American journalists… not so lucky.

Via WFB

Via IPT:

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie used anti-Semitic language in a statement commemorating Israel’s independence – what Palestinian’s call the Nakba (catastrophe).

Muslims must liberate Palestine from Israeli control and purge the “holy places of the filth and pollution of the Zionists,” Brotherhood General Guide Mohamed Badie said Thursday in a statement posted on the Brotherhood’s website, Ikhwan Online.

Badie, regarded by many in Egypt as the power behind Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, has a long history of inflammatory anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric. He notably called for jihad against Israel during the November Gaza conflict, saying that “jihad is obligatory for Muslims” and has repeatedly referred to Jews as “pigs.”

“It is the land of jihad and linked to the Day of Judgment … The Messenger of God … said: ‘A group of my ummah [nation] will not cease to fight at the gates of Damascus and its surroundings and at the gates of Jerusalem and its surroundings,’” Badie said in the new statement. “Because of this, Palestine is the spirit of the Islamic ummah, and liberating it and preserving it is the responsibility of every Muslim.

 Keep reading…

“In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.”

Via Fox News:

The Justice Department obtained a portfolio of information about a Fox News correspondent’s conversations and visits as part of an investigation into a possible leak, The Washington Post reported Monday – in the latest example of the government seizing records of journalists.

This follows the charge that the department secretly obtained two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as part of a separate leak probe. The department in this case, though, went a step further, as an FBI agent reportedly claimed there’s evidence the journalist in question — Fox News’ James Rosen — broke the law “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

That detail would potentially send the case into unprecedented territory. No reporter has been prosecuted for seeking information. Such cases often target the suspected leaker, but not the journalist who published sensitive or classified information.

Michael Clemente, Fox News’ executive vice president of news, defended Rosen in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

“We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter,” Clemente said. “In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press.” 

The case has also caught the attention of Congress. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said in a statement Monday he was “very concerned” about the reports of “possible criminal prosecution for doing what appears to be normal news-gathering protected by the First Amendment.”

Keep reading…

The arrogance of this administration never ceases to amaze me.

Via TPM:

Insisting repeatedly that he can’t comment on the Department of Justice’s 2009 probe of Fox News reporter James Rosen, White House press secretary Jay Carney on Monday emphasized the severity of leaks related to national security.

“I think it is very important that leaks are not tolerated,” Carney said.

Laughable they continue to claim Obama had no idea until he heard it in the news.

Update: More details.

(Politico) — Senior White House staff knew of the ongoing investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups ahead of the release of a report from a Treasury Department inspector general, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday, but held off on informing the president to wait for a final report.

With the knowledge of an investigation, the White House held to a “cardinal rule” that it should not get involved in an external investigation, Carney said during his daily briefing. “No one in this building intervened in an ongoing independent investigation or did anything that could be seen as intervening,” he said.

White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler was informed of the IG’s audit on April 24, Carney said, and was told that theaudit was nearing its conclusion and that a report would be forthcoming indicating that several IRS employees were involved in targeting groups with “tea party” and “patriot” in their names for additional scrutiny.

Drip… drip… drip.

Via NBC News:

The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters’ cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News.

David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines — including one for a dead phone line at  office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where  100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas, Schulz said.

Although AP had given general information about the subpoenas last week, it provided new details Monday about the number of cell and home phone records as it considers possible legal action against the Justice Department.

Schultz said the subpoena for a Washington phone line that had been shut down years ago raises questions about assertions by Deputy Attorney General James Cole, in a letter last week, that the subpoenas were narrowly crafted and only issued after a “comprehensive investigation” that included over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents.

Cole had said in his letter to the AP that “consistent with Department policy, the supboenas were limited in both time and scope.”

Keep reading…

I found this be a pretty fascinating article.

Via The Jewish Press:

There are countries in the world, mainly in Europe, that are presently undergoing significant cultural transformations as a result of Muslim immigration. France, Germany, Belgium and Holland are interesting examples of cases where immigration from Muslim countries, together with the Muslims’ high fertility rate, effects every area of life.

It is interesting to know that there is a country in the world whose official and public approach to the Muslim matter is totally different. This country is Japan. This country keeps a very low profile on all levels regarding the Muslim matter: On the diplomatic level, senior political figures from Islamic countries almost never visit Japan, and Japanese leaders rarely visit Muslim countries. The relations with Muslim countries are based on concerns such as oil and gas, which Japan imports from some Muslim countries. The official policy of Japan is not to give citizenship to Muslims who come to Japan, and even permits for permanent residency are given sparingly to Muslims.

Japan forbids exhorting people to adopt the religion of Islam (Dawah), and any Muslim who actively encourages conversion to Islam is seen as proselytizing to a foreign and undesirable culture. Few academic institutions teach the Arabic language. It is very difficult to import books of the Qur’an to Japan, and Muslims who come to Japan, are usually employees of foreign companies. In Japan there are very few mosques. The official policy of the Japanese authorities is to make every effort not to allow entry to Muslims, even if they are physicians, engineers and managers sent by foreign companies that are active in the region. Japanese society expects Muslim men to pray at home.

Japanese companies seeking foreign workers specifically note that they are not interested in Muslim workers. And any Muslim who does manage to enter Japan will find it very difficult to rent an apartment. Anywhere a Muslim lives, the neighbors become uneasy. Japan forbids the establishment of Islamic organizations, so setting up Islamic institutions such as mosques and schools is almost impossible. In Tokyo there is only one imam.

In contrast with what is happening in Europe, very few Japanese are drawn to Islam. If a Japanese woman marries a Muslim, she will be considered an outcast by her social and familial environment. There is no application of Shari’a law in Japan. There is some food in Japan that is halal, kosher according to Islamic law, but it is not easy to find it in the supermarket.

The Japanese approach to Muslims is also evidenced by the numbers: in Japan there are 127 million residents, but only ten thousand Muslims, less than one hundredth of a percent. The number of Japanese who have converted is thought to be few. In Japan there are a few tens of thousands of foreign workers who are Muslim, mainly from Pakistan, who have managed to enter Japan as workers with construction companies. However, because of the negative attitude towards Islam they keep a low profile.

There are several reasons for this situation:

First, the Japanese tend to lump all Muslims together as fundamentalists who are unwilling to give up their traditional point of view and adopt modern ways of thinking and behavior. In Japan, Islam is perceived as a strange religion, that any intelligent person should avoid. [...]

The most interesting thing in Japan’s approach to Islam is the fact that the Japanese do not feel the need to apologize to Muslims for the negative way in which they relate to Islam. They make a clear distinction between their economic interest in resources of oil and gas from Muslim countries, which behooves Japan to maintain good relations with these countries on the one hand, and on the other hand, the Japanese nationalist viewpoints, which see Islam as something that is suitable for others, not for Japan, and therefore the Muslims must remain outside.

Keep reading…

Megyn Kelly just announced Fox News reporter William LaJeunesse and a producer were also targeted by the DOJ. Will update when I find a story.

Update: Chilling stuff.

Via John Nolte:

Fox News reports that three Fox staffers, two reporters and one producer, were targeted by Barack Obama’s Justice Department. Fox doesn’t have all the details yet on a reporter William La Jeunesse and producer Mike Levine, but their emails showed up in a IG report regarding Fast and Furious. Either their emails were leaked by the Justice Department officials they were sent to, or the email accounts of both were subpoenaed and invaded by government investigators.

The IG report does say that subpoenas were issued to obtain emails. Whose email was targeted is not yet known.

The third staffer is reporter James Rosen. The Washington Post’s story behind that is downright chilling. What we have here is a case of the Obama Administration criminalizing reporting.

Keep reading…

Update II: Fox News’ report.

You know what else if offensive? Allowing four Americans to be killed by jihadists.

Note: Relevant part starts at 3 minute mark.

HT: WHD

Thug tactics from a thug regime.

Via Matthew Boyle:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published a new report Monday that confirms former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson.

The DOJ IG said it found “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.”

“We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state bars in which Burke is a member,” the IG wrote.

Keep reading…

 

The longer Al Nusra Front and Hezbollah kill each other the better it is for us.

(Reuters) – About 30 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and 20 Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been killed in the fiercest fighting this year in the rebel stronghold of Qusair, Syrian activists said on Monday.

If confirmed, the Hezbollah toll from Sunday’s battles in Qusair near the Lebanese border would highlight a deepening intervention in Syria by the guerrilla group set up by Iran in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation troops in south Lebanon.

The reported Hezbollah losses also reflect the extent to which the Syrian conflict is turning into a proxy war between Shi’ite Iran and U.S.-aligned Gulf Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which back Assad’s mostly Sunni foes.

Western countries and Russia, an ally of Damascus, back opposing sides in this regional free-for-all which is also sucking in Israel. Three times this year Israeli planes have bombed presumed Iranian arms stocks destined for Hezbollah.

Keep reading…

So that makes it alright for the DOJ to target one of their reporters.

White House communications director Anita Dunn (10/11/2009):

KURTZ: Anita Dunn didn’t pull any purchases in the interview you just saw from the White House, calling FOX News “a wing of the Republican Party” and saying “let’s not pretend they’re a news network.”

DUNN: “But what I will say is that when he goes on FOX, he understands that he is not going on — it really is not a news network at this point. He’s going to debate the opposition. And that’s fine. He never minds doing that.”

What about the merciless persecution of Christians in the Islamic world?

Via AFP:

The United States on Monday denounced what it called a spike in anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe and Asia, pointing to restrictions and violence against Muslims including the faith’s minority sects.

In a wide-ranging annual report on religious freedom, the State Department painted a bleak picture in China, North Korea and Myanmar and voiced alarm at what it called rising anti-Semitism in Egypt, Iran and Venezuela.

Crazy to think this warrant is for by all accounts basic news reporting.

FBI's Affidavit For Search Warrant Of Fox's James Rosen

Just one big coincidence, no doubt.

Via National Review:

[T]hese formative experiences prompted her to found two organizations: King Street Patriots, a local community group that hosts weekly discussions on personal and economic freedoms; and True the Vote, which seeks to prevent voter fraud and trains volunteers to work as election monitors. It also registers voters, attempts to validate voter-registration lists, and pursues fraud reports to push for prosecution if illegal activity has occurred.

In July 2010, Catherine filed with the IRS seeking tax-exempt status for her organizations. Shortly after, the troubles began.

That winter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation came knocking with questions about a person who had attended a King Street Patriots event once. Based on sign-in sheets, the organization discovered that the individual in question had attended an event, but “it was a come-and-go thing,” and they had no further information on hand about him. Nevertheless, the FBI also made inquiries about the person to the office manager, who was a volunteer.

The King Street Patriots weren’t the only ones under scrutiny. On January 11, the IRS visited the Engelbrechts’ shop and conducted an on-site audit of both their business and their personal returns, Catherine says. [...]

Two months later, the IRS initiated the first round of questions for True the Vote. Catherine painstakingly answered them, knowing that nonprofit status would help with the organization’s credibility, donors, and grant applications. In October, the IRS requested additional information. And whenever Catherine followed up with IRS agents about the status of True the Vote’s application, “there was always a delay that our application was going to be up next, and it was just around the corner,” she says,

As this was occurring, the FBI continued to phone King Street Patriots. In May 2011, agents phoned wondering “how they were doing.” The FBI made further inquiries in June, November, and December asking whether there was anything to report.

The situation escalated in 2012. That February, True the Vote received a third request for information from the IRS, which also sent its first questionnaire to King Street Patriots. Catherine says the IRS had “hundreds of questions — hundreds and hundreds of questions.” The IRS requested every Facebook post and Tweet she had ever written. She received questions about her family, whether she’d ever run for political office, and which organizations she had spoken to. [...]

On the same day they received the questions from the IRS, Catherine says, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) launched an unscheduled audit of their machine shop, forcing the Engelbrechts to drop everything planned for that day. Though the Engelbrechts have a Class 7 license, which allows them to make component parts for guns, they do not manufacture firearms. Catherine said that while the ATF had a right to conduct the audit, “it was odd that they did it completely unannounced, and they took five, six hours. . . . It was so extensive. It just felt kind of weird.”

That was in February. In July, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration paid a visit to Engelbrecht Manufacturing while Bryan, Catherine, and their children were out of town. The OSHA inspector talked with the managerial staff and employees, inspecting the premises minutely. But Bryan says the agent found only “little Mickey Mouse stuff, like, ‘You have safety glasses on, but not the right kind; the forklift has a seatbelt, but not the right kind.’” Yet Catherine and Bryan said the OSHA inspector complimented them on their tightly run shop and said she didn’t know why she had been sent to examine it.

Keep reading…

You know it’s bad when the left is defending Fox News.

Via JWF

45% Rate Obama Administration’s Benghazi Response As Poor — Rasmussen

The Obama administration is wrestling with several high-profile controversies these days, but voter concern about events surrounding the death last year of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi, Libya remains little changed.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 81% of Likely U.S. Voters still think it is at least somewhat important to find out what happened in the events surrounding the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens. This includes 55% who say it is Very Important. Only 13% feel it’s not very or Not At All Important to get to the bottom of the events last September in Benghazi.

I’m sure that’s what graduating seniors wanted to hear during their commencement speech.

Via CNS News:

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg used a commencement speech to push his gun-control agenda, telling graduates of Kenyon College in Ohio that gun control is “something you really should think about.”

Bloomberg, who co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns, spent at least $14 million in support of legislation that would have required universal background checks for all gun-buyers. Although the bill died in the Senate on April 17, Bloomberg said the battle isn’t over. [...]

“Too many members of Congress did not have the courage to stand up to the increasing extremist views of the NRA’s Washington lobbyists,” he said. “Many of them feared that voting for a common sense policy that would lead to someone challenging them in a primary, or hurt their chances to win a party’s nomination to higher office is too big a price to pay for saving 30-odd thousand lives a year.”

Bloomberg spent the better part of his 15 minute address on gun control, telling the graduates that since they were freshmen four years ago, more than 40,000 American people have been murdered with guns.

Keep reading…

They’re just realizing this now?

Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming ‘not as likely’ — BBC

Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades.

Keep reading…

HT: Drudge

One afternoon? I would need at least a month to fit in all his failures.

(CNSNews.com) – First lady Michelle Obama in her commencement speech at a high school in Nashville, Tenn., on Saturday said she could “take up a whole afternoon talking about” her husband’s failures.

“And then there’s this guy, Barack Obama, who lost – I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures, but – he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband,” she told graduates of Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School during commencement exercises held at Tennessee State University.

Mrs. Obama told students that “failure is the key to success for so many great people,” pointing to Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey.

Keep reading…

So much for Obama’s claim that the “buck stops with me.”

Via The Hill:

The White House is circling the wagons as one of the most feverish periods of President Obama’s tenure enters its second week.

Obama and his aides have taken a more aggressive stance in recent days after fumbling their initial response to headline-grabbing scandals at different government agencies.

The administration’s strategy is centered on a simple defense: “Our basic thrust is that nobody, here, did anything wrong,” an Obama administration official told The Hill. “That’s why none of this is going to stick.”

Even though there is no evidence yet of wrongdoing in the White House, it does not mean that Obama will emerge scot-free from the furor over the IRS’s treatment of conservative groups, last year’s fatal terrorist attack in Benghazi and the Department of Justice’s seizure of phone records from The Associated Press.

It’s now quite clear the IRS was acting as the Obama campaign’s goon squad.

Via Right Pundit who has more on Root’s story.

It’s a long piece that I highly suggest reading, here’s their final conlcusion:

In some ways, this is just scratching the surface of Lerner’s misstatements and weasely wording when the revelations about the IRS’s activities first came to light on May 10. But, taken together, it’s certainly enough to earn her four Pinocchios.

Read it all…

No room for dissent on the left.

Via TPM:

The frostiness between President Barack Obama’s circle and Maureen Dowd continued Monday, with former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs needling the New York Times columnist for a lack of originality.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Gibbs was asked if he happened to read Dowd’s latest column, in which she called Obama “a sad sack” who could use a little bit more John F. Kennedy.

“I don’t normally read Maureen,” Gibbs said. “I don’t largely because it’s sort of largely the same column for the last eight years.”

Keep reading…

The IDF has confirmed the Nazi flag was hung on an electrical line in the West Bank village of Beit Ummar.

Via Tazpit News:

Hundreds of residents of South Mount Hebron, Kiryat Arba – Hebron and Gush Etzion, who were driving to Jerusalem on Monday morning, spotted to their utter surprise a swastika flag perched up on the outskirts of the Arab settlement of Beit Ummar. The flag had been up there since the early morning hours. Residents reported the offensive flag to the IDF, but as of 11:15 AM Israel time, the flag is still up there.

HT: Judea via IsraellyCool