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A report issued by the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) tasked with overseeing the implementation of the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) questions whether the Bush and Obama administrations had the legal authority to use TARP funds to bail out General Motors and Chrysler. The report, issued Wednesday, confirmed what CNSNews.com had previously reported: that the law which created TARP--the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA)--did not grant the government specific authority to use taxpayers’ funds to rescue the auto industry. “EESA does not explicitly state that the TARP is available to provide assistance to the automotive industry (or to any...

In its latest bid to avoid international banking sanctions, Iran has reached an agreement with the Central Bank of Ecuador to allow the Export Development Bank of Iran to operate in this Andean nation. The move came even though Ecuador is fully aware that EDBI is under U.S. Treasury Department sanction for illicitly providing or attempting to provide financial services to Iran's Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL).

A Royal Marine is to be awarded a Military Cross after saving up to 30 lives by 'rugby-tackling' a suicide bomber. Sergeant Noel Connolly was serving in Afghanistan last November when a bomber rode towards his troop on a motorbike packed with 150lb of explosives. Sgt Connolly dived on the bomber, grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him from the bike before he was able to detonate the explosives. But the modest 41-year-old from Manchester insisted he 'wasn't brave' and even tried to keep the feat a secret from his family. He said: 'I was near the school when...

Back from summer recess, Congress faces continuing outrage over Scotland's release of Libyan terrorist Abdel Bassett al-Megrahi, convicted of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. How did this happen? How is it possible, at the supposed height of "Obamamania" worldwide, that Great Britain, our closest ally, would free a terrorist who killed 270 innocents, 189 of them Americans? What does this mean for our policy against terrorism? British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's own ministers now concede, despite earlier denials, that Megrahi's triumphal return to Tripoli was linked to British interest in greater trade and investment with Libya. In the...

President Obama's very big, incredibly important, game changing speech-to-end-all-speeches on health care cam across as panicky, too high pitched, and schoolyard bullyish. The president's theme was obvious early on: Nothing that was said against his plan in August had merit and certainly nothing that came up at the townhalls was legitimate. "Misinformation," "bogus claims," "scare tactics," "such a charge would be laughable,' "it is a lie plain and simple" --welcome to the civil discourse of the hope and change era. The speech really ought not to have gone on as long as it did. The short form: There is nothing...

'Razzle-dazzle 'em," sang Billy Flynn in Chi cago, "Give 'em an act with lots of flash in it / And the reaction will be passionate." And that is what we saw last night. In President Obama's first national address on health care in, oh, 49 days, he gave us lots of showmanship. The rhetoric was as usual carefully crafted and persuasive. He threw a couple of bones to Republicans, such as demonstration projects for tort reform, and mollified liberals by defending the public option. He effectively countered some of the more hyperbolic opposition claims about things like "death panels." He...

President Obama wants to rewrite the calendar. As far as he's concerned, the year has progressed from June to July to September. August is to be forever erased from our minds and our hearts. His speech to a joint session of Congress was delivered as if the late unpleasantness of last month never happened, or as if it were all simply "bickering" and "games" on the otherwise smooth, consensual path to reordering one-sixth of the nation's economy in one fell swoop. "Now is the season for action," Obama intoned. In other words, please don't bother me with your inconvenient Congressional...

President Obama inherited a mess of an economy. He inherited it from his fellow Democrats in Congress. As it turns out, which party controls Congress, especially the Senate, probably has a lot more impact on the economy than who resides in the White House. The last time Republicans controlled Congress, unemployment stood at 4.4%, the S&P 500 closed over 1400, and the economy grew at an average of 3% per year over the four years under a Republican Congress. After two and a half years of Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, the unemployment rate is at 9.7% and teen...

Near the start of this year Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services. As of this writing, H.R. 1207 has 282 cosponsors. A Senate equivalent, S.604, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, has been introduced by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). It has 23 cosponsors. Both bills have received a tremendous groundswell of grass-roots support. Much of the support is coming from ordinary people who have become aware of the fact that the Federal Reserve has created trillions of dollars literally out of nothing...

When animals die, their corpses exude a particular "stench of death" which repels their living relatives, scientists have discovered. Corpses of animals as distantly related as insects and crustaceans all produce the same stench, caused by a blend of simple fatty acids. The smell helps living animals avoid others that have succumbed to disease or places where predators lurk.

The Left is terribly concerned that "we" are spending too much money on keeping people alive as they get older. But Ted Kennedy didn't seem to mind that "we" provided state-of-the-art cancer care for him, presumably through his wonderful insurance as a US Senator; I have yet to hear of a single "Man or Woman of the Left" -- as they like to dub themselves -- who would object to healthy (and wealthy) aging for themselves. I don't see George Soros checking out the suicide clinics in Holland. I don't hear any eagerness to cut short Jimmy Carter's lifelong support...

RUSH: You want to hear the table of contents in the Max Baucus bill? This is the one everybody's all excited about now, Gang of Six in there, three Republicans, three Democrats. Remember, now, Baucus announced yesterday part of his plan is a fine of up to 3,800 bucks on citizens via the IRS if you don't have health insurance. It's going to be mandatory just like automobile insurance is. ... "Section I: Health systems savings." There are four chapters. "Ensuring appropriate payment. Capturing productivity gains. Reducing geographic variation in spending, and modifying beneficiary contributions." "Section II: Options for Modifying...

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT TO A JOINT SESSION OF CONGRESS ON HEALTH CARE U.S. Capitol Washington, D.C. 8:16 P.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Madam Speaker, Vice President Biden, members of Congress, and the American people: When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse. As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out...

(snip) Wilson's outburst made him instantaneously famous — a scourge to many, a hero to some. Wilson's congressional Web site crashed and hundreds of calls started flooding into his office. Other Republicans criticized Wilson, a onetime aide to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond who also served in the South Carolina General Assembly before he was elected to Congress in 2001. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, scolded Wilson without mentioning him by name. "Our nation's president deserves to be treated with respect," Graham said. "It was an inappropriate remark, and I am glad an apology has been made."(snip)

As Scoring Soars, One Professor Sees Parallels in Nature; the 'River Basin' Theory When the Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans open the NFL season Thursday night, they will headline a brand of football that is nearly unrecognizable from the days when Jack Lambert and Mean Joe Greene were pulverizing ball carriers at the line of scrimmage. Today's NFL offenses spread out across the field, stretching defenses and creating wider holes of flow and penetration. In this game, balletic receivers like Pittsburgh's Santonio Holmes are the NFL's defining talents. The NFL has become so fast and efficient that last season, teams...

It occurs to me that if there is no relevance to the truth that your opponents words invoke, then why dignify them with a response? I'll tell you why, death panels are just exactly what we will get with zerocare. In order to make socialised medicine work, you have to cull out the difficult cases with arbitrary bureaucratic red tape and the expected level of gov't incompetence. That all by itself will kill off plenty of undeserving and underserving seniors and other burdens to the system. So, who is lying?

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~ EXCERPT ~ Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) apologized Wednesday night to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for shouting “You lie!” during President Obama’s healthcare speech before a joint session of Congress. Emanuel accepted Wilson’s apology on behalf of the president, according to a Democratic source familiar with the call. In addition to his phone call to Emanuel, Wilson also issued a statement separately, calling his comments “inappropriate and regrettable.”

We have completed a mere one week of play in the college football season and and we've already seen some things that some of us would prefer to unsee. What began with a punch Thursday night on "The Blue" ended on Labor Day evening in Doak Campbell Stadium with a team looking for a punch of a different variety and coming up short. (I'll do my best to console our Seminole fan FRiends later). In between, we had many blowouts, a few good marquee games, and a victory in Big D that could set the tone for the season to...

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