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As reported by Robert Costa in The Washington Post, Republicans are blaming the president not only for allowing the Islamic State to develop as a terrorist organization in the first place, but also for failing to effectively combat the group as it has grown. Yet there appears to be some objection to Republicans calling President Obama out on his lack of a foreign policy strategy. Well, yeah. The Islamic State is 100 percent a creation of Obama’s policies. Plain and simple.

BRISTOL, Va. -- Alpha Natural Resources announced this afternoon that it's idling the mining and processing operations at Rockspring Development Camp Creek underground mine in Wayne County, West Virginia, which will mean the loss of 439 jobs. Employees were notified today about the idling "based on the mine operator's current assessment of market conditions,"according to a news release issued by Alpha Natural Resources. Last week, three other Alpha-affiliated mine operators announced reductions in work force "due to sustained weak market conditions and government regulations that have challenged the entire central Appalachian coal industry. A total of 71 employees were affected...

The bloated federal agency charged with feeding the poor—and eradiating “food insecurity” in the U.S.—blew nearly $7 billion to provide “ineligible recipients” with the welfare benefit and there appears to be no end in sight to the fleecing. In fact, the agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), has for years violated a measure known as the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA) that requires agencies to conduct annual risk assessments to identify programs that make “significant improper payments” of $10 million or more. Not only has the USDA violated IPERA in the last four years, it also refuses...

 The List: Obama's Three Hundred and Thirtieth Week in OfficeNews and Notes:    Ted Cruz' Father "I lost my freedom once, I'll die before it happens again.  5/21/2015Obama and Israel, Year 7Obama: Netanyahu's Comments Have 'Consequences'President Obama continues criticism of Netanyahu’s comments on a Palestinian state and Arab-Israelis before the last elections.Obama administration trying to bribe Israel to accept Iran dealObama: (Iran's)Supreme leader is anti-SemiticCommon Core teaches kids to 'divide Jerusalem' Boston U. professor gets federal funding for role-playing gameIsrael Fears Obama Will Stop Hiding Its Nuclear 'Secret'ObamanomicsSenate averts trade filibuster, delivers big win to Obama in fast-track fightSen. Sessions Myth-Busts...

Mr. President, With due respect for your office and the tremendous responsibilities you face, I must take strong exception to comments you made at a recent Evangelical-Catholic leadership summit. Those comments were unhelpful, inaccurate, unbiblical, and, sad to say, hypocritical. During a panel discussion, you urged these leaders to spend less time on “divisive” issues like abortion and redefining marriage, putting more emphasis instead on dealing with poverty. Speaking as a professing Christian, you said, “When it comes to what are you really going to the mat for, what’s the defining issue, when you’re talking in your congregations, what’s the...

This summer will be busy for the Obama administration’s energy and environmental regulators, with numerous high-profile rule releases planned. Between June and August, regulators hope to fill out the Obama administration’s agenda with major rules on greenhouse gases, the oil and natural gas sectors, coal production, and other policy priorities, according to a rule-making schedule released by the White House late Thursday. The administration’s main climate change rule from the Environmental Protection Agency, which would slash greenhouse gases in the power sector by 30 percent, is due out in August. That aligns with the timeline EPA officials, including Administrator Gina...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Barack Obama is negotiating with 11 other nations seeks to eliminate both tariff and nontariff trade barriers with these countries, according to the Congressional Research Service. One of those countries is Vietnam, which the State Department says maintains a Communist regime. In 2014, the U.S. ran a $24,858,700,000 trade deficit with Vietnam, according to U.S. government trade data published by the Census Bureau. U.S. producers sold $5,724,900,000 in goods to purchasers in Vietnam. At the same time, producers in Vietnam sold $30,583,600,000 in goods to purchasers in the United States. Documents related to the TPP...

A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans. The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers. The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority ........

President Barack Obama said Friday he “forcefully” objects to suggestions that policy differences between his administration and the Israeli government signal his lack of support for the longtime U.S. ally. Speaking at one of Washington’s most prominent synagogues, Obama said the U.S. and Israel should not be expected to paper over differences on Israel's settlement building or the frozen peace process with the Palestinians. “That’s not a true measure of friendship,” Obama said during remarks to a crowd of about 1,200 gathered at Congregation Adas Israel. […] Obama defended the framework deal that negotiators are seeking to finalize by the...

This week’s top Mis-spoke award goes to Mosel Marie:-Goodness, what a big face you have!Following in the lip prints of Baghdad Bob the ever affable Marie advises us that the Iraqi army is still “holding the line” just outside the city of Ramadi:“Hold that line! Hold that line!” Boy, that high school cheerleading experience sure comes in handy now that Marie is the deputy spokesmouth at the State Department. Marie Harf: Varsity Cheerleader for the Grandville High Blue Aces, 1999And did you know that when Marie was an actual high school cheerleader she nearly died from toxic shock syndrome? True...

Orozco, 29, a seven-year Omaha police veteran who was working as a detective with the department's fugitive task force, died Wednesday from a gunshot wound that struck her in the chest just above the her bulletproof vest, police said Thursday.

GOP hacks like the loathsome Mitch McConnell and Weepy John Boehner seem to think the GOP needs to show it can “govern” — by which they mean push various pieces of crappy legislation through their respective chambers — before voters will trust them with the keys to the White House. Meanwhile, the public keep screaming: STOP OBAMA! The new Republican-led Congress is drawing harsh reviews from the public – including most Republicans. Just 23% of Americans say congressional Republicans are keeping the promises they made during last fall’s campaign, while 65% say they are not. Nearly four-in-ten (37%) say the...

Iraq roils in a maelstrom: ISIS now controls Ramadi, a new prime minister is in charge, Shiite-Sunni bloodshed flows, and a U.S.-led coalition is back, this time executing airstrikes in Iraq. The saga of Iraq is, as an analyst put it, "a rather straightforward but sad story" since the U.S. military left the country at the end of 2011, only to find itself returning in a smaller way. The fall of Ramadi to ISIS this week strikes many as a milestone because the city is the capital of Iraq's biggest province and because U.S. troops heroically fought insurgents there in...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Almost a year after Islamic State's shock capture of Mosul, Iraq's second city, the black flags of the jihadis have been raised over Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, seat of IraqÂ’s increasingly theoretical central government. Nobody talks of Mosul or recapturing it from Islamic State. It is a forgotten city. Now it is all about the fall of Ramadi, the neighbouring ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in central Syria and beyond - the Libyan city of Sirte, hometown of former leader Muammar Gaddafi. To the eyes of many in the region,...

Washington (CNN)Assessing his war on ISIS after the group overtook the key Iraqi city of Ramadi, President Barack Obama said in an interview this week his strategy against the terrorists isn't failing. "I don't think we're losing," Obama said in the Tuesday interview with The Atlantic magazine, which posted online Thursday. Calling the fall of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, a "tactical setback," Obama pinned the blame on poorly trained and organized Iraqi Defense Forces. "The training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough in Anbar, in the Sunni parts of the...

Barack Obama says,“We’re not losing,” the war against ISIS in Iraq. Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, May 21, 2015, 10:54 PM Barack Obama says,“We’re not losing,” the war against ISIS in Iraq. Baghdad Barack Tell that to the Ramadi refugees. After ISIS takes Ramadi, Iraq and Palmyra, Syria, Barack Obama insists we are not losing. Yahoo reported: US President Barack Obama has described the loss of key Iraqi territory to Islamic State as a tactical setback, while insisting the war against the jihadist group is not being lost. “I don’t think we’re losing,” Obama said in an interview with...

Obama: We're definitely not 'losing' in Iraq - ISIS storming into Ramadi was just a 'setback' and it would be a mistake to send in U.S. ground troops President Barack Obama echoed the many claims of his administration officials in an interview released today and said that the fall of Ramadi is a mere 'setback.' 'No, I don’t think we’re losing,' the president told The Atlantic in the Tuesday interview. 'There’s no doubt there was a tactical setback,' he said, but 'Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time.' The president dug in his heels and said he would...

Ramadi falls. The Iraqi army flees. The great 60-nation anti-Islamic State coalition so grandly proclaimed by the Obama administration is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s the defense minister of Iran who flies into Baghdad, an unsubtle demonstration of who’s in charge — while the U.S. air campaign proves futile and America’s alleged strategy for combating the Islamic State is in freefall. It gets worse. The Gulf states’ top leaders, betrayed and bitter, ostentatiously boycott President Obama’s failed Camp David summit. “We were America’s best friend in the Arab world for 50 years,” laments Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief.Note: “were,”...

President says in Atlantic interview he cares so deeply about Israel that he's motivated to criticize continued settlement activity, comments from Netanyahu. WASHINGTON -- "Political forces" in Washington seek to provide the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a rubber stamp for its policies, US President Barack Obama said this week in an interview with the Atlantic magazine. The interview, with the outlet's Jeffrey Goldberg, was published one day before the president is scheduled to address Congregation Adas Israel in Washington, where he is expected to outline his administration's plans to combat a rising tide of anti-Semitism across Europe....

President Barack Obama is continuing his criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s comments on a Palestinian state and Arab-Israelis before the last elections. In an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Obama said that the security relationship between the United States and Israel will remain strong, but reiterated that there will be “consequences” from Netanyahu’s remarks. “In every public pronouncement I’ve made, I said that the bedrock security relationships between our two countries—these are sacrosanct. Military cooperation, intelligence cooperation—none of that has been affected. I have maintained, and I think I can show that no U.S. president has...