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The Bush administration forecasts a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government's domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government salaries--perhaps that of the president himself--or funding the expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially, the US is not an independent country. A troubled currency and financial system and large budget and trade deficits do not present an attractive face to creditors. Yet Washington...

In the recent political battle around the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley there has been much confusion around the concept or slogan of “supporting the troops,” but opposing the unjust wars of the Bush regime. Many who oppose the Bush regime wars also say they “support the troops.” Let me say it straight out—I do not support the troops and neither should you. It is objectively impossible to support the troops of the imperialist military forces of the U.S. and at the same time oppose the wars in which they fight. The United States has over 700 military bases or...

In Norwegian, the headline reads "Playful and good at balancing things on his nose". The article goes on to explain the photo was one of six of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore displayed at a recent Nobel Prize related exhibition in Oslo, Norway.

Point/Counterpoint: When an inch is worth a mile Sick of Humans v. Zombies? There's a better game in town. For the low, low price of your life as you know it, you could become a U.S. Marine. After a short period of basic training, and an all-expenses-paid flight aboard a luxurious transport jet, you could be living out your wildest "Operation: Iraqi Freedom" fantasies in a fully simulated Iraqi village environment. Your safety is 100 percent guaranteed. Such are the thoughts that danced through my head after reading up on "Operation Mojave Viper," the U.S military's premier simulated-combat exercise. To...

Vegan teacher threatens to sue school district Fox River Grove Middle School teacher Dave Warwak gave school officials an ultimatum Monday: Go vegan, or I'll sue. Warwak told school officials that unless the middle school served exclusively vegan lunches, which contain no animal products, Warwak would pursue a case against the school for its violation of the Illinois school code. "The state of Illinois is not going to be happy with Fox River Grove when they find out that the vision they have for Illinois schools is being abandoned," Warwak said. Warwak's offer came less than a week after school...

ConocoPhillips will pay state $10 million to offset emissions from the expansion of its Rodeo plant SACRAMENTO -- Attorney General Jerry Brown and ConocoPhillips officials said Tuesday that they had agreed to a precedent-setting global warming reduction plan to offset greenhouse gases that would result from expanding an East Bay oil refinery. Brown said that under the pact, which involves the company's Rodeo plant in Contra Costa County, "ConocoPhillips becomes the first oil company in America to offset greenhouse gas emissions from a refinery expansion project." The oil company will pay about $10 million -- roughly half the amount discussed...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards told a labor group that he would ask Americans to make a big sacrifice: their sport utility vehicles. "I think Americans are actually willing to sacrifice," Edwards said Tuesday during a forum held by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. "One of the things they should be asked to do is drive more fuel efficient vehicles." The former North Carolina senator was asked specifically if he would tell them to give up their SUVs, he said, "Yes."

Calling himself "a good person" who made a bad mistake, radio host Don Imus said Monday he would check his acid tongue after being lambasted for making racially charged comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. "Here's what I've learned: that you can't make fun of everybody, because some people don't deserve it," he said on his nationally syndicated radio show Monday morning. "And because the climate on this program has been what it's been for 30 years doesn't mean it's going to be what it's been for the next five years or whatever." Imus said he was "embarrassed"...

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wears a scarf inside Ommayad Mosque during her tour at a popular market in downtown Damascus, Syria, Tuesday April 3, 2007. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Syria on Tuesday, the highest-ranking American politician to visit the country since relations began to deteriorate four years ago. President George W. Bush criticized the trip, saying it sends mixed signals to President Bashar Assad. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Let's examine some of Richardson's claims over the years. For over 40 years, he maintained that he had been drafted into Major League Baseball by the Kansas City Athletics back in 1966. After the Albuquerque Journal investigated, and found no record of Richardson ever being drafted, he explained: "After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter . . . I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's." He spent over a decade in Congress, never really facing a serious challenge in his heavily Democratic district. But by far, my biggest problem with...

Yesterday afternoon, I logged on to the "Global War" blog (global-war.bloghi.com) of Associate Professor Julio Pino – a Muslim convert who teaches at Kent State University. The heading for the site used to read "The Worldwide Web of Jihad: Daily News from the Most Dangerous Muslim in America." Now it reads "Are You Prepared for Jihad?" IN THE NAME OF OBL. 2007: THE YEAR OF ISLAMIC VICTORY!" Hardly able to believe what I was reading, I called Pino at his office in Ohio around 4 p.m. According to his secretary, he had not been at work that day (he only...

Virginia Man Faces Charges for Assaulting Republicans Wednesday, February 21, 2007 AP ADVERTISEMENTClick here to find out more! FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — A Fredericksburg man is facing several assault charges after police say he hunted down a group of Republicans and confronted them in their home over their beliefs. Police said Andrew Stone, 23, recently went to a home in Fredericksburg at around 5:30 p.m. after he saw a name and nearby address on a Republican Web site. Stone confronted three residents about their political viewpoints, police said. When he found out the residents supported the Republican-led war effort in Iraq,...

Many economists have been warning against the ramifications of high U.S. debt levels for a long time. Now even the Comptroller General of the United States Mr. David M. Walker is sounding the alarm. The Comptroller recently warned that if the country continues on its current fiscal path, it will gradually erode and have an adverse impact on the economy, the nation's standard of living, and, over time, America's national security. He also went on to say that U.S. taxes would indeed have to double to account for the Bush budget in 2040. Recently, a hearing that took place in...

TOM Cruise is the new “Christ” of Scientology, according to leaders of the cult-like religion. The Mission: Impossible star has been told he has been “chosen” to spread the word of his faith throughout the world. And leader David Miscavige believes that in future, Cruise, 44, will be worshipped like Jesus for his work to raise awareness of the religion. A source close to the actor, who has risen to one of the church’s top levels, said: “Tom has been told he is Scientology’s Christ-like figure. “Like Christ, he’s been criticised for his views. But future generations will realise...

(AP) WASHINGTON -- Freshman Congressman Steve Kagen has apologized to constituents for mishandling reports of his behavior at a reception where he taunted White House adviser Karl Rove. "You have probably heard more about my appearance at last year's White House reception for new lawmakers than you have about the issues my colleagues and I are grappling with today on your behalf," the Democrat wrote in an op-ed piece that ran in several Wisconsin newspapers Sunday. "And that's a shame because you deserve better. "I apologize for handling this situation as I did. I allowed this distraction to get out...

In her historical mystery, "The Daughter of Time," Josephine Tey (a pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh) has Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, while confined to his hospital bed, solve the 15th century murder of the two York princes in the Tower of London. The princes were murdered by Henry VII, and the crime was blamed on Richard III in order to justify the upstart Tudor's violent seizure of the English throne. Tey makes the point that if a 20th century mystery writer can detect the truth about a 15th century murder, historians have no excuse to persist in writing in...

While meeting last month with a group of area peace activists, then Congressman-elect Steve Kagen told a story of his first visit to the White House that shows a feisty and humorous side to our new man in Congress. He told the group one of the first lessons he learned in Washington is to never pass up a rest room because you don’t know when you’ll see one again. He’d already had a long day of freshman orientation when he and his wife, Gail, were expected at the White House. Upon arrival, he asks a Marine where he can find...

Raleigh, N.C. -- By the time the prosecutor in the Duke University lacrosse case is tried on ethics charges, the sexual assault indictment he sought against three players may have been long since dismissed. If the woman who claims the players sexually assaulted her at a party can't identify them at a February hearing, Durham County District Attorney Mark Nifong has said, he will abandon the divisive case. It will be weeks, if not months, after that before Nifong defends himself against charges that he violated four rules of professional conduct by making misleading and inflammatory comments about the athletes,...

Raleigh — The North Carolina State Bar has filed an ethics complaint against Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong.

It only took six years for Americans to comprehend George Bush and the Republican Party and to realize that the Republicans were not leading America in any promising directions. Exit polls and interviews with voters across the country by CNN political analyst Bill Schneider show that the November 2006 election was a vote against both Bush and the war in Iraq. Schneider reports that voters did not even know the name of the Democrats for whom they voted. Voters said: "I am going to vote Democrat because I don't like Bush, I don't like the war. I want to make...

Last July, in response to Bush the Evil's enabling of Israel's gratuitous slaughter of thousands of Lebanese civilians and destruction of the country's infrastructure, I wrote about "the shame of being an American." With the ongoing slaughter of our troops and Iraqi civilians in Bush's war in Iraq, it is time to revisit that theme. As the Iraqi civil war (euphemistically termed "sectarian violence") intensifies, both U.S. and Iraqi casualties have sharply increased. Thirty-five U.S. troops have been killed in the first week of December. Iraqis are dying at each other's hands at about 100 per day, with many more...

Just when you thought the Anti-Defamation League couldn't conceivably get any worse, comes the news that the ADL has effectively joined the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to bash Dennis Prager, a popular Jewish author, speaker and talk show host. In a November 29th column, posted at Townhall.com, Prager criticized Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress, for declaring he'll bring the Koran with him to his swearing-in ceremony. Prager's calls this "the narcissism of multiculturalism." The author of several best-selling books on Judaism and a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, Prager notes that...

The story of Sandra Dowling and the Pappas School for homeless children is about good intentions gone awry. Setting aside the abuse of power issues, there is a basic question we need to answer. Is a school for homeless children really a good idea? It’s not as if homeless children lack access to schools. Today, public schools openly compete for students. Any number of charter schools across the Valley welcome homeless children. Some would argue that homeless children need an intense cluster of social and medical services that are best delivered by a specialized school. But using the schools as...

Uh, no, I'm not a terrorist...I don't know how that phone got there... The Courier-Mail's headline for this one is "Terror link probed." Yes, that's right. By Greg Stolz and Paula Doneman in The Courier-Mail, with thanks to Warren: A SELF-proclaimed British multi-millionaire named Mohammed Islam who was arrested on the Gold Coast with almost $120,000 in cash is under investigation as to whether he has terrorist connections. Queensland police yesterday refused to comment on their investigation into the man, 22, but at this stage there is reportedly no evidence to link him with terrorist activity. Islam allegedly had $118,000...

Yeah - I remember that from back in the day when you had that popping up at DU. Well, now it's payback time. Time to take back this country from the party that had power and no idea how to use it - except for war, higher oil prices, and letting terrorists attack us at home. Weak at every turn from immigration to...well just about everything. bush let you down, leaders were humiliated and had to leave, and family values leaders fell to adultery and meth. Tonight was like shooting fish in a barrel. Iraq is a mess. You won...

Compared to current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's former President Muhammad Khatami is regarded in Western foreign affairs circles as a moderate. When Khatami visited the United States in September, he called on the America and Iran to stop verbally assaulting each other in the interest of dialogue that could build trust and eliminate the frictions between the two countries. Khatami said that the precondition for dialogue was "to eliminate the language of threat." In an attempt to "resolve conflicts by talking, rather than by aggression," the venerable Scottish University of St. Andrews invited Khatami to the United Kingdom for...

During my professional lifetime, liberals and the left wing have focused on failures and misdeeds of the private sector, while libertarians and conservatives have focused on the failures and misdeeds of the public sector or government. It turns out that both sides are right. The Enron case and the other accounting scandals of this new century are testimony to misdeeds driven by private sector greed, just as the unjustifiable war in Iraq is testimony to the abusive behavior of government. Justice demands that we be always on guard against a prosecutor's case. However, the devastation wrought by fraud committed by...

When does "collateral damage" so dwarf combatant deaths that war becomes genocide? Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq has cost 655,000 Iraqis their lives. That is the conclusion of a study financed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies and conducted by physicians under the direction of Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists. These are deaths over and above the pre-invasion mortality rate. Bush's illegal invasion raised Iraq's mortality rate from 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people per year to 13.3 deaths per 1,000 people per year. The study is published by the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet and is...

Friends, Tomorrow night, those who sent 2,800 of our soldiers to their deaths -- all because of a lie the president concocted -- will find out if America chooses to reward them -- or remove them. As good as things look for the Democrats, do not pop the corks and start the partying yet. Do not believe for a second that the Republicans plan on losing. They will fight like dogs for the next 24 hours -- relentless, unforgiving, nonstop action to squeeze every last conservative voter out of the house on election day. While the rest of us go...

Just announced on the FNC.

In an unscripted, unscheduled exchange in an intense campaign for the U.S. Senate Friday, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. confronted Republican Bob Corker on a Memphis parking lot outside where Corker had scheduled a press conference on lobbying reform and ethics. "It's good to see you," Ford shouted as Corker approached him outside the Wilson Air Center offices on Winchester, according to tape of the encounter provided by WREG-TV. "I'd love to debate you on this Iraq thing." Corker's communications director Todd Womack later called Ford's tactic "juvenile, non-senatorial behavior." But Ford spokesman Bobby Sepucha said Ford wanted to raise real...

In one month, we will know if Americans understand the danger of the Bush administration's fanatical preoccupation with terrorism combined with one-party control of the executive and legislative branches. If voters let pass the opportunity in the November election to take Congress out of Republican hands, America will experience a more rapid descent into a police state. The Bush administration's response to 9-11, an event about which we have incomplete and unreliable information, has been to trample important civil liberties such as habeas corpus, the attorney-client privilege, privacy, due process and prohibition against self-incrimination. Today, "detainees" incarcerated by U.S. government...

Posted by Brad Wilmouth on September 30, 2006 - 15:28. During an interview aired Friday on CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, when asked by host Deutsch how he would go about fighting terrorism, CNN founder Ted Turner argued that "you don't win people over by bombing them, you win them over by being friends with them," and soon recommended giving Muslim extremists what they want as a solution to terrorism. Turner, who in 2002 claimed that Israelis were guilty of "terrorism" against the Palestinians, on Friday's show advocated "being more even-handed in our dealing with the Palestinians and...

A number of experts have concluded that despite the Bush administration's desire to attack Iran, the aggression would be too rash and the consequences too dire even for the irrational Bush administration. Military experts point out that at a time when generals are calling for more troops for Afghanistan and Iraq, it would be ill-advised for Bush to add Iran to the war theater. Experts note that Iran is well armed with missiles capable of attacking U.S. ships and oil facilities throughout the Middle East. Then, Iran can direct its Shiite allies in Iraq to assault U.S. troops there and...

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez accused his American counterpart George W. Bush overnight of ordering his assassination for calling the US leader the devil during his speech at the United Nations this week. "The devil appears very sulphurous, and a few people say that he has given the order to kill me," Chavez said during a speech before scientists in western Venezuela. "Many concerned friends have called me, (saying) that because I said 'devil' over there (at the UN), they have sentenced me to die. They will not kill me, I have much faith in life," Mr Chavez added.

I just turned on the Today Show and saw Meredith Viera repeatedly interrupting the First Lady -- it was incredibly rude and disrespectful -- I couldn't bear to watch it, so I turned it off after about 1 minute. Whatever happened to respect and civility in this country? Is this what the mainstream media thinks we want to watch?

Alexander Hamilton is often portrayed as an early advocate of strong central government. But even Hamilton understood the danger from government. In the Federalist Papers, he wrote: "Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil...

BOSTON —Sen. John Kerry is calling on Democrats to rally around his plan to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by next July and redeploy some to Afghanistan. The Massachusetts Democrat gave a speech this morning at Boston’s Faneuil Hall. On the eve of Congressional mid-term elections, Kerry says Democrats must propose a new direction to defeat terrorism. He said Bush “pretends again and again” that Iraq is the central front on the war on terror, but Kerry said it isn’t and “never has been.” Kerry says the military commitment in Iraq weakens the United States’ ability to respond...

GUADALAJARA--I'm wondering. Help me wonder. Either Georgie Bush is the minor, depressing, witless ferret I think he is, or I am. It has to be one or the other. If things don't start looking up pretty soon internationally, I'm going to be pretty sure which. As best as I can tell, what the Maximum Cipher lacks, among an inexhaustible list of other things, is a hop toad's understanding of how people work. Here we have the explanation of just about everything he does. He's dealing with a world full of people, but has no idea what people are. He probably...

I was in China when a July Harris Poll reported that 50 percent of Americans still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when Bush invaded that country and that 64 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links with al-Qaida. The Chinese leaders and intellectuals with whom I was meeting were incredulous. How could a majority of the population in an allegedly free country with an allegedly free press be so totally misinformed? The only answer I could give the Chinese is that Americans would have been the perfect population for Mao and the Gang...

Readers want to know why I have not reported on the payroll jobs statistics for the past two months. Does this mean, they ask, that the situation has turned around and that the U.S. economy is again creating jobs in export and import-competitive sectors? Alas, no. I did not write about the past two payroll jobs data reports because it is the same distressing story that other readers say they are bored with hearing. The July report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics lists 113,000 new jobs, all of which are in services. "Leisure and hospitality" accounted for 42,000 jobs,...

The Democrats are determined to make the election of 2006 a referendum on Bush and the war in Iraq. And, as of now, that is how history will likely record it. But beneath the surface of the national election, a different plebiscite is being held, within the conservative movement, on the ideology George Bush imposed on Ronald Reagan's party. What are the elements of Bushite neoconservatism? First, an interventionist foreign policy, using U.S. power to impose democracy and "end tyranny on this earth." Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon are the laboratories and proving ground. Second, "Big Government Conservatism," as seen in...

In May, the Bush economy eked out a paltry 73,000 private sector jobs: 20,000 jobs in construction (primarily for Mexican immigrants), 21,000 jobs in wholesale and retail trade, and 32,500 jobs in health care and social assistance. Local government added 5,000 for a grand total of 78,000. Not a single one of these jobs produces an exportable good or service. With Americans increasingly divorced from the production of the goods and services that they consume, Americans have no way to pay for their consumption except by handing over to foreigners more of their accumulated stock of wealth. The country continues...

Red China is investing heavily in developing deep-water ports in Mexico to bring an unprecedented volume of containers into the U.S. along the emerging NAFTA Super Highway. This move signals China’s emergence as the unexpected economic winner in the North American Union free market. Hutchinson Ports, a wholly owned subsidiary of China’s giant Hutchinson Whampoa Limited (HWL) is investing millions to expand the deep water ports the company manages at Lazaro Cardenas and Manzanillo on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Now Hutchinson Ports is pledging millions more to develop Punta Colonet, today a desolate Mexican bay in Baja California. Mexico plans over...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton excoriated Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a Senate hearing Thursday, saying he is presiding over a "failed policy" in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Under your leadership there have been numerous errors in judgment that have led us to where we are," the New York Democrat said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. "We have a full-fledged insurgency and full-blown sectarian conflict in Iraq." The showdown between Clinton, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, and Rumsfeld, the public face of the Bush administration's war effort, included the strongest criticism of the Iraq war she has...

Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon – i.e, the collective punishment of a people and nation for the crimes of a renegade militia they could not control. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police going berserk, shooting, killing and ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had ambushed and killed cops. If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead...

Gentle reader, do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out. Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers. That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians. Do you know that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel’s attacks on civilian residential districts are children? That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the...

Finding itself in Republican sights and with no Democratic power center to offer protection, National Public Radio is turning into an upscale version of Fox "News." Nevertheless, information still gets out if the listener is sufficiently attentive. On July 5, NPR's "All Things Considered" interviewed two warmongers for their views on the North Korean missile test. One was Ashton Carter, a Clinton administration assistant secretary of defense, now at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The other was Ambassador Christopher Hill, an assistant secretary of state in the Bush regime. The Clinton DoD assistant secretary is coauthor of a...