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President Obama's complete lack of concern for the fraudulent science associated with global warming is contrasted with the common sense of Sarah Palin. The gutsy Alaskan suggested that Obama ought to hold his horses on the whole climate change thing until The real verdict is in. Of course, the smartest man in the world will have none of that. With the outrageous news of deceit, fraud and suppression of opposing evidence by top climate change "scientists," many conservatives had expected to see the story unfold a little differently (with actual reporting and investigating). Global warming, aka, climate change has been...

ABC’s Jordyn Phelps reports: President Obama may have a thing or two to learn from Tiger Woods’ golf game, according to an upcoming article in the January edition of Golf Digest. But In light of the recent controversy surrounding Tiger Woods’ car crash, there are likely more ways in which the President may wish to distinguish himself from the golf star. The article lists ten things that the President could learn from the ultra-successful golf star in improving his performance as president, and vice versa, from the perspective of several prominent writers and players. The magazine cover is a photoshopped...

The lesson from an unsuccessful pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden this week was simple: Guns talk. The Maersk Alabama, the American-flagged ship infamously attacked by pirates in April, was attacked again Monday when Somali pirates opened fire on the ship in an attempt to board it. But the pirates didn't get far this time, after a four-man security team aboard the ship fired back, thwarting the attack. It's the first time a large cargo ship with an armed security team aboard is known to have repelled an attack, says Vice Adm. William Gortney, who commands the Pacific region...

<p>As many people know by now, or are waking up to this morning, yesterday 39-year-old Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, went on a shooting spree at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas killing 13 and injuring at least 30. While Hasan is in critical condition and unconscious, some are speculating that the motive for the shooting was concern over his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.</p>

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Despite the best efforts of the White House and much of the media to portray this week’s elections as a meaningless barometer of the public’s mood toward the Obama administration, the results were clear. The voters were communicating buyers’ remorse. One year after reaching its zenith, the Democratic Party is now grappling with what could be the beginning of the end of the Obama era. In Virginia, former Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a solid pro-family, pro-life conservative, won a landslide victory, as did down-ticket conservative candidates. Repeated Obama visits to his own backyard did...

Lessons learned from the horrific Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 are credited with averting an even bigger massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, Thursday afternoon when police officer Kimberly Munley confronted the gunman without waiting for backup and took him down with four shots. Reviews in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech, where 32 died, found that first responders' decision to be careful and wait for backup probably cost lives as that gunman moved unchecked from classroom to classroom as law enforcement massed outside. Those findings had found their way to Fort Hood's Special Reaction Team, which had practiced...

The Lesson of Bob McDonnellby Charlie SpieringA week before the election, Virginia candidate for governor Bob McDonnell was asked in a radio interview if he would veto state funding for Planned Parenthood.“We shouldn't be doing that (funding Planned Parenthood) in Virginia,” answered O’Donnell. “That's common sense I think, and that will be part of what we get done.”Pro-choice activists were furious and quick to condemn his remarks. To them it was one more reason why McDonnell was “out of step and out of touch with voters.” But McDonnell, with his common sense approach to politics, proved that you can still...

After losing Virginia's governorship for the first time in eight years, some Democrats are trying to console themselves that Virginia is at its core a "red" state. This ignores not only that they won back-to-back governorships but also that Democrats defeated a sitting senator in 2006, took control of the state Senate in 2007 and won an open Republican Senate seat and three House seats in 2008 while carrying Virginia's electoral college votes for the first time since 1964. Some in the White House are trying to deflect blame for the defeat by saying that Sen. Creigh Deeds lost because...

My Wednesday Examiner column, written as the 2009 election returns were coming in, stands up pretty well. But let me add some observations written as the course of the elections became clearer. First, in the governor elections in Virginia and New Jersey, the Democratic candidate ran far behind Barack Obama’s percentages in 2008 and the Republican candidates ran ahead of George W. Bush’s percentages in 2004. The numbers are pretty daunting. In Virginia Creigh Deeds won 41% of the votes, way behind Barack Obama’s 53% in 2008. And in New Jersey Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine won 45% of the votes,...

Lessons from Virginia for the GOP By Ed Gillespie Thursday, November 5, 2009 After losing Virginia's governorship for the first time in eight years, some Democrats are trying to console themselves that Virginia is at its core a "red" state. This ignores not only that they won back-to-back governorships but also that Democrats defeated a sitting senator in 2006, took control of the state Senate in 2007 and won an open Republican Senate seat and three House seats in 2008 while carrying Virginia's electoral college votes for the first time since 1964. Some in the White House are trying to...

With Obama set to go weak on the "Good War" in Afghanistan, we need to recall some lessons of history. There is no such thing as a humane war. Indulging in such fantasies, with CNN enforcing the rules, has made the world a more dangerous place. GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition. (Source: Jonathan Landay, a real battlefield reporter for McClatchy) David Warren, trenchant thinker and writer from Canada,...

Former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, and member of the 9/11 Commission, John Lehman spoke tonight on the campus of St. Joseph's University. His topic was "The Lessons of 9/11: What we have learned, what have we accomplished, and what remains to be done."

Spare Change Day of Reckoning: My Two Cents on Learning from 9/11 David J. Aland 11 Sep 09 I survived 9/11 without a scratch. I didn’t even get my uniform dirty. Through nothing less than the grace of God, I was not where I was supposed to be when the terrorists slammed an airliner into the Pentagon. Friends, colleagues, and shipmates of mine died that day, but I lived. In the hours, days, and weeks that followed, my hands joined the thousands that picked up, reconstituted, and continued the work of those that had been killed. To this day, I...

VINCENNES, Ind. The students filed into their social studies class just after lunch and slumped into desks where they had learned about the Civil War, Lewis and Clark, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On this day, teacher Michael Hutchison said, the class would feature "another of those huge moments in our history." He reminded the high school juniors and seniors that he would be grading their notes. Then he dimmed the lights and played a video on the classroom TV.

On Tuesday, as children in many places went back to school, the world's most prominent black leader undertook to expand a worshipful cult of personality as part of a systematic effort to achieve absolute power. You may have heard about it: Oprah Winfrey kicked off her 24th season on the air by taking over Chicago's Michigan Avenue for a live show in front of thousands of adoring fans. Oh, there was also that business involving the president of the United States going on TV to urge students to work hard and stay in school. In the end, Barack Obama's televised...

Van Jones loved the spotlight. Heck, who wouldn't, after being named a special adviser and green jobs czar for President Barack Obama. In Kansas City last week, Jones was one of the federal officials flown in to take a look at the Green Impact Zone, an idea to upgrade 150 blocks of low-income neighborhoods. Jones was introduced twice by fellow, higher-ranking fed officials -- and on both occasions, Jones made sure to interject that he was a "special adviser" to Obama. But now he's not part of the administration at all, thanks to imprudent remarks and a petition he signed...

Mr. Van Jones, President Obama's "Green Jobs Czar," is the perfectly useful political foil for the Obama Administration. "Foil" means to obscure or confuse (to leave a false trail or scent) so as to evade or spoil pursuers. It also means a person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast ("The serious man was an able foil to the comic"). Mr. Jones recently resigned from his five month job as the so-called Green Jobs Czar (a highly symbolic do-nothing non-cabinet position) purportedly because he was found out to be a "communist" by conservatives on the Internet. According to...

I am deeply grateful for the contribution that Ted Kennedy, who died last night, made to my education. Until Kennedy delivered his intemperate tirade against Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in the summer of 1987, I hadn’t known that a United States Senator could brazenly lie to his colleagues and the American people and get away with it. I’m not talking about little fibs, or broken promises, or private dissimulations: all that I took as standard operating procedure in a fallen world. No, Ted Kennedy raised — that is to say, he dramatically lowered — the standard by...

<p>Let's go back to that "teachable moment." It was proclaimed by Barack Obama after he said that police in Cambridge, Mass., had acted "stupidly" in arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr. for essentially being black in his own house.</p> <p>It has been a month now, and the one sure thing we have learned in this extended teachable moment is about Obama himself. He can't teach.</p>

Police are removing valuables from unlocked cars to shock motorists into being more careful. Officers in London are taking everything from handbags to satnavs, and leaving a note telling drivers their property is at a local police station.

TOO STUBBORN TO DIE! WHAT SHOULD WE LEARN FROM AFGHANISTAN & IRAQ? By Andrei Nana We have all heard from our friends, family, and society at large, that when it comes to life, we will repeatedly make the same mistakes we made in the past unless we learn from those mistakes we make now. It sounds gloomy and depressing to consider the possibility of that continuous repetition, especially when we like to think of ourselves as always progressing. However, that repetition appears to exist. We also heard from these same people that there is a sliver lighting in everything, and...

“9/11 taught the U.S. that it ignores rising Muslim resentment at its own peril.” ~ Christiane Amanpour, CNN resident dhimmi: “America can’t have another generation of Muslims who hate it.” Well, unless Muslims get over their hatred of infidels and stop teaching their children to hate the Great Satan, don’t expect any change. This is just another in a long list of major media outlets (TIME, Newsweek here and here) declaring the end of American leadership and suggesting that the United States submit to dhimmi status under Islam, and in doing so, Islamic sharia law. We ignore doing so “at...

NOTE: This article was written in January, 2005. But it is actually more applicable and prophetic today than it was then. It is a little long but well worth your time. By Gemma Meyer (Gemma Meyer is the pseudonym of a South African journalist. She and her husband, a former conservative member of parliament, still reside in South Africa.) People used to say that South Africa was 20 years behind the rest of the Western world. Television, for example, came late to South Africa (but so did pornography and the gay rights movement). Today, however, South Africa may be the...

Now that all the hoopla and nonstop CNN 24/7 type celebrations and TV interviews and book deals will ramp up over the release of two liberal Democrat California-based freelance/Al Gore journalists from communist North Korea, based on a Bill Clinton secret deal and eventual flying to North Korea to apologize and legitimize the dictatorial regime--developing nuclear strike capabilities and exporting said terror--I say "hold your horses", as we have important unfinished business. I would expect the MSM to gloss over these so I raise them here.

At no time, does there seem to be vitriol and intimidation coming from Sgt. Crowley’s side. There have been no reports that anyone has threatened Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., or any of his public defenders. Yet all those who have challenged Gates’ account, or who have argued that while Sgt. Crowley may have overreacted, he was not engaging in an incorrect action taken in the line of duty as a police offer, have found themselves branded as racist or worse, and even had their physical safety threatened. It appears, in other words, that in today’s America, with an African-American...

You can't solve a problem if you don't discuss it. That's why some say that despite all the accusations and emotions hindering the resolution of the Henry Louis Gates Jr. imbroglio, there is opportunity for racial progress in President Barack Obama's "teachable moment" sitdown with Gates and Sgt. James Crowley. "If nothing else, it's an important national symbol of a discussion that needs to be held," said Clarence B. Jones, once a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. and author of "What Would Martin Say?" "If it's just regarded as the president bringing two guys together to clear the air,...

It was 56-years ago today that the U.S. and North Korea signed the armistice that ended active combat in America’s forgotten war. More than 36,000 Americans gave their lives defending South Korea from invasion first by the communist North and then by the Red Chinese Army. [...] And therein lies the lesson: Official U.S. policy toward aggression by the Soviet Union and Communist China wasn’t clear after the end of World War II in 1945 until an anonymous article appeared in the journal Foreign Affairs in 1947. The article advanced a doctrine of containment by the U.S. of communist expansion,...

Health Reform Lessons from Massachusetts, Part IVThe new math, or maybe it’s the old By Trudy Lieberman Campaign Desk — July 21, 2009 12:43 PM Three years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a far-reaching health reform law that politicians and the media hailed as a model for other states and the federal government. That law has become the major blueprint for health system change on a national scale, and its advocates, with Sen. Edward Kennedy at the top of the list, are aggressively marketing some variation of the Massachusetts plan as the reform of choice. Until recently, there has...

Given that Medicare is already on track to bankrupt the United States, you'd think the government would be looking to reduce its health care responsibilities, not increase them. However, the government being the government, is looking to take over the rest of our health care system in a move that would spike costs, ruin the quality of care, and involve the government even more deeply in the daily lives of Americans. However, let's take a look at how the state government in Massachusetts, where they have Romneycare -- which incidentally, is looking less and less appealing -- to see how...

KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- Nearly a year later, many lessons have been learned from Kanawha County's smoking ban. Now, the health department is taking a look back at its success and downfalls. Health Department officials said they've received a lot of positive feedback, but they don't ever expect to have a 100 percent compliance rate. They've taken 12 business owners to court so far, but all of those cases are still pending. Environmental services director Anita Ray said she wishes they would have educated the public more on the dangers of smoking before they passed the ban. Complaints are...

Crime: Yes, 150 years is a long sentence for a 71-year-old criminal. But few will shed tears for Bernie Madoff as he goes to jail. And yet, the man who financially ruined hundreds of people holds lessons for the rest of us.Madoff's trail is littered with bankruptcy, broken dreams and bounced checks. Most, if not all, his victims will spend the rest of their lives — no exaggeration there — trying to recover from the financial devastation he wrought. The magnitude of Madoff's crime boggles. He took $17 billion from investors in his fund — which boasted of beating Wall...

President Obama finally found his voice on Iran this week, saying the world was "appalled and outraged" by the regime's suppression of peaceful protests. Mr. Obama also hinted that he was prepared to reconsider direct negotiations with the regime. "We have provided a path whereby Iran can reach out to the international community," he said. "What we've been seeing over the last several days, the last couple of weeks, obviously is not encouraging in terms of the path." So where do we go from here, particularly now that demonstrations are abating in the face of increased repression? One place to...

The debate over achieving universal health care can seem hopelessly confusing. But the issues are actually pretty simple when you consider the lessons of Massachusetts. In 2006, state lawmakers seeking to broaden health coverage made it illegal to be uninsured. It works like this: Employers have to offer you a health plan. If you are jobless or don't like your employer's plan, you must buy your own. If you don't get one, you pay a stiff fine. This strategy—known as an employer and individual "mandate"—forms the backbone of the national health reform bills now making their way through Congress. On...

Almost every idea that ever came out of France has been bad for America, from the structuralist philosophical gibberish which has poisoned US academe to the grotesquely over-regulated tax and spend socialism which is now ruining the US economy. But if there’s one area where the French do get it SO right it’s in their uncompromising approach to Islam. Compare and contrast, the appalling cultural appeasement of President Obama’s speech in Cairo on June 4 when he boasted that the United States prized freedom of religion and would not “tell people what to wear.” And there was I thinking it...

Let’s review the bidding, shall we? The “election circus” took place a week ago Friday, and demonstrations began that night, June 12th. Ten days have passed. What have we learned? –First, that a significant number of Iranians hate the regime and are prepared to die to bring it down; –Second, that the fanatical religious zealots that hold the guns, chains, knives, tear gas cannisters, high-powered water hoses, sniper rifles and (perhaps) chemical weapons (said by some to have been deployed from helicopters), are prepared to order the killing of any number of Iranians in order to maintain their own power...

June 15, 2009, 3:00 p.m. Rethinking the Reagan MystiqueDutch made mistakes, but also provided edifying examples of keen political judgment. By Steven F. Hayward In the New York Times this weekend, John Harwood revisited the debate between conservatives and Republicans over whether it is time to “rethink the Reagan mystique.� Does anyone really think the major media outlets covering this intramural argument really have conservative success in mind?   Now, that’s not to say that the argument isn’t a worthy one or should be suppressed — NRO has hosted some fruitful discussion on the issue. But Americans should approach such...

by Gina L. DiorioArmed with coffee, I set out yesterday morning at about 5:15 a.m. for Trenton to welcome home the 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the New Jersey National Guard. I had learned through Eagles UP! of the need for volunteers to help serve refreshments to the returning troops, just as we – and many other volunteer groups – had done one year ago at Fort Dix before the nearly 3,000 soldiers left for Iraq. While crowds prepared to line the parade route leading from State Street to the Sovereign Bank Arena, where thousands of family members would...

Stimulus: With the votes tallied from a weekend election, it's now apparent that the European Union has taken another step to the right. There's a message in this for both the White House and the U.S. Congress.Results from the vote for the EU Parliament showed huge disaffection among Europeans for state-directed answers to the economic crisis — specifically, for the kinds of massive stimulus programs pushed by the U.S. Parties allied with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — who have both made a point of opposing any kind of U.S.-style stimulus — made big gains. Even...

Epic Struggles The Obama-Cheney disagreements over past policies are hardly unique. What similar historical debates in Poland and Russia can teach us. History lives and breathes—it's never static. Debates about history always tell us as much about the present and the struggles for power as about the past, often more so. As George Orwell famously pointed out: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." Poland is once again getting a reminder of that. Former prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński is banking on history to revive his right-wing party's political fortunes in the...

By ION MIHAI PACEPA They say history repeats itself. If you are like me and have lived two lives, you have a good chance of seeing the re-enactment with your own eyes. The current takeover of General Motors by the U.S. government and United Auto Workers makes me think back to Romania's catastrophic mismanagement of the car factories it built jointly with the French companies Renault and Citroen. I was Romania's car czar. When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided in the mid-1960s that he wanted to have a car industry, he chose me to start the project rolling. In...

HBO’s Into the Storm, dramatizing Winston Churchill’s leadership during World War II, deserves close study from our statesmen, their spouses, and anyone with questions about the stakes and requirements of warfare. This Churchill, portrayed brilliantly by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, is an unapologetic conservative, a tenacious dynamo whose rhetoric and resolve protected Britain and the West from submission to tyranny. We pick up Churchill where HBO’s Emmy-winning 2002 film The Gathering Storm left off. Hitler appeaser Neville Chamberlain has been discredited, and Churchill takes over as prime minister. After the successful retreat of the British Army from Dunkirk, France, Churchill...

n American skipper in the hands of seafaring rogues. Some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes under attack.

BAGHDAD — At 9 p.m. on Muthana Army Base, home to the 6th Iraqi Army (IA) Division, the work day ended hours ago. But one small classroom is still lit up where a multitude of voices breaks the relative silence that has overtaken the rest of the post. “Everybody together now: ‘I, we, you, they, he, she, it.’” A group of Iraqi Soldiers are learning basic English skills, thanks to Sgt. 1st Class Gabriel Ramirez, logistics non-commissioned officer in charge with the 6th IA Div. Military Transition Team (MiTT). Using an interpreter to communicate the meaning of words into Iraqi...

What's in a word? Whether through deliberate denseness for political point-scoring, or through genuine failure of linguistic understanding, Democrats seem to be having real trouble with the word fail. But the word fail must be defended; or more particularly its usage; or more specifically its recent usage by Rush Limbaugh, which is thematically emblematic of its usance in politics et al.

The 44th president has concluded his first prime-time presser and I found myself marveling over two refreshing aspects of the affair. The first was that we were actually able to watch it. During the last few years of George W. Bush’s tenure, it seemed as if he could dress up in a chicken suit and set himself afire and you couldn’t get the press corps to show up and cover it. If we were lucky, it might show up on CSPAN 3 and the highlights would be clipped for the next day’s Morning Joe or Fox and Friends. The second...

On his first big test, Barack Obama made some rookie mistakes and strategic missteps. But he still appears headed for a win on the centerpiece of his agenda, a huge economic recovery program, with the fresh striking of a bipartisan deal in the Senate. Legislative leaders, including some fellow Democrats who support him, chalked up his problems to inexperience and some initial miscalculations over the lack of GOP support, and they suggest he'll learn from the rocky start. Americans have learned, too, a little about how their new president works. He's swung from being conciliatory to badgering Congress to act,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12, 2009 – A former basketball star from Chicago’s inner city who served in the Army and was injured in Iraq has learned that time does really heal wounds. Former Notre Dame basketball player Danielle Green-Byrd prides herself on taking “the road less traveled” – a road that took a fateful turn when she lost her left arm in Iraq. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Danielle Green-Byrd, one of the first women injured during the beginning of the conflict in Iraq, said she believes her successful transition comes from traveling on the road of...

Inspired by FDR, Obama and his fellow Dems promise a "New Deal" economic program that will pull the country out of recession and put it on the road to sustained economic growth. What dangerous nonsense. Democrats, particularly Obama and his advisors, haven't got a clue as to what really happened during the '30s. This is because they are a pack of intellectual sponges rather than thinkers. (And please, don't mention Bernanke). If it were otherwise they would have taken the time and trouble to investigate that greatly misunderstood period in American economic history. What I hope do here is provide...

Tough year, 2008. Many Americans got badly hurt by the economic chaos, which hit them like a back alley mugger. What a disgrace. Wall Street hustlers gamed the system by trafficking in bad loans, while Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. Awful. So, I learned a painful lesson from all that: Big Brother is not watching out for us. Orwell had it wrong. We are pretty much on our own as the federal government simply cannot or will not protect the folks from danger. Never again will I assume the feds are looking out for...

Tough year, 2008. Many Americans got badly hurt by the economic chaos, which hit them like a back alley mugger. What a disgrace. Wall Street hustlers gamed the system by trafficking in bad loans, while Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. Awful. So, I learned a painful lesson from all that: Big Brother is not watching out for us. Orwell had it wrong. We are pretty much on our own as the federal government simply cannot or will not protect the folks from danger. Never again will I assume the feds are looking out for...