Politics

Israel Hits Hezbollah Bases in Lebanon

Israel Hits Hezbollah Bases in Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli warplanes struck Hezbollah in southern Lebanon late Tuesday, threatening to re-ignite another Arab-Israeli front that has been mostly calm for years. Israel said it was retaliating for a Hezbollah attack that killed one Israeli soldier and wounded another a day earlier, and said the attacks were intended as a message to Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.

Proposals Push Spending Beyond Budget
President Bush last night proposed an ambitious package of domestic spending that will drive up discretionary expenditures far more rapidly than his recent predecessors. The State of the Union initiatives that he wants passed this year include more spending for the Department of Education, a new assistance fund to help manufacturers recover from their recession and funding for a major, long-term expansion of NASA's space budget.

Abolish NASA
Neither the President nor supporters of this revamped NASA space program have come up with any real justification for continuing a multi-billion dollar boondoggle other than saying that it is our destiny to explore the solar system and beyond (see Donald Lambro’s Washington Times commentary). As that appears to be the only reason to continue funding NASA, taxpayers should demand that the whole program be abolished to reduce the federal budget deficit. $15.4 billion and Rising to ... $50 billion?

US Base on the Moon
Our base-mad administration now wants to establish a "research base" on the moon by 2020, or so the President proclaimed yesterday. It makes a certain sense actually. At our present pace, the United States will by then have established military bases -- as Chalmers Johnson indicates below – on just about every possible space left on our planet.

Spending Bill Fails Senate Hurdle
WASHINGTON -- In a preview of election-year battles to come, U.S. Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday failed to break an impasse over a massive spending bill needed to complete budget work left unfinished from last year.

Bush's Claims are Just Part of the Story
An analysis published last month by the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute called the Iraq war "a strategic error of the first order" and "a detour" from defeating the main threat to America's security: al-Qaeda terrorists.

The Real Size of the Military Budget
When President Bush signed the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2004 on November 24, 2003, the event received considerable attention in the news media. At $401.3 billion, the public's visible cost of funding the nation's defense seemed to be reaching astronomical heights, and the president took pains to justify that enormous cost by linking it to the horrors of 9/11 and to the “war on terror.” He pledged that “we will do whatever it takes to keep our nation strong, to keep the peace, and to keep the American people secure,” clearly implying that such payoffs would accrue from the expenditures and other measures that the act authorizes.

Army Faults Its Treatment of Reserve Troops
WASHINGTON - Seeking to avert an exodus of part-time soldiers, the chief of the U.S. Army Reserve on Tuesday faulted the Army's treatment of reservists and proposed to give them a firmer notion of when they may be plucked from civilian life for active duty. Army Reserve soldiers have complained about getting very little notice before being summoned to active duty, repeated mobilizations, and equipment shortfalls.

Return Of The Dixiecrats?
Changing From A Donkey To A Rooster
The results of this fall's elections in the South, combined with the results from the 2002 elections, show a Democratic Party in a state of rapid decline. All the gains they've made from 1998 have been pretty much wiped out with the only exception being in Louisiana (Democrat Kathleen Blanco won the governor's race). But all that shows is the Pelican State is unique in Dixie for having a large group of soft partisan white voters in the Cajuns that helped Blanco get elected.

Gephardt Quits Second Run for White House
ST. LOUIS -- Democrat Dick Gephardt abandoned his second bid for the presidency Tuesday, delivering a political valedictory after some three decades of public service while putting his home state of Missouri up for grabs in the competitive primary race.

Martha Stewart Pleads Not Guilty
NEW YORK -- A color-coordinated Martha Stewart quietly pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to securities fraud charges that could land her in jail, while prospective jurors were quizzed behind closed doors by a judge worried that their privacy not be violated by the high-profile case.

Lawyers Begin Picking Martha Stewart Jury
NEW YORK - One by one, potential jurors took a seat across from Martha Stewart and answered questions from lawyers trying to decide which 12 will decide her fate in a stock-fraud trial.

Posted by Editor at January 21, 2004 04:43 AM