The Hill’s Chris Good talks with Hudson Institute President Dr. Herb London about the economic plans of Barack Obama and John McCain.

Without any question, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will be overturned in the not-too-distant future. And it should be. I’ve found in working with the military in my district that this isn’t an issue for them.

It’s not just that we aren’t able to have these people serve, but it doesn’t stand up to the highest ideals of America. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s important that the president attend the Olympics in China. This venue is about athletics. The athletes have been working very, very hard to get in the position that they’re in. A lot of these problems should have been sorted out before they allowed China to host the Olympics. I’m in support of the president attending. I do think that it has given us the opportunity to bring to light some problems that we’d like to deal with, specifically human rights issues.

I think the Attorney General is doing a very good job.  He’s getting good questions from both sides of the Judiciary Committee, and these kinds of hearings are important because one of Congress’s most important responsibilities is to have oversight of the various departments.

I have some real concerns about overemphasizing the rights of people who essentially want to harm as many Americans as possible, and so I think we have to be very careful in maintaining techniques which can get information from people, but still do it in a constitutional manner.  I think some of the Supreme Court decisions recently in that area are very suspect. Read the rest of this entry »

All of us celebrate when a nation has the opportunity to show off its people and its culture and its hospitality. But the Olympics are a gift to the Chinese people. As an American, as an advocate for human rights, I would be remiss if I did not cry out in the darkness about religious oppression and human rights oppression. That is intolerable, and I think it’s important for China to address those questions on behalf of the Chinese people.

There was some pressure applied to the president not to go to the Olympics. But, as you know, he is saying it would be a slight to China. A group of us, a congressional delegation, were trying to go for the first week, then go to Mongolia and go on to Tibet. But since the conflict occurred, we changed that. We thought that it wouldn’t be good symbolically for us to go at all. If we still complained about human rights, then I don’t think it would be right for us to go.

Yesterday the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling striking down the controversial Child Online Protection Act (COPA); the law required Web operators to restrict access to large amounts of constitutionally protected speech.  COPA placed severe restrictions on a wide range of legal, socially valuable speech, including content relating to sexual identity, health and art.

In its ruling today the court said COPA “cannot withstand a strict scrutiny, vagueness, or overbreadth analysis and thus is unconstitutional.”  The appeals court decision was the seventh since 1998 that found serious constitutional problems with COPA.  Read the rest of this entry »

The housing crisis is eroding the confidence of our nation’s homeowners, financial institutions, and investors at an accelerating rate. Americans are growing anxious that the equity they’ve paid into their homes may not provide the financial security that home ownership once guaranteed. Worst of all, nearly 1.9 million borrowers across the nation – more than 50,000 of them in Texas – who have filed for foreclosure on their homes this year live with diminished hope that their own symbol of the American dream will be realized.

The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) each have similar roles in the home mortgage market. They buy mortgages from primary lenders – like banks – which make additional funds available to those banks to lend to other potential homeowners. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the inevitable consequences of a society that values freedom of speech is that people say a lot of really dumb things.  That ultimately makes our country stronger because Americans are smart enough to weigh all the arguments that have been made and reach their own conclusions.  They also get the opportunity to form accurate opinions about the people who say the dumbest and most reprehensible things.  The system only works, however, if responsible citizens are vigilant and willing to make sure the public has the information it needs to counter the many baseless assertions that are made on our airwaves, in the press, and on the Internet.

Last week, we had a classic example of someone with access to a microphone saying something really dumb.  On the July 16 edition of his radio show, talk show host Michael Savage disparaged families with autistic children and called most cases of autism spectrum disorder frauds.  He said: Read the rest of this entry »

Frankly, it’s incredible to see the University of Alabama challenge the facts—facts reported to us by thousands of scientists—and suggest that global warming was naturally caused. It’s preposterous. It’s reminiscent of the statement that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the media.

That’s why I think this hearing was important. It reminded us of the science that proves global warming is real.  I think the two witnesses—Burnett and Dr. Trenberth—were excellent and knowledgeable. They let people know how foolish the Bush Administration’s policies have been. The Administration concealed information, and even though they had facts, they wanted to make sure those facts didn’t get out.