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Both Israeli and American pundits have spent the last month abusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his decision to accept an invitation to speak to a joint session of Congress next month about the Iranian nuclear threat. The White House’s effort to spin the speech as a breach of protocol and an unwarranted interference in a U.S. debate about Iran has largely succeeded in rallying a significant number of congressional Democrats to back away from support of the sanctions bill co-sponsored by Senators Mark Kirk and Bob Menendez, as well as getting some to threaten to boycott Netanyahu’s speech. But...

On Monday Senators. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., invited Netanyahu to meet in a closed-door session with Democrats during his visit. Netanyahu declined the invitation on Tuesday and expressed regret about the politically fraught tone of his trip. “I regret that the invitation to address the special joint session of Congress has been perceived by some to be political or partisan,” Netanyahu wrote. “I can assure you that my sole intention in accepting it was to voice Israel’s grave concerns about a potential nuclear agreement with Iran that could threaten the survival of my country.” Netanyahu said to...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined on Tuesday an invitation to meet with US Senate Democrats during his trip to Washington next week. "Though I greatly appreciate your kind invitation to meet with Democratic Senators, I believe that doing so at this time could compound the misperception of partisanship regarding my upcoming visit," Netanyahu wrote in a letter to Senators Richard Durbin and Dianne Feinstein obtained by Reuters. Durbin and Feinstein had invited Netanyahu to a closed-door meeting with Democratic senators in a letter on Monday.

President Obama’s pick to serve as the next attorney general is having a hard time finding Republican supporters. To be confirmed by the Senate, Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch only needs four Republicans to support her nomination. But it is unclear where those votes will come from. Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) is the only Republican so far who has signaled his intention to vote for Lynch, though several others have spoken favorably about her. But many Republicans are expressing concerns about Lynch's stance on immigration and what they suggest is a lack of “independence" from the White House. Lynch’s confirmation...

Few congressional observers ever expected that U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) would cosponsor the “Corn Ethanol Mandate Elimination Act,” to abolish the corn ethanol Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which requires that increasing volumes of this biofuel be blended into gasoline. Their collaboration again proves the adage that politics often makes strange bedfellows. The RFS was a mistake when enacted ten years ago. Since then, despite attempts to curtail it, the program has expanded and had more lives than Freddy Krueger. Perhaps the senators are now paraphrasing William Shakespeare and Marc Antony, saying “I come to bury...

WASHINGTON — When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint session of Congress in March, it is unclear whether everybody invited will actually show up. Democrats have criticized House Speaker John Boehner for circumventing the administration when he invited Netanyahu to speak, and the White House has already said Obama will not meet with him when he’s here. BuzzFeed News asked several Senate Democrats whether they planned on skipping the speech or not. Most said they either hadn’t thought about it or they hadn’t decided. But there were no hard answers in the negative. Only one senator definitively said...

A report clearing the CIA of wrongly breaking into computers operated by Senate staffers is incomplete and inaccurate, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee again expressed disappointment that no official has been held accountable for breaking into Senate-operated computers, during a time when the committee was compiling a report on the CIA’s now-defunct enhanced interrogation program. “The report released by the CIA Accountability Board, which recommended no accountability for wrongdoing by CIA personnel, contains many mistakes and omissions,” Feinstein said in a statement that listed 15 specific inaccuracies. In January 2014, Feinstein...

In a Tuesday night debate over the Kirk-Menendez bill to add sanctions against Iran and its nuclear program, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Ca) sparked controversy when she announced that "we cannot let Israel determine when and where the United States goes to war." The bill includes a provision that would support Israel in the event that it carries out a preemptive strike against Iran. Feinstein chairs the Select Committee on Intelligence and is considered pro-Israel, but her remarks, which echo those of anti-Israel critics, have provoked outrage. The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) called on her to apologize, noting that the...

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California says that inviting Prime Minister Netanyahu to address Congress during an Israeli election period is “highly inappropriate” and that imposing new sanctions on Iran at this time is “reckless and dangerous.” Feinstein’s statement to Haaretz comes against the backdrop of the growing backlash against Netanyahu’s upcoming March 3 speech to Congress, which is already causing some Democratic lawmakers to rethink their support for the Iran sanctions bill proposed by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey and Republican Senator Mark Kirk from Illinois. According to journalist Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor, Menendez is trying to...

The Talk Shows January 25th, 2015 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): White House chief of staff Denis McDonough; Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): McDonough; former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark. FACE THE NATION (CBS): McDonough; Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.THIS WEEK (ABC): McDonough; Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): McDonough; former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill, Adam Schiff, D-Calif, and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz.; former Gov. Jon Huntsman, R-Utah.

December 20, 2014 Diane Feinstein, the Iron Maiden By Deana Chadwell Language, that contract that we make with the members of our society, holds our society together; without it we can accomplish nothing. Nor can we function without the protection of good and selfless people who step forward to face the evil that always threatens successful nations. Diane Feinstein’s release of the enhanced interrogation technique documents is, on both national and linguistic fronts, an act of treason. To attack the language by which we carry on our national dialogue and the methods we use to protect our right to have...

Feinstein's Office Denies Conflict of Interest Charges By Fred Lucas April 04, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - Breaking nearly a week of silence, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office Tuesday called allegations of a conflict of interest "nonsense" and said the California Democrat played no role in awarding military contracts that benefited companies owned by her husband. It was reported last week that Feinstein no longer serves on a Senate subcommittee that oversaw military construction. Earlier this year, Metro Newspapers accused Feinstein of a conflict of interest because the subcommittee had oversight of military contracts that often went to defense contractors owned by her...

A new poll from the Pew Research Center is the first to gauge reactions to last week's big CIA report on "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- what agency critics call torture. And the reaction is pretty muted. The poll shows people says 51-29 percent than the CIA's methods were justified and 56-28 percent that the information gleaned helped prevent terror attacks.

Obviously as a reward for committing theft of classified documents for the democrats, Barack Obama has named Alissa Starzak to the legal department at the Pentagon. It’s a position she has never achieved on her own and is a large promotion over her previous jobs. But why put someone with a history of stealing classified secrets to a job where she could steal the country’s most guarded secrets? It’s a reward. Republicans in both houses of congress have accused her of making copies of documents and carrying them out of the Pentagon for use by Diane Feinstein and her committee...

The Obama administration's nominee for a senior legal position at the Pentagon is one of the congressional staffers accused by Republicans and intelligence officials of stealing classified documents from the Central Intelligence Agency, Fox News has learned -- and the controversy could imperil her shot at a major career promotion. Sources on Capitol Hill and in the intelligence community say Alissa Starzak, a majority staffer on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) who has been nominated for the position of general counsel to the U.S. Army, is one of two SSCI employees accused by the panel's Republicans, and by...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaeda to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday. President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it. The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11,...

...A Southeast Asian intelligence official said at least three members of a Southeast Asian cell earmarked to carry out the attack on the West Coast were being held in Malaysia under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial. "One guy was given money to go for pilot training," said the official, who has proven reliable in the past. He said the would-be pilot, Zaini Zakaria, was arrested in 2002, and the others were probably chosen to play supporting roles in the hijacking. Members of the cell fled to Malaysia from Afghanistan after the United States began bombing al...

Last month, Senator Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the executive summary of their final report investigating the CIA's controversial detention and interrogation program. As part of their study, the Democrats compiled twenty case studies, which were intended to address claims made by the CIA regarding the efficacy of its interrogations. One of those case studies focused on the identification and arrest of Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri, who was freed from a US prison just days ago. Al Marri served as a "sleeper" operative for al Qaeda inside the US in 2001....

My report Sunday on the lucrative deal Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband has to sell 56 post office buildings barely scratched the surface of her conflicts of interest. The California Democrat’s financier husband, Richard C. Blum, is estimated to be a billionaire from his shrewd investments in companies that profit from federal policies. “For at least 15 years, Feinstein has appeared to support government contracts that push federal funds toward companies co-owned or governed by her powerful, billionaire husband, Richard C. Blum,” Breitbart News reported.

Hey, we started off the day with a happy story, so in the interest of keeping the tone positive here on the Hot Gas ranch, let’s finish my shift up with another one. I know all of you are fans of capitalism in general, and just love seeing hard work and inspiration pay off for the little guy who makes it big. With that in mind, who wouldn’t feel their heart melt over the story of a spunky gal from the left coast who rises from humble roots and winds up helping her husband tuck away a few dollars...