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Two months ago in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush, coming to the end of a two-term presidency and presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be, was accompanied by a team of no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview with this writer and three other Israeli journalists. In March, on his whirlwind visit to Israel, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview our diplomatic correspondent Herb...

A student group is suing Wayne State University over the denial of money for a week of anti-abortion events, saying its free-speech rights were violated last spring. Students for Life said it is a registered campus organization. And like other groups, it believes it should be entitled to a portion of student fees. The group said it sought $4,000 from Wayne State's Student Council for snacks, T-shirts, fliers and publicity, but the request was rejected. A smaller budget also was turned down. A lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Detroit said the initial request was rejected because of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government is narrowing its warning to hot pepper lovers, saying only Mexican-grown jalapenos now are linked to the nationwide salmonella outbreak - clearing the U.S. crop. Food and Drug Administration inspectors are on a large Mexican farm that grew a pepper discovered in a Texas warehouse that was tainted with the same strain of the bacteria. They're trying to determine where that farm distributed its peppers, to see if it harvested enough to be responsible for an outbreak that has sickened nearly 1,300 people and counting.

(Seventh in a series of ten. For other articles in this series, click on View all articles by John Armor--and "Blogs by this author.") There has been a radical shift in how justices conduct themselves on the Supreme Court, beginning in the 1930s. Not coincidentally, 1925 was the first year that anyone who was nominated for the Supreme Court appeared in person before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not until 1955 did the committee hold public hearings on all nominees before making a recommendation to the whole Senate. Before those changes, nominees were considered based on their probity of character and...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is offering Obama a warm welcome on the day of their meeting, in an interview with the conservative daily Le Figaro. "Obama? He's my pal," the president told Le Figaro. "Unlike my diplomatic advisers, I never believed in Hillary Clinton's chances. I always said that Obama would be nominated."Sarkozy added that an Obama victory "would validate" his strategy of reconcilation with the United States. His embrace of the United States has made him American conservatives' favorite Continental politician, but he doesn't seem to be reciprocating. Meanwhile, the French press appears to be welcoming Obama Friday with...

It's another reminder of how much McCain is glad to talk about national security and also to let Obama define the race. Said the GOP nominee to a military veteran gathering in Denver: "We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right," McCain said of the surge and Obama's long-standing support for withdrawing troops in Iraq, mocking his rival's signature phrase and the title of his most recent book.

HuffPo notes that Maverick tweaked this charge during his speech this morning to a group of veterans, stating that Obama would rather win in Afghanistan by losing in Iraq. Blitzer presses him here to see if the old formulation still applies. Answer: Yup, pretty clearly it does, although McCain is careful to emphasize that he’s not questioning Obama’s patriotism, just his judgment. Is it possible to accuse someone of subordinating the national interest to their own personal ambition without, in essence, questioning their patriotism? I don’t know. Is it possible to “support the troops” while believing they’re carrying out an...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Washington Mutual Inc. slipped again on Friday on concern unsecured creditors are losing confidence in the nation's largest thrift. Protection against a default by the company got more expensive. However, the company said on Friday that it has boosted liquidity to more than $50 billion this month. At the end of the second quarter, liquidity was more than $40 billion. Liquidity usually refers to access to cash and other assets that can be sold easily. WM lost more than 30% of its market value on Wednesday and Thursday. A report by Gimme Credit analyst...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Rev. Keith Roderick, a defender of religious prisoners of conscience since 1982 as the Director of the Society of St. Stephen and Co-Director of the International Taskforce on Soviet Jewery. After responding to the appeals of Coptic Christians in 1987, he began working for Christians and other minorities from predominantly Muslim countries. He organized the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights in 1993, the largest umbrella organization representing these minorities. Fr. Roderick also serves as the Washington Representative of Christian Solidarity International and is the Canon for Persecuted Christians for the Diocese of Quincy,...

Following the obvious political posturing at the Federal Communications Commission, Howard Stern called the opposition to the merger "communism" and vowed to never vote Democrat again. "I've voted Republican and I've voted Democrat," said Stern on the air. "I have vowed I will never vote for a Democrat again. I don't give a %#@% - no matter who they are." Stern took it even further and called the Democrat commissioners "communists" and referred to their tactics as "gangsterism." "The fact that these Democrats on the FCC are communists," Stern added. "They're for communism. They don't want to see companies... this...

He told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "We have various options. The Nuremberg Trials are certainly an example of the kind of tribunal that we could move forward with. I don't think we'd have any difficulty in devising an international -- internationally supported mechanism that would mete out justice. There's no problem there." McCain said it would be a "good thing to reveal to the world the enormity of this guy's crimes, and his intentions, which are still there."

Robert Gibbs, a senior communications adviser to the Obama campaign, briefed reporters on the planne today. I just received this transcript as I am in London, having leap-frogged ahead due to requirements for live shots here. This is the full transcript about the Obama camp’s perspective on the back-and-forth with the Pentagon about the canceled visit to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. {Read Transcript at the Link)

NEW YORK - Cows, pigs and chickens in the U.S. produce enough manure to supply 2.4 per cent of the nation's electricity if the waste were converted into burnable gas, an energy option overlooked by the government, researchers said. Igniting energy-rich biogas in turbines would cut U.S. global-warming emissions from power generation by 4 per cent, said Michael Webber, lead author of a study published today in the Institute of Physics' Environmental Research Letters. The paper is the first to assess the nation's ability to use livestock manure as a renewable fuel, said Webber, assistant professor at the University of...

For painter and decorator Gordon Williams, his van is simply a means of getting from A to B. But council officials chose to give the vehicle a more lofty status. When they spotted him behind the wheel with a cigarette, they handed him an on-the-spot fine of £30 - for smoking in his place of work.

Skiing, local real estate likely to suffer scientists say VAIL, Colorado — If greenhouse gas emissions aren’t curtailed, climate change will reduce Eagle County’s snowpack by 57 percent by 2085, according to a new report. “The state’s most popular tourist activity is at risk from climate change,” said the report, published Wednesday by the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the University of Maryland. The report, “Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Colorado,” does not paint a pretty picture for skiing — and the attendant industry of real estate — over the next century. The “snow season” could become 30...

On Wednesday, New York Times Co. (NYT) reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, and on Thursday the stock continued in its steep descent. At the end of trading it stood at 12.48, or virtually half the price it commanded one year ago. This part of the story is unsurprising, given how the Street is slamming any newspaper stock. What's startling is something else: If you back out much of the rest of the company's portfolio, you arrive at a surprisingly teeny valuation for the vaunted New York Times itself, despite all the respect the brand commands. At its current $12.48 stock price—down...

Wayne County Judge Ronald Giles has revoked Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's previous bond and ordered random drug screening on Friday based on testimony from two detectives in the accusations that Kilpatrick assaulted Detective Brian White.

Barack Obama met in Paris Friday with the pro-US President Nicolas Sarkozy on a world tour aimed at burnishing the White House hopeful's foreign policy credentials ahead of November elections. His plane, bearing the slogan "Change we can believe in," landed at Le Bourget airport and the Democrat then headed into Paris to be greeted on the steps of the Elysee palace by a smiling Sarkozy. "Bonjour," said Obama, after he was urged by journalists to say something in French and to pose for more handshakes with the French rightwing leader. He was due to give a joint press conference...

One of U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler’s election opponents is seeking state and federal investigations into the growing controversy surrounding his residency in Florida. Former Broward Mayor Ben Graber will hold a press conference at noon at the Broward County Governmental Center. Graber, who is running against Wexler in November, wants investigations into whether Wexler violated Florida and Maryland tax and voter registration law as well as whether he has improperly used congressional housing benefits. Wexler is Florida's only member of Congress who does not own a home in his congressional district. The Democratic congressman has admitted the only house he...

It’s time for the Mexican government to take some responsibility for the immigration crisis. Now that more Mexicans are failing to make it across the northern border, or find themselves back in Mexico after being deported from the United States, it’s time for the Mexican government to demonstrate that it — and not the U.S. government — is primarily responsible for the welfare of its citizens. Raymundo Pacheco, 28, is a Mexican citizen deserving of government help. In June Pacheco, originally from Santa Cruz Nexila, a small indigenous village in central Oaxaca, was deported from California to Tijuana....he had no...

If you believe as I do that the tax hikes proposed by Barack Obama and Democrats are bad for the country, then we are in good company. No less an authority than Nobel Prize winner and Columbia University economist Robert Mundell, a principal contributor to the creation of the euro, says that ending the Bush tax cuts — as proposed by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama — would cause "a big recession, a nosedive." In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mundell said, "the most important thing that could be done with respect to tax rates is to...

There’s potentially good news for people suffering from stroke and such debilitating neurological disorders as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. A new study by UC Irvine biologists Peter Bryant and Darius Gleason says that it’s possible to “produce new brain cells to replace those lost to disease or injury” by giving the cells a bit of stimulation. Scientists made the advance by locating the exact location of adult neural stem cells, which were found to be in a different part of the brain than researchers previously thought. The discovery arose from research on rats, which serve as a model of human...

Captain Hayden Video at link

As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for — you just might get it. For all those who have been concerned that the AP has not been fulfilling its mission to provide “unbiased news,” be assured they have heard you. Now we may be getting something much worse. The AP has decided it will now practice something it calls “accountability journalism.” But it has nothing to do with being “accountable” to readers seeking unbiased news. Instead, it seems to be more about holding politicians accountable to the personal conclusions of reporters. If that seems like a stretch, here...

A hotel security guard told FOXNews.com he intervened this week between a man he identified as former Sen. John Edwards and tabloid reporters who chased down the former presidential hopeful after what they're calling a rendezvous with his mistress and love child. The Beverly Hilton Hotel guard said he encountered a shaken and ashen-faced Edwards — whom he did not immediately recognize — in a hotel men's room early Tuesday morning in a literal tug-of-war with reporters on the other side of the door. "What are they saying about me?" the guard said Edwards asked. "His face just went totally...

Denver, CO (AHN) - Republican nominee Bob Schaffer and Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) are tied in the race for the seat of retiring Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO), according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll. Schaffer and Udall are in a dead heat at 44 percent each. One percent of voters declared their support for other candidates and 11 percent were undecided. Schaffer has closed a 10-point deficit since last month, when he trailed 38 percent to 48 percent. Pundits are attributing his rise to increased support for offshore oil drilling, which the former Republican congressman supports. Fifty-nine percent of Colorado...

CIUDAD JUAREZ - A group of hitmen armed with automatic weapons ambushed the head of a giant prison in a northern Mexican city on Thursday soon after he received threats on his life from suspected drug gangs, said police. Salvador Barreno, 66, was leaving work at the largest jail in Ciudad Juarez when a group of men with assault rifles chased down his car, killing him and a bodyguard who was driving. The car was riddled with more than 80 bullet holes, according to local media. Barreno made it to a hospital but died in surgery. His bodyguard was killed...

While much attention has been focused on the photo-ops of Barack Obama's foreign trip orchestrated by a highly skilled political entourage, beyond the pictures numerous questions were raised about the Democratic presidential nominee's foreign policy positions and missteps....read the briefing here.

Conservatives wary of John McCain and worried about who he'll choose for a running mate are offering up ideas left and -- more to the point -- right. One of the ideas gaining momentum in conservative circles is Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.). McCain-Cantor Campaign Button Cantor, the 45-year-old Republican chief deputy whip of the House, has three great attributes: youth, conservative bona fides and geographic desirability, as Virginia will likely be a crucial swing state in this year's presidential election. All of which may explain why McCain had a private lunch last weekend with Cantor and his wife, Diana, in...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil dropped $2 to a fresh seven-week low on Friday, extending a decline that has knocked more than $23 off crude in two weeks as high fuel prices continue to batter demand. U.S. crude fell $2.23 to settle at $123.26 after falling to $122.50 earlier, the lowest since June 5. Brent crude lost $2.01 to trade at $124.43 a barrel. Fuel consumption in the United States and other industrialized nations has begun to slide, dragging oil down from record peaks over $147 a barrel on July 11. Additional pressure came as the U.S. dollar extended gains...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain's short list of vice presidential possibilities has been essentially narrowed to six, according to a source familiar with the search. Factions within the Arizona senator's campaign are pushing for their favored candidate, sources tell the Phoenix Business Journal, a Baltimore Business Journal sister publication.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's efforts to clear the skies over its polluted capital are having an effect, officials said on Friday, insisting that Beijing's air would be safe for Olympic athletes despite persistent smog over the city. Beijing authorities have taken cars off the road and opened new subway lines in the past week, in addition to halting some construction and suspending factory production, in a last-ditch effort to ensure clear skies when the Games open on August 8. "For the effects of the measures we have taken to be increasingly felt, we will have to make continued efforts," Du...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retail gasoline prices have fallen more than 10 cents per gallon in a week and could fall another 25 cents by the end of summer, a sign the worst is over for U.S. motorists this vacation season. The decline tracks a record pullback in the price of crude that has come amid mounting evidence high energy costs and an economic slowdown are shrinking American demand for fuel, auto and travel group AAA said Friday. "We expect pump prices below $4 this weekend and we could see the price fall another 25 cents before Labor Day...

Video: NAACP formally buries the "N" word at the 98th Annual NAACP Convention in Detroit July 9, 2007. On demand webcast of the entire content is available thanks to AT&T at naacpwebcast.com

Was the Pentagon's exclusion of Obama foreign policy advisor Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, USAF (Ret.) from Barack Obama's planned visit with wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany the reason for Obama's cancellation of the visit?Piecing together the information being reported in various news outlets points in that direction.Der Spiegel first reported the story in a brief note on their live thread on Obama's visit to Berlin yesterday morning (EDT). Free Republic was the first to pick up the story. From there it was picked up by Hot Air, then spread through the blogosphere and into the the...

SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - Maria von Trapp has taken a trip down memory lane to see her old family home just before it opens as a new hotel. Staying in the house for the first time since the von Trapps fled the Nazi regime in the late 1930s has been a deeply moving experience for the second-eldest daughter of Baron von Trapp, whose story was made famous by the "Sound of Music" film. "Our whole life is in here, in this house," the 94-year-old told Reuters in an interview. "Especially here in the stairwell, where we always used to slide...

Today's Show: TGIF - Don Corace; Pollsters - Scott Rasmussen and John Zogby To talk with Sean during his show call: 800.941.7326

U.S. offshore oil drilling is not perfectly tidy. It's only 99.999 percent clean. Indeed, since 1980 -- as MMS figures indicate -- 101,997 barrels spilled from among the 11.855 billion barrels of American oil extracted offshore. This is a 0.001 percent pollution rate. While offshore drilling is not 100 percent spotless, this record should satisfy all but the terminally fastidious. Ironically, in terms of oil contamination, Mother Nature is 95 times dirtier than Man. Some 620,500 barrels of oil ooze organically from North America's ocean floors each year. Compare this to the average 6,555 barrels that oil companies have spilled...

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html It would seem that I slept in just a bit. OK, just why does Obama have such a difficult time identifying the terrorists he admits we have to fight as ISLAMIC! Know your enemy, pal ... and don't be so afraid to identify them. I wonder how many of our esteemed minimum wage folks were fired yesterday because now they have to be paid way more than they're worth. If you work longer than about 20 pay periods at the minimum wage, and can't manage a raise, just fold your tent and go home. You aren't going to amount...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain received a warm welcome and standing ovation from a Hispanic veterans group Friday as he sought to highlight his credentials to be the country's commander-in-chief. Speaking at Denver's Grand Hyatt hotel, McCain said he and rival Barack Obama faced a choice 18 months ago when the situation in Iraq had deteriorated. In prepared remarks, the Arizona senator called it a "real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test." McCain advocated sending more troops to Iraq before the Bush Administration decided to follow that strategy. Obama has opposed it and said again this week...

MATAMOROS, Mexico — Hurricane Dolly left large parts of this border city marinating in sewage-tainted storm water Thursday, and authorities scrambled to fend off possible outbreaks of disease — including dengue fever, a sometimes fatal virus. Car-swallowing pools left by Dolly receded from the main thoroughfares of Matamoros but 60 neighborhoods affecting 60,000 people still were flooded, officials said. “Yes, there is risk (of dengue),” said Rodolfo Torre, the health minister for Tamaulipas state, while visiting an auditorium-turned-shelter still surrounded by foot-deep water. “But we hope to keep it under control as we have in the past.” Dolly dumped 12...

LAT Gags Blogs: In a move that has apparently stirred up some internal discontent, the Los Angeles Times has banned its bloggers , including political bloggers, from mentioning the Edwards/Rielle Hunter story. Even bloggers who want to mention the story in order to make a skeptical we-don't-trust-the-Enquirer point are forbidden from doing so. Kausfiles has obtained a copy of the email Times bloggers received from editor Tony Pierce. [I've excised the recipient list and omitted Pierce's email address]: snip

Prepared text of speech delivered at the 2008 American GI Forum of the United States National Convention in Denver:Thank you for that kind introduction and warm welcome. I want to begin by talking about an issue in this campaign that I know concerns you as it concerns all Americans: the war in Iraq. Thankfully, the news from Iraq today is much more encouraging than I could have reported to you last year. Eighteen months ago, America faced a crisis as profound as any in our history. Iraq was in flames, torn apart by violence that was escaping our control. Al...

The American Embassy in Baghdad announced Thursday that it had expanded tenfold its program to help Iraqi employees of the American government here, who faced threats for their work, to obtain visas and ultimately citizenship in the United States. The decision is the latest step in the administration’s attempt to answer sharp criticism over its failure to help even those Iraqis who have made the American presence in Iraq possible by serving as translators and supervisors on embassy projects, for the American military and for the Agency for International Development. But critics in the refugee relief community noted that the...

Britain was told yesterday by a United Nations committee to take firm action to combat 'negative public attitudes' towards Muslims. The nine-member human rights committee also criticised some of the UK's antiterror measures. The body, which is composed of legal experts, said it was concerned ' negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society' continued to develop in Britain.

The mood among the US media pack that joined Barack Obama's overseas tour on Monday was grumpy and rebellious. The 40-odd journalists boarding the campaign's Boeing 757, dubbed Obama One, in Jordan had paid thousands of dollars to accompany him but missed the first four days of a trip that took him to Afghanistan and Iraq and information was in short supply. The press corps was appeased when Obama, who prefers to sit on plane journeys with his iPod and a pile of press cuttings or a book, ignoring staff as well as journalists, made a rare trip to the...

In the late 19th century, crusading journalists helped identify and correct some of the worst problems American society faced at that time. Newspapers like The New York Times and the New York World and journals like Harper's Weekly and Cosmopolitan (a very different kind of magazine than it is today) led campaigns that exposed and helped eliminate problems ranging from the sale of patent medicines to corruption in city government. Newspaper and magazine sales soared - and publishers knew a good thing when they saw it. If stories exposing evil sold papers - why, give the public what it wants;...

McCain is going after Obama on funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Live on Foxnews Give em hell! The more I hear McCain speak the more I'm liking...

LISTEN ONLINE to KABC RADIO IN LOS ANGELES.This is a replay from this morning. Don't miss it!

When CBS's Katie Couric interviewed John McCain on Tuesday, her producers edited one exchange to include part of McCain's answer to a previous question on Iraq -- and, in the process, deleted comments that have touched off a controversy. The "CBS Evening News" interview began with Couric quoting Barack Obama as saying that "there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?" But what viewers saw next was not what the Arizona senator said next, an out-of-order sequence that news organizations generally do not allow. It was McCain's earlier comment that "Senator Obama has...