Mossad chief Tamir Pardo held secret talks with top U.S. officials in recent days, cursory comments made during a public Senate hearing indicated on Tuesday.

The clandestine Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was participated by CIA Director David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate panel.

During the meeting, Feinstein asked Clapper whether or not Israel intended to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the top U.S. intelligence official answering that he would rather discuss the issue behind closed doors.

Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo and cited what he called Israel’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The CIA chief also said that it was important to note that Israel considered a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.

Read More at haaretz.com By Barak Ravid, Haaretz.com

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Ron Paul has known for more than a week that he would finish fourth in Florida.

So instead, he skipped the Sunshine State and campaigned in states like Maine, Colorado and Nevada.

“We’ve been having a fantastic trip,” Paul said to cheering fans in Henderson Tuesday night, adding that he had called Mitt Romney to congratulate him on his big Florida win. To Romney, Paul said: “I would see him in the caucus states.”

While the media spotlight has been on Florida, Paul has been waging a quieter, parallel campaign in the caucus states with contests coming up in February. Unlike Florida — which awards its 50 delegates through a winner-take-all process — many of these states distribute delegates proportionally, allowing second and third place winners to nab some of them.

The result is that the Texas congressman could end up winning more delegates over the next few weeks than anyone except Romney.

Read More at Politico By James Hohmann, Politico

WASHINGTON – House Republicans are expanding their probe into the Obama administration’s energy programs, investigating $500 million in green job training grants that placed just 10% of trainees in jobs, according to a government report.

The program’s goal was to train 124,893 people and put 79,854 in jobs. But 17 months later, 52,762 were trained and 8,035, or roughly 1 in 10, had jobs. Those numbers come from an audit by the Department of Labor’s inspector general, which recommended that the administration end the program and return unspent money.

President Obama has made green jobs a cornerstone of his economic agenda. In his first 2012 campaign ad this month, he said clean energy industries created 2.7 million jobs and were “expanding rapidly.” But Republicans have pounced on failures, such as the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel maker backed with a Department of Energy loan guarantee.

Citing what he calls “abysmal results” in the job training program, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is demanding answers about how the Department of Labor awarded the grants, which were funded out of the 2009 stimulus bill.

But Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates defends the initiative, saying the inspector general’s audit used old numbers and that it was never designed to provide immediate results.

Read More at USA Today By Gregory Korte, USA Today

He’s the only Mormon in the presidential race, but that doesn’t mean Mitt Romney is the only candidate Mormons support. Another favorite White House hopeful? Ron Paul, whose demand that Washington strictly adhere to the Constitution has some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints singing his praise.

“You cannot grow up in the church and not hear of and be taught that the Constitution is an inspired document,” says Connor Boyack, a Mormon who heads the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. “And when it comes to who best supports and defends the Constitution, Ron Paul is that guy.”

In Paul’s hunt for convention delegates, the Mormon vote will be key in early caucus states such as Nevada, where 25 percent of GOP caucus-goers in 2008 were LDS members. Exit polls from 2008 show nine of 10 Mormon voters cast ballots for Romney, but the Texas congressman is seeing a surge in support there and elsewhere.

While the Salt Lake City-based church does not officially endorse any candidate for president, members like Boyack have been preaching the gospel of Ron Paul. Boyack explains that Romney might be a brother in faith, but Paul’s commitment to upholding the tenets of the Constitution make him a more ideological choice for Mormons. A controversial and sometimes persecuted group, Mormons have historically looked to the Constitution as a safeguard to preserve their religious freedom. The Constitution is even mentioned in the church’s Doctrine and Covenants, described as revelations to the church’s founder, Joseph Smith. Brigham Young University religion professor Richard Bennett says the devotion to the Constitution came after an 1833 attack on a Mormon church in Missouri. Bennett says God told Smith to use the Constitution to fight the persecution of his church. [Read: Ron Paul Resonates with Latino Voters in Florida.]

Paul’s team has been quick to highlight the Mormon support, setting up a special “Latter Day Saints for Ron Paul” Facebook page (“liked” by over 1,300 fans). It’s one of a number dedicated to pro-Paul coalitions, including evangelicals, Protestants, and Catholics, as well as truckers, gamers, and accountants. The candidate is also featured in a five-minute Web ad, recycled from the 2008 campaign, titled, “Ron Paul preserves, protects, defends LDS Constitution view.”

Read More at US News By Lauren Fox, US News

Vice President Joe Biden was eager to get moving. In office for only a month, the Obama administration had already passed a monumental economic stimulus plan to address the biggest downturn since the Great Depression.

Now, at the first implementation meeting in 2009, Biden — with a smudged Ash Wednesday cross still on his forehead — declared that the stimulus would “literally drop kick us out of the recession.”

Officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the $800 billion stimulus was the largest economic recovery program in history. Adjusted for inflation, it was nearly five times more expensive than the Works Progress Administration. It was bigger than the Louisiana Purchase, the Manhattan Project, the moon race and the Marshall Plan.

Economists and nonpartisan forecasting firms estimate that the stimulus created and saved more than 2 million jobs. It generated an unprecedented buzz around clean energy. A relatively small pot of education grants goaded 32 states to enact major reforms, such as tying teacher pay to student performance or lifting caps on charter schools. When the last dime is spent, more than 41,000 miles of roads will be paved, widened and improved; 600,000 low-income homes weatherized; and more than 3,000 rural schools connected to high-speed Internet.

But despite these achievements, the stimulus ultimately failed to do what America expected it to do — bring about a strong, sustainable recovery. The drop kick was shanked.

Read More at The New York Post By Michael Grabell, NY Post