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Neoconservatives are elated with Obama's appointments, recognizing that the new guard is very much like the old.  Some traditional conservatives were hoping that with Bush leaving office and Obama coming in, the neocons would be put out of power, but sadly, they're not going away that easily. Contrary to the public's perception of President-elect Obama as the peace candidate, he has been extremely hawkish in his appointments. The selection of Joe Biden as a running mate was a sign that the globalist and hawkish wing of the Democratic Party (where the neocons originally hailed from) was going to be strongly...

excerpt... In April 1985 Panetta joined with 13 of his leftist congressional colleagues — including Ron Dellums, Don Edwards, George Miller, Christopher Dodd, and Les Aspin — in sponsoring a 20th anniversary fund-raising gala for the pro-Marxist Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which had been described by Brian Crozier, director of the London Institute for the Study of Conflict, as the "perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB." The IPS was originally funded with millions of dollars from the Faberge perfume magnate and Communist Party member Samuel Rubin...

On January 5, the nation's new media learned that President-elect Barack Obama would nominate former congressman and Clinton administration official Leon Panetta as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama's choice reportedly caught some veteran Democratic senators who had not been briefed of the decision off-guard, and some voiced their skepticism that that Bill Clinton's former chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget possessed sufficient experience in the intelligence field to handle the job. The New York Times reported on January 7: "Mr. Panetta's lack of experience had drawn the sharpest criticism on...

The rise of the neoconservatives within the GOP has not only discredited the Grand Old Party but tarnished the image of conservatism. The Republican party suffered an overwhelming electoral defeat this past November. The establishment media were all too quick to proclaim that conservatism is dead and we're now at the dawn of a liberal age. Peter Beinart, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), wrote in Time magazine that we are facing the dawn of a "new liberal order." In making this proclamation, Beinart overlooks the fact that the public was not voting...

“And now for a world government.” That is the title of an important op-ed by Gideon Rachman that appeared in the Financial Times of London — important both for the showcase in which it appeared and the smug admissions it makes.  The Financial Times (FT) is notable not only for the distinctive salmon-colored paper on which it is printed, but for who reads it. It is the main competitor of the Wall Street Journal for the position of top “must read” daily economic newspaper for global business, financial, and political elites. “I have never believed that there is a secret...

What if they called a war and peace broke out instead? That's exactly what happened during the Christmas season of 1914 when the soldiers themselves called a truce and, had it not been for intervention by the higher authorities on both sides, World War I might have ended. Stanley Weintraub does an excellent job of preserving for posterity this remarkable wartime truce in his book  Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, and much of what follows is derived from that valuable source. The truce came as no surprise, Weintraub explains, as there were early indications...

As I see it, the beginning of the United States of America was the most dramatic and significant episode in a long pilgrimage — the pilgrimage of the Christian idea of law, liberty, and self-government. Christianity is the master principle of our organic documents of government — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Neither Paul nor any of the other early Christians had any particular interest in social reform or political revolution. Their dedication was spiritual; yet, at the core of Christian faith is the most revolutionary idea ever conceived: that individual man is infinitely...

One of the signature songs of the 1960s political radicalism was Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a'Changin'," which JibJab video productions has used as a theme for an online video spoof of the Obama-Hillary-McCain campaign contest over who was the biggest "change" candidate. Another iconic '60s-era Dylan ballad, "Subterranean Homesick Blues," contained the line, "You don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Bill Ayers, his wife Bernadine Dohrn, and other members of the radical SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) adopted Weatherman, Weathermen, and Weather Underground as their nom de guerre monikers from...

Several Oklahoma legislators are concerned that individuals and organizations are quietly working on plans to create a privately-operated tollway in Oklahoma. Many referred to Spain-based Cintra, which has been involved in the development of a proposed Trans-Texas Corridor. Cintra also took over the operation of the Indiana East-West Toll Road from the Indiana Department of Transportation in 2006. Oklahoma State Sen. Randy Brogdon and state representatives Eric Proctor, Richard Morrisette, Scott Inman and Charles Key all expressed concern that efforts to open up Oklahoma to a privately operated tollway system were being kept out of the view of the general...

ARTICLE SYNOPSIS: Sold to the American people in 1949 as a buffer against possible Soviet expansion to the West, NATO has always been a creature of the United Nations. It is now being employed as an armed force for the world body, just as was intended from its outset. COMMENTARY: Afghanistan is immensely distant from what has always been known as the North Atlantic region. Yet forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are now conducting the military operations in that country. This situation came about because NATO is a United Nations subsidiary and is, once again, being employed...

“China will be the world’s next great nation,” declared investment and commodities guru Jim Rogers in his 2004 bestseller, Hot Commodities. The 20th century, he noted, “was the American century. The twenty-first will belong to China.” Rogers went on: Here’s how important I think China will be: My daughter, who was born in 2003, is learning Chinese. Her Chinese nanny speaks only Mandarin to her, and I suspect that she might learn Chinese before she learns English. In her lifetime, Chinese will be the most important language in the world, next to English. If you are young and ambitious,...

In 1972, the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB chairman Yuri Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. In the quote above, Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, head of the DIE, the KGB’s little sister in communist Romania, reveals a conversation he had with chairman Andropov, the Soviet leader. “We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world,” Andropov told Pacepa, “and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel...

“Al-Qaeda Stronger than Ever.” “U.S. Concern at Al-Qaeda Strength.” These and similar titles accompanied news stories that began breaking during the second week of July, announcing leaks of a disturbing new classified intelligence report. Prepared for President Bush by the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), the five-page report entitled Al-Qaeda Better Prepared to Strike the West paints a picture of a revived, more dangerous terror network led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Associated Press reported on July 11 that an unnamed counterterrorism official familiar with the still-unreleased report paraphrased the briefing paper as finding that al-Qaeda is...

by Sam Antonio February 7, 2007 In a letter to President Bush dated February 6, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) chastised the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for placing Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos in the general prison population at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Facility in Mississippi. Rep. Hunter pointed out that he had written to BOP Director Harley Lappin in January urging that the agents be segregated from the general prison population for their safety. He received a letter from Director Lappin’s assistant at BOP assuring him that they would be segregated from the general population and that all...

While the Bush administration seeks amnesty for illegal aliens and grants immunity to a Mexican drug smuggler, it has thrown the book at two courageous Border Patrol agents. Fabens, Texas — The chase was on. The suspected smuggler van turned back toward the Rio Grande and headed for Mexico. Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos was on his tail. Other agents were also converging on the scene. The suspect realized he wasn't going to outrun agent Ramos' vehicle, and so he abandoned his van on a levee and took off on foot. As the suspect headed into the canal, Ramos yelled...

The theory of global warming proposes that man's activities are causing the Earth to heat up, but there is compelling scientific evidence that does not support this conclusion.   Very few people have heard of the Larsen B ice shelf. For thousands of years in the Antarctic, the place was a desolate frozen wasteland, crisscrossed by crevasses and swept by powerful ice and snowstorms. Beginning in 2002, satellite imagery began to show instability in the Larsen B ice shelf. According to research published by the journal Nature, much of the more than 4,600 square mile ice shelf collapsed. Since then, icebergs...

If the Bush-Kennedy immigration plan in the Senate is enacted, the United States would be flooded with more than 200 million new legal immigrants in the next 20 years! The first part of President Bush’s televised May 15 immigration speech was carefully crafted to appease his conservative base, which he has alienated with his open borders policies. Hence, the address was front-loaded with references to sovereignty and security and promises to beef up border enforcement with more Border Patrol agents and a temporary deployment of National Guard units. The back end of the address was a salvo aimed at prodding...

With many of our nation's politicians pushing to give permanent residency and amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, Americans should know the costs of granting amnesty. Many politicians are planning to give permanent residency to millions of illegal immigrants. To achieve their end goals of granting this amnesty (amnesty is what all of their proposals boil down to), these politicians have been telling the public that the illegals bolster our economy. Using verbal sleight of hand, they conveniently ignore the formidable costs that the immigrants generate, preferring to pick and choose numbers that would seem to show that massive immigration...

Both sides in our nation's latest exercise in political posturing succeeded. Democrats who were anxious to make Republicans look bad and Republicans who increasingly find a need to distance themselves from a president with plummeting poll numbers jumped aboard the Dubai ports controversy and now claim victory. Only about a month after the announcement that Dubai Ports World (DPW) — a firm controlled by one of the governments that make up what is known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — would purchase the rights to manage operations [at terminals](edited by Cannoneer No. 4) at six major U.S. ports, the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch (Council on Foreign Relations), whose international holdings include the supposedly conservative FOX News channel, "has been secretly building a stable of wholly-owned pornographic channels for his [British] Sky subsidiary," reported Rupert Steiner of London's The Business on February 12. "The Business has learned that Sky now owns and operates its own pornographic channels -- the 18+ Movies section -- after years of hosting third-party content only." Previously, under British licensing rules, Rupert's Sky network was required to provide porn content produced by other networks. Having learned...