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Hamas Steps Up Threats On Obama’s Israel Trip

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Photo Credit: WNDDespite there being no information President Obama plans to ascend the Temple Mount on his upcoming trip to Israel, Hamas last night stepped up its threats regarding Palestinian rumors the U.S. president may visit the sacred site.

“Visiting of Obama with Israeli soldiers entering the Al Aqsa Mosque will actually touch the deep and the tender part of the Palestinian, Arabic and Islamic countries all over the world,” Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas’s senior leader in the Gaza Strip, stated.

Zahar apparently was alluding to previous Palestinian and Arab rioting instigated after then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount in 2000.

Zahar continued: “If he is looking to have this visit it means he is accepting Israel as a legitimate occupation, which is undermining his morality and his credibility. Jerusalem up to this moment and all of the Palestinian land is under occupation.” The Hamas leader was speaking Sunday night on WABC Radio’s “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.”

Zahar said his group doesn’t have “any hope of any results from his visit to the region.” Asked if his expects Obama to open dialogue with Hamas during the president’s second term, Zahar replied, “Up to this moment there is no indication about this.

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Obama Not Bluffing Over Iran Military Threat, Biden Tells AIPAC

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Photo Credit: Chip SomodevillaBarack Obama’s threats to use military force to prevent Iran securing a nuclear weapon are more than idle bluffs, vice-president Joe Biden told the biggest pro-Israeli lobbying group Aipac on Monday.

Biden said that while the US preferred a diplomatic solution to the standoff with Iran, a military option remained on the table.

“The president of the United States cannot, and does not, bluff. President Barack Obama is not bluffing,” Biden told the audience in Washington. Israel is seeking assurances of support from the US, should it decide to launch air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

There has been scepticism about Obama’s commitment to a military option against Iran, given the administration’s general unwillingness to be drawn into new conflicts after the experience of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Some observers feel that Obama’s threat is aimed purely at putting pressure on Iran to resolve the standoff diplomatically and not embark on another conflict.

Pro-Israel supporters of the military option, speaking at Aipac’s annual conference, attempted to counter Obama’s reticence by insisting the military option would only require an overnight air strike, rather than a prolonged conflict.

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The Rich Get Richer: Obama-Style Crony Capitalism

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Photo Credit: Brendan SmialowskiFor most Americans, Friday was not a very good day. Sequestration kicked in amid a drumbeat of reports about the pocketbook hits that we would take and the illegal immigrants released because of the cuts, the Commerce Department announced that personal income took its biggest hit in 20 years, and the Performance of Manufacturing Index reported a drop. Oh, and earlier in the week, fourth-quarter GDP growth was revised to a paltry 0.1 percent. Unemployment has remained up, the ranks of the poor have swelled, existing small businesses are staggering, and few new ones are being created.

But, for the privileged few at the high-end of President Obama’s coalition, things look far less bleak. The stock market yawned at sequestration and then rose. The S&P is near a five-year high and is up by 10 percent over the past 12 months.

How concerned is Obama by the bad news and the sequester cuts that on Friday he termed “dumb,” “unnecessary,” “arbitrary,” and “inexcusable”? Not very, one would think, since his own 2012 budget forecast projected the very cuts in discretionary spending that the president now abjures, and described them in glowing terms. As Columbia’s Jeffrey Sachs recently pointed out. “the level of spending for fiscal year 2013 under the sequestration will be nearly the same as Mr. Obama called for in the draft budget presented in mid-2012.” Indeed, the White House budget forecast boasted that it would “bring domestic discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since the Eisenhower administration.”

For some reason, none of this feels like government by or for the people, and it isn’t. Rather, it seems as though “crony capitalism” is the watchword for this administration. Strip away Obama’s showmanship and scolding, and the president has done just fine in protecting the interests of the top 1 percent, especially among those who were his contributors and the right kind of 1 percenters.

Take green energy, the holy grail of the high end of the president’s base. Solyndra, the now-bankrupt manufacturer of solar panels, received more than half a billion dollars in government-guaranteed loans. One of the company’s key backers was billionaire George Kaiser, a 2008 Obama fundraiser—small world.

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‘B—h,’ ‘C–t’: Reporters Open Up About Obscenities And Abuse From Obama Spokespeople

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Photo Credit: Weaselzippers)Bob Woodward’s alleged “threat” from the White House has touched off a storm of conservative support for the Washington Post editor, and has forced the Obama administration onto the defense. It also may have opened up a floodgate of information — information that suggests that, even if Woodward himself was not threatened or abused, other less venerable reporters have faced such treatment.

The New York Post reports:

This administration is more skilled and disciplined than any other in controlling the narrative, using social media to circumnavigate the press. On the flip side, our YouTube culture means even the slightest gaffe can be devastating, and so you have an army of aides and staffers helicoptering over reporters.

Finally, this week, reporters are pushing back. Even Jonathan Alter — who frequently appears on the Obama-friendly MSNBC — came forward to say he, too, had been treated horribly by the administration for writing something they didn’t like.

“There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” Alter said this week. During the 2008 campaign swing through Berlin, Alter said that future White House press secretary Robert Gibbs disinvited him from a dinner between Obama and the press corps over it.[…]

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Armed Services Chair: Never Seen Such Lack of ‘Truth-Telling’ from Commander in Chief

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photo credit: realtor action centerHouse Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.). (AP) (CNSNews.com) – Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said on Friday that he has never seen such a lack of honesty from President Barack Obama over the sequester budget cuts, adding, “I don’t know what extent this White House will go to, but it’s got to end.”

“I have never in my lifetime seen such a lack of leadership and truth-telling emanating from the White House and from our commander-in-chief,” McKeon said during a press conference on Capitol Hill as the across-the-board spending cuts, known as the sequester, apparently were going into effect.

The cuts, which constitute $44 billion less in increased spending in 2013, constitute about 1.2 percent of the federal budget for this year.

Watch video here:

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No, Obama Has Not Offered A Plan On Entitlements

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Photo Credit: Mark WilsonDuring a Friday news conference, a reporter asked President Obama whether he had any responsibility for the onset of the automatic spending cuts that he has warned will be devastating for the nation. “The problem that we have is a long-term problem in terms of our health care costs and programs like Medicare,” Obama said in his response. “And what I’ve said very specifically, very detailed is that I’m prepared to take on the problem where it exists — on entitlements — and do some things that my own party really doesn’t like — if it’s part of a broader package of sensible deficit reduction.”

Obama is correct that entitlements in general and health care programs in particular are the biggest source of the nation’s long-term fiscal problems. But it’s a complete falsehood that he’s offered detailed and specific plans to do something about it.

At various times during his presidency, Obama has vowed to tackle the nation’s entitlement programs. It’s true that his health care law did cut projected Medicare spending by about $700 billion over a decade. But those projected savings, along with tax increases, were used to offset $1.7 trillion in new health care spending under Obamacare rather than go toward debt reduction. In other words, they don’t fix any of the program’s structural fiscal problems.

Since Republicans took over Congress in 2011, Obama has consistently said he’d be willing to address entitlements if Republicans agreed to raise taxes — but he’s either spoken vaguely about this willingness or offered proposals that represent minor tweaks to the programs rather than fundamental changes that would put them on a sustainable financial trajectory. For instance, during the “fiscal cliff” debate, Obama floated the idea of changing the measure of inflation used to calculate Social Security benefits — a move that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would save $127 billion over a decade.

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Lawmakers Accuse Obama Prosecutors Of Lying About Espionage Probe At NASA

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Photo Credit: AP

Congressional leaders are challenging a U.S. Attorney’s denial that the Justice Department shut down a federal espionage investigation involving the illegal transfer of U.S. space defense weapons technology to foreign countries, including China, The Washington Examiner has learned.

Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for Northern California, also denied that she had ever requested authority to prosecute anybody as a result of the espionage investigation.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA, and Representatives Lamar Smith, R-TX, and Frank Wolf, R-VA, say Haag’s denials don’t square with evidence they’ve reviewed and they wonder if Justice Department or White House officials interfered with a potentially explosive espionage investigation or if “politics played a role in the prosecutorial decisions made in this case.”

“Your statement conflicts factually with information we received from federal law enforcement,” Wolf, Smith and Grassley said in letters sent today to Haag and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco questioning the abrupt end to an FBI national security investigation and grand jury probe.

At the center of the controversy is cancellation of a national security probe once led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Fry. Frustrating attempts by foreign powers to steal U.S. space weapons technology have long been priorities for the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and NASA’s Inspector General.

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Obama Pardons 17, Including Man With Firearms Charges

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photo credit: A.A.President Obama on Friday pardoned 17 people around the country, including a Georgia man whose offense was possession of an unregistered firearm.

Larry Wayne Thornton of Forsyth, Georgia, faced four years of probation until Obama’s pardon.

The pardon has the potential to come under scrutiny, as Democrats and Obama himself have called for stricter gun-control laws in the wake of last year’s elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. In response to that shooting, Democrats have called for a range of options, including reinstating an assault weapons ban, and forcing all firearms purchasers to undergo background checks.

Obama also pardoned Lynn Marie Stanek of Oregon, who was charged with using a communications facility to distribute cocaine. She faced six months in jail and five years of probation.

Michael John Petri of South Dakota was also pardoned; he was convicted of possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute it.

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Mark Steyn: Sequestageddon

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Photo Credit: National Review A few weeks ago, Ann Coulter announced that she was bored of American politics and was spending her days watching Turner Classic Movies. I confess that, when it comes to Beltway melodrama, I too am fighting vainly the old ennui, and minded to plump up the pillows and settle back with a bucket of bonbons and a beribboned Shih-tzu for an all-night Norma Shearer marathon. At least, unlike Washington, there’s a chance you may catch something you haven’t already seen a hundred times before. For example, I’ve a yen to see Roberta (RKO, 1935), in which Irene Dunne sings:

Yesterdays
Yesterdays
Days I knew as happy sweet sequester’d days . . .

I believe that was the last known use of this blameless and mellifluous word until it was conscripted by the political class for this month’s dreary Mayan Apocalypse of the Month thrill ride. Say what you like about those Mayan guys, but they only schedule an apocalypse once every 5,126 years. Only Washington would try to pull it off every six weeks. If I understand correctly, by the time you read this, the planes will be dropping from the skies; the drip-feeds in every emergency room will be dry; every creature on the endangered species list will have broken free from our pristine federally manned national parks to be left for roadkill in the potholed asphalt of America’s crumbling interstates; you’ll turn on your bathroom faucet only to find the town reservoir choked with fecal coliform; the Ebola virus will be rampant across Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, and other swing states, where it will nevertheless enjoy higher approval ratings than Marco Rubio and every other prospective GOP nominee. The sequester supposedly cuts $44 billion from the federal budget — or from the rate of growth of the federal budget. Whatever. $44 billion is about what the United States government borrows every nine days, so it’s not a lot. But it’s apparently responsible for everything that matters in American life.

That being so, maybe it would be easier to reinstate this critical $44 billion and cut the other $3.8 trillion, which is apparently responsible for nothing other than Harry Reid’s beloved federally funded cowboy-poetry festival and the cost of the dress uniforms for the military detachment accompanying the first lady at her Oscars appearance. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, warned of “over 170 million jobs that could be lost” thanks to the sequester. There are only 135 million jobs in America, but the sequester gods are so powerful they can eliminate every job in Canada, Britain, and Germany too. Why, because of this weekend’s looming Mayan Apocalypse, President Obama declined to deploy a carrier to the Persian Gulf, concerned that it might be left on the other side of the planet completely sequestered with no fuel to limp back home and insufficient stores in the mess-hall larder to cook up federally compliant slop. So, when the mullahs go nuclear and drop the big one on Tel Aviv, it will be the fault of the Republicans for failing to agree to a prudent, balanced, fiscally responsible plan — like the Senate’s latest deficit-reduction proposal, which, as is traditional, increases the deficit (by $7 billion).

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New Bills Would Halt Health Law’s Employer Mandate

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photo credit: 401(k)2013House and Senate bills introduced Thursday would kill a key provision of President Obama’s healthcare law — the mandate that most employers must offer health benefits to workers.

The legislation was introduced by prominent Republicans, who called the requirement a “job killer.”

“The employer mandate is a drag on our economy, forcing too many of our nation’s job creators to stop hiring and grow their businesses in order to comply with this onerous provision in president’s health law,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) said in a statement.

“Instead of letting the federal government dictate how employers should allocate resources, let’s repeal this job-killing mandate and let businesses get back in the business of hiring,” Hatch said.

The employer mandate requires that companies of 50 or more workers provide health insurance or pay fines if more than 30 employees receive government assistance to buy coverage. The health offerings must be affordable, and they must include a variety of “essential health benefits.”

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