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

Before the Speech Begins – Emily Goff: Previewing tonight’s speech this past weekend, Mr. Obama said: “We can go in two directions. One is towards less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for…building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few.” The President must not understand that an economy based on free-enterprise with limited government involvement will, in fact, work for and benefit more than just the wealthy. His administration’s idea of an economy that works involves imposing heavy-handed government regulations and threatening tax increases at … More

Last weekend, Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist organization launched a deadly strike in the northern city of Kano. Targeting government security forces, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for waging a series of bomb attacks and gun assaults that killed over 160 people. Boko Haram has gained increasing notoriety in the past year as it has carried out regular attacks against government security forces and innocent civilians, both Muslim and Christian. According to the Associated Press, Boko Haram claimed 510 victims in 2011 while killing as many as 76 this year before … More

Internal ethnic strife, a deep-rooted but often overlooked challenge facing newly independent South Sudan, has recently emerged as a threat to the country’s stability. Last month, the South Sudanese army and United Nations reinforcements were sent to the town of Pibor in Jonglei state to prevent attacks by members of the Lou Nuer ethnic group against the Murle clan. In the past few months, over a thousand people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced in clashes that started last summer, as cattle raids prompted violence that quickly … More

In recognition of the 63rd anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, President Obama proclaimed this week Human Rights Week. Americans know a thing or two about rights, considering that the country was founded on the self-evident truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” But, when the President invokes human rights, is he talking about the same concepts from the Declaration of Independence? That is to say, are human rights the same as natural rights? At the … More

There are quite a few reasons to be concerned about the U.N.’s pending Arms Trade Treaty. It poses a number of risks to the Second Amendment and, more broadly, it is based on the completely fallacious belief that all the world’s nations are actually serious about controlling the illicit arms trade. If they were, of course, no treaty would be necessary. What the treaty will end up doing is making the arms trade more dangerous, by giving the world’s dictator states an internationally-recognized right to import and export all the … More

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill that would, among other things, open the door for the creation of thousands of new jobs, prevent a tax hike on American workers, and help reduce the crippling deficit. However, President Barack Obama has promised that he would bring the legislation to a halt with a veto—all because of his opposition to the single measure in the bill that would create jobs. What’s so offensive that would cause the President to level a veto threat? A provision … More

If there was any doubt where President Barack Obama’s ideological heart lies, yesterday he let it be known loud and clear in a wide-ranging speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. President Obama is at his core a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who sees the federal government as the answer to all of America’s problems. And he is charging full steam ahead on this far-left course toward Election Day 2012, despite the total failure of his big-government policies and an American people who have flatly rejected the message he is trying to sell. True to … More

Another year, another hopeless climate talk. This time, the annual U.N. climate change summit is taking place in Durban, South Africa. It looks painfully like another misguided attempt to convince developed countries to shoulder global emissions targets while redistributing wealth to developing countries. This approach, again, is likely to fail—despite China’s recent announcement that it would consider accepting a legally binding agreement. For the past 17 years, one U.N. climate talk after another has failed over the same basic issue. While top-down international policymaking may sound appealing to those whose … More

Ready to trade in your car for a bike, or maybe a subway instead? Interested in fewer choices for your home, paying more for housing, and being crammed into a denser neighborhood? You can have all this and more if radical environmentalists and “smart growth” advocates have their way and local, state, and the federal government impose the policies set forth in the United Nations’ Agenda 21. You might have heard of this nefarious-sounding policy in a recent Republican presidential debate, but even if you haven’t, here’s some background information: … More