instructs HHS to fill in the details of the legislation’s mandatory minimum benefit package, but as the Galen Institute’s John Hoff previously noted in a Heritage … More