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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The Haitian judge deciding whether 10 U.S. missionaries should face trial on charges of trying to take a busload of children out of the country says he will recommend that they be released. Judge Bernard Saint-Vil finished questioning the Americans on Wednesday. He now must send his recommendation to the prosecutor, who may agree or object. But the judge has the final authority to decide whether they stay in custody or go free. Saint-Vil told The Associated Press he will recommend that all ten be released. He would not elaborate, and it was not clear whether that...

Until last week, I had avoided the swamplands of Barack Obama's origins, a place from which reputations rarely return. What prompted my interest was a reader inquiry into a poem by then 19-year-old Obama called "Pop," a cynical bit of work almost assuredly written about his maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, or "Gramps." In researching the meaning of the poem – Obama's oeuvre being my own personal swamp – I came to a conclusion I had not anticipated, namely that there is a full year missing from Obama's biography, his first year. According to the standard Obama biography, Barack Obama was...

On the issue of constitutional eligibility, we are embarrassed that these smart men, whom we admire, are either unwilling or too arrogant to look closely at these serious issues. Instead they attack others for having the audacity to ask questions – questions they normally would ask if they had their facts correct. We are big fans of Glenn Beck on Fox News; we DVR his show every day. We have been following the career of Andrew Breitbart since his news website began being linked by Matt Drudge years ago. Bill O'Reilly is an institution on Fox News, and we both...

Since "Avatar" and "Sherlock Holmes" first grabbed the top spots at the box office, Hollywood hasn't put up much competition against the blockbusters, leaving them free to make millions (or billions, in the case of "Avatar"). That will likely change with next week's "The Book of Eli," but until then, the only other movie to make a splash has starred squeaking chipmunks. To movie fans with traditional values, however, a film new this week deserves attention: "Leap Year." This film starring Amy Adams – the candy-apple sweet star of "Enchanted" who has nonetheless displayed serious acting chops with two Oscar...

High profile Centre Party member of parliament Fredrick Federley passed the buck to Ursula, his transvestite alter ego, when put on the spot for accepting an all expenses paid trip to Gran Canaria. Jilted hubby exacts mousy revenge (1 Feb 10) Floor collapses at Swedish Weight Watchers clinic (14 Jan 10) Police rescue green-eyed lover caught up in tree house drama (8 Jan 10) The politician told newspaper Aftonbladet that his trip in early January was sponsored by around ten different companies, including budget airline Norwegian. Pressed by the newspaper on why he had accepted the paid trip, despite claims...

John Dennis sits in the back room of Perry's in Pacific Heights, reflecting aloud over a cup of tea on the personal liberties he believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stripped from him. In blazer and jeans, with silver hair and pale blue eyes that match the color of his shirt, Dennis more closely resembles a relaxing yachtsman than a thrower of political brickbats. Don't be fooled. A self-declared "Tea Party" Republican, Dennis is mounting a challenge to Pelosi in the 2010 race for the Eighth Congressional District, representing most of San Francisco. The Tea Party movement, an insurgency of...

In another calamitous blow to the global warming church, the highly anticipated National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), which is part of the Commerce Department, had to cancel their global altering press conference about man-made global warming in Washington D.C. because of an unprecedented winter storm that has shut D.C. and the federal government down. Alas, all is not lost; they will hold their press conference via telephone, God willing the snow and ice does not disable the telephone system. The gist of the meeting according to the NOAA press release: “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of...

With the unemployment rate doubling from five percent to over ten percent during Obama’s first year in office, despite trillions wasted on ill conceived so-called stimulus spending, making employment issue number one in his first State of the Union address was a pretty safe gamble, in terms of obligatory applause lines. But jobs are not “created” from thin air, like a rabbit from a hat, unless the government “creates” them with your tax dollars. Eight billion in a high-speed rail system will certainly put some Americans to work, specifically “union members,” aka, Democrat voters. But there is a very significant...

A state board of only 15 people will vote on whether to revise U.S. textbooks to omit references to Daniel Boone, Gen. George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day and Christmas. The Texas State Board of Education will also vote on a proposal to substitute the term "American" with "global citizen." Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, is warning Americans to speak up before only eight people, with a majority vote, have a chance to literally rewrite American history. He appeared on the "Huckabee Show" to explain why the board's vote matters to the rest of America. Staver said...

The man behind one of the most courageous and unforgettable broadcasts in television history is scheduled to speak at a Feb. 13 luncheon at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Jeremiah Denton, whose book "When Hell Was in Session" recently was republished by WND Books, will be talking about new stories included in the updated edition. Americans were introduced to Denton in an extraordinary TV interview in 1966. A prisoner during the Vietnam War, he was interviewed for enemy propaganda purposes and expected to renounce his nation's "war crimes." Instead, his defiant statement stridently reaffirmed his support for his...

A leading health economist fears President Obama's upcoming healthcare summit will feature more political theater than bipartisan healthcare solutions. President Obama has invited House Republicans to take part in a televised healthcare summit later this month. However, he has indicated his unwillingness to drop his promotion of the current House and Senate healthcare bills that remain unpopular with most Americans. Dr. Devon Herrick, a health economist and senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), says the biggest mistake President Obama and congressional Democrats made from the onset of the healthcare debate was not including Republicans in the...

It is possible for two people at odds with each other on an issue to both be right. In the recent Tea Party convention, a widely reported encounter took place between editor of Worldnetdaily.com, Joseph Farah, and Andrew Breitbart over whether or not time Obama's citizenship is worthy of discussion. Farah, "Yes." Breitbart, "Not enough evidence to make it a winning strategy." I think both of these men are right and below I'd like to chart a way forward for the Tea Party, composed as it is of so many people who care about the Constitution and want to win...

Government is taking us a long way down the Road to Serfdom. That doesn't just mean that more of us must work for the government. It means that we are changing from independent, self-responsible people into a submissive flock. The welfare state kills the creative spirit. F.A. Hayek, an Austrian economist living in Britain, wrote "The Road to Serfdom" in 1944 as a warning that central economic planning would extinguish freedom. The book was a hit. Reader's Digest produced a condensed version that sold 5 million copies.

President Barack Obama and others around the White House have had plenty to say about the bonuses which executives at bailed out Wall Street firms have collected, but there are some that the president doesn't "begrudge''' -- such as the $17 million awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon or $9 million for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Some athletes take home more pay than others, Obama says. In an interview iwith Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the president allowed that $17 million is "an extraordinary amount of money" from the perspective of Main Street. "There are some baseball players who...

Regular readers of this column will doubtless recall my recent column in which I reported on the new Council of Governors (CG) that President Barack Obama has created. See my column here. Well, Obama's CG is quickly beginning to take shape. According to the Associated Press (AP), "President Barack Obama has selected Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to serve on an advisory council for defense and national security issues. "Nixon was one of 10 governors named Thursday [February 4, 2009] by Obama to the newly created Council of Governors." The 10 governors (and one of them is not even a State...