The Stache speaketh.

In his own inimitable style, John Bolton tells a reporter that the response of Hillary Clinton’s State Department concerning the crisis in Egypt is “mush.” He gives dire warning that the radical Muslim Brotherhood is gaining traction and that it would be a monumental catastrophe of the highest order if it seized control. Just as the Shah of Iran was bad, he was followed by a regime that was infinitely worse and is still threatening us today. Jimmy Carter helped push the Shah out (1979) and we see what the Ayatolla Khomeni, his successor, wrought for us and the world. Likewise, Mubarak is not ideal but he’s helped America and will negotiate with Israel. But the administration, by trying to be “nice” to all sides by saying nothing of substance, may be inadvertently aiding the rise of another radical jihadist state — and an important one with a population of 80 million in a crucial location with the Suez Canal.

Psycho progressives hardest hit …

(Daily Caller) — MSNBC host Ed Schultz announced Thursday on his radio show that his “Psycho Talk” segment had been discontinued by MSNBC executives.

“I work for somebody,” said Schultz. “I don’t call all the shots.”

Following the abrupt departure of Keith Olbermann from the network, Schultz’s show on MSNBC was moved from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

“There’s probably people in positions that are a helluva lot smarter than I am and have decided that that’s what the way it’s going to be,” Schultz said in an uncharacteristically servile response to the decision.

On January 11, following the Tucson shooting, Schultz said that he had no intention of discontinuing the segment. “As long as they open their mouths over there on the right, we will continue to have the segment called ‘Psycho Talk,’” said Schultz.

Schultz has been on thin ice with network executives before. According to the New York Post, NBC News President Steve Capus and MSNBC President Phil Griffin threatened to fire Schultz in August following a newsroom rant. Schultz had reportedly said, “I’m going to torch this f*&king place” in a fury over a lack of promotion for his show.

Hosni can’t be far behind.

(Ynet)- According to the Al Jazeera news channel, there are reports that the Egyptian President’s wife Suzanne Mubarak has left for London. It is unclear who is the source for this report. Al Jazeera reported earlier that Mubarak’s two sons, Gamal and Ala, have arrived in London with their families, escaping Egypt as result of the unrest

Fifth-columnist collusion.

A public interest organization that uncovers and prosecutes corruption in government said it has confirmed from Department of Justice documents that the federal agency under Barack Obama’s command worked hand-in-hand with the American Civil Liberties Union to attack Arizona over its tough new immigration law.

That law, SB 1070, now is being challenged before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It created applause from secure borders advocates and a furor among a wide range of immigrant rights advocacy organizations last year when state officials adopted plans to let state law enforcement officials crack down on illegal aliens who already are violating federal law.

Judicial Watch, the corruption-fighting Washington organization, earlier had submitted a filing in the court case on behalf of Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, the author of the state’s SB 1070, asking the appeals court to reverse a preliminary injunction granted by a district court in July, just as the law was about to take effect.

That injunction has not yet been lifted.

The district court judge suspended four of SB 1070’s key provisions as the Obama administration called the plan racist even though it specifically prohibits racial profiling.

Now Judicial Watch has posted online a file of nearly 100 pages of documents it obtained from the government, revealing that the DOJ “worked hand-in-hand with the American Civil Liberties Union.”

The documents, obtained through the Federal Freedom of Information Act, revealed that there was an exchange of “touching base” e-mails between Lucas Guttentag, chief of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Edwin Kneedler, deputy solicitor general under the Obama administration’s Department of Justice.

Keep reading…

The “Hosni Mubarak flees Egypt” countdown has officially begun.

CAIRO — Egypt was engulfed in a fifth day of protests on Saturday but an attempt by President Hosni Mubarak to salvage his 30-year rule by firing his cabinet and calling out the army appeared to backfire as troops and demonstrators fraternized and called for the president himself to resign.

While some protesters clashed with police, army tanks expected to disperse the crowds in central Cairo and in the northern city of Alexandria instead became rest points and even, on occasion, part of the protests as anti-Mubarak graffiti were scrawled on them without interference from soldiers.

“Leave Hosni, you, your son and your corrupted party!” declared the graffiti on one tank as soldiers invited demonstrators to climb aboard and have their photographs taken with them.

“This is the revolution of all the people,” declared the side of a second tank in downtown Cairo. Egyptian men all serve in the army, giving it a very different relationship to the people from that of the police.

The feared security police had largely withdrawn from central Cairo to take up positions around the presidential palace, with their places taken up by the army.

Following Mr. Mubarak’s demand in his late-night speech, the Egyptian cabinet officially resigned on Saturday. But there was no sign of letup in the tumult. Reports from morgues and hospitals suggested that at least 50 people had been killed so far.

In Ramses Square in central Cairo Saturday midday, protesters commandeered a flatbed army truck. One protester was driving the truck around the square while a dozen others on the back were chanting for President Mubarak to leave office. Nearby, soldiers relaxed around their tanks and armored vehicles and chatted with protesters. There were no policemen in sight.

Lost without TOTUS…

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama experienced a rare speaking stumble Thursday, mixing up Iraq and Afghanistan when responding in a YouTube interview to questions challenging the wars in those countries.

The president twice referred to Afghanistan when clearly talking about the situation in Iraq.

He said that the United States would withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2011 and that combat operations there had ended, which actually describes the situation and policy for Iraq.

It was unclear whether Obama realized his mistake. He then correctly stated the situation in Afghanistan, saying the United States would start withdrawing some forces beginning in July, with the goal of handing over full security responsibilities to the Afghan government in 2014.

The 40-minute interview was part of a White House communications offensive in support of this week’s State of the Union speech, with a series of events in which top administration officials spoke directly to Americans about administration policies set out in the address Tuesday night.

Like father, like son.

WASHINGTON — Freshman Republican Sen. Rand Paul is calling for deep cuts in foreign aid, including eliminating U.S. money for Israel, a plan that has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

The tea party-backed Paul unveiled a budget proposal this week that would slash overall government spending by $500 billion, saying the growing debt requires nothing less. It makes significant cuts in education, energy and defense while eliminating some agencies.

The Kentucky senator also is calling for cutting billions from foreign aid, and told CNN he would end the $3 billion in foreign military assistance to Israel.

The Republican Jewish Coalition called the idea misguided. Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, said the U.S. can’t renege on an ally.

Update: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is a scumbag, he completely tried to turn this into a story about Israel when in fact it wasn’t, not even close but he wouldn’t let it go. Paul was not singling them out, in fact he took a much harder line with the Islamic states in the region. The MSM ran with the Israel angle as a way of discrediting Rand Paul with conservatives. Disgraceful, truly disgraceful.

(skip ahead to the 3:15 mark)

HT: Mara Z.

If wanting America to withdraw from the corruption-filled, Israel-hating, pro-Islamist U.N. makes me a “black helicopter” Republican then so be it.

The culture war era conspiracy theories about black helicopters and a one-world government secretly pursued by America’s elites, that stuff is back from the culture war eras too. The new Republican head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee convened the first hearing of that committee this week. What’s the topic? Get the US out of the UN!

Via Newsbusters

Leftists pimping for Islamists, or is it the other way around?

Don’t Fear Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — Daily Beast

…Egypt is shaking, Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year-old regime faces its most serious threat ever. The prospect of change in Egypt inevitably raises questions about the oldest and strongest opposition movement in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood , also known as Ikhwan. Can America work with an Egypt where the Ikhwan is part of a transition or even a new government?

The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.

Egypt’s new opposition leader, former International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei, has formed a loose alliance with the Brotherhood because he knows it is the only opposition group that can mobilize masses of Egyptians, especially the poor. He says he can work with it to change Egypt. Many scholars of political Islam also judge the Brotherhood is the most reasonable face of Islamic politics in the Arab world today. . . .

The crisis in North Africa has come up unexpectedly for President Obama and Secretary Clinton. They have moved quickly to grasp the challenge. They know the stakes and the delicacy of our options. Neither complacency nor panic is the right American response.

They should not be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. Living with it won’t be easy but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy. We need not demonize it nor endorse it. In any case, Egyptians now will decide their fate and the role they want the Ikhwan to play in their future.

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Update: The Weekly Standard’s Thomas Joscelyn’s rips Bruce Riedel’s Daily Beast post to shreds.

(Weekly Standard)- Writing for the Daily Beast, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and adviser to the Obama administration, argues that the U.S. can coexist with a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated Egypt. The Obama administration “should not be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Riedel writes. “Living with it won’t be easy but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy. We need not demonize it nor endorse it.”

Here is the key rationale Riedel offers:

The Egyptian Brotherhood renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.

The first part of the first sentence quoted above is flat wrong. The Brotherhood has not renounced violence; it has simply advocated a more selective approach to using it. The rest of the paragraph is only partially true, and masks a much more complicated relationship between the Brotherhood and al Qaeda.

First, we must understand that the Brotherhood is not confined to Egypt, but actually operates around the globe, with full-fledged branches throughout the Middle East and influence organizations in the West. Everywhere the Brotherhood has implanted its radical Islamist seed the organization has adapted to its environment. So, for example, in Egypt, where the Brotherhood was ruthlessly oppressed by Mubarak’s regime, it began to advocate open participation in Egypt’s elections. This was a necessity, as violent attempts to overthrow Mubarak were systematically crushed.  Even so, we cannot pretend, as Riedel does, that the Brotherhood has completely eschewed violence.

Barry Rubin argues convincingly in The Muslim Brotherhood, an excellent compendium he edited, that in fact the Brotherhood has no problem with violence.

“Regarding al-Qa’ida,” Rubin writes, “the Brotherhoods [in Egypt, Syria, and Jordan] approve in principle of its militancy, attacks on America, and ideology (or at least respects its ideologues), but views it as a rival.”

Rubin goes on to quote Rajab Hilal Hamida, a member of the Brotherhood in Egypt’s parliament:

From my point of view, bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi are not terrorists in the sense accepted by some. I support all their activities, since they are a thorn in the side of the Americans and the Zionists. . . . [On the other hand,] he who kills Muslim citizens is neither a jihad fighter nor a terrorist, but a criminal murderer. We must call things by their proper names!

In other words, Hamida is not concerned with al Qaeda’s attacks against Americans or Jews. Their killing of other Muslims is what he finds objectionable. This should offer us small comfort.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s most influential theologian, Sheikh Yousef al Qaradawi, has repeatedly justified suicide bombings, called on Muslims to support the insurgency against American forces in Iraq, and justified the killing of civilians. “The martyrdom operations carried out by the Palestinian factions to resist the Zionist occupation are not in any way included in the framework of prohibited terrorism, even if the victims include some civilians,” Qaradawi said in 2003, according to MEMRI. “Those who oppose martyrdom operations and claim that they are suicide are making a great mistake,” Qaradawi added.

The Egyptian branch has asked Qaradawi to be its leader on multiple occasions, but he has turned them down to continue living it Qatar. Qaradawi has flourished in the Persian Gulf nation, where he has hosted one of Al Jazeera’s most popular programs, “Sharia and Life.”

Keep reading…

Killing trees is bad, killing people apparently not a problem.

(Berkeley)- UC police have charged a man who has been sitting in a tree in People’s Park for the last three months with attempted murder.

Matthew Dodt, 54, was arrested around 3:15 am today after a six-hour standoff, according to Lt. Mark Decoulode of the UC Berkeley police department.

Dodt allegedly stabbed a man who had climbed up into the tree for a conversation, said Lt. Decoulode. Dodt stabbed the man’s hand, which had been resting on his neck. The man was treated at a local hospital and released.

Dodt, who also goes by the name Midnight Matt, climbed up into a tree in People’s Park in November. He was protesting changes to the park, such as the installation of a small museum,  proposed by George Beier, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in November.

While UC police said that Dodt apparently invited the victim into his tree, Dodt told the Daily Californian that four men approached him and threatened to burn down the tree to end the tree sit. When one of the men started to climb up the tree, Dodt got out his knife to protect himself, he told the paper.

Dodt has been a member of Copwatch, an organization that monitors police behavior, and Food Not Bombs, which distributes free food.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

A top House Republican rejected calls by Democrats for hearings on gun safety in the wake of the Jan. 8 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), suggesting that such hearings could interfere with the prosecution of the alleged gunman, Jared Loughner.

Rep. John Conyers (Mich.), top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and 15 other Democrats on the panel sent a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on Friday seeking hearings on several gun-safety issues related to the Tucson shooting. Six people died in that attack and 14 others, including Giffords, were wounded. Giffords was transferred to a Houston hospital this week to begin a long-term rehabilitation program.

Smith said the inquiries Democrats proposed have merit, but timing them before Lougher’s trial could have the “unintended effect of prejudicing the ongoing criminal proceedings.”

While acknowledging that there is little support in Congress for broad gun-control measures, Conyers and his Democratic colleagues suggested the hearings – and congressional action – should be “a carefully crafted and narrowly focused review of these issues and other possible loopholes in current law.”

“We fully recognize and appreciate the sensitivity of the subjects raised by the recent tragedy in Tucson in which our colleague, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot and eighteen other were wounded or killed, including members of her staff, a Federal judge, and several other citizens,” the Democrats wrote. “However, we also believe it is not only possible, but imperative that Congress review the relevant issues in a civil and objective [manner].

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Nice to see someone in Congress with a backbone.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Paul Broun is standing by his tweet that he made during the President Obama’s State of the Union Address. The tweet said, “ Mr. President, you don’t believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.”

When asked about the tweet by CBS News, Broun said he sticks by it.

“Absolutely, everything he does is bigger Government, more central control from Washington D.C., that’s not what our founding fathers envisioned the government to be. I believe in the original intent of the Constitution which means that the federal government should just be doing basically the 18 things in Article I, section 8, very little else,” Broun added.

“Mr. Obama believes in a big, central government where the federal government controls everything in our lives, that’s socialism and so I stick by that tweet, ” Broun said.

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Pretty much sums up the left’s view on “civility in political discourse.”

(CNSNews.com) – MSNBC’s Ed Schultz calling former Vice President Dick Cheney “an enemy of the country” who should go “to the Promised Land,” is not an example of political incivility but is actually “beautifully phrased,” according to actor Richard Dreyfuss, who is spearheading a nationwide initiative on civics education and civility in political discourse.

At the National Press Club on Tuesday where Dreyfuss was talking about his civics initiative, CNSNews.com asked the Academy Award-winning actor the following: “MSNBC’s Ed Schultz said of, has said of Dick Cheney, ‘he’s an enemy of this country, in my opinion, Dick Cheney is an enemy of this country. … Lord, take him to the promised land, will you?’ And there’s been other quotes, specifically in the media. I wanted to get your reaction to that specifically. Is that something that you think should be rejected by a civil society?

Dreyfuss said, “No, that’s not uncivil. That’s actually kind of a beautifully phrased way of saying something that could be uncivil.”

Libs are brain dead.

(Reuters) — Officials in Portland are having paper and office supplies delivered on giant tricycles to cut out harmful tailpipe emissions, the city said on Thursday.

Under a deal signed last week with Office Depot, the company is subcontracting with a local firm called B-Line that has riders pedal giant tricycles mounted with cargo containers.

It’s in those cargo containers that B-Line riders are carrying the Office Depot supplies, to nine city offices in the traffic-congested downtown area.

“It’s important for the city of Portland to set an example and be a leader to other businesses in the Portland area and use sustainable business practices whenever possible,” Mayor Sam Adams said in a statement.

I recommend the Green Machine. I used to bomb around my neighborhood on one of these when I was eight-years old.

Via Left Coast Rebel

I’ve been thinking about the recent uprising in Egypt compared to the unsuccessful one in Iran that most of us supported including myself. We need to look at the mindset of the people involved.

In Iran the youth want nothing to do with Islam, they’ve lived under an Islamic regime and detest it. Iran has by far and away the lowest mosque attendance in the Middle East, western style is popular etc. In Egypt you have the youth living under a secular regime of which they also detest, they’re are one of the most pious Muslim nations on Earth and would like nothing more than to live under an Islamic regime.

What it boils down to is one uprising was attempting to overthrow an Islamic regime and the other more or less supporting the implementation of one.

At this point I’m fascinated by what’s going on but at the same time I’m very weary about supporting it one way or the other.

What are you guys thinking?

Seems to be more of an isolated incident but if it starts to happen in large numbers then watch out, Mubarak’s toast (if he isn’t already).

(Telegraph)- Flames were rising up from burning tires and police cars as darkness fell over Cairo, and ruling party’s headquarters was ablaze. Protesters also attempted to storm the state TV building and Foreign Ministry, while looting broke out in some areas. For the first time, the sound of shots could be heard in the centre of the city.

In a major gamble, the armed forces were ordered to enforce the curfew. Analysts have warned that army generals, previously unquestioning in their support of the regime, could begin to turn against Mr Mubarak if their soldiers are forced to kill unarmed protesters.

The president, who has not been seen in public since the protests began on Tuesday, announced that he would address the nation.

With their hold on power visibly tottering as protesters attacked government buildings, senior ruling party figures acknowledged for the first time that they were facing a potential revolution and called on Mr Mubarak to institute “unprecedented reforms”.

“Nowhere in the world can the security forces put an end to revolution,” Mustafa al-Fekki, chairman of the Egyptian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told Al Jazeera. “The security option alone is not sufficient and the president is the only one who can put an end to these events.”

Mr Mubarak, who is 82, cut an ever more isolated figure as international criticism at his handling of the protests, during which at least eight people have been killed, one of them yesterday. More than 400 people have been injured, several with bullet wounds.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, used Washington’s strongest language yet as she demanded that the Egyptian government reverse its communications blackout and restrain its security forces. After Israel, Egypt is the world’s largest recipient of US aid and is seen as a vital American ally in the Middle East.

But there was little sign that Egypt was listening. Riot police fired endless of salvos of tear gas and rubber bullet fire over the course of the day. Plainclothes secret policemen dragged protesters out of the crowd, kicking and beating them as they were loaded into lorries and driven away.

Yet no matter how hard they tried, the crowds kept coming.

In one of many astonishing scenes on the streets, thousands of anti-government protesters wielding rocks, glass and sticks chased hundreds of riot police away from the main square in downtown Cairo. Several of the policemen stripped off their uniforms and badges and joined the demonstrators.

Looking more and more like the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution.

Sounds of gunshots were heard in the streets of central Cairo on Friday evening after the government imposed a curfew following a day of violent protests when police fired rubber bullets and teargas.

Protesters clashed in Kasr el-Aini street near parliament, the prime minister’s downtown office and other government buildings, a witness said. There were more than 1,000 demonstrators and thick smoke in that area.

The headquarters of the ruling National Democratic Party were set ablaze in Cairo shortly after a curfew came into force, live footage carried by Al Jazeera television showed.

State television confirmed the building was set on fire.

Meanwhile, tanks arrived on the streets of the eastern Egyptian city of Suez on Friday night in front of the charred remains of a police station set alight the night before, a Reuters witness said.

Dozens of protesters climbed on the tanks, said the Reuters witness who saw at least five tanks. They tried to talk to soldiers who tried to wave them off. One tank had about 25 protesters on it, he said.

Residents told Reuters that soldiers opened fire on the protesters on the tanks. It was not immediately possible to confirm their reports.

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