Via Rasmussen:

Mitt Romney has now jumped to his biggest lead ever over President Obama in a hypothetical Election 2012 matchup. It’s also the biggest lead a named Republican candidate has held over the incumbent in Rasmussen Reports surveying to date.

The latest national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters favor the former Massachusetts governor, while 39% prefer the president. Ten percent (10%) like some other candidate in the race, and six percent (6%) are undecided.

UK-style multiculturalism at its finest.

London, Dec 28 (ANI): The number of women from Britain’s ethnic communities stepping forward to report honour-related violence has more than doubled in three years, new figures have revealed.

Figures from the Metropolitan Police show that in the 12 months to April 2011 there were 443 incidents reported as cases of honour violence or forced marriage in London alone, more than double that in 2007–08.

A separate recent survey of all police forces, using Freedom of Information Act, revealed that there were nearly 3,600 reported cases nationwide in 2010, The Telegraph reports.

Campaigners warn that recorded cases may be just the “tip of the iceberg” with thousands of incidents going unreported each year because of fear of reprisal, family pressure or inconsistent police recording.

“The figures are woefully underestimated, we are dealing with the tip of the iceberg, we don’t know how many thousands are at risk because it is a hidden crime and there is no statutory duty to record it,” said Jasvinder Sanghera, the founder of the victim support group Karma Nirvana.

“This is an issue for British born subjects, we have really got to acknowledge that and move away from being ‘culturally sensitive’ and fear of being called racist, it’s an issue of child protection,” the paper quoted her, as saying.

What a joke. We knew he’d be a RINO but nobody here in Mass expected it to be this bad.

Via National Journal:

In an attempt to bolster his status as an “independent thinker” in an appearance on Fox 25 Morning News, Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., highlighted the legislation that he and President Obama have agreed on.

The sole Republican member of Congress from Massachusetts, Brown faces a tough battle with Democratic opponent Elizabeth Warren.

“The president just signed into law my 3 percent withholding bill, the Hire a Hero veterans bill, the Arlington Cemetery bill,” he told Fox. “I mean, I could go on and on and on.”

Brown, who has been supporting left-leaning policies as of late, also referred to himself as the most bipartisan senator in Congress.

You mean Americans aren’t into Euro-style Socialism? I’m shocked.

Via Gallup

And this isn’t some fringe Salafi group, it’s Sunni Islam’s highest body, Al-Azhar University.

(DPA) — An offshoot of Egypt’s top religious institution, Al Azhar, has called on the government to take a Christian television station off the air, allegedly for offending Muslims, the semi-official Al-Ahram newspaper reported Thursday.

The Islamic Research Centre, which made the demand, is headed by Ahmed al-Tayeb, the sheikh of Al Azhar, which is the Sunni Muslim world’s oldest seat of religious learning.

The centre accused US-based Christian broadcaster Al Karma (Vineyard) of insulting Islam and inciting sectarian divisions in Egypt, at a meeting late Wednesday, the newspaper reported.

Al Karama transmits its programmes via the Egyptian state-run satellite NileSat.

Christians, who make up around 10% of Egypt’s population, often complain of being treated as second-class citizens and feel marginalised by the predominately Muslim population.

Egypt’s Christians recently criticized state television for being biased in reporting about clashes between mainly Christian protesters and army forces in October, when at least 26 people were killed.

As proof here’s Ron Paul using Iranian state TV as a platform to bash Israel while defending Hamas’ right to use suicide bombers and fire rockets at Israeli civilians.

“To me I look at it (Gaza) like it’s a concentration camp, and people are making bombs, like, they’re the aggressors?”

Crazy stuff.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Just hours after a new poll was released showing Rick Santorum surging to third place in the state with only six days to go before the caucuses, the beaming GOP hopeful, clad in his signature sweater vest, spoke to about 100 supporters and those still making up their mind for almost two hours Wednesday evening.

During the question and answer part of the town hall Santorum was asked about Ron Paul’s support in Iowa, and the former Pennsylvania senator let loose on the Texas Congressman. [...]

Santorum also went after Paul on his foreign policy stances, calling him “far to the left of President Obama.”

“I mean he’s out in the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democratic Party. Don’t laugh!” Santorum said to the crowd as they began to chuckle, and they immediately got quiet. “That’s where he is. He may be left of Dennis Kucinich, okay? So that’s where he is. This country is not going to elect Dennis Kucinich to be President of the United States. I don’t care how much government he wants to cut.

HT: golemn

Just to clarify: Being photographed at Target or PetSmart is perfectly fine, having their pic taken at a swanky $260 per dinner restaurant is unacceptable.

Via White House Dossier:

President Obama and Michelle had dinner last night at Honolulu’s famed foodie paradise, Alan Wong’s. [...]

I realize the Obamas are wealthy people, and that wealthy people have the right to drop $260 of their disposable income on chow. But if you’re going to invite Associated Press photographers along to capture your trip to Target and stage photo ops at PetSmart and Best Buy, then I’m going to write about your unpublicized excursion to Alan Wong’s.

Diners have been trying to takes pictures of POTUS, only to be chased off by advance staffers.

Since when are people not allowed to take pictures?

Keep reading…

He does realize Santa isn’t an actual person, right?

MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) — The imam of the Turkish town of Kuzan has issued a warning to Muslims about Santa Claus, who he called a dishonest person, Italy’s Corriere della Sera wrote.

Imam Suleiman Eniceri said it was suspicious that Santa Claus brings presents into a house by climbing down a chimney or through windows. “If he was an honest person he would come through the door as we do,” the imam said. The imam cited a passage in the Koran that calls on the faithful to enter houses through doors.

“Christmas is not our festival,” he said, and warned Turkish Muslims against drinking alcohol.

Turkey’s population is over 96 percent Muslim and less than one percent Christian. At the same time it is a secular state with many European traditions.

Bachmann’s a hissing cobra, I wouldn’t want to piss her off.

Via Allahpundit:

The fact is, there is a clear top tier in the race for the Republican nomination for President, both here in Iowa and nationally. Ron Paul is easily the most conservative of this group.

The truth is, it was an excruciatingly difficult decision for me to decide between supporting Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at the beginning of this campaign. Dr. Paul and his supporters were a major help in my successful campaigns for Iowa House and Senate even when I couldn’t count on the support of the Republican establishment here in Iowa. . .

He’s also consistently spoken out against government spending, assaults on individual liberties, and unnecessary trillion-dollar military adventurism for over 30 years. Polls show he is the Republican candidate that can take on and defeat President Obama in November 2012.

With the entire Republican establishment intent on smearing Ron Paul and his dedicated supporters, I understand this decision could impact the way people see me and my entire political career. But this is the right decision, and one in which I proudly stand behind.

Keep reading…

Would anyone doubt for even a second Obama is dumb enough to use the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader as a mediator in talks with the Taliban?

Via IPT:

Radical Islamist cleric and longtime Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guide Yusuf al-Qaradawi serves as a “key mediator in secret talks between the U.S. and the Taliban,” according to unnamed government sources referenced in a report published late Wednesday in The Hindu.

In early December, the report said, “Qaradawi helped draw a road map for a deal between the Taliban and the United States, aimed at giving the superpower a face-saving political settlement ahead of its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.” The United States is expected to begin pulling out of Afghanistan in 2014.

The Qaradawi-brokered deal calls for significant American commitments, including “the release of prisoners still held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, the lifting of United Nations sanctions on its leadership and its recognition as a legitimate political group.” In return, the Hindu‘s sources say, the Taliban would be “expected to sever its links to transnational organisations like al-Qaeda, end violence and eventually share power with the Afghan government.”

Keep reading…

Coo coo for cocoa puffs.

(Bloomberg) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted that the U.S. may be behind a “very strange” bout of cancer affecting several leaders aligned with him in South America.

Chavez, speaking a day after Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, said the Central Intelligence Agency was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 1940s and that it’s possible that in years to come a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.

“It’s very difficult to explain, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America,” Chavez said in a nationally televised speech to the military. “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?”

Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in June and had a baseball-sized tumor removed in Cuba, has called for a regional summit of leaders who have battled cancer including Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva and Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo.

“I’m just sharing my thoughts, but it’s very, very, very strange,” Chavez said. “Evo take care of yourself, Correa, be careful, we just don’t know,” he said, referring to Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, the leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador.

Keep reading…

Talking Point Memo’s Josh Marshall recently attended a closed-door coffee session with Dear Leader (along with a host of other big name liberal media people) so of course they will twist themselves into a race-card pretzel to defend him.

Via TPM:

Donald Trump may have left the Republican Party, but he’s staying put in his role as the right’s racial conspiracy theorist-in-chief.

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted his endorsement of the latest bit of holiday cheer from the extremist ant-Obama right. As the story goes on more than one conservative blog this week, Obama declined to offer an official statement marking Christmas, but made sure to get one out celebrating Kwanzaa.

This tale is as blatantly racial as it is demonstrably false, and it comes in the grand tradition of accusing Obama of supporting Ramadan over Easter and the old Trump favorite that Obama got into the Ivy League because he’s not white, not because he’s smart.

Add another one to his record-setting number of rounds of golf in 2011.

Via White House Dossier:

After missing a day Tuesday, President Obama is back out on the links. We’re at golf round number 33 for the year and 91 for the presidency.

Today he’s at the Ko’olau Golf Club in Kaneohe on Oahu.

Via National Journal:

President Obama’s support among Latino voters has declined over the past year, but he still carries more support from them when matched up against potential Republican opponents ahead of the 2012 election, according to a survey of Latino adults released on Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center.

While 58 percent of Latinos approved of Obama’s performance as president in 2010, 49 percent of them now approve, according to the poll. Meanwhile, 59 percent of Latinos disapprove of how the Obama administration is managing the deportation of illegal immigrants, while only 27 percent approve.

Keep reading…

Via Rasmussen:

Opinions about President Obama are divided sharply along lines of faith and religious participation.

New Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveying of Likely U.S. Voters shows that the president earns a job approval rating of 58% among those who rarely or never attend church or religious services. However, among those who attend services every week or nearly every week, just 38% offer their approval. Among those who attend more than one service a week, approval is even lower at 31%.