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Japan and Russia held their first joint defense and foreign ministers' meeting on Saturday and agreed to boost security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific as they both warily watch neighboring China's rising influence. To boost cooperation in the field of security, and not just in the field of economic and people exchanges, means that we are improving overall Japan-Russia ties," Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told a news conference. "This would also have a positive impact on the negotiations to sign a peace treaty."

"I wouldn’t be surprised if President Obama learned Osama bin Laden had been killed when he saw himself announce it on television." -- Jon Stewart What's the point of having a President who learns about everything his administration is doing from the newspapers, just like everyone else? When do you start to ask, "Is this guy stupid or just dishonest?" Given that Barack Obama seems to know so little about what's going on in his administration that it's starting to resemble a "Hogan's Heroes" rerun with Bo playing the role of Colonel Klink, maybe the answer is "both." 1) Obama...

**SNIP** If you have any questions, dial 800-645-8333 on your Obamaphone. There’s only one way to cope with this mean-spirited Republican attack on the leisure classes — get more EBT cards. You just go down to the welfare office and make a “self-declaration,” meaning nobody checks. That’s how come you read so often nowadays of illegals being pinched, and just before the traditional paragraph about the immigration detainer, you learn that the “dreamer” had two, or three, or even four EBT cards. Poor Campeo Armando Diaz-
Carola, sentenced to eight years in prison earlier this week after being caught with a...

"....A federal appeals court said last year that such a “steady drumbeat” of Christian invocations violates the Constitution’s prohibition against government endorsement of religion...............After the lawsuit was threatened, the town made more of an effort — that’s how the Baha’i representative and the Wiccan got involved — but all agree that the overwhelming number of prayers offered over the approximately 10 years covered by the suit were offered by Christians, and most contained direct references to Christianity. When the case reached the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, a unanimous panel of the court said it was not...

My parents were children during the Great Depression, and it scarred them, especially my father, who saw destitution in his Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood: adults standing in so-called "bread lines," children begging in the streets. My grandfather was a New York City cop, and so my dad did not suffer as others did. But he never forgot the brutal scenes and worked hard his whole life to build some financial independence. Fast-forward to the severe recession of 2008, when millions of Americans lost jobs and equity in their homes. No bread lines, but much pain. The Obama administration responded by...

White House on ObamaCare: What message problem? By Jonathan Easley and Amie Parnes - 11/01/13 06:08 PM EDT The Obama administration says it doesn’t have a messaging problem on ObamaCare. Senior administration officials argue that their ObamaCare problem is a dysfunctional website, and that as soon as it is fixed any messaging problems will disappear. “This isn't a communications problem, it's a problem,” one senior administration official said. “When the website gets up, the communications piece solves itself.” A second senior administration official told The Hill the White House is handcuffed in its efforts to reverse the negative storylines until...

A unique law gives social workers in Norway the right to lock up pregnant drug addicts to protect the health of unborn children. A new study looks at how the pregnant users react to being incarcerated 'Siri' was enrolled in an opioid-assisted drug rehabilitation programme in Norway when she discovered that she was sixth months pregnant. She informed the staff immediately, and within 24 hours she was – voluntarily – on her way to a closed ward. She felt that firm limits were needed. After arrival she was shocked to find that doors and windows were locked, surveillance was extensive,...

Veteran BBC broadcaster Paul Gambaccini has been arrested as part of a wider British inquiry set up to examine sexual abuse stemming from claims against late presenter Jimmy Savile. The US-born radio and TV presenter, 64, confirmed his arrest in a statement but denied the allegations. He was released on bail following his arrest on Tuesday, which the BBC had previously refused to confirm. The BBC said the DJ would not be presenting his weekly radio show for "coming weeks".

Excerpt: Yes, you can get a ticket for driving while wearing the new eyewear-like Google Glass wearable computer, which is now being tested nationwide for possible entry into the consumer market. Cecilia Abadie, 44, who lives in Temecula and works at a golf store in San Diego, got just such a ticket Tuesday night after being stopped for speeding by a California Highway Patrol officer. Quickly, Abadie posted a note on the Internet: "A cop just stopped me and gave me a ticket for wearing Google Glass while driving! ... Is Google Glass illegal while driving or is this cop...

If you followed the recent goings-on in Washington this past month, you are aggravated. I understand. This has been a frustrating time for me, and for anybody who wants to see our country on a sustainable fiscal path. After almost three weeks in shutdown mode, Congress extended government funding and raised the debt ceiling by several hundred billion dollars with nothing to show for it - no reforms that rein in our country's deficits and debt, no spending constraints, no changes whatsoever. While this result is disappointing, I hope we will see a more fruitful outcome in December as members...

A divided appeals court panel sided Friday with Ohio business owners who challenged the birth control mandate under the new federal health care law. The business owners are two brothers, Francis and Philip M. Gilardi, who own Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics of Sidney, Ohio., and challenged the mandate on religious grounds. They say the mandate to provide contraceptive coverage would force them to violate their Roman Catholic beliefs and moral values by providing contraceptives such as the morning-after pill for their employees. The law already exempts houses of worship from the requirement. The ruling by a three-judge panel of...

A member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council is under fire for tweeting that America is “an Islamic country.” After a Twitter user asked Mohamed Elibiary on Thursday to “show me just ONE example of an Islamic country where non Muslims are treated with equality,” he responded with the controversial tweet, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon: “America and yes I do consider the United States of America an Islamic country with an Islamically compliant constitution. Move On!” The back-and-forth between Mr. Elibiary and the Twitter user, who identified himself as Tim Lee, started when...

Now that the federal debt and spending cans have been kicked down the road until after the first of the year, a number of people have contacted me to see if the recent showdown will be repeated when the next days of reckoning occur. In this case, while history might rhyme, knowledgeable insiders are predicting that this fall’s walk up to the precipice is not likely to be duplicated. There will be a spending showdown of a kind – but the debt ceiling fight should be entirely different. Some of the reasons this is the case are mundanely political. Others...

[LA Times title and SUBTITLE on paper's website front page: Chaos follows LAX shooting - Anti-government sentiment may be motive for attack __________________________________________________ A composed, solitary gunman shot his way into Los Angeles International Airport on Friday morning, killing a transit security screener and injuring at least one more before being wounded by police and taken into custody. The incident was over in less than 10 minutes but caused chaos at the world's sixth-busiest airport and disrupted thousands of flights across the nation. The suspected gunman was identified as Paul Anthony Ciancia, 23, a New Jersey native who lives in...

Think canines are the only four-legged creatures that can hold down jobs? Think again.

It’s astonishing and a little horrifying that America’s elites know so little about their country’s history. Case in point: Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. Jared is an influential left-ish economic polemicist and a sometime adviser to Barack Obama on economic affairs.....On Monday night, I told Larry Kudlow about the story of the first Thanksgiving.I explained that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of abundance after a period of socialism and starvation. It seems Bernstein never heard about this chapter in U.S. history; he called it an “exercise in revisionist history.” Admitting that he had never read the memoirs...

[...] [P]aramedic Aram Bronston, 43, of Santa Rosa said that his “heart sank” when a friend told him the deputy involved in the shooting was [Deputy Erick] Gelhaus.... [...] About eight years ago, Bronston was struggling on the shoulder of Highway 101 in south Santa Rosa with a woman who was distraught over her brother's death and became “verbally and physically abusive.” [...] Gelhaus drove up to the scene as the woman began running into traffic, pulling Bronston with her, he said. Gelhaus “grabbed me by my shirt — with cars literally two inches from hitting me — and pulled...

The FBI is not conducting a full, independent investigation into the death of a teenage boy who was shot by a sheriff's deputy last week, but instead offering local police “support,” several local law enforcement leaders said this week. The stance is an apparent reversal from the bureau's notice last week, when its agents told command staff at the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office and Santa Rosa Police Department that the agency would conduct its own investigation of the Oct. 22 shooting death of Andy Lopez, looking for potential violations of federal civil rights laws. [...] The FBI's role in the...

Via the questioning of Chuck Todd during Friday’s White House press briefing: (VIDEO-AT-LINK) We’re compiling data. You can’t — you need to verify it and make it accurate. Obviously the challenges in doing that have been exacerbated by the difficulties with the website. … I suppose that somebody could provide a rough estimate, but the point is you want to get accurate information when you release it publicly. If the purpose of this line of questioning, which I know is of fierce interest to those who never wanted affordable health insurance available to the American people to begin with, is...

As a large wooden shrine sprung up Friday in the southwest Santa Rosa lot where a sheriff's deputy killed Andy Lopez last week, an attorney for the teen's family outlined the framework of a federal civil rights lawsuit the family intends to file next week. Arnoldo Casillas, the attorney representing the Lopez family, said the Oct. 22 shooting was unconstitutional because it violated the Fourth Amendment's limits on police authority. The family will file a lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco contending that Deputy Erick Gelhaus shot Lopez “without reasonable cause,” Casillas said in a statement. The...