Real Money
Jon Kyl
"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money." That quote is attributed to former Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen (though there are questions about whether he actually said it). Nevertheless, it reveals a lot about the way the federal government spent money 40 years ago.

Iran, Syria Given 10 Days To Explain Impounded Ship In Cyprus
A United Nations sanctions committee has given Iran and Syria until next week to explain their involvement with the Gaza bound Iranian ship currently detained in Cyprus that was found to be loaded with explosives. The Iranian-owned commercial vessel was flying a Cypriot flag when it was boarded and searched by the US Navy in January.

US Intelligence Chief Gives Latest Assessment On Iran
The US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, gave Congress the Obama administration’s latest thinking on the Iranian nuclear threat on Tuesday, maintaining that the only way to stop Iran from acquiring atomic weapons is convince to Tehran it’s not worth the effort. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, Blair said that "only an Iranian political decision [would] plausibly keep Iran from eventually producing nuclear weapons."

U.S.-Europe Split On Economic Stimulus Erupts Ahead Of G20
At the start of this week, Larry Summers, the top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, asked Europe to consider another round of stimulus packages to spark battle the global recession. But on March 10, EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels rebuffed the idea. Speaking for the group, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said there was "significant bewilderment" over their U.S. colleague's position.

Netanyahu To Focus On Palestinian Track, Not Syria
Israel’s Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu will first focus on peace agreements with the Palestinians and has no intention of sidelining them in favor of peace negotiations with Syria, Dore Gold, one of Netanyahu's top foreign policy advisers, said Monday. Gold also noted that a certain "mythology" has developed around Netanyahu’s secret contacts with Damascus during his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, but that the Likud leader never promised to surrender all of the Golan in exchange for peace with Syria.

Global-Warming Skeptics Raise A Storm In New York
These are tough times to be a skeptic about global warming. Two years ago, an international United Nations panel concluded with near certainty that human activity plays a role in the planet's rising temperatures. And now, the new U.S. administration has vowed to spearhead international efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Israeli Intel Chief: Iran Has Crossed Nuclear Threshold
Israeli military intelligence confirmed on Sunday that Iran has mastered the technology for building a nuclear weapon, on the same day that the Iranian Air Force successfully tested a new air-to-surface missile. The Iranian military has "crossed the technological threshold," and the only thing left is to find a way of "incorporating the goal of producing an atomic bomb into its strategy," OC Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen.

Imagine
Ron Paul
Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests." Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them.

Card Check Will Hurt Freedom And Cost Jobs
Joe Pitts
There is a movement underway in Washington to take away the right of the secret ballot from American workers. The Orwellian named "Employee Free Choice Act" is a bill that would allow for the establishment of a union if a majority of employees at a company signs a card as a measure of their support for unionization.

No, Hillary, There Will Never Be A Two State Solution
Gary Cooperberg
Notwithstanding the sincere desire of American politicians to achieve a genuine peace in the Middle East and notwithstanding the special relationship between Israel and the United States, there should be certain red lines which no Israeli politician dare cross. For an American Secretary of State to come to Israel and declare the inevitability of eventually carving out a new terrorist state on Jewish soil is such a red line.

Israel "Quite Serious" about Solo Strikes on Iran
According to a report recently issued by a prominent Washington think tank, Israel is seriously considering launching a go-it-alone pre-emptive strike against Iran’s renegade nuclear facilities in order to prevent the Islamic Republic from attaining atomic weapons. The report, published by Washington Institute for Near East Policy and entitled "Preventing a Cascade of Instability," concluded that one possible reason for a unilateral Israeli strike might be the narrowing window of opportunity, as Iran is approaching the theoretical "point of no return" beyond which it will be impossible to stop them from going nuclear.