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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama went for the defining television shot in Iraq and got it — pictures of hundreds of U.S. troops cheering wildly as he told them it was time for the Iraqis to take charge of their own future. The war zone photo opportunity produced a stunning show of appreciation for Obama from military men and women who have made great sacrifices, many serving repeated tours in a highly unpopular war. And the televised outpouring of affection likely will prove critical to the credibility of a new and liberal commander in chief as he tries to sell...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's startling call Friday for a "world without nuclear weapons" brings to mind Ronald Reagan's idealistic, unfulfilled dream of eliminating the threat of nuclear annihilation. ... Few experts think it's possible to completely eradicate nuclear weapons, and many say it wouldn't be a good idea even if it could be done... "This idea of a nuclear weapons-free world isn't sort of pie in the sky," said Peter Crail, a nonproliferation analyst at the private Arms Control Association...

WASHINGTON – Capitalism can't always be trusted. If you're too big to fail, you're too big to make all your own decisions, according to the emerging view in Washington. Three decades after Ronald Reagan launched a determined campaign to ease government regulations on business, the pendulum is swinging the other way. "Too big to fail is the right size to regulate," declares Rep. Al Green, D-Texas. Riding a wave of public anger over Wall Street greed and government bailouts, the Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a far-reaching plan for "better, tougher, smarter" rules over big financial companies. The plan would...

Today, the U.S. Government is completely BROKE and we have current spending plans that will double total U.S. debt in 5 years and triple it in 10 years. Does this make sense? Obama's proposed spending on a Global Warming Cap & Trade system + federal government managed Universal Healthcare + Dept. of Education run Universal Pre-k to College Entitlement for all will cost more than 7 TRILLION dollars and all three of these federal spending categories are brand new budget items, having nothing to do with mortgage defaults, Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae fraud, AIG, Credit Default Swaps, Karl Rove, George W....

WASHINGTON – For the first time since last fall's election, Democrats and the Obama administration are backpedaling furiously on an issue easily understood by financially strapped taxpayers: $165 million in bonuses paid out at bailed-out AIG. Republicans, struggling to regain their political footing, are content to let Democrats try to dig their way out of this mess on their own. Professing shock at the bonus payments, Democrats have embarked on a hurry-up effort to impose what amounts to confiscatory taxes on the bonuses, .. ... But the mood is less charitable among congressional Democrats.

The Obama-Netanyahu question: Can they get along? Clarifying the complicated situation is Israeli political expert Keith Davies, who joins us tonight at 9 ET to help us sort it out. Link to listen. Keith puts the Israeli elections in perspective and what the likely impact of the new coalition government will have on the United States, the Middle East, terrorism and in particular the currently volatile relations with Iran. The Jerusalem Post reports that how a government led by Binyamin Netanyahu would get along with the Obama was one of the many issues on the minds of attendees at the...

WASHINGTON – In sheer size, the economic measures announced by President Barack Obama to address "a crisis unlike we've ever known" are remarkable, rivaling and in many cases dwarfing the New Deal programs that Franklin D. Roosevelt famously created to battle the Great Depression. Winning approval was a political tour-de-force for the new administration. Yet gloom and uncertainty persist about the plan's ability to deliver a cure for the economy's severe ailments. Stocks plunged to six-year lows after the burst of bill signings, bailout announcements and presidential pledges.

I am 3-0 against the pointspread in my short time picking spreads here at Publius' Pub Sports Bar, having absolutely nailed the two conference championship games. I have also watched all 19 Arizona Cardinals games and all 18 Pittsburgh Steelers games this year, and know these two teams from the outside in. I've spent all week watching more NFL Network coverage than should be humanly possible. The only thing I fear in trying to get on the right side of this game is information overload. Turnovers Will Decide this Game I already know who will win this game - the...

The Congressional Budget Office has released their analysis of the House version of the stimulus bill (H.R. 1). You can read the full analysis in PDF form here, but we thought it would be useful to take some of the budget numbers in the analysis and present them in chart format. Shown below are several different views of the how the dollars for H.R. 1 would be spent over time. Most striking is that in total, the CBO estimates that less than 21% of the funds would be spent in 2009. Apparently, it is a huge crisis which requires swift...

When members of the Los Angeles City Council agreed last month to put an ambitious solar energy plan on the March 3 ballot, they talked effusively about their desire for cleaner air and "green" technology jobs -- the kind that could boost the economy during a recession. What they didn't discuss was an analysis by a city-hired consulting firm that called the solar plan "extremely risky" and considerably more expensive than was being portrayed by the Department of Water and Power. Measure B, which calls for unionized DWP workers to install solar panels on rooftops and parking lots across the...

Genetic Expression: Same Genes Can Produce Different Results by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Genes could be thought of as brick molds, used to construct materials for building the physical structures of living organisms. They carry the codes to help make proteins, which then make up different cells that are combined together to form mega-structures called tissues. New research has shed more light on how genes are used by cells to build the different tissues needed by complex living creatures. Genes—which make up a very small fraction of DNA—were thought to be the central genetic features that drive cell function and embryonic...

I was politely challenged by a Democrat and left-leaning to the point of toppling over friend on my assertion that Barack Obama’s proposals, aside from being socialist and thus by definition un-American, were a series of slow motion train wrecks. My alleged friend allowed me to monologue on any single topic. Given that I’m sick of this long presidential race, healthcare seemed like an appropriate subject. Obama’s proposals (shifting as they do like the sands of the Sahara) are semi-permanently documented on his campaign web site. Ignoring for the moment that there is nearly zero Constitutional authority for any of...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday. John Brennan, president of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said. Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month. The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center. He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.

Today's Polls, 9/20 Barack Obama continues to move upward slightly in our electoral projections on the strength of strong national tracking polls. Rasmussen attributes him with a lead -- though it's just one point -- for the first time in ten days, while Gallup has him hitting the 50-percent barrier for just the second time all year, and expanding his lead over John McCain to 6 points overall. Our model has now more or less fully caught up with Obama's "Lehman Leap", and so he cannot expect too many more gains from inertia alone. The state polling out today, however,...

It is fair to say that one or two cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court stand out each term. I think it is evident that this term’s most salient case is District of Columbia v. Heller. In that 5-4 decision, the Court struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on the possession of privately owned handguns within District limits. In so doing, the Court clarified the meaning of the Second Amendment for the first time in almost 70 years by endorsing an individual right to keep and bear arms. Aside from its significance in partially resolving the meaning of...

If the United States had planned to draw Al Qaeda and its adherents out of Pakistan and into Iraq for a battle in the heart of the Islamic region, it is very unlikely that any official would acknowledge that in public; neither verbally nor in writing. In setting the stage for battling Al Qaeda and invading Iraq, to separate the region and the people from supporting either out of any sense of ethnic or religious loyalty, the United States had spoken deliberately. In both cases, insisting that the United States was not interested in making war on Islam, Arabs or...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Hillary Clinton is smart and forceful, John McCain is proud but has a volatile temper, and Barack Obama is a diplomat who deals well with different people and situations. At least, that's what graphologists say their handwriting reveals about them. "Handwriting is a reflection of the inner personality. It shows a person's ego strength, how good they feel about themselves, their intellectual, communication and working styles," graphologist Sheila Lowe, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis", told AFP. Graphology -- the study of how we loop our Ls and cross our Ts -- is not...

WASHINGTON - John McCain's latest campaign angst, this time over his ties to lobbyists, is putting the Republican in conflict with his carefully honed, decades-old reformer image. It's also giving Democratic rival Barack Obama an opening to paint him as nothing more than a creature of Washington. "The fact is, John McCain's campaign is being run by Washington lobbyists and paid for by their money," Obama argued Monday in Billings, Mont. — far from the Beltway. "I'm not in this race to continue the special interest-driven politics of the last eight years, I'm in this race to end it." McCain,...