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United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that the Obama administration's decision to ramp up pressure on Israel over construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem was bringing results. In an interview with BBC television, Clinton was asked whether escalating the tone with Israel had paid off. She said: "I think we're going to see the resumption of the negotiation track and that means that it is paying off because that's our goal." Advertisement Over the past two weeks Israel has sought to cool American ire over plans for 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish...

Obama himself claims that he has launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim, too, does not stand up to scrutiny. On Friday, Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum. First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo. Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967. Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. The US suggests releasing hundreds of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. Fourth, Israel must...

Remember, last June, when President Obama told reporters that it was “not productive” for the U.S. to be “meddling” in the affairs of a certain Middle Eastern country? Obama’s diplomatic deference inaugurated six months of silence after Iran’s sham elections. By the time the White House got around to “strongly condemn[ing]” the bloody crackdown against protestors, the nascent “green revolution” was in retreat, and Iran’s maniacal president – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- was bragging about how close he was to developing nuclear weapons. Obama is showing he has far fewer reservations about meddling in the domestic affairs of another Middle Eastern...

It took awhile, 14 months to be exact, but both the ADL and AIPAC have issued very solid statements condemning the President's new verbal war on Israel, and asking for the Administration to curtail the public berating of its supposed ally, and work with Israel in a more diplomatic fashion on both the peace process and Iran. What is disgraceful is that so far, exactly one elected Democrat in Congress has done the same: Congresswoman Shelley Berkley of Nevada. Sadly, Democrats seem to care far more about passing health care legislation this week, than protecting the US-Israel relationship from Obama's...

An ill-timed municipal housing announcement in Jerusalem has mutated into one of the most serious conflicts between the United States and Israel in two decades, leaving a politically embarrassed Israeli government scrambling to respond to a tough list of demands by the Obama administration. The Obama administration has put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult political spot at home by insisting that the Israeli government halt a plan to build housing units in East Jerusalem. The administration also wants Mr. Netanyahu to commit to substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, after more than a year in which the peace process...

Recent hostile outbursts by the US gov't must be viewed in the context that the US-Israel relationship has been on a downward spiral since Obama. The bureaucratic fashla [blunder] of our dysfunctional government to forestall the announcement of a new housing project in Jerusalem during the visit of US Vice President Joe Biden provided a pretext for the Obama administration to launch one of the harshest condemnations ever leveled against us by a US government. But while the timing of the announcement was appalling, it involved no breach of undertaking. In fact, the Obama administration had previously publicly praised the...

Major riots in Wadi Joz; 15 arrested, 2 cops hurt as protesters clash with police. Dozens of masked Palestinians were hurling rocks at Israeli police and burning tires in the east Jerusalem neighborhoods Wadi Joz, Issawiya and Abu Tor on Tuesday. More than one hundred policemen, some of them on horseback, were trying to disperse the crowd at Wadi Joz, where some two hundred Arabs were throwing rocks at security forces. Stun grenades, tear gas and other measures were being used against the rioters. Twenty five Palestinians have been arrested so far on suspicion of stone-throwing and disruptions. In addition,...

Obama’s Israel Crisis  by P. David Hornik   Israel Apartheid Week hadn’t yet run its course when Israel came in for a barrage of hostile characterizations also from the Obama administration. In the same brief time span there was also Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—“The Zionist regime is the most hated regime in the world…. with Allah’s help, this regime will be annihilated.” All this came hard on the heels of a wave of international outrage, and violent attacks by Palestinians, over Israel adding shrines in Hebron and Bethlehem to a list of national heritage sites.If it seems like a lot...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration's fierce denunciation of Israel last week has ignited a firestorm in Congress and among powerful pro-Israel interest groups who say the criticism of America's top Mideast ally was misplaced. Since the controversy erupted, a bipartisan parade of influential lawmakers and interest groups has taken aim at the administration's decision to publicly condemn Israel for its announcement of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting on Tuesday and then openly vent bitter frustration on Friday. With diplomats from both countries referring to the situation as a crisis, the outpouring...

The Obama administration's calculated decision to escalate its open attacks against Israel over a routine decision by the Jerusalem Planning and Building Board to approve 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo neighborhood presents Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with an unenviable task. He has to either relinquish Israel's sovereignty over its capital by capitulating in the face of the unprecedented American assault, or he can tell Obama and Clinton and their cohorts to go to hell. It is depressing, and let's face it, a bit scary that the US, which has refused to raise a finger against Iran's nuclear program or...

Senate Republicans pressed Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday afternoon over political appointees who'd previously defended suspects in terrorism cases. All seven members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote Holder, asking for more details about political appointees within the Department of Justice, who, Republicans say, may have conflicts of interest in the government's prosecution in terrorism cases. The GOP senators wrote Holder to complain that a response to an original request for information on those Justice Department personnel was "at best nonresponsive and, at worst, intentionally evasive." "It appears the Department has chosen to go another direction and refuse to...

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa is rightly unhappy that the Justice Department won't divulge the names of the nine Justice Department lawyers who directly represented suspected-terrorist detainees, or their cases. Grassley identified two himself, Neal Katyal (an aside: Katyal is a very impressive guy and very charming and level-headed) and Jennifer Daskal. Well, we've identified two more of them: Deputy AG counsel Eric Columbus and Office of Legal Counsel lawyer Jonathan Cedarbaum. (With reference to: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/25/identifying-the-gitmo-nine/)

The Obama administration bluntly urged the Congress Thursday to steer clear of directing where terrorism suspects should be prosecuted, pushing back against efforts to require military rather than civilian trials. A bipartisan group of senators has offered legislation aimed at forcing the administration to prosecute terrorism suspects, like the self-professed mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in special military commission trials instead of traditional criminal courts. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators to be tried in a criminal court in Manhattan. But concerns by some lawmakers about security costs and granting full...

A radical Muslim group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to raise money for Hamas has an extensive relationship with the Obama administration, WND has learned. Last week, President Obama's top adviser on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks he made in a speech to Muslim law students at New York University. The event was sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA. ISNA is known for its enforcement of Saudi-style Islam in mosques throughout the U.S. It was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in its case against the...

President Obama's new Muslim envoy Rashad Hussain admitted Friday to once defending a man who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a terrorist group -- an admission that contradicts earlier claims from the White House that the quotes had been mistakenly attributed to Hussain.

The President has steadfastly refused to criticize the Iranian regime over its human rights violations and its brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Obama administration actually tried to prevent the Broadcasting Board of Governors from protesting Iran's censorship policies: The Iranian government's blanket censorship of satellite and Internet communications last week was so effective, it led many to wonder: Why didn't the U.S. government do more to stop it? Despite strong statements from Foggy Bottom, the White House appears to be treading carefully. Three sources tell The Cable that the National Security...

Obama counter-terror chief John Brennan is drawing criticism for comments he made Saturday about the recidivism rate of detainees released from Guantanamo Bay. During a Q&A following remarks Brennan delivered at the Islamic Center of New York University, Brennan defended the administration's estimate that one in five foreign nationals released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay since its opening return to terrorist activities. "People sometimes use that figure, 20 percent, say 'Oh my goodness, one out of five detainees returned to some type of extremist activity,'" Brennan said. "You know, the American penal system, the recidivism rate is up to...

As he professes to want to reduce the dangerous budget deficit, Obama brings to mind the hapless engineers at Toyota who find that their vehicles accelerate whether or not the driver wants them to. It appears that no matter how hard Obama jams on the brakes with his new-found commitment to deficit reduction -- having already almost doubled the deficit in one year -- the level of red ink just seems inexorably to rise. Obviously, more fundamental change in the budget's engineering is needed. But, unfortunately, it is easier to recall a car than a president. Obama's announced intention to...

If President Obama has his way, Attorney General Eric Holder will soon be joined at the Justice Department by another terrorist rights advocate, Dawn Johnsen. Obama has nominated her to lead the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Given her opposition to enhanced interrogation of terrorist suspects, she provides yet another example that the Obama administration still views Islamic terrorists as criminal defendants entitled to full constituional protections in civil trials, not as unlawful enemy combatants. As if we needed any more evidence! The New York Times, unsurprisingly, is upset about what its editorial today called ”an unreasonable delay” in...

Holder: I Made Decision To Charge Botched Bomber WASHINGTON (CBS) ― Attorney General Eric Holder said that he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in the U.S. civilian system. The Obama administration has come under recent attack by Republicans that the Nigerian man who attempted to blow up a Northwest airliner on U.S. soil on Christmas Day should have been tried as a terrorist instead of having the same rights as a U.S. citizen in court. Republicans have said the move to try Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in civilian court gives him the right to withhold information,...

Here is video of Charles Krauthammer on with Bill O'Reilly where he said one year after abolishing the Bush methods of interrogating terror detainees, the Obama Administration has not really made sure there is anything to take it's place. The Obama Administration created a "High Value Target Interrogation Group" to fill the vacuum, but one year later, Krauthammer says they are "still looking for office space," and are not functioning. He said they were not functioning when the attempted attack took place on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day. Krauthammer said if you are going to "ostentatiously" replace what...

When it comes to trying terrorists on American soil since 9/11, let's all work from the same set of facts. This morning we've heard three people in the Sunday shows talking about the "hundreds" of terrorists that we have tried in US courts and hold in US prisons - as if KSM was just some regular Joe terrorist. Some facts: First, the only civilian trial of a 9/11 terrorist was Moussaoui who was arrested before 9/11 had even happened and before the President had authorized detaining terrorists as enemy combatants. Second, Moussaoui had his trial while the entire military commission...

Just this past spring within months of Obama taking office, his administration, through the Department of Commerce, agreed to relinquish some control over IANA and their governance. The Obama Administration has agreed to give greater representation to foreign companies and countries on IANA. This amounts to one small step for Internationalism and one giant leap for surrendering America¹s control over an invention we have every right and responsibility to control and manage.

He's the expert's expert on this issue and it's impossible to ignore his reasoning!In an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post Former CIA Director Michael Hayden describes how the political decisions taken by Obama and his Dept. of Justice have undermined our national security. Covering areas like CIA interrogations and the KSM trial, the op-ed deserves to be read in full. The following excerpts deal primarily with the issues raised by the handling of the Christmas Day aka "Underwear" Bomber: Obama administration takes several wrong paths in dealing with terrorism By Michael V. HaydenWashington Post Sunday, January 31, 2010 ...We got...

he real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane -- that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration -- but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full control of the U.S. government. After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him....

Whose side is the Justice Department on: America's -- or the terrorists'? It's just insane that a lawyer who defended Osama bin Laden's driver and bodyguard -- and who sought constitutional rights for terrorists -- could be one of the Obama administration's top legal officials. But there's Neal Katyal, occupying a top perch at the Justice Department as the principal deputy solicitor general. Then there's Jennifer Daskal -- who just months ago was an anti-Guantanamo activist. Now she's in Justice's National Security Division -- working on detainee issues. Eric Holder Eric Holder Talk about conflicts of interest. All kinds of...

Some Democratic lawmakers who support closing Guantanamo Bay say the U.S. should reconsider whether to repatriate suspected terrorists from Yemen, given the al-Qaida activity in the poor Arab nation. President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said Sunday the transfers will continue if the administration deems them warranted. Six Yemenis returned last month were released after the government there determined they were not a threat, officials in Yemen told The Associated Press. President Barack Obama has said an al-Qaida group operating in Yemen apparently was behind the plot to bring down a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day. The U.S....

CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, in his first public comments on the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit, described the suspect as “an isolated extremist,” despite reports that the 23-year-old Nigerian had been trained in Yemen, a country he visited twice. The Associated Press, quoting a Yemeni government official, said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived in Yemen for two extended periods of time -- a year, from 2004-2005 and again from August-December this year. He apparently was in Yemen a few weeks before the attempt to blow Flight 253 out of the sky over Michigan. (See...

Not a surprise, but still noteworthy: a heavy MSM hitter is now strongly suggesting that, post-NWA 253, a senior Obama admin official will be walking the plank. Say what we will of her, but Andrea Mitchell has her sources. So when the NBC correspondent declared on Morning Joe today that she suspects "somebody is either going to be resigning or forced to resign," we can pretty much take it to the [Federal Reserve?] bank. View video here.

Today, after a vacationing President Barack Obama conceded that both human and systemic failures of U.S. Intelligence had failed to bar a Nigerian man posing a reported security risk from boarding that Detroit-bound jetliner - a near-''catastrophic" breakdown in security - Obama left the reporters taking his words in Hawaii and went snorkeling. The president was wearing a navy blue suit and white striped shirt with no tie, and spoke only to reporters - unlike a televised appearance sans-tie that he had made the day before. Today, his words seemed sterner. Today, he was acknowledging a troubling breakdown in Intelligence...

(CBS) CBS News has learned that as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed "The Nigerian," suspected of meeting with "terrorist elements" in Yemen. Sources tell CBS News "The Nigerian" has now turned out to be Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. But that connection was not made when Abudulmutallab's father went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria three months later, on November 19, 2009. It was then he expressed deep concerns to a CIA officer about his son's ties to extremists in Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activity. In...

HONOLULU — President Obama declared Tuesday that there had been a “systemic failure” of the nation’s security apparatus after being told about more missed signals and uncorrelated intelligence that should have prevented a would-be bomber from boarding a flight for the United States. The president was told during a private briefing on Tuesday morning while vacationing here in Hawaii that the government had a variety of information in its possession before the thwarted bombing that would have been a clear warning sign had it been shared among agencies, a senior official said. Two officials said the government had intelligence from...

That Janet Napolitano is Secretary of Homeland Security is a joke. That Barack Hussein Obama is President of the United States is a clear and present danger.

Some of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful law firms have donated hundreds of millions of dollars in free legal services to terror suspects at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Their work, bolstered by left-wing activists groups, has helped to free, or force the transfer, of hundreds of al Qaeda suspects to third countries. Some have gone back to terrorism and the job of trying to kill Americans. The work of big American law firms on behalf of al Qaeda is drawing new attention since Attorney General Eric Holder decided this month that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who orchestrated the murder of...

BY the real-world standard of how lawyers act, Attorney General Eric Holder's professed certainty about his decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-defendants in federal court is strictly (pardon the expression) "bush." It's an old adage among litigators that you're not a real trial lawyer until you've won an unwinnable case and lost an unloseable one. Lawyers in private practice know -- and make sure their clients know -- that litigation is a chancy business. That, of course, is a major reason why private disputes are overwhelmingly settled before (or during) trial and why most criminal cases are...

Syndicated talk-radio host Mark Levin spoke with former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy this evening about AG Eric Holder's decision to prosecute 9/11’s conspirators, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four lieutenants, in federal court a mere 6 blocks from Ground Zero. "The Cole bombing did not prompt a military war against al-Qaeda. It eventually resulted in a civilian indictment that is still pending. The Pentagon is the ultimate military target, and the attack against it spurred both the war we are now fighting and the implementation of military commissions to try jihadist war criminals. Yet, Holder has decided to give...

Attorney general's advisers have conflicts on detainee casesThe Obama Justice Department is having problems prosecuting terrorist cases because top department attorneys have conflicts of interest. According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, made waves Nov. 18 when he demanded that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. provide a list of all the suspected-terrorist detainee cases from which...

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday defended his decision to prosecute five men accused as co-conspirators in the Sept. 11 attacks in federal court in Manhattan, declaring that while he believes “we are at war,” that the venue was the best place to pursue the case against them. Despite criticism that holding such a trial presented greater risks than a military commission, Mr. Holder argued that there were fewer differences between the rules for federal court and the military panels than some critics realize. And, he argued, the Southern District of New York has a long history of...

Actual Title: The New York Five: Read the Unclassified Government Files on the Terrorists the White House Plans to Import into America ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The Obama Administration has announced it will bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his 9/11 co-conspirators – all terrorists currently imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay — to trial in civilian courts in New York City. To read the unclassified files on these terrorists from the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Department of Defense (DOD), click HERE. Also see this from Bill Kristol this morning, relaying the reaction of the sister of 9/11 victim Charles Burlingame, the...

"I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice," President Obama said in Tokyo. "The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it." But what happens if KSM or any of the other 9/11 defendants the Obama administration is bringing to New York for criminal prosecutions -- including Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi -- are somehow found not guilty? Attorney General Eric Holder brushed off the question, saying, "I would not have authorized the bringing of these...