Nelson Mandela, who rose from militant antiapartheid activist to become the unifying president of a democratic South Africa and a global symbol of racial reconciliation, died at his Johannesburg home on Thursday. He was 95.

The African National Congress is divided on how to tackle the country's deep-rooted inequalities and its economic woes.

The death of Nelson Mandela, long anticipated and yet long dreaded, jolted South Africa.

What's good news for shareholders is often bad news for bondholders, or so the adage goes. It is a lesson owners of Time Warner Cable's bonds are learning the hard way

The Volcker rule will require that bank executives guarantee their firms are in compliance with the rule, something Wall Street had lobbied against.

Edward S. Lampert, struggling to stem heavy losses at Sears, is facing an exodus of money from his hedge fund, which is returning billions to clients of Goldman Sachs.

NELSON MANDELA, who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid and then emerged to become his country's first black president, dies at 95, South African president Jacob Zuma says.

'He belongs to the ages': Obama delivers remarks on death of Mandela | VIDEO | TRANSCRIPT

VIDEOS: Mandela dead at 95 | Daughter on his legacy | Life of Mandela | President announces death

PHOTOS: Mandela through the years | JUAN WILLIAMS: The Mandela I knew | Mandela, in his own words

Global leaders hail Mandela as force for justice | Krauthammer: Mandela 'never took the power to his head'

It was Wednesday, shortly before Senator Rand Paul’s bravura 13-hour filibuster, the Jimmy Stewart star turn in Paul’s crusade to have the Constitution ban a bogeyman of his own making: the killing of American citizens on American soil by America’s armed forces — a scandal that clearly cries out for action, having occurred exactly zero times in the 20 years since jihadists commenced hostilities by bombing the World Trade Center.

At a hearing of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Ted Cruz was grilling Attorney General Eric Holder. Cruz seemed beside himself — in the theatrical spirit of the day — over Holder’s refusal to concede that the imaginary use of lethal force conjured up by Paul would be, under any and all circumstances, unconstitutional. The attorney general preferred the fuzzier term “inappropriate” — at least until Senator Cruz finally browbeat him into saying that by “inappropriate” he meant “unconstitutional.”

Keep reading this post . . .

Around the Pentagon, the budget cutters have put away their knives and are reaching for axes. In times like these, every service naturally circles the wagons around its share of the budget pie. The stress is so great that otherwise smart people take incredibly silly stands. Last week, for instance, the former chief of naval operations, Admiral Gary Roughead, published a paper that calls for cutting the Army in half and leaving the Navy’s budget untouched. He sums up the logic for this advice in a few simple words: “The force we propose accepts risk in the burden we are placing on our Army and Marine Corps.” Admiral Roughead, unfortunately, fails to tell us what risk he is accepting in the nation’s behalf. Let me do it for him. The risk he is taking on is summed up in one word: defeat.

A combined Air Force–Navy effort popularly known as Air-Sea Battle takes a seemingly more reasoned approach. At its base, Air-Sea Battle calls for purchasing expensive new weapons (lots of them) so as to clear the sea-lanes of enemies (that don’t yet exist), and to be able to fight through any enemy’s air and coastal defenses. These proposals, however, fail to answer a huge strategic question: To what purpose? After you have opened the sea-lanes and broken through an enemy’s defense, what do you do if that enemy refuses to surrender? In the past, we carried out these missions in order to open the door for the Army and Marines to enter a country and defeat an enemy force.

Keep reading this post . . .

I shall leave it to others to argue the legal and constitutional questions surrounding drones, but they are not without practical application. For the last couple of years, Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, has had Predator drones patrolling the U.S. border. No, silly, not the southern border. The northern one. You gotta be able to prioritize, right? At Derby Line, Vt., the international frontier runs through the middle of the town library and its second-floor opera house. If memory serves, the stage and the best seats are in Canada, but the concession stand and the cheap seats are in America. Despite the zealots of Homeland Security’s best efforts at afflicting residents of this cross-border community with ever more obstacles to daily life, I don’t recall seeing any Predator drones hovering over Non-Fiction E–L. But, if there are, I’m sure they’re entirely capable of identifying which delinquent borrower is a Quebecer and which a Vermonter before dispatching a Hellfire missile to vaporize him in front of the Large Print Romance shelves.

I’m a long, long way from Rand Paul’s view of the world (I’m basically a 19th-century imperialist a hundred years past sell-by date), but I’m far from sanguine about America’s drone fever. For all its advantages to this administration — no awkward prisoners to be housed at Gitmo, no military casualties for the evening news — the unheard, unseen, unmanned drone raining down death from the skies confirms for those on the receiving end al-Qaeda’s critique of its enemies: As they see it, we have the best technology and the worst will; we choose aerial assassination and its attendant collateral damage because we are risk-averse, and so remote, antiseptic, long-distance, computer-programmed warfare is all that we can bear. Our technological strength betrays our psychological weakness.

Keep reading this post . . .

We are now firmly ensconced in the brutal Age of the Sequester, and things in America are grave. The federal government, we learned on Wednesday, is so strapped for cash that the president has been forced to cut off the People’s access to the home he’s borrowing from them. He didn’t want to have to do this, naturally — “particularly during the popular spring touring season.” But then Congress just had to go and acquiesce in measures that the president himself had suggested and signed into law. How beastly! We axed 2.6 percent from a $44.8 trillion budget, and now the president can’t even afford the $18,000 per week necessary to retain the seven staff members who facilitate citizens’ enjoying self-guided tours around the White House.

The executive mansion is not in that much trouble, of course. It’s certainly not in sufficiently dire straits for Air Force One ($181,757 per hour) to be grounded, or to see the executive chef ($100,000 per year) furloughed, or to cut back on the hours of the three full-time White House calligraphers ($277,050 per year for the trio), or to limit the invaluable work of the chief of staff to the president’s dog ($102,000 per year), or to trim his ridiculous motorcade ($2.2 million). If Ellen DeGeneres wants another dancercize session or Spain holds another clothing sale, the first family will be there before you can say “citizen executive.” Fear ye not, serfs: Austerity may be the word of the week, but the president is by no means in any danger of being forced to live like the president of a republic instead of like a king.

Keep reading this post . . .

So here we are in the early dawn of the Age of Sequester, and the howls of rage are strangely subdued. Sure, Robert Reich is jumping up and down, and a few members of the bobblehead-pundit set are doing their thing, but, so far, there is no widespread public outcry over the “cuts”—which aren’t really cuts, of course, in most cases. Politically speaking, the sequester is a far tamer beast than, say, the Clinton–Gingrich government shutdown, an episode during which Republicans got burned, and burned but good.

As one insightful observer put it, the very modest reduction in the growth of government spending is roughly equivalent to an alcoholic switching from Guinness Extra Stout to Heineken Light, and while the ripples of economic anguish may be felt acutely by those closest to the federal cash flow — government employees and contractors — the general public seems at the moment to be taking the suspension of White House tours in stride.

Keep reading this post . . .

This week, the world was rocked by the news that an infant born in Mississippi with HIV has apparently been cured: The child tested positive for the disease several times in the first month after her birth, while she was receiving aggressive antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, but now, at the age of 23 months, she shows no sign of HIV.

This development points to a hopeful way forward for infants who contract HIV during gestation or at birth, but almost all of them live not in Mississippi, but in places like Mali and Namibia. Yet thanks to the United States government and private benefactors, prompted by President George W. Bush, many of those children and their mothers do have access to some HIV/AIDS treatment programs.

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During his monologue on the episode of The Tonight Show that was re-broadcast last night, Jay Leno said during Halloween these 6 kids came to his home dressed up as...

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My friend James Deciuttis once asked me very directly, ?Are you ever wrong?? It was not asked with bile, but very straightforwardly, as if asking if I ever had visited Spain.I told James that if he referred to my writing, speaking, and political activism, I have made many bad calls and misjudgments. I can look forward to a brand-new year of them in just 28 days. In one particular case, however, I really blew one thing very, very, very badly. But I was not alone.Like many other anti-Communists and Cold Warriors, I feared that releasing Nelson Mandela from jail, especially
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The latest round of protests for higher fast-food wages hit New York City today, but they could have been mistaken for just about any other gathering of the city's progressive coalition. I finally ran into the 200 or so people (by one organizer?s estimate) in downtown Manhattan, after they'd been shuffled by leaders from Times Square to downtown Brooklyn, over to Upper Manhattan and back down to City Hall, popping up to chant in front of apparently random fast-food restaurants before packing up, hitting the subway, and heading to the next establishment.The group, however tired from their daylong journey, chanted
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Democrats won?t be able to put up a smokescreen to hide from Obamacare?s failures, Charles Krauthammer said Thursday night.Majority Leader Harry Reid can ?argue all [he wants] that the sun rises in the West, it?s not going to work,? he said.?People are receiving cancelations, they know they lost their insurance,? Krauthammer said on Special Report. ?There?s no way to talk around it.?Krauthammer also attacked the administration?s attempt to sell nearly 30,000 recent enrollments on HealthCare.gov as a success.If people continue to sign up for Obamacare at the same rate they signed up for it Sunday and Monday, ?you come out
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On Thursday I had the strange honor of finding myself denounced, by name, in a full-page color ad placed on page C5 of the New York Times. A humble movie critic rarely finds himself the object of so much excited attention. What had I done to incur this thunderclap?I had published this review of the movie Philomena, in the New York Post. In response, the subject of the film, Philomena Lee, wrote an open letter, first given to the Hollywood news site Deadline.com, and Harvey Weinstein?s The Weinstein Co. then excerpted the letter in ad taken out in the Times.The
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In an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday evening, President Obama said that he has been humbled since entering the White House in 2009. ?The interesting thing about now having been president for five years is it makes you humbler as opposed to cockier about what you as an individual can do,? he explained.The president used his hour with Matthews to urge young people to vote in next year's mid-term elections and expressed hope that Democrats would take back the House. ?In our history, usually when we?ve made big progress on issues it actually has been when one party
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I?m remembering the 2007/2008 GOP Primary Season. It works well for those seeking a suitable method to self-castigate that leaves fewer marks than flagellation in a penitent?s closet. There was a long-shot candidate, Governor Huckabee from Arkansas, who had the vile audacity to mention his faith in an advertisement. There was a partial shot of a window in the spot that was designed to make us think of a cross. The Stephanopoulos Set reacted to this in the manner in which Gothic Fiction suggests any self-respecting Nosferatu would and reminded us all of how fascism would come to America wrapped in a cross and a flag.

If Senator Pryor were to occasionally open that Bible he holds up as a talisman athwart impending electoral doom, he would have to be struck by the verity of Ecclesiastes 1. Given the background story of Mike Huckabee?s rise in the Iowa Caucuses, it reminds me that indeed there is nothing new under the sun. Pryor reaches out to Jesus, in his moment of greatest need, as he comes to the existential realization that Media Matters just isn?t going to save him in his reelection race in Arkansas.

Today's topics include Obamacare, fast food, millenials,.canards, hobbit sex, and KILL IT WITH FIRE

OPEN THREAD

The House Judiciary Committee held hearings on Barack Obama’s abuse of power this week, leading to a good deal of dismissive commentary and general neglect from the media, because apparently it’s not even worth talking about the proper checks and balances of government power if you’re not ready to impeach the President as the grand finale.  It’s too bad more attention was not paid to | Read More »

Talked with Dr. Mathis yesterday: he’s one of the guy’s running for Alabama’s opening seat in the Sixth District.  It is, for those wondering, a wondrously Republican district; so the June primary is very much a relevant one.  As you can see from the “Doctor,” Chad is a surgeon in real life; and as you might imagine, he has views on Obamacare.  Here’s the interview: | Read More »

Sitting out the upcoming Republican primaries is not an option for conservatives.  It?s time we begin monitoring the races closely while we still have a few months to affect the outcome. Earlier today, Madison Project (my employer), issued a new endorsement ? Barry Loudermilk for Congress in Georgia?s 11th district.  I have personally spent many hours with him, and can promise you that he is | Read More »

As the Democrats become ever more desperate as Obamacare melts down, they are offering the GOP a wide variety of distractions. The GOP should refuse to be drawn away from our real focus.

 Chris Matthews received his long-desired wish on Thursday, an exclusive interview with Barack Obama. The Hardball anchor didn't exactly live up to the title of his show, wondering about Republican efforts to "make it difficult for minorities to vote" and questioning who was better, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden?

Talking to the President at American University, Matthews read a question from a viewer via Twitter: "What can we do to stop the GOP, the Republicans, from rigging the states, rigging the votes, state by state, to disenfranchise voters and destroy our democracy?" The host added, "Thirty six states right now led by Republican legislatures have been trying to make it difficult for minority people to vote, especially in big cities and older people. Everybody knows the game." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Tossing a softball to Obama, he queried, "What's your reaction?" 

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The parasite has out grown its host and it can?t live on its own. We are witnessing the convergence of multiple mistake streams combining into one river of destruction. We have a ruling clique concerned only with maintaining its power supported by a dependent class that wants what it wants now not later. And they are employing public sector unions that want to negotiate feather-bed contracts with the same people they help elect. All empowered by a mass of low information voters who either don?t pay any attention to what is going on or accept anything they see, hear or absorb from the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media, late night talk shows or the Daily Show as real news.

BOHEMIA, NY, Aug 2 - Barak Obama's "ill advised" summer campaign tour is in full swing as he tries to convince Americans that he has successfully turned the economy around. "But a record 46.2 million citizens living in poverty - including an overwhelming number of seniors - will find the president's overly optimistic assessment of living conditions in these United States hard to swallow," according to Dan Weber, president of the Association of Mature American Citizens.

Okay. Let me get this straight. The people who drafted the legislation --“ the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- ObamaCare --“ don't want it. Staff are bailing out of Congress.

Shelby Steele is the author of White Guilt. I found the book fascinating especially after the uprising brought about by the self destruction of little Trayvon. All of a sudden America was faced with the illogical cries that everything is unfair in this country because of color. And I had my own observations on this matter but it was interesting to read the remarks brought by a so called black conservative who claimed to live through the bad times in America. So let's see if we can understand what this is all about.

Someone in the White House is channeling John C. Calhoun.

By Dr. Sylvain Charat It happened on a cold of day during the last French presidential campaign in a small industrial town called Florange, in Eastern France. On February 12th, 2012, the campaigning and would-be president Francois Hollande climbed a small truck ladder to get on the roof.

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