President Barack Obama has indeed made history. His selections for his Cabinet and other top government offices make a mockery of his much publicized campaign promises to give us "the most sweeping ethics reform in history" and to "close the revolving door" to lobbyists. Some historians confer the ignominious appellation of most corrupt on President U.S. Grant of the 1870s, some on President Warren G. Harding's Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s, some even on ... [full story]

The day before Richard Holbrooke arrived in Kabul, eight suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Justice and Education ministries, killing 26 and wounding 57. Kabul was paralyzed, as the Taliban displayed an ability to wreak havoc within a hundred yards of the presidential palace. The assault came as President Obama is both conducting a strategic review and deciding how many additional U.S. troops to send. Earlier, there was talk of 30,000, bringing the U.S. total ... [full story]

From the day that Barack Obama wrested the presidential nomination from Hillary Rodham Clinton, his presidency became, according to those who were running his campaign, "inevitable." Even before winning the election, he began assembling a much-vaunted "team of rivals" to guide U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Though his running mate, then-Sen. Joe Biden, predicted, "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama," and warned that it would be "an international crisis, ... [full story]

President Barack Obama last week conducted his first prime-time press conference. After blaming the "failed theories of the last eight years" for today's economic crisis, he pushed for massive, unprecedented government spending. Lefty radio talk show host Ed Schultz — who once called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a "warmonger" — sat in the front row, appropriately next to "reporter" Helen Thomas. Thomas used to attack then-President Bush with her statements masquerading as questions. In ... [full story]

Daniel Bergner isn't the devil's advocate, but he is a pervert's apologist. This author and contributor to the New York Times Magazine has a new book titled "The Other Side of Desire," which argues it is unfair to judge bizarre, harmful and disgusting sexual attractions as bizarre, harmful and disgusting. Bergner's book focuses on four real-life fetishists: a husband with a secret foot fetish, a man with an attraction to amputees, a vicious female sadist ... [full story]

Quoth President Obama: "It's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package, after they've presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility." By the time you read this column, there is no knowing what the size of Obama economic stimulus package will be. Just below $800 billion? A little more? Whatever the price tag ... [full story]

Politicization of the national census has been alleged since our forefathers wrote it into the Constitution as the basis for apportioning states' representatives in Congress. In the first enumeration in 1790, Northern states demanded that each slave count as three-fifths of a person, lest the South's population ensure its domination of the House of Representatives. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution overrode that abomination in 1868 following the abolition of slavery. Today the flap concerns ... [full story]

Airline travelers hardly can be blamed if they are reflexively hostile to the idea of in-flight, wireless Internet service becoming a feature of life in an airplane's cabin. The specter of being trapped hours in a cramped seat next to a Web-based road warrior easily can be seen as just another high-altitude indignity — on a list that already includes delays and cancellations, aging equipment, lost luggage, thin staffing and balky computer reservation systems. But ... [full story]

Competition makes some companies trim costs, others cut prices. Then there's the strategy allegedly adopted by Solvay Pharmaceuticals: Pay off your competitors. Solvay makes a prescription drug called AndroGel, a synthetic form of testosterone. It's used by men with cancer, HIV or low hormone levels because of aging. Solvay got a patent on its version in 2003. AndroGel brings in about $400 million a year, which makes it the company's second-highest grossing drug. Three other ... [full story]

The mercenary and callous nature of Stewart Parnell, the owner of Peanut Corp. of America, became clear last week. Even as he invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer questions from the congressional committee that subpoenaed him, documents released by the committee point to Parnell's perfidy. Eight deaths and thousands of illnesses have been linked to a salmonella outbreak traced to the company's Georgia plant. The House panel released e-mails showing that Parnell ordered ... [full story]