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Transportation Safety Administration chief John Pistole and several senators from both parties defended the new, enhanced airport security screening procedures as necessary in the face of a persistent and evolving terrorist threat in a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Pistole, calm and confident in the face of an increasing public outcry against the procedures, talked extensively about the repercussions of last year's attempted Christmas Day bombing being the impetus for the enhanced screenings before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, TSA's oversight committee. "We know the terrorists' intent is still there," Pistole testified. "We are using technology and protocols...

Arizona has attracted more than $3.6 million of donations to help defend its law to crack down on illegal immigration, with one whopping contribution—and thousands of smaller ones—from out of state. Timothy Mellon, an heir to a Pittsburgh steel and banking dynasty, has donated $1.5 million to a legal-defense fund established by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, according to the governor's office. Mr. Mellon, who is identified on a donor list as a Wyoming resident, is among more than 42,000 people who have contributed to the border state's legal battle for the right to enforce the law, which Arizona's legislature

Money donated from all across the spectrum and country to defend Arisona against the O-bum-a-loser administration.

Washington (CNN) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to end violence and discrimination against gays and lesbians at home and abroad Tuesday, as the Obama administration moves to extend further benefits to gays working in the federal government. "We are moving together in the right direction," said Clinton. "We reaffirm our commitment to protect the rights of all human beings." Clinton drew several standing ovations from the standing-room-only crowd of several hundred during her address at an event co-hosted by the State Department's Office of Civil Rights and GLIFAA, the organization for Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies....

WASHINGTON -- As a domestic policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan helped defend the veto of a measure that would have banned late-term abortions with few exceptions. Files handed over to Congress by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library reveal Kagan's role playing defense against a Republican Congress that was trying to place new limits on abortion rights.

With his lie about serving in Vietnam exposed, Connecticut Attorney General and Democratic Senate Candidate Richard Blumenthal went into major damage control mode today trying to explain why he has claimed he "served in Vietnam" when he did not. In a press conference not-so-coincidentally held at a Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall, Mr. Blumenthal surrounded himself with men who actually served in Vietnam, invoked his own son who is currently serving in the Marines and then tried to minimize his lie by stating, "Now on a few occasions, I have misspoken about my service and I regret that and I...

A blast from the past in regards to those who eagerly defend terrorists...And we are not allowed to scrutinize... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9kdgRDUu3U BTW: Stewart was disbarred and sent to prison for 26 months...The ACLU plague rat got off easy IMO.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – U.S. senators on Friday defended American drone aircraft strikes in ally Pakistan, an issue likely to become more volatile if Washington intensifies the attacks to hunt down enemies after the bombing of CIA agents in Afghanistan. Pakistan officially objects to the attacks on suspected al Qaeda and Taliban militants along its border with Afghanistan, saying they violate its sovereignty. And Islamabad has pushed Washington to provide it with the drones to allow it to carry out its own attacks on Taliban insurgents, a move that could ease widespread anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. "We don't agree on every...

Transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks speech given at BYU-Idaho on 13 October 2009. My dear young friends, I am pleased to speak to this BYU-Idaho audience. I am conscious that I am also speaking to many in other places. In this time of the Internet, what we say in one place is instantly put before a wider audience, including many to whom we do not intend to speak. That complicates my task, so I ask your understanding as I speak to a very diverse audience. In choosing my subject I have relied on an old military maxim that when...

Around the world, government-run health care is failing patients. Long waiting times, rationing or denying life-saving treatments and lower-quality care are common in government systems like Great Britain and Canada. Maybe that’s why major government systems are looking to the United States for innovations that make health care work better for everyone. Some policymakers in Congress want a public plan to “compete” with private health insurers. Everyone agrees that we can improve our health care system, but why would anyone expect government-run health care to work for patients in the United States when it doesn’t work for other countries? Click...

TORONTO (Reuters) – Former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton traded jokes about life after the Oval Office and took turns defending each other as they shared a stage in Toronto on Friday to discuss global affairs. In a sold-out event billed as their first conversation on stage since they left office, Bush and Clinton disagreed politely about a couple of issues, backed each other on others and refused to criticize anything current President Barack Obama was doing. Bush's vice president, Dick Cheney, has emerged as one of Obama's toughest critics and the staunchest defender of the Bush...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's top economic officials on Tuesday vigorously defended tax hikes in the administration's $3.6 trillion budget against Republican claims that they would affect nearly all Americans. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, in separate appearances on Capitol Hill, stuck to the administration line that the president's budget would benefit 95 percent of working Americans. Higher taxes for affluent Americans would not come until 2011 once "we are safely into recovery," Geithner told the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "I'm confident this is the right path for the country," Geithner said.

40 Days for Life consists of 40 days of prayer and fasting for an end to abortion, 40 days of constant, peaceful vigil outside abortion centers and Planned Parenthood offices and 40 days of active pro-life community outreach. Your community may be participating in this prayerful vigil. If so, please join others in your area or unite with thousands across America during the 40 days of Lent in praying for an end to abortion in this nation.

Our late colleague Jim Boulet last year unearthed the facts here and here and here on how the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) ‘localism' schemes could shut down or inhibit talk radio. Last Thursday, Ishmael Jones, nom de plume of a former officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) clandestine service, gave his take on the danger radio ‘localism' poses to free political speech in his American Thinker article "What the CIA's Censors Can Teach Us about Plans to Muzzle Talk Radio" here. Here is Ishmael Jones on this Administration and their possible ‘localism' approach to shutting down political speech on...

WASHINGTON - Senators told oil executives Wednesday that high oil prices cannot be explained by supply and demand and the oil industry's concentration — and OPEC price collusion — is contributing to the costs facing consumers. ADVERTISEMENT Executives of the five largest oil companies were appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said there's an unexplained "disconnect" between prices — at nearly $130 a barrel — and legitimate supply and demand. "We need to get prices under control.... We can only conclude that the oil markets have failed," said Sen. Herbert Kohl, D-Wis. But Shell Oil...

On November 18, in solidarity with the School of the Americas Watch vigil and protest at Ft. Benning Georgia, hundreds of people from around the country will gather at Fort Huachuca to continue the nonviolent witness against U.S. policy sanctioning torture. These are the supporters and followers of-- Fr. Louis Vitale, OFM, (75) and Fr. Stephen Kelly, SJ (54) were sentenced on Wednesday, October 17 to five months in prison for attempting to deliver a letter to then-commander Major General Barbara Fast at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, denouncing torture and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. October 17th is the first...

CHICAGO - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is running for president on her husband's White House record, and it's a strategy that cuts both ways. The New York senator and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, constantly remind voters of the nation's economic prosperity in the 1990s and his record on the environment, college aid and family medial leave. Press releases from the campaign often include sentences that start , "Under the Clinton administration ..." "Yesterday's news was pretty good," Bill Clinton said last month in Iowa while campaigning with his wife. But yesterdays' news isn't always easy to explain today....

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will continue to build up its defenses against the United States and Cubans should be prepared to make more sacrifices to remain independent, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said in an editorial published on Monday. In his commentary in the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma, the first time in a series of such articles that he has turned his attention directly to Cuban affairs, Castro called on Cubans to safeguard the island's socialist system against Havana's long-time ideological foe the United States. Castro, 80, has not been seen in public since undergoing emergency intestinal surgery in July...

WASHINGTON - Three of the five Supreme Court justices who handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 say they had no choice but to intervene in the Florida recount. Comments from Justice Anthony Kennedy and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor are in a new book that was published this week. Justice Antonin Scalia made his remarks Tuesday at Iona College in New York. Scalia, answering questions after a speech, also said that critics of the 5-4 ruling in Bush v. Gore need to move on six years after the electoral drama of December 2000, when it seemed the...

WASHINGTON - President Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday gives him a second chance to defend his new Iraq strategy to a nation soured on the war and a Congress poised to vote against the plan. It will be the president's last major opportunity to shape America's legislative agenda before the fast-moving 2008 presidential campaign begins to drown out his message. Bush is expected to strike a conciliatory tone on some domestic issues where he believes he can work with the first Democratic Congress in 12 years. On Iraq, he is expected to stand firm. The nationally televised...