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"The most important men in town would come to fawn on me! They would ask me to advise them, Like a Solomon the Wise. "If you please, Reb Tevye..." "Pardon me, Reb Tevye..." Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes! And it won't make one bit of difference if i answer right or wrong. When you're rich, they think you really know!" C-FAM is reporting that Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a Catholic, is telling governments to dismiss the controversial link between contraception and population control and explicitly rejects Catholic social teaching along...

Forrester Research last week recommended corporate IT departments let workers use Macs on their networks because these employees are more likely to be power users, the ones working longer hours, being more productive and making more money. The folks at Forrester Research    reversed themselves last week with the recommendation that corporate IT departments need to make it easier for workers to use Mac computers and devices. The tech research firm had long told the same IT departments not to bother accommodating devices from Apple Inc.    Why the change of mind? Forrester says it is because the most productive...

Being endorsed by scary, hateful, self-marginalizing extremists isn’t necessarily the kiss of death in American politics. After presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was endorsed by a Louisiana chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in 1980 –an endorsement he quite correctly and forcefully rejected— he prospered and went on to evict Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter from the White House. But it’s different when the endorsee shares the core tenets of the fringe-dwelling endorsers. It really shouldn’t be altogether surprising that Occupy Wall Street is now endorsed by both the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the American Nazi Party. After all, the rhetoric...

This week Apple co-founder Steve Jobs passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. As a household name, people naturally mourned the man most had never met. Like his historical comparison, Thomas Edison, Jobs was a brash provocateur, did little of the hands-on inventing in his shop, enjoyed a non-conventional libation, and he oversaw monumental failures. Jobs's sometimes nemesis, Bill Gates, has many of the same type-A traits, but Microsoft was essentially forbidden to fail, and that is the reason Apple is worth 25% more than Microsoft today. Failure is the common thread among all great innovators. Edison's monumental failure...

Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that his policies were ungrateful towards the US and were isolating Israel on a global level. Gates’ harsh words were said during a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee, Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldber reported Tuesday. Gates believes Netanyahu’s government has offered the Obama administration “nothing in return” for its generous security aid, which includes access to top-quality weapons, assistance in developing missile-defense systems and high-level intelligence sharing. The former defense secretary said that not only is Netanyahu ungrateful, but his polices were “endangering his country by...

Former US defense secretary Robert Gates lashed out Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, calling him an ungrateful ally and blaming him for diplomatically isolating Israel and hurting American interests, according to a Tuesday column. The criticism, which was revealed in a Bloomberg column by Jeffrey Goldberg, apparently peaked after Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama last March, lecturing him on the Israeli security situation with a level of "impudence" that shocked many in the White House, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. Gates felt that while the US had laid out "many steps" to "guarantee Israel's

The opposition is called "son of a bitches" at one Labor rally and "barbarians" at another rally. Here's an angry Joe Biden at the AFL-CIO rally in Cincinnati just a short time ago.

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese search giant Baidu Inc. will use Microsoft's Bing for some English-language results as the software giant tries to expand its small share of China's search market.... ...For this deal, it appears that Microsoft will censor English-language Bing search results in China. Microsoft said in a statement that Bing will use "certain filtering technologies and processes to ensure that we are in compliance with local laws."

Harmony Public Schools, a high-performing charter school network that focuses on math and science, has been the target of activists concerned that its leaders are non-U.S. citizens with ties to Turkey. Led by the Texas Eagle Forum, a conservative pro-family organization, Harmony's critics have issued a flurry of legislative alerts in recent weeks that said the state's $25 billion endowment for "our children's textbooks" was imperiled by "Turkish men, of whom we know very little other than most are not American citizens."

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates prepares to retire to private life — after five years as the head of the Department of Defense in both the Bush and Obama administrations — praise is being heaped on him by Democrats and Republicans alike. Herein a dissenting view. History will not be kind to Gates. Despite some noteworthy accomplishments, he will be remembered as the single most important facilitator of an Iranian regime with nuclear weapons. Future historians will compare him to Neville Chamberlain’s military advisers who opposed all forms of military intervention against the greatest potential danger of the era:...

The Fethullah Gulen movement, which seeks to restore the Ottoman Empire, has found a friend and benefactor in Bill Gates of Microsoft fame. Mr. Gates is ranked the third wealthiest person on planet earth. In 2007, through the Texas High School Project, the Gates Foundation shelled out $10,550,000 to the Cosmos Foundation, a Gulen enterprise that operates 25 publicly funded charter schools in Texas. The Internal Revenue Service Form 990 for Cosmos shows that the Cosmos Foundation received $41,570,721 from taxpayers. At present, there are 85 Gulan madrassahs (Islamic schools) in the United States, and all operate with public funding.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is unlikely to certify repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” before leaving office next week, senior defense and military officials said. Two weeks ago, Gates said that he would finalize the repeal of the 18-year-old ban on openly gay troops if the service chiefs give him their OK before he retires on June 30. And in a message to commanders earlier this month, Army leaders said assessments on the progress and impact of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal training — underway since February — are due this Friday, leaving open a slim possibility that certification...

With little fanfare or controversy, the Senate on Tuesday unanimously confirmed Leon Panetta as the next Defense secretary as a debate rages in Washington over the cost and scope of military operations abroad. Panetta, President Barack Obama’s CIA director, succeeds Robert Gates, who has led the Pentagon since late 2006 and is retiring at the end of the month. Panetta’s confirmation comes just a day before Obama’s major address on the Afghanistan war in which he is expected to announce he’ll withdraw all 33,000 “surge” troops from the region by the end of 2012. In addition to the troop drawdown,...

Hint: It’s not what you think. In his exit interview with Chris Wallace, soon to be former Defense Secretary Bob Gates told Wallace what he worries about the most. And, no it’s not Islamic terrorism. It’s us! Gates bemoaned the loss of bipartisanship in DC as our biggest problem. When asked by Wallace what he worries about as he looks to the future, the Secretary didn’t mention the two new wars that Obama has dragged America into. He didn’t mention the rise of home grown jihadism. Or the war in Afghanistan. Nope, it’s not Pakistani nukes either. Nor is it...

SNIPPET: "There are some good reasons for allowing at least a few jihadi forums to operate." SNIPPET: "However, there are limits to our ability to exploit all the intelligence opportunities a forum may present. To put it another way, jihadi forums contribute to future terrorism in ways that are unpredictable and/or beyond our ability to control. This would be the view held by those other government agencies who prefer to seek out and destroy forums and to take down forum activists. For my part, I can live with keeping online those forums we have sufficient access to monitor and resources...

WASHINGTON—The coming round of Pentagon budget cuts will force lawmakers to consider reducing military pay and benefits, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday, raising an issue that could prove politically sensitive in a time of war In what was billed as Mr. Gates's last major policy speech, the outgoing Pentagon chief said the government would have to "re-examine military compensation," consider altering the retirement system to bring down costs, and address spiraling health-care costs. Trimming Pentagon spending, Mr. Gates said, "will entail going places that have been avoided by politicians in the past."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly criticized NATO nations on Friday for what he said were shortages in military spending and political will, warning of “a dim if not dismal future” for an alliance at risk of becoming irrelevant in a dangerous and uncertain world. Mr. Gates slammed NATO nations for failing to meet their commitments in Afghanistan — or for imposing sweeping restrictions on those forces they do send — which he said hobbled the mission. And despite NATO’s decision to take command of the air war in Libya, the alliance is running out of bombs after just 11...

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says America's military alliance with Europe, which has been the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades, faces a "dim, if not dismal" future. In a blunt valedictory address Friday in Brussels, Gates questioned NATO's viability, saying its members' penny-pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of U.S. support. NATO was formed in 1949 as a U.S.-led bulwark against Soviet aggression, but in the post-Cold War era it has struggled to find a purpose.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates names five alliance members that he says should do more to share the burden of NATO's air campaign against Moammar Kadafi. Only seven nations are carrying out airstrikes. Reporting from Brussels— Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Wednesday urged more NATO allies to join the air campaign against Libya, arguing that it was putting a strain on the seven members of the 28-nation alliance that are carrying the burden in a conflict that shows few signs of ending soon, U.S. officials said. In a sign of the growing strain that the 3-month-old operation is putting...

The U.S. war in Iraq has just been given an unexpected seal of approval. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in what he billed as his “last major policy speech in Washington,” has owned up to the gains in Iraq, to the surprise that Iraq has emerged as “the most advanced Arab democracy in the region.” It was messy, this Iraqi democratic experience, but Iraqis “weren’t in the streets shooting each other, the government wasn’t in the streets shooting its people,” Gates observed. The Americans and the Iraqis had not labored in vain; the upheaval of the Arab Spring has only underlined...

Frank Gaffney at Breitbar's Big Peace, has been following Robert Gates' last days as Obama's Sec'y of Defense. The round of speeches by Gates in the past days has many - including Gaffney - scratching their heads, as he solemnly warns against the "“hollowing out” of the military" in what can only be construed as johnnie come lately criticism for Obama's plan to cut the defense budget by an additional $400 billion by 2023.This would be the same Sec'y of Defense who had his spokesman say he backed the plan just a month ago, but that the specifics of the...

Almost 100 seniors at Concord Academy received their diplomas on Friday after a poignant address by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University. Headmaster Richard Hardy said the diploma “connects you to the past and the future” to sustained applause from the audience of faculty and parents seated under a tent on the verdant campus. “This is your day,” alumna Amy McCarthy of the Board of Trustees told the students. “I am living proof that there is nothing final about today.”

The coming round of Pentagon budget cuts will force lawmakers to consider reducing military pay and benefits, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday, raising an issue that could prove politically sensitive in a time of war, In what was billed as Mr. Gates's last major policy speech, the outgoing Pentagon chief said the government would have to "re-examine military compensation," consider altering the retirement system to bring down costs, and address spiraling health-care costs. Trimming Pentagon spending, Mr. Gates said, "will entail going places that have been avoided by politicians in the past." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says a...

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (May 19, 2011) — Finding $400 billion in additional defense spending reductions over the next 12 years will require careful thought that considers the risks the reductions create, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said here today. In a question-and-answer session with students at the U.S. Army Engineer School here, Gates warned against what he called the “managerial cowardice” of across-the-board cuts, advocating instead an approach that retains excellence in the missions the military keeps while cutting missions and programs that have value but would pose an acceptable level of risk if eliminated ... Gates said “politically...

Speaking at a town hall with Marines at Camp Lejeune on Thursday morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Special Forces who participated in the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden were worried about their safety, and that he was concerned that so many details of the operation had become known to the public. “Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden,” Gates said. “That all fell apart on Monday -- the next day.” Gates’ response was prompted by...

CNN: Gates gave a speech today blasting the fact so many raid and Navy Seal details were released by the government. Gates said this in front of several thousand US Marines.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (NewsCore) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that Obama administration officials had initially agreed no details of the US Navy SEALs' raid on Usama bin Laden's Pakistan hideout would be made public, but that those plans "all fell apart." "Frankly, a week ago Sunday, in the Situation Room, we all agreed that we would not release any operational details from the effort to take out bin Laden," Gates said at a town hall with Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to FOX News Channel. "That all fell apart on Monday -- the next day."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated today that one of the main reasons why President Barack Obama has decided not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden is because he fears that the pictures will be photoshopped and used against the United States. Mr. Gates stated that the President believes that, should the photos be released, they will quickly be "misused" in order to drive anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere. Gates stated: "One of the things that I think concerns Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton and I is the risk not only of the pictures themselves...

Gutsy? Please. A White House insider offers a peek behind the scenes regarding the no-brainer decision to take out bin Laden: President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president. … [T]here had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama. … Every time military and intelligence officials appeared to make...

President Obama is increasingly doubtful that there's a compelling reason to release a photograph of Osama bin Laden's corpse, ABC News has learned. There don't seem to be many skeptics of bin Laden's death in the Muslim world, with bin Laden's wife having survived the attack to identify bin Laden's death both to the Navy SEALs and Pakistani authorities. Meanwhile, sources say, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are advising the president about concerns at the Pentagon and State Department that releasing a photograph could prompt a backlash against the US for killing bin Laden where...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says President Barack Obama has approved the use of armed Predator drone aircraft in Libya. Gates told a Pentagon news conference that the Predator is an example of the unique U.S. military capabilities that Obama is willing to contribute to a coalition military campaign in Libya, while other countries enforce a no-fly zone.

MOSUL, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, visiting Iraq on the eve of the eighth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, said Friday the United States could extend its troop presence in the country beyond the scheduled 2011 pullout. Gates said that if Iraq wants American troops to remain, a deal could be negotiated for the long term or for as little as two or three years.

Leon Panetta is happy as CIA director and has not been asked by President Barack Obama to consider changing jobs, the agency said on Thursday, as speculation swirled over changes in top U.S. security posts. Robert Gates has made clear he plans to step down as defense secretary this year and the military's top officer is expected to retire, prompting speculation about who will move where in Mr Obama's impending reshuffle of military and intelligence chiefs. One scenario being speculated has Mr Panetta – who turns 73 in June – replacing Mr Gates and the director's office on the seventh...

ABC News reports this morning that Defense Secretary Robert Gates met with troops in Baghdad this morning, in part to discuss their concerns over a government shutdown. After joking that the best policy is to make sure the folks with the guns get paid first, Gates then told the men and women on the front lines that they needn’t worry. After studying the issue, Gates says they will get paid if the budget runs out tomorrow … for a week: Speaking to a group of 200 soldiers in Baghdad, Defense Secretary Gates drew Army cheers of “Hooah” from the crowd...

The Obama administration would keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the agreed final withdrawal date of Dec. 31, 2011, if the Iraqi government wanted them, but the Iraqis need to decide "pretty quickly" in order for the Pentagon to accommodate the extension, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday during what he said probably is his final visit to this war-torn country. Whether to negotiate an extended U.S. military presence is up to the Iraqis, he said, adding that he thought an extension might make sense. "We are willing to have a presence beyond (2011), but we've got a lot of...

How much should a college education cost? According to the College Board, the average cost of earning a degree at a private, 4-year university is now more than $100,000. If tuition prices continue to rise as quickly as they did during the past decade, a college degree will cost more than $200,000 by the time today’s third-graders are applying. That price tag is enough to cause most parents to break into a sweat. Is a college degree really worth this cost? Some bright minds think Americans are paying way too much. In fact, Bill Gates--one of the country's most famous...

A while ago, Defense Secretary Robert Gates mentioned that he'll retire in 2011. Well, now it's 2011 already and 2012 isn't that far away. So what's up?

In his testimony on Capitol Hill yesterday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made what amounted to an eloquent, even impassioned case against United States involvement in Libya. He highlighted the weakness of the rebel forces: Calling them an opposition is “a misnomer,” he suggested, describing the rebels as “very disparate, very scattered,” “lacking command and control and lacking organization,” and “pretty much a pickup ballgame at this point.” Their “governance capacity” for a post-Qaddafi Libya, he added, is “limited, if not nonexistent.” He put great stress on America’s pre-existing commitments: “I am preoccupied with avoiding mission creep, avoiding an open-ended,...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Libya's civil conflict wasn't a vital national interest of the United States, even as he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to defend U.S. military action there. "I don't think it's a vital interest of the United States, but we clearly have an interest there," Mr. Gates said in an appearance on the NBC News program, "Meet the Press" as part of a round of appearances on Sunday morning talk shows. He made a similar comment on ABC's "This Week," noting that Libya's turmoil could further destabilize its neighbors Egypt and Tunisia, one of...

The Khan Academy has its roots in a series of educational YouTube videos that founder Sal Khan began making several years ago to tutor his cousin. The videos struck a chord among those who came across them, Sinha said. As the videos became increasingly popular, the organization got a big break last fall, when it received a total of about $3.5 million in grants from Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The nonprofit Advertisement now has a Mountain View office and a half-dozen staff members. It's still attracting attention -- NBC Nightly News recently featured the program and...

"Tapper asked Clinton, “Why not got to Congress?” “Well, we would welcome congressional support,” the Secretary said, “but I don't think that this kind of internationally authorized intervention where we are one of a number of countries participating to enforce a humanitarian mission is the kind of unilateral action that either I or President Obama was speaking of several years ago.”

"The truth of the matter is we have trouble coming up with proof of any civilian casualties that we have been responsible for. But we do have a lot of intelligence reporting about Qadhafi taking the bodies of the people he’s killed and putting them at the sites where we’ve attacked. We have been extremely careful in this military effort, and not just our pilots but the pilots of the other coalition air forces have really done an extraordinary job.” This comment by Gates came on "This Week" as to whether Libya was a vital interest to our country: "It...

President Obama faced mounting pressure Sunday to make crystal clear what the United States' intentions are in Libya, as he prepared to deliver an address to the nation that could go a long way toward determining whether the public views his actions as reckless or just. Despite the planned address, the administration continued to send out mixed signals Sunday about the direction and purpose of the mission in Libya. Obama said Saturday that intervening in Libya was "in our national interest," but then Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the conflict, while of interest to the United States, was "not a...

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S.-led military action in Libya has bolstered rebels fighting Moammar Gadhafi's forces, but the international operation could continue for months, the Obama administration says. NATO's top decision-making body was to meet Sunday to expand its enforcement of the no-fly zone to include air strikes against Libyan ground targets. The military progress follows deep criticism against Obama from lawmakers upset that the administration hadn't sought greater congressional input on Libya. [...] But asked on ABC's "This Week" if that would mean a U.S. military commitment until year's end, Gates said, "I don't think anybody knows the answer to...

How Long Will U.S. Forces be Involved in Libya? White House Says Nobody Knows March 27, 2011 8:41 AM The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for almost ten years, at war in Iraq for almost eight years and at war in Libya for nine days. On “This Week,” ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper asked Secretary of Defense Gates how much longer we might be there. “Some NATO officials say this could be three months, but people in the Pentagon think it could be far longer than that. Do you think we'll be gone by...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday defended the U.S. military’s role in airstrikes against Col. Moammar Gadhafi's forces but said that Libya was not an imminent threat to the United States when the president ordered them. In two separate interviews Gates acknowledged that Libya did not hold “a vital interest” for the U.S., although he emphasized the geopolitical importance of Libya in a region fraught with recent instability. “No I don’t think it’s a vital interest for the United States,” said Gates in a pre-taped interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired on Sunday. “But we clearly have...

The Syrian people should follow Egypt’s lead and the country’s army should “empower a revolution”, Robert Gates, US secretary of defence, said as thousands marched in a southern city. Mr Gates made his comments – some of the toughest remarks to date by a US official about the rule of Bashar al-Assad, president – on a day of further upheaval in the Middle East and beyond. The White House signalled that it was preparing for a change in power in Yemen, where it has been allied with the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, president. Officials also said Nato had neared...

"For history teaches with unmistakable emphasis that appeasement but begets new and bloodier war. It points to no single instance where the end has justified the means--where appeasement has led to more than a sham peace.""Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands, until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative."--Gen. Douglas MacArthurAppeasement:"Like blackmail, it lays the basis for new and successively greater demands, until, as in blackmail, violence becomes the only other alternative".And that is exactly the prefered immoral policy that Bush, now Obama, and the rest of the world, wish to...

The U.S. Secretary of Defense yesterday announced that he's agreed to a plan that will allow one military commander to be in charge of both State National Guard and each military branch's reserve forces when they are deployed to respond to domestic emergencies including terrorist attacks, according to Lisa Daniel of the American Forces Press Service. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, along with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the Council of Governors -- a group President Barack Obama formed in January 2010 to represent all of the states' governors -- signed off on the agreement, known as the Joint Action...

Washington (CNN) -- Trash talk and criticism seems the norm in these days of social networking, talk radio and cable pundits. But now it's spreading to the halls Capitol Hill and the leadership of the Department of Defense. Defense Secretary Robert Gates may have started it when commenting on an idea for establishing a no-fly zone over Libya to protect rebel forces. "There's a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options," Gates told a House committee on Wednesday. "Let's just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy...