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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Tuesday that the Tea Party has stuck a knife in the backs of working-class families by shutting down the government and threatening default. “There was so much economic hurt that had already piled up … people just didn’t have any wiggle room, when the Tea Party decided to stick a knife into the backs of hard-working American families,” Murphy said on the Senate floor. The government has been shutdown for more than two weeks, and lawmakers are also fighting an Oct. 17 deadline for when the U.S. can no longer borrow money. Murphy said this...

Afghanistan: The president's decision to withhold more troops over the country's less-than-pristine election is nothing but stalling. For our soldiers, desperate for reinforcements, it's a slap in the face. No doubt, a legitimate government, complete with free and fair elections, would be good for Afghanistan. Its Aug. 20 vote was loaded with trouble because the Taliban sliced off purple-inked fingers to discourage voting and because a United Nations electoral watchdog found widespread voter fraud. Yes, correct the problems. But holding U.S. troop reinforcements hostage isn't the way to do it. Elections aren't why we have troops in that country. They're...

According to reliable sources, Obama administration officials are on their way to Poland and the Czech Republic to deliver very bad news. The administration intends to cancel completely the missile defense sites that had been promised to these governments by the previous administration. This represents a complete capitulation to Russia's Vladimir Putin, who had demanded that the proposed deployments be halted as a price for improved relations. Ironically, the Obama administration, which is appeasing Russia in the hopes that Moscow will help put pressure on Iran, has made this mammoth concession just a few days after Moscow declared that it...

Former President Bill Clinton is welcoming a galaxy of international stars to the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative later this month, including Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, whom Mr. Clinton has vowed to help Senator Barack Obama defeat in November. The event, scheduled to run Sept. 23-26 in New York, is nonpolitical and has featured prominent Republicans in the past, including Laura Bush in 2006. Mr. McCain is to deliver the opening remarks; Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, is to address the participants by satellite. “C.G.I. isn’t about politics,” said Matt McKenna, a spokesman for Mr....

War On Terror: The United States Senate has a long history of regrettable actions. But rarely has it done something as low and damaging to America as its vote Tuesday to withdraw troops from an active battlefield.

As George W. Bush was first moving onto the national political stage, he often turned for advice to an old friend who secretly taped some of their private conversations, creating a rare record of the future president as a politician and a personality. In the last several weeks, that friend, Doug Wead, an author and former aide to Mr. Bush's father, disclosed the tapes' existence to a reporter and played about a dozen of them. Variously earnest, confident or prickly in those conversations, Mr. Bush weighs the political risks and benefits of his religious faith, discusses campaign strategy and comments...

Seven Myths About the Vietnam War by William F. Jasper Three decades after pulling out of Southeast Asia, America remains hostage to a relentless barrage of distortion, myths, and outright lies about the Vietnam War. Myth #1: The United States was defeated militarily in Southeast Asia. Myth #2: The impact of the Pentagon's Rules of Engagement on our military capabilities in Vietnam has been greatly exaggerated. Myth #3: The North Vietnamese (Communists) won, ultimately, because they occupied the moral high ground. They were fighting for their homeland against a foreign invader. Myth #4: The Vietnamese who fought against us were...

Senator Schumer Calls for Pollard Release New York Post - September 9, 1999 Pollard Is Hillary's Next Hornet's NestBy Deborah OrinHILLARY Clinton's FALN headache is about to get worse - because Sen. Chuck Schumer has come out for clemency for convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Schumer joins Mayor Giuliani - Mrs. Clinton's likely Senate foe - who has called for clemency for Pollard, thus putting new pressure on Mrs. Clinton on an issue dear to many Jewish voters. "After years of studying the issue, Sen. Schumer believes Jonathan Pollard meets [the] criteria," his office said in a statement yesterday when...

WASHINGTON — President Bush canceled a planned visit to Minnesota on Friday, the White House said.No explanation was offered, and officials did not return repeated phone calls Tuesday.Bush had planned to come for a roundtable discussion and a speech on welfare in Minneapolis.Bill Walsh, the chairman of the state GOP, said he had not heard of the cancellation."It was not a political event," he said. "We're hoping to get him back any time."

10:42 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. It's been my honor to welcome the leadership of the United States Congress here, to welcome them back from the August recess. We talked about a variety of issues -- talked about the defense appropriations bill, and terrorism insurance, and an energy bill. Spent most of our time talking about a serious threat to the United States, a serious threat to the world, and that's Saddam Hussein. One of the things I made very clear to the members here is that doing nothing about that serious threat is not an...

Downing Street has confirmed that UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to fly to America for talks with US President George Bush. Mr Blair meets President Bush at his official Camp David retreat on Saturday when tackling the alleged threat posed by Iraq is certain to top the agenda. Describing Iraq's Saddam Hussein as a serious threat, President Bush said: "I look forward to talking with Tony Blair about our mutual concern to make the world safer." The UK prime minister on Wednesday again promised to produce a dossier of evidence against Iraq "in the next few weeks". Dossier...

<p>September 4, 2002 -- Following protests from Israeli and Jewish-American groups, the producers of a Web site for a new public TV show about Arab-Americans and 9/11 said they were removing material considered pro-Palestinian.</p> <p>The documentary, scheduled to air tonight on Channel 13, examines the lives of three Arab-Americans. Critics said the Web site for "Caught in the Crossfire: Arab-Americans in Wartime" gave an inaccurate history of the Middle East conflict.</p>

Commenting on reports that the Iraqi leadership has declared its willingness to discuss a return of U.N. weapons inspectors, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the regime of Saddam Hussein had demonstrated "a wonderful talent and skill" over the years at manipulating the international community. "When it's the right moment to lean forward, they lean forward. When it's the right moment to lean back, they lean back. It's a dance they engage in," Rumsfeld said at a press conference Tuesday, in response to questions. Rumsfeld commented on remarks by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, who said at the economic World...

"We ask for your help to make the Sept. 11 anniversary a time to reflect on peace and healing, not a time to call for more war and violence." These are the words of Kelly Campbell, who lost a brother-in-law to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. She is a founding member and co-director of Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization started by Sept. 11 families who advocate peace, not war. I heard her speak in New York at the national conference of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in June. The theme of the conference was "The Power of Nonviolence: Exploring Alternatives." I...

The British government will publish "in the next few weeks" details of evidence indicating that Saddam Hussein has continued to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday. The plan mirrors the action taken by Britain in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks to boost international support for military action against Afghanistan. Speaking to reporters at a news conference in his parliamentary district of Sedgefield in northern England, Blair said, "The United States should not have to face this issue (of Iraq) alone. We should face it together." Blair said it was in the...

Special Dispatch Series - No. 418 September 04, 2002 No.418 An Al-Qa'ida-Affiliated Online Magazine: On the Importance of Jihad as a Means of Destroying the 'Infidel Countries' In an article in the sixteenth issue of the online magazine Al-Ansar, which is affiliated with Al-Qa'ida,(1) a columnist identified as Seif Al-Din Al-Ansari discussed the Koranic verse "Allah Will Torture Them [the Infidels] At Your Hands":The Annihilation of the Infidels is a Divine Decree"Regardless of the norms of 'humanist' belief, which sees destroying the infidel countries as a tragedy requiring us to show some conscientious empathy and... an atmosphere of sadness...

Muslims can only feel unease about 11 September They ask if we will also pray for the uncounted, innocent - maybe inevitable - victims of war in Afghanistan Yasmin Alibhai-Brown 02 September 2002 I have been dreading 11 September for a good two months. And now it is nearly upon us that weight has become almost intolerable. What happened to the 2,823 Americans and their families was unutterable and I hate the malevolent malcontents who perpetrate these acts – indeed the Tunisian-Swedish hijacker arrested on Friday may be one such plotter. However, I have to make this unambiguous proclamation to...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The economic cost New York City suffers as the result of the Sept. 11 attacks will range from $83 billion to $95 billion, partly depending upon how many jobs are shifted out of the city, a new report said on Wednesday. City Comptroller William Thompson also estimated in his new report that it will cost $21.8 billion to replace the buildings, infrastructure and what he called "tenant assets" lost as a result of the attacks that toppled the World Trade Center. Some 13 million square feet of prime office space were destroyed -- an amount equal...

<p>Now that we are set to have our great debate on the war against terrorism, it seems it will be the wrong debate.</p> <p>By all indications, the discussion will be about using our irresistible military might against a single country in order to bring down its leader. We should instead be talking about using all our political, moral and military genius to support a vast democratic revolution to liberate all the peoples of the Middle East from tyranny. That is our real mission, the essence of the war in which we are engaged, and the proper subject of our national debate.</p>

September 4, 2002 9:00 a.m. It’s a War, Stupid Understanding and misunderstanding the detainees. From the September 16, 2002, issue of National Review. ven as the terrorist attacks were taking place last September 11, President Bush made use of the extraordinary authority he has to protect Americans from enemy action. Had the heroes of United Flight 93 not prevented their hijacked plane from reaching Washington, F-16s — deployed by President Bush — would have shot down the plane full of American citizens. There is no question that this first defensive action taken by the president in the war on terrorism...