Signs of Possible Israeli Plan to Invade Gaza; Ground Troops Mass Along Border

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel expanded its fierce air assault on rocket operations in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, striking security compounds, smuggling tunnels and a three-story apartment building after an unprecedented rocket attack aimed at the holy city of Jerusalem raised the stakes in its confrontation with Palestinian militants.

Israeli aircraft also kept pounding their original targets, the militants’ weapons-storage facilities and underground rocket-launching sites. The Israeli military called up thousands of reservists and massed troops, tanks and armored vehicles along the border with Gaza, signaling a ground invasion of the densely populated seaside strip could be imminent.

Israel launched its military campaign Wednesday after days of heavy rocket fire from Gaza and has carried out some 700 airstrikes since, the military said. Militants, undaunted by the heavy damage the air attacks have inflicted, have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state, including new, longer-range weapons turned for the first time this week against Jerusalem and Israel’s Tel Aviv heartland.

Israel has slowly expanded its operation beyond military targets and before dawn on Saturday, the Gaza Interior Ministry reported, missiles smashed into two small Hamas security facilities as well as the massive Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, setting off a huge blaze that engulfed nearby houses and civilian cars parked outside. No one was inside the buildings at the time.

The Interior Ministry said a government compound was also hit as devout Muslims streamed to the area for early morning prayers. So, too, was a Cabinet building where the Hamas prime minister received the prime minister of Egypt on Friday.

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Bible Publisher Beats Obama Abortion-HHS Mandate in Court

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photo credit: dctim1A federal court today stopped enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate against a Bible publisher which filed a lawsuit against it.

The mandate has generated massive opposition from pro-life groups because it forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

The Obama administration opposed the order, arguing that Tyndale House Publishers isn’t religious enough for an exemption from the mandate, a component of ObamaCare that forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

The decision only applies to the company and does not stop the Obama HHS mandate nationwide against other religious groups, businesses, hospitals, or educational institutions.

Represented by attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom, Tyndale House Publishers, based in Illinois, is the world’s largest privately held Christian publisher of books, Bibles, and digital media and directs 96.5 percent of its profits to religious non-profit causes worldwide. The publisher specifically objects to covering abortifacients under the mandate.

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Petraeus Confirms Early Knowledge That Benghazi Was Al Qaeda Attack; CIA Memo Changed by White House? (+video)

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photo credit: fort braggFormer CIA Director David Petraeus stoked the controversy over the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terror attack, testifying Friday that references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points — while other intelligence officials were unable to say who changed the memo, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told Fox News that intelligence officials who testified in a closed-door hearing a day earlier, including Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, said they did not know who changed the talking points. He said they went out to multiple departments, including the State Department, National Security Council, Justice Department and White House.

“To me the question right now is who changed those talking points and why. … I’d say it was somebody in the administration had to have taken it out,” King told Fox News. “That, to me, has to be pursued.”

Petraeus left Capitol Hill around noon, after testifying in private hearings before the House and Senate intelligence committees. In his wake, Republicans and Democrats battled over whether his testimony should raise more suspicions about the administration’s handling of the attack.

King and other Republicans indicated they still have plenty of questions about the aftermath of the strike.

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Denny’s to Charge 5% ‘Obamacare Surcharge’ and Cut Employee Hours to Recoup Costs

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photo credit: eric t. morrisPresident Obama’s election victory ensured his Affordable Care Act would remain the centerpiece of his first term in power, but that has left some business owners baulking at the extra cost Obamcare will bring.

Florida based restaurant boss John Metz, who runs approximately 40 Denny’s and owns the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise has decided to offset that by adding a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and will reduce his employees’ hours.

With Obamacare due to be fully implemented in January 2014, Metz has justified his move by claiming it is ‘the only alternative. I’ve got to pass on the cost to the customer.’

The fast-food business owner is set to hold meetings at his restaurants in December where he will tell employees, ‘that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.’

Claiming that he is not anti-insurance Metz has said that he understands the problems this will cause for his employees.

‘I think it’s a terrible thing. It’s ridiculous that the maximum hours we can give people is 28 hours a week instead of 40,’ said Metz to the Huffington Post. ‘It’s going to force my employees to go out and get a second job.’

Obamacare requires businesses or franchises with more than 50 workers must offer an approved insurance plan or pay a penalty of $2,000 for each full-time worker over 30 workers.

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War Looms Over Gaza as Israel Mobilizes Troops Near Border (+video)

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photo credit: stringsofasoulJERUSALEM – Both the Israeli military and militants in the Gaza strip continued relentless air strikes Friday as Israeli troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory, signaling a ground invasion might be growing near.

Hopes of even a brief cease-fire were dashed after both sides accused the other of violating a proposed cease-fire during a visit by the prime minister of Egypt to Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had told Egypt that Israel was prepared to suspend its military offensive in the Gaza Strip during Prime Minister Hisham Kandil’s three-hour visit there Friday.

However, Israel later said Hamas did not honor the deal, saying rockets fired from Gaza had hit several sites in southern Israel as Kandil was in the enclave.

Israel strongly denied it had carried out any attacks from the time Kandil entered Gaza, though Gaza militants claimed Israel had continued strikes during the visit.

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CIA: ‘Rise of the Oceans’ More Important than Rising Terrorism

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The CIA opened the Center on Climate Change and National Security in 2009 to monitor the threats posed to national security by “desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts, and heightened competition for natural resources.”

When President-elect Barack Obama said climate change was a matter of national security in Dec. 2008, it seemed like just more talk from another leftist who was convinced humans were destroying the planet.

However, that narrative continued to be set forth by his administration for four straight years; now we’re learning that it went so far as the CIA devoting resources to this “problem” since 2009.

While Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah are ramping up to strike Israel, while the Taliban openly mocks Obama’s capitulation in Afghanistan, and while Al Qaeda regroups in places like Iraq and Libya, our CIA is worried about a “worldwide security risk” caused by global warming.

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Video: ‘Investigative Journalist’ Warns Banksters: ‘Tonight We Will Pay, But Tomorrow We Will Slay’

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(TheBlaze) Self-proclaimed “progressive investigative journalist” Greg Palast on Thursday night warned “banksters” on behalf of Occupy supporters, “tonight we will pay, but tomorrow we will slay.” He delivered his remarks at an event dubbed “The People’s Bailout,” a variety show and telethon to benefit the “99 percent.”

In addition to his very clever and thinly veiled threat, Palast explained that Republicans tried to “steal” the election this time around. Apparently, they did a very poor job of it.

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Mark Steyn Rips White House Press Corps ‘Court Eunuchs’: ‘You made fools of yourselves!’

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On Wednesday, President Barack Obama held his first press conference since March — but columnist Mark Steyn, author of “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon,” said the White House press corps failed miserably to make the most of the opportunity.

On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show on Thursday night, Hewitt asked Steyn whether he thought the “Manhattan-beltway media elite” had improved since the presidential election campaign, now that tensions have escalated between Israel and Hamas.

“I don’t think they think about that at all,” Steyn said. “You can tell that at that press conference yesterday — the most stupid, ludicrous, embarrassing questions from the court eunuchs. The idiot from The New York Times asking a question on global warming? Some giggly little schoolgirl from Chicago wetting her knickers, saying she’s watched Obama win every time?”

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What Petraeus Affair Reveals About Your Emails

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photo credit: Italian embassy“Hell has no wrath like a woman scorned.” The saying took on a new meaning, with wrath being source of the “Petraeus-gate” that started when a general’s mistress believed he was cheating her.

The fact that Jill Kelley, a friend of the Petraeus family, received what she felt were threatening emails was apparently enough to bring the FBI into the case, prodded along by an agent-friend of the recipient.

The FBI started the investigation under the authority of the 1986 United States Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The act allows for “government entities” to acquire a warrant to access email records less than 180 days old “if there is reasonable cause to believe a crime has been committed.” For email older than six months, a federal agency only needs to get a subpoena signed by a federal prosecutor, not a judge, to obtain the messages.

Because of the wording of the law, Americans have fewer privacy protections for their electronic emails than would for those same messages than if they were printed out and stuck in a drawer.

In the eyes of the law, email kept on an individual’s hard drive in their home computer has the same protection as one’s personal papers, which require a search warrant. Emails stored on a remote server “in the cloud” do not have the same protection.

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