Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs
Three Palestinian men from Dallas were arrested over the weekend in Michigan after a Wal-Mart employee found their purchase of 80 prepaid TracFones suspicious and authorities found over 1,000 of the phones in their van, along with photos and video of the Mackinac Bridge: If the hundreds of prepaid cellular telephones found in the minivan [...]
A joint U.S.-French effort to pass a resolution calling for an end of hostilities in Lebanon was unanimously approved Friday by the U.N. Security Council: The Security Council agreed unanimously on Friday on a measure calling for a full cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, deploying 30,000 Lebanese and United Nations forces in southern Lebanon and [...]
Monday’s New York Times carries an article on immigration hearings planned by the House that rests on a rather odd premise–that the only people who care about immigration reside in states along the Mexican border: When House leaders announced their plan to hold 21 immigration hearings in 13 states during the August recess, they said [...]
As Daniel Drezner notes, Mexico’s electoral tribunal has ordered a partial recount in the country’s recent presidential election, falling short of demands by left-leaning presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador for a full recount: In Mexico City’s central Zocalo square, thousands of Mr Lopez Obrador’s supporters chanted “Vote-by-vote!” as they watched the tribunal’s session on [...]
Former Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker won Thursday’s Republican primary for the Senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist, handily defeating former representatives Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary; Corker will face Memphis’ Harold Ford, Jr. in the November general election. What does this matchup portend? On the one hand, Mike Hollihan thinks Bryant or Hilleary would [...]
The Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic Party has decided that the presidential nominating process needs to be compressed even more in 2008: The [committee], in a decision that is likely to alter fundamentally the way the party chooses its nominee, voted for early contests in two new states — a caucus in Nevada [...]
A group in Arizona wants to give everyone a chance to win $1 million—but only if they vote: There’s going to be a new reason for Arizonans to go to the polls this year: They could win $1 million. The Secretary of State’s Office certified Thursday that backers of the voter lottery plan had submitted [...]
It’s officially time for U.S. Representative Bernie Sanders (DI-Vt.) to admit what the rest of us—even the Vermont Democratic Party—already know: he’s a Democrat in Socialist clothing: Vermont’s Democratic Party is maneuvering to keep the Democratic candidates for the state’s open US Senate seat off the November ballot, as party leaders seek to clear the [...]
It turns out that the pardon of hip-hop producer Dallas Austin on drug charges in Dubai was the result of personal lobbying by Orrin Hatch, the GOP senator from Utah not known for his sympathy for recreational drug users: U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a musician in his own right, helped secure the release [...]
Felipe Calderón, the candidate of incumbent president Vicente Fox’s National Action Party (PAN), has been declared the winner of Mexico’s presidential election by the country’s independent election commission: After days of uncertainty, election officials declared Thursday that Felipe Calderón, a conservative, had won the race for president by less than 1 percent of the official [...]
The Senate is holding hearings this week on President Bush’s practice of attaching presidential signing statements to legislation he signs into law: Sen. John McCain thought he had a deal when President Bush, faced with a veto-proof margin in Congress, agreed to sign a bill banning the torture of detainees. Not quite. While Bush signed [...]
Porkbuster weiners Glenn Reynolds and Ed Morrissey are hyping alleged windfall profits by GOP congressmen Dennis Hastert, Ken Calvert, and Gary Miller they received after selling property proximate to highway projects they have championed in Congress… if by “proximate” you mean “possibly within the same county”: House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 [...]
Austin Bay is all over news that the Iraq Survey Group has discovered hundreds of “degraded” munitions containing weaponized mustard and sarin gases. The munitions, although apparently dating back to the first Gulf War, would seem to further undermine claims from the anti-war fringe that Iraq had declared and destroyed its stocks of non-conventional weaponry. [...]
President Bush, at a US-EU summit in Vienna, told his European counterparts that his administration plans to close the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison camp, apparently confirming reports from European papers three months ago: Speaking to journalists following the talks at the EU-US summit in Vienna on Wednesday (21 June), Mr Bush confirmed he shared a [...]
Earlier this week, Robert Byrd of West Virginia became the longest-serving senator in American history, besting fellow Civil Rights laggard Strom Thurmond’s record. As Steven Taylor notes, such longevity in office is probably inconsistent with the intentions of the framers of the Constitution, who could rely on 18th century biology–and a minimum age of 30–to [...]
Ed Brayton finds the Louisiana State Legislature playing God—or at the very least Moses, as lawmakers attempt to come up with a version of the Ten Commandments that Catholics, Protestants, and Jews can agree on: The bill would allow the display of the Ten Commandments, along with other documents of religious historical significance, in government [...]
North Carolina may be the home of a college “applying the philosophy of Ayn Rand,” if organizers, including two Duke faculty members, get their way: Founders College has submitted an application projecting a fall 2007 start and an enrollment of 500, said Michelle Howard-Vital, associate vice president of academic affairs for UNC General Administration. Eric [...]