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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — A military jury on Sunday gave teen terrorist Omar Khadr a 40-year prison sentence for killing an American commando in Afghanistan, but the sentence was merely symbolic — the United States already had agreed to limit Khadr's prison time to eight years, and Canada last week said it would allow Khadr to serve the bulk of his sentence there. That agreement will allow Khadr to be released from prison by age 32, if not earlier under Canadian parole provisions. The Toronto-born Khadr also admitted that, in the days ahead of his capture, he planted...

One official told the Guardian that the bomb inside a computer printer discovered at East Midlands airport on Friday, en route from Yemen to Chicago, was "one of the most sophisticated we've seen … The naked eye won't pick it up, experienced bomb officers did not see it, x-ray screening is highly unlikely to catch it." "The package was examined and declared safe," said a Metropolitan police spokesman. "It was subsequently re-examined as a precaution." In a further development which added to concern over the ease with which the explosive material used in the devices - Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN...

On Election Day, voters standing in line to cast their ballots in Harris County, Tex., will be treated to a cool drink courtesy of a group called "the lemonade brigade." But the group has another motive: curbing voter fraud. It is one of several Republican and tea-party-affiliated groups across the country that are taking their citizen activism to the polls this year to stop what they think will be rampant abuse of the nation's error-prone election system. In Minnesota, for example,conservative groups are running radio ads and offering $500 rewards to those who turn in anyone successfully prosecuted for voter...

Rep. Tom Price of Georgia wrote Obama on behalf of the 115-member Republican Study Committee. The chairman of a major Republican congressional caucus is urging US President Barack Obama to oppose any UN effort to recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia wrote Obama on behalf of the 115-member Republican Study Committee on Thursday, asking the president to push back against reports suggesting that Palestinians are considering appealing to the UN rather than negotiating with Israel. "Any support for such a measure would create a serious barrier to peace between Israel and the Palestinians," the letter...

Midterm elections amid a lousy economy are usually bad for the President's party, but it looks as if a neutron bomb may detonate on Democrats in 2010. And one of the major reasons that this year shifted from ordinary losses to potential catastrophe is ObamaCare. This election is a referendum on an entitlement the public never wanted and continues to hate, as evidence from around the country is showing. Take almost any poll at random. Even this week's New York Times-CBS poll has repeal leading among likely voters, 47% to 43%. The latest Pew-National Journal survey shows that a majority...

TWO years ago, Barack Obama was a global political hero, the living symbol of hope in a troubled age. Today, optimism has turned to ashes. Taxpayers are furious to see unemployment soaring despite his vow to use $700bn (£440bn) of their cash to create new jobs. "Yes, We Can" is now a discredited slogan. With elections just five days off, the verdict is: "No, He Can't."

Nearly 60 percent of Montana voters disapprove of the job President Barack Obama is doing, according to a Montana State University Billings poll released Friday. Only about 32 percent of those surveyed like how the president is carrying out his duties. The poll also found that among statewide voters: Forty-nine percent said they planned to vote for the Republican candidate in their state House of Representatives race. About 35 percent said they would vote for the Democratic candidate. Nearly 61 percent opposed health care reform legislation enacted into federal law this year. About 27 percent supported it.

As the midterms loom, the President is facing annihilation at the ballot box. Tariq Ali examines how the promise of Obama's election campaign has been so dramatically lost. As the midterms rapidly approach, the beleaguered US President's ratings are in steep decline, putting him on the defensive with little to offer his supporters except fine words. Those supporters have been voicing their discontent on the television networks but, much more seriously, are likely to punish Obama by staying at home and ignoring the ballot box on Tuesday. Two years later Obamania is also on the decline in Europe. Rarely has...

Link only -- 69 charts in pdf -- a lot of very interesting information.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters think a free market economy is better than an economy managed by the government. There is also a strong belief that more competition and less regulation would be better for the economy and job creation.

I predict a Republican victory of tsunami proportions on November 2nd. For the last six months in various public forums, I have said that Republicans will take both the House and Senate. Why would intelligent voters leave the Democratic Party that they endorsed so heavily two years ago in the 2008 presidential election? The reason is obvious - deep, deep disappointment in the record of President Obama.

The Obama administration's foreclosure-prevention effort has been ineffective in tackling the foreclosure crisis, the watchdog for the federal bank bailouts said Monday. Neil Barofsky said Treasury officials are falsely claiming that the program has helped more than 1.3 million homeowners, even though fewer than half of them have received permanent changes to their mortgages through the government's plan. Barofsky, the inspector general for the $700 billion Wall Street rescue, said Treasury claims it has "helped" everyone who entered the program -- even those who later fell out. The administration "is either hopelessly out of touch, or it's really a cynical...

"Today Barbara is in a tough election," he (Obama) said, "even though the choice should be easy, because there's only one candidate in this race who has spent her career fighting for California's families, and that is Barbara Boxer." "We have to have Barbara back in the Senate," Obama said.

Op-ed: As elections loom, US president losing support of once - sympathetic voters In the last elections campaigns, it was possible to point to a political gender-based gap. While men tended to vote Republican, women tended to vote Democrat. Yet the recent polls show that the female vote is also shifting to the Right. Some 52% of women still support the Democrats, yet this marks a sharp drop in the face of the masculine zeal to topple the Left, and Obama knows it. Hence, his West Coast trip is dedicated to meetings with women and efforts to boost two female...

Out on the campaign trail Barack Obama has given us his analysis of why his party is headed for significant losses in the election nine days hence. "Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now," said the president for whom politics did not seem so tough in 2008, "and facts and science and argument do not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared. And the country's scared." In other words, the voters can't see straight. But maybe it's the Obama Democrats who...

More than an hour into today's presidential rally at USC, actor Jamie Foxx led the crowd chant of "We're not exhausted." It's not much of a rallying cry. But for much of the crowd of 37,500, it wasn't even true. Attendees were made to stand in line for hours before being subjected to too many speakers and too much Ozomatli. By the time Jerry Brown hit the stage, he had to apologize for even being there. "I'm not going to talk too long," he said, drawing a chorus of cheers. By the time Obama took the stage -- at 2:05...

Understanding this year's big midterm election isn't so hard after all.Two numbers from a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll - 46 and 48 - tell you all you need to know. The first is the percentage of voters who think the health-care overhaul was a bad idea, which shows how that legislative achievement has never become the asset Democrats hoped. Instead, for some Democrats at least, the milestone has become more of a millstone. The Republican narrative holds that the Democrats have led the country on a big-government, big-spending binge that imperils its future.

With just a fortnight to go until the November 2nd midterms, the political outlook for the Obama presidency looks increasingly grim. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs may claim the midterms are about "local issues," but the American public clearly disagrees. As the latest Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll shows, "69% of voters are saying their vote is a signal to the president, compared with 59% who said so in 2006 about then-President George W. Bush, the year Democrats took control of Congress." The forthcoming elections are overwhelmingly a referendum on Obama's policies, his leadership, and his Big Government...

Three potential 2012 Republican presidential contenders tested their messages Saturday in the San Joaquin Valley, mixing patriotism with attacks on President Barack Obama and the political left for an appreciative crowd at the Bakersfield Business Conference. Obama and the majority Democrats in Congress were criticized as being anti-growth and anti-investment. They were vilified for building a "nanny state" that discourages innovation and encourages people to look to government to pick them up. Obama, in particular, was criticized for apologizing to the world for the nation's actions under former President George W. Bush. They also blamed Obama for creating the worst...

A homeowner shot and killed an intruder before dawn yesterday in Victorville, according to San Bernardino County sheriff's officials. "The male suspect had broken into the residence while the occupants slept," according to the statement. "They were alerted to the intruder by their dogs. "The suspect attacked the homeowner with a caustic material. The homeowner, fearing for his safety and the safety of his family, shot the suspect."