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Who is Obama referring to when he said "the objective is clear" the mission is to "degrade and destroy" and make it "a manageable problem"? A. Mexican cartels B. The United States of America C. ISIS (L)

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S acknowledgment that “we don’t have a strategy yet” in Syria understandably attracted the most attention after his perplexing meeting with reporters Thursday. But his restatement of the obvious was not the most dismaying aspect of his remarks. The president’s goal, to the extent he had one, seemed to be to tamp down all the assessments of gathering dangers that his own team had been issuing over the previous days. This argument with his own administration is alarming on three levels. The first has to do with simple competence. One can only imagine the whiplash that foreign leaders must...

The Finnish foreign ministry announced on Tuesday that back in June the United States and Russia held secret talks over Ukraine on Boisto Island in Finland. This startling announcement and synchronised information about the result – a ‘24-Step Plan to Resolve the Ukraine Crisis’ - were clearly timed to coincide with the meeting in Minsk between, among others Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. There were a number of crucial differences between the peace initiatives and one key similarity. Despite the Finnish report, the Boisto meeting, albeit sponsored by Finland’s foreign ministry, was between Russian and US...

The Obama administration is reportedly considering airstrikes in Syria against the terrorist group ISIS. The New York Times quotes "a top national security adviser" to the president as saying the U.S. is "'not going to be restricted by borders' to protect its interests..." What about American cities? If ISIS attacks one or more U.S. cities, as it has threatened to do, what then? We can't bomb ourselves. How would we counter a nosedive in the stock market or the ensuing chaos and fear? The U.S. and Europe are vulnerable because of a false belief that we can somehow "convert" ideological...

All races White Black Year Both sexes Male Female Both sexes Male Female Both sexes Male Female 2010 78.7 76.2 81.1 79.0 76.5 81.3 75.1 71.8 78.0 2007 77.9 75.4 80.4 78.4 75.9 80.8 73.6 70.0 76.8 2006 77.7 75.1 80.2 78.2 75.7 80.6 73.2 69.7 76.5 2005 77.8 75.2 80.4 78.3 75.7 80.8 73.2 69.5 76.5 20041 77.8 75.2 80.4 78.3 75.7 80.8 73.1 69.8 76.3 2003 77.5 74.8 80.1 78.0 75.3 80.5 72.7 69.0 76.1 2002 77.3 74.5 79.9 77.7 75.1 80.3 72.3 68.8 75.6 2001 77.2 74.4 79.8 77.7 75.0 80.2 72.2 68.6 75.5 2000 77.0 74.3...

Is anybody overjoyed, rapturous, bowled over with delight at seeing the United States again involved in Iraq? No? We can move on then. The United States is involved in Iraq. Concerning which involvement we have two choices: 1) Mess it up, getting lots more people killed than have been killed already; or 2) help the locals to engineer something like a standoff between Iraqis able to pass for reasonable people and those who, on present evidence, might have earned censure from Genghis Khan for excessive devotion to human slaughter. It may be a while before President Obama figures out...

There’s something darkly coincidental in the fact that the latest weapon to be deployed against the survival instinct of both Israel and the United States is an alleged “heartlessness” when it comes to children. The people of Israel are castigated in news media, social media and the “international community” (read: the scoundrel United Nations, of whose budget U.S. taxpayers pay 22 percent) as lacking in “humanity” itself. Why? Because as the IDF fights to end Gaza’s endless rocket barrages against Israel, many children under the age of 18 number among the civilian dead. This London Telegraph headline is not...

"President Barack Obama drew the diplomatic line somewhere at the first ever U.S-Africa summit at the White House this week by not inviting Zimbabwe’s brutal dictator Robert Mugabe. But the guest list still included several other African leaders with only slightly better human rights records. The White House promoted the summit as the largest-ever gathering of African leaders in the United States, with more than 50 countries represented. The red carpet was rolled out for Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, who shot or jailed virtually all his political opponents, Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh, who threatened to ‘cut off the head’...

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act While it seems the way to become a citizen of the United States is to walk across the southern border, wait until President Obama gets around to signing an executive order granting amnesty, and then wait some more, Canada made another legislative change to tighten the process of becoming a Canadian citizen. While these changes are relatively minor, they are part of a larger process to make Canadian citizenship meaningful.

Tensions between the United States and China over cybersecurity have risen as the two countries continue to trade barbs over hacking. But according to an essay on the website of a state newspaper that was widely republished this week, there is, in fact, a longer-running cyberwar underway between the United States and China. And the weapons employed, the essay argues, are far more sophisticated than hacking. Photo Lei Feng, the Chinese soldier revered as a model of selflessness. Lei Feng, the Chinese soldier revered as a model of selflessness.Credit Adam Dean for The New York Times “America has long used...

John Kerry fought in Vietnam, threw his medals away, served decades in the Senate, ran for president, did some windsurfing and then became secretary of state of the most powerful country on Earth. He’s a big boy. But there are those who seem to feel otherwise, that Kerry is a fragile and tender reed in need of delicate care — people who work for and with him. Not to mention Kerry himself. Over the course of the past year, on several occasions, Kerry and other staffers have taken to whining — not sure there’s a nicer word — over how...

I shall rend the heavens soon in a new way for all the Earth is about to witness and taste of My glory as I (( ( Roar ) )) out salvation over the children of My creation and Now in this Valley of Decisions I shall rise up the mountains that choose Me and have chosen Me . So watch and see for The Latter Rain is about to flourish My Lilies of The Valley I AM about to dress in My Glory Isaiah 64:1-4 64 Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains...

I have a sensitive, inconvenient, and undoubtedly politically incorrect question: Why aren’t there more gay people? I ask because there’s something confusing about our “culture war.” Given the prominence of the issue, you would expect homosexuality to be rampant in America. When asked to estimate how many gay people there are, most people guess that it’s on the order of 20% to 25% of the population. But yet another study has been released by the CDC giving a more scientific estimate, and it finds that almost 97 percent of Americans describe themselves as straight — the actual number who describes...

Rows of candles were set up last week at the home of Rabbi Zalman and Toba Grossbaum, co-directors of Chabad of Livingston, N.J., so community members and family could welcome in Shabbat and pray for the people of Israel.With the Sabbath approaching, Israel Defense Force troops are on the ground in Gaza, with Jews everywhere praying for their safety. Throughout the world came calls for prayer and good deeds on behalf of the Israeli soldiers, and all people threatened by ongoing missile attacks, with special emphasis on Jewish women and girls lighting Shabbat candles, and for families to join with...

The price of happiness depends a lot on where you live, according to a new report by the investment group Advisor Perspectives. The analysis is based on the now-famous work by Princeton researchers Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, who found that higher incomes only make people happier to a point. Up to about $75,000 per year, the more a household earns, the happier people are. After that benchmark, however, additional income "buys life satisfaction but not happiness." The team separated these two issues by distinguishing fun from happiness. More money still leads people to have more life experiences and greater...

The unconstrained political warfare symbolized by House Speaker John Boehner's pledge to sue President Obama for allegedly abusing his executive authority pushes this presidency farther down a rocky road that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush would painfully recognize. In one key respect, each president's tenure has followed a similar arc. Each initially sought the White House promising to bridge the nation's widening partisan divide. Clinton pledged to transcend "brain-dead policies in both parties" with his "New Democrat" agenda. Bush declared himself a "compassionate conservative" who would govern as "a uniter, not a divider." Obama emerged with his stirring 2004...

The year 1776 saw both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and publication of Gibbon’s "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."Today the United States stands on the top of the podium of world powers: however, does a Roman fate await? A visit to the dramatic Pueblo ruins in the American southwest, former home to a complex civilization that abandoned its settlements in the 12th-13th centuries A.D., warns us that circumstances can change, and dramatically. Archeology offers an education in patterns, possibilities and challenges that the U.S. should value and exploit for its future. For the U.S.,...

LONDON - America owes much of its freedom to its British heritage. But today, Britain is losing its freedom. Many Americans were stunned when British authorities arrested Liberty Great Britain party leader Paul Weston in April for publicly reciting Winston Churchill's criticism of Islam. The calendar might say it's 2014, but in Britain it's starting to feel like George Orwell's "1984" because "Big Brother" has decided that certain things can no longer be said. Arrested over Churchill Weston quoted from Winston Churchill's book, The River War, in which he wrote: "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its...

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin congratulated US counterpart Barack Obama on America’s Independence Day Friday and expressed hope that bilateral relations would “successfully develop” despite their disagreements. Putin predicted that relations between Russia and the United States “will successfully develop on a pragmatic and equal foundation despite the difficulties and differences,” the Kremlin said. The two former Cold War adversaries “carry special responsibility for ensuring international stability and security” and “must cooperate in the interests of not just their own people, but the entire world,” Putin said.

One last dip into a big Pew survey we've been discussing about on the politics and policy views of Americans. Pew surveyed more than 10,000 adults earlier this year on topics ranging from their views of Hillary Rodham Clinton to taking the bus, and the report divides their responses along a set of political typologies that group respondents into generally coherent categories across the range of policy issues: i.e., the "business conservative," the "solid liberal," the young "next generation left." Across that spectrum, there is not surprisingly wide disagreement on racial progress in America and the steps government still must...