Healthcare Reform Details Emerge
Details of the various proposals for healthcare reform are beginning to emerge. House Democrats and Republicans are each formulating their own plans, while two Senate committees are taking different...
About: Steven J. DuBord
Posts by Steven J. DuBord
PBS Bans New Religious Programming
On June 16, the Public Broadcasting Service decided to forbid member stations from carrying any new religious TV programs while allowing the few stations that are already doing so...
Same-sex Benefits Sidestep the Law
President Barack Obama on June 17 issued a presidential memorandum that extended a number of benefits to same-sex partners of federal workers. The move received mixed reviews by homosexual...
Proposed Financial & Insurance Regulations
On June 17, President Barack Obama proposed sweeping changes to federal regulation of financial markets. Bloomberg.com called it “the biggest overhaul of market rules in more than seven decades.”...
Obama on Offsetting Healthcare Reform Costs
President Obama devoted his June 13 weekly address to outlining cost savings to offset the massive price tag for his proposed healthcare reform. Supposedly an additional $313 billion can...
Summers Speaks at CFR on Economic Policy
President Barack Obama’s director of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers, spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on June 12. At the time of this writing, a video...
Obama Promotes Healthcare Reform
As part of his efforts to promote healthcare reform, President Barack Obama attended a town hall meeting at Southwest High School in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on June 11. The...
Obama Fires Inspector Who Found Misuse
President Barack Obama has fired the inspector general who found misuse of AmeriCorps funds at a nonprofit education group headed by Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. The inspector general, Gerald...
May Deficit Was Nearly $190 Billion
The Treasury Department reported on June 10 that the federal budget deficit for May was just shy of $190 billion, and the total deficit eight months into the fiscal...
Administration to Reform CEO Compensation
On June 10, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced several ways that the Obama administration intends to change corporate practices for determining executive compensation. The administration will support “say on...
“Ten Thousand Commandments” of Federal Regulation
On May 28, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released the 2009 edition of their report on the impact of federal regulation. Entitled Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal...
Healthcare Reform on the Fast Track
In the midst of his travels through the Middle East and Europe, President Barack Obama used his weekly address on June 6 to talk about healthcare reform, just as...
House Bill Limits Whole-body Imaging
On June 4, the House voted 310-118 for a bill (H.R. 2027) limiting the use of whole-body imaging devices as the sole or primary method of screening at airports....
Suits Charging Illegal Surveillance Dismissed
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported on June 3 that U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker has dismissed dozens of lawsuits charging illegal spying on Americans through warrantless surveillance. The...
Good and Bad News on May Unemployment
The oft-repeated line that “I have good news, and I have bad news” applies to the U.S. Labor Department’s latest figures on unemployment and job losses, though the first...
Obama’s Cairo Speech
President Barack Obama tried to strike a conciliatory tone with his June 4 speech at Cairo University. The president referred to such developments as algebra and the magnetic compass...
U.S. Nuclear Site List Leaked
Steven Aftergood, a security expert with the Federation of American Scientists, reported on June 1 that “a compilation of hundreds of U.S. nuclear sites and activities that were to...
Obama’s One-two Punch vs. Health Insurance Choice
“President Obama, in a pivot from some of his harshest campaign rhetoric, told Democratic senators [on June 2] that he is willing to consider taxing employer-sponsored health benefits to...
North Korea’s Kim May Have a Successor
“North Korea's Kim moves to anoint youngest son as heir,” Reuters announced in the title to a June 2 release. The North’s current communist dictator, Kim Jong-il, is apparently...
President Obama’s Cybersecurity Plan
On May 29 President Barack Obama introduced his administration's new report on cybersecurity in the United States entitled Cyberspace Policy Review: Assuring a Trusted and Resilient Information and Communications...