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The unelected and unaccountable sages at the World Health Organization (WHO) can’t seem to help themselves or resist the temptation to try to regulate the behavior of everyone on the planet. This is a shame, really, because a group like that could actually do some good if they stuck to trying to get basic supplies and medical care to people in remote, poverty stricken countries. But rather than devoting themselves to such laudable goals, they’re once again pushing to get every government on the planet to jack up sin taxes on tobacco.(This is something they’ve tried before, as I wrote...

President Barack Obama would seek to overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad if American planes were attacked upon entering Syrian air space, Peter Baker of The New York Times reports. If Assad's troops fired at American planes entering Syrian airspace, "Obama said he would order American forces to wipe out Syria’s air defense system," Baker reports. "He went on to say that such an action by Mr. Assad would lead to his overthrow, according to one account."

The United States and European Union plan to stop billions of dollars in oil exploration in Russia by the world's largest energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc, U.S. government sources said. The planned sanctions over Russia's aggression toward Ukraine would ban U.S. and European companies from cooperating with Russia on searching its Arctic territory, deep seas or shale formations for crude, said two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the measures have not been made public. The measures, which one of the sources said represented "preliminary thinking," would expand sanctions the Obama administration announced...

To Obama, the retrenchment of the West was not only inevitable but to be welcomed. In just the last five or six years the world has been fundamentally transformed. Instead of the old accustomed Western-inspired postwar global order, crafted and ensured by the United States and its European and Japanese partners, there is now mostly chaos, from Ukraine to Syria to the South China Sea. Or, rather, there may be emerging new rules, given that we are still frozen in a Wild West moment, when everyone in the saloon has drawn his six-shooter, paused, and is wondering what happened to...

The concept that has underpinned the modern geopolitical era is in crisis Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan's young democracy is on the verge of paralysis. To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia and a relationship with China divided between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination. The concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis. The search for world order has long been defined almost exclusively by the concepts of Western societies. In the decades following World War II, the...

I’m a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat my entire life. I used to utter those two sentences with pride and would shout them from the highest rooftops. Now, I’m almost embarrassed to say those words. I almost can’t articulate my political affiliation in public (or on the radio) without immediately offering an apology and an explanation. How did I get here?

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine said European companies would have to agree on a major revision of gas contracts with Russia if Kiev imposes sanctions on Moscow and Gazprom, a measure that may lead to disruption in gas transit to Europe. Ukraine Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said last week that parliament would debate sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, which could include bans on Russian gas and sanctions against Russian banks. Ukraine gas grid Naftogaz said on Monday that the sanctions could limit or even exclude some companies from piping gas through the country, which would allow other firms to take over...

“When you get farmers, dentists and folks who have never fought before going up against a ruthless opposition in Assad, the notion that they were in a position to suddenly overturn not only Assad but also ruthless, highly trained jihadists if we just sent a few arms is a fantasy.” - Barack Obama to CBS on June 22 Editor's note: Obama reiterated the statement to Tom Friedman of The New York Times in an interview published on August 9. In one sentence, U.S. President Barack Obama disregarded the thousands of soldiers who defected from the Syrian Army since the uprising...

New and reemerging infectious diseases will pose a rising global health threat and will complicate US and global security over the next 20 years. These diseases will endanger US citizens at home and abroad, threaten US armed forces deployed overseas, and exacerbate social and political instability in key countries and regions in which the United States has significant interests. ... At least 30 previously unknown disease agents have been identified since 1973, including HIV, Ebola, hepatitis C, and Nipah virus, for which no cures are available. ... Immigration. Approximately 1 million immigrants and refugees enter the United States legally each...

... To influence American public opinion and enlist support for related domestic and foreign policies, both domestic agencies and international organizations have framed infectious diseases as security threats, human rights disasters, economic risks, and as medical dangers. This study investigates whether American attitudes and opinions about infectious diseases are influenced by how the issue is framed. It also asks which issue frame has been most influential in shaping public opinion about global infectious diseases when people are exposed to multiple frames. The impact of media frames on public perception of infectious diseases is examined through content analysis of newspaper reports....

This is essentially the nexus of three articles that caught my eye. Barack Obama is on the edge of forcing a Constitutional crisis. Obama has already acted in an unconstitutional manner when he unilaterally rewrote IRS rules regarding Obamacare. Now he's on the verge of doing it again. Remember- these aren't extremists. Glenn Reynolds: LET’S HOPE THIS IS A SIGN THAT SOMEONE THERE IS IN TOUCH WITH REALITY: WH: Obama undecided on immigration steps. “White House officials are downplaying stories that President Obama is prepared to take executive action on immigration that would allow millions of undocumented people to stay...

That seems like an awfully strong word, but it is the term that distinguished law professor Glenn Reynolds, no hysteric, uses to describe the Obama administrationÂ’s oft-reported plan to issue executive amnesty to five or six million illegal immigrants in violation of federal law. GlennÂ’s characterization is a fair one. When a tyrant asserts the right to rule by decree in a state that has formerly been subject to the rule of law, he is commonly described as carrying out a coup dÂ’etat. That is just what the Obama administration has done, and reportedly will continue to do. When Obama...

Excerpt... from page 8... Causes of emigration 51.7% to earn a better salary 37.2% to find a job 1.6% to build a home 3.2% family reunification From pages 62-63 Immigration Policy Recommendations 1) Provide legal assistance to migrants at the places of origin, transit and destination through consulates and embassies ... 2) Negotiate with banks to open low-interest credit lines for the population receiving remittances. ... 2) NGOs, support networks and trade unions, among others, can train migrants in destination countries on labor and social rights, promoting the unionization of immigrants ... page 54... In 2005, about 75% of the...

The latest critique circulating among opponents of the package is that Rebecca Tallent, a former staffer to Senator John McCain (R. Ariz.) who currently works for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), has played a significant role in drafting the Granger proposal. “[Tallent] is writing the House plan for Kay Granger,” a well-placed congressional source. “She more than almost anyone has her fingerprints on President Obama’s immigration plans and is very close with the amnesty community, with the White House, with Democratic offices.”

One of President Barack Obama's top advisers says the White House takes seriously the possibility that House Republicans could pursue impeachment of the president. Senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters Friday that the GOP has already "opened the door for impeachment" by contemplating suing the president over his use of executive authority. He says that any further executive action Obama may sign this year on immigration will "up the likelihood" of Republicans pursuing that path.

Last Thursday, Malaysian Airlines Fight 17 was shot down, allegedly by the Donetsk People's Republic, a pro-Russian separatist group which currently controls much of eastern Ukraine. U.S. intelligence believes that Russia provided the separatists with missiles. Yet, even as evidence mounts implicating Russia in the MH17 shooting, no new economic sanctions have been issued. Instead, the global community is going after Russia's role as the host of the 2018 World Cup. Peter Beuth, interior minister of the German state of Hesse, has said, "If Putin doesn’t actively cooperate on clearing up the plane crash, the soccer World Cup in Russia...

Via RCP, it’s Jorge Ramos, a guy so deep in the tank for illegal immigration that even other members of America’s pro-amnesty media are known to grumble about it. The most revealing thing about this clip is how little his argument depends on the particular hardships being suffered by kids in Central America. They face gangs, drugs, and violence if they’re sent back, he allows, but there’s no sense that this is some unique crisis requiring a more forgiving policy than might otherwise be advisable. He’s making a straight-up argument, essentially, that if a kid makes it across the border,...

...In a report out of Michigan, a protest was organized over the prospect now seemingly beyond the people's control, that the federal government under the leadership of Barack Obama will be sending dozens of the tens of thousands of children who have come into the nation through our southern border, to the small town of Vassar.  Filled with anger and resentment against the open border policies of this president, the people demonstrating described the move as anarchy.But, within the report, it was revealed that the move was being organized by a foundation called the Heartland Alliance: Grosse Pointe Park-based Wolverine Human Services...

The man who suggested that the US shoot down Israeli airplanes is at it again. Surveying the Israeli/Hamas conflict, Zbigniew Brzezinski couldn't summon up one word of condemnation for Hamas' intentional targeting of Israeli civilians with thousands of rockets and mortars. Instead, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser had harsh words for only one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Brzezinski said he didn't include Netanyahu in the category of leaders man enough to negotiate, accusing the Israeli PM of having "scuttled" peace efforts--again without a word of criticism for Hamas. Zbigniew ended his anti-Israel tirade by decrying that...