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Donald Trump said on Friday he plans to announce his nominee for a forthcoming vacancy on the supreme court on 9 July – a lightning-quick move to replace the retiring swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81. Speaking aboard Air Force One en route to his private golf club in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, the president announced that he has five finalists, including two women, out of the shortlist of 25 names that had been previously circulated. Speaking to reporters on the plane from Washington DC, Trump said he may interview one or two contenders for the nomination this weekend...

It's just after midnight in Bagdad, and while the final number may change, the preliminary number of coalition fatalities in Iraq for December 2007 is 22, down from 40 in November - which was itself a month hailed as unusually quiet in Iraq. While each, of course, is tragic, coalition fatalities of 22 would be the lowest monthly total since the war began.

WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - A recent decline in U.S. news coverage from Iraq coincides with improved public opinion about the war just as the 2008 presidential campaign heads to an early showdown, a study released on Wednesday said. The study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism said the volume of coverage from Iraq fell from 8 percent of all news stories in the first six months of 2007 to 5 percent between June and October due mainly to a decline in news accounts of daily attacks. The falloff coincided with a 14 percentage point climb...

The first month of fiscal 2008 was a success for all active and reserve military components. In a meeting with Pentagon reporters today, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said all components met or exceeded their recruiting and accession goals for October. On the active-duty side, the Army made 101 percent of its goal of 4,500, with 4,564 recruits. The Navy made 100 percent of its goal of 2,788 recruits. The Marine Corps made 102 percent of its goal of 2,720, with 2,788 enlisting. The Air Force made 100 percent of its goal of 2,656.

IT is whispered about at the margins of meetings, and discussed in Washington parties where rumour is passed around with the wine and canapes. It even appears, fleetingly, to be fact. "The day nobody died from violence in Iraq"

I'll keep this short and bitter. Every god damned blue state senator who failed to sign on to the Alito filibuster MUST be fought in the primaries and replaced. The Democratic party has failed the rank and file members. It is time to take back the Democratic party from the right wing, loser hacks who have been fumblingly, failingly controlling it and the candidates put forward. I can't believe how many people tell me that they believe the DLC and right wing democrats are really Republican operators. IN the OpEdNews.com/Zogby people's poll I just ran in Pennsylvania, about 29% of...

DEAN UNDER FIRE FROM PARTY DEMS; NEARLY ALL CASH SPENT Mon Jan 30 2006 10:52:31 ET Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are privately bristling over Howard Dean’s management of the Democratic National Committee and have made those sentiments clear after new fundraising numbers showed he has spent nearly all the committee’s cash and has little left to support their efforts to gain seats this cycle, ROLL CALL reports. Congressional leaders were furious last week when they learned the DNC has just $5.5 million in the bank, compared to the Republican National Committee’s $34 million. Senate and House Minority Leaders Harry...

Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) failed today to address rumors that Nevada Senator Harry Reid will step down next month as Senate Minority Leader. Reid has been stung by revelations that his political action committee (PAC) accepted more than $60,000 in contributions from Indian tribes linked to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Appearing on CNN's Late Edition, Biden avoided discussing either the Reid situation or any upcoming changes in Senate Democratic leadership. Reid is no stranger to scandal, having been the subject of a 1979 Justice Department probe into allegations that Reid — then Nevada Gaming Commission chairman — had received bribes...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John Kerry has decided to support a filibuster to block the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, CNN's Congressional Correspondent Ed Henry reported Thursday. Kerry, in Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum, was marshaling support in phone calls during the day, Henry said.</p>

WASHINGTON - President Bush should reform the corrupted politics of the nation's capital to provide honest leadership for Americans, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Saturday. Republicans "have absolute power, and it has corrupted their party and led to the culture of corruption that we now have in Washington, D.C.," the Nevada senator said in the weekly Democratic radio address. "It is time now for the president to put an end to this pattern of deceit." From national security policy to energy legislation, Reid criticized the GOP administration on multiple fronts. He took particular aim at the Medicare prescription drug...

John Kerry -- POLITICS: The election may have ended more than a year ago, but someone forgot to tell John Kerry. Michael Crowley talks to the Democrats who wish he'd just go away ...There was just one problem: John Kerry. Without checking with his party’s leaders, Kerry scheduled his own response to Bush, which was to take place at 11 A.M., precisely the time that Reed was scheduled to respond. In Senate strategy meetings, mild panic ensued. ...Rather than make way for Reed, though, Kerry agreed to appear with him at a joint press event. Plenty of Democrats predicted what...

Reprinted from NewsMax.comFriday, Jan. 20, 2006 5:19 p.m. ESTMolly Ivins: I Won't Back Hillary "I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.” With that pronouncement, liberal syndicated columnist Molly Ivins begins a blistering column that castigates Hillary and the Democratic Party for failing to take a strong stand on a variety of issues important to liberals like her. Et tu, Brute? "Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone,” Ivins writes in her column on CNN.com. "Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable...

**** Sen. Hillary Clinton's plantation speech earns her an A-plus in racial politics and a F-minus in presidential acumen. James Ring Ossining ***** Just when we thought Harry Belafonte and Sens. Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer had created the all-time low points in public spectacles....... Her hostile and vitriolic plantation-politics speech was all about her, not him. This aging generation of frustrated Democrats and their decades of self-serving agendas gave America 9/11. I have a dream that there might be a few young and inspiring voices in the Democratic Party who will find the courage to tell these egotistical, morally...

VANCOUVER, January 17, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new poll conducted by Angus Reid for CBS News has revealed that the overwhelming majority of Americans would like to see greater restrictions placed on abortion. Thirty-three percent of respondents said that abortion should be permitted only in cases such as rape, incest and to save the woman’s life; 17% said abortion should be allowed to save a woman’s life; 5% said abortion should not be permitted at all, while 15% said abortion should be permitted, but subject to greater restrictions than it is now. In total, 70% of respondents favour greater restrictions....

Editor's note: The State Hornet received this letter via e-mail from the State Treasurer's office last Thursday. In the interest of fairness, you can view the Governor's stances on the special election propositions here. Dear Editor: From the day he took office, Governor Schwarzenegger started bringing the Bush agenda to California, dragging our state down the path of debt, division and diminished opportunity. Just like President Bush, who promised to be a "compassionate conservative," Governor Schwarzenegger told Californians he was a different kind of Republican. But Schwarzenegger's special election has exposed the Bush agenda that has always lurked beneath the...

January 31, 2005 -- WHEN the British ul tra-liberals in the pre- Tony Blair Labor Party published their lengthy election manifesto in the late 1980s, the radical document so explicitly spelled out their defiance of English public opinion that a Tory politician called it "the longest suicide note in history." Now, in choosing their new national leader, the Democratic Party is publishing a much more succinct suicide note. It reads "Chairman Howard Dean." There is a school of thought among Democrats that by embracing policies and programs deeply at variance with what most Americans think will enhance the party's electoral...

WASHINGTON (AP)- President Bush is getting good marks on the economy from a clear majority of the public at a time when consumer confidence has risen to its highest levels since early 2002, an Associated Press poll finds. People are increasingly optimistic about the economy in the next six months and feeling more secure about their jobs, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs. The uptick in Bush's rating comes on an issue certain to be central to the 2004 presidential campaign. In all, 55 percent of registered voters said they approve of Bush's handling of...