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An extraordinary brawl between clergymen broke out yesterday at the very site where Jesus is said to have been born. The annual cleaning of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem descended into a battle between the rival Christian denominations that share it. Brooms, fists and vicious insults flew in all directions between 100 priests and monks dressed in their traditional robes. The fight ended only after Palestinian police, bending their heads to squeeze through the church’s low ‘door of humility’, rushed in with batons to restore order. The row is believed to have begun after a clergyman of one...

What did Politico know and when did they know it? Last evening I sent a series of questions via Twitter to the 4 authors bylined on the Herman Cain “sexual harassment story.” And I did so because it occurred to me that one component of this story that no one seems to be asking about is what, exactly, did the Politico reporters know of any confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements by which either/both Herman Cain and the two women cited anonymously in the Politico story were bound. So far, I haven’t received a single response. Perhaps there’s a reason for that....

A prominent Republican congressman raised the specter Friday of a government shutdown if the GOP wins control of the House. Speaking to hundreds of activists gathered at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington for the Faith and Freedom Conference, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) urged the audience to stand with House Republicans when they go toe-to-toe with President Barack Obama. Westmoreland said his caucus — presuming it takes control of the House come November — aims to pass spending bills that Obama is likely to veto. He predicted Republicans would not be able to override such a veto, creating a standoff that...

A Somali man Friday became the second person convicted in the United States of acts related to high-seas piracy in more than a century, although he wasn't convicted of piracy itself. Jama Idle Ibrahim pleaded guilty in a federal courtroom in Norfolk, Virginia, admitting he had intended to seize a U.S. merchant vessel on April 10 and hold it for ransom. Ibrahim and five other would-be pirates learned too late that they had instead pulled alongside a U.S. Navy dock landing ship, the USS Ashland, and they were captured. "Today marks the first conviction in Norfolk for acts of piracy...

Neither the White House nor critics of an Obama administration report is crying uncle in a dispute over a government report suggesting that three-fourths of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico is "gone." After being blasted by lawmakers, scientists and environmentalists in recent weeks, the administration is standing behind its claims that all but 26 percent of the oil is accounted for, despite widespread criticism that such a claim paints too rosy a picture of the situation in the Gulf. At issue is the Aug. 4 interagency report that accounts for the spilled oil, indicating the amounts that have...

Cape Town HAVING met President Obama, I’m confident that he’s a man of conscience who shares my commitment to bringing hope and care to the world’s poor. But I am saddened by his decision to spend less than he promised to treat AIDS patients in Africa. George W. Bush made an impressive commitment to the international fight against AIDS when he formed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program. Since 2004, Pepfar has spent $19 billion to help distribute anti-viral treatments to about 2.5 million Africans infected with H.I.V.

On Monday, July 12th Michelle Obama addressed the NAACP and she spoke at length about her "Let's Move" program, which targets childhood obesity. "To address this challenge, we need to be honest about how we got here. The way we live today is very different from the way we grew up. Fewer children are walking or biking to school, more families are eating on the run, and children are watching more TV than playing outside." Here's my answer to Michelle:

The Obama administration has not ruled out turning sick people away from an insurance program created by the new healthcare law to provide coverage for the uninsured. Critics of the $5 billion high-risk pool program insist it will run out of money before Jan. 1, 2014. That’s when the program sunsets and health plans can no longer discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Administration officials insist they can make changes to the program to ensure it lasts until 2014, and that it may not have to turn away sick people. Officials said the administration could also consider reducing benefits under...

One of the better stories we've seen about the world watching the U.S. election. There are complicated -- and conflicting -- feelings out there: JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- When Sri Murtiningsi asked her third graders what they wanted to be when they grew up, the answers ranged from doctors to a pilot. One boy in the class raised his hand: Barack Obama said his dream was to be president of the United States. Forty years later Murtiningsi -- like the rest of the world -- is watching closely as Americans prepare to head to the polls Tuesday. "Barry was the...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the speaker will not allow the final language of the health care to be posted online for 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote on the House floor, despite her September 24 statement that she was "absolutely" committed to doing so. House members are still negotiating important issues in the bill--whether it will provide taxpayer-funding for abortions, for example. Pelosi is pushing for a Saturday House vote, and a number of big changes will be introduced, likely less than 24 hours before the vote takes place (if in fact...

... Wilson, 69, is accused of walking into the Bank of America branch in the 4100 block of El Cajon Boulevard in City Heights and handing a bank manager a demand note, saying he had a bomb. Prosecutors said he made off with $107,000 before he was caught lying on a front porch near the bank.

State troopers have sealed off a secretive West Texas religious outpost built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs so child welfare investigators can interview children to see if they're safe, officials said Friday. Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner said the Texas Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement helped investigators gain access to the complex near Eldorado. She said CPS is "investigating whether any children are in danger" but said no decisions had been made on whether to remove any children. DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said CPS was responding to a complaint but could not say whether the complaint...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton looked right at home behind a restaurant counter on Thursday, chatting with several waitresses and writing up an order with a flourish. And now we know why. “I’ve waited tables before,” she said. Mrs. Clinton stopped at the restaurant, a Bob Evans in the southern Ohio town of Rio Grande, on a campaign swing in the Appalachians. Mobbed by diners and news personnel, she slipped behind the counter, where she talked with the waitresses about grits, stuffed pancakes and more.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers increasingly believe that, after a series of losses, she has been boxed into a must-win position in the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, and she has begun reassuring anxious donors and superdelegates that the nomination is not slipping away from her, aides said on Monday.

Can Mitt still win? Frankly, no – the arithmetic makes it all but impossible The Republicans have already chosen most of their delegates, and Romney has won only 256 of the 1,417 chosen so far—some 18%. To get the delegates he needs to lock up the nomination, Romney would not only have to improve his performance, he’d have to become virtually perfect – winning 934 of the 963 delegates who haven’t yet been chosen. Unless all other candidates dropped out of the race, there’s no way anyone will scoop up more than 97% of the delegates remaining. Even if Mitt...

Hello, I've been mulling over writing this thread for months, but feel that the time is right. My mother passed away in October, after a long battle with lung cancer. She was a lovely woman, a good mother and a wonderful friend to all. My life changed forever on the night that she died. She died surrounded by her loved ones. And only God can understand how much I miss her. First, I would like to say that my mother was an avid lurker. She kept up on the political news with the assistance of Freerepublic. She was addicted to...

"The negatives feel good," says Ed Rollins, the onetime wunderkind of the Reagan White House and now, at 64, the national campaign chairman for upstart Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, a little-known clandestine Islamist group remerged from the ashes. Formed in 1953 with a radically anti-Bahai and anti-Sunni ideology, the Hojjatiehs flourished during the Revolution that ousted the Shah. The fiery, respected Sheik Hamud Halabi urged the Hojjatiehs to vote in favor of the Velayat-e-Faqih form of government in the referendum mainly due to fear of a communist takeover. Velayat-e-Faqih, the “guardianship of the jurisconsult” is the modern political doctrine set out by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In his book of Jurist governmental rule, he addressed the role of the clergy in the government....

Cell phone cameras are useful for the unusual moment that demands a picture, like when a congressional aide pulled one out of a pocket to get a snapshot of Michael Jackson strolling the halls of Congress. Some people, however, are using them for nefarious purposes, such as taking pictures beneath women's skirts and posting them on the Internet. Lawmakers want to make taking such surreptitious photos and other illicit uses of video technology a federal crime punishable by up to a year in jail. "No one should have to go through the embarrassment of being secretly taped by an electronic...

When officials from the Seattle Monorail Project pay homage to the monorail movement's grass-roots heritage, they're talking about citizens like Bobby Inshetski. "I simply love the monorail," he says. Driving under the city's old one-mile monorail on Fifth Avenue, he would cheer when a train passed above the sunroof. He voted yes on the 2002 initiative to build a new 14-mile monorail from West Seattle to Ballard. Then he volunteered for the project, answering questions at Bumbershoot and neighborhood festivals. Inshetski bought a second-floor condominium along the route on California Avenue Southwest in West Seattle last June — at a...