Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Obama and Romney make make 4-year-old cry

From Yahoo:
After months of buildup leading to the presidential election in November, 4-year-old Abigael Evans has had enough.

The Fort Collins, Colo., girl broke down in tears after listening to yet another report on the radio about the race between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, a local NBC TV station reported.

"I'm tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney," said the sobbing girl, who lives in a battleground state.

She's probably not the only one.
Not to mention that Bronco Bamma sounds kind of Brokeback Mountain to me.

France expels radical Tunisian imam known for his anti-Semitic speeches and calls for violent jihad

PARIS (AP) – France says it has deported a radical Muslim preacher known for his anti-Semitic speeches and calls for violent holy war.

Mohamed Hammami, who preached at the Omar Mosque in Paris, was expelled to his home country of Tunisia on Wednesday.

France's Interior Ministry said in a statement that Hammami was expelled for his "deliberate, repeated and unacceptable provocations," which constitute a threat to France's society and security.

The ministry says in addition to his anti-Semitic speeches and calls for holy war, Hammami also drew condemnation over his defense of violence towards women.

FBI: Somalis from Minnesota may be joining Somali terror group al-Shabaab

(ABC) Young American men continue to slip through a terrorist recruiting pipeline from the homeland to join the ranks of jihadists half a world away in East Africa, with two going as recently as three months ago, according to federal officials.

The FBI confirmed a report by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) that in July two young men disappeared from their neighborhoods in Minneapolis and are believed to have traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, the embattled al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.

Under "Operation Rhino," for years the FBI has been investigating what has been described as a recruiting pipeline from the Twin Cities, which boast large Somali immigrant populations, to Somalia. Both top U.S. officials and at least one prominent member of al-Shabaab said Americans account for dozens of the terror group's fighters. A 2011 Congressional report put the number around 40.

"Minnesota represented!" writes American-born rapping jihadist Omar Hammami in an autobiography posted online in May, though he claimed most of the U.S. recruits were already dead. "Those Minnesota brother[s] have almost all left their mark on the [jihad] and most have received martyrdom, while the rest are still waiting."

Kyle Loven, chief division counsel for the FBI's Minneapolis field office, said recruits going to Somalia from Minnesota "continues to be a matter of grave concern and the FBI remains fully committed to resolving this situation."

The FBI said that in the recent case, two young Minnesota men, 19-year-old Mohamed Osman and 20-year-old Omar Ali Farah, left their homes for their trek to Somalia in mid-July. Osman's family told MPR he was religious, but they were stunned when he disappeared.

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PLO leader calls for "return" of West Bank to Jordan

So they're admitting, again, it was never theirs. Jordan was illegally occupying Judea and Samaria – which are referred to as the West Bank so as to conceal their history – for 19 years before it was finally kicked out by Israel. Jordan already refused that offer. Funny that.
(JPost) Farouk Kaddoumi, a veteran PLO official, on Thursday dropped a political bombshell by calling for "returning" the West Bank to Jordan.

Kaddoumi, who is based in Tunisia, said he supported the idea of creating a federation or confederation between the West Bank and Jordan.

Kaddoumi's remarks, which came during an interview with the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, are the first of their kind to be voiced by a senior PLO figure in decades. [...]

He said that the Palestinians should nevertheless see to it that such a step would not drop the refugees' "right to return."

"We launched our revolution for all of Palestine, and that's why we need to be very cautious," Kaddoumi said. "We must safeguard our people's right to return."

He said that he welcomed the return of the West Bank to Jordan. However, he stressed, "We must insist on the right of return for all refugees because this is the minimum that we could accept."

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Islamist Adviser to the Obama State Department and USAID Exposed

(RadicalIslam.org) Abed Ayoub, the CEO of Islamic Relief USA, a powerful charity with links to Hamas is an official advisor to the State Department and USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development), a RadicalIslam.org investigation has found. Ayoub has been advising the Obama Administration since at least April 2010. He and his organization have been publicly embraced by President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Ayoub was born in a Palestinian refugee camp and raised in Jordan. After high school, he moved to Yugoslavia and Germany and ultimately ended up in California. He became a volunteer for the Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA) and went on to become its CEO in 2008. He is a governance committee member of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), IRUSA’s parent group. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Center for Interfaith Action on Global Poverty.

Ayoub joined the State Department’s Religion and Foreign Policy Working Group in November 2011, specifically the Sub-Group on Faith-Based Groups and Development and Humanitarian Assistance, according to IRUSA’s press release. It says he will “take part in dialogue and provide input on relevant topics including the challenges and opportunities for partnership. The group also will identify model action programs or projects for collaboration between the U.S. government and NGOs.” The release says it will “meet through November 2012.” The timing and phrasing suggests that this isn’t the group’s expiration date and that the election will determine whether its work continues next year.

According to his bio, Ayoub was appointed to the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid in April 2010, where he “provides advice, analysis and recommendations to USAID on the most pressing development issues in the world today.” He was reappointed to another two-year term in May.

On November 23-24, 2010, Ayoub spoke at Washington National Cathedral and the White House. In August 2011, he was given a Distinguished Community Service Award by the Department of Agriculture. President Obama mentioned his administration’s work with IRUSA at the National Prayer Breakfast on February 2, 2012. On June 21, Ayoub spoke at an event hosted by Vice President Biden (there’s a picture of the two together on this page).

That’s quite a list of accomplishments for a man whose bio states that he’s a governance committee member of IRW. In 2006, Israel arrested the IRW’s project coordinator of its Gaza office, Iyaz Ali, for funneling money to Hamas. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ press release stated that IRW operations in Gaza and the West Bank were inseparable from that of Hamas:

“The IRW’s activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are carried out by social welfare organizations controlled and staffed by Hamas operatives. The intensive activities of these associations are designed to further Hamas’ ideology among the Palestinian population,” it states.

The Israeli government says that Iyaz Ali admitted to knowing that the organizations supported by IRW are Hamas entities. These organizations incite acts of terrorism and provide material aid to the families of Hamas terrorists that are wounded or in Israeli custody.

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Blacks in Palestinian Territories Are Still Seen and Used as Slaves

(PTM) The community of black Bedouins ("Afro-Bedouins") in the desert town of Rahat faces racial and class discrimination deeply rooted in the social conventions of the traditional Bedouin community in the Negev. The black Bedouins' roots lie in East Africa, where they were captured by Arab slave traders and sold in the markets of Zanzibar and Saudi Arabia to white Bedouin tribes. These markets operated until the early 20th century; many of those abducted and their offspring continued to serve as slaves in Palestine until 1948 (when Israeli law came into force), hence they are still referred to as "abed" or "abda" (Arabic for slave, servant). It is a minority that has endured deprivation and oppression. Their negative image pervades the local social, family, and education systems, preventing their personal as well as professional advancement and limiting their independence and freedom of choice.

The Film Class was created in Rahat in 2005-06 as part of a filmmaking workshop for black Bedouin women taught by director Uri Rosenwaks. While working with these women, teaching them the principles of cinematography, their daily confrontation with the harsh racism and the repressed historical origins of their discrimination are unveiled.

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Rich Lowry: Women aren’t dumb, O

(NYP) It’s a mercy that the suffragettes aren’t around to see President Obama’s campaign for the women’s vote. It would make them weep in dismay.

Almost a hundred years after passage of the 19th Amendment, the president is making perhaps the most superficial, misleading and insulting appeal for the support of women in American presidential politics ever. It’s a wonder that his target audience doesn’t rise up as one and say, “Please, stop condescending to us.”

If David Axelrod is right, what women care about most is making other people, even religious employers, pay for their birth control. They love abortion with a single-minded passion. They are so easily manipulated that they can be motivated to oppose Mitt Romney because he said innocently in a debate that his aides brought him “binders full of women” to consider for his cabinet as Massachusetts governor.

They can be convinced that they are the victims of a “war on women” as long as the slogan is repeated over and over again. They can be made to believe that the Lilly Ledbetter Act is an epochal change in the balance of power between the genders, when pay discrimination has long been illegal and the Lilly Ledbetter Act merely tilts the playing field against employers and toward trial lawyers by allowing lawsuits years after alleged acts of pay discrimination.

The likes of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton argued that women were just as capable of rational deliberation as men. The conceit of the Obama campaign is that, to the contrary, they are quite susceptible to a few powerful dog whistles and unable to see beyond their gender.

To paraphrase a notorious post on the Obama campaign’s Tumblr page, “ladies vote like their lady parts depend on it.”

The 20-something filmmaker and actress Lena Dunham captured the sensibility perfectly in an instantly mocked video likening voting for Obama for the first time to having sex for the first time. “You want to do it with a great guy,” Dunham gushes.

As the conservative writer John O’Sullivan noted, if Dunham can really compare “the excitement of her first vote to losing her virginity, one can only encourage her to persevere: Sex really will get better.”

Dunham’s pitch is fashioned, of course, to young, single women in particular. (One hopes that by age 35 or so, older and wiser, she will look back on the spot with embarrassment.) But single women in general are key to Obama’s coalition. He wants government to occupy an outsized role in their lives, as captured in the symbolism of his campaign.

Obama was implicitly the husband of Julia, the cartoon character created to demonstrate the cradle-to-grave assistance rendered by his programs; Obama is implicitly Lena Dunham’s lover.

The tsar in Russia styled himself the Great Father of the serfs. Obama is the Great Provider for the women in his coalition. He gives them material and emotional support. He helps them not have children, protects them from the depredations of their male employers and scorns any suggestion that anyone ever has to fall back on self-reliance.

The implicit picture his campaign paints of these women is one of economic powerlessness and extreme political credulity.

Every public-opinion poll that shows Mitt Romney closing the gap among women is a small victory for a less-slighting view of women.

Not that the Romney campaign hasn’t engaged in its own embarrassingly simple-minded courtship of female voters. Its convention was devoted to it, and — reassuringly enough — got Romney nothing. He made his strides among women with a performance in the first debate that was substantive, future-oriented and designed to speak to the entire country rather than to narrow slivers of the electorate.

The president is increasingly incapable of the latter. The former uniter is now a divider hoping enough women buy his insipid pitch.

Let’s be glad that Susan B. Anthony and the gals are spared the spectacle.

Saudi Arabia to raze Prophet Mohammed’s tomb to build larger mosque

How much do you want to bet that there will be no wild ass Muslim protests anywhere in the world about the destruction of one of the holiest sites of Islam?
(RT) The key Islamic heritage site, including Prophet Mohammed’s shrine, is to be bulldozed, as Saudi Arabia plans a $ 6 billion expansion of Medina’s holy Masjid an-Nabawi Mosque. However, Muslims remain silent on the possible destruction.

­Work on the Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, is planned to start as soon as the annual Hajj pilgrimage comes to a close at the end of November.

After the reconstruction, the mosque is expected to become the world’s largest building, with a capacity for 1.6 million people.

And while the need to expand does exist as more pilgrims are flocking to holy sites every year, nothing has been said on how the project will affect the surroundings of the mosque, also historic sites.

Concerns are growing that the expansion of Masjid an-Nabawi will come at the price of three of the world’s oldest mosques nearby, which hold the tombs of Prophet Mohammed and two of his closest companions, Abu Bakr and Umar. The expansion project which will cost 25 billion SAR (more than US $6 billion) reportedly requires razing holy sites, as old as the seventh century. [...]

But to build this tourist attraction the Saudi authorities destroyed the Ottoman era Ajyad Fortress and the hill it stood on.

The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimated that 95 percent of sacred sites and shrines in the two cities have been destroyed in the past twenty years.
Money quote:
The Prophet’s birthplace was turned into a library and the house of his first wife, Khadijah, was replaced with a public toilet block.

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Celebratory gunfire at Saudi wedding cuts cable, 23 electrocuted

RIYADH (Reuters) - Celebratory gunfire at a wedding party in eastern Saudi Arabia on Tuesday night brought down an electric cable, killing 23 people, a local civil defense official said.

"At the wedding, the cable fell on a metal door and the 23 people who died were all electrocuted," Eastern Province official Abdullah Khashman said by phone.

A photograph of the aftermath of the accident, published on local newspapers' websites showed a large courtyard strewn with fallen chairs and a pole in the middle supporting cables carrying lightbulbs.

All those killed were from the same tribe, Khashman said. Thirty others were injured in the incident near Abqaiq, a center of the Saudi energy industry.

Saudi Arabia banned the shooting of firearms at weddings, a popular tradition in tribal areas of the conservative Islamic kingdom, last month.

Eastern Province governor Prince Mohammed bin Fahd ordered an investigation into the incident, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Egyptian pro-jihad journalist Mona Eltahawy: Egyptian women are sexually harassed at every level of society



Whether rich or poor, religious or secular, men in Egyptian society routinely harass women – and the attacks are often violent and rarely punished, says Mona Eltahawy, a journalist and speaker on Arab and Muslim issues. She describes her own battle to win justice after an assault in Cairo, and calls for reform to Egyptian laws and attitudes to sexual harassment.
Mona Eltahawy is also known to be as a staunch supporter of radical Islam, defacing anti-jihad posters in the NY subway, evidently equating jihadists to mainstream Muslims. Obviously, she knows something we don't.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Pic of the day

Hamas releases video detailing its own war crimes

(WJD) The genocidal Palestinian terrorist group Hamas proved itself to be as stupid as it is murderous on Monday, with the group's release of a video showing its operatives firing missiles at Israeli civilians from a populated urban area. In effect, the video constitutes evidence of two war crimes: A deliberate attack on civilians, and the use of other civilians as human shields. As YNet notes,
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip have been known to shoot out of populated areas so as to stop the IDF from retaliating in a manner that may target innocent citizens. But while they often release videos of the rocket fire, the groups seldom document shooting from populated areas.
Israel has long charged that Hamas uses civilians as human shields against retaliation, and that it deliberately endangers them in order to foment anti-Israel propaganda. For the most part, this has fallen on deaf ears. Now, ironically, indisputable proof that Israeli claims are true has been provided by none other than Hamas itself. Blinded by its virulent racism and absurd braggadocio, the terrorist group has indicted itself far more effectively than Israel ever could.

England: Jihadists talked of building an 'Ultimate Mowing Machine' to kill and main as many people as possible

(London Evening Standard) A jihadist gang accused of plotting suicide bombings more devastating than the 7/7 attacks on London talked of building an 'Ultimate Mowing Machine' to kill and maim.

Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, from Birmingham, have pleaded not guilty to engaging in conduct in preparation for terrorist acts.

But the prosecution claims that in covert recordings made by police after the men returned from Pakistan they are heard talking about putting sharp blades on the front of a truck and "running" into people, the court heard.

Recorded speaking on September 10, they discussed an idea for a weapon that had been published in an outlawed extremist online magazine called Inspire under the headline "The Ultimate Mowing Machine".

It was an article the prosecution said the defendants were clearly aware of.

Naseer said: "So Ashik, it feel like I've been driving a monster truck, you know."

Khalid said: "Yeah and do what AQ (al Qaida) said, put that blades at the front of it and trample on everyone."

He continued later: "Just drive it into people in (a) crowded area."

The men also discussed what would happen to their bodies after they had been martyred in a suicide attack, the court heard.

In what the prosecution caled a "very telling exchange", they discussed where they would be buried in Birmingham while being watched by surveillance officers driving through the Small Heath area of Birmingham on September 11 last year.

Khalid said: ""Nah, I'm just thinking... most likely it'll be Handsworth (cemetery), if there's a body left."

Naseer replied: "One thing, one thing, remember, once that once you done, it doesn't matter where you get buried, innit."

Mr Altman said: "The exchange puts beyond doubt that they were planning a suicide attack."

Khalid and Naseer also talked about people "getting killed" in their local area and how no one would come there any more because it would be a "little war zone", the court heard.

Khalid was recorded saying: "This earth here ain't ever be the same, how these people think that, all everyone's gonna be merry merry kuffar are gonna come and eat and drink here, it's not gonna happen, because after we've done, Insha'Allah, yeah, after later on, yeah."

He added: "These people are gonna be getting killed and that here, there's gonna be little war zone, yeah."

In another conversation he described Westerners as evil, saying: "All I'm saying is look how much hatred they have for Islam.

"That does make you go mad."

The men were recorded taking a large flatscreen television to their flat, on which to watch violent videos.

They were also heard boasting that they had been contacted by a potential "investor" who they hoped might give them up to £10,000.

A Dawah charity shop was going to be used as a cover to recruit more people to their cause and they planned to set up charity stalls selling cakes and perfume in Coventry, Leicester and Walsall.

Naseer was recorded talking about the September 11 al Qaida bombers and how they increased their iman (faith) by "doing 10 (chapters of the Koran) a day", while talking to an associate.

The trial continues tomorrow.

France: Fully veiled woman sentenced to 6 months in prison for refusing to present ID, kicking police officers and trying to flee

(Hurriyet) A court in France's northern province of Lille sentenced a fully-covered 18-year-old woman to 6 months in prison on Oct.30 for refusing to present her identity card to police, reported AFP.

The woman, who wasn't identified in reports, refused to show her identity card to police, telling them she didn’t have time before attempting to escape. The woman kicked police officers who followed and eventually caught her.

The woman was convicted of willful violence, outrage, rebellion and incitement to riot and was issued a sentence two times longer than expected. The prosecutor had originally demanded a 3 month prison sentence.

"If she had shown her face she would have avoided beginning her career with an adult criminal record," said the prosecutor.

Covered women in France are legally required to show their faces and identify themselves as of Oct. 11, 2010, when a law prohibiting "the concealment of face in a public space" went into effect.

Afghan policeman kills two British soldiers

KABUL (Reuters) - A man wearing an Afghan police uniform shot dead two members of Afghanistan's NATO-led force in the south of the country on Tuesday, the force said.

An Afghan police official in the southern province of Helmand said a policeman had killed two British soldiers and efforts were underway to apprehend him.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) declined to say where the two members of the force killed in the attack were from.

So-called insider attacks on Western forces have undermined trust between coalition and Afghan forces as NATO prepares to withdraw most combat troops by the end of 2014.

At least 56 members of ISAF have been killed this year by Afghans wearing police or army uniforms.

Syrian air raid on strategic town kills 6 civilians, including children

AMMAN, Oct 30 (Reuters) - A Syrian airforce raid on a rebel-held town, strategically situated on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, killed at least six civilians on Tuesday, including children, opposition campaigners in the area said.

Video footage showed men pulling out the body of a toddler from a flattened building in a northern neighbourhood of Maarat al-Numaan, 300 kilometres (188 miles) north of Damascus, which has been under aerial and ground bombardment since rebels seized control last month.

The footage could not be independently verified.
Notice how Reuters is being cautious about this report, unlike the staged photo ops during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, when children's toys were planted at the scenes and bodies were moved from one location to another.

Hurricane Sandy video: Transformer explodes in Manhattan

MANHATTAN — A massive explosion rocked a Con Edison plant near East 14th Street and the FDR on Monday evening as Hurricane Sandy continued to batter New York City.

Area residents shared photos and video footage of the explosion, which plunged much of the neighborhood into darkness, via social media websites shortly after it happened.

A New York camera operator has filmed a transformer erupting in a huge ball of blue light in downtown Manhattan after Hurricane Sandy made landfall.

Shot from across the East River in Brooklyn, the video posted online shows a series of bright blue flashes illuminating the sky from explosions at the Con Ed (Consolidated Edison) power plant.

Con Ed has announced that it has already shut off power to customers to part of Lower Manhattan so it can be restored faster after the storm passes.
Much of Manhattan is now without power, with millions of homes elsewhere also facing blackouts.

Water levels are now at record highs in the city, with the Fire Department of New York headquarters evacuated by boat.

The sea surged a record of nearly four metres at the foot of Manhattan.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Now THAT'S a spirit!

Epic and prophetic pic of the day

Source: CBS

Fighting between local Buddhists and Muslim settlers killed 84, displaced 22,500 in Myanmar

Hong Kong (CNN) -- The death toll from fighting between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar last week has risen to 84 and at least 22,500 people have been displaced by the sectarian violence, state media and the United Nations say.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Monday that 129 people were also injured during the violence, which erupted on October 21 and has cast a pall over recent reforms in the Asian nation.

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Major BS alert: Obama says he whispered to Medvedev about “more flexibility” because he was busy campaigning... 7 months before the campaign season began

Who does he think actually buys this crap?

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama said the reason he told Russia’s Dimitry Medvedev back in March–more than seven months before this year’s presidential election–that he would have “more flexibility” after the election to work with Russian leader Vladimir Putin was because he was too busy campaigning and doing other “stuff.”

“The discussion there very much just had to do with the fact that it’s hard to negotiate additional treaties when I’m off campaigning and doing all kinds of stuff,” Obama said on Friday, explaining his open-mic comments with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this year.

The president’s latest comments came during an interview with News 4 KRNV in Reno, Nevada.

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Soldiers Guard the Tomb of Unknowns Despite Hurricane Sandy

(ABC) An inspirational picture making the rounds on the Internet today is reminding people of the service of the elite soldiers who guard Arlington Cemetery's Tomb of the Unknowns in any kind of weather, even during Hurricane Sandy. That the picture was actually taken in September is another matter, because even as Hurricane Sandy makes its way along the Eastern seaboard, soldiers are there, guarding the tomb in the fierce wind and rain.

Tomb Sentinels from the Army's 3rd Infantry Regiment's "The Old Guard" have guarded the Tomb for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year regardless of the weather, since 1948.

A photo of three Tomb Sentinels standing at attention before the Tomb of the Unknowns in a driving rain in what is supposed to be Hurricane Sandy took the Internet by storm today, but it turns out the photo was actually taken on Sept. 18. It is one in a series taken that day by photographer Karin Markert and posted on a photo sharing site.

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Israel to limit cluster bombs in possible war with Hezbollah

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel would use a lot fewer cluster munitions in any future war with Hezbollah than it did in their 2006 conflict, even though it would go into southern Lebanon earlier and harder, a senior Israeli military officer said on Monday.

The disclosure confirms Israel already has detailed planning for an offensive aiming to avoid some controversial tactics used in the 34-day push against the Iranian-backed guerrillas.

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Despite All the Evidence to the Contrary, Panetta Says We Lacked Real-Time Benghazi Intel

(Investors.com) Despite real-time video, emails to the White House and desperate cries for help, our defense secretary says we didn't send rescue forces to our Benghazi consulate because we didn't know what was going on.

In a statement bordering on the Kafkaesque, Leon Panetta told a news conference Thursday that four Americans, including our Libyan ambassador Chris Stevens, were left to die without a rescue attempt by nearby U.S. military forces because there's "a basic principle here, and the basic principle is that you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's taking place."

That would seem to sum up the Obama administration's assessment of and story line about the Middle East — it has no real-time clue about what's going on. Osama bin Laden is dead, but Islamofascism is very much alive, and to send an ambassador and his diplomatic mission into harm's way without so much as a Marine security detachment with bayonets is unconscionable.

Excuse us, Mr. Secretary, but your administration had a drone over the consulate on Sept. 11, and you and President Obama had a meeting that included Vice President Joe "Nobody Told Us" Biden in the Oval Office at 5 p.m. Washington time, a little more than an hour after the onset of the attack. There were at least 50 minutes of real-time video of the attack as the battle was sent streaming directly to the Situation Room in the White House.

Real-time emails were also pouring into the Situation Room detailing that 20 armed terrorists were attacking our Benghazi consulate, that Ambassador Stevens was crouched in a safe room waiting for help as the al-Qaida terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia was taking credit for the attack. Most claims of responsibility for a terrorist attack come days after the event. This was, as they say, in "real-time."

If indeed you had insufficient knowledge concerning the attack itself, you certainly had knowledge of the threat. Ambassador Stevens had been begging for even the most basic security, and all his requests for additional security were denied. And how about this little factoid: the Benghazi consulate was and is sovereign U.S. territory that you and President Obama had a responsibility and duty to defend.

According to Fox News, administration cowardice extended to the real-time denial of an urgent request from the CIA annex for military backup during the attack on the consulate and subsequent attack several hours later. The request was denied by U.S. officials, who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team.

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The Palestinianization of European Political Discourse

The fact that for the first time since the Nazis ruled Europe, Jews are being boycotted and sanctioned on a massive scale, is testament to the perverse success of the Palestinianization of Europe.
(INN) News that the European Union’s foreign policy representative, Catherine Ashton, joined an Arab olive harvest in the town of Ras Karkar, should be a cause for concern for all those who are worried about the EU’s inability to stay impartial in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The fact that Ras Karkar is in Area C, which is under Israeli military and administrative control, is something of a propaganda coup for the Palestinians, who claim Ms Ashton’s visit is proof that that “this territory is not contested as Israel claims” and will “help us move to full Palestinian sovereignty.”

Ms Ashton’s visit to the Middle East comes a week after she described Israeli construction activity in a Jerusalem neighbourhood as threatening "to make a two-state solution impossible." Moreover, she made no mention of the Palestinian refusal to resume direct negotiations with Israel without preconditions.

One of the most alarming experiences as a European is to see how our politicians continue to criticize Israel but not the Palestinians, whose national aspirations seem to be the most pressing issue in the corridors of EU power. In fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that the creation of a Palestinian state will inaugurate a period of world peace and utopian brotherhood.

It is ironic that the EU is so fixated on Palestinian nationalism at a time when Europe is undermining the sovereignty of individual nation states within its own borders. Indeed, Europe haughtily dismisses concepts such as a statehood and nationalism. So why is Palestinian statehood so important?

This obsession with the Palestinians requires an explanation. Ever since Israel’s astounding military victory in 1967, it is clear that the Jewish state does not require the benefaction of condescending Europeans. This means that Europe needs a “new Jew” to patronise. But instead of protecting its own Jewish remnant who had survived the horrors of the Shoah, the European elite latched on to the concept of Palestinian nationalism.

Why? Because Palestinian nationalism was – and still is – packaged as a revolutionary (albeit invented) ethnocentric liberation movement which challenges the hegemony of the US, which has long supported Israel. Moreover, the Palestinians managed to convince just about everyone that they are a landless and suffering people, whose plight is equal to that of the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.

During the 1960s and 1970s, when the Palestinians used terrorism to advertise their message, some European politicians and activists must have thought that assisting the Palestinians was simply the right thing to do. Anyway, supporting the PLO at a time when it was widely considered to be a terrorist organization, was a good way of upsetting the Americans. At the same time, the Palestinian issue has enabled Europe to reconnect with its Jew-hating past by blurring the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

II

The fact that for the first time since the Nazis ruled Europe, Jews are being boycotted and sanctioned on a massive scale, is testament to the perverse success of the Palestinianization of Europe.

A growing number of European universities, trade unions and businesses have decided to boycott Israeli products and individual Israelis (usually academics), as well as Israeli orchestras and theatre groups. At state level, Denmark and Ireland are proposing the banning of Israeli goods. The European Parliament’s second biggest voting bloc, the Socialists and Democrats Group, also supports a boycott of Israeli settlement goods.

At street level, Jews are assaulted and their sacred spaces vandalized. Countries that pride themselves on their enlightened and liberal societies, such as Sweden, France, Britain and Norway, are all places where to be Jewish is to be at risk.

The rise in anti-Semitism in Europe has received little attention, partly because much of the abuse is carried out by Muslims who are sheltered by the liberal elite, who accuse critics of Islamophobia or racism. Muslims who attack diaspora Jews claim it is retribution on behalf of their “brothers” in Gaza and the “West Bank.” And the liberal elite agrees.

In the European media, Israel is disproportionately blamed for all the ills of the Middle East. It is amazing how many column inches are devoted to Israel/Palestine. Far too often, the Guardian newspaper gives a platform to radical Muslims who espouse hatred of Israel and Jews. And on so many occasions, media outlets across Europe print or broadcast anti-Israel stories that are based on manipulated images, staged events and unsubstantiated rumors, the most notable example being the massacre that never happened in Jenin.

What is also vexing is Europe’s economic support for projects in Gaza and the “West Bank.” Over the past two decades, the EU has committed around 5 billion euros in development aid to the Palestinians. The EU makes no secret of the fact that it is deliberately helping the Palestinians prepare for statehood, which the EU says is being hampered by Israeli settlements. At the start of 2012, the EU contributed another 1.1 million euros to the PA’s so-called “Private Sector Reconstruction in Gaza" programme, which provides financial support to businesses destroyed or damaged by "Operation Cast Lead". Never mind the fact that Gaza has a has a five-star hotel and a luxury shopping mall, or that its real GDP grow by more than 25% in the first three quarters of 2011.

III

In contemporary European political discourse, the Palestinian issue is totemic. The European fixation with Gaza and the “West Bank” has propagated the outrageous but popular belief that Israel is the world’s worst human rights abuser since the Nazis. But casting Israel in this role is no different from accusing Jews of killing Christian children for their blood or blaming Jews for Germany’s military defeat in 1918. The level of abuse levelled at Israel today is just another manifestation of an age-old disease. And it is a disease which always makes Europe very sick.

Ms Ashton, who is also vice-president of the European Commission, would do well to turn her attention to finding a solution to domestic anti-Semitism, which is at its highest level in sixty years. Europe has no business funding Gaza or castigating Israel when it cannot even look after its own persecuted minority of Jews, some of whom are fleeing France and Sweden in order to find shelter in Israel. The fact that the Holocaust is still within living memory should send a shudder down the spine of Europe.

The one-sided criticism of Israel and the culture of hatred in Europe needs to be addressed before more Jews are attacked or synagogues firebombed by pro-Palestinian activists. For the sake of a healthy body politic, EU politicians must resist the urge to automatically side with the Palestinians and say “no” to anti-Semitism in all its forms. They should point out the duplicity of left-wing peace demonstrators who side with Hamas and Hezbollah, and highlight the hypocrisy of European anti-Zionists who send flotillas to Gaza but do nothing about Syria, which is currently falling apart.

This is not about being anti-Muslim (or even anti-Left) but about getting things into proportion and realizing that there are more important issues in the world than “Palestine.” Eradicating European anti-Semitism is, in my view, far more important. After all, Europe has a moral and historic duty to protect what remains of its Jewish communities.

Obama's Appeasement Gambit: Israeli paper reveals Obama tried to reestablish diplomatic ties with Iran

(WJD) The Israeli daily Maariv reported on Sunday that, early in his term, U.S. President Barack Obama made a major attempt to reestablish diplomatic ties with Iran.

According to the Times of Israel, the attempt took place in 2009, and was initiated by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, undoubtedly with presidential approval.

Obama offered "the opening of interest sections in Washington and Tehran, with the possibility subsequently of expanding to full diplomatic ties." He was also prepared
to hold senior level diplomatic contacts, to agree to reciprocal visits, to approve security cooperation between the countries, direct flights between the US and Iran, and the granting of visas to Iranians wishing to visit the US.
Without question, this revelation seriously undermines Obama's pledge to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Though the offer was rebuffed, Obama was nonetheless willing to offer astonishingly far-reaching concessions to the Iranians. In particular, the offer of "security cooperation" is shocking, given Iran's role in fomenting and facilitating Islamist terrorism.

The Israeli government has stated that it knew of the offer and did not oppose it. It is unclear, however, whether the Israelis were informed in detail.

Bipartisan Battleground Poll shows across-the-board Romney win

(Weekly Standard) The bipartisan Battleground Poll, in its “vote election model,” is projecting that Mitt Romney will defeat President Obama 52 percent to 47 percent. The poll also found that Romney has an even greater advantage among middle class voters, 52 percent to 45 percent.

While Obama can close the gap with a strong voter turnout effort, “reports from the field would indicate that not to be the case, and Mitt Romney may well be heading to a decisive victory,” says pollster Ed Goeas.

Should Romney win by 5 percentage points, it would increase Republican chances of gaining control of the Senate. His coattails would help elect GOP Senate candidates in Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. “Republicans are now certain to hold the House,” Goeas said, “regardless of how the presidential race turns out.”

The poll’s election model takes into account variables including voter intensity, age, and education, and voters who are certain in their vote. The race “remains very close in the surface,” Goeas said, “but the political environment and the composition of the likely electorate favor Governor Romney.”

The projected outcome by the Battleground Poll is close to that of the Gallup Poll. Last week, Gallup said Romney leads Obama 49 percent to 46 percent in its model of the electorate’s composition on November 6.

The Battleground Poll is conducted by Goeas of the Tarrance Group and Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners. Goeas is a Republican, Lake a Democrat. The survey is affiliated with Politico and George Washington University.

Taken last week, the poll found that only 37 percent of voters believe the country is headed in the right direction. For an incumbent president to win reelection, that number normally must exceed 40 percent. “Everyone but the core Democratic constituencies holds the strongly held feeling that the country is off on the wrong track,” Goeas said.

For the first time this year, Romney has a majority favorable image. His favorability rating is 52 percent, Obama’s is 51 percent. According to the poll, Romney is viewed favorably by a majority of independents (59 percent), seniors (57), married voters (61), moms (56), college graduates (54), middle class voters (56), and middle class families (61).
Which pretty much shows Democrats, with their "war on women", "war on seniors", "war on the middle class", etc., as the party of BS.

That was all flushed down the toilet at the first debate. Once the voters saw that Romney was not the evil monster they had painted, but rather quite the opposite, Obama lost all credibility in the attacks. But because that was all he had, they have continued that because it appeals to the hardcore base - the fringe whose ideology Obama represents.

Syria: Deaths and destruction as government forces and rebels bomb each other on the last day of "truce"

AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian jets bombed parts of Damascus on Monday in what residents said were the capital's fiercest air raids yet, underlining the collapse of a truce proposed by peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

"More than 100 buildings have been destroyed, some leveled to the ground," said opposition activist Moaz al-Shami, who said he had witnessed three air raids in the northeastern suburb of Harasta alone. "Whole neighborhoods are deserted."

Syrian state television said a "terrorist car bomb" had killed 10 people, including women and children, near a bakery in Jaramana - a southeastern district of Damascus controlled by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Each side blamed the other for breaking the four-day truce for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which swiftly broke down.

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Mainstream media watchdogs are toothless covering Obama and Libya scandal

(Fox News) When Mitt Romney chose not to directly engage President Obama on Libya in last Monday’s third presidential debate, the mainstream media wrote it off as over-caution on the Republican challenger’s part.

That might be true. Certainly a lot of Republicans think so.

But what is the mainstream media’s excuse for cautiously engaging the president on Libya? Aren’t we supposed to be watchdogs? The ongoing story is story focused on whether the Obama administration provided, or refused to provide, adequate protection for the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya when it faced the threat of attack on Sept. 11. The attack left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead. Subsequent conflicting accounts coming from the administration on how the White House responded, or didn’t respond, are tailor-made for a full-blown media feeding frenzy.

Yet, the so-called media watchdogs so far have been mostly toothless.

Case in point: On Friday, FoxNews.com reported that it “learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command... -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.”

That’s a very chilling story. And if correct, it could be very damaging to the President Obama’s re-election chances. But looking at the websites Friday of other major news outlets, the story is mostly ignored.

It was not picked up or reported by The New York Times. The Washington Post didn’t cover it either. Same for USA Today. Neither did NBC, CBS, CNN or ABC.

CNN had a link on its Website front page to a story that says “doubts surface” on whether claims of responsibility for the Benghazi attacks was the work of terrorists. The story mostly supports administration accounts and refutes Republican critics such as Sen. John McCain, (R-Ariz.)

NBC’s only Friday story on Libya said in its headline. “Libya Disappears from Romney Stump Speeches.”

CBS’s latest story on Libya had House Speaker John Boehner asking Obama for “answers” about the attacks.

On Thursday, the major media were loaded with stories and videos in which Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended the administration saying that the US military did not respond to the attack because in did not have adequate “real-time information” to put American forces at risk. Not much follow-up on that.

Also on Thursday, NBC’s Brian Williams interviewed Obama on “Rock Center” asking him what can only be described as a “softball” question on Libya: "Have you been happy with the intelligence, especially in our post 9/11 world? The assessment of your intelligence community, as we stand here, is that it still was a spontaneous terrorist attack and were you happy with what you were able to learn as this unfolded?"

A tougher question might have been, “Why have the administration's explanations of what really happened, and how you responded, been all over the map?”

So what’s going on here? Are the media just protecting Obama at a critical time in this election campaign, or are they just not following the latest CIA story because they would have to give credit to Fox News?

Whatever the reason, it is not good watchdog journalism.

Obama needs to come clean on what happened in Benghazi

(WT) There is an urgent need for full disclosure of what has become the “Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up.” The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI and the Pentagon, apparently watched and listened to the assault on the U.S. consulate and cries for help but did nothing. If someone had described a fictional situation with a similar scenario and described our leadership ignoring the pleas for help, I would have said it was not realistic—not in my America – but I would have been proven wrong.

We now know why Ambassador Christopher Stevens had to be in Benghazi the night of 9/11 to meet a Turkish representative, even though he feared for his safety. According to various reports, one of Stevens’ main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gadhafi’s military equipment, including the deadly SA-7 – portable SAMs – to Islamists and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting the Assad Regime in Syria. In an excellent article, Aaron Klein states that Stevens routinely used our Benghazi consulate (mission) to coordinate the Turkish, Saudi Arabian and Qatari governments’ support for insurgencies throughout the Middle East. Further, according to Egyptian security sources, Stevens played a “central role in recruiting Islamic jihadists to fight the Assad Regime in Syria.”

In another excellent article, Clare Lopez at RadicalIslam.org noted that there were two large warehouse-type buildings associated with our Benghazi mission. During the terrorist attack, the warehouses were probably looted. We do not know what was there and if it was being administrated by our two former Navy SEALs and the CIA operatives who were in Benghazi. Nonetheless, the equipment was going to hardline jihadis.

Once the attack commenced at 10:00 p.m. Libyan time (4:00 p.m. EST), we know the mission security staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli. It now appears the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NDI, JCS and various other military commands monitored the entire battle in real time via frantic phone calls from our compound and video from an overhead drone. The cries for help and support went unanswered.

Our Benghazi mission personnel, including our two former Navy SEALs, fought for seven hours without any assistance other than help from our embassy in Tripoli, which launched within 30 minutes an aircraft carrying six Americans and 16 Libyan security guards. It is understood they were instrumental in helping 22 of our Benghazi mission personnel escape the attack.

Once the attack commenced, Stevens was taken to a “safe room” within the mission. It is not known whether his location was betrayed by the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, the local force providing security to the consulate, which had ties to the Ansar al-Sharia terrorist group conducting the attack, and to al Qaeda. Unbelievably, we still do not know how Ambassador Stevens died.

The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI, State Department and the Pentagon, watched and listened to the assault but did nothing to answer repeated calls for assistance. It has been reported that President Obama met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office, presumably to see what support could be provided. After all, we had very credible military resources within striking distance. At our military base in Sigonella, Sicily, which is slightly over 400 miles from Benghazi, we had a fully equipped Special Forces unit with both transport and jet strike aircraft prepositioned. Certainly this was a force much more capable than the 22-man force from our embassy in Tripoli.

I know those Special Forces personnel were ready to leap at the opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind they would have wiped out the terrorists attackers. Also I have no doubt that Admiral William McRaven, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, would have had his local commander at Sigonella ready to launch; however, apparently he was countermanded—by whom? We need to know.

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ID, please, Mr. President: Obama was asked to show photo ID to prove his identity when casing ballot in Chicago

Is that racist or what?
(NYP) President Obama stopped off in Chicago Thursday to become the first incumbent to cast an early in-person ballot in a presidential election.

But before he could, he had to present photo ID — his driver’s license — to prove his identity and prevent any fraud at the polls.

As a rule, that’s not only reasonable, but sensible.

And a compelling video that surfaced last week, documenting a blatant attempt at voter fraud by a Virginia congressman’s campaign, shows exactly why.

The video features Democratic Rep. Jim Moran’s son, campaign field director Patrick Moran — who was later forced to resign — coaching someone on how to commit voting fraud.

In a sting operation, a conservative activist approaches Moran with a supposed scheme in which supporters would cast fraudulent ballots under the names of 100 registered voters who are unlikely to turn up at the polls.

Virginia’s voter-ID law requires only utility bills as proof of residence, and the activist says he could fake those using his home computer.

Young Moran agrees: “A bank statement would be tough, but faking a utility bill would be easy enough,” he says.

He also urges the activist to call all the people on his list and make sure they aren’t voting.

“You can even just call and be, like, a pollster,” he suggests.

Should any problems develop, Moran added, “you’ll have somebody in-house that, if they feel what you have is legitimate, they’ll argue for you.”

By which, Moran says, he means lawyers for Obama’s Organizing for America “or provided by the communities or the committees” — groups like the NAACP, ACLU and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which are prepared to challenge any attempt to stop people from voting.

No matter how dubious their credentials.

Democrats and the Obama team, of course, won’t acknowledge that voter fraud is a real concern.

But criminal cases involving ACORN in several states put the lie to that.

And who knows how many other campaign officials like Patrick Moran have helped hatch similar schemes and weren’t caught on undercover video?

Which is why Republicans — wisely — have backed genuinely tough and enforceable voter ID laws nationwide.

Like the one that ensured it was Barack Obama — and not, say, Saturday Night Live Obama-impersonator Jay Pharaoh — who cast an early ballot in Chicago last week.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Video: Flying Over America


Saudi King "demands" the UN to adopt blasphemy resolution

(JPost) Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz on Saturday called on the UN to adopt a resolution condemning blasphemy, AFP reported.

"I demand a UN resolution that condemns any country or group that insults religions and prophets," he reportedly said. "It is our duty and that of every Muslim to protect Islam and defend the prophets."

The Saudi King is the latest Islamic leader to call for a ban on blasphemy following the release last month of the US-made Innocence of Muslims film, which triggered a wave of deadly anti-American violence across the Islamic world.

Abdullah also stressed the important of the "unity of the Islamic nation...to face the nation's enemies."

British woman, Khadija Shah, held in Pakistan on drug charges, sent back to jail after giving birth

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A British woman, held in Pakistan on charges of drug smuggling, has been sent back to prison with her newborn daughter after giving birth in a hospital, a British legal group said Sunday.

Khadija Shah, 25, is being held on charges of trying to smuggle heroin worth nearly $5 million onto a flight to Britain.

She gave birth to her baby girl Malaika a few weeks ago but was returned from hospital to Adiala prison near the capital Islamabad. The birth was not reported until Sunday.

The baby has had no immunizations and has already had to be hospitalized when she developed severe diarrhoea in the unsanitary prison, said British legal group Reprieve.

"To keep a baby behind bars is truly barbaric. Baby Malaika is weak and suffering from terrible health problems while Khadija faces execution. No mother would wish this scenario on their worst enemy," Reprieve investigator Sultana Noon said in a statement.

Shah has two other young children. After a period of incarceration when their mother was arrested in May this year, they were freed into the care of a relative.

Mothers are frequently imprisoned with their children while their cases are heard in Pakistan's congested legal system. Criminal cases can take years to complete.

Syrian airforce bombs cities, truce "practically over"

Muslim truces are not worth the blood they are signed in. And, as we all know, that blood is very cheap.
AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian jets bombarded Sunni Muslim regions in Damascus and across the country on Sunday, activists said, as President Bashar al-Assad kept up air strikes against rebels despite a U.N.-brokered truce that now appears to be in tatters.

"The ceasefire is practically over. Damascus has been under brutal air raids since day one and hundreds of people have been arrested," said veteran opposition campaigner Fawaz Tello.

"Assad has been trying to use the truce to seize back control of areas of Damascus," said Tello, who is well connected with rebels.

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Muslim suicide bomber kills 8, injures 100 in Nigerian church

KADUNA (Reuters) - A suicide bomber drove a jeep packed with explosives into a Catholic church in northern Nigeria on Sunday, killing at least eight people, injuring more than 100 and triggering reprisal attacks that killed at least two more, officials said.

The bomber drove right into the packed St Rita's church in the Malali area of Kaduna, a volatile ethnically and religiously mixed city, in the morning, witnesses said.

A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Yushua Shuaib said eight people had been confirmed killed and more than 100 injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed similar attacks in the past and has attacked several churches with bombs and guns as it intensified its campaign against Christians in the past year.

"The heavy explosion also damaged so many buildings around the area," said survivor Linus Lighthouse.

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Drone hits al Qaeda target in north Yemen, kills 4 jihadists

SANAA (Reuters) - At least four men suspected of being al Qaeda members were killed in what a local official said was a U.S. drone strike on Islamist militants in northern Yemen on Sunday.

It was a rare attack on al Qaeda-linked targets in northern Yemen, an area dominated by Shi'ite Muslim Houthi rebels battling Yemeni government forces for control of the rugged mountainous region.

The official said that a drone attacked two houses in the Abu Jabara area in Saada Province, killing four people.

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Fallen SEAL's Father: Hillary Told Me 'We're Going Arrest ... The Man That Made The Video' At Funeral

(Breitbart) Speaking to the "Lars Larson Show," father of Seal Tyrone Woods -- who died defending the consulate and Benghazi -- told about his experience of meeting the President and Secretary Clinton at the memorial service for the fallen a few days after the attack. Charles Woods said that the President "couldn't look me in the eye" and "mumbled" an "I'm sorry" but that it didn't seem "genuine". He said the same of Secretary Clinton and that Clinton assured him that they were going to "arrest and prosecute" the man that made the scapegoated youtube video critical of Islam.

IDF airstrike kills Hamas terrorist in Gaza preparing to fire rockets into Israel

Feel-good story of the day.
(Haaretz) Israel killed a Palestinian militant from the Hamas Islamist group and wounded another in an air strike on a motorcycle in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, Palestinian officials said.

The Israel Defense Force's Spokesperson's unit released a statement confirming the attack, which stated that the airstrike was directed at a "squad of terrorists attempting to launch rockets aimed at Israeli territory."

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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Gallup: Obama's Job Approval Drops 7 Points in 3 Days

(CNSNews.com) - In the most precipitous decline it has seen in more than a year, President Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped 7 points in three days, according to Gallup.

In the three-day period ending on Oct. 23, says Gallup, 53 percent said they approved of the job Obama was doing and 42 percent said they did not.

On Oct. 24, that dropped to 51 percent who said they approved and 44 percent who said they do not.

On Oct. 25, it dropped again to 48 percent who said they approved and 47 percent who said they do not.

On Oct. 26, it dropped yet again to 46 percent who said they approved and 49 percent who said they did not.

In May 2011, Obama's approval dropped 7 points in four days, sliding from 53 percent on May 24 to 46 percent on May 28.

Pro-Obama Vandal Keys ‘Obama’ Into 2 Cars In Alta Loma, California

ALTA LOMA (CBS) — A case of campaign vandalism is under investigation Friday in Alta Loma.

Someone keyed the word “Obama” into two cars and slashed seats in another outside a residence that had Mitt Romney campaign signs.

CBS2 and KCAL9 reporter Rob Schmitt spoke to Ken Slown, owner of one of the keyed vehicles.

Slown actually supports President Obama!

He explained to Schmitt that he and his wife — both currently unemployed — are staying with her parents and it’s her parents who support Romney.

“I don’t know if they were trying to get a point across, to vote for Obama,” said Slown, “but to do something like this is not going to get the point across.”
He estimates the damage to both of his vehicles at about $3,400.

In addition to both cars being keyed, his wife’s vehicle had her seats slashed, as well. Said Slown, “They pretty much cut the backs of all of the seats.”

A neighbor, who also has a Romney/Ryan sign in their front yard, were also hit. “Obama” keyed in the hood and on the black gate of an SUV.

A GPS unit was stolen from a Dodge Ram nearby. The truck, however, was not vandalized.

A report was filed with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Deputies say a clear palm print has been lifted from one of the vehicles.

Authorities say they don’t have any leads thus far.

Iraq: 31 killed in bombings, house raids

BAGHDAD (AP) — Bombings that hit markets and other insurgent strikes primarily targeting Iraq's Shiite community killed 31 people on Saturday, challenging government efforts to promote a sense of stability by preventing attacks during a major Muslim holiday.

The bloodshed underscored the difficulties facing Iraq's leadership as it struggles to keep its citizens safe. Authorities had increased security in hopes of preventing attacks during the four-day Eid al-Adha celebrations, when people are off work and families gather in public places.

The deadliest blast happened on the outskirts of Baghdad and struck near playground equipment that had been set up for the holiday in a market in the eastern neighborhood of Bawiya. Police officials said eight people were killed, including four children. Another 24 people, including children, were wounded, they added.

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Panicking cow kills Palestinian Muslim who tried to slaughter it during Eid feast

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A panicking cow killed a Palestinian man who was trying to slaughter the beast on Saturday during the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Adha, a Gaza health official said.

Muslims around the world slaughter sheep, cows and goats during the four-day holiday that began Friday to commemorate the sacrifice by their Prophet Ibrahim — known to Christians and Jews as Abraham.

But accidents are common as people frequently buy animals to slaughter at home instead of relying on professional butchers. The festive atmosphere surrounding the site of the slaughtering also tends to make the animals fidgety.

In addition to the death, Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra said that 150 other people were hospitalized in the Gaza Strip with knife wounds or other injuries caused by animals trying to break away.

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Al Qaeda calls on Muslims to kidnap Westerners

CAIRO (AP) — The leader of al-Qaida has urged Muslims to kidnap Westerners to exchange for imprisoned jihadists, including a blind cleric serving a life sentence in the United States for a 1993 plot to blow up New York City landmarks.

In an undated two-hour videotape posted this week on militant forums, the Egyptian-born jihadist Ayman al-Zawahri also urged support for Syria's uprising and called for the implementation of Islamic Shariah law in Egypt.

He said that abducting nationals of "countries waging wars on Muslims" is the only way to free "our captives, and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman," the Egyptian cleric.

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Putting An End to the Islamization of Switzerland

Gates of Vienna: Putting An End to the Islamization of Switzerland

Boom: Concerned Women for America announces ‘Lady Smarts’ campaign

House Republicans Demand Answers on Obama Admin's Anti-Israel Delegate to Confab

(WFB) Republican members of Congress are demanding to know why the State Department selected a prominent anti-Israel Muslim leader to represent the U.S. at a recent human rights conference in Warsaw, Poland.

Salam al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was recently selected by President Barack Obama’s administration to deliver remarks at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) annual human rights conference, a 10-day gathering focused on the “promotion of tolerance,” according to the group’s website.

The selection of al-Marayati quickly drew condemnation from Jewish leaders and others who objected to the presence of a Muslim leader who has defended terrorists and once speculated that Israel could be responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The State Department defended al-Marayati, labeling him “valued and highly credible.”

The administration’s defense led Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, to demand answers in a letter sent late Thursday to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“The Administration’s recent selection of Salam al-Marayati to represent the United States at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) for the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting is highly concerning,” Jordan wrote to Clinton, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

“Your assertion that al-Marayati is ‘valued and highly credible’ is not only outlandish, but raises serious questions regarding the Administration’s judgment, as well as its underlying foreign policy goals,” the letter said.

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Friday, October 26, 2012

Reporter Presses Obama On Libya Attack, "Bullshitter" Comment, Gets BS Answers

From Real Clear Politics:
KYLE CLARK, KUSA-TV: Were the Americans under attack at the consulate in Benghazi Libya denied requests for help during that attack? And is it fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and we'll all find out after the election? PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened. These are folks who served under me who I had sent to some very dangerous places. Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do. But we want to make sure we get it right, particularly because I have made a commitment to the families impacted as well as to the American people, we're going to bring those folks to justice. So, we're going to gather all the facts, find out exactly what happened, and make sure that it doesn't happen again but we're also going to make sure that we bring to justice those who carried out these attacks. KYLE CLARK: Were they denied requests for help during the attack? PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks. KYLE CLARK: In a national address, you touted the stimulus money going to Abound Solar - a Colorado company connected to one of your billionaire fundraisers. Now, as you may know, Abound Solar is out of business and under criminal investigation. The jobs are gone and taxpayers are out about 60 million dollars. How do you answer critics who see Abound Solar as Colorado's Solyndra - a politically connected clean energy company that went under and took our money with it? PRESIDENT OBAMA: (Laughs) Well, Kyle, I think that if you look at our record that these loans that are given out by the Department of Energy for clean energy have created jobs all across the country and only about four percent of these loans were going to some very cutting-edge industries that are going to allow us to figure out how to produce energy in a clean, renewable way in the future and create jobs in Colorado and all around the country. And some of them have failed but the vast majority of them are pushing us forward into a clean energy direction. And that's good for Colorado and good for the country. And these are decisions, by the way, that are made by the Department of Energy, they have nothing to do with politics. - - - KYLE CLARK: Mr. President, you've called for more civility in our nation's political conversation - and much has obviously been made about the tone of this race. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, you called Governor Romney a "bullshitter." What did you mean and why did you choose that word? PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, this was a conversation after an interview, a casual conversation with a reporter. The basic point that I've been talking about throughout this campaign, is people know what I mean and they know that I mean what I say and what I care about, who I'm fighting for and you know a major issue in any election is can you count on the person you're putting into the Oval Office fighting for you having a clear set of convictions that they believe in.

Iran enrichment plant nearly ready, intelligence officials say

Hey, we keep hearing that Obama's Iran strategy was brilliant.
WASHINGTON (NYT) — Intelligence officials from several countries say Iran has virtually completed an underground nuclear enrichment plant, racing ahead despite heavy economic sanctions in what experts say may be an effort to give the Iranians leverage in any negotiations with the United States and its allies.

The installation of the last of nearly 3,000 centrifuges at a site called Fordo, deep under a mountain inside a military base near the holy city of Qom, puts Iran closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon or come close to building a weapon if its leaders decide to proceed.

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