Clearly, President Obama is playing a nasty political game with the air-traffic controller furloughs that have forced severe airline delays across the country.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday defended the U.S. mission in Afghanistan as a week of deadly anti-American protests and the killing of two U.S. service members pushed Democrats to challenge President Barack Obama's policy.
With the attention of lawmakers focused squarely on reducing the nation's debt, Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Wednesday defended his department's request for a budget increase in fiscal 2012.
Republicans in the House think federal belt-tightening needs to start with Congress and the White House itself. On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee will vote on a fiscal year 2012 government-operations appropriations bill that trimmed 5 percent from the Executive Office of the President. President Obama had originally sought to pump up his personal budget by $34 million, showing once more how out of touch he has become in these tough economic times.
Several lawmakers said Tuesday that it is time to rethink U.S. aid to Pakistan in light of revelations that Osama bin Laden spent the past six years squirreled away in a safe house a mere football field away from one of country's top military academies and miles from the capital of Islamabad.
The head of Iran's central bank warned that oil prices will rise above $150 a barrel if economic sanctions against the Islamic theocracy are not lifted soon.
The Pentagon is being urged to move its counterterrorism operations from Yemen across the Gulf of Aden to Djibouti should the government in Sanaa fall.
Capitol Hill insiders say at least 75 percent of lawmakers privately still think earmarking is a correct and proper use of congressional authority. Yet last week, one of the Senate's champion earmarkers, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, hammered home the nail that officially ended the practice — at least for the time being.
!["Cutting the [U.N.] budget is not enough, because you need to reform the monster, you need to reform the beast, and if you don't get fundamental reform, you are still rewarding a corrupt, mismanaged agency," said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. (Associated Press)](http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/01/17/20110117-203128-pic-111362932_s75x100.jpg?39f80c4dafcd216722f9e372cdcc83b66d6a3ae8)
The new Republican majority in the House is poised to revive some old battles over the U.S. government's financial contribution to the United Nations, vowing once again to use the power of America's purse to force what it calls needed reforms at the world body.
