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ABDULLAH Saleh al-Ajmi was a Kuwaiti soldier who deserted to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan after the United States invaded that country in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Coalition forces captured him in the Tora Bora region - believed to be the hideout of Osama bin Laden - designated him an "enemy combatant" and shipped him out to the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There he remained until Nov. 3, 2005 - when, despite substantial evidence of his terrorist ties and a history of aggressive behavior at Gitmo, he was sent back to Kuwait. Al-Ajmi could...

Cheap Tomatoes And Cheap Labor CHEAP TOMATOES? This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. From a California school teacher - - - 'As you listen to the news about the student protests over illegal immigration, there are some things that you should be aware of: I am in charge of the English-as-a-second-language department at a large southern California high school which is designated a Title 1 school, meaning that its students average lower social economic and income levels. Most of the schools you are hearing about, South Gate High, Bell Gardens , Huntington Park , etc.,...

INDIANAPOLIS — Thank you, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Love, Barack Obama. Obama ended the worst two weeks of his presidential run with a razor-thin loss to Hillary Clinton in Indiana. His salve came earlier in the evening in North Carolina where he trounced Clinton, and the result stands to open the superdelegate floodgates in coming days. The nomination fight is essentially over. But the fact remains that Rev. Wright couldn’t have picked a worse time to speak out and get some national media action. CNN reports that exit polling showed that 48 percent of Hoosier Democrats said the Rev. Wright controversy...

Hillary & Obama: Peaches & Herb? TRIBUNE REVIEW By: Salena Zito Perhaps if you had been in an isolation chamber since the day before Sen. Hillary Clinton's first loss in Iowa, you would think that the poll for tomorrow's contest in West Virginia made sense. Until that moment she was inevitable. Now, not so much. Still the numbers are the numbers and here is what they say about Tuesday's West Virginia primary and next week's contest in Kentucky:

Here we go again. After being subjected to eight years of the collegial presidency of Bill and Hillary, when we were told that when we got Bill we got Hillary as a bonus, it looks as if we are facing another twofer: Barack and Michelle. Effete liberal Democrats are all but canonizing Barack Obama, who they see as one of their own -- cool, detached, impressively intellectual -- all in all what Pat Buchanan described as something fresh out of the faculty lounge, where lofty thoughts abound and contempt for the great unwashed is hardly concealed. That may be an...

The other day the Obama campaign distanced itself from Robert Malley for his dealings with Hamas. Never mind the disingenuousness of a campaign that up until the day before yesterday when he was fired from the campaign said Malley was not with the campaign, even though a New York Times defense in his behalf said he was with the campaign. What is manifestly clear however is that Obama and his banished adviser/non-adviser share the same worldview. Consider this passage from a press release expressing his “support” for Lebanon. "It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new...

The healing in Iraq and the deterioration in Lebanon are not unrelated. In fact, Iraq will serve as both cause and effect to Lebanon’s misfortunes. Iran, eclipsed in Sadr City, had decided to allow its sectarian acolytes to put on a show of strength in Beirut. And the jihadists of Al Qaeda’s ilk, soon to be eclipsed in Mosul, will migrate to Beirut to meet Iran’s challenge. Five years ago, there was a hope that held Iraq as a would-be beacon for democracy throughout the Middle East, but that vision had too many determined enemies both inside and outside Iraq....

With the Democratic nomination all but decided, it's time for Barack Obama to start defining himself in the context of the general election -- before the Republicans define him. Most importantly, he must answer this question once and for all: What are his values? Mr. Obama began to do so last Tuesday night, by speaking more generally about who he is and how he defines himself. But this is just a first step. Exit polls in Indiana and North Carolina show clearly that fewer than 60% of white voters believe Mr. Obama shares their values. In a recent NBC News/Wall...

This week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will release a revised budget proposal to rein in spending and set California on firm financial ground. As in the economic slowdown earlier this decade, state revenue growth has slowed. California is once again the poster child for poor fiscal management, and legislators in other states should watch it and learn. With an estimated gap between proposed spending and revenues of up to $20 billion, it's going to take more than Schwarzenegger's proposals to tax property insurance and close tax loopholes to fix the state budget. Each new cut in spending will likely bring a...

AFTER THE war, the US was given an opportunity to actually support democratic, anti-Iranian-Syrian forces in Lebanon by supporting the Saniora government when Hizbullah abruptly bolted the ruling coalition and backed by Iran and Syria attempted to take control of the government by assassination and terror. The US could have taken action against Syria or Iran. But instead it sought to appease Iran and Syria in the hopes that they would temper their support for insurgents in Iraq. The pinnacle of this US abandonment of the March 14 movement was Rice's decision to invite Syria to participate in her peace...

Rockefeller vs. Goldwater in 1964. McCarthy vs. LBJ in 1968. Muskie vs. McGovern in 1972. Reagan vs Ford in 1976. Kennedy vs Carter in 1980. Hart vs Mondale in 1984. As history buffs would know each of the above Presidential primary contests was in varying degree long, expensive, emotive, distracting and a delight to the opposing party which invariably triumphed in November usually by a landslide. Today Republicans watching the Clinton-Obama slugfest are weeping- tears of joy. In a year in which every indicator points to a Republican disaster of potentially monumental proportions, history offers hope to the GOP. If...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) will testify tomorrow afternoon in an unprecedented hearing before the Select Committee investigating how the Democrats violated House rules to produce a fraudulent result on August 2, 2007. According to a “notice of hearing” obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, and as explained to us by House sources, Hoyer – along with Cong. Michael McNulty (D-NY) – will be the first members to testify in such a hearing in the history of the Congress. Members often testify in behalf of bills they introduce or in behalf of presidential nominees they favor (or against those they oppose)....

Sitting in Congress is a bill sponsored by 8th District Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Appleton) that would allow the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians to sell its fee lands without further approval from the federal government (see related story), but if you think you're entitled to any documents Kagen might have about the bill - including any correspondence between his office and the tribe - think again. The American people don't have the right to see any of it. That's because, as a sovereign nation, the tribe is not subject to federal or state open records statutes....

In 2002, the Texas Democratic Party ran a "dream ticket" -- a Latino for governor, an African American for the U.S. Senate, and an Anglo for lieutenant governor. At one point during the campaign, a white political science professor expressed his concern that, with demographics changing, the Lone Star State might get to a point where the ranks of Democratic lawmakers would no longer include whites. That story comes to mind as I consider recent twists in the soon-to-end Democratic presidential nomination fight, what Barack Obama calls the "politics of division and distraction." Part of that is the question of...

To his devotees, state Sen. Tom McClintock is a righteous defender of the Constitution and an unrepentant fighter for reining in government spending. To his detractors, the conservative populist and revered orator is a lone wolf who refuses to bend even when his closest colleagues are preaching compromise. "Lincoln said, 'I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true,' " said McClintock, a 22-year state lawmaker. "I have stayed true to my convictions." McClintock, the Thousand Oaks lawmaker now running for Congress in Northern California's 4th District, is a man as consistent in his principles as...

Money doesn’t buy happiness, but success does. Capitalism, moored in values of hard work, honesty, and fairness, is key. On July 23, 2000, a forty-two-year-old forklift operator in Corbin, Kentucky, named Mack Metcalf was working a 12-hour nightshift. On his last break, he halfheartedly checked the Sunday paper for the winning Kentucky lottery numbers. He didn’t expect to be a winner, of course—but hey, you never know. Mack Metcalf’s ticket, it turned out, was the winner of the $65 million Powerball jackpot, and it changed his life forever. What did he do first? He quit his job. “I clocked out...

As immigrants, we're proud of America and the strength it derives from being uniquely open to trade, to investment, and to ideas and people. Recently, prominent voices in punditry and politics have questioned the benefits of America's openness and called for an isolationist U-turn that would choke off our innovation and prosperity. In every state of the union, such a retreat would be disastrous for jobs, economic growth and consumer choice. Nowhere is this more clear than here in Torrance, Calif., where today we are visiting a Hitachi plant that remanufactures auto parts. This "foreign" company employs 16,000 Americans --...

Sacramento -- With the state's fiscal crisis worsening, there will likely be no good news when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveils a revised version of his budget proposal on Wednesday. Schwarzenegger warned last month that California's looming budget deficit could be as high as $20 billion, a staggering figure that represents about one-fifth of the state's annual general-fund spending. Efforts to close the gap are expected to result in cutting popular programs as well as generating more revenues by increasing taxes or fees. And with budget negotiations likely to drag on through the summer, this story probably won't have a happy...

-- snip --As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant. Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a...

The recent ongoing bloody terrorist riots that Hezbollah has been inflicted on Lebanon and its peaceful people since last Wednesday, tragically show that this country today is confronting challenges of a magnitude unseen since the end of its civil war in 1990.

When Al Gore and his global warming alarmists take over, one of the first citizens they’ll slap in a prison and charge with crimes against the (green) state will be Steven J. Milloy, founder and publisher of the popular Web site JunkScience.com. For 12 years, JunkScience.com has worked to debunk the bad science that has been used to advance the harmful or merely silly political and social agendas of environmentalists that have led to things such as bans on DDT and incandescent light bulbs.

Remember the old Saturday Night Live skit about the First CitiWide “change bank” that does nothing but make change? Our customers ask us how we make a profit, quips the bank’s spokesman. “The answer is simple – volume.” As laughable as this dubious business plan sounds, it bears many similarities to the business plan the management of the U.S. Postal Service has been practicing for much of the past decade. And, as might be expected, the model isn’t doing much to help the Post Office – which lost $5 billion last year – cover its costs. This week, the Service...

Here we go again. After being subjected to eight years of the collegial presidency of Bill and Hillary, when we were told that when we got Bill we got Hillary as a bonus, it looks as if we are facing another twofer: Barack and Michelle. Effete liberal Democrats are all but canonizing Barack Obama, who they see as one of their own – cool, detached, impressively intellectual – all in all what Pat Buchanan described as something fresh out of the faculty lounge, where lofty thoughts abound and contempt for the great unwashed is hardly concealed.

The day following the crucial Indiana and NC primaries that seemed to end Hillary's presidential aspirations, a strange thing happened. The media started releasing bits and pieces of Hillary's seldom reported, nefarious doings. Doings that have been in the public arena for years but never followed up by the media. The Washington Times headline Once-Secret Memos Question Clinton's Honesty appeared Wednesday. The article outlined the decades old information that federal prosecutors had assembled hundreds of pages of evidence suggesting she concealed information and misled a federal grand jury. Information that has long been available but, curiously, never reported in depth...

Texas families are attempting to cope with the latest spike in energy costs and record gasoline prices. The problem is acute everywhere, particularly in North Texas, where use of energy is not an option. People spend a lot of time driving – to work, school or the grocery store. The average family is now paying $1,400 per year more for gasoline than it did last year. Higher associated costs for food and electricity are adding to the burden. Rising prices are caused by several factors, including increased demand for energy in a fast-developing world. The situation has been aggravated by...

Cannot post. Here is the link:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aIF14Y3PWiTE&refer=columnist_hassett

Congressmen are like myna birds. If you teach them a phrase, they will repeat it over and over, without the slightest idea what they're saying or what it means. Like “upside down.” Last week a congressman was boasting about a big mortgage bailout plan the Democrats flushed through the House of Representatives. It would put the taxpayers on the hook for the mortgages of people who weren't making their payments. Under the legislation, home lenders would sell their bum mortgages to the federal government at 90 percent of the value of the mortgaged property. That requires the lender to take...

Even before Senator Barack Obama unequivocally denounced Reverend Jeremiah Wright as the loon he is, I was willing to take the senator's word for the fact that his erstwhile pastor's rantings about America, the Middle East, the September 11 attacks, Louis Farrakhan, AIDS and white people do not reflect Obama's own feelings. What pained me then, though, and still does, is the tragic subtext of Pastorgate - that the sort of rank idiocy that was spewed from the pulpit at Chicago's Trinity Church may not be unusual in churches that cater to African Americans. Senator Obama's statement, back when he...

WASHINGTON — By the time Hillary Clinton figured out how to beat Barack Obama, it was too late. When she began the race in 2007 thinking she was in for a coronation, she claimed the center in order to position herself for the real fight, the general election. She simply assumed the party activists and loony left would fall in behind her. However, as Obama began to rise, powered by the party's Net-roots activists, she scurried left, particularly with her progressively more explicit renunciation of the Iraq war. It was a fool's errand. She would never be able to erase...

Congress seems ready to spend billions on a new "Manhattan Project" for green energy, or at least the political class really, really likes talking about one. But maybe we should look at what our energy subsidy dollars are buying now. Some clarity comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent federal agency that tried to quantify government spending on energy production in 2007. The agency reports that the total taxpayer bill was $16.6 billion in direct subsidies, tax breaks, loan guarantees and the like. That's double in real dollars from eight years earlier, as you'd expect given all...

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. There have already been many birthday greetings, some heartfelt, some perfunctory, along with numerous reflections on the meaning of the occasion, some profound, some commonplace. For me, however, a discordant voice broke through. Israel is a “stinking corpse” on its way to “annihilation,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last Thursday as Israel celebrated Independence Day. “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken,” proclaimed the president of Iran, a nation that is...

Bill Clinton and Hillary "Huckabee" Clinton are determined to win the Democratic nomination. Of course, it is important to note the Clintons definition of the word "win." At this point, the only hope the Clintons have of keeping the dream alive will be the courts. A favorable outcome of counting the votes and seating the delegates of Florida and Michigan will go a long way in securing the victory they so desperately seek. Litigation is the middle name of Democrats. The DNC wants to stick to the rules; the Clintons want a win. Thus a lawsuit will emerge as the...

WASHINGTON — For the first time, a major political party is on the brink of choosing a black as its candidate for president, but when Democratic strategists and other analysts look ahead, they don't see race as Barack Obama's biggest challenge. They worry more, they say, about other issues: Will swing voters view him as too young? Too inexperienced? Or too liberal? "I am sure there are people in Missouri that won't vote for Barack Obama because he's black, but there are not that many of them," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a swing-state leader who endorsed Obama early. "I...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- John McCain, who has spent the last two months trying to consolidate right-wing support as the Republican candidate for president, has a problem of disputed dimensions with a vital component of the conservative coalition: the evangelicals. The biggest question is whether Mike Huckabee is part of the problem or the solution for McCain. An element of the Christian community is not reconciled to McCain's candidacy but instead regards the prospective presidency of Barack Obama in the nature of a Biblical plague visited upon a sinful people. These militants look at former Baptist preacher Huckabee as "God's candidate"...

The open-borders media has been AWOL on John McCain’s decision to speak to the radical racialist group, La Raza/The Race in July. He has been allowed to skate on the issue in several recent sit-down interviews. Many of the same pundits who blasted Barack Obama for his ties to the radical racialist Jeremiah Wright have nothing to say about McCain’s longtime association with the shamnesty-pushing, sovereignty-undermining, publicly-subsidized shakedown artists of La Raza/The Race. Not everyone’s looking the other way. Editorial page editor Colin McNickle at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review warned today: “McCain had made significant progress in reaching out to conservatives...

In what could signal a further shift in the global stem cell debate, lawmakers in an Australia state have rejected legislation allow the cloning of human embryos for research purposes. This week's vote in the Western Australia capital, Perth, is believed to be one of the first times the embryonic cloning issue has been considered by a legislature anywhere in the world since reports of a major research breakthrough last November prompted new questions about the need to use embryos at all. The issue will be under discussion on Capitol Hill again on Thursday, when a health subcommittee of the...

The latest outrage is a father's video of a U.S. Army barracks at Fort Bragg, N.C., the home of the 82nd Airborne Division. It shows the quarters where his soldier son and other soldier sons were sent to live upon their return from combat. Mold and mildew and peeling paint are bad enough, but what about a big barracks bathroom ankle-deep in raw sewage? Scandals like this latest one and an earlier eruption of public outrage over the miserably maintained quarters where wounded soldiers were warehoused at Walter Reed Army Hospital are an indictment of the core competency of our...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Barack Obama's victory in North Carolina and near-miss in Indiana last week remove much of the doubt about whether he will win the Democratic nomination for president. With Obama the likely Democratic nominee and Sen. John McCain long his party's presumptive nominee, the search for their vice presidential picks can now begin. Below, you'll find the five most logical veeps, assuming McCain and Obama are the candidates, ranked in the order of the likelihood of being chosen. No. 1 on each side is currently the likeliest to be named. REPUBLICANS 5. Mitt Romney: A few months ago,...

Blaming climate change for the storm that ravaged southern Myanmar a week ago is neither helpful in a humanitarian crisis nor scientifically defensible. But it's a neat diversionary tactic that seems to be working. Al Gore described the cyclone as an example of "consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming." Mr. Gore conceded a comparable storm struck the same region as recently as 50 years ago. The earlier storm and those that preceded it over the long march of time were less damaging, for obvious reasons: population and government. Myanmar, once known as Burma,...

We are part of the many Democrats that will definitely vote for John McCain if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination to run for president. We would love to have our economy and national image restored to at least what it was during the Clinton years of presidency, but Barack Obama is not the answer. Obama speaks politics and not what he believes. He only says what he must to win. Actions speak louder than words. He does not respect America -- won't wear a flag on his lapel, won't put his hand over his heart during the pledge of...

The time has come for Congress to rethink ethanol, an alternative fuel that has lately fallen from favor. Specifically, it is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill. This does not mean that Congress should give up on biofuels as an important part of the effort to reduce the country’s dependency on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What it does mean is that some biofuels are (or are likely to be) better than others, and that Congress...

A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics. Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity. The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday,...

The fraudulent nature of many legal cases alleging damage from exposure to asbestos, long documented in legal and other publications, was officially confirmed to the world by a savvy federal judge in Texas three years ago. However, if allegations in a new report are true, similar rip-offs are still being tried. The most disheartening thing about the report, “Trial Lawyers Inc. Asbestos,” fifth in a series from the Manhattan Institute, is that the reader can count on the fingers of one hand the number of doctors and lawyers who have been punished for abusing the system. A federal grand jury...

Thursday is the deadline set by a federal judge in Alaska for the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether the polar bear is a threatened or endangered species. All the evidence shows the polar bear doesn’t need his help. Environmental groups petitioned for such a listing and sued when a decision was not forthcoming by the deadline. They claimed that global warming had already diminished polar ice, would continue to do so and doom the estimated 23,000 or so bears to extinction by perhaps 2050. If the bears were listed, the service would be obliged to designate “critical habitat.”...

Common delusions notwithstanding, the United States, I submit, is not a democracy—by which is meant a system in which the will of the people prevails. Rather it is a curious mechanism artfully designed to circumvent the will of the people while appearing to be democratic. Several mechanisms accomplish this. First, we have two identical parties which, when elected, do very much the same things. Thus the election determines not policy but only the division of spoils. Nothing really changes. The Democrats will never seriously reduce military spending, nor the Republicans, entitlements. Second, the two parties determine on which questions we...

Two frightening killers were on the loose, and the Sacramento Bee’s readers wanted to protect themselves. They wanted more than descriptions of the attackers’ clothing at the time of the murders. They wanted to know the criminals’ race. The Bee, they accused editors, had allowed outdated policies to endanger public safety. Challenged by readers and by bloggers who don’t adhere to journalistic conventions, many editors have been thinking about loosening their rules for identifying race in crime stories. In general, news outlets have avoided racial and ethnic identifiers unless they were important to the case, or, perhaps, if victims’ descriptions...

Carol Rudes has not read her son's love letter couched in a short autobiography he has written. He's been waiting for the perfect time to give it to his mom. Today. "My name is Mathew Rudes, and this is my story. When I was brought into this world 21 years ago, doctors predicted that I had less than 24 hours to live. "They had only to look at my warped body, hands bent at odd angles, to know that something was not right. I was quickly whisked away to another room. The doctors refused to let my mother look at...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants to build a big highway through the Lone Star State. No, make that a really big highway, as in a monstrously big highway. The exact route hasn't been determined. The mega-highway would run roughly from Laredo on the Rio Grande River through the Hill Country and the Piney Woods and then through Texarkana in that tiny portion of the state that borders Arkansas. Imagine for a moment if that thoroughfare would be pointed in the other direction - from the Valley, through the South Plains and then through the heart of the Panhandle, right past...

He denounced it as a political stunt and power play, but was the recall campaign against state Sen. Jeff Denham the best thing to ever happen to his political career? The upside for the Atwater Republican grew immensely this week when Senate leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, called off the campaign. Denham, who has raised considerable funds to fight the effort, vowed Thursday to continue his defense because his name will still be on the ballot June 3. Indeed, some local Democrats intend to keep campaigning against the senator on a grass-roots level. Ads against him have already run. But Denham...

EVER since former Vice President Al Gore won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for his fight against expanding climate change, there have been claims that nuclear power plants are the easy solution. They give phenomenal amounts of energy, after all, without much carbon production. Some who seek facile solutions say it's about time to dump the safeguards of 1976's Proposition 15, which essentially put a stop to atomic-power facility construction in California after completion of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the central coast. One example: Last fall, Republican Assemblyman Chuck DeVore of Orange County introduced a bill aiming...