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TOULOUSE, France (AP) - Three explosions were heard near an apartment building in southwest France where a suspected gunman who boasted of shooting seven victims in an al-Qaida-linked terror spree is holed up. Orange flashes lit up the night sky with each blast near the Toulouse apartment building where police have been surrounding 24-year-old suspect, Mohamed Merah, since a pre-dawn effort to arrest him went awry.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has launched "unsubstantiated" investigations into Energy Department projects on scant evidence, according to a senior Democrat. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) made the charge in a letter sent Monday to Issa, who as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has launched 11 different probes into Energy Department projects, including the $535 million loan guarantee to failed California solar firm Solyndra. “Although I fully support aggressive oversight to ensure that government programs work effectively and efficiently, I believe the committee should refrain from making accusations without evidence to support

The largest Muslim civil liberties group in the United States on Wednesday condemned Newt Gingrich for saying he would only hire Muslims to his administration if they renounced the use of Islam's Shariah law as a tool for U.S. government. Calling Gingrich "one of the nation's worst promoters of anti-Muslim bigotry," the Council of American Islamic Relations suggested the Republican presidential candidate is a segregationist.

Not only does he blast Romney and Paul, but he goes after Ann Coulter and others for trying to destroy these other candidates in favor of their candidate. And he defends Santorum, Newt, and Perry against these attacks, but even more so he talks about the kind of candidate we want as president which is more important that the cherry picking of someone’s record that’s going on right now. This is an excellent monologue as Levin holds nothing back, replete with passion and much yelling of the truth. Just how I like it:

Earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio made an auspicious debut. Unlike so many first turns in the upper chamber, Rubio’s stirring remarks, which celebrated American exceptionalism, caught fire. The Florida Republican’s words were cited by Senate colleagues and championed by conservatives. To no one’s surprise, the push to put Rubio on the 2012 ticket only increased, even though the charismatic freshman continues to swat away the chatter. Look for the Rubio buzz to continue. In an interview with National Review Online, he says that he will take to the Senate floor for his second speech this week — and this...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) spent 31 years in manufacturing before his election to Congress last November. He’s not letting that experience go to waste. Johnson is out with a new video this morning to coincide with President Obama’s visit to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to promote manufacturing. He criticizes Obama’s recent comments blaming inventions like the ATM for unemployment. “This is a depressing display of economic ignorance,” Johnson says. He adds: “Technological innovations create jobs. They drive our economy forward, by helping workers be more productive. That raises everyone’s living standards.” Johnson recounts a story of Milton Friedman’s visit...

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – The White House on Thursday accused its Republican foes of risking a global recession by saying they will not agree to raise the US debt ceiling unless paired with deep spending cuts. Spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama hoped to reach a compromise reining in galloping US deficits and national debt "in the same timeframe" as a congressional vote lifting the limit on Washington's ability to borrow. But "you cannot hold one hostage to the other," he told reporters aboard President Barack Obama's official Air Force One airplane. If talks collapse, "you can't say 'well,...

LONDON () – Sweeping regulation introduced by the US to prevent future financial crises could create major "market distortions" ex-Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan wrote in Wednesday's Financial Times. The former bank chief slammed the Dodd-Frank act, which imposes wide-ranging and strict new checks on financial institutions, for failing to "capture the degree of global interconnectedness." "The act may create the largest regulatory-induced market distortion since America's ill-fated imposition of wage and price controls in 1971," warned Greenspan, who was Fed boss from 1987 to 2006. The economist has been widely accused of having encouraged the recent US housing bubble...

Yesterday it was the Arab League... today it is the country which arguably has the biggest oil reserves in the world - Russia. And they both are very pissed at what is increasingly seen by the word as an unholy oil crusade, headed by Sarkozy, but with the US and UK not far behind. Per Reuters, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday likened the U.N. Security Council resolution supporting military action in Libya to medieval calls for crusades. Well, when your gasoline is $9/gallon a crusade surely sounds like the politically responsible thing to do. Especially if in the...

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., drew prolonged, loud cheers and laughs in her speech Saturday night to a Republican dinner as she praised Rep. Denny Rehberg and tore into Democratic President Barack Obama and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Bachmann, a leading speaker on the Republican banquet circuit and founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, said the federal debt was “a heart-palpitating $8 trillion” when Pelosi, a California Democrat, became speaker of the House. It grew to $14 trillion in four years. “There was a reason why we had to take the House of Representatives back,” she said of...

Sarah Palin says the U.S. government’s inability to stop the latest WikiLeaks release is all President Barack Obama’s fault. Sunday’s document dump of classified State Department cables is the result of the “Obama administration’s incompetent handling of this whole fiasco,” Palin wrote in a Monday afternoon Facebook post, and could have been precluded with more aggressive action by administration officials to protect private documents.

Remember all that gladhanding about the success of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) earlier this month? Neil Barofsky, TARP’s special inspector general, puts the kabosh on that in his report released today. Just read this: “When Treasury refuses for more than a year to require TARP recipients to account for the use of TARP funds, or claims that Capital Purchase Program participants were “healthy, viable” institutions knowing full well that some are not, or when it provides hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP assistance to institutions, and then relies on those same institutions to self-report any violations of

The chairman of a national leadership network of black conservatives Friday took the Rev. Al Sharpton to task over his criticism of Glenn Beck’s "Restoring Honor" rally, held Saturday, on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Mychal Massie, chairman of Project 21, chellenged Sharpton to a debate over whether race is more important than “the equality of all men under the Constitution and under God.” “The Constitution, and I’ve read the Constitution, permits for Glenn Beck to hold a rally. He is not in any way taking advantage

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Bush administration's "misguided" policies are to blame for huge U.S. budget deficits, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner charged on Wednesday as he sought to build an election-year case for ending tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. With congressional elections looming in November, Geithner sought to regain the high ground on the issue of who bears responsibility for record budget gaps and to counter Republican labeling of Democrats as tax-and-spend, bailout-happy liberals. Geithner said extending the Bush-era tax cuts for top income earners, as Republicans want, would force more borrowing to cover lost revenues and crimp more-effective remedies...

If you don’t mind watching a train wreck, then please take a few minutes and check out the latest celebrity rant. Lady Gaga tends to always use her stage as her soapbox. This time is no different but at her latest stop in Arizona she is now lamblasting the state for their illegal immigration laws by saying (among many other things), “We have to be active. We have to protest. . . . I will yell and I will scream louder…I will hold you, and we will hold each other, and we will peaceably protest this state.” Caution: some bad...

The Democratic chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee lambasted the Obama administration over its handling of an incident at a St. Louis VA center in which more than 1,800 veterans were told they may have been exposed to HIV. “It's outrageous, one, that this happens, but even worse is this secretive, almost cover-up mode that they go into when something like this happens,” Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.) said on CNN Monday. The Department of Veterans Affairs last month sent a letter to 1,812 patients informing them that could have been exposed to HIV and other deadly viruses because of...

The first man to walk on the moon blasted President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel NASA’s back-to-the-moon program on Tuesday, saying that the move is “devastating” to America’s space effort. Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong’s open letter was also signed by Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon; and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who is marking the 40th anniversary of his famous lunar non-landing this week.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) on Friday said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has gone too far to placate environmental groups when it comes to oil and gas drilling policy. Salazar last week said Interior is expanding environmental reviews and increasing public input before leasing federal lands to energy companies. Freudenthal penned a detailed letter to Salazar Friday criticizing the changes, alleging that policymakers in Washington “go from pillar to post to placate what is perceived as a key constituency.”

Somebody is not paying attention or including CNN in their Communist take over.... I do not watch CNN in fears of doubling their ratings, but I guess this is worth the 1.3 minutes of your time..

The state Treasurer's Office came down hard this afternoon on a prediction from California Lutheran University economists that the state could default on some of its debt, calling the warning "balderdash" that is "nothing more than irresponsible fear-mongering with no basis in reality, only roots in ignorance."

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted big oil trade groups Tuesday, accusing them of barring the way to a balanced US energy system that would create thousands of jobs. The oil and gas leasing program put in place by President Barack Obama's administration is "robust" and "focuses on development in the right way, in the right places and with a fair return to the American taxpayer," Salazar said as he announced plans to auction 38 oil and gas leases next year.

ays after the ADL pandered to its liberal adherents with a report that attempted in part to link mainstream conservative critics of the Obama administration with extremists, the venerable watchdog group tilted in the other direction with a blast aimed at J Street, the leftist lobby that seeks to undermine the pro-Israel consensus in Washington. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, ADL national director Abe Foxman called up the wire service last night to condemn J Street for its attack on Sarah Palin’s recent statement opposing Obama’s stand on Jewish settlements. JTA’s Capital J blog said Foxman termed J Street’s...

Muslim-American interns who have served in Congress should be respected, and not subject to questions about their patriotism, House Judciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said Thursday. Responding to allegations from Republican lawmakers that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sought to plant Muslim "spies" in the Capitol, Conyers issued a scathing statement on his colleagues' accusations. "It shouldn't need to be said in 2009, and after the historic election of our first African-American president, but let me remind all my colleagues that patriotic Americans of all races, religions, and beliefs have the right - and the responsibility - to...

President Barack Obama's plans for a televised back-to-school address to students next week are drawing fire from some conservatives, who say he's just trying to indoctrinate them to his political beliefs. In the Sept. 8 speech, Obama will challenge students to work hard, set goals for their education and take responsibility for their learning, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a letter to principals. The Education Department is encouraging teachers to create lesson plans around the speech, using materials provided on the department website, that urge students to learn about Obama and other presidents.

The chief of the hospitals hardest hit by swine flu accused the state Health Department Monday of failing miserably to help prepare for the return of the virus . . . "The swine flu is our own Hurricane Katrina and we're getting no help whatsoever," said David Rosen, head of the MediSys Health Network, which runs Jamaica, Flushing and Peninsula hospitals in Queens and Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn . . .

TRIPOLI (AFP) – Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi blasted Israel at a special African Union summit on Monday on the eve of celebrations to mark his 40-year rule, accusing the Jewish state of causing all the woes facing Africa. Israel is "behind all of Africa's conflicts," Kadhafi told some 30 African leaders gathered under a huge tent at Tripoli airport for a summit focused on solving the continent's trouble spots, including Sudan's Darfur and Somalia. However the one-day meeting ended without proposing concrete steps to do so, the leaders merely adopting a "Tripoli Declaration" and a plan of action "to find...

The United States has harshly criticized new Israeli restrictions placed on foreign nationals entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, calling the new regulations 'unacceptable'. A report on the restrictions appeared in Haaretz last week. Earlier this week, a senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv met with the head of the Foreign Ministry's consular division, Yigal Tzarfati, for clarifications on the new procedure, by which passports are stamped at the bridge with a directive limiting the bearer to areas of the Palestinian Authority only

OSLO (Reuters) – Norway's ambassador to the United Nations has accused Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of weak, ineffective and at times counterproductive leadership during recent crises, the daily Aftenposten reported on Wednesday. Aftenposten published what it said was a letter from Ambassador Mona Juul to Norway's Foreign Ministry, where she said Ban was late in handling challenges and that his abrasive style irked even seasoned diplomats. "At a time when the need for the United Nations and for multilateral solutions to global crises is greater than ever, Ban and the United Nations are conspicuous in their absence," Aftenposten quoted the letter...

EIU chief Andrew Stern's backing of a divorce for UNITE HERE, and his offer to merge with that union, has provoked off-record grumbling on the HERE side of the divided union. Today, it brought an an on-record shot from a division of the AFL-CIO, which SEIU and UNITE HERE left to form Change to Win. "A guiding principle of American trade unionism is and always has been that one union or federation of unions must not interfere in the democratic processes of another union or federation," said Building and Construction Trades Department President Mark Ayers in his memo. "The fact...

FEDERAL COURT – A 57-year-old woman who is one of three people charged in the spring bombings of the federal courthouse and a FedEx building in San Diego pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday. Ella Louise Sanders admitted to one charge of possession and use of a destructive device to commit a crime of violence. The charge carries a minimum sentence of 30 years in prison. Sanders joined co-defendant Eric Robinson, who pleaded guilty to the same charge in September. His plea was formally accepted by Judge Margaret McKeown at the same hearing where Sanders pleaded guilty. A third defendant,...

BEIJING (AFP) - At least two people died early Sunday in a series of explosions in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, state media said, in an attack that eyewitnesses said was followed by gunfire. The report did not say who was responsible for the blasts which came little more than a day after the start of the Olympics in Beijing. Uighur separatists in Xinjiang have in video statements threatened to attack the sporting event and Chinese authorities have also warned that "terrorists" from home and abroad pose a massive threat to the Games. The blasts on Sunday occurred between...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - A former "Dateline NBC" correspondent claims that in the aftermath of September 11, the network diverted him from reporting on al Qaeda and instead wanted him to ride along with the country's "forgotten heroes," firefighters. John Hockenberry, who was laid off from "Dateline" in early 2005, wrote in this month's Technology Review that on the Sunday after the September 2001 attacks he was pitching stories on the origins of al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism. He claimed that then-NBC programming chief Jeff Zucker, who came into a meeting Hockenberry was having with "Dateline" executive producer David...

The man in his own words on Syrian TV.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - A powerful bomb ripped through a bus carrying employees from the armed forces, while a device tied to a motorcycle went off in a commercial district near Pakistan's capital Tuesday, authorities and local media said. At least 15 people were killed in the blasts. The first bomb exploded on a bus traveling through Rawalpindi, a garrison city about seven miles southwest of Islamabad, killing at least 10 people, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said. In addition to the dead, several people were injured.

MOSCOW - Former President Mikhail Gorbachev said Friday that the fall of the Soviet Union, which he helped bring about, ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism responsible for many of the world's gravest problems. Gorbachev is lauded in the West for ushering in democratic reforms but widely despised in Russia for paving the way to the economic free-for-all of the 1990s, which brought fabulous wealth for a well-connected few while plunging much of the country into humiliating poverty. He has since became a supporter of President Vladimir Putin's assertive foreign policy and resistance to American power — calling occasional...

A court in India has sentenced three more people to death for their involvement in a series of bomb attacks in Mumbai (Bombay) in 1993. Their sentencing means that six people have so far been condemned to death for the crime, which killed 257 people. A total of 100 people were convicted in the case. The blasts were allegedly organised by the Muslim-dominated underworld in the city. It is believed they were in revenge for earlier Hindu-Muslim religious clashes. Explosive-laden scooter "The court gave the death penalty to three people who planted bombs and were involved in the main conspiracy,"...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces fired a series of "warning blasts" before dawn near Islamabad's radical Red Mosque on Thursday, stepping up pressure on hundreds of militant students inside to surrender, a security official said. There were about eight explosions at intervals of several minutes, witnesses said. Some gunfire also erupted but both the blasts and gunfire stopped after about 20 minutes. "They were warning blasts. We have not yet entered the mosque," said the official, who declined to be identified. The blasts were followed by an announcement from security force loudspeakers outside the Lal Masjid calling on students...

DUBLIN, Ireland - Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal." Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be...

On his program last night Fox News host Bill O'Reilly blasted his cable competitors for their "delight in showing Iraqi violence," a product of an editorial mindset at CNN and MSNBC that "want[s] Americans to think badly of President Bush." "And that strategy has succeeded," he added. O'Reilly's words came in response to remarks made by CNN president Jon Klein who accused FNC of dialing back Iraq coverage as violence in Iraq has increased. "It illustrates the danger of cheerleading for one particular point or another because they were obviously cheerleaders for the war," He told the AP. "When the...

HOT SPRINGS, Ark.- A woman in Hot Springs has been arrested after she allegedly exchanged blasts of pepper spray with two police officers. Police said Lawanda Diane Clay, 38, produced a can of pepper spray when two officers were investigating a disturbance complaint Sunday. Clay refused to drop the can, and Cpl. Carl Holland used his own pepper spray on her, police said. Clay responded by allegedly spraying Holland and then the other officer, Patrick Langley, police said. Holland hit Clay twice in the leg with his night stick and she dropped the spray and was handcuffed.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US generals came under fire Friday in a stinging critique by a mid-level officer and combat veteran who charged that as a whole they repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling said the generals failed to prepare the military for counter-insurgency warfare, kept silent when the country went to war with too few troops, and botched the post-invasion occupation. "In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war," Yingling wrote in an essay published in the...

CAIRO — American Jewish investment baron George Soros launched a blistering criticism against the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its role in shaping American foreign policy, accusing it of stifling criticism of Israel. "While the other architects of the Bush administration's failed policies have been relentlessly exposed, AIPAC continues to be surrounded by a wall of silence," he wrote in a 3577-word article in the current issue of the prestigious New York Review of Books magazine.

NEW ORLEANS - A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming. "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech. A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments. Gray,...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4, 2007 – Seven car bombs, including one suspected suicide car bomb, detonated in various parts of Kirkuk this morning, killing three people and injuring 22 others, Multinational Forces Iraq officials reported. The attacks occurred as the investigation continues into a truck bombing yesterday in central Baghdad that left 105 Iraqis dead and 251 injured. In Kirkuk today, Iraqi police and emergency response teams, along with coalition soldiers, responded to the blasts, treating the casualties and assessing the damage at each site. ”Were fortunate in the low number of casualties but also in the reaction by the...

WASHINGTON - The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee sought to weaken support for a resolution opposing President Bush's Iraq war strategy, saying Sunday that supporters are intellectually dishonest. Arizona Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), a 2008 presidential candidate, contended the bipartisan nonbinding resolution amounted to a demoralizing "vote of no confidence" in the U.S. military because it criticized Bush's plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq without offering concrete alternatives. "I don't think it's appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don't want to fund it and you don't want...

NEW DELHI: Indian police said on Sunday they had arrested two militants armed with explosives at a railway station in New Delhi. The two were initially detained on suspicion that they were members of the pro-Pakistan militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for many attacks in India, including train bombings in the financial capital Mumbai in July, senior Delhi police official Karnal Singh said. "We received a tip-off that the two men would be coming by train from Jammu (the winter capital of Indian Kashmir)," Singh said. "We detained them and during interrogation they admitted to being members of the Lashkar, and...

Last year, an ambitious Yogita, as she pursued her undergraduate studies, was dreaming of becoming a teacher. A toiler by nature, she was all set to begin a new phase of her life. But nine days before she was to join a private school as a teacher, tragedy struck. The 20-year-old became one of the many victims of the October 29, 2005 Sarojini Nagar blast. While she managed to survive the attack, she lost the strength in her legs to walk. Three operations later, there is still a glimmer of hope as doctors assure that she would eventually grow strong...

The Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor said Wednesday his Republican rival is out of sync with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's many laudable achievements — perhaps not what Democratic gubernatorial nominee Phil Angelides ached to hear. Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi's news release noted state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, voted against the landmark greenhouse-gas emissions reduction bill Schwarzenegger signed into law Wednesday. McClintock also opposed the minimum-wage increase Schwarzenegger signed Sept. 12, the Million Solar Roofs legislation Schwarzenegger signed Aug. 21, and the Los Angeles Unified School District's handover to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed Sept. 18, Garamendi noted. And McClintock also has...

Bill Clinton Blasts Bush in Britain Former U.S. President Bill Clinton waded into the debate on the future of Britain's ruling Labour Party on Wednesday, warning that its achievements could be swept away if it lost the next election. "I think your biggest problem right now is that people take your achievements and your ideas for the future for granted," Clinton told the Labour Party's annual conference. Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close friend of Clinton, gave an emotional farewell speech to the conference on Tuesday after announcing he would leave office within a year. The party, in power for...

HAVANA - North Korea's No. 2 leader blamed the lack of world peace on the United States Saturday at the Nonaligned Summit, saying that because of its failure to respect the sovereignty of other nations, "the international order is destroyed." Parliament leader Kim Yong Nam said desires for peace by the 118 countries in the Nonaligned Movement were "confronted with grave challenges owing to the high-handed acts and unilateralism of the superpower, which denies countries and nations the independent choice of development." The resulting imbalance in global politics constitutes "grave threats to world peace and security," he said. It was...