The news out of Copenhagen is very distressing to global warming alarmists and command-and-control enthusiasts. Secret deals have been leaked that strike the developing world as deeply unfair. The continuing scandal over the manipulated climate data and contrived computer modeling from England continues to erode the already threadbare credibility of apocalyptists demanding they be trusted to run the world. That's a strange demand: Trust the people who couldn't be trusted to be honest about the data or their own doubts.

European Union ministers meeting in Brussels has issued a statement calling for Jerusalem to be the shared capitol of Israel and a future Palestinian state. That release was considerably watered down from the original formulation by Sweden that East Jerusalem should be the capital of Palestine only—regardless of what Israel felt and with no reference to Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

Senate Democrats are bailing fast as their Obamacare boat takes on more and more water. The old public option is now overboard, but it isn't off the boat for good. Senate Democrats have proposed as a make-good to the hard left a radical, budget-busting expansion of the already broke Medicare program, another serious breach in the contract with the nation’s seniors. Never have so many senators done so much in so little time to burden seniors and destroy the quality of their retirement.

Barack Obama’s contradictory, confusing Afghanistan policy reflects a problem afflicting nearly all recent presidents: an appalling lack of foreign policy experience. Carter, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush were all governors with no prior responsibility for international relations. Barack Obama was a freshman Senator who had never taken an active role on military or diplomatic issues.

The usual hysterical clamor has erupted in the Muslim world over the Swiss people’s decision in a referendum to ban the building of minarets for mosques in Switzerland. The UN rapporteur for human rights, a Pakistani, attacked Switzerland for the decision. A pity she didn’t remember that Pakistani law strictly restricts permission to build churches, bans public Christian processions and sentences to death Christians suspected of blaspheming Mohammed.

Budget deficits set new records every day, but Democrats claim they can’t cut spending. The deficit for 2009 exceeds $1.4 trillion—three times the worst yearly deficit for President Bush. October alone showed a $176 billion deficit—more than the deficit for the whole year in 2007!

Most Americans missed an important and, in a way, a rather ominous milestone. Last month the European Union, which aspires to be an international superpower on the basis of the economic prowess of its 27 member-states, selected its first fulltime president of the Council of Europe. Essentially, it selected the person who is going to be president of the new European superpower. They also chose a foreign minister.

It’s beginning to look a lot like … wait, don’t say it. If you say it in the wrong place—like a school or courthouse—and you really mean it, you may become a casualty of the war on Christmas.

Clothes always mean something, which is why The New York Times gave major attention to an issue facing many schools: “Can a boy wear a skirt to school?”

Is the fact that fertility is falling around the world good news? You would certainly think so if you agree with the analysis cheerily offered by The Economist. That magazine recently offered a cover story that celebrated falling human fertility as “changing the world for the better.”

What is it about President Obama’s fondness of bowing to foreign heads of state? A few months ago there was a widely viewed video of the president bowing to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Last week, there he was bowing again, this time to Japan's emperor Hirohito.

The deeply wrong decision to bring confessed 9/11 mastermind Sheik Khalid Mohammed to New York City for a criminal trial that will treat him and his co-conspirators as ordinary criminals and American citizens to boot has shocked hundreds of millions of Americans. Democrat allies of President Obama have dutifully trooped forward to support this very dangerous exercise of political posturing, but the president can and should reverse course and instead order the military tribunal that convened to receive the guilty pleas to resume its work.

This week Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid makes his first attempt to open debate on Obamacare. After last week’s stunning news on the massive budget deficit for the first month of the new fiscal year, we hope that Reid and his Democratic colleagues realize that now is not the time to burn through another 1.2 trillion, which is the (conservative) projected cost of the House version of Obamacare. Over the next decade, healthcare costs under the Obama plan are projected to soar—with increases to the tune of $289 billion.

Which presidential candidate drew stronger support from conservatives—Reagan in 1980, or McCain in 2008? The answer is shocking and enlightening, as exit polls show McCain got 78 percent of self-described conservatives, while Reagan drew only 72 percent.

After Republican victories in the elections of 2009, the Obama strategy has become increasingly obvious—and obnoxious. The administration means to continue pushing dozens of complicated measures at once, leaving their opponents so confused and exhausted that they’ll be unable to fight back.

The terrorist who attacked Fort Hood last week was a jihadist, and one who ought to have been thrown out of the Army a long time ago. The investigation will reveal why that did not happen, but the safety of our troops requires us to speak candidly about the motivations of this hater.

On this Veteran’s Day, we at the Salem Radio Network and Townhall.com join all Americans in thanking our men in women who wear or who have worn the uniform of the United States. We thank their families as well. The incredible courage and sacrifice of our armed forces are always on display—even if all too often unnoticed by a country that tends to take for granted those who guard our freedoms every minute of every hour of every day.

November 9, 1989. That date, now two decades past in memory, is the date millions of people around the world had prayed for. What happened on that day was what few could believe would happen in their lifetimes. What happened on that day is that the Berlin Wall fell.

There are very few occasions in a century that are truly historic. One of them occurred 20 years ago when the Berlin Wall fell and Communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union began to collapse.

“Voters have a pretty good grasp about what they think marriage should be.” Those were the words of Jeff Flint, a strategist for the successful effort to repeal the legalization of same-sex marriage in Maine.

The results of Tuesday's election in Virginia have the most significance of all the votes across the United States. Virginia had gone decisively to President Obama a year ago--and the swing into the Republican column was enormous, a genuine landside that comes only when a major political realignment has occurred.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently signed a bill establishing a special day of recognition for Harvey Milk, a homosexual San Francisco politician assassinated in 1978.

Saul Alinksy was a hard left genius and a radical whose book, "Rules for Radicals," has guided the operations of far-left politicians and radical activists for decades.

Barack Obama’s attacks on Fox News are an abuse of power that shows contempt for the traditions of a free opposition press. Democrats insist this “war on Fox” is justified because of the cable network’s conservative orientation, while Fox executives insist that it’s their commentary shows, not their news reporting, that tilt to the right.

When Michael Jackson died in June, I commented that he had always blurred distinctions--between black and white, gay and straight, grown up and child. Now he’s erasing the most important dividing line of them all: between alive and dead. Four months after his sudden death, Jackson's the star of a big new movie, "This Is It," assembled from rehearsal footage for the final concert tour he never got to begin.