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Following the deadly Charlie Hebdo terror attacks in Paris last week, the Obama administration finally set a date for its global summit on dealing with “extremism.” However, the conclave will not be focusing on Western and Arab governments’ support for extreme jihadists in Libya, Syria, and beyond; or on extreme gun-control schemes that left French citizens defenseless in the face of terrorism last week; or on extreme anti-free-speech policies purporting to ban criticism of Islam pushed by the United Nations, the European Union, and the Socialist French government. Instead, the White House “extremism” summit will focus primarily on expanding the...

Just one more bizarre and stupid charade that Abbas and the Palestinians engage in from time to time The news of the day is former President Jimmy Carter who placed the blame for the Paris jihadist massacre on—you guessed it—Israel. That reflects the surreal world in which anti-Semites live. Meanwhile, the Palestinians, both Fatah and Hamas, are running out of friends. For reasons that defy any logic and which have no basis in fact, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking recognition of the Palestinian state from the United Nations. He’s also applied for membership in the International Criminal Court....

Secretary of State John Kerry is currently in India as advance guard for President Obama’s visit later this month. The president is going there to try and get some commitment from India (or the illusion of a commitment) to reduce its emissions of dreaded greenhouse gases. Until now, India, along with China, has resisted calls for major reductions, effectively blocking any global treaty limiting fossil fuel use. The president is very keen on changing this before this December’s United Nations confab in Paris, where such a treaty is supposed to be inked. Kerry’s mission is to get India ready for the president....

Alleged spy seen in video calling Saddam 'our inspired leader' ILLINOIS -- Prosecutors say he spied on dissidents, reported to U.N. mission honeycombed with secret agents. By MIKE ROBINSON Associated Press Writer CHICAGO (AP) -- Jurors watched a video Tuesday in which a man accused of spying on Iraqi dissidents for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service described the dictator as "our inspired leader" and spoke scornfully of "American colonial imperialism." "A light has illuminated our path and our procession toward the struggle and the liberation," Khaled Dumeisi said in describing Hussein at an April 2001 birthday party for the dictator at...

CHICAGO - A community newspaper publisher accused of spying on Iraqi dissidents in the United States was found guilty Monday of serving as an unregistered agent for Saddam Hussein. The jury took less than two hours to convict Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi after the weeklong trial. "This sends an important message that people can't come to our country and spy on their fellow residents," U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said. Dumeisi, 61, was convicted of failing to obey a federal law that requires agents of foreign governments to register with the Justice Department. Prosecutors maintained that the Palestinian-born Dumeisi spied on...

Washington, DC – Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell today issued a Secretarial Order calling for a comprehensive science-based strategy to address the more frequent and intense wildfires that are damaging vital sagebrush landscapes and productive rangelands, particularly in the Great Basin region of Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and California. The strategy will begin to be implemented during the 2015 fire season. Goals include reducing the size, severity and cost of rangeland fires, addressing the spread of cheatgrass and other invasive species, and positioning wildland fire management resources for more effective rangeland fire response. “Targeted action is urgently needed to...

The city is trying to kick-start development of vacant 62-acre parcel near downtown controlled by a controversial Iraqi billionaire once linked to convicted Democratic influence peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

Twisted, self-indulgent, calculating projection is rife among dictators, despots, religious zealots and terrorists and, unfortunately, a growing number of elected and appointed officials here in the United States The New Year unfolded with more terror from Islamists. The Paris gunmen, reportedly an Al Qaeda terror cell with Yemeni connections who murdered 12 people at a leftist French satirical magazine, may give courage to Muslim-based wannabe states like the Palestinian Authority that try to bully authentic nations. The close of 2014 brought a defeat for the Palestinian Authority as it attempted to fast-track statehood, hoping to bypass negotiations with Israel via...

There is a great temptation today to confuse sociological evolution with spiritual progress, and Christians are the first to succumb to that temptation. Nevertheless, the Bible expressly tells us that the history of mankind ends in judgment. It does not give place to the Kingdom. Jacques Ellul, False Presence of the Kingdom Conformity to the world is expressed by the passion for politics, by the politicizing of Christian thinking, manners and action. Jacques Ellul, Hope in Time of Abandonment In the cap and bells of Flip Wilson’s Church of What’s Happening Now, Pope Francis is readying an encyclical on climate...

… Palestinian political culture is rooted in a narrative of injustice; its anticolonialist bent and its deep sense of grievance treats concessions to Israel as illegitimate. Compromise is portrayed as betrayal, and negotiations—which are by definition about mutual concessions—will inevitably force any Palestinian leader to challenge his people by making a politically costly decision. But going to the United Nations does no such thing. It puts pressure on Israel and requires nothing of the Palestinians. Resolutions are typically about what Israel must do and what Palestinians should get. If saying yes is costly and doing nothing isn’t, why should we...

Syria has complained to the United Nations (UN) about several officials who, it claims, entered the country without visas in violation of its sovereignty. These include Republican Senator John McCain, former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and former U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, according to Reuters. Syria's UN ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, called on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the 15-member Security Council to pressure governments to take "the necessary measures against their nationals who enter Syrian territory illegally." "Such actions are a blatant violation of Syria's sovereignty and of the resolutions of the Security Council concerning Syria," Ja'afari wrote in a...

Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday named Shailen Bhatt the next executive director for the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT). He will assume the role in mid-February. Bhatt will replace Don Hunt, who will remain at CDOT through the end of February to transition with Bhatt ... Prior to serving at DelDOT, Bhatt was an associate administrator at the Federal Highway Administration ... "Don Hunt has been a remarkable executive director for the Colorado Department of Transportation. His ability to galvanize the Herculean efforts that so swiftly reopened the state's bridges and the hundreds of miles of roads damaged by the...

[1]On Tuesday the Palestinians tried to get the UN Security Council to adopt a draft resolution to shrink Israel down to indefensible borders.They failed to get the nine votes from the 15-member council that they needed. Even if they had, the U.S. had promised to veto the resolution. But the Palestinians would have succeeded in painting Israel as a country almost friendless, hanging by the thread of U.S. support.The draft resolution demanded that Israel and the Palestinians wrap up all their disputes and reach an agreement within one year; that a Palestinian state be set up along Israel’s 1967...

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has decided to join the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), an official told the Ma’an news agency on Saturday. […] Ahmad al-Rabie said that the PA submitted a request to join the Interpol in 2011 but that it was only accepted as an observer and not as a full member because it had not been recognized as a state at the time and did not have control over its borders. This time, however, the PA is sure that 128 countries will vote in favor of the state joining Interpol, four above the required threshold, al-Rabie told...

As Christians around the world got ready to contemplate the innocence of the child Jesus, last week the Russian Orthodox Church took on a UNICEF paper that says children have LGBT rights.The Patriarch’s Commission on the Family of the Russian Orthodox Church released a scathing statement criticizing a UNICEF position paper that urges countries to protect LGBT rights because, it says, it is in the “best interests of children.” The Commission turns the tables on UNICEF and says: “Placing children to be raised by same-sex couples is a gross violation of the rights and interests of a child.”The Orthodox Commission...

Imposing deadlines for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Palestinian terms, including full Israeli withdrawal from all “occupied” territories within three years The United Nations Security Council was called into a special session on December 30, 2014 at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and its Arab Group supporters. The intent was for the Security Council to approve a resolution, submitted by the non-permanent Council member Jordan, imposing deadlines for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Palestinian terms, including full Israeli withdrawal from all “occupied” territories within three years. The Palestinians thought they had the necessary nine-vote majority to pass the resolution,...

By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyNew York, New York — December 30 … Lethal, Islamic terror attacks and the potential for a new Middle East war were avoided this evening as the UN Security Council defeated a Palestinian resolution calling for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories by late 2017. The UN resolution called for negotiations to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the Six Day War. It also demanded that a peace agreement be reached within 12 months. If a bid for Palestinian statehood was...

The European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said Tuesday's vote at the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Palestinian statehood underlined the need for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to urgently resume peace negotiations. The Security Council failed to adopt an Arab-backed resolution that would have paved the way to a Palestinian state, setting a 12-month deadline for Israel to reach a final peace deal with the PA and calling for a full Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria by the end of 2017. The vote "underlines once again the urgency of resuming meaningful negotiations between the...

IN 1982 a Chinese aquaculture scientist named Fusui Zhang journeyed to Martha’s Vineyard in search of scallops. The New England bay scallop had recently been domesticated, and Dr. Zhang thought the Vineyard-grown shellfish might do well in China. After a visit to Lagoon Pond in Tisbury, he boxed up 120 scallops and spirited them away to his lab in Qingdao. During the journey 94 died. But 26 thrived. Thanks to them, today China now grows millions of dollars of New England bay scallops, a significant portion of which are exported back to the United States. As go scallops, so goes...