While we might have grown somewhat used to stories of piracy on the open seas, those events usually take place in some isolated part of the Indian Ocean or off the coast of Africa. But a story is now emerging that we may be seeing the first example of piracy in European waters. According to the stories a Maltese flagged ship sailed through the English Channel but never made it to Gibraltar. The story also indicates...

A new Marist poll indicates President Barack Obama is starting to lose independent voter support. It has some good news for Obama: his overall approval rating numbers ( 55 percent of registered voters) has remain largely unchanged. And he continues to have solid support (90 percent) from Democrats. But as President George Bush’s two terms in office indicated, a President is not in a strong position if...

Keep screaming over each other, citizens! We can save America — one insult at a time.

The eulogies for Eunice Shriver as a tireless humanitarian bring to light again the story of a forgotten Kennedy, Rosemary, who was diagnosed as mentally retarded and, at the age of 23, underwent a lobotomy and spent the rest of her life in an institution. When JFK was on his way to the presidency, no one talked publicly about a sibling who did not fit into the picture of a large family of healthy, active achievers,...

There comes a time when the Obama Administration has to show it’s really serious about changing the way Wall Street operates. That time has arrived. And the key decision in this regard involves a new wave of bonuses that banks are planning to give their best “producers” — on top of the $1 million-plus bonuses that more than 5,000 of these Wall Streeters got last year during the great market...

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the younger sister of the late President John F. Kennedy who founded the Special Olympics and promoted it to the very depths of her soul, has died at 88. As someone who used to write obituaries as part of my stint as a staff reporter on two newspapers (the old Wichita Eagle in Wichita, Kansas and the San Diego Union in San Diego, CA) I know full well the “boilerplate” obits...

Just something to relax you when the well meaning debates get a bit heated.

A riot among predominately Latino and black inmates Saturday night at a medium security prison in Chino, Calif., injured 250 in which 17 remained in hospitals this morning. All were inmates in the 11-hour melee which razed one dormitory in flames and seriously damaged another six. The riot turns the spotlight on the California penal system which the Los Angeles Times contends is the most overcrowded in the nation....

In debating the subject of cash for clunkers I recently heard talk show host Tom Sullivan make some interesting comments. One point he made was the fact that the program is probably not really helping with the people it was intended to help. The theoretical goal of the program is to get polluting cars off the road and to get people into cars that are in better condition. The problem is that while the program...

Watching these town hall battles — which seem to have settled into a stasis as supporters of health reform have decided to show up finally — has convinced me of one thing: Obama is winning this August health care battle. No, his ideas aren’t necessarily winning plaudits among various elements of elite political commentary. Nor are skeptics necessarily embracing any of the five broad proposals...

A couple of weeks ago, Time Magazine’s cover story was “The Final days of Bush and Cheney.” It was a fascinating, intimate look at what TIME’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel himself describes as “The tale of the rift between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney…an inside look at the complex relationship that shaped so much of this decade.” The special report also tells us “why...

The government wanted to reanimate the auto industry. It allocated billions to car makers to help them produce more energy efficient vehicles. This might reduce our dependence on wasteful polluting vehicles in a few years, or it might not. Just by offering cash for clunkers, however, within one week tens of thousands of inefficient gas guzzlers were replaced on our roads by more efficient, less polluting cars. The...

Several weeks ago, about 425 active and retired employees of The San Diego Union-Tribune were asked in an email newsletter they publish what they would do if they were dictator for a day. Naturally, most of the replies were humorous. Allow me to don the imperial crown for a moment. I would tell the demonstrators disrupting town hall meetings with their elected representatives on the proposed health care reform...

When Rupert immigrated to the USA and began/ continued buying up newspapers and media outlets like a hungry Jabba, and especially when he bought up the venerable Wall Street Journal, he threw around a lot of words saying ‘Ah, open access for all’… his properties would be open content, no fees for most anything except expert financial reports. But, Rupert has changed his mind today and wants...

I wrote my living will yesterday rather than posting my column. It served a myriad of purposes, the least of which gave the gatekeeper a day off fending those slings and arrows from both extremes of the political spectrum picking apart my prose and carrying on about stuff I didn’t write nor intend but rather squabbling among themselves over some intangible twist introduced by gremlins commenting on that...

They’re up, they’re down, and they’re all over the place depending upon who is doing the polling. And sadly they are completely meaningless. They reflect a fickle, highly divided and generally ignorant public that has the attention span of an American Idol Judge. Meaningless poll questions about strongly or slightly disagreeing or agreeing with some pre-formulated simplistic positions, constitute a...

The Senate has voted 68-31 to confirm the nomination of Sonia Sotmayor to the Supreme Court Republicans voted 31-9 against the nomination while Democrats voted 59-0 in favor. Senator Kennedy did not vote. By comparison the Democrats votes 22-22 on the Roberts nomination and 41-3 against the Alito nomination, so the GOP falls somewhere in between those two votes. I am quite sure though we will see the various...

The last few weeks there has been a lot of debate and discussion over the town hall meetings and the disruptions of those meetings by those upset over the health care proposals. I certainly agree with Joe that both sides need to lighten up a little bit. I’m a big fan of free speech but I do think that some of the protesters have gone a little bit overboard in their efforts to disrupt these events. At the...

Former Congressman William Jefferson has been found guilty on 11 of the 16 charges against him, likely sending him to prison. Jefferson lost his heavily Democratic district in an upset last year.

The propaganda wheels are spinning in overdrive as former President Bill Clinton returns from his North Korea journey with released hostages, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. The New York Times in its NEWS report SPECULATED in its FIRST paragraph that Clinton’s successful mission opens the door for fruitful negotiations between the two countries over the nuclear weapons issue. John Bolton, a senior...

Way back in January, 2009, I started posting on the F-22 Raptor program, on how, “One of the first weapon systems-related decisions the Obama administration will have to make is whether to purchase additional Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptors, after the last one of a 183 aircraft order has been delivered.” Already back then, the F-22 issue, and those of related weapon systems, such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,...

I was watching video clips of Republican congressmen criticizing the ever-popular “cars for clunkers” program and it got me thinking. Here is one scenario: If there is anything Americans love most, it’s their cars and bargaining a good deal buying one. The government’s auto stimulus program plays right into that emotional bonding by offering up to $4,500 credit for trading in their old...

Since you all never seem to be able to get enough of me and my endless supply of wit, I’ll be the guest on The Ed Morrissey show today, starting shortly at 3 pm ET. Just follow the link and be sure to register for a free user account at uStream if you don’t have one already if you want to chat. After that, at 4 pm ET, I’ll be cohosting as usual at Betty Jo Tucker’s Movie Addict Headquarters,...

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has announced he will oppose the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. McCain indicated that he felt she was too much of a judicial activist. Since he voted against her nomination to the Appeals Court in 1998 this is at least a consistent decision. What impact it will have on his re-election campaign next year is unclear. On the one hand the move could help calm...

It’s not hard to understand why some supporters of the Democratic majority are in such a hurry to push through a massive health care reform bill before everyone has a chance to weigh in and gain some consensus. Rasmussen has finished yet another round of polling which indicates that a significant majority of Americans don’t really feel that we’re hovering in the range of third world nations...