This is the same guy who once said the Muslim Brotherhood is a “largely secular” organization.

Via ThinkProgress:

During today’s Capitol Hill hearing on global threats faced by the U.S., Iran’s nuclear program naturally came up several times. Taking questions from Members of Congress, the top U.S. intelligence official confirmed the reported U.S. intelligence estimate that Iran has not yet decided on building a nuclear weapon, and said pressure on the Islamic Republic could work to prevent such a decision from being made.

In response to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, “[I]f the decision has been made to press on with a nuclear weapon — and there are certain things they have not done yet to eventuate that — that this would be based on a cost-benefit analysis. We don’t believe [Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei]’s made that decision yet.”

After introducing Iran’s cost-benefit analysis, Wyden then pressed Clapper on what factors might inform it:

WYDEN: What could convince them, in your view, that their hold on power is being undermined by their nuclear effort?

CLAPPER: Well, I think a restive population because of economic extremis that the country of Iran is incurring. If you look at the plunging value of the Rial [and] the extremely high unemployment rate in Iran. This, I think, could give rise to resentment and discontent among the populace. And this is not to say there haven’t been other examples of that elsewhere in the region.

They have something in common with the Obama administration.

(Egypt Independent) — Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood maintain close contact, Iran’s foreign minister has said in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm.

“Tehran is in constant contact with the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

He said Iran is ready to promote its diplomatic relations with Egypt to the ambassadorial level, paricularly in light of the Muslim Brotherhood’s recent ascendancy to power. The group’s party, the Freedom and Justice Party, controls 43 percent of parliamentary seats.

Salehi told the paper that Iran would immediately send an ambassador to Cairo if Egypt agreed.

Some countries “are not happy about improving relations between Egypt and Iran,” he said, adding that if Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia cooperated, all would benefit.

Courtesy of the same network that endlessly claimed Newt’s “food stamps president” comment was horribly racist.

“Chuck, a lot of the counties in the Panhandle, in north Florida, the cracker counties, if you will . . . more resemble Georgia and Alabama than they do Florida.”

Via Newsbusters

Worst excuse ever.

(MEMRI) — Following are excerpts from a religious program presented by Egyptian cleric Sheik Abdallah Kamal, which aired on Safa TV on January 9, 2012:

Abdallah Kamal: I mentioned yesterday that the Prophet Muhammad married Aisha when she was six years old, and had sexual intercourse with her when she was nine years old. People might raise an eyebrow and ask how such a thing could be.

This hadith has been taken, by people with ulterior motives, and by people who hate the Prophet Muhammad — whether Christians, Orientalists, or even some Muslims. . . They, however, made a great mistake, and in their efforts to defend the Prophet Muhammad — and although we think highly of them — they made a very dangerous mistake, and attributed a falsehood to Imam Al-Bukhari, and made him appear to have made a mistake. [...]

The environment differs from one place to another, from one climate to another, and from one country to another. In some countries, a girl reaches puberty at the age of 8 or 9. Moreover, religious scholars have written, in the books of jurisprudence that a girl may menstruate and even give birth at the age of 9 years. She can give birth at the age of 9 years.

Okay. So where is this cruelty and barbarism they are talking about? How can they claim that the Prophet Muhammad only cared about his desire and his lust? What is this obvious deception?

In warm places, girls reach puberty at a very early age — generally at the age of 8 years. In cold places, girls’ puberty is delayed until the age of 21 years — as is the case in some cold countries.

Or as Mooch calls them, my people.

(Politico) — First lady Michelle Obama is in California on a two-day swing, promoting her healthy eating campaign, raising money for the Obama campaign and doing two network television appearances.

Obama will appear Tuesday on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, to promote her Let’s Move campaign. She joked on Twitter yesterday about trying to get the TV talk show host to eat more vegetables and lay off the junk food. She will also be a guest on Ellen DeGeneres’ daytime talk show, in an appearance that will air Thursday.

The first lady will also do a Tuesday night fundraiser in Beverly Hills, a soirée that will cost up to $71,600 a couple and a Wednesday fundraising luncheon with Democratic party donors.

It inspires him to be the worst AG he can possibly be.

Via Beltway Confidential:

Former Attorney General Janet Reno had a controversial tenure as President Clinton’s Justice Department head, but she inspired so much respect among her colleagues that President Obama’s current Attorney General, Eric Holder, has a portrait of her hanging in his office.

Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson of the Office of Justice Programs mentioned this in a speech to the International Conference of Community Courts.

“In addition to being a remarkable leader, she was a personal mentor of mine — someone I admire so much because she recognized the potential of the justice system to effect real change,” said Robinson. “Attorney General Eric Holder — another strong believer in community justice — shares my respect — in fact, he keeps the official Department of Justice portrait in his office.”

Keep reading…

I think you’d have to be stoned to vote for this guy.

Via Facebook:

HT: Buzzfeed

Wait, he’s did what?

Via Daily Caller:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano praised President Barack Obama’s administration for taking the “most serious” and “sustained actions” to secure the border in U.S. history.

“The Obama administration has undertaken the most serious and sustained actions to secure our borders in our nation’s history. And it is clear from every measure we currently have that this approach is working,” she said in her second annual “State of America’s Homeland Security” address Monday at the National Press Club.

Her remarks come after the Obama administration announced that it will begin reducing the number of National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Keep reading…

Via LifeNews:

“The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ There is no other way to put it. To Hell with your religious beliefs. To Hell with your religious liberty. To Hell with your freedom of conscience.”

With unusually strong language, Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh alerted his flock to a new threat to the Church.

The Obama administration has directly and deliberately attacked our fundamental right to religious freedom, and in a most patronizing way. His Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs be part of every health care plan, free of charge. With this decision, Catholics and Catholic institutions such as hospitals, universities and social agencies will be forced to pay for and provide contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs.

Keep reading…

(Bloomberg) — Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly dropped in January as gasoline prices picked up and more Americans said jobs were hard to get.

The Conference Board’s confidence index fell to 61.1 from a revised 64.8 reading in the prior month, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a rise to 68. The figure was lower than the most pessimistic projection.

Job growth has fallen short of the pace required to drive bigger gains in wages, at the same time higher fuel costs threaten to strain household budgets and limit spending. The report showed fewer Americans expect their incomes to increase in the next six months, and they pared plans to purchase cars and homes.

Sentiment data indicate “just how fragile households believe the economic expansion is,” Steven Wood, president of Insight Economics LLC in Danville, California, said before the report. It is “largely the result of ongoing weakness in the labor and housing markets as well as the political bickering in Washington and on the campaign trail.”

Chalk another victory up for CAIR.

(WaPo) — Retired Lt. Gen. William  Boykin’s scheduled appearance at West Point’s annual prayer breakfaston Feb. 8  triggered protests from religious groups as well as veterans’ organizations.

A statement issued by West Point’s public affairs office Monday evening said that Boykin “has decided  to withdraw” and that the academy would search for a  replacement.

The outcome underscores  the degree of controversy that continues to follow Boykin nearly eight years after he was reprimanded by the Pentagon for violating rules while delivering  speeches in uniform that often mocked followers of Islam. In one instance,  Boykin, a decorated special forces officer, said he knew that his side would  prevail in a fight against a prominent Islamic militant in Somalia because “I  knew that my god was bigger than his.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which along with a group calling itself VoteVets.org had asked West Point to retract the invitation to Boykin, welcomed the retired Army officer’s decision.

CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, said the group hopes that “the speaker who replaces him will offer cadets a spiritual message that promotes tolerance and mutual understanding.”

Why do I get the feeling Tingles has been wetting the bed again?

And yet he, along with the rest of the left, ignores the very real violence from Occupy Wall Street.

WASHINGTON — Comparisons of the Tea Party movement to Occupy Wall Street have become a political parlor game over the past six months, but MSNBC host Chris Matthews believes there really is no contest.

Matthews told WMAL’s Morning Majority on Tuesday that the behavior of conservatives at Congressional Health Care Townhall meetings in the summer of 2009 — during the early days of the Tea Party movement — reached a level of hatred unmatched in recent times.

“I saw those people spitting on Congressmen, I saw them yelling at them. I saw a lot of anger in the room,” recalled Matthews, who says he believes the harsh rhetoric of those meetings reflected an actual personal hatred of President Obama.

“Actually, ad hominem, they hated the guy. Why do you think we have a Secret Service?”, he asked. “If you don’t think there was an honest fear of violence in that very hot period of around 2010, it was real,” he insisted. “I think there was a real fear on the part of security people that it might get out of hand,” he added.

As far as Matthews is concerned, the rancor has continued through the Obama presidency.

“There is a real level of national hatred of the president that I hadn’t seen before, certainly not under Clinton, or under Dubya,” he said. “The hatred, the Hitler mustaches, all that stuff. I haven’t seen that before,” he insisted.

Keep reading w/audio…

More like a battlefield.

OAKLAND (KCBS) — Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said she has had it with a small, violent fringe element within the Occupy Oakland protests and claimed it is using the city as a “playground.”

Quan spoke Monday in an interview following another chaotic round of street protests in which police units from surrounding areas were on hand to support the cash-strapped city’s police department.

“They’re taking away resources from my city and creating a situation where it’s making it more difficult for me to keep the city safer,” Quan said.

ABO 2012, America can’t withstand another four years of Obamanomics.

(The Hill) — The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday predicted the budget deficit will rise to $1.08 trillion in 2012.

CBO also projected the jobless rate would rise to 8.9 percent by the end of 2012, and to 9.2 percent in 2013.

These are much dimmer forecasts than in CBO’s last report in August, when the office projected a $973 billion deficit. The report reflects weaker corporate tax revenue and the extension for two months of the payroll tax holiday.

A rising deficit and unemployment rate would hamper President Obama’s reelection effort, which in recent weeks has seemed to be on stronger footing.

If the CBO estimate is correct, it would mean that the United States recorded a deficit of more than $1 trillion for every year of Obama’s first term.

The deficit was $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010 and $1.3 trillion in 2011. The largest deficit recorded before that was $458 billion in 2008.

Pelosi reported to be distraught.

Via Hot Air:

One would think that the Occupy movement and San Francisco were made for each other. Perhaps at one time they were, but a new Survey USA poll shows that even the City by the Bay has its limits. The poll of 500 adults in the San Francisco area — surely the most progressive-friendly poll sample ever taken — shows that almost half of those who supported the Occupy movement in general now have changed their minds. [...]

According to this poll, Occupy support in the Bay area would have been 58/34 at one point. Now it’s 35/57, which is a flip of 46 points in the gap. Combining support and opposition numbers, Democrat support for Occupy is now 40/56, and even among self-professed liberals, where 27% have switched to opposition, it’s only 52/35. Among San Francisco adults. Note too that the movement has not gained converts in anything like the numbers they are alienating, which means that the longer they go, the weaker they are getting politically.

Keep reading…

To say this is highly unusual (and very welcome) in the Catholic church would be an understatement.

(CBS News) — During church services on Sunday, Catholics around the country were read a blistering letter assailing the Obama administration for an “assault on religious liberty” in the form of a coming requirement that most church-linked organizations – among them hospitals, schools and universities - offer birth control coverage as part of their health care plans.

Despite strong lobbying from religious groups, the Health and Human Services Department announced earlier this month that most church-linked groups will not be exempt from the requirements – which also mandate that no co-pay be charged for contraceptive services – though they will have an extra year to comply beyond the August 1 deadline. Churches themselves (along with any other employer that is explicitly focused on offering a religious message, and which primarily employs those who believe in that message) are exempt from the requirement.

Religious groups were outraged by the decision – saying it forced employers at church-linked organizations to violate their conscience – and on Sunday Catholic leaders took their complaints directly to parishioners. As Business Insider reported, similar letters were read in churches around the country complaining that “the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation’s first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty.”

In explaining the decision to require birth control coverage for chuch-linked groups, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that “Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, it is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.”

Keep reading…

DWS doing her best broken record impersonation.

Via Newsbusters:

STEPHANIE MILLER: Are you enjoying this Republican primary as much as I am this year? I mean –

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: You know why I’m not enjoying it? I’ll tell you. As a Floridian, and I’m here in the state of Florida as we speak, as a Floridian their extremism, their callous disregard for undocumented immigrants who have been here for generations who are here just trying to work hard these are people many of whom pay taxes who are productive members of our society who simply want an opportunity to be able to have a path created for them to legally remain in the country, which is why comprehensive immigration reform is so important. But the Republican field led by Mitt Romney, Stephanie. I mean, Mitt Romney really thinks that you know 11 million undocumented immigrants are just going to line up and self-deport, you know, check themselves out of the country and go back.

Keep reading…

Then again, stumping Obama isn’t exactly tough to do.

Via Politico 44:

The woman who on Monday told President Obama about her engineer husband’s trouble finding a job said she thinks she “stumped” the president with her question.

“I don’t think he was trying to be condescending or anything,” Jennifer Wedel, of Fort Worth, Texas, told POLITICO. “I just think I stumped him a little and he wanted me to hush about it.”

Wedel said in a phone interview Monday night that she and Obama had a “pretty crazy interaction” that she hadn’t expected when she asked about the federal government granting H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers while U.S. citizens such as her husband are out of work.

What the ….?

(Yahoo! News) — A controversy is brewing over three reputable Christian organizations, which are based in North America, whose efforts have ousted the words “Father” and “Son” from new Bibles. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Frontiers are under fire for “producing Bibles that remove “Father,” “Son” and “Son of God” because these terms are offensive to Muslims.”

Concerned Christian missionaries, Bible translators, pastors, and national church leaders have come together with a public petition to stop these organizations. They claim a public petition is their last recourse because meetings with these organizations’ leaders, staff resignations over this issue and criticism and appeals from native national Christians concerned about the translations “have failed to persuade these agencies to retain “Father” and “Son” in the text of all their translations.”

Biblical Missiology, a ministry of Boulder, Colorado-based Horizon International, is sponsoring the petition.

The main issues of this controversy surround new Arabic and Turkish translations. Here are three examples native speakers give:

First, Wycliffe and SIL have produced Stories of the Prophets, an Arabic Bible that uses an Arabic equivalent of “Lord” instead of “Father” and “Messiah” instead of “Son.”

Second, Frontiers and SIL have produced Meaning of the Gospel of Christ , an Arabic translation which removes “Father” in reference to God and replaces it with “Allah,” and removes or redefines “Son.” For example, the verse which Christians use to justify going all over the world to make disciples, thus fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) reads, “Cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiahand his Holy Spirit” instead of “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Rev. Bassam Madany, an Arab American who runs Middle East Resources, terms these organization’s efforts as “a western imperialistic attempt that’s inspired by cultural anthropology, and not by biblical theology.”

Keep reading…