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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels it is time for a "fresh start" with Russia. She spoke as ministers debated resuming formal relations with Moscow which Nato froze after the brief war last summer between Russia and Georgia. Mrs Clinton said that areas of common interest included Afghanistan. But she added that Nato must leave open the door to membership for Georgia and fellow ex-Soviet state Ukraine. Earlier, Russia's envoy to Nato defended the war against Georgia and said any new relationship with Nato would be on Moscow's own terms.

In a guidance advisory to the press, the Treasury advises that at 10 am, Secretary Geithner will testify before the House Budget Committee on the President’s Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Proposal. In his testimony, Geithner will testify that unless the budget deficit is cut in half the country "will face higher interest rates as government borrowing crowds out private investment, leading to slower growth and lower living standards for Americans."...

Round 2 of the Nationwide "Chicago Tea Party" is set to happen in Dallas on April 15th, 2009... TAX DAY from 6 to 9 pm We'll be working with several sponsors and groups in a collaborative effort to make this one even larger than the last! Please join the group and invite all of your friends, family, and colleagues to be a part of this nationwide movement! You can stay updated at this FaceBook event page http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=47165672254 and at the website for the Tax Day Tea Party...http://taxdayteaparty.com/ The exact location and time have not been determined yet for the Dallas...

Listen Live Right Now:Sound off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9am until Rush Jim Vicevich hosts “Sound off Connecticut” every weekday morning and although he tends to lean to the right “Sound off Connecticut” welcomes and encourages viewpoints from every side. So call in and voice your opinion. This is your chance to “sound off.” :)=^..^= http://www.wtic.com/pages/13975.php Jim Vicevich Jim Vicevich hosts “Sound off Connecticut” every weekday morning. Republitarian by nature (see Larry Elder, KABC), Jim has more than 20 years experience in broadcast television. With 6 Emmy nominations and 3 Telly Awards, Jim has worked most recently as business and...

An independent inspector general will look into the foreign financial ties of Chas W. Freeman Jr., the Obama administration's pick to serve as chairman of the group that prepares the U.S. intelligence community's most sensitive assessments, according to three congressional aides. The director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, last Thursday named Mr. Freeman, a veteran former diplomat, to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council, known inside the government as the NIC. In that job, Mr. Freeman will have access to some of America's most closely guarded secrets and be charged with overseeing the drafting of the consensus view...

Considered part of what passes these days for Britain's prestige press, The Independent "viewspaper" has a circulation of just over 211,000. Though it sells for less than the Guardian or Times, the Sunday edition is hemorrhaging readers. The Independent caters to that sliver of readership which finds the Guardian a tad too conservative. If cash prize contests don't boost circulation, it may soon have to switch to an Internet-only format. The "death squads" story was the Independent's lead story on March 1st. Photo: Screenshot The daily is edited by Roger Alton; the Sunday edition by John Mullin. Simon Kelner is...

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Reuters) - U.S. oil and natural gas producing companies should not receive federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks because their businesses contribute to global warming, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress on Wednesday. It was one of the sharpest attacks yet on the oil and gas industry by a top Obama administration official, reinforcing the White House stance that new U.S. energy policy will focus on promoting renewable energy sources like wind and solar power and rely less on traditional fossil fuels like oil as America tackles climate change. "We don't believe it makes...

Beaumarchais’ Marriage of Figaro, written at the close of the 18th century, included this freedom of speech monologue in Act V, Scene 3, I cobble together a verse comedy about the customs of the harem, assuming that, as a Spanish writer, I can say what I like about Mohammed without drawing hostile fire. Next thing, some envoy from God knows where turns up and complains that in my play I have offended the Ottoman empire, Persia, a large slice of the Indian peninsula, the whole of Egypt, and the kingdoms of Barca [Ethiopia], Tripoli, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. And so...

Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmaceutical company Baxter International Inc. has just been caught shipping live avian flu viruses mixed with vaccine material to medical distributors in 18 countries. The "mistake" (if you can call it that, see below...) was discovered by the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada. The World Health Organization was alerted and panic spread throughout the vaccine community as health experts asked the obvious question: How could this have happened? The rest of the story ...

A U.S. senator has suggested that voters have made Barack Obama eligible to occupy the Oval Office, whether or not he meets the constitutional mandate of being a "natural born" citizen. The comments from Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., came in an e-mail sent to a constituent shortly after the election, which just now was forwarded to WND. The WND reader who forwarded the e-mail was alarmed. "This is frightening in its implications and should alarm every freedom-loving American and military member. I myself am a veteran of the U.S. Air Force (1979-84). Senator Martinez has said, in essence, that it...

We know liberals don’t think; they emote. How they “feel” is important, what facts show is not. These are a few comments from liberals about Rush and the state of our nation. “To hope that our President — and thus our country — fails is high treason. Put Rush on trial with Bush, Cheney, et al” “It’s very easy and conveniet to sit back a mock an elected individualwithout having served in the same capacity yourself.” “It’s obvious that we need to be RID of TRAITORS that want the United States to fail. We DON’T need REPUBLICANS if they CONTINUE...

It’s old news that the Mexican government exports Mexico’s poorest citizens into the United States for a number of reasons: It relieves them of the responsibility of providing social and healthcare services for them; it provides their country’s economy with an influx of US cash when these illegal workers send money they earn in the US back home; and it defuses problems with far-left groups who are usually successful in using the poor to advance their political agenda. So the Mexican despots give the poor the “bum’s rush” out of Mexico: “Here’s your sombrero, here’s a map, here’s a bottle...

PESHAWAR: Suspected militants blew up on Thursday the mausoleum of a 17th century poet revered in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, apparently because women visited the shrine. The ethnic Pashtun poet, Abdul Rehman, is commonly known as Rehman Baba, and is loved by Pashtuns for his mystical verse. People regularly go to his white, marble mausoleum on the outskirts of Peshawar to pay their respects but no one was hurt in the pre-dawn blast. 'The structure of the shrine has been badly damaged but there were no casualties,' said police officer Zar Noor. Militants had warned people to stop women visiting...

Dueling Dems have Obama in earmark jamBy JONATHAN MARTIN | 3/5/09 4:24 AM EST On Tuesday, one of the House’s old bulls sent a warning to President Barack Obama on earmarks: Don’t pick this fight. On Wednesday, two of the Senate’s highest-profile reformers suggested: Don’t go wobbly on us now. In the context of the trillions of dollars being thrown around in Washington these days, the renewed fight over earmarks is relatively small potatoes. But the conflicting taunts vividly illustrate some of the pressures from divergent constituencies on the new president — pressures that are proving a good bit harder...

During the Great Depression, as borrowers defaulted on mortgages en masse and banks found themselves strapped for cash, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress created Fannie Mae in 1938 in order to buy mortgages from lenders, freeing up capital that could go to other borrowers. Although Fannie Mae began with just $1 billion in purchasing power, the agency helped usher in a new generation of American home ownership, paving the way for banks to loan money to low- and middle-income buyers who otherwise might not have been considered creditworthy.

What went wrong in California? ... California managed to achieve all at once the nation's highest sales and income tax rates — and yet also the largest annual state deficit. So far under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure, state spending grew 34.9 percent, well beyond inflation and population that increased only 21.5 percent. And yet the governor often prevented the state Legislature from spending even more it didn't have. The budgets of Medi-Cal, the state-run health program for the poor, are out of control. Prison costs increased about 50 percent in less than a decade, and now claim almost 10...

Since the coronation of Barack Obama as Savior and Messiah it has become obvious that all the economic programs he is advocating are in fact social programs that will accomplish nothing, except prolong and deepen what might have been a relatively short recession. Take the proposed “bailout” of mortgagors who are in default and stand to lose their homes. The $275+ billion program Obama is pursuing to provide funds that will allow so-called responsible mortgagors in default keep their homes will do much more harm than good. First and foremost, the mortgage bailout will keep housing prices artificially high, as...

Old Soviet-era jokes have become disturbingly applicable to the U.S. There was a time in recent American history when certain Soviet jokes didn’t work in translation — not so much because of the language differences, but because of the lack of common sociopolitical context. But that is changing. As President Obama is preparing us for a great leap towards collectivism, I find myself recollecting forgotten political jokes I shared with comrades while living in the old country under Brezhnev, Andropov, and Gorbachev. (I was too young to remember the Khrushchev times, but I still remember the Khrushchev jokes.) I...

Mr. Obama ceded authority to congressional appropriators, who wrote the stimulus bill that is history's largest spending increase. Then Mr. Obama got behind the pork-laden omnibus-spending bill. And Mr. Obama has also proposed $4 trillion in outlays this fiscal year and $3.6 trillion next fiscal year. Mr. Obama cannot dismiss critics by pointing to President George W. Bush's decision to run $2.9 trillion in deficits while fighting two wars and dealing with 9/11 and Katrina.

How Liberals Think http://www.headspaceandtiming.com/page/How-Liberals-Think---Evan-Sayet.aspx