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A team of Spanish police experts flew to the French island of Corsica on Tuesday to retrieve a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso that was smuggled out of Spain, where it is considered a national treasure. A spokesman for Spain's Civil Guard said four police experts in national heritage and several Culture Ministry officials flew to recover the painting, "Head of a Young Woman," which is valued at 24 million euros ($26 million). The officer said they expect to return with the painting later Tuesday. The work is owned by Spanish banker Jaime Botin, brother of the late Emilio Botin, former...

It was his birthday and Obama was grouchy. “It’s my birthday and I’m going to be blunt,” Obama told the Jewish leaders meeting with him. When they complained that, “Words have consequences, and when they come from official sources, they can be even more dangerous,” he was unapologetic. “If you guys would back down, I would back down from some of the things I’m doing,” he warned. By that he meant that if they stopped objecting to the Iran deal, he would stop accusing critics of his nuclear sellout to Iran of being money-grubbing warmongers. Obama complained, “It's been a...

Protesters who claimed affiliation with the Black Lives Matter movement stormed the stage during a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Seattle on Saturday, taking over the microphone and forcing Sanders to leave without ever speaking. Moments after Sanders took the stage at Westlake Park, two women and one man climbed the stage and confronted the Democratic presidential candidate, demanding a chance to speak. After several moments of confusion and confrontation, an event organizer took the microphone and said the protesters would be allowed to speak before Sanders.

The title of this short piece is actually the title of an essay by Paul Fussell, the writer, literary and cultural critic who just passed away at the age of 88. His New York Times obituary notes his “withering scorn for the romanticization of war,” which was due, in part, to his own experience of battle in World War II as an infantryman wounded in southeastern France. His most well-known book is probably The Great War and Modern Memory (about World War I), of which Steven Hayward at Power Line says: Fussell managed the extraordinary feat of weaving together a...

Anglo-American historian and poet who chronicled Stalin’s excesses dies in Palo Alto, Calif.Robert Conquest, an Anglo-American historian whose works on the terror and privation under Joseph Stalin made him the pre-eminent Western chronicler of the horrors of Soviet rule, died Monday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 98 years old. Mr. Conquest’s master work, “The Great Terror,” was the first detailed account of the Stalinist purges from 1937 to 1939. He estimated that under Stalin, 20 million people perished from famines, Soviet labor camps and executions—a toll that eclipsed that of the Holocaust. Writing at the height of the...

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Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would “certainly not give up” the possibility of running as a third-party candidate if he is not treated “fairly” by the GOP.

House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) had been planning to call up on the House floor last week a measure from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) that would have removed him as Speaker of the House if it succeeded—intending to embarrass Meadows—but abandoned the plan after his entire leadership structure learned that they did not have the votes to re-elect him as Speaker before the August recess. “[House Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy was making phone calls—he was whipping it—and so was [House Majority Whip] Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA),” a senior conservative movement leader who’s had many personal and direct discussions with...

The gun used during the attempted terror attack on the “Draw Muhammad” event in Texas may have been bought from the Arizona store linked to Fast and Furious. Los Angeles Times broke the news yesterday which also included the nugget that Nadir Soofi’s purchase was known by the federal government (emphasis mine). Soofi’s attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after...

You may recall that earlier this year, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was named President of the US Conference of Mayors for her outstanding work in serving the people of her city and demonstrating innovation in turning things around. As part of that process, she decided to summarily fire Police Commissioner Anthony Batts back in the beginning of July. To say the least, I expressed some reservations about the move, particularly considering that most of the questionable tactics employed by the cops during the Freddy Gray riots were handed down from City Hall. But who am I to second guess...

The office of inspector general at the State Department is investigating longtime Hillary Clinton friend and aide Huma Abedin for recieving pay she was not eligible for while she worked for Clinton at the State Department. The issues surround Abedin's salary being paid while she was on vacation and on maternity leave from her job at State.

Don’t mess with Texas armadillos. That is the lesson that one local man learned the hard way when he landed in the hospital with a bullet wound after trying to shoot one of the hardy armor-plated critters. Officials in Cass County, Texas, say the man suffered a graze wound to the head when he fired at an armadillo and the bullet ricocheted off the mammal's rigid protective covering and struck him. The bizarre incident took place at around 3am Thursday in the 27,000 block of Highway 77 in the Marietta area, according to a report from KLTV. The shooting victim...

Friday in Fort Lauderdale, FL at the National Urban League Conference, Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) said President Barack Obama is “speaking the truth” on racial injustice. Bush said, “When President Obama says that ‘for too long we’ve been blind to the way past injustices continue to shape the present,’ he is speaking the truth. But we should be just as candid about our failures in addressing injustices of the more recent origin. In our cities we’ve got so many people that have never known anything but poverty is. So many young adults with no vision of...

A new National Journal survey of “Republican insiders” finds that 57 percent of these political professionals think Donald Trump will bow out of the Presidential race before the Iowa Caucuses. This survey probably says more about the state of the Republican political class than anything about the 2016 race or Republican voters. Interestingly, 65 percent of “Democrat insiders” believe Trump will compete in the Iowa Caucuses in February next year. The survey results could easily be dismissed as both groups answering what they hope will happen. Some Republican campaign professionals offered comments beyond the question:

The Los Angeles Superior Court issued a temporary injunction Tuesday stopping the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video showing three officials from StemExpress, a company that transfers fetal tissue from abortions performed at Planned Parenthood and other clinics to medical researchers.

My email account was on fire, everyone excited about Sen Ted Cruz calling Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz cited each of Obama’s unprecedented unlawful power grabs and repeals of our freedoms that the GOP promised to block, only to stab us (We the People/Tea Party) in the back. Immediately, I thought, “Thank God Ted Cruz is in Washington.” Before I go on, I wish to address a guy whom I will call Ned. Whenever I praise a conservative, Ned emails to correct me, claiming the conservative is a deceitful traitor. When I share...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire Donald Trump has taken a commanding lead in the race for the 2016 U.S. Republican presidential nomination with the support of 25 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll, giving him a double-digit advantage over nearest rival Jeb Bush. The poll shows Bush, the former Florida governor, trailing at 12 percent. It is a huge jump for Trump, who announced his candidacy for the November 2016 election six weeks ago - and this despite the criticism political rivals leveled at him for remarks this month belittling the military service of Senator John McCain, the party's candidate in 2008....

Fox News is opening its 5 p.m. debate to all the announced Republican candidates who fail to make the cut for the Aug. 6 prime-time event, removing a requirement that participants reach at least 1 percent in polling. The change amounts to an insurance policy for candidates who were in danger of being disqualified from the vital first debate based on low polls – Carly Fiorina, former New York Gov. George Pataki and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The announcement by Michael Clemente, Fox News Executive Vice President, News, means that all 16 announced candidates will qualify for Cleveland — either...

Yet another rebellion against Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) is brewing among Republicans in the House of Representatives, and has now burst into public view. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) has filed a motion aimed at unseating Boehner immediately as Speaker of the House. “Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has filed a motion to try to force Speaker John Boehner from his leadership post,” Politico wrote in a breaking news alert. “The move, called a motion to vacate the chair, represents a new level of opposition to GOP leadership from the conservative wing of the House Republican Conference. The motion can be...

The IRS failed to search five of six possible sources of electronic media for Lois Lerner’s emails, according to a documentation released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday. Over the course of investigations into the Lois Lerner targeting scandal, Commissioner John Koskinen repeatedly assured Congress that he would provide all of Lois Lerner’s emails. But based on testimony from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), this did not occur. The agency’s ineptness -- or corruption -- resulted in 24,000 Lerner emails being lost when they were “accidently” destroyed. According to TIGTA official Timothy Camus, the IRS had...