The withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from within Iraqi cities is not going too well. Whether it’s a language translation of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement or grandstanding by the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is unclear. U.S. commanders are complaining their hands are tied defending themselves from attacks by Shiite militias or Sunni insurgents. Skeptics, both those who opposed the war and those who warned the phased pullout would backfire, are both right,...

As President Obama’s personal popularity sinks to the 50-yard line, his landmark climate change and healthcare bills in deep doo doo, the stimulus bill tied up in bureaucratic knots and his continual flummoxing over Bush Administration torture and secret CIA operations, one thing remains certain. The public has an insatiable thirst for the guy. It ranges from the fanatical extreme right fringe which went ballistic over his elder daughter wearing a T-shirt sporting a 1960s peace symbol that...

If we are to believe U.S. intelligence officials that a plan to train assassination teams to strike Al-Qaeda leaders overseas including allied countries — a plan rejected for the most part and never operational — then I say more power to them. Keep in mind these plans work terrific in movies and Tom Clancy novels but rarely in the real world. The wrinkle is Central Intelligence Agency officials never briefed Congressional leaders at the direction of Vice President Dick Cheney, another...

This is without a doubt, swear on a stack of Bibles, the last article I will post on the announced soon-to-be resignation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — until she actually contributes something of value to national politics. This is not a political obituary for she shall return as certainly as Gen. MacArthur promised, a chap she fondly quoted recently. I take Sarah Palin for what she is. A former beauty queen, mother of five children, an ambitious politician in the tiny confines of Wasilla and...

Americans are an impatient lot. They demand instant gratification. That is why sodium-saturated frozen meals are microwaved in minutes and cholesterol-rich fast food restaurants so popular. When Americans apply this mentally imbalanced approach to solving our nation’s economic ills, they demonstrate a side of themselves that is at best naive and worst ignorant. So it comes as no surprise that President Barack Obama or his ghost writers offered The Washington Post an op-ed article the paper...

House committees are expected to introduce their versions of healthcare reform measures Monday. A public option of government-pooled coverage competing with private carriers is included in the consoldated bill that would extend insurance to the estimated 45 million uninsured and underinsured. That in itself will add to the spiraling increase of health costs now reaching $2 trillion annually. Avoiding serious discussion, as far as I can tell, is an industry peer review aimed at lowering costs of unnecessary...

Sorry, PETA, I find this traffic-stopping story from Reuters a riot. UPDATE – A drunken Englishman passes out (pardon the pun) thousands of cash Euros at an airport in Spain that would have caused a riot if he didn’t smell so bad. It reminds us that the world is an intoxicating experience, seen through the glass, darkly. You think I’m kidding? Booze is making a comeback to lure men to go shopping. Newsweek’s Tony Dokoupil reports. Badgers, Englishmen and now the market place...

It seems the Russian office girls, taking a cigarette break, admire Michelle Obama not for her taste in fashion but her interest in gardening. It illustrates the cultural divide between Washington and Paris — where the media goggles over how well she fits into her sheik wardrobe — and Moscow — where wives don’t outshine their husbands. And, on this trip to Moscow where her husband is trying to mend fences with the Russian president and prime minister, she isn’t. On this...

If I were South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, I would stroll down to the store, select a Hallmark card and mail it to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying “Thank you, thank you, thank you for getting me off Page One and the cable news networks.” Or, as Maureen Dowd in her Sunday column in The New York Times wrote: “As Alaskans settled in to enjoy holiday salmon bakes and the post-solstice thaw, their governor had a solipsistic meltdown so strange it made Sparky Sanford look like a model...

My first reaction was shock… until reality stepped in. Sarah Palin says she will resign her post as governor of Alaska at the end of July. Nothing this woman does surprises me anymore. It took about a nanosecond for the pundits and second guessers to opine on her future from the cable channels to websites and Twitter. I haven’t a clue what she plans to do, if anything. She’s that flighty. I doubt she will disappear from the frozen tundra. It’s not in her DNA. She worked hard...

On the surface, it is extremely suspicious the New York Times news pages are working in concert with the Obama Administration’s initial steps towards immigration reform: A kinder, gentler approach in stark contrast to those employee raids conducted by the junior George Bush. I’ll use the link to the story and you can decide for yourself. What I do know is that Obama’s approach to sanction and fine employers and deport undocumented workers is the most reasonable one the government...

A rogue oil commodities broker was caught manipulating a spike in world oil prices forcing his company to eat $10 million in losses. The disclosure occurred Tuesday when the price of crude oil reached a year’s high $73.50 a barrel at a time when the U.S. posts its highest demand on gasoline for the summer vacation season. By Thursday oil prices fell to $66.50 a barrel, down almost 10 per cent from Tuesday’s peak. The unauthorized trading took place on the Brent oil market in Europe, one of...

We all get sucker punched by clever advertisements.This one is from Air New Zealand which headlines its latest ad of nude pilots and stewards in body paint in order to get passengers’ attention on safety precautions. Bummer. I demand a refund.

Have you even wondered as I have about the people who make Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Persons” list who are not politicians or household names? I confess it is oftentimes my favorite segment on his nightly show on MSNBC. Tuesday night Olbermann singled out a San Diego County sheriff’s deputy who he said maced and roughly threw to the ground and then handcuffed the hostess of an event at her home where a neighbor complained about loud noises. He made it sound the deputy over-reacted...

United States taxpayers are not happy campers when the subject of bank bailouts are discussed and I’m certain that perception will be bolstered by a story in today’s Washington Post that indicates Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) played a role in a bailout for a bank in which most of his life’s savings are invested. The upshot of the story indicates Inouye and his staff did nothing illegal but certainly pushed the envelope of favoritism on behalf of the senator’s vested interest....

Barring a miracle — I’d say a billion-to-one shot — the California legislature will not pass a budget by its constitutional deadline at midnight tomorrow forcing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pay bills by issuing IOU notes as he has vowed. The state’s Democratic-dominated Assembly late Sunday passed a series of tax fees in an effort to balance the budget’s $24 billion shortfall knowing full well the governor will veto the bill as he did a similar measure last year. And,...

I’m not buying the Republican bromide that passage of a revolutionary energy bill is nothing but a tax increase. Of course it will cost money for the transformation just as my first Apple computer cost $3,300 in the early 1980s and about a third of that in today’s market The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the average American household would pay an additional $175 a year in energy costs by 2020 as a result of the reform bill, while the poorest households would receive rebates...

Just follow the money. The opium fields in Afghanistan supply 93% of the world’s production of heroin and is the single largest revenue producer for that impoverished country’s gross national product, according to United Nations and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency reports. After the Soviets gave up and left Afghanistan, the Taliban destroyed the crops under the guise of religious purity and received millions of dollars from the United States and other countries for their efforts on the War...

As a parent, I would think Caroline Maria McNeal of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, wanted to do the very best for her daughter Brittany. Unfortunately, as school secretary at Huntingdon Area High School, she took it a step too far. The state attorney general Thursday filed 29 criminal complaints of unlawful use of a computer and 29 counts of unlawful altering of public records against McNeal involving improving her daughter’s test scores in a case dating back to 2007 when Brittany was a junior at...

I’ll let others proclaim the significance of Michael Jackson’s contributions to music and entertainment as the legendary “King of Pop.” I considered him weird. It was best described by Johnny Carson in an opening monologue of The Tonight Show years ago when the hometown Dodgers led the league in fielding errors. “What does the Dodger infield and Michael Jackson have in common?” Carson asked. “They all wear gloves on their left hand for no apparent reason.”