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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Palestinians deserve to live better than they do and be "free of the humiliation of occupation" in a state of their own. "I promise you my personal commitment to that goal," Rice said at a dinner marking the third anniversary of the American Task Force on Palestine. "There could be no greater legacy for America," Rice told the group, which describes itself as nonpartisan and supportive of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel. "The Palestinian people deserve a better life ... free of the humiliation of occupation," she said

WASHINGTON - The White House told lawmakers it would send Congress a revised proposal late Monday for dealing with terrorism suspects as the number of GOP senators publicly opposing President Bush's initial plan continued to grow. A Republican-led Senate committee last week defied Bush and approved terror-detainee legislation that Bush vowed to block. Sen. John Warner, normally a Bush supporter, pushed the measure through his Senate Armed Services Committee by a 15-9 vote. John Ullyot, a spokesman for Warner, said the Virginia senator expected to receive another draft of the legislation. No details were immediately available.

If you don't believe your federal government is actively working to destroy your way of life, to subvert common-sense standards, to further racial injustice and double-standards, to deny individual rights in favor of group rights, just read on and see what is happening right now in Virginia. The city of Virginia Beach this week reached a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department – that's the federal agency headed by President Bush's pick of Alberto Gonzales – to lower the standards of math exams for local police recruits. Why, you ask, would Washington be interfering in the setting of standards for...

US President George W. Bush suggested overnight that being in government might have "a moderating influence" on the radical group Hamas in the wake of its victory in Palestinian legislative elections. "As democracy takes root, the responsibilities of governing will have a moderating influence on those who assume power in free elections. It's easier to be a martyr than a mayor or a cabinet minister," he said. President Bush's remarks came in a wide-ranging speech in which he defended his push for spreading democracy in the Middle East from critics who say the victory by Hamas harms US national security...

King of Nepal calls for talks on democracy (Filed: 20/02/2006) Nepal's King Gyanendra made his first formal approach to the country's estranged political parties yesterday, urging them to join talks and try to put democracy back on track a year after he seized absolute power and fired the government. "We, therefore, call on all willing political parties to come forth to fully activate, at the earliest, the stalled democratic process in the greater interest of the nation," King Gyanendra said in a national democracy day statement. The king also urged anti-monarchy Maoist rebels to shun violence and rejoin the mainstream....

The nonprofit organization Students for Sensible Drug Policy announced late last week it has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education alleging that the department is refusing to release state-by-state data on the number of students affected by a law barring them from receiving financial aid because they have a drug conviction unless SSDP pays a hefty fee for the service. The student group wants information about the impact of the Higher Education Act's (HEA) drug provision, authored by arch-drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), and in effect since 2000. SSDP is part of a large coalition of student,...

WASHINGTON - President Bush plans to propose a $2.7 trillion budget Monday that would shrink most parts of the government unrelated to national security while slowing spending on Medicare by $36 billion during the next five years, according to White House documents. The budget that Bush is to recommend to Congress will call for eliminating or reducing 141 programs, for a savings of $14.5 billion, across a broad swath of federal agencies, according to administration and congressional officials who have had access to budget documents. Wide-ranging as they are, those cuts pale in comparison with the White House's attempt to...

Last night there were two State of the Union addresses, and they offered radically different visions for America's future. One vision endorsed smaller government, permanent tax cuts, and individual liberty. The other approach offered a much more statist and paternalistic future for America, one where every possible problem, no matter how small, requires federal government action. These two descriptions refer not to two addresses — one being George W. Bush's State of Union 2006 address and the other the Democratic response. Rather, these completely inconsistent messages were both part of the president's address. Speaking from a free-market script, the president...

At a press conference and Congressional briefing on Wednesday, May 25th, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) will introduce federal legislation that could cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in federal law enforcement grants to local anti-drug task forces. The legislation, which is being co-sponsored by Representatives John Conyers (D-MI), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Donald Payne (D-NJ), and Ed Towns (D-NY), would prohibit states from spending federal Byrne grants on regional narcotics task forces unless they adopt laws preventing people from being convicted of drug offenses when the only evidence against them is the uncorroborated testimony of a law enforcement officer...

President Bush's ambitious vision of global democratic reform has begun to dominate the administration's foreign affairs agenda, in some cases pushing aside urgent international issues. So far, the president's plan has been driven mainly by high-level rhetoric, symbolic gestures and a handful of modestly funded development programs. But collectively, this mix has started to shift the focus in relations with key nations. In the four months since Bush unveiled the approach in his second inaugural address, nearly every meeting with foreign officials and many of the changes taking place within the Bush administration, including several key appointments, has reflected the...

It's long but very interesting read. Please, don't get hung up at his obvious leftisms. Stay the course, please. The professor really gets it. He deserves applause for his intellectual honesty. And if he is not pure breed FReeper, he is a galaxy ahead of the irreconcilable, partisan, "Whatever it is, I'm against it" Left. His is a very valuable contribution to the debate, not that usual childish shrieks from the Left producing noise instead of feedback   I take allies whenever I see them. Chapomatic A Must Read On Grand Strategy I got this speech transcript from someone just now, and...

Can you imagggggginnnne something like this happening to you? You meet a nice Cuban guy in Miami, he tells you he hates castro, and somehow he doesn't look as ugly. Then he says he likes you, he loves you and eventually you fall in love with him. You marry him and he gets busted and hauled off to jail. For espionage against the United States of America. Only then do you learn he was using you and your bonafides in the community as his uhhh 'beard' so he could get around Miami and inform to castro's deadly agents about all...

Well, they went and did it.The Republicans look like they will wimp out, not exercise the so-called Nuclear Option, and Harry Reid will PERMIT two judges to be approved and disapprove four others. Does anyone think for a second the Democrats won't "go nuclear" in a heartbeat if the roles were reversed?This seals the deal for me. I am a Republican no more. It seems it does not matter if I vote Republican anyways, all I get is more liberalism. I am a man without a political party. I am a conservative without a home.Between Bushes enthusiastic embrace of illegal...

<p>For years, a citizen who wanted to know the name and phone number of a Pentagon official could buy a copy of the Defense Department directory at a government printing office. But since 2001, the directory has been stamped ''For Official Use Only," meaning the public may not have access to such basic information about the vast military bureaucracy.</p>

A new look for President Bush's global war on terrorism sits atop Condoleezza Rice's early to-do list at the State Department. Expect fairly soon some useful new handles on the problem and a more coherent overall strategy to guide the struggle that the bureaucracy abbreviates as GWOT.

Does the Bush administration really believe, as its leadership has kept repeating since right after 9/11, that Islam is a "religion of peace" not connected to the problem of terrorism? Plenty of indications suggested that it knew better, but year after year the official line remained the same. From the outside, it seemed that officialdom was engaged in active self-delusion. In fact, things were better than they seemed, as David E. Kaplan establishes in an important investigation in U.S. News & World Report, based on over 100 interviews and the review of a dozen internal documents. Earlier arguments over the...

Mailing a letter to the White House supporting President Bush's death at the hands of terrorists is not illegal, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The decision overturns the conviction and 18-month sentence given last year to an Oregon inmate who sent a rambling, poorly written letter to the president. It read, in part, "You will die too George W Bush real Soon they Promised That you would Long Live Bin Laden."

breaking...

Rival Kyrgyz MPs battle for power Arguments break out in the assembly building in Bishkek Rival parliaments are meeting in Kyrgyzstan amid rowdy scenes and confusion over who has the right to be part of the interim government.The country's electoral body on Sunday backed the parliament elected in February's disputed polls that led to the removal of President Askar Akayev. On Thursday, the Supreme Court annulled the polls and said the previous parliament had authority. The acting president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, supports the court ruling. However, the new head of security, Felix Kulov, told deputies gathered in the capital, Bishkek,...

<p>WACO, Texas -- President Bush yesterday said he opposes a civilian project to monitor illegal aliens crossing the border, characterizing them as "vigilantes." He said he would pressure Congress to further loosen immigration law. More than 1,000 people -- including 30 pilots and their private planes -- have volunteered for the Minuteman Project, beginning next month along the Arizona-Mexico border. Civilians will monitor the movement of illegal aliens for the month of April and report them to the Border Patrol. Mr. Bush said after yesterday's continental summit, with Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin at Baylor University, that he finds such actions unacceptable. "I'm against vigilantes in the United States of America," Mr. Bush said at a joint press conference. "I'm for enforcing the law in a rational way." The Minuteman Project was born out of a long-held perception among many residents that more Border Patrol agents are needed to handle the flow of illegal immigrants. Mr. Bush was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats earlier this month for failing to add 2,000 agents to the Border Patrol, as set out in the intelligence overhaul legislation he signed in December. The president's 2006 budget allows enough money to add only 210 agents for the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. Mr. Bush said he will "continue to push for reasonable, common-sense immigration policy." He has proposed legislation to grant guest-worker status to millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. The legislation has attracted scant support in Congress, where it is widely regarded as another amnesty that will encourage even more illegal immigration.</p>