Happy Thanksgiving
November 21, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
“In America, throughout its history, religion has flourished—and so has liberty,” Heritage’s Matthew Spalding wrote in celebration of Thanksgiving three years ago. “For that, and for the freedom to proclaim and testify to our faith, all Americans ought to the thankful.”
And this Thanksgiving, let’s also be sure to give a special thanks to the men and women in uniform who are working hard to protect our country from its enemies.
The MyHeritage.org team will be taking the rest of this week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families. We’ll return next week.
Families matter
As American families gather this week, it’s worth remembering just how important the family is to our society.
Heritage’s FamilyFacts.org recently released a new compilation of studies finding that:
- Children raised in intact families have, on average, higher academic achievement, better emotional health, and fewer behavioral problems.
- Fathers of intact families spend, on average, more time with their children.
- Children raised in intact families are more likely to have stable and healthy romantic relationships as adults.
- Intact families are more likely to provide a safe home for children.
The data continue to demonstrate that America does best with strong families and a robust civil society. Click here to read the whole list of findings on the importance of stable families on FamilyFacts.org.
The military turns to Heritage
Heritage’s research continues to make a splash where it matters most. A recent lecture by Heritage national security expert James Carafano on why government agencies don’t cooperate with one another will be part of the curriculum at the Joint Forces Staff College.
Don’t throw even more money at education
“After twelve years out of power, what will Democrats seek to accomplish in federal education policy?” asks Heritage education expert Dan Lips.
Liberals in Congress, Lips explains, have been quick to attack President Bush for allegedly under-funding education. In truth, spending too little on education has hardly been one of this administration’s flaws. In fact, overall federal education spending in 2006 was more than double what it was in 2001, as Heritage’s Brian Riedl noted earlier this year (read the full report on the growth of spending in PDF format).
But has this new federal largess actually accomplished anything?
Britain must not cut and run
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to step down next year. His likely replacement, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, could engineer “a reversal of Britain’s Iraq policy,” Heritage foreign policy expert Nile Gardiner tells British newspaper The People.
Prime Minister Blair “is right to reject calls for a British withdrawal from Iraq,” Nile Gardiner argues in a new paper. Gardiner, the Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow and Director of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, explains that Blair’s assessment of Iraq is dead-on. “An early withdrawal of British forces would boost al-Qaeda, risk civil war in Iraq, and severely strain the Anglo-U.S. relationship, to the detriment of the war on terrorism and global security.”
The consequences of a premature British exit would be catastrophic, Gardiner writes.
Find out what this withdrawal would mean, and how Blair is fighting anti-Americanism.
A new look for Heritage.org
Heritage.org, our website whose markets include Congress, the administration and the media, underwent a facelift over the weekend. The homepage has been reorganized to give more prominence to the most widely used features. Notably, the homepage includes a fancy new lead graphic that highlights some of Heritage’s most recent work at a glance.
“The newly designed web site will allow us to deliver the ever-changing content The Heritage Foundation offers our many audiences on a daily basis,” Vice President for Information Technology Mike Spiller said. “We have focused on daily content, ease of navigation, and search ability. This is just another way Heritage is using technology to market our ideas to the world.”
Other new features will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
In other news
- Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, reports that Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), John McCain (R-AZ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) plan to reintroduce their “compromise” immigration plan before the year’s end. The program calls for rewarding those who broke the law coming into the country illegally with an amnesty and dramatically increasing legal immigration.
- Liberal Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) is once again proposing that Congress reinstate the military draft. But as Heritage’s James Carafano has pointed out, the military is strained by ineffective use of manpower, not by a lack of manpower. Besides, a conscript military would be less effective than our current volunteer military—which is why the military opposes a resumed draft.
- A new book, reports the Religion News Service, finds “that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure. Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity.”
- A federal judge refused to halt a lawsuit against telecom firms over their roles in the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program. A civil liberties organization hopes to win damages from the companies, which cooperated with the government in tracking the communications of overseas terrorists.
- House Republicans reelected Ohio’s John Boehner to serve as their leader in the new year, and they again chose Missouri’s Roy Blunt to serve as whip.
- Dutch cabinet members have approved a ban on the wearing on the burqa, a head-to-toe covering for women favored by some Muslim sects. The BBC reports that “The cabinet said burqas disturb public order, citizens and safety.”
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Monday, November 27 at noon, Carl Schramm of the Kaufmann Foundation explains the importance of entrepreneurship to maintaining America’s economic strength in the coming decades.
- On Wednesday, November 29 at noon, Heritage hosts a special screening of Obsession, a film taking an “insider’s view” of the hatred radical Islamists are teaching, their incitement of global jihad, and their goal of world domination.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
