“Carter” on The Daily Caller

For an upcoming three-day weekend, my 17-year-old son and I won’t think twice about hopping on a flight to visit family in Massachusetts. When I was my son’s age, such an excursion would have been an unthinkable luxury; air travel was reserved for businessmen and the wealthy. Alfred Kahn, the person arguably most responsible for the $100 round-trip fare that will make our weekend jaunt possible, died last week at the age of 93. (more)

Fans of Hollywood’s imaginative take on American politics may remember the movie Guarding Tess. That 1994 comic hit featured Shirley MacLaine as a former first lady who was being guarded by a Secret Service detachment headed by Nicolas Cage. Tess was something of a composite figure, part feisty Bess Truman, part liberal activist Eleanor Roosevelt, and part small town belle Rosalynn Carter. Of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, no part of Tess could be mistaken for a Barbara Bush or a Nancy Reagan. Even the fictional former first ladies have got to be on the side of the Hollywood donor angels. (more)

In 2008, following eight years with George W. Bush as president, the American voters wanted a change. Barack Obama promised us a “change.”  He won the election with 53 percent of the vote and became the 44th president of the United States of America. He had also promised us a non-partisan, open and transparent administration, that six months after his inauguration our combat forces would leave Iraq, and that he would close the terrorist prison at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base by the end of 2009.  I guess he’s changed his mind regarding the last three pledges. But, he has kept his vow to “change” America. The direction in which he is leading us is towards a European-style socialist democracy. That has reduced his support among independent voters, and it will be part of his legacy. (more)

CLEVELAND (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter was spending a second night in an Ohio hospital bed as a team of doctors monitored his recovery from a viral infection they say likely gave him stomach problems. (more)

CLEVELAND (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter, feeling normal and hoping to resume a book publicity tour soon, remained in an Ohio hospital Wednesday after doctors recommended additional observation following an overnight stay for an upset stomach. (more)

President Jimmy Carter was hospitalized with an unknown health condition Tuesday. (more)

ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday he sees parallels between today’s tea party and his own campaign for the White House in 1976. But he doesn’t think the movement will be much of a factor beyond this fall’s elections. (more)

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy, champion of the recent health plan legislation, actually delayed comprehensive coverage for Americans for decades, says former President Jimmy Carter. It was Kennedy’s actions to kill Carter’s own health care bill that made Americans wait more than 30 years for meaningful coverage, says Carter in an interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl. (more)

Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 31, was sentenced to eight years’ hard labour in April, after being found guilty of illegally entering the country from China. (more)

On Tuesday, President Obama promised in his Oval Office address that the US could end our addiction to imported oil through technological innovation and sheer gumption: (more)

With May being declared National Military Appreciation Month, and with the approach of Memorial Day, it is appropriate to take stock of the role and respect of the military in American society today. It is truly a good news story. (more)

Pearl Carter and Phil Bailey, 26, have paid a surrogate mother £20,000 to have Mr Bailey’s child, which the couple plan to bring up together. (more)

Pres. Clinton’s task force understood it. The Father of Earth Day understood it. You and I understand it. Why does Congress not understand that U.S. environmental sustainability is not possible unless we greatly reduce immigration numbers? (more)

Editor’s note: The following article is a response to Thomas Qualtere of The Heritage Foundation’s recent article “Hawks we are, hawks we must remain,” published on this site. (more)

While examining President Obama’s “split personality” in Foreign Policy magazine, Walter Russell Mead falls back on a familiar presidential comparison: Jimmy Carter. He worries that Obama’s impulse to be a “cold-blooded realist” as well as a “bleeding-heart idealist” could, “in the worst scenario, turn him into a new Jimmy Carter.” Mead is referring to the “incoherence and reversals” of Carter’s foreign policy. (more)

Most college students returned for the spring semester rested and relaxed. Amon Carter IV headed back to class with the mark of his fraternity burned into his backside. (more)

Abstract: "The fall of the [Soviet] empire," former Czech president Vaclav Havel wrote, "is an event on the same scale of historical importance as the fall of the Roman Empire." It is true that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine–that the Soviet Union will use force if necessary to ensure that a socialist state remains socialist–and in so doing undercut the Communist leaders and regimes of Eastern and Central Europe in the critical year of 1989. But why did Gorbachev abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine? One Western leader above all others forced the Soviets to give up the Brezhnev Doctrine and abandon the arms race, brought down the Berlin Wall, and ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield: President Ronald Reagan. (more)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Orlando guard Vince Carter, in the midst of a difficult shooting slump, sprained his left shoulder in a collision in the second quarter of the Magic’s 104-97 loss in Washington on Friday night. He did not return. (more)