



By John R. Bolton
Nothing has slowed regime's race to build the bomb
Independent voices from the TWT Communities


Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, isn't backing down from his decision to block $20 million a year in new funding for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, despite pleas from museum officials who also had family members die in the attack.

Ending a week that began with consensus but fractured into contention, the Senate voted Thursday to strengthen insider trading bans for its members, and in the process agreed to ban bonuses for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives.

Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma who isn't afraid of questioning federal spending for popular projects, is challenging $20 million a year in new funding for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York City.

The Senate paved the way Monday to begin debating a crackdown on members of Congress using insider knowledge for personal gain — a bill expected to pass easily if lawmakers don't muddy the waters with extra amendments.

President Obama's puny election-year plan to consolidate a handful of government agencies and programs is about three years and $4 trillion too late. With America's jobless rate stuck at a few tenths below 9 percent and his dismal job approval polls in the mid-40s - the equivalent of a failing grade - Mr. Obama is attempting to impersonate a budget cutter. He's fooling no one.

America lost an unsung hero on Jan. 8 with the passing of Thomas H. Landess. To say that Tom was an accomplished Southern academic would be like saying that Robert H. Goddard was a guy who liked to tinker with rockets.

Federal spending continues to increase, despite Washington's talk of "trillion-dollar cuts." That's because politicians refuse to kick their expensive habit. Perhaps the best way to change the culture of spending is to dismantle one piece of our $3.6 trillion federal budget at a time.

The attorney general's belated release of various emails has raised the question of whether former Solicitor General Elena Kagan should disqualify herself from the case that will decide the constitutionality of Obamacare. Many people think she has already made up her mind, and for good reason. First, a little background.

The Unemployment Insurance program's error rate has jumped as the program has grown during the economic downturn, paying out billions of dollars in improper payments in 2011, making it the second-worst program on a special government watch list.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's political past is starting to haunt him on the campaign trail, where several of his ex-colleagues are saying his surplus of ideas often left political messes that they had to clean up, and that this harmed the conservative cause he championed.
![ASSOCIATED PRESS
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a compromise plan to extend payroll tax cuts. "We should not have a tax increase on the middle class," Mr. Conrad says. [Mr. Reid's plan] will be paid for in a way that is credible and serious."](http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/12/04/20111204-174835-pic-971942354_s76x100.jpg?cd62b5371227edd0e67982e641544f955e78a9b0)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is set to offer a "compromise plan" Monday to extend payroll tax cuts now scheduled to expire at the end of the month, a fellow Democratic senator said on "Fox News Sunday."

With Herman Cain suspending his campaign over the weekend, the spotlight in the GOP presidential field is now focused squarely on Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House whose surprise front-runner status has made him the target of rivals and critics less than a month before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.

Despite promises by Republican presidential candidates that they would gut key parts of President Obama's health care law on their first day in office, Congress' nonpartisan research agency says that trying to repeal major components of the overhaul through executive order just won't work.
"All of us in Congress are running around fixing everything except our biggest problem," Mr. Coburn said in an interview. "If you don't start fixing Medicare now, you can't save it."
But, he said, the national memorial and museum constructed to remember the Oklahoma attack operates solely on private donations.

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