

By Richard W. Rahn
Budget fantasy won't help us cope with coming fiscal disaster
Independent voices from the TWT Communities

Shrugging off widespread criticism of its college tuition cap proposal, the Obama administration mounted a public-relations blitz Monday to sell the plan to students and university leaders.

President Obama told some jokes and poked a little fun at himself as he addressed the Alfalfa Club dinner, an exclusive annual black-tie get-together of some of the capital's movers and shakers.
Armenian-Americans predict that Washington will be the next diplomatic battlefield after the French Parliament approved a bill that would make it a crime to deny that the Turkish massacre of Armenians during World War I was genocide.

The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to maneuver its way between its fierce anti-Israel ideology and the realities of governing as it ascends to leadership in Egypt for the first time in its history and faces the key question of how to deal with the country's peace treaty with the Jewish state.

Our national commentariat is twisted in an impossible yoga pose trying to compare anti-Bain Capital coverage to the famous 2004 "Swift Boat" ad campaign. The two situations are not close to analogous. I have a more-than-passing acquaintance with the Swift Boat ads - I helped produce them.
Hulu will broadcast its first original scripted series next month, a political comedy that will debut during the real-life Republican presidential primary.

The criticism of Mitt Romney is getting personal.

It's a dangerous world for U.S. diplomats. But the last thing a nation beset by the "ugly American" stereotype needs is ugly American embassies. The State Department is now promising to reconcile enhanced security with design in its aggressive new overseas building program. It's about time, say its critics.
The bumper sticker in 2004 read: "Dated Dean, Married Kerry."

Think about it: Mitt Romney and John F. Kerry are two Boston blue-blood multimillionaires, spending summers in their island estates and winters in their mountain mansions.
The United States is relying increasingly on three transit routes snaking through Central Asia, Russia and the Caucuses to ship nonmilitary supplies and fuel into Afghanistan as the deteriorating relationship between Washington and Pakistan closes off border crossings, according to a Senate report obtained by the Associated Press.
You've heard of tech companies starting in a Silicon Valley garage. What about on a ship?

South Sudan's president said Friday that his country is not arming rebels in two of Sudan's border states, from where more than 50,000 refugees have fled fighting in recent months, according to U.N. estimates.

President Obama isn't backing down after Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked his nominee from becoming the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

There may even be lessons here for the political parties and the voters who make the final judgments of politicians. The Democrats have a particularly sorry record of tweaking ineffective "brands," sending the likes of Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry into the November marketplace. The Republicans have a sorry record, too, tweaking the likes of Bob Dole and John McCain, and now seem to be flirting with sending Newt Gingrich into the highest-stakes game in town. You can't always freshen up the label, no matter how hard you try.
"Any one of our candidates will be 'Obama-boated,' and they better get ready for it," he said.
As Iowans prepare to vote, doubts linger about Republican field →
"There is no way to move forward while bombs are falling on villages in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile and civilians are starving in the Nuba Mountains," he said in remarks to the international engagement conference for South Sudan in Washington.

By Thanyarat Doksone and Todd Pitman - Associated Press
An Iranian man carrying grenades blew off his own legs and wounded four civilians in ...

By Matthew Pennington - Associated Press
updated 30 minutes ago
President Obama assured China’s heir apparent to leadership that the United States welcomes Beijing’s rise ...

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times
The FDA has won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was ...