Yes, again.

(Politico) — The Obama administration has never been backward about leaning forward on Fox News. The network has proven a durable, go-to villain to rally the base and stoke indignation against a perceived antagonist on the right.

But White House press secretary Jay Carney, going after Ed Henry from Fox News on Wednesday, misfired all over the place by also insulting House Speaker John Boehner for being a “showboat” and exposing a level of secrecy and political calculation in the debt limit negotiations that runs counter to promises President Obama ran on.

The day after the two tangled over Henry’s request for specifics on Obama’s plan, Carney and Henry were back at it again. Henry asked at the briefing when Obama’s plan might be submitted to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Ed, I understand, we can do this again, OK?” Carney said. “Has the speaker of the House shown you the positions he took in detail in the negotiations that were designed actually to achieve a compromise, as opposed to having a showboat?”

There is only one way to negotiate with these children, which is a point the Republicans do not grasp.

(POLITICO) — Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Wednesday that no Democrat in the Senate would vote for Speaker John Boehner’s debt-ceiling plan should it pass the House, where it’s come under fire from conservatives groups and tea-party lawmakers for not going far enough to cut spending.

The plan is a “big, wet kiss to the right wing,” Reid said at a packed Capitol Hill news conference.

Democratic leaders also signaled that a final deal will have to be worked out behind closed doors between leaders of the two parties, while Senate Republicans weighed whether to mount a filibuster against Reid’s rival proposal if it becomes the last option on the table to avert a catastrophic default before Tuesday’s deadline.

Seeking to exploit fissures in Boehner’s caucus, Democrats repeatedly called on the Ohio Republican to scrap his plan to cut the deficit and hike the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit in two phases by next year. Reid’s plan would also slice the deficit but would raise the government’s borrowing limit through the 2012 elections.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if Speaker Boehner’s bill passes or fails. The way to resolve this crisis is to ignore the extremists and meet in the middle of the road,” Reid said. Boehner’s plan “is not a solution. It will not pass. Every Democratic senator will vote against it.”

Keep reading. . .

Resistance being code for terrorism against Israel.

(INN) — Egypt this week hosted a “resistance” conference attended by the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizbullah and Palestinian Authority terrorist groups. They discussed linking the Arab Spring uprisings with demands of the Palestinian Authority.

The two-day convention at the Egyptian Press Syndicate was held under the lofty name of the “Founding Conference of the Arab-Islamic Gathering to Support the Option of Resistance,” according to The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

Delegates from 14 countries joined the meeting, including those from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Turkey, Iran, Indonesia, Morocco, Sudan and Jordan. The terrorist groups from the Palestinian Authority were not named but probably include Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military arm of the Fatah movement headed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Representatives also came from the Muslim Brotherhood, which spawned the Hamas terrorist organization and which has gained significant influence in Egypt since the ouster of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year.

A delegate from Hizbullah spoke in the name of its supreme leader, Hassan Nasrallah, Arab news agencies reported.

The conference attempted to establish a link between the so-called “resistance,” the Arab code word for terrorism, and the Arab Spring uprisings.

Osama Hamdan, responsible for Hamas’ international relations, said that “the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict will never end unless Israel ceases to exist.”

(Haaretz) — President Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinians on Wednesday to step up peaceful protests against Israel, urging “popular resistance” inspired by the Arab Spring to back a diplomatic offensive at the United Nations.

Abbas, addressing a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) meeting, reiterated his decision to seek full UN membership for Palestinian state alongside Israel, saying it was a diplomatic move resulting from paralysis in the U.S.-backed peace process.

“In this coming period, we want mass action, organized and coordinated in every place,” Abbas said. “This is a chance to raise our voices in front of the world and say that we want our rights.”

Though the United States is expected to block their quest for a full seat, the Palestinians expect to secure at least an upgrade in their UN status during September’s General Assembly meeting in New York.

Abbas’ comments to the PLO central committee in Ramallah marked the first time he had openly urged popular activism in support of the initiative, echoing a call made last week by Marwan Barghouti, a leading Palestinian imprisoned in Israel.

I love this woman — she’s like Ronald Reagan in pumps.

(RCP) — In the latest indication that her sights are still set on a presidential run, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has accepted an invitation to keynote a Tea Party rally in Waukee, Iowa, on Sept. 3, RealClearPolitics has learned.

The Labor Day weekend visit to the nation’s first voting state comes after Palin indicated during an appearance on Fox News earlier this month that she would make her decision about whether to launch a campaign in August or September.

All signs now point to September as the month when Palin would throw her hat into the ring, as logistical concerns ranging from fundraising to getting her name on the ballot in various states would likely preclude further delay.

Many prominent political analysts and Republican operatives have expressed skepticism that Palin is seriously considering a presidential bid, since she has not taken many of the steps that candidates traditionally take before jumping into the race, such as signing early-state consultants, contacting key powerbrokers and boosting their travel schedules.

But Palin has a long history of shunning the Republican Party machinery and taking an unconventional approach to campaigns — a mind-set that appears to have been in play throughout the past several months.

Palin’s latest appearance in Iowa will come just two days after “The Undefeated,” a documentary film spotlighting her accomplishments in Alaska, will be released on Pay-Per-View and video-on-demand. In the film, Palin is portrayed as a continual thorn in the Republican establishment’s side. And it is the GOP, rather than the Democratic Party, that garners the better part of the movie’s scorn.

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(PressTV) — The “fake” war on terror, which has been the basis for the ideology of racism, is closely related to the policies of the ruling party in the concerned countries, says an author and political analyst.

“The war on terror has been the basis for an ideology of racism, Islamophobia, and a climate of massive repression,” Ralph Schoenman told Press TV in an interview.

The European governments have been feeding fears of Islam through measures such as the banning of face veils on the streets, which aim at appeasing a non-Muslim majority wary about the continent’s rising Muslim population.

The author added that this “climate” is being created by the “fake war on terror and the Islamophobia.”

He referred to the behavior towards the second largest religion in the world as a fascist movement and explained how they are formed.

“These fascist movements don’t come up in a vacuum. . . they are closely related to the official politics of the ruling parties and governmental bodies in the countries concerned.”

Belgium banned the Islamic face veil, for what authorities claimed security reasons. France, which is house to the Western Europe’s largest Muslim population, has a similar law, and Switzerland has banned new mosque minarets.

Tears of a clown.

WASHINGTON — A routine Security Council debate on the Middle East and Palestine became Israel’s and the Palestinian Authority’s dress rehearsal for September’s General Assembly conference where the Palestinians will seek UN recognition.

Palestinian observer Riyad Mansour called on the UN to recognize a Palestinian state. It’s time to end the occupation, he said before bursting into tears. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor warned that the Palestinian way of bypassing peace talks will lead to frustration and violence.

He later addressed Mansour and asked him: “On behalf of whom will you present a resolution in September? Mr. Abbas or Hamas?” He called on the Palestinians to embrace “a road of solutions not resolutions; dialogue not monologue; and direct negotiations not unilateral declarations.”

I’ll never forgive myself for voting for McCain.

Speaking of Hobbits, McCain is a dead-ringer for Gollum.

She never fails to disappoint.

(CNSNews.com) — At a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security about the radicalization of young Somali American Muslims by the al-Shabaab terrorist group, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said the committee should hold a hearing on “right-wing extremists” in the United States.

Jackson Lee used much of her allotted five minutes to question panelists with expertise on radicalization about the alleged hacking into telephones of 9-11 victims by the now-closed News of the World tabloid in England.

“I would add to that, that I would like to have a hearing on right-wing extremists, ideologues who advocate violence and advocate, in essence, the terrorizing of certain groups,” Jackson Lee said.

Before Jackson Lee was recognized by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the committee chairman, the panel of witnesses gave details about how al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda, is recruiting young Somali men who live in the United States to travel to that African nation to participate in terrorist training camps.

“Early in 2011, Canadian national security officials confirmed the disappearances of dozens of young Canadian Somali males who had traveled to Somalia to fight for the Al Shabaab, a terrorist group that is officially allied with al Qaeda and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” said Ahmed Hussen, Canadian Somali Congress National President, at the hearing. “Three of these individuals have died in Somalia fighting for this group.”

Like I said in the Schumer post on this, apparently DWS has no problem with Steny Hoyer publicly saying Republicans “want to shoot Obama.”

(The Hill) — Republicans “clearly meant” to foster a negative and vitriolic tone in the fight over raising the debt ceiling when they showed a clip from “The Town” at a conference meeting, Democratic leaders charged Wednesday.

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the assistant Democratic leader, questioned the use of the clip from the Ben Affleck film, which includes a dialog between characters shortly before a violent assault.

“When we set out to get our country’s deficit problem in order and under control, we knew that it would be a difficult debate,” Wasserman Schultz said at a press conference at the DNC. “But I don’t think anyone anticipated that our disagreements would lead to the type of vitriol and negative tone that this clip was clearly meant to incite.”

“Not only did the Republican leadership apparently think this clip appropriate for their meeting. Those in attendance seemed to embrace its message,” she added.

Wasserman Schultz didn’t call for an apology and suggested it would’ve been more appropriate to use clips from the sports movies “Rudy” or “Hoosiers,” or the World War II series “Band of Brothers.”

Because when one thinks about American patriots, race-baiting tax-cheat Charlie Rangel is the first name the comes to mind.

“These people don’t care about our country.”

Naturally.

(Politico) — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is urging a group of House Republicans to give up their push for a bill that would slash payments to the United Nations and limit aid to Egypt, Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority, among other groups.

Clinton said in a letter Tuesday that she would urge President Barack Obama to veto the bill if it passes in both houses of Congress because the measure “would be debilitating to my efforts to carry out a considered foreign policy and diplomacy, and to use foreign assistance strategically to that end,” The Washington Post reported.

The bill cleared the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week in an effort to cut $6.4 billion from the president’s request for $51 billion in foreign aid for 2012. While it has the potential to pass the GOP-controlled House, it’s seen as unable to get through the Democrat-led Senate.

The bill would impose “onerous restrictions” on State Department operations and foreign aid, Clinton wrote, and the “severe curtailing” of dues payments to international groups including the UN and the Organization of American States would be damaging.

The legislation’s proposal to block funding to countries that don’t meet corruption standards “has the potential to affect a staggering number of needy aid recipients,” as do proposals to restrict aid to Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority. The bill would only allow the flow of money to those countries if the Obama administration was able to certify that no members of terror groups or their sympathizers were serving in their governments.

Brad Goehner, a spokesman for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the House committee, told the Post that the letter was “disappointing, particularly given the current debt crisis, that the Obama administration is fighting to keep sending taxpayer money to foreign organizations and governments that undermine U.S. interests.”

(CBS News) — Even before the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said House Speaker John Boehner’s debt plan may cut less in spending than it initially promised, selling the plan to conservative Republicans was proving to be a challenge.

In an attempt to rally their Tea Party-backed conservative members, Republican leaders opened a Tuesday morning meeting with a clip of the movie “The Town,” the Washington Post first reported.

The 2010 flick is about Boston bank robbers, and the scene that House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., played to the House GOP caucus depicts two characters about to go beat people up.

In that scene, Ben Affleck’s character says, “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later.” In its reporting, the Post left out Affleck’s next line: “We’re gonna hurt some people.”

The character played by Jeremy Lee Renner replies, “Whose car we takin’?”

After viewing the clip, Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., replied, “I’m ready to drive the car.”

West’s office confirms that the Tea Party-backed congressman did give that spirited reply and still backs Boehner’s deficit reduction plan.

Here’s Schumer fawning outrage:

Just this morning Steny Hoyer said Republicans “want to shoot Obama,” which is apparently perfectly acceptable in Schumer’s eyes.

The hypocrisy is mind numbing.

Time to go in for the kill.

(CNSNews.com) — House Democratic leaders say they will support a debt-ceiling deal that does not include new tax revenue — a longstanding demand — as long as the debt ceiling is raised in one step, and by enough to see the nation through the 2012 elections.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol Wednesday, House Democratic Caucus chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) said Democrats would not accept a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, even if their demand for higher taxes is met.

“I think that the dark cloud of uncertainty with the debt ceiling still hanging over everyone’s head, what our caucus is adamantly clear on — and you heard Jim Clyburn say this, and what we’re recommending to the President — if by chance the Republicans come up with the votes on their own, and there is a short-term deal that goes to the President’s desk, he has said he’ll veto that.”

Earlier, Larson called on President Obama to veto any short-term increase in the debt ceiling.

Keep reading…

With all of Obama’s veto threats I get the feeling that’s where we’re headed.

(Politico) — Rep. James Clyburn and a group of House Democrats are urging President Barack Obama to invoke the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling if Congress can’t come up with a satisfactory plan before the Tuesday deadline.

Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat, said Wednesday that if the president is delivered a bill to raise the debt ceiling for only a short period of time, he should instead it and turn to the phrase in the Constitution that says the validity of the U.S. government’s debt “shall not be questioned.”

“If that’s what lands on his desk, a short-term lifting of the ceiling, the debt ceiling, he should put it on his desk next to an executive order,” Clyburn said at a press conference. “He should sign an executive order invoking the 14th Amendment to this issue.” The Associated Press reported that he was applauded when he suggested the idea at a caucus meeting earlier in the day.

“I believe that something like this will bring calm to the American people and will bring needed stability to our financial markets,” Clyburn added, noting that President Harry Truman did it once during his presidency after Congress was unable to pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling.

Obama and others in his administration have said they will not rely on the 14th Amendment. At a town hall last week, Obama said that he has “talked to my lawyers” and “they are not persuaded that that is a winning argument.”

But Clyburn and several other liberal Democrats urged the president to reconsider.

“We’re getting down to decision time,” said Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the chairman of the Democratic caucus. “We have to have a failsafe mechanism and we believe that failsafe mechanism is the 14th Amendment and the president of the United States.”

FAISALABAD: A man gunned down six of his daughters on suspicion that two of them were in relationships with boys in the neighbourhood.

On Tuesday morning, Arif Mubashir called his teenage daughters to his room and shot them while the rest of the family, including their mother, watched. His wife Musarrat called the police after the incident.

Mubashir shot the girls after their brother said two of them were in a relationship. He told police officials that he had killed his daughters because they were both “without honour”. The man said his daughters Sameena, 14, and Razia, 16, were in a relationship with college boys from the neighbourhood and the sisters had helped each other. “I should have been told immediately but the girls sided with each other. They were both corrupt,” Mubashir told Tandlianwala Police Inspector Javed Sial.

Police officials have taken Mubashir into custody and filed a case against him. “He does not regret what he did. He boasted that he would do it all over again if he had to,” Sial told reporters.

Pakistan has repeatedly been termed as one of the least women-friendly countries. In June, the Thompson Reuters Foundation ranked Pakistan as the world’s third most dangerous country for women.

This makes two fundies for her yesterday.

(Post Independent) — First lady Michelle Obama kicked off her shoes to hobnob with well-heeled supporters in Aspen on Tuesday.

Obama visited Aspen to raise campaign funds for her husband’s 2012 presidential re-election bid and the Democratic National Committee. People who contributed at least $1,000 got to attend a luncheon and listen to Obama’s speech at the home of Jim and Paula Crown. Those who donated $10,000 per couple got an even more exclusive lunch and picture opportunity with Obama. About 150 people attended, according to organizers.

Obama captivated them with a 28-minute presentation, but it was after her formal speech that she cemented her reputation as a warm person who likes to mingle with people. She emerged from behind a podium and talked with audience members while walking around barefoot in the grass of the Crowns’ lawn.

Obama flew into Aspen in the early afternoon after a similar fundraiser in Utah. The Crowns are longtime Barack Obama supporters. His presidential campaign office recently released a list of top “bundlers” or campaign fundraisers that showed Crown had raised between $50,000 to $100,000 so far for Obama’s 2012 bid. That amount surged Tuesday.

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(The Hill) — Consumer activist Ralph Nader said Tuesday that he’ll launch an initiative soon to field primary challenges to President Obama in key states.

Nader, who waged two presidential campaigns as a third-party candidate, is working with a group of frustrated Democrats who are hoping to turn up the heat on Obama from the left.

“It’s an initiative to scan the possibilities of people who may run,” Nader said in a phone interview. “My guess is that it’s almost 100 percent sure there’s going to be a primary challenge to Obama from somebody or somebodies — plural — in some states.”

Nader’s effort follows comments over the weekend by Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), a liberal independent who caucuses with Democrats, that it would be a “good idea” for Obama to face a primary challenge in 2012.

The plot thickens.

Washington — At least one person in the White House knew about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives gun-running operation three months before weapons from the botched sting were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

That’s what a high-ranking ATF official told Congress on Tuesday.

William Newell, the former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix field office, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he communicated with Kevin O’Reilly, a staffer on President Obama’s National Security Council, about Operation Fast and Furious in September 2010.

By that time, at least one thousand guns straw-purchased in the U.S. had been transferred to Mexican criminals under the noses of ATF officials who intended, but failed, to track them to see where they’d end up.

Under Operation Fast and Furious, which began in September 2009, the ATF allowed some 2,000 guns to “walk” to Mexican drug cartels. The operation was halted in December 2010 after two of the guns were found in Arizona, at the place where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered.

Yes, that Lisa Murkowski.

50 Most Beautiful People for 2011 — The Hill

#31 Lisa Murkowski