Michael Goldfarb

Secretary Clinton had nothing but glowing remarks for Malaysia’s leadership when she stopped there in November of last year.  “We already have a strong partnership based on common values like respect for cultural diversity, pluralism, religious tolerance… We know that Malaysia is a leader in this…

Not that long ago it looked like President Obama had Republicans right where he wanted them. As the debate over the 2011 budget played out on Capitol Hill, he threatened to veto the legislation if it cut one dollar more from defense spending than the budget request submitted by Secretary of Defense…

As Politico reports, today Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will step forward to offer a list of procurement programs the administration is putting on the chopping block in the coming year. It won’t be the first time that Secretary Gates has moved to cut high profile programs that, in his…

J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami admitted this week that he had lied about the funding of his organization for years – but only after the lies had become so obvious, and the criticism so pervasive, that he had no other choice. Contrary to Ben-Ami’s claims, the group had taken a large amount of money…

The self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street has always insisted that its funding comes entirely from Americans, and largely from American Jews. The group has also made a point of knocking down speculation that it takes money from liberal financier George Soros, who has never been…

On the eve of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Hamas gunmen murdered four Israeli civilians, including a pregnant woman. Even for those who see nuance in terrorist attacks, this one didn’t leave a lot of room for argument. The PA condemned the attack and, reportedly, picked…

The quote from the Center for American Progress:

“The party and the viewpoint that we’re closest to in Israeli politics is actually Kadima.” -- J Street founder and president Jeremy Ben-Ami, October 28, 2009.  

When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to Chicago last summer to make the case for killing the F-22 -- the world's premier air supremacy fighter and the only "fifth generation fighter" currently in production anywhere -- he argued that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would be a more…

Mayor Mike is coming for your guns, but not even this administration -- and this Congress -- is stupid enough to play along. Bloomberg appealed to Congress this week to address what is oddly being called the "terror gap," but which supporters of Second Amendment rights better describe as "secret…

A friendly reality check for exuberant Democrats on the first day of the Nuclear-Zero Pax Obama -- this treaty is almost certainly dead on arrival. I hedge only because the Democrats might try to jam it through using reconciliation. (Is it legal? The parliamentarian will decide!) Yes, Republican…

San Jose, Costa Rica

In an open-source assessment of Russia's Sukhoi PAK-FA, aka the Raptor Killer, Air Power Australia concludes, "once the PAK-FA is deployed within a theatre of operations, especially if it is supported robustly by counter-VLO capable ISR systems, the United States will no longer have the capability…

Israel's deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, lowers the boom on J Street:

A friend and I were joking the other day about the comedy of errors, and failures, that has come to define Democratic control of Washington. Of course the collapse of health care reform was the spark for this conversation; it is the most obvious and overwhelming failure of the Obama administration…

I don't know how Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector and left-wing hero, avoided jail the first time he got caught chatting up an underage girl on the internet (though you can read here the pathetic defense he offered at the time), but he did. Ritter is now a repeat offender. Laura Rozen…

Hilarious react from the hero of the anti-tree-hugging movement:

A new poll released by CBS News finds that:

Read Matt Labash's new advice column at the Daily Caller. And no, Labash is obviously not the person referred to in the column as "the sexiest man alive."

The latest web ad from Keep America Safe...

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It wasn't for lack of a good reason that the administration fought so desperately to avoid being pinned down on whether detainee transfers to Yemen would continue. Days before the Christmas Day attack, a "senior administration official" told the New York Times that the White House was "gaining…

Joe Biden makes the case for trains…about 150 years after the argument was settled.

Laura Rozen posts the list of some 51 NGOs, think-tanks, universities and human rights groups that have been designated as "subversive" by the Iranian regime, which will now forbid Iranian citizens from having any interaction with these organizations. As Rozen notes, "The New America Foundation,…

 A strong statement from the People's Governor:

"We're in the role of the supplicant." The Obama administration is already ready to cut a deal with the Christmas Day bomber. There were no U.S. combat deaths in Iraq last month. Nothing sells in Europe like an anti-Israel Holocaust survivor. Spencer Ackerman interviews an Iranian dissident who…

Debra Burlingame sends in a smart note about the TSA: We need to address the TSA's history of knee-jerk responses after terrorist plots are attempted or revealed which do nothing to increase security and which may, in fact, be counter-productive. I have heard passengers, after being put through…

Several months ago we warned that Tara O'Toole who recently became Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security would reward her friends resulting in millions of dollars in gifts to John Murtha cronies who supported her nomination. And it now…

An interesting piece from Politico's Ben Smith and Carol Lee examines the mentality inside the Hawaiian White House that led to the administration's inept response to the Christmas Day attack, but there's one line in particular that jumped out at me: Aides also say Obama wouldn't necessarily be…

Yesterday the Washington Post reported, three paragraphs from the end of a piece on the intelligence failures that led to the Christmas Day attack, that Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense…

Anyone who reads Tom Joscelyn's work here on the blog or in the magazine knows that he has a freakish, Beautiful Mind-like ability to connect the terrorist dots and recall the most bizarre details of any one terrorist's dossier. So when ABC posted a major scoop that that the Christmas Day bomber…

On Monday I posted a question from a friend and suggested Scott Rasmussen might want to put that question to the American public. Here's the question as it was emailed to me: Do you think most Americans prefer that this guy is A) Watching cable tv is a warm cell funded by taxpayers and enjoying his…

Obama doesn't like to challenge the legitimacy of despots, thus the repeated calls for a relationship with Iran based on "mutual respect" and the use of the regime's preferred name, the Islamic Republic. But Ray Takeyh, who served in the Obama State Department as an aide to Dennis Ross on Iran…

The AP's "analysis" pieces are the most feared pieces in Washington -- for good reason. Ambassador Huntsman sucks up to Obama in an interview with the New Yorker. If "reset" means resurrecting an arms race, I guess hitting the reset button has worked. Marc Thiessen beats up on Josh Marshall. Andy…

That's the way things seem to be headed. As we pointed out last night, administration officials have been saying (on background, of course) that the president "intends to demand accountability at the highest levels." Presumably, accountability means someone is going to get fired. And if someone got…

All of a sudden everyone is matter-of-factly pointing out that Gitmo detainees shouldn't be sent back to Yemen anytime soon, but nothing has changed in Yemen because of al Qaeda's Christmas Day attack. The attack has just highlighted what was already obvious to people who knew better but ignored…

Michelle Cottle makes a pretty strong case here that the president's golf habit is starting to get in the way of his job. Marc Ambinder wrote a ludicrous post over the weekend, now coming in for some much deserved ridicule, titled "Why the President Went Golfing Today." In it Ambinder defended,…

The AP reports: A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told The Associated…

Josh Rogin has the story at the Cable: Jide Zeitlin, the Obama administration's nominee to be America's point man for financial reform at the United Nations, has withdrawn himself from consideration for the job, an administration official tells The Cable. Zeitlin, a former Goldman Sachs executive…

The White House/DNC pushback against the mounting criticism of Obama's handling of the al Qaeda Christmas attack focuses on Shoe Bomber Richard Reid, and of course Bush, and how Bush got it easier than Obama and how come Bush didn't get raked over the coals for this, etc. etc. etc. Last night Keep…

Buried three paragraphs from the end of the report in today's Washington Post comes what ought to be the lede: Abdulmutallab remains in a Detroit area prison and, after initial debriefings by the FBI, has restricted his cooperation since securing a defense attorney, according to federal officials.…

Coming on the heels of a joint statement from Senators Lieberman, McCain, and Graham, this is another serious blow to the administration's plan to overcome a key hurdle to closing Gitmo, i.e. what to do with all the Yemenis who can't be tried and can't be resettled anywhere else than their home…

As soon as Obama came out for that second press conference, you knew that there were going to be some new revelations. Now the avalanche begins -- and so do the questions... "It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not…

So say the Iranians. Of course, they'd probably say anything right now to try and get back just a little bit of the international legitimacy that the regime has been bleeding with each video of Iranian protesters being murdered in the streets. Still, ever since Josh Rogin first floated the rumor…

John Yoo's interview with the New York Times is full of good one-liners. After explaining that he's never met either Bush or Cheney, the interviewer seems to think she's got the upper hand. "So you're saying you were just one notch above an intern, you and Monica Lewinsky?" Yoo's response, "She was…

Yes, he is a marginal figure even within his own party, and yes he's announced he's retiring in 2010 and will not seek another term, but this al Jazeera interview with Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) is another reminder that what anti-Israel sentiment exists in Congress is confined largely to the…

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AFP reports: Mr Obama began his golf round after a press conference earlier in the day, when he vowed an all-out pursuit of plotters of a failed Christmas Day bombing of a US-bound airliner, vowing "we will not rest" until they are captured and tried. HT: Keep America Safe

Politico's Carol E. Lee has an interesting story today on President Obama's "by-now familiar pattern...for dealing with unexpected problems." As best we can figure, the Obama damage control strategy consists of these 5 easy steps: Step 1: Deny seriousness of issue. Step 2: Deny any admin…

I don't know why this "senior administration official" needed to say it on background if the administration is so committed to closing GItmo, and if the official really believes what he's saying: Closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility remains "a national security imperative" despite a news…

Max Boot argues in the Washington Post today against what is fast becoming one of the most controversial restrictions on international forces in Afghanistan -- the 96 hour limit on holding prisoners before being forced to transfer them to Afghan custody. Boot says allied forces should opt-out of…

Gabe Schoenfeld writes in the Los Angeles Times: The case of the alleged Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being called a massive intelligence failure. And the evidence thus far does suggest a possible lapse in the government's management of terrorist watch lists. But if so, the blame…

The quote of the day, from Democrat Diane Feinstein: "I'd rather, in the interest of protecting people, overreact rather than underreact." An amused veteran of the Bush administration emails: Interesting--sounds like a pithy summary of the Bush approach to the War on Terror. I don't recall hearing…

After three days of radio silence from our Nobel laureate president on al Qaeda's attempted Christmas Day Massacre, President Obama finally felt compelled to get off the beach and make a statement. Nearly two hours before that, the White House issued a statement responding to an hours old news…

A friend emails a question Scott Rasmussen might want to poll: Do you think most Americans prefer that this guy is A) Watching cable tv is a warm cell funded by taxpayers and enjoying his right to remain silent (i.e, BHO reality); or B) At an undisclosed location being waterboarded to learn about…

I didn't get too worked up about the ridiculous appointment of Hannah Rosenthal to serve as the Obama administration's anti-Semitism czar because, frankly, nobody cares what the anti-Semitism czar says or does (unless they say or do something stupid, and of course Rosenthal has now done just that).…

CBS reports: CBS News has learned the State Department system designed to keep track of active U.S. visas twice failed to reveal Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been issued an active visa allowing him multiple entries into the United States. According to a law enforcement…

With three terrorist attacks against the homeland over the last year that trace back, at least partly, to Yemen, this recent report by Richard Fontaine and Andrew Exum at the Center for a New American Security is a must-read. Fontaine until recently was Senator John McCain's foreign policy adviser…

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on CNN yesterday: "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked." And then with some slight modification on ABC: "[O]nce the incident occurred, the system worked." Well, perhaps Napolitano was told that if she'd like her direct deposit…

The Washington Post reported yesterday that "Abdulmutallab was charged Saturday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan with attempting to destroy an aircraft and with placing a destructive device onboard a plane, each of which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Paul…

The Iranian people are once again in what, at least to the outside world, seems just short of full-scale revolt. Some dramatic video out of Iran today, none more so than this violent four-minute clip showing a crowd of people cutting down three men that are being hanged in the street by some kind…

We've noticed some fairly bizarre twitterings from the official feed for the U.S. Army's Africa Command. Among them is a tweet sending @USArmyAfrica followers to an article on the website of truther in chief Alex Jones titled "Foiled Terrorist Bombing in Detroit: An Excuse to Expand the Bogus War…

The would-be bomber of Delta flight 253, Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, appears to have been acting in concert with al Qaeda elements in Yemen. The Obama administration's plan to close Gitmo hinges on sending some 100 Yemeni terrorists back to their country of origin where they will be…

About a month and a half ago we noted that President Obama's choice to serve as the administration's "anti-Semitism czar" was Hannah Rosenthal, a J Street board member who had herself been criticized by the Anti-Defamation League. Being rebuked by the ADL (and being a J Streeter) did not bode well…

Yo ho ho and an RPG: Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. "I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation," she…

Time's Joe Klein calls me "odious," but he can do better. I much preferred when he described me as a "Niagara of ignorance." In any case, he stands by his claim that "The Israelis have been difficult, as always: whenever [Middle East envoy George] Mitchell raises East Jerusalem in talks with the…

Less than a quarter of Democrats have a "very positive" of the Democratic party. "An already-enormous security breach is even larger than previously thought." "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b-button, a-button." Could Obama be a friend to Israel? Meg is in the driver's seat. The…

And of course, stories that Joe Klein makes up get recycled in Palestinian propaganda. Ben Smith reports: U.S. and Israeli officials are dismissing an eyebrow-raising claim from a prominent Palestinian activist and official, Mustafa Barghouti, in today's International Herald Tribune. "The Israeli…

You know what really wouldn't help Harry Reid meet his Christmas deadline for passing health care? Two to three feet of snow in Washington, DC. The forecast from THE WEEKLY STANDARD Weather Center...

Drudge is touting this floor statement by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: ‘And here's the most outrageous part: at the end of this rush, they want us to vote on a bill that no one outside the Majority Leader's conference room has even seen. That's right. The final bill we'll vote on isn't…

Twenty Republican senators have requested that the Senate Armed Services Committee launch an investigation into reports that the Obama White House threatened to close Nebraska's Offutt Air Force base unless Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson fell into line on health care. Those reports first appeared on…

President Obama has written a letter to the Dear Leader, aka the Tiny Tyrant. Could it be an invitation to the White House? Time is running out.... QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since. In the spirit of that type of…

Haaretz has a hard to believe report claiming that "the United States and Egypt, along with France, are planning a joint move to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks on the basis of the June 4, 1967, borders, territorial exchanges and a complete freeze of construction beyond the Green Line, including…

Jonathan Martin gets the quote from a "Lieberman ally": "They won't say it, but Joe is preventing them from taking a series of tough votes," said this Lieberman ally. "If I'm Blanche Lincoln, I'd consider converting to Judaisim just to thank Joe Lieberman for what he did for me."

While the Democrats appease Senator Lieberman, they still have to worry about other recalcitrant Democrats including Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. Though Lieberman has been out front in the fight against the public option and the Medicare buy-in, Nelson was critical of both. Now that those…

SCOTUS blog reports: The Court's denial of review of Rasul, et al., v. Myers, et al. (09-227) leaves intact a federal appeals court ruling that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ten military officers are legally immune to claims of torture and religious bias against inmates who were at…

Andrew Breitbart's Big Government puts two and two together: Today, the Obama White House announced the nomination of Mari Del Carmen Aponte as U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. It is not Ms. Aponte's first brush with an ambassadorship. In 1998, President Clinton nominated her to be Ambassador to the…

Tennessee Rep. Bart Gordon announced he's not going to run in 2010, the fourth such announcement this month. And so another safe Dem seat now looks likely to flip. Dave Weigel writes: There are going to be a number of deep red areas where, in 2010, prospective presidential candidates can happily…

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein asserts that Joe Lieberman is "willing to directly cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score."

Rasmussen reports that 51 percent of voters in Illinois oppose the Obama administration's apparent plan to move the detainees now being held at Gitmo to the Thomson Correctional Facility in Western Illinois. Just 39 percent of the state's voters support the plan. It's yet another item on the Obama…

A letter from 10 senators, led by Senators Nelson and Collins and ranging from Senator Feingold to Senator Inohfe, sharply rebukes the Turkish government for the "downward trend of relations between Turkey and Israel this past year." The senators point in particular to the Turkish government's…

ABC reports that the high-level al Qaeda operative killed in Tuesday's drone strike in Pakistan was Saleh al-Somali. According to ABC, U.S. officials believe al-Somali "was responsible for al Qaeda's operations outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and formed part of al Qaeda's senior…

Politico reports: The "time has come" for the world to condemn Iran's nuclear program, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a taped interview with Al Jazeera English. .... "We have spent time listening and working hard to create this common ground and these common interests, and we've done it…

In light of USA Today's bombshell report on the explosive growth in salaries among federal employees over the last 18 months (i.e. the 18 months in which the U.S. economy saw its worst collapse since the Great Depression), it's perhaps worth a flashback to January 21, 2009, when President Obama…

Before J Street's inaugural conference, the group's director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, gave an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg in which he stated flatly that U.S. aid to Israel should not be used as leverage in peace negotiations. "Military aid should not be on the table -- this is an absolutely essential…

Buried eight paragraphs down in a New York Times report on Eric Holder's trip to New York to brief officials there on arrangements that they must now make to accommodate KSM and his fellow 9/11 plotters comes this startling revelation: While the entire operation will be similar to the deployment…

The New America Foundation released a new poll today, conducted by J Street founding VP Jim Gerstein, that found -- surprise! -- Israelis are suddenly much better inclined toward President Obama than previous polls have shown. Noah Pollak explains how this happened: I was always skeptical of the…

Greg Sargent reports: In yet another sign that the writing is on the wall for the public option, Nancy Pelosi repeatedly refused to say today that a bill without one could not pass the House, backing away from a marker she'd laid down in the past. Asked directly at a presser about the current…

Adam Smith reports: We've struggled lately to get a clear answer from Marco Rubio on whether as governor he would have accepted money from the federal stimulus package about which he is so critical. Keith Cate on Tampa Bay's NBC affiliate got a clearer answer: "Ultimately I would have accepted…

When Michael Oren declined an invitation to appear at J Street's conference in October, the Israeli embassy put out a statement explaining the move as a response to J Street policies that "might impair Israel's interests." It was a devastating statement, but compared to the ambassador's latest…

To appease Red China, Obama passes on $4 billion foreign stimulus for high-tech and union workers in America. Noah Pollak expects the Obama administration is gearing up for a major effort to contain and deter...Israel. Obama really likes to threaten unilateral action when dealing with a…

An amusing release from Brad Dayspring in Eric Cantor's office notes the gradual, almost minutes-long evolution of the Obama administration's views on playing the blame game: 1:56 PM: "The American people have watched for decades people playing the blame game. If the blame game put people to work,…

Here's the lede, you decide: Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) has once again inserted himself into the middle of an inflamed partisan debate, raising questions about his motives, his ego and his fickle allegiance to the Democratic Party, which forgave him after he supported Sen. John McCain…

Ben Smith reports on the recent reversals in the fight for "marriage equality": "It is a historical inevitability, if for no other reason than the old people will eventually die, and the young people are overwhelmingly in favor of it," said David Mixner, a veteran gay rights activist. To which I…

The People's Governor has a strong op-ed in the Washington Post calling for Obama to boycott Copenhagen -- complete with link to YouTube of Obama promising to make your energy prices skyrocket. Joseph Abrams catches the UN lying about how many bureaucrats and hangers-on will be attending: U.N.…

The AP puts out this video under the headline "Marines 'inspired, Informed' by Mullen's Speech," which seems like a pretty generous description of the attitude of these Marines as they leave Mullen's speech. Mullen says "there's no deadline, there's no end date, there's no exit strategy," but some…

Some people will believe anything, as Blake Hounshell shows: Percentage of Americans who believe in angels: 55 Percentage of Americans who believe in evolution: 39 Percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic global warming: 36 Percentage of Americans who believe in ghosts: 34 Percentage of…

Spencer Ackerman interviews J Street chief Jeremy Ben-Ami on that group's announcement that it will now back sanctions to cut Iran off from its supply of refined petroleum products. Earlier today Ackerman offered one possible explanation for the move: "The attacks on J Street have worked." I think…

RIA Novosti reports: Vietnam could become a key importer of Russian weaponry if several contracts on the purchase of diesel submarines and aircraft are signed in the near future, a Russian newspaper said. According to the Vedomosti business daily, Moscow and Hanoi are close to sign deals on the…

An entertaining smear of Teddy Roosevelt on the New York Times op-ed page this weekend makes for fun Pearl Harbor Day reading. Historian James Bradley blames TR for the attack on Pearl -- because it's always America's fault if you go back far enough. Bradley actually makes a pretty compelling case,…

An Army Colonel writes in response to this post over the weekend: This is an incredibly important battle that will bust up a HUGE Taliban supply base which is at the end of a Taliban infiltration. This route that starts in Pakistan and makes its way north to Now Zad. I served in this region back in…

I'm very confused this morning -- I wake up to find out that J Street, the pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-Palestine, anti-sanctions organization, is now supporting the sanctions legislation making its way through the House. The White House recently asked that that sanctions bill, sponsored by Rep.…

From the very beginning, the Obama White House has been obsessed with the process by which national security decisions are made -- and with getting the press to treat that obsession as evidence that this White House is somehow more serious about national security decisions than its predecessor.…

The new numbers from Pew have support for torture at a 5 year high, with 19 percent saying torture is "often" justified when interrogating terror suspects and 35 percent saying it is "sometimes" justified. That's a majority of Americans who, unlike the president, understand that there are very real…

The AP reports: U.S. Marines and Afghan troops have killed at least seven Taliban fighters during the first U.S.-led offensive since President Barack Obama announced a new American war plan this week, Afghan officials said Saturday. American and Afghan troops have met little resistance since…

Tomorrow at noon, family members of the victims of the 9/11 attacks will join with first responders and others holding a rally in Manhattan to protest AG Eric Holder's decision -- made without consulting the President of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Mayor of New York…

Barron YoungSmith and TNR keep up their (admirable) assault on Sudan envoy Scott Gration: Chairman Donald Payne, who originally convinced Congress to declare the situation in Darfur a "genocide," said that "for some, our policy is too focused on punitive measures. I beg to differ." He complained…

Laura Rozen reports: But almost a year later, neither Holbrooke nor Mitchell is looking as confident about his status in the administration or prospects for success. Holbrooke, who once seemed to relish his access to both Obama and Clinton and built a staff of more than two dozen aides while…

Greg Sargent pulls some fascinating numbers out of a new CNN poll, which finds support for Obama's surge at 61 percent. The administration can thank Republicans -- the loyal opposition -- for that impressive number. Without the support of nearly every major figure in Republican politics, surely…

A source on the Hill informs THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the US government Export-Import Bank is fighting the Banking Committee Iran Sanctions bill, passed out of committee last month on a unanimous vote and which is now sitting on the Senate calendar while supporters push for it to be approved by…

The irony seems entirely lost on our British allies, but one can understand why not all of them are so amused by the prospect of being in a foxhole with a stoned out Afghan. Still, watching this I can't help thinking that some American soldier in the First World War must have been looking at his…

Answer: Obama won't pose for a picture with either of them: When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hangar. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to…

You'd think that Eric Holder would check with the Secretary of Homeland Security before making a decision to send the man behind the 9/11 attacks back to the scene of the crime for an open trial in federal court. There are all kinds of national security implications that stem from Holder's…

Nobody drives the left nuts like Joe: Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a member of the Armed Services Committee, praised President Obama today for disagreeing with Democrats over Afghanistan war strategy. "In making this decision, President Obama has respectfully disagreed with the majority of the…

The statement from Rumsfeld: "In his speech to the nation last night, President Obama claimed that ‘Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.' Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to…

In his prepared remarks before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Secretary Gates does a much better job of explaining the relationship between fighting the Taliban and defeating al Qaeda than the president did last night. As the president first stated in March, and re-emphasized last…

Palin posts a statement: At long last, President Obama decided to give his military commanders much of what they need to accomplish their mission in Afghanistan. In the end, he decided to endorse a "surge" for Afghanistan, applying the counterinsurgency principles of "clear, hold and build" that…

Marc Ambinder: Obama's close buddy Durbin issues single sentence statement saying: Obama took months to make this policy, I'll wait to react to it. Contrast that with the statement from McCain.

ISAF posts the statement from General McChrystal: "The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the President has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task. The clarity, commitment and resolve outlined in the President's address are critical steps toward bringing…

Listening to the conference call just conducted by two senior administration officials, one is struck by the extent to which this administration has now appropriated the tactics, the language, and the logic of the 2007 surge in Iraq for their own 2010 surge into Afghanistan. This senior…

The former veep gives an interview to not a real news organization Politico: In a 90-minute interview at his suburban Washington house, Cheney said the president's "agonizing" about Afghanistan strategy "has consequences for your forces in the field." "I begin to get nervous when I see the…

"Why has the president's publicly expressed vision of a kinder, gentler Washington failed to materialize?" Answer here. The IRGC continues to consolidate its control and is now responsible for all Iranian naval operations in the Persian Gulf. Remember when we used to argue about who was really in…

Obama doesn't accept that there are tensions between the security of the American people and the ideals of our democracy, so it's not surprising that he would put the men behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in civilian courts and then guarantee the death penalty for the accused. But as the Los Angeles…

From the Times magazine profile of the least powerful vice president in history: The president and the vice president are very different men both temperamentally and generationally, and they move in different social circles. "Everyone wants this to be some kind of buddy movie - ‘Butch Cassidy and…

Jeffrey Goldberg on the administration's Middle East diplomacy: In fact, if the Obama Administration hadn't made such a hash of the peace process, the Palestinians would now be returning to the negotiating table, acknowledging that the Netanyahu settlement moratorium is, as Hillary Clinton said,…

Dubai's royal family has spent billions of dollars trying to develop an economic model for the emirate that will survive after the oil runs out -- or after the industrialized world finds an alternative to the fossil fuels that by some unfortunate coincidence aren't concentrated in that part of the…

The Politico reports on the first administration in history: The Obama White House is addicted to the "unprecedented." Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: "We begin this year and this administration in the midst of…

Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com If Ed Begley's peers -- Hollywood liberals -- were to review his performance on Fox, they would probably give it a thumbs-up. I see a zealot who is having his faith tested and unable to keep his composure in the process. The emails in question…

They could've executed him in the desert and left him in a shallow grave for all I care, but the SEALs are professionals, and so they brought the man behind the 2004 murder of four American contractors in Fallujah to the Green Zone, where one SEAL told investigators that he "had showered after the…

Jonathan Martin reported yesterday on an interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in which Ana Navarro, a McCain campaign veteran, trashed Sarah Palin, saying Palin "does not understand issues concerning Hispanics and Latin America" and that the McCain campaign was forced to cancel an interview…

Richard Holbrooke was the man who would be king, with jurisdiction from India to Afghanistan, overseeing American diplomacy and foreign policy in a region that will make or break the Obama presidency. But almost from the beginning things didn't go as planned. The Indians sent a clear message to…

FP's Cable blog reports on NSC deputy spokesman Ben Chang, aka Hong Kong Hefner, fashion photographer and disc jockey extraordinaire. By day Chang controls foreign press access in the White House. By night, "dancefloor jazz, funky breaks, old school & classic hip hop, indie pop/rock, new wave,…

Eric Holder's decision to bring KSM and his fellow 9/11 plotters to New York City for the "trial of the century" became an issue today in the primary race between Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon who are battling for the chance to take Chris Dodd's senate seat from him in 2010. Simmons blasted out a…

The wires are starting to take an interest in the "landmark" deal that would see the French sell as many as three amphibious assault ships to the peace-loving regime in Moscow. As the AP reports, the Russians aren't being shy about what these ships would be used for: The head of the Russian navy…

In case you missed it, former Democratic staffer and Asia note-taker Chris Nelson, author of the eponymous Nelson Report, last week issued yet another missive that might as well have been written by the DNC press shop or an unhinged commenter at the Daily Kos. Blaming Washington "insiders" -- read…

I really enjoyed last week's WWII in HD mini-series on the History Channel. Ten hours of color footage from World War II, all of it digitally restored, and the series was narrated through the voices of soldiers, Marines, and journalists, all of whom had written books about their time in combat --…

With the release of hundreds of emails by scientists advocates of global warming showing obvious and entirely inappropriate collusion by the authors -- including attempts to suppress dissent, to punish journals that publish peer-reviewed studies casting doubt on global warming, and to manipulate…

It's a fair question from a man who lost his son on 9/11: Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of…

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has taken another shot at the administration's war on terror policies with a letter yesterday to AG Eric Holder and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioning the decision to put the terrorists behind the 9/11 attacks on trial in federal…

Andrew Malcolm wrote this up yesterday, news from the last stop of Obama's Asia trip: Even President Obama himself during his just-concluded trip to Asia admitted that he was surprised to receive the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year without actually producing any peace. In fact, the rookie…

John Noonan is correct in stating that NORAD will be sorely stretched by the requirement to stand alerts against incursions by Russian bombers and reconnaissance aircraft (even if these pose only a minimal objective threat, air sovereignty must be maintained). He overlooked, I think, the…

Politico reporters will give right-wingers the kind of fair treatment that they can get almost nowhere else, but in this piece on McCain's shift on cap and trade includes a line that just drips with bias. Reporter Lisa Lerer, wrongly in my opinion, attributes McCain's shift on cap and trade to a…

Another fun email from the NIAC treasure trove...Given that J Street blasted Sarah Palin for her support for the official policy of the government in Jerusalem, and given that even ADL chief Abe Foxman is questioning J Street's "pro-Israel" bona fides as a result, it's worth taking a look behind…

The National Iranian American Council denies it engages in lobbying, yet the organization's internal emails tell a different story. The group calls itself the National Iranian American Council, but it's run by Trita Parsi, an Iranian national who didn't even have a green card when he started the…

When Sarah Palin offered her unqualified support for the Israeli government's policy of settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J Street blasted her for "pandering to her right-wing base . . . at the expense of the security of the State of…

A series of internal emails and documents from the National Iranian American Council, headed by Iranian national Trita Parsi, released as part of the discovery process in a lawsuit initiated by NIAC, reveal a major effort by the group to "clean house" at VOA's Persian-language service of Voice of…

The numbers in California: A new Rasmussen Reports survey in California finds next year's race for governor now a dead heat with Jerry Brown (D) and Meg Whitman (R) tied at 41%. In other match ups, Brown leads Steve Poizner (R), 43% to 32%, and tops Tom Campbell (R), 42% to 33%. And in Florida:…

This is the latest video from Keep America Safe and I think the best one yet. Justin Germany put this together after a trip up to Standish, Michigan, with KAS board member Debra Burlingame, who was all over the Holder hearings yesterday. It now seems unlikely that the detainees will end up in…

If bin Laden is captured, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn't see any need at all to interrogate the al Qaeda founder and mastermind -- because we already have enough on him for a "conviction." If the U.S. captures Osama bin Laden, there's no need to interrogate him, the chairman…

Via Hot Air, the Washington Times unearths a quote from New York Senator Chuck Schumer in which, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Schumer mocks the idea that anyone would give the 9/11 plotters the same rights afforded to American citizens charged with pick-pocketing. There are also those…

Earlier this month, when Rep. Mark Kirk accused Trita Parsi, the Iranian national who heads the oddly named National Iranian American Council, of being a "regime sympathizer," NIAC accused Kirk of making a "slanderous allegation." Yet internal emails reveal that Parsi certainly did not see himself…

President Obama responds to a question from CBS about the Afghan policy leaks: "I think I am angrier than Bob Gates about it, partly because we have these deliberations in the Situation Room for a reason - because we are making decisions that are life-and-death, that affect how our troops will be…

Sarah Palin weighs in on settlements: Barbara Walters: Governor, let's talk about some issues. The Middle East. The Obama administration does not want Israel to build any more settlements on what they consider "Palestinian territory." What is your view on this? Sarah Palin: I disagree with the…

The White House realizes there are no settlements in Jerusalem -- and yet their position remains unclear. David Frum says it isn't enough to take Trita Parsi at his word. Russia gives Georgia the 411: We're annexing your sovereign territory. Ace examines the "diplomacy of deference." "He ought to…

As NIAC prepared its duplicitous campaign to scuttle the appointment of Dennis Ross as the Obama administration's envoy to Iran, Trita Parsi and his policy director, Patrick Disney, conferred with their allies on two separate listservs to devise a strategy. The date was January 7, 2009, and as the…

Israel has approved the construction of some 900 housing units in their own capital city, Jerusalem: ... Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said he refused to be part of a halt to Jewish and Arab construction in west or east Jerusalem. "Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between…

Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling health care by a 49-47 percent margin, according to the latest Washington Post poll. Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of Afghanistan by a 48-45 margin. In April of this year 63 percent of Americans approved of Obama's handling of that…

Keep America Safe is joining forces with The Bravest and 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America to encourage people to attend AG Eric Holder's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. The hearing promises to be a major event, with Holder answering questions about…

Joementum, in Israel, says Iran "has failed the test." While Obama dithers on Afghanistan, Lang Sias asks what happened to the "fierce urgency of now." Steve Clemons says "the dark side has taken hold at the White House." Fact: It took 11 AP reporters to fact-check Palin's book. Jamie Kirchick asks…

Andrew Sullivan is digging in to defend Trita Parsi -- and to attack Parsi's critics: But it does reveal a classic neoconservative move. They are essentially trying to accuse Iranian-Americans who disagree with them of dual loyalty. Even as they rightly scream blue murder if that is ever applied to…

NIAC and J Street might seem at first an odd alliance. J Street is "pro-peace, pro-Israel" and NIAC is pro-engagement, pro-Iran. But J Street isn't all that pro-Israel, and NIAC will take any allies it can find in the fight against sanctions, so few and far between are such organizations in…

Earlier this week, John Limbert, who was held hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago, began his job at the State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran. Limbert also served on the advisory board of the National Iranian American Council, which the Washington Times…

FS_Mistral_02.jpg As we noted here a week ago, the French are planning a major arms deal with Kremlin. Gary Schmitt delves deeper today with a piece for THE WEEKLY STANDARD website. Schmitt writes: In little over a week, a modern French warship is scheduled to visit St. Petersburg. If the Russians…

An email from Joe Bookbinder, the director of public affairs for the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, to reporters in Asia ahead of Obama's big speech tomorrow. Check out point number 3 below... When speaking about U.S. foreign relations, President Obama has said that "there must be a sustained…

Today the Washington Times prints a blockbuster expose on NIAC, the National Iranian American Council run by Trita Parsi that has long been suspected of acting as an unofficial, and unregistered, lobby for the Iranian regime. These suspicions seem to have been well founded. Here are the facts as…

Laura Rozen reported yesterday that the Obama administration was set to announce the appointment of a special envoy to monitor and combat global anti-Semitism. Per Rozen, rumor has it that the administration has settled on Hannah Rosenthal -- a Chicago lawyer who has precisely the kind of views…

ABC reports that Ft. Hood terrorist Nidal Hassan had his own business cards made: United States Army Major Nidal Hasan proclaimed himself a "soldier of Allah" on private business cards he obtained over the Internet and kept in a box at his apartment near Fort Hood, Texas.

A couple of interesting nuggets in the latest Quinnipiac poll out of Connecticut. First off, the numbers show little sign of improving for friend of Angelo and netleft hero Chris Dodd. He loses a hypothetical matchup against both Republicans in the race -- he trails Rob Simmons by 11 and WWE boss…

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a group called KulturProjekte Berlin set up a virtual wall on which Twitter users could post their thoughts. The project seems to have been overwhelmed by Chinese Twitter users who took the opportunity to protest their lack of freedom. One…

The Center for American Progress has released a white paper calling on the administration to establish a new deadline for closing the detention facility at Gitmo now that it's clear the administration has no hope of meeting the original January deadline. The report recommends: Push back the closure…

The former New York governor will be giving a lecture tomorrow at Harvard's Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. The talk is titled "From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg - How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts. What Should be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?" It's unclear…

It is always interesting to see how these two respond to the same event. In the case of the fall of the Berlin Wall, both Obama and McCain delivered remarks -- Obama, via video, to the assembled masses in Berlin, and McCain to the students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International…

Tarek Fatah writes in the Ottawa Citizen: No one seemed to notice the significance of the attire that Maj. Nidal Hasan was wearing the morning of the killings. It was captured on a store surveillance video where he bought a coffee.... Hasan was wearing the "shalwar-kameez," the traditional attire…

ABC tries to figure out how the Ft. Hood shooter slipped through the cracks even as authorities were aware that he was communicating with known radicals and attempting to communicate with al Qaeda: "The general tenor of the communications were fairly benign and did comport with a research project…

It wasn't PTSD. It was a Muslim fanatic with ties to a radical cleric who tried to contact al Qaeda via the internet according to the report from ABC. The CIA was aware of these efforts and, it seems, failed to act on the intelligence. In May of 2008, Sen. Lieberman's Homeland Security Committee…

Andrea Saul, until last week press secretary for Senator Orrin Hatch, is heading to Tallahassee to serve as communications director for Charlie Crist's Senate campaign, as the Florida governor and early favorite for Florida's open Senate seat faces an increasingly serious primary challenge from…

What would you call a group that opposes sanctions on Iran, questions Israel's right to defend itself from terrorist groups firing rockets from Gaza, seeks to pressure Israel into making major concessions without regard to the views of the elected government in Jerusalem, and supports a…

"Unpleasant as it may be for the president to hear, his policy is objectively aiding the Tehran regime and harming the opposition in their ongoing struggle." Strategic Reassurance, we hardly knew ye. Vulnerable freshman Democrats abandoning ship on health care. Apparently they learned the wrong…

The Jerusalem Post reports that Netanyahu will be in Washington all next week. Guess who he won't be meeting with: As of press time, the Prime Minister's Office said no formal meeting had been scheduled with US President Barack Obama during the visit, which could last through the week. No departure…

Republicans send around these numbers from the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released today: From everything you have heard or read so far, do you favor or oppose Barack Obama's plan to reform health care? Oppose 53 Support 45 The numbers were the other way around in August: 50 percent…

It looks like the man who killed 13 soldiers and police at Ft. Hood was a Muslim radical who hated America, resented our occupation of Muslim lands, would not be photographed with women, and chanted "Allahu Akbar" before he launched a one-man terrorist attack, but according to CBS White House…

Ben Smith comes up with some pretty good stuff this morning comparing General Jones's prepared remarks for the J Street conference last week with the remarks as delivered. Jones pledged then that the administration would send a representative to all future conferences held by J Street. It was the…

How weak? Carteresque weak. Hey, you know what turned out to be a really bad idea? Calling for a settlement freeze. Chris Dodd, progressive hero and friend of Angelo, goes after the administration over Swine flu incompetence. Z Street cuts right through J Street. Politico finds at least two…

The media just doesn't seem as troubled by the Obama administration buying favorable coverage in foreign newspapers as it was when the Bush administration propagandized. Still, I'm surprised this story isn't getting more attention. There's something for everyone here -- an administration buying…

The New York Times reports on comments by the French foreign minister: On Iran, Mr. Kouchner said that the violence of demonstrations on Wednesday was very important, another sign that the Iranians "are losing time, not gaining time" by their refusal to deal seriously with the Security Council and…

From David Corn, in response to John Boehner tweeting a story from the AP titled "Thousands rally to protest Pelosi healthcare": And hundreds of millions don't. Good point, Corn. Just like the hundreds of millions who didn't march on Washington for civil rights or to end the war in Vietnam. Or the…

Just two weeks ago we had a little fun with Nation columnist and Columbia journalism professor Eric Alterman, who had, over the course of a year, recycled the same attack, practically word for word, into three separate columns for three different publications. For example, on January 15, writing in…

A new poll from Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research takes the temperature of California Republicans: Former eBay executive Meg Whitman has opened up a wide lead in the Republican race for governor, according to the latest Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research poll. About a third of Republicans and…

The Senate approved Tara O'Toole's nomination as Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security via voice vote last night. As we pointed out the day before, this should be of concern to anyone interested in making sure that billions in taxpayer…

The New Republic has kept up a steady drum beat against President Obama's disgrace of an envoy to Sudan, General Scott Gration. Gration has embarrassed himself and the United States repeatedly with statements on the situation in Darfur that range from the delusional to the merely naive. Now the…

A major national ad campaign is set to launch tomorrow tying the Obama administration's failure to provide the flu vaccine on time and in quantity to fears of a government takeover of healthcare. The American Future Fund has produced and plans to put significant money behind the ad that is set to…

The amendment was introduced a month ago and is expected to come to the floor today. The text of the amendment reads, Purpose: To prohibit the use of funds for the prosecution in Article III courts of the United States of individuals involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As a…

Europe rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that they provide and then questions the manner in which they provide it. "Iran's decision to expand mining and milling at Bandar Abbas seems to validate the suspicions of those who think it was the main uranium site for a covert…

A source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the hold has been lifted on Tara O'Toole's nomination to serve as Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. The nomination could move on the floor as early as tonight, I'm told. Background on O'Toole,…

It's like Battered Wives Syndrome, except President Obama is the bride with the black eye and Ayatollah Khameini is the abusive husband. And Obama keeps coming back for more. Yesterday the Supreme Leader publicly ridiculed Obama's repeated diplomatic overtures, saying that talks with the United…

From the Los Angeles Times: Democrats score congressional victories in California, New York The GOP fares better in Virginia and New Jersey as both states elect Republican governors.

Almost everybody. Only three Republicans voted against the resolution, introduced by Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Howard Berman (D-CA). One of them, of course, was Ron Paul. But there were 33 members of the Democratic caucus who voted against the resolution condemning the anti-Israel, UN…

New Jersey and Virginia Follow Historical Trend, Democrat Captures NY 23 for First Time in More Than 100 Years after GOP Civil War Erupts Between Moderates and Conservatives That's the headline on the statement from current Virginia governor and DNC chief Tim Kaine. It will also be the narrative…

The final tally on the House resolution condemning the report by Judge Richard Goldstone alleging war crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza is a lopsided 344 to 36 -- as it should be. Normally nothing much would be made of these numbers, but this vote, coming so quickly on the heels of J Street's…