Tonight, US President delivers annual State of the Union address as world powers meet in London to discuss global flashpoints.

The US is captive of Zionism. It then falls upon the EU among others to assume the sublime role of facilitating the conditions which will actually enable Hamas to renounce violence without becoming spineless. This the EU can do by supporting Hamas as the now elected representative of the Palestinian cause. Only in this way can the election results become the initiation of a world-level resistance to US-Zionist hegemony. It is only then that the whole of people in Palestine would have the hope of less violence. It is only by touching the core of pain and suffering that truth and reconciliation can begin. Baruch Spinoza's dictum that "There is no hope without fear" could not be more appropriate.

US. lawmen confronted several men in military uniforms and a camouflaged Humvee with .50-caliber machine guns who had crossed into Texas and forced an armed standoff along the Rio Grande.

“It’s been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it’s been going on for years,” Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff’s Department told local news. “When you’re up
against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us.”

The London Independent reports,

The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.

The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.

The message is simple, sacrifice your national sovereignty and we will save the world!

Illegal immigration costs the United States far more than it generates annually in terms of migrant tax payments and the purchasing of goods and services. That is reason enough to consider not simply adopting policies and strategies that will help reduce illegal immigration, but also implementing measures to reduce the number of illegal migrants currently residing in the country.

In this era of tight budgets and soaring costs, it is imperative Congress, working with state legislators and local leaders, do more to curb illegal immigration, which continues to burden taxpayers with added costs for services many feel should be reserved only for bona fide American citizens.

It’s hard to top VDARE.COM’s syndicated columnist Paul Craig Roberts in the doom-and-gloom department . . . especially the cold slap-in-the-face of reality delivered in his January 23 column Unfathomed Dangers in Patriot Act Reauthorization, in which he broke the story about "a provision in the "Patriot Act" [that] creates a new federal police force with power to violate the Bill of Rights."

But, amazingly enough, there’s even more to the Department of Homeland Security’s new uniformed division of United States Secret Service police…which is indeed proposed in Section 605 (and 3056A) of the Patriot Act [PDF] reauthorization.

President George W. Bush says Bill Clinton has become so close to his father that the Democratic former president is like a member of the family.

Former President George Bush has worked with Clinton to raise money for victims of the Asian tsunami and the hurricane disaster along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Asked about his father and Clinton, Bush quipped, "Yes, he and my new brother."

Right now, five major corporations control the majority of information which reaches most every day Americans. These “news” outlets (“conditioning” would be a more appropriate term) include News Corp (Fox), Disney (ABC), Time Warner (CNN), Viacom (CBS), and General Electric (NBC).

Anyone who has been tuning into these brainwashing venues knows that the latest drumbeats of war are pounding for the “evil empire” of Iran to be squashed. Of course this bogeyman must be destroyed because they are developing nuclear weapons and want to blow-up the world. Or so the story goes. (Do you remember George W. Bush’s infamous “mushroom cloud” speech in Cincinnati (October, 2002) in regard to Saddam Hussein?)

Republicans can retain their governing majority only if they re-earn the trust of their core conservative base and address the concerns of the Reagan Democrats and other decent Americans who have supported the GOP in its agenda. This means a restored respect for limited government – a renewed allegiance to our American creed, the Declaration of Independence and all our Constitution's protections of freedom. Voters have endorsed the GOP's professed positions supporting traditional values, fiscal responsibility and all the dutiful requirements of liberty. The Republican Party must now follow through.

At a time when the late British theologian C.S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia" has become a hit movie, Mr. Coburn urges his colleagues to recall Lewis's warnings about what befalls those who would seek what he called the Inner Ring of power. "The more those in Congress seek only to penetrate each ring in order to gather power or prestige, the more they lose sight of why most voters entrusted them with their position in the first place," Mr. Coburn says. "Once voters catch on that is your primary ambition, your days accumulating power are ending."

Tom DeLay has at times realized the costs Republicans incurred in following his machine model. Last fall, he appeared before a group of social conservatives in Washington after he had been forced to step down and acknowledged "that I often was short-sighted and strayed from the true path of limited government."

At least in the short run, the Hamas-led P.N.A. will be tied down to reinventing itself as a responsible political force that is both willing and capable of reaching a political settlement with Israel. The task is rather Herculean, and Hamas is a novice when it comes to negotiated politics. The Palestinians have spoken. It is now up for Hamas to transform itself from a militant organization into a political force that is capable of reaching peace. The transition from militancy to governance will be hard and painful.

Republicans would limit gifts to lawmakers to a value of $20, which is a relatively drastic step. But Democrats improve on this by banning any gifts above the value of a Christmas card, as recommended a week ago by Spotlight on Congress.

But lawmakers will still be able to take lobby-paid exotic trips and in-town meals because neither party has yet defined a bribe as accepting something in exchange for a favor—such as legislation.

Hamas has won a great victory — and faces a momentous challenge: Can it deliver peace and good government to the Palestinians? What is not in question is that Fatah deserved to lose. Palestinians voted against it because they had had enough of the cronyism, corruption and incompetence over which it presided. In that sense, this was an anti-vote; Palestinians voted against Fatah rather than for Hamas. They certainly did not vote for its policies. Opinion polls in the run-up to the election showed that the majority of Palestinians support a peace deal with Israel; Hamas most certainly does not.

If Ariel Sharon had not been in a deep coma, he would have jumped out of his bed for joy. The Hamas victory fulfils his most ardent hopes.

For a whole year now, he did everything possible to undermine Mahmoud Abbas. His logic was quite obvious: The Americans wanted him to negotiate with Abbas. Such negotiations would inevitably have lead to a situation that would have compelled him to give up almost all of the West Bank. Sharon had no intention of doing so. He wanted to annex about half of the territory. So he had to get rid of Abbas and his moderate image.

Amid all the howls of pain and gnashing of teeth over the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian elections, one fact remains relatively obscure, albeit highly relevant: Israel did much to launch Hamas as an effective force in the occupied territories. If ever there was a clear case of "blowback," then this is it. As Richard Sale pointed out in a piece for UPI:

The idea that voting is some kind of panacea that will cleanse the Middle East of a self-defeating radicalism is an illusion that died a painful death with the election victory of Hamas. It had earlier suffered near-fatal convulsions with the ascension to power in Iraq of a Shi'ite fundamentalist coalition closely tied to Iran. The bitch-goddess of capital-D Democracy is a fickle and often perversely cruel deity, whose worshippers have been hit with a one-two punch as they seek to transform an entire region according to the canons of their peculiar dogma.

*Democracy = Islam.

Once again the West and especially the Anglo-Americans must acknowledge the obvious fact: democracy in the Arab world means Islam. Unless one is severely Islamophobic this shouldn't raise a problem. But apparently, we have too many Islam haters both in the left and in the right who happen to be horrified by the success of Islam among the masses. Anyhow, yesterday's election in Palestine should serve as the last warning for those who now insist upon 'democratising' Syria.

Whether the Hamas has the power to move things forward for the Palestinians in the short term is hard to say. Moreover, the Hamas is a large movement with more than just a single voice. For instance, for more than a while I am aware of some leaders within the Hamas who believe that the two state solution may guarantee separation from the Israelis and their Western liberal lifestyle. In other words, even within the Hamas there are those who believe in two state solution, though for very different reasons. However, it will be interesting to watch what a pragmatic Hamas's agenda is going to be.

A leading group has urged the West to continue financial support for a Palestinian Authority dominated by Hamas.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group raised the likelihood of a Hamas takeover of the PA in wake of Palestinian Legislative Council elections on Jan. 25.

ICG said in a report that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas would be unable to confront Hamas with either military or political means, Middle East Newsline reported.

"The PA is not in a military, let alone a political, position to forcibly disarm Hamas," the report, entitled "Enter Hamas: The Challenges of Political Integration," said. "Since taking office, Abbas has been paralyzed by a sclerotic political system, and he has more than once staked his success on successful, inclusive elections."

The PA security chief blamed Israel for "Hamas' victory," saying the collapse of the peace process, rampant corruption and lawlessness have convinced the bulk of the Palestinian people that voting for Fatah is futile.

While Fatah’s defeat was a comparatively close one, leftist, liberal parties and independent candidates have apparently suffered a devastating electoral blow.

Talal Ukal, a Palestinian commentator and political analyst, described the election as a watershed.

"It is obvious that we are witnessing the beginning of a new era and we all must come to terms and adapt to the new reality," he said on Thursday.

One Conservative suggested that Harper’s nationwide victory is the equivalent of the election of Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) as Governor of Massachusetts. It would take time for voters to adjust to their new government. Some party operatives already are looking ahead to the Canadian elections in four years. Incumbents in Parliament have a tremendous advantage, my source said, and they could realize that advantage in four years. If they accomplish constructive goals they will be capable of building support.

But senior party officials denied that the party's stance had softened on Israel. Mushir al-Masri, who won his home seat in the northern Gaza Strip, said: "Negotiations with Israel is not on our agenda. Recognizing Israel is not on the agenda either now."

Israel and the United States have both refused to negotiate with the group unless it renounces its commitment to eradicating Israel. If Hamas does take power, the Middle East peace process could be placed in serious jeopardy.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will ask Hamas to form the next Palestinian government after the Islamic militants swept parliamentary elections, and the defeated Fatah Party will serve in the opposition, a senior Fatah legislator said Thursday.

Half the seats were chosen on a national list and the other half by districts. While the national voting appeared to be close, election officials said Hamas had won a large majority in the district races. Hamas apparently took advantage of divisions in Fatah; the long-ruling party fielded multiple candidates in many districts, allowing the Islamic group to capitalize.

In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced that his country would begin pricing its oil in euros. Less than three years later, Iraq was invaded under the pretext it had an ongoing nuclear weapons programme and an arsenal of chemical and biological materials.

In March 2006, Iran is scheduled to open its own oil bourse that will trade in euros. But even before it can open its doors, Iran is being accused of harbouring a clandestine nuclear weapons programme and is being threatened with sanctions or worse.

Is the current US focus on Iran's nuclear facilities a genuine concern or is this another pretext to stave off a potential threat to the fiat dollar?

Even before his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, it was clear that Judge Samuel Alito believed in the obscure doctrine of the "unitary executive." After the hearings, we still don't know exactly what Alito thinks about the limits, if any, of presidential power. But in the Bush era, few issues are more important.

The doctrine of the unitary executive--that is, an executive branch under the control of the president alone--is not clearly established by either the Constitution or historical precedent. For some observers it means, relatively uncontroversially, that the president should have supervisory authority over members of the executive. For others, it means that Congress can't establish agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission that are independent of the president. But it could also mean that, acting as commander-in-chief and exercising war powers, the president can do almost anything he deems necessary, and neither the courts nor Congress can intervene.

With 160,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. strikes, which could kill hundreds of Iranians and silence the pro-American voices there, uniting Iran behind Amadinejad, would seem an option that could cost us everything. Can we really afford another war, against a nation three times as populous and four times as large as Iraq?

Bush and Cheney seem aware of the risks of the "military option." But if they rule it out, they will see a bad moon rising on the Right. Not only will the neoconservatives howl, Israelis will see themselves as the odd man out, if Bush should move to negotiations with Tehran, which is the only real option to confrontation.

But Conservatives see this as a big mistake. Instead, the reason for Quebec’s continued disaffection is federal meddling in its affairs, a sentiment shared to a lesser extent by other provinces, such as Alberta. The Conservative response is a policy of "open federalism." In this arrangement, the federal government will respect the constitutional limits of its power (health care and education are both under provincial jurisdiction) and strengthen its own areas of responsibility such as national defense, foreign affairs and trade.

In this way, provincial autonomy, not liberal paternalism, lies at the base of a strong, united Canada.

Like Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, Canada has been dissolved by the acid bath of “openness.” Canada’s glasnost has taken the form of a savage 40-year (and counting) assault on its traditions and history, its symbols and institutions, its British and royal foundations and—through immigration—its founding peoples.

After four decades of institutional revolution, the Left hates Canada because it is insufficiently European social democrat, while the Right hates Canada because it is insufficiently American capitalist. Patriotism survives only as the last refuge of the rent seeker.

My investigation of the Bush-Jewish connection has been in progress for six years now. One thing I discovered is that George W. Bush is a devoted student of the Jewish Talmud, just as were Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. He is also, I am persuaded, a dedicated agent of Zionist Israel, which makes him double agent and traitor to the United States of America.

But, isn't Bush supposed to be a Christian? How, then can he be a religious Jew? Ah, perhaps those who ask this question should read books like Colonel Donn de Grand Pré's insightful Barbarians Inside the Gates: Book Three, the Rattler's Revenge. As my friend, the good Colonel de Grand Pré, notes so wisely in his excellently documented volume, we are confronted today by Leviathan, a two-headed monster, "one head comprised of Jews who are not Jews and the other, Christians who are not Christians."

Unlike the left, we do not believe any one man should ever be entrusted with the awesome power of deciding when to go to war. It makes no difference if the president is a Republican or a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal. The Constitution assigns to Congress, not the president, the power “to declare war.” If America needs to go to war, Congress should declare it.

Using military force to right the wrongs in other countries and cultures dissimilar to our own is sure to backfire, even if the intent is sincere. As John Quincy Adams correctly observed: “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.”

In the winter of 2000, when Pat Buchanan was running for president on the Reform Party ticket, Kara Hopkins and I had dinner with Gene McCarthy at Washington’s Jockey Club. He had spoken favorably of Buchanan’s presidential bid to a reporter from the L.A. Times, and it was our intent to feel out whether Gene would publicly endorse Pat or perhaps even sign on to an important advisory role in the campaign.

1968 is supposed to be a sort of devil year in the conservative calendar, akin almost to 1789 and 1917. But there was something special and deeply democratic about a poetic, intelligent senator stepping forward to mobilize and give political focus to all that unrepresented sentiment. Pat Buchanan has written recently that a Gene McCarthy for our day will emerge soon. We should be so fortunate.

The heady days of the Republican Revolution of 1994 have pretty much fizzled out, disappearing under a torrent of government spending, new federal entitlements, scandalous pork-barrel projects, thousands of wasteful earmarks, bribery, corruption and special-interest pleading. Too many of the revolutionaries of '94 have "gone native," selling out to the Big Government culture of Congress, falling prey to the "spend-and-spend, elect-and-elect" cynicism the Democrats perfected in their 40-year hegemony. The Republicans managed it all in just a single decade.

John Shadegg is not one of the sellouts. He never has compromised the conservative principles he learned from his father and Barry Goldwater and upon which he was elected to Congress. If the House Republicans truly want to return to the Spirit of ’94 and the Goldwater-Reagan principles that produced their majority -- and make a clean break with the undisciplined excesses of recent years -- then they will elect John Shadegg to the post of Majority Leader.

Both liberals and at least some conservatives must share the blame for contributing to an ideological climate of which the inevitable outcome is the unrestrained executive under which our Republic now groans. Ultimately, though, apportioning responsibility for this transformation of the presidency, in which its occupant can flagrantly and defiantly violate the law, is of much less urgency than addressing—and, one hopes, correcting—the present debacle.

Former congressman Bob Barr, a conservative from Georgia, has it right: “The American people are going to have to say, ‘Enough of this business of justifying everything as necessary for the war on terror.’ Either the Constitution and the laws of this country mean something or they don’t. It is truly frightening what is going on in this country.”

In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, our relentless pursuit of global domination, nuclear brinkmanship, corporate greed and silent oppression of the world's poor, I turn again to the great peacemakers of history, from Jesus of Nazareth and Francis of Assisi to Dorothy Day and Mohandas Gandhi for wisdom to practice revolutionary nonviolence against imperial America.

As Philip Berrigan once said to me, "We are all expected to do good, to seek justice and to resist evil. We will have to resist war for the rest of our lives. We're called to serve the poor, resist the state and be ignored, ostracized and sent to jail because we do that. We all have to take responsibility for the Bomb. But this new responsibility will breed all sorts of life-giving, salvific benefits in our lives. It will create the new human person, the new creation, the just social order."

In the next six weeks, South Dakota lawmakers will decide whether to make abortion a crime.

A bill that would ban abortion in the state will be introduced within the next two days.

The bill will be called the Woman's Health and Life Protection Act. It will ban abortion, but won't prosecute a doctor who performs one to save a woman's life.

Let's see now: President dropping in the polls; impeachment talk over illegal wiretaps gaining traction; majority of Americans now supporting withdrawal from Iraq; Abramoff scandal reaching into the White House; big push starting for war with Iran; the Bush gang reduced to defending their crime, deception and despotism with their last, threadbare card, the "terrorist threat".....

Why, yes, I think it's about time for a guest shot from Osama!

A first, abandoned, draft of proposed FEC Web rules, leaked to the RedState blog last March, regulated all but tiny, password-protected political sites, so bloggers should be worried. Without a general exemption, political blogs could easily find themselves in regulatory hell . . . The FEC says that a “contribution” includes “any gift, subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office” (my italics). If your anti-Hillary blog spends more than $1,000, you could also find it re-classified as a “political committee.” Then you’ve got countless legal requirements and funding limits to worry about.

Slaughter doesn’t want to re-regulate only radio. When asked by Moyers if she was also proposing the new Fairness Doctrine for Fox News or MSNBC, Slaughter responded: “You bet. . . . Fairness isn’t going to hurt anybody.” If there’s anything liberals hate more than talk radio it’s Fox News, which has dominated cable news by appealing to conservative viewers fed up with the networks’ liberal bias.

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions by Mexican soldiers “trained to escape, evade and counter-ambush,” a Washington newspaper reports.

The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed.

The family of Dr. Walter Claytor, 79, has owned a city block since 1910 and argued that the threat of condemnation prevented them from selling the property or finding tenants.

“The case is “revolutionary,” Joe Waldo, a lawyer who represented Claytor and 16 relatives, told Budget & Tax News. “This is the first time, in Virginia, someone went after a [government agency] for messing with someone’s property—not taking it, just messing with it.”

Presumably, we didn't want Israel to have the bomb, but the Israelis built them anyway. Ditto Pakistan, India and North Korea. In the end, despite the hot rhetoric, if the Iranians want a bomb, they will probably end up building it. That might cause the Israelis to lose a little sleep – though not much, as they have 200 nuclear weapons – but it shouldn't bother us in the least.

The Iranians are just as sensible and levelheaded as anyone else. Don't buy the propaganda that they are all a bunch of crazies. They've been around a lot longer than we have. I would trust them with nuclear weapons as much as – perhaps even a hair more than – I trust Bush. Americans must stop allowing politicians and propagandists to scare them into reckless behavior.

The major media widely reported the January 5 meeting President George W. Bush had with current and former secretaries of State and Defense at the White House to discuss the war in Iraq. In fact, President Bush and the other participants posed in the Oval Office for the photo in this article.

However, the media overlooked a very important aspect of the photo, and that is that 14 of the 17 policymakers in the picture currently belong to the Council on Foreign Relations. Two others (Rumsfeld and Laird) are formers members of the CFR. Of the 17, George W. Bush himself is the only one who has not belonged to the organization.

In Darby's system, the present "dispensation" will end with the Rapture, when true believers will join Christ in the air. Next comes the Tribulation, when a satanic figure, the Antichrist, will arise in Europe and impose a global tyranny under the dread sign "666," mentioned in Revelation.

Hard-line expansionists in Israel welcome this support. When Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu visited the United States in 1998, he called first on Falwell and only then met with President Clinton. (Dispensationalist dogma also foretells the mass slaughter of Jews by the Antichrist and the conversion of the surviving remnant to Christianity, but today's popularizers downplay these themes.)

Anyone concerned about American public life at the outset of the 21st century would do well to pay close attention to the prophetic scenario embraced by millions. For these believers, America faces not just shadowy terrorists but nothing less than the advance guard of Antichrist himself.

Ronald Reagan ran for President to change America. In the end, he changed the world.

Today, on the 25th Anniversary of his Inauguration, we should remember his legacy and remind ourselves that what brings Republicans together is far stronger than what pulls us apart. When we are the party of ideas, we win because our ideas are better. As Republicans, we believe in a smaller, more efficient federal government, returning power to the states, lower taxes, and individual freedom.

As if to throw another poker chip in the attack Iran (and eventually Syria) ante, "Israel accused Iran and Syria on Friday of planning and funding a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that raised tension before next week’s Palestinian election," reports Reuters. "Sharon aide Raanan Gissin told Reuters Israel had 'ample, concrete evidence’ that the Tel Aviv bombing, for which the Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility, was bankrolled from Tehran and planned in Damascus."

So far, the Republican members of the House have been willing accomplices with the White House in its many abuses of power. They have consistently ignored the high crimes and misdemeanors that make up a good part of the Bush Administration’s daily routine.

If the Republicans really want to be seen as the party of reform, they will never have a better opportunity. If they fail to put a stop to King George’s reign of terror; We The People need to throw the bums out and replace them with representatives who take their oath to protect and defend the Constitution seriously.

I don't think Democrats understand that the Alito hearings were, for them, not a defeat but an actual disaster. The snarly tone the senators took with a man most Americans could look at and think, "He's like me," and the charges they made--You oppose women and minorities, you only like corporations and not the little guy--went nowhere. Once those charges would have taken flight, would have launched, found their target and knocked down any incoming Republican. Not any more. It's over.

Reagan, from 1975 to 1980, completed the process begun years earlier by Barry Goldwater by turning the GOP into an American brand of populist conservatism in which power flows upwards and the status quo is always questioned.

In many ways, the GOP has become a victim of its own successes, attracting new people who are interested in the party, not for reasons of ideology, but for reasons of money, access, power and fame. These statists are ironically taking the party back into the past -- exactly where Reagan never wanted it to go. Reagan’s banner of “bold unmistakable colors” is being struck and the party is running up a white bed sheet of surrender.

These insiders, few of which have ever read “Free to Choose” or “Conscience of a Conservative” are taking Reagan’s revolutionary party of the future, created within the framework of freedom, down the road to minority status once again.

If The Washington Times crack investigative reporter Jerry Seper is correct there may be five Members of Congress who seriously are under investigation by the Justice Department concerning their relationship with lobbyist and confessed felon Jack Abramoff. Two of the five, by the way, are Democrats and one of those is Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-NV). For all we know, there may be more. Some sources have told me that it surely is seven and other sources suggest the number may be as high as twenty.

Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because they have no means of communication.

Bin Laden is now explicitly offering a truce to the United States: "We do not mind offering a long-term truce based on just conditions that we will stick to. We are a nation that Allah banned from lying and stabbing others in the back, hence both parties of the truce will enjoy stability and security to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, which were destroyed by war."

What you hear is what you get
Al-Qaeda inevitably has to move beyond surprise, stealth and heavy symbolism (how can you top September 11?) So for a high-impact, multi-layered message like bin Laden's, you don't need video. You have to force people to listen to what the voice is saying. Enter bin Laden the politician.

Careful examination of bin Laden's latest words also reveal that unlike the Bush administration spin, al-Qaeda does not want to destroy the United States or its way of life. But at the same time the US, and the Bush administration in particular, may enhance al-Qaeda's appeal as it will never waver from its two strategic imperatives - absolute security for Israel in the heart of the Arab Middle East and the obsession in taking over all of the Middle East's oil reserves.

Bin Laden is right: instead of being pinned down in Iraq, the worldwide Islamic insurgency, of which al-Qaeda is the spearhead, has spread far and wide: to Europe, to South Asia, and – he says – has even infiltrated the American homeland. Given the utterly abysmal state of our defenses against another terrorist strike – as evidenced by the recent fulminations of the 9/11 Commission – is there anyone who really doubts OBL is telling the truth about this? We had better believe that "operations are in preparation." In the absence of such elementary precautions as inspecting all cargo coming into the U.S., we can't afford to assume this is an idle boast.

If Lauer calls Alito an "ultra-conservative," does he ever use the term "ultra-liberal"? The liberal ADA -- Americans For Democratic Action -- scores members of Congress from 0 to 100, with 100 meaning most liberal. (By contrast, the ACU -- American Conservative Union -- also scores Congress 0 to 100, with 100 being the most conservative.) Under the ADA rating, for example, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., receives an ADA rating of 100; Sen. Kennedy scores a 100; and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., rates a 100. Would Lauer refer to them as "ultra-liberals"?

The Golden Globe Awards, Hollywood’s latest orgy of self-congratulation, demonstrated how utterly out of touch with mainstream America Hollywood has become. Far from the days when Hollywood celebrated traditional values, moral fiber and American heroes, modern films celebrate deviancy, moral relativism, and America’s enemies. This year’s nominees and winners for the Golden Globes were a case in point.

The Golden Globes were just a preview for the Academy Awards, which is sure to feature much the same lineup. Where once Hollywood produced great films, today’s offerings are little more than propaganda disguised as entertainment. But don’t expect the liberal glitterati to take notice. They’re too busy inhabiting a bubble world in which transgenderism, homosexuality, communism and terrorism have been deemed worthy of the highest praise.

As Mychal Massie of Project 21 describes them: "There are persons like Durbin, who favor terrorists and who has made anti-Semitic jokes at public gatherings; like Leahy who employs questionable practices to protect the former governor of his state, Howard Dean; and like Schumer, who as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, was in charge when members of same stole the personal records of Republican senatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Michael Steele of Maryland."

Liberals have cast Alito as an extremist and an evil man, accusing him of, among other things, manipulating legal proceedings in order to secure favorable verdicts for mobsters, because of his Italian ancestry.

While the mainstream media might not consider that racist or prejudicial towards Alito, everyone I know in the New Jersey waste management industry named Tony, Vito, and Paulie are extremely offended by the accusation. As a side note, can you imagine the furor in the media if a right-winger had made the same claim?

Psychics, fortune tellers, faith healers, and politicians all have something in common. Let us see what it is.

Even heroic politicians like Ron Paul have not achieved their positions through free-market means. Ron Paul is one of the finest men ever to serve the House of Representatives. But even Ron Paul explains that he does not view himself as a politician but rather an educator. Among his colleagues, his performance is not evaluated in the same way the free market evaluates employees in a private company. Indeed, he is not considered "successful" by the standards of conventional politics. If Ron Paul were not to get re-elected, it would not be because he was a bad congressman. In politics, the one who is most sucessful in using deception and coercive wins.

Although White House spokesliar Scott McClellan claims lobbyist/crook du jour Jack Abramoff only met with administration staff two or three times, the scandal ridden buyer of influence enjoyed frequent private meetings with President George W. Bush, who referred to Abramoff as “one of this administration’s greatest friends.”

Abramoff kept a photo of himself with Bush, shot at the Crawford ranch, in his office in Washington. The autograph from Bush said “to my great friend Jack.”

Ultimately the Alito nomination is a perfect test case for the conservative movement. Will it finally stand up to Bush, who has expanded the size, scope and power of the federal government? Will it form a coalition with liberals, based on its shared interest in protecting individual rights, to oppose this nominee? Or will it abandon the principles it has professed to hold dear in obeisance to the Washington Republicans who talk about limited government and freedom but actually expand government and trample civil liberties?

Ten years ago, the American people put Republicans in control of the House of Representatives for the first time in more than 40 years. It was a historic achievement, made possible because we stood for the principles the American people believed in: smaller government, returning power to the states, lower taxes, greater individual freedom and--above all--reform.

Some Republican leaders in the House seem to have lost sight of those principles, though the American people still believe in them. Meanwhile, Americans are sick of scandals. To fully regain their confidence--and to retain and grow the Republican majority--we need to make a clean break with the past and return to our ideals.

It is as if we have all fallen down the rabbit hole and landed in the middle of the world's largest insane tea party. With nonsensical answerless riddles, and preposterous double-speak as the daily party line.

We have our own "Mad Hatter" resident in the White House, presiding over the insane global policy of death and destruction. With each passing day within the unrealistic cocoon he has spun for himself, he grows increasingly madder and madder.

We are faced with the spectacle of America (the only nation to have used nuclear weapons on civilians) warning the world about how nuclear weapons might, well, be used on civilians. We can't allow just anyone to sneak around and acquire such technology (well, except Israel). We can't allow those Commie Chinese (Cold War II, anyone?) to arm men so evil they might, well, use nuclear weapons on civilians. Before you know it, Iran will be using depleted uranium and white phosphorous, abusing prisoners, setting up interrogation centers in Eastern Europe, spying on its own people, and fixing elections at home and abroad.

Has Al Gore become a conservative? His recent speech to the Liberty Coalition, a group of conservatives and liberals united in opposing the growing authoritarianism that drives this administration, sounded as if it had been written by some disgruntled paleoconservative. With his frequent references to the Founders and their philosophy of strictly limited government, his embittered lament at the rapid erosion of individual liberties against the Leviathan State, and his openly anti-interventionist critique of our foreign policy of preemptive aggression, one might have imagined he had suddenly started channeling Robert A. Taft. You know we are witnessing a defining moment in American politics when a leader of the Democratic Party starts talking like an Old Right Republican.

Is the United States about to launch a second preemptive war, against a nation that has not attacked us, to deprive it of weapons of mass destruction that it does not have?

With U.S. troops tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Pakistanis inflamed over a U.S. airstrike that wiped out 13 villagers, including women and children, it would seem another war in the Islamic world is the last thing America needs.

What is special about Abramoff is that he is a fanatical Zionist. According to the stories published in the States, some of the money that he diverted was transferred to extreme settlers in the West Bank. Abramoff sent them military equipment for use against the Palestinians, and perhaps against the Israeli government. Among other items, he bought them camouflage uniforms, telescopic sights for snipers, night-vision binoculars and a thermal imager.

Abramoff himself claims that he is simply an idealist, who uses the money "put into his hands by God" in order to help Israel. He also financed a - probably fictitious - outfit of Syrian exiles, supported by Israel. One of the American publications mentions in this context the biblical Mossad motto: "By way of deception thou shalt make war" (Proverbs 24,6 - that's how it sounds in modern Hebrew, but the actual meaning of the words is in doubt. The English Bible renders it thus: "For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war".)

The following statement has been issued by "recovering Republican" John Lofton who was once a paid propagandist for the GOP at the Republican National Committee where his bosses were George H.W. Bush and Senator Bob Dole. Mr. Lofton, now a member of the Constitution Party, is Editor of a Web site, TheAmericanView.com, and he is co-host of the nationally-syndicated radio show "The American View."

"The most important thing a Supreme Court judge (or any judge) must believe is that his role is to do justice according to a law higher than man’s law; he must do justice according to, first, the Law of the God of the Bible. By saying in his confirmation hearing that his Christian (Roman Catholic) religion and moral beliefs are for his "private life" only, Judge Alito has, thus, repudiated the number one qualification for a judge.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, who had launched into an impassioned attack on the Bush administration.

“We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism we have incompetence I predict to you that this administration will go down on history as one of the worst that has ever governed out country.”

Clinton actually got an easy question. “I need you to tell us what distinguishes Democrats from Republicans right now,” she was asked.

Clinton's answer was provocative.

Said Clinton, “When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation and you know what I'm talking about..."

Liberals on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been wringing their hands over Judge Samuel Alito’s belief in the theory of the “unitary executive,” which holds that the Constitution vests the presidency with sweeping power, especially in wartime. But their questioning of Alito reveals their own casual embrace of their own unitary theory—that of the “unitary judiciary.”

Underlying every question posed to Alito is the growing and seemingly unbridgeable gap between liberals and conservatives regarding the scope of the judicial branch’s authority.

The power of conscription is not among those enumerated by the Constitution. This is why, late in the War of 1812, with the Treasury depleted and the White House still charred from a British attack, Congress refused to enact a proposed draft: It was understood, by a sufficient number of legislators (among them Daniel Webster, who spoke passionately on the subject), that there was no constitutional warrant to impose conscription on the American people.

The spiking gold market is a sure sign that the dollar is headed for the dumpster. Large institutional investors are hastily moving boatloads of cash into precious metals that promise to retain their value while the hemorrhaging dollar goes the way of Icarus.

We’re finally beginning to see the effects of Bush’s profligate spending, “unsustainable” trade deficits, and the economic master-plan to reorder American society. And, don’t think that that the poker-faced Sam Alito doesn’t factor heavily in this new paradigm of class-division and elite rule. He’s the last vital part of the neocon strategy for tossing America’s struggling middle class overboard and paddling pell-mell towards the shore of the new world order.

Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most western European countries. There’ll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands— probably—just as in Istanbul there’s still a building called St. Sophia’s Cathedral. But it’s not a cathedral; it’s merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the west.

It was during the second day of questioning that Sam Alito's wife broke down, wept and left the room after hearing Sen. Kennedy imply that her husband was a bigot.

What was Kennedy's evidence?

In 1985, Sam Alito belonged to Concerned Alumni of Princeton. He had joined to protest the ouster of ROTC from campus. Alito was neither an officer nor active, but like future Sen. Bill Bradley, he joined.

Israel's High Court has rejected Jonathan Pollard's request to be a Prisoner of Zion - which would have led to an end to torturous prison conditions and to better chances for his release.

The Supreme Court rejected this morning Pollard's plea to have the State of Israel recognize him as a Prisoner of Zion. The Court accepted the State's position that Pollard did not meet the required criteria, such as teaching Hebrew or encouraging immigration to Israel.

While President George Bush is trying to hoodwink Americans about taking a firm position to halt the large numbers of aliens illegally entering the nation, the truth is, according to American Free Press sources, the flow of undocumented immigrants is worsening.

In addition, the crossover of illegals who are classified as “other than Mexicans” (OTMs) has worsened, which is particularly embarrassing for the post 9-11 Bush administration.

Former Vice President Al Gore will attack President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program at a Washington, D.C., speech on Martin Luther King Day—with a Republican by his side.

Gore is teaming up with former Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican, for the policy address, which is endorsed by MoveOn.org and sponsored by the American Constitution Society and Liberty Coalition. Barr is an outspoken critic of Bush on issues of national security. He led the drive to impeach President Bill Clinton, Gore’s partner in the White House for eight years.

By limiting itself to illegal immigration, The American Prospect precluded serious questions about immigration policy itself. Disturbingly, some of the articles showed that the authors are holding on to the Pollyannaish belief that the only problem with US immigration is that so much of it is illegal. More scary, many of the writers appeared to be blindly accepting long-discredited assumptions underlying current US immigration policy, as shown in this statement from Princeton sociologist Marta Tienda: “Immigrants are good for business. In fact, the rapid clip of U.S. economic growth might not be possible without them.”

Even though the Israelis have pulled out of Gaza, they still control the borders, the air and the sea, as well as using Gaza for an artillery and bombing range whenever it suits them. That's not sovereignty. All of those Jewish colonists in the West Bank and in Jerusalem suburbs are living in houses built on Palestinian land, which was seized without compensation. Israel has no intention of returning it, and the politicians in Washington know it. They maintain the smoke screen of a peace process to hide their willing complicity in the crimes and injustices committed against the Palestinians.

The missing ingredients in America's current foreign policy are justice, honesty and simple fairness. No, Sharon was not a man of peace, but he was a fierce defender of the country he loved. That's more than one can say of the chicken-hawk politicians in Washington who have an America Second attitude.

So, whenever you hear Kennedy invoking the name of FDR, Woodrow Wilson, and other Democratic presidents of the past century, he is giving homage to the men who were responsible for the destruction of the doctrine that he claims to cherish. This does not take away from the truth of the words he spoke in that brief, shining, and sane moment, but his actions do nothing but discredit him.

Yet, those of us who would like to see a restoration of the balance of power within the U.S. Government owe Ted our thanks. He might not be the right person to carry that torch, but at least he put the match to it.

In 2005 the US economy defied all the known tenets of economic theory: In the face of record high trade deficits, monstrous budget deficits, a failed war and major political scandals involving presidential aides, the dollar strengthened against the Euro and the Yen, the economy grew at 3.4% and all the major investment houses had record profits. It seems the US economy defied the laws of gravity, floating above the political turmoil and structural vulnerabilities. But the point of 'prophesy' is not to specify the day and hour of sharp decline and recession but to identify the deep structural vulnerabilities and the possible trigger events, which could detonate a crises.

I have little doubt that Judge Alito is personally against abortion and, as a matter of policy, probably believes it should be illegal, perhaps with certain exceptions. I further believe that he still thinks, like most legal scholars, that Roe was wrongly decided or wrongly reasoned.

But as a strong supporter of Judge Alito, and one who would like to see Roe overturned and the legality of abortion referred back to the several states, I think there's a good chance -- but am hardly sure -- that Judge Alito would vote to overturn it. I honestly don't think he knows, either, because he has no idea how such a case might eventually come before him.

The only ones who think they know for sure how Judge Alito would rule are the scoundrels interrogating him, as they readily project onto him their own willingness to rewrite the Constitution to conform to their policy agenda. Because of the flaws in their character and principles, they are apparently blinded to the gems in his.

Today, while driving through town, I wound up behind a minivan that had a big sticker on the back. The sticker had an Israeli flag in the middle of it, and under it the quotation from the book of Genesis that reads "I will bless those who bless thee." I would like to take this time to list my own reasons for thanking and blessing Israel, our lone ally in the Middle East, for everything she has done for us, since I am quite sure most Americans are unaware of just what kind of friend she has been to us.

The record of the clear intent of the framers of the 14th Amendment has not stopped the Supreme Court from inventing the doctrine of incorporation out of thin air. This has allowed the Supremes to increase consolidation of power in their own hands (and in the hands of their willing accomplices in the legislative and the executive branches) in Washington. This has been done at the expense of the Constitutional reservation of most governmental powers to the states and to the people.

It appears that the liberal legal critique of conservative jurisprudence is largely incoherent. "Out of the mainstream" is a phrase and nothing more. Interesting notions of the individual's relationship to the state surfaced in the preprinted opening statements of Sens. Kennedy and Leahy, then disappeared. Judge Alito's most thoughtful remarks on justice and the law emerged in exchanges with Sens. Grassley and Sessions. Why do the Democrats seem flat-lined? Because in the 20 years that such liberal opposition leaders as Ralph Neas and Nan Aron taught them to contest nominees with propaganda, their Senate students have largely stopped thinking about the content of the Supreme Court.

Which brings us to the unspoken issue here. Judge Alito is Catholic. If confirmed, he will join three other Catholics on the bench: Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who have already voted to overturn Roe.

On the Senate Judiciary Committee sit four Catholic Democrats: Leahy, Kennedy, Biden and Durbin. All have 100 percent pro-abortion voting records. All have attacked Alito out of fear he may overturn Roe.

Query: Why is the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops so deathly silent in this war of Catholics to decide if abortion on demand is to remain the law of the land forever in God's Country?

For five years, President Bush has refused to deal with the crisis on the border, denouncing the Minutemen who went there to serve as spotters for a beleaguered Border Patrol as "vigilantes." For Bush and Rove believe that taking a tough line on illegal immigration will do to the national GOP what they think Gov. Pete Wilson's hard line on illegal immigration did to the California GOP.

But now that immigration has become the hot domestic issue and Republicans are taking a tougher line, repudiating Bush's guest-worker plan as amnesty, Bush is being compelled to come down harder himself against illegal immigration – or become irrelevant.

The question Bush and Rove face is this: Can the GOP be both the party that secures the border against Hispanic invaders and sanctions employers who hire them, and still be the party Hispanics will vote for? In the old imagery, if Bush reaches for the bird in the bush, the Hispanic vote, by favoring open borders and amnesty, he may lose the bird in the hand, the support of the white working and middle class that is the heart of the Republican coalition.

It should be assumed from the start the NSA, CIA, DIA, FBI, etc., have long engaged in illegal and unconstitutional snooping against the American people, who are after all their primary target, not the phantom “al-Qaeda” or any number of CIA created terrorists. In a police state, the enemy is the people, who may rise up at any moment and throw off their shackles. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Americans do not realize they are clasped in shackles and if they do, most think there must be a good reason for it.

Lewis notes some people may say, “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” He responds, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher . . . You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”

“You can shut Him up for a fool,” Lewis says, “you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

We know which choice To C.S. Lewis made. To him, this rationalization was only the mere essence of Christianity. While his many books have been an inspiration to many people over the years, they continue to be an inspiration to those newly acquainted with his work today.

Responding to pleas from constituents, House members are resisting the push for amnesty and open borders and are trying to pass legislation to protect Americans.

Take heart America. Contrary to the repeated claims of the political and business elites, it is possible to regain control over our dissolving borders. And, just as important, it also is possible to summon the political will to do so - as recent events in our nation's capital have shown.

But if that were the problem, why did the administration not try to amend the law or pass a new one? Is that not what government lawyers are for; i.e., to devise ways to make such things legal, if they can persuade Congress to go along? And in the post 9/11 atmosphere, when the draconian measures in the so-called Patriot Act were passed so easily, were not the prospects excellent that Congress would approve?

With Republicans embroiled in an influence-peddling scandal that could threaten their control of Congress, the biggest pressure for reform is coming from lawmakers who charge that the party’s woes have come from abandoning its core conservative principles.

At the top of the conservative reform agenda is an end to the practice of earmarking, in which members can secretly insert into huge spending bills billions of dollars in projects for favoured companies or other constituents – many of whom in turn donate to the lawmakers’ re-election funds. While the practice is not new, it has mushroomed since Republicans captured Congress. Last year 15,000 earmarks were added into various spending bills.

If human rights is our goal, why have we not gone into Darfur, the real hellhole of human rights? If democracy is what we are fighting for, why did we not invade Cuba, a dictatorship, 90 miles away, far more hostile to America than Saddam’s Iraq, and where human rights have been abused for half a century? Saddam never hosted nuclear missiles targeted at U.S. cities.

And is Israel not our fair-haired boy? Though Sharon & Co. have stomped on as many UN resolutions as Saddam Hussein ever did, they have pocketed $100 billion in U.S. aid and are now asking for a $2 billion bonus this year, Katrina notwithstanding. Anyone doubt they will get it?

The hearings on the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito for a seat on the Supreme Court will offer a classic demonstration of the two parties’ divergent season-related strategies. The Democrat senators will strive to create an Inattention Season mode for the hearings, attaching negative labels (“insensitive on civil rights” and “bad for privacy” for example) to the nominee. They will seek to avoid extended discussion of underlying principles and the reasoning Judge Alito used in writing his decisions and dissents in court cases. The Republican senators, in contrast, will allow Judge Altio plenty of time to explain the principles of law he used in discharging his judicial duties. They want the public to think seriously about whether legislatures or courts should make law.

Alito concluded by clearly leaving the door open to overturning Roe, noting that stare decisis was not “an inexorable command.”

Observers on the right hope--and on the left fear--that once confirmed Alito will act on the realization that what the Supreme Court lied about in Roe was far more valuable than gold. It was the meaning of our Constitution, and the sanctity of life.

Conservatives who come up short—as they did the last time a Republican president sold them on legalization as a prerequisite for enforcement in 1986—will try to comfort themselves that this isn’t an explicit amnesty. After all, Bush promised it wasn’t, a mantra he repeats at every whistle stop as if the saying makes it so. “I oppose amnesty,” he vowed again in the Arizona speech—minutes before affirming that he plans to “bring workers from out of the shadows.” Why exactly were they hiding, Mr. President? And how might they be brought out except by some pardoning mechanism? Amnesty seems the logical synonym.

The "dirty rats" are Palestinians: according to fanatical Zionist ideologues like Abramoff, Ben-Zvi, and the "Christian" dispensationalists who make up the activist wing of the neoconized Republican Party – e.g., Abramoff associate and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed – the Palestinian people are a subhuman species who must be ethnically cleansed from the Biblically defined land of Israel. Greed greased the wheels of the Abramoff money machine, but ideology played a role, too. It is characteristic of the neoconservatives that they often manage to combine their policy proposals with profit-making activities that invariably accrue to their own accounts.

The danger with judging Alito on his appellate court decisions is that conservative lower court judges generally rule in a way that would not be overturned by the Supreme Court. And there is merit in lower courts operating in sync with the Supreme Court in order to ensure swift and uniform justice.

Of course, judges swear an oath to preserve the Constitution, not to preserve the precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, the practical reality is that judges who balk at Supreme Court activism from the bench are rarely — if ever — nominated to the high court.

To a certain extent, every Supreme Court justice nominee is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you never know what you are going to get.

The Washington political scandals dominating the news in recent weeks may be disheartening, but they cannot be considered surprising. We live in a time when the U.S. government is the largest and most powerful state in the history of the world. Today's federal government consists of fifteen huge departments, hundreds of agencies, thousands of programs, and millions of employees. It spends 2.4 trillion dollars in a single year. The possibilities for corruption in such an immense and unaccountable institution are endless.

The Supreme Court of Florida deserves a dunce cap for invalidating the state's limited school voucher program calculated to spur improvements in free public education. In Bush v. Holmes (Jan. 5, 2006), a 5-2 majority obtusely interpreted the state constitution to prohibit state financing of private school alternatives for students attending public schools found by the state to be failing for two years in a four-year period. The decision marked a dismaying surprise O Henry ending for Florida's voters who enshrined education as a "fundamental value" in the constitution only three years ago.

Has there ever been a less-serious group of United States Senators sitting in judgment of a Supreme Court nominee than the Democrat side of the Judiciary Committee as presently constituted? As Congress returns to Washington and the committee comes to order to question Judge Samuel Alito on his efforts to chain black Americans and keep women barefoot and pregnant, it is worthwhile examining the examiners to help us keep certain things in mind as the confirmation hearings unfold.

The Abramoff guilty plea is just the beginning," Reid wrote fellow Democrats. "This scandal will strike at the heart of the Republican political machine that stretches from Congress to K Street, to the White House and back.... It is becoming increasingly clear that Republicans will face serious negative electoral consequences next November."