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WASHINGTON — A nearly empty state prison in northwestern Illinois has emerged as a possible site to house detainees transferred from the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, the Obama White House told the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday. Gov. Quinn and Obama discussed the federal purchase of the Thomson Correctional Center when Quinn was in Washington on Nov. 4 and visited the White House. Quinn and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will outline proposals for the future of the prison at press conferences in the Quad Cities, Chicago and Rockford on Sunday. Durbin’s office has been quarterbacking the potential sale of...

The initial hurried reports of thirteen people (including twelve U.S. soldiers) murdered, and dozens of others wounded, were just coming in. A pained Diane Sawyer was wishing aloud that Nidal Malik Hasan were named “Smith.” Her colleagues in what now passes for mainstream journalism were risibly theorizing that post-traumatic stress disorder must have snapped this non-combat Army psychiatrist — one who’d screamed “Allahu akbar!” while mowing down U.S. soldiers about to deploy to a Muslim country for a war he’d made no secret of deploring; one whose only battlefield experience was the massacre he’d just committed against unarmed men and...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968. With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be able to intervene in cases of violence perpetrated against gays. Civil rights groups and their Democratic allies have been trying for more than a decade to broaden the reach of hate crimes law. This time it appears they will succeed. The measure is attached to a must-pass...

War with Iran is now inevitable. The only question is: Will it happen sooner or later? -snip- Washington now has two choices: Sanction an American or Israeli military attack to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities or allow Tehran to go nuclear. Either option means war. A devastating strike would likely trigger a fierce Iranian response, including waves of suicide bombers targeting Israeli civilians and U.S. troops in Iraq. Iranian missiles would pound Israeli and, maybe, European cities. Vital shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf would be disrupted, driving the price of oil to more than $300 a barrel - plunging the...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided not to seek the death penalty against a former Guantánamo detainee who was ordered by President Obama to face trial in a civilian court in New York. Mr. Holder communicated the decision to federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Friday, and they in turn informed the federal judge who is presiding in the case. “You are authorized and directed not to seek the death penalty against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani,” Mr. Holder wrote to Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Ghailani faces federal charges of conspiring...

You'd think they'd at least read the thing. A Senate committee has finished a version of a sweeping health-care reform bill -- but at least one senator admits he has no intention of reading it. "I don't expect to actually read the legislative language because . . . the legislative language is among the more confusing things I've ever read in my life," Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) told an online news service. And Carper says he doubts his fellow members of the Senate Finance Committee will read their handiwork either. The committee finished hashing out details of the health-care reform...

"Iran's actions have raised grave doubts" about Iranian claims that they are only pursuing the peaceful use of nuclear energy," he said. "Iran is on notice when we meet with them Oct. 1. ... They're going to have to come clean and they're going to have to make a choice." It is still unclear whether Iran will bow to international pressure. Some nuclear experts noted that the discovery of a clandestine site suggests that Iran could have many more. "The Iranians are teaching us the limits of what we are overselling," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy...

President Obama for the first time Tuesday opened the door to prosecuting former Bush administration officials, saying those who approved harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists may be subject to criminal charges. The president also left open the possibility for an independent commission to examine the interrogations of detainees with techniques that included waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other tactics that defenders said produced valuable information. The remarks were a reversal from several days ago, when Mr. Obama said he wanted to move forward and his chief of staff appeared to rule out any prosecutions. The president took a harder line...

Great turn out for the Roanoke Virginia Tea Party! I attended with my son and we truely enjoyed it. Like one of the speakers said we partied like it was 1773. Someone here said we had 500 to 750 people. I thinking a few more than that. I hope Washington is listening.

MOGADISHU, Somalia Apr 12 (Garowe Online) - Rebel leaders in southern Somalia associated with Islamist factions have hailed recent pirate attacks off the coast of the Horn of Africa region, Radio Garowe reports. In separate comments, Al Shabaab spokesman Muktar Robow “Abu Mansur” and Ras Kamboni Brigade leader Sheikh Hassan Abdullahi “Turki” have hailed ship-hijackings by Somali pirates. In Baidoa, capital of Bay region, Abu Mansur told reporters that the pirates are “protecting the Somali coast.” "Foreign powers want to divide the country [Somalia] and the pirates are protecting the coast against the enemies of Allah [God],” Abu Mansur said.

MOGADISHU/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy negotiated on Thursday with Somali pirates who held an American ship captain hostage in a lifeboat in the Indian Ocean, their first such seizure of a U.S. citizen. The gunmen briefly hijacked the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama freighter Wednesday, but the 20 American crew retook control after a confrontation far out at sea where pirates have captured five other vessels in a week. Four gang members were holding the captain, Richard Phillips, on the ship's lifeboat after he apparently volunteered to be a hostage for the sake of his crew. The Bainbridge, a U.S. warship,...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Wednesday for world action to "end the scourge of piracy" as U.S. warships raced to confront pirates who hijacked a U.S.-flagged ship off the coast of Somalia. American crew members aboard the hijacked ship were able to regain control of the vessel Wednesday, but the ship's captain still is being held hostage on a smaller boat. "We are deeply concerned and we are following it very closely," Clinton said. "Specifically, we are now focused on this particular act of piracy and the seizure of a ship that carries 21 American citizens. More generally, we...

U.S. President Barack Obama says he is optimistic that the economy's long-term future is strong if officials can solve structural problems with the global economy. The president shared his views on the state of the economy with the leaders of some of America's biggest companies. President Obama expressed guarded confidence to business leaders gathered in Washington, as he promoted his economic plan. "I do not think things are ever as good as we say and they are never as bad as they say. Things, two years ago, were not as good as we thought, because there were a lot of...

After a week of rough economic news, President Obama on Saturday gave a pep talk to America, using his weekly radio address to tell them he understands their hardships and to tick off the steps he's prodded government to take. "We will continue to face difficult days in the months ahead," Mr. Obama said. "But I also believe that we will get through this — that if we act swiftly and boldly and responsibly, the United States of America will emerge stronger and more prosperous than it was before." Mr. Obama also bragged about what he said were the brakes...

MIAMI -- President Barack Obama told AFL-CIO union leaders Tuesday in a videotaped address that the controversial Employee Free Choice Act will pass, signaling his full backing for legislation that makes union organizing easier. "We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act," President Obama told more than 100 top labor officials in a closed-door meeting at the labor federation's winter gathering in Miami, according to people at the meeting. The bill would make it easier for unions to recruit workers because it would let them join unions simply by signing cards rather than through secret-ballot elections in which companies can...

President Obama on Saturday struck back aggressively at critics of his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, casting himself as a populist crusader whose "sweeping change" has angered Washington's entrenched special interests, and promised to fight them. "I realize that passing this budget won't be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington," Mr. Obama said in his weekly video and radio address. Mr. Obama's language was combative and confrontational, as he promised to fight for "American families." "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists...

President Barack Obama's first budget includes $15 billion a year for renewable energy programs and an ambitious plan to raise $646 billion from a carbon reduction proposal. "Because our future depends on our ability to break free from oil that's controlled by foreign dictators, we need to make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy," Mr. Obama said Thursday morning. "That's why we'll be working with Congress on legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy." The plan uses money from a cap-and-trade program — which would allow companies to...

President Obama will pledge Tuesday night that the nation "will rebuild, we will recover," as he delivers an address to a joint session of Congress and with a nervous nation watching at home. "While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before," Mr. Obama will say, according to excerpts of his remarks. In lofty language, Mr. Obama is expected to promise a new path forward...

From television specials to newspaper editorials, the media are pushing the idea that current economic problems were caused by the market and that only the government can rescue us. What was lacking in the housing market, they say, was government regulation of the market's "greed." That makes great moral melodrama, but it turns the facts upside down. It was precisely government intervention that turned a thriving industry into a basket case. An economist specializing in financial markets gave a glimpse of the history of housing markets when he said: "Lending money to American homebuyers had been one of the least...

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and other Democratic officials Friday called on Sen. Roland Burris to resign from the Senate, which is investigating him for possible perjury. The White House added pressure on the embattled lawmaker to explain his actions leading up to his appointment. "To step aside and resign is, I think, a heroic act, and I ask Roland to do that," Mr. Quinn said at a news conference in Chicago. The governor said that if the senator does not resign from President Obama´s former seat, state lawmakers should enact legislation to fill the Senate seat by a special election...