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The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said the owners of the private park, Brookfield Office Properties, had put off the cleaning, scheduled for 7 a.m. More than hour beforehand, supporters of the protesters had started streaming into the park, creating a crowd of several hundred chanting people. A confrontation between police and protesters, who had vowed to stay put through civil disobedience, had...

<p>The leader of a large group of House conservatives said Tuesday he was "confident" there weren't enough GOP lawmakers to pass a plan by Republican House Speaker John Boehner to increase the debt ceiling and reduce the deficit.</p> <p>Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who said the Boehner plan didn't cut spending enough, heads a group that includes 178 of the 240 Republican House lawmakers.</p>

With the target for a budget deal nine days away, Senate GOP leader Bob Dutton confirmed Tuesday that some of his members are now talking to Gov. Jerry Brown. But don't get excited. Dutton, who says he asks members of his caucus to tell him when they meet with Brown, maintained that the hush-hush discussions are "not about tax extensions." All 15 of his caucus members, Dutton said, should still be considered "no" votes on Brown's proposal to put tax hike extensions on the ballot. . . .

White House officials said Friday that they have the 67 Senate votes needed to ratify a new U.S. nuclear-arms accord with Russia, and President Barack Obama will delay his planned vacation in Hawaii until the Senate votes. The declaration came after Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, declared their support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

Mark Murray writes: The Charleston Daily Mail (WV) reports that GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won't run in the special election for Robert Byrd's Senate seat, side-stepping what would have been a competitive contest against Gov. Joe Manchin (D), who is running for the seat.

Capitulation by Ari Bussel At one point, someone will be reading this Collection of Postcards. That person would not have known us. In fact, we will be long dead. Many things would have happened in the world between then and now. It may be months, years, decades or even a century from present time. This Postcard is for that person. Things with which we are very familiar today, thus consider obvious, will be complete unknowns as the dust of history covers over them. Some phrases may not be understood, and references may seem disconnected. This Postcard, although it may not...

TOKYO — Two Chinese submarines and eight destroyers were spotted by the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force on Saturday in the high seas between the main island of Okinawa and Miyako Island in the southernmost prefecture, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Tuesday. The defense chief said the Chinese submarines and destroyers were navigating southeastward, adding that Tokyo has never before confirmed such a large number of Chinese vessels near Japan. The Joint Staff Office of the Self-Defense Forces later said that Chinese submarines were seen on the sea surface near Japan for the first time and that Beijing had not notified...

Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, the congressman who led anti-abortion rights Democrats in the House during health care negotiations, will retire this year, CBS News has learned. He is expected to announce his plans later this morning. Had Stupak sought re-election, he would have faced challengers from both the left and the right backed by interest groups angered by Stupak's health care vote. Stupak negotiated with Democratic leaders down to the eleventh hour for stricter abortion language in the health care bill, but he ultimately voted for it after President Obama agreed to sign an executive order assuring the new laws...

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons, even in self defense. But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation. Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to...

A visit to North Korea by U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth ended in failure Thursday to convince the North to return to multilateral nuclear disarmament talks. "We identified some common understandings on the need for and the role of the six-party talks and the importance of the implementation of the 2005 Joint Statement," Bosworth told reporters. "It remains to be seen when and how [North Korea] will return to the six-party talks." He added, "This is something that requires further consultations among all six of us." But Bosworth claimed he had "very useful" meetings with senior North Korean officials. Further bilateral...

Tennessean - headline and link only. http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090530/NEWS01/905300331/Nashville+hotel+drops+jihad+conference+over+safety+concerns

Stock futures freeze as tumble worsens Fri Oct 24, 2008 7:17am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures tumbled so sharply in European trade on Friday, they had to be frozen at several points in the morning. By 6:27 a.m. EDT December Dow Jones futures were down 6.2 percent, Standard & Poor's 500 futures were off 6.6 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures were down 6.6 percent. All three contracts lost the maximum amount permissible before the start of futures trading in the United States. "We are in a panic mode, I don't know how else to describe it and when...

All are up, continue capitulation!!!

Someone needs to call it! There I said, start buying!

After 18 months spent examining the deteriorating relations between the United States and the Muslim world during the Bush administration, a diverse group of American leaders will release a report in Washington today calling for a complete overhaul of American strategy to reverse the spread of terrorism and extremism. The report recommends more diplomatic engagement, even with Iran and other adversaries, and a major investment in economic development in Muslim countries to create jobs for alienated youth. It calls on the next president to use his inaugural address to signal a shift in approach, to immediately renounce the use of...

McCain at The Race conference: Capitulation complete; Update: Juan Hernandez to broker meeting with Morones? By Michelle Malkin • July 15, 2008 08:32 AM As expected, John McCain’s appearance at the annual convention of La Raza/The Race yielded no Hermana Souljah moments. Ed Morrissey points to McCain’s mild, almost apologetic rejoinder to open-borders zealot Enrique Morones and compares it to Barack Obama’s embrace of the radical activist. That’s a relief. But it’s the very least we could expect of a Republican candidate. And when you watch the clip Ed posted, you’ll notice that in response to Morones blasting our Border...

In February this year, Christian evangelists Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham were doing what Christian evangelists do: handing out Bible extracts. They were stopped by a representative of the law, threatened with arrest if they carried on preaching in “a Muslim area,” and warned that they might get beaten up if they came back. Where did this incident take place? Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Pakistan, where Christian preaching is forbidden and apostates persecuted? No, this “Muslim area” was in Alum Rock, Birmingham, England. That’s right — England, cradle of free speech; England, a country with an established, if enfeebled, Church,...

US: Hizbolla - yes, Wilders - no: “Fitna fatigue or not, when you see something like this, how can you not blog? Network Solutions, a US company, is the host for hizbolla.org (English version here) - view whois. Until a couple of days ago they also hosted a mostly empty page for Dutch politician and movie maker hopeful Geert Wilders, announcing his upcoming movie will be out soon.’ However, now the site is down, while Network Solutions investigates whether this blank page is in violation of acceptable policy.’ Maybe you must be a registered terror group in order to host...

The new Foreign Minister of Britain is either a brilliant liar or a fool. The trouble is, even he may not know which it is. David Milliband, a rising politician in British Labour (the socialist party of Britain), has demanded Turkish entry into the European Union. Turkish entry means free and unbounded immigration rights for 70 million Turkish Muslims into any EU member country. Since income per capita for Turkey is less than $10,000, the incentive for an enormous wave of Muslim migration will be unstoppable. It is civilizational suicide for Europe. For that reason millions of Europeans are having...

An official with Kansas City International Airport apparently has tried intimidation in an effort to eliminate discussion about the recently installed footbaths, after repeated denials they are intended for Muslims to perform their footwashing ritual before their prayers. "That's the way I perceived it," Kevin Peterson told WND in a telephone interview. Peterson said he shares his name with a union steward for the Air Traffic Controllers Union at Kansas City's airport, but he is not the same individual. He was sent an e-mail from airport spokesman Joe McBride, who assumed he was writing to the union steward. "The...