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At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artefacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era. "They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. "We lost all...

HANCEVILLE, Alabama, February 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lawyers for the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) say that the broadcasting network has taken the Obama administration to court over a mandate forcing Catholic employers to pay for birth control, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that it had filed suit Thursday morning on behalf of EWTN, considered the largest religious media network in the world. “The federal government cannot force people to violate their religion like this,” said Mark Rienzi, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund and a constitutional law professor at the Catholic University of...

President Barack Obama will join top Pentagon commanders to unveil a new "more realistic" vision for the military, including cuts to ground force numbers as a result of budget strains, officials familiar with the plans said on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will hold a news conference fleshing out the contents of the strategic review of U.S. security interests after Obama's brief remarks on Thursday at the Pentagon, the officials said. They said the review would emphasize military investment in Asia as well as air and maritime power, while...

It’s an Obama world. While we were preoccupied with other disastrous Obama policies, military bureaucrats under Barack Obama passed a new rule that barred loved ones from bringing Bibles to wounded soldiers. The US Military says they are rescinding the order but only after a Republican lawmaker denounced the policy on the House floor. Todd Starnes reported: Walter Reed National Military Medical Center said they are rescinding a policy that prohibits family members of wounded military troops from bringing Bibles or any religious reading materials to their loved ones. The decision to rescind the ban on Bibles came exactly one...

In my opinion this is a complete slap in the face to all veterans that have worn the uniform and died in it, the Obama Administration has labeled the Fort Hood Massacre as "work place violence" and how the he-- could this have been work place violence, when the attacker knew exact the people he was going after and why?

Scarborough, Maine -- [...] In recent years, many top-selling brands - including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics - have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group - and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the U.S. commercial gun industry today. Never heard of it? You're not alone. Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy...

December 1, 2011 11:19am 331 Comments Obama: My kids will succeed, even if USA doesn't byJoel Gehrke Commentary Staff Writer Follow on Twitter:Follow @jsgehrkejr President Obama believes that Republican leadership of the country would ruin the United States as a land of opportunity, but he's (justifiably) confident that his daughters will have plenty of opportunities, no matter what. "Our kids are going to be fine," Obama told supporters at a campaign event last night. "And I always tell Malia and Sasha, look, you guys, I don't worry about you . . . they’re on a path that is going to...

Donald Trump doesn't simply believe that President Barack Obama was not born in this country - he thinks Obama will start a war to win reelection. Trump posted this ridiculous and baseless tweet a few minutes ago: In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.

President Obama's slow ride down Gallup's daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history. Since March, Obama's job approval rating has hovered above Carter's, considered among the 20th century's worst presidents, but today Obama's punctured Carter's dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama's job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter's 51 percent.

In case you missed it yesterday, Gallup released its weekly tab on the nation’s approval of Barack Obama. The report wasn’t good news for the president, whose rating still sits at a low 43 percent. The picture looks even bleaker for The One when you draw the details of the poll nearer. The Washington Examiner’s Conn Carroll today calls attention to a nugget buried deep in the report: Obama’s approval rating has decreased among all six partisan/ideology groups Gallup tracks on a regular basis since January, but it has dropped the most — 10 percentage points, from 40 percent to...

From Mark's website - Also, Mark gets an excellent call from a neurosurgeon who gives an inside look on what exactly Obamacare will do. For example, instead of patients, some people over a certain age will be considered, "units," as they try to dehumanize patients and the care they receive.

Labor Department Allows Ex-Solyndra Workers to Apply for Federal Aid Published November 22, 2011 | FoxNews.com Hundreds of workers who were laid off by the bankrupt solar firm that received $528 million in taxpayer support are eligible for additional federal aid, the Labor Department has ruled. The potential benefits for laid-off Solyndra workers would fall under a program known as "trade adjustment assistance." The taxpayer-backed benefits are supposed to help workers who lost their jobs presumably because production was shifted overseas. In a Nov. 18 decision, the Labor Department ruled that former Solyndra employees meet the criteria. Echoing an argument...

A federal judge sentenced Tony Rezko to 10 1/2 years in prison Tuesday, describing his actions under Rod Blagojevich’s tenure as “selfish and corrupt.” Rezko has already served about 44 months. His daughter burst into tears at hearing the sentence. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she found it offensive that Rezko put at risk the Teachers’ Retirement System by scheming for kickbacks with a board member in 2004. “You put their retirements at risk for your own greed and your own thirst for power,” St. Eve said. A pale, thin Rezko gave a brief statement before he learned...

First Lady Michelle Obama was booed in Florida today as she made the traditional "Gentlemen, start your engines!" call at the final NASCAR race of the season.

According to President Obama, his “religious faith” is what helps him continue to believe that Republican lawmakers will eventually raise taxes on wealthy Americans, who, Obama was sure to point out again, need to “pay their fair share.” Speaking to Reverend Al Sharpton following the Super Committee’s monumental failure Monday, the president stated his disappointment in Republicans for being “short-sighted” in not offering any serious revenues. “So the position they’re taking is short-sighted, but it must be my religious fait, reverend, cause hope springs eternal…”

SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AP) -- Air Force officials say an airman armed with a pistol has barricaded himself in a building at a Colorado Air Force base that controls all GPS satellites, but operations haven't been disrupted. Schriever (SHREE'-ver) Air Force Base spokeswoman Jennifer Thibault (THEE'-balt) says the building was evacuated after the standoff began Monday. She says no shots were fired and no one was injured.

A hearing is scheduled in front of the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission on Friday to hear a complaint filed by Orly Taitz, with the apparent support of two state lawmakers, that raises allegations of fraudulent documents and fraudulent Social Security Number use on the part of Barack Obama. The hearing is scheduled Friday at 2 p.m. in Room 307 of the New Hampshire Legislative Office Building and Taitz is encouraging the public to be present. The state holds the first primary for presidential elections, and that is scheduled for Jan. 10, 2012.

Using a pseudonym on Facebook or fibbing about your age on a dating site could be illegal if the U.S. Department of Justice has its way. The DOJ is going to Congress today to argue that Web sites' terms of service policies should be enforceable by law, according to CNet. For that purpose, the department seeks an expansion of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 25-year-old law that mainly deals with hacking, password trafficking, and threatening to damage a computer. By outlawing terms of service violations, the department would have an easier time prosecuting cyberbullies such as Lori Drew,...

Even if ObamaCare survives Supreme Court scrutiny next spring, its trials will be far from over. That's because the law has a major glitch that threatens its basic functioning. It's so problematic, in fact, that the Obama administration is now brazenly trying to rewrite the law without involving Congress. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act offers "premium assistance"—tax credits and subsidies—to households purchasing coverage through new health-insurance exchanges. This assistance was designed to hide a portion of the law's cost to individuals by reducing the premium hikes that individuals will face after ObamaCare goes into effect in 2014. (If...

Former liberal activist/turned tea party conservative Brandon Darby and Sheriff Joe Arpaio were featured speakers at the Choose Liberty 2012 event sponsored by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party. As Sheriff Arpaio took the podium, Darby called security over to point out Occupy Orlando activists were in the audience of the private event preparing to cause a disruption. When the activists tried to interfere with Arpaio's right to speak and the tea party's right to peaceably assemble, Darby and Chad Biddinger of Libertylink.com escorted the trespassers out in an emphatic way. Video at link.

SALT LAKE CITY — Hours after a man was found dead inside a tent at Pioneer Park, Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank announced Friday he could no longer allow camping in the park or anywhere in the city. "We can no longer have individuals camping on our streets," Burbank said. "We as a city just cannot tolerate this going on." Burbank asked members of the Occupy Salt Lake protest group to start packing immediately and to be out of the park by sunset Saturday. The ban on camping overnight also includes the Gallivan Center, where a group was recently...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Rick Perry. Let's do this. Let's go back October 20th on this show, and I said this. Number three, audio sound bite number three. Go back in order. RUSH ARCHIVE: Rick Perry -- and I mean this in a complimentary way. People are gonna find this not strange or not hard to believe, but you might be confused by this. Rick Perry makes me laugh. But not at him. I laugh with the guy. RUSH: I gotta tell you: Rick Perry, to me, is funny. During the debate when he decided to go after Mitt Romney for...

Sheriff Joe threatened for probing eligibility Says intimidation comes from drug lords, Obama fans: 'I'm not sure which are worse' Amid death threats, Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio is scratching his head over the major media's virtual silence about his decision to investigate Barack Obama's eligibility to run for re-election. "Getting death threats is nothing new for me," Arpaio told WND, referring to his national reputation as a tough enforcer of immigration laws. "But why has the media has decided to black out all news of our Obama investigation? That's what I don't understand. "I'm a controversial guy and...

Amid death threats, Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio is scratching his head over the major media's virtual silence about his decision to investigate Barack Obama's eligibility to run for re-election. "Getting death threats is nothing new for me," Arpaio told WND, referring to his national reputation as a tough enforcer of immigration laws. "But why has the media has decided to black out all news of our Obama investigation? That's what I don't understand. "I'm a controversial guy and usually the media is all over me," he continued, "but when I decided to investigate Obama, the media has suddenly...

Obama administration proposes 15 cent Christmas tree tax By Alicia M. Cohn - 11/09/11 09:17 AM ET The Obama administration is proposing a new tax on Christmas trees to fund a board promoting the holiday trees. The Christmas Tree Promotion Board would be funded by a new 15 cent per tree tax on large-scale producers of Christmas trees. A group of Christmas tree producers and importers worried about the skyrocketing use of artificial trees proposed the new board. Under the proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the board would seek to revitalize the marketing and image of fresh-cut Christmas...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy branded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a liar" in a private conversation with President Barack Obama that was accidentally broadcast to journalists during last week's G20 summit in Cannes. "I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation. "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama replied, according to the French interpreter. The technical gaffe is likely to cause great...

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: "I cannot stand him. He is a liar." According to the report, Obama replied: "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!" The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders' microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public. The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press,...

(Visiting DC)The Obama Administration announced its objection to including President Roosevelt’s prayer on the World War II Memorial in Washington DC. The Obama White House said the prayer would dilute the message of the memorial.Todd Starnes reported: Republican lawmakers and conservative activists are expressing outrage after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.The objection was noted during a congressional hearing on Rep. Bill Johnson’s (R-OH) bill – the “World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011.”“It is unconscionable that the Obama administration would stand...

WASHINGTON - The United States would be "satisfied" if fair parliamentary elections in Egypt produced a Muslim Brotherhood victory, President Barack Obama's pointman for democratic transitions in the Middle East said Friday. "I think the answer is yes, I think we will be satisfied, if it is a free and fair election," the newly appointed special co-ordinator for Middle East transitions, William Taylor, said when asked about what the U.S. reaction would be if the Islamist party comes out ahead in elections starting this month. "What we need to do is judge people and parties and movements on what they...

President OBAMA’s shadowy past could doom his future, The ENQUIRER has learned. A blockbuster new book rips the lid off President Barack Obama’s darkest se­crets – and could doom his bid to win a second term in the White House! The explosive tell-all by take-no-prisoners blogger Mondo Frazier reveals the command­er in chief is a “chain-smok­ing wreck” who could be hooked on prescrip­tion drugs, and claims he may have spied for the CIA in col­lege. “I’ve uncovered that Presi­dent Obama has spent over $2 million in legal fees to keep the details of his past hidden,” Frazier told The ENQUIRER....

<p>Herman Cain's campaign is revealing suspicions about who is behind the story regarding the former unidentified employees who accused Mr. Cain of sexual harassment in the late 1990's.</p>

<p>A new report claims that Republican presidential contender Herman Cain voted for Democrat Bill Clinton for president in his first run, as well as for two Nebraska Democratic candidates in the past.</p> <p>In a story on the Nebraska Watchdog website, Joe Jordan writes that Mr. Cain supported Mr.Clinton during his 1992 presidential bid, 17 months before he squared off with Mr. Clinton over his push to overhaul the national health care system.</p>

New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal, better known as James Taranto’s punching bag at Opinion Journal, has a new blog at nytimes.com, “The Loyal Opposition.” On Tuesday Rosenthal posted the provocatively titled “Herman Cain and the ‘Liberal Media,’” where he broadcasts his alarm at how “quickly the right wing jumps on an issue almost in unison,” blames Republicans for injecting racial fears into modern-day politics with Willie Horton, and even claiming the phrase "community organizer" is racist when applied to Obama.

ATF Gunwalking docs show Justice Dept. feared bad pressBy Chris SchollAn e-mail exchange among Justice Department officials in 2010 shows some in the Department worried about bad press if reporters knew the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives let guns "walk" into the hands of drug cartels. The e-mail exchange occurred in October 2010, almost four months before the gunwalking scandal broke publicly. DOJ official knew of ATF gunwalking in April 2010 It's included among more than 500 pages of documents released Monday by the Justice Department in response to a Congressional subpoena. The exchange is especially revealing...

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told the Chicago Tribune that if the 2012 election is a “referendum” on President Barack Obama, then Democrats are “in trouble.” In an interview Thursday for the Tribune’s “Chicago Live” series, Durbin was asked about the election. “If it is a referendum, then we’re in trouble because the economy’s not good and people’ll say, ‘well, I just want to make it clear I don’t like the way things are,’” Durbin said.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- NATO says the 13 people killed when a suicide bomber rammed a military convoy in Kabul included five coalition troops and eight civilian contractors. NATO initially reported that all 13 killed were service members. But after further identification, it confirmed that eight were civilians working for the coalition. A U.S. official says all were Americans, but Canadian defense spokesperson Lt. Col. Christian Lemay told The Associated Press that a Canadian soldier was among the troopers killed. Canadian military officials have not yet released the soldier's identity or further details. The Taliban suicide bomber hit an armored...

The hard-right conservatives who dominate the Republican Party claim to despise the redistribution of wealth, but secretly they love it — as long as the process involves depriving the poor and middle class to benefit the rich, not the other way around. That is precisely what has been happening, as a jaw-dropping new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office demonstrates. Three decades of trickle-down economic theory, see-no-evil deregulation and tax-cutting fervor have led to massive redistribution. Another word for what's been happening might be theft. The gist of the CBO study, titled "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income...

SARAJEVO -- An unidentified man on Friday in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, fired shots at the building housing the embassy of the United States. The shooter is seen at a Sarajevo intersection (Tanjug) Initially, local media in Sarajevo said that the shooter was "shot and killed by members of the Bosnian police", but Tanjug news agency is reporting that it received confirmation that the man was lightly injured and arrested. Some local media also claimed that the attacker was accompanied by two other men. A Bosnian police officer was also injured during the incident. Eyewitnesses claimed earlier on Friday that the attacker...

President Barack Obama's grandfather's conscription in the army during World War Two was to change the identity of his entire lineage. A posting to Zanzibar saw him convert to Islam and take the name Hussein, which was passed on to his grandson, as is the Luo custom. Several years down the line, although his grandson, the US president, is not a Muslim, his name has attracted controversy with his detractors demanding that he should denounce the faith to which he does not in any case subscribe. Other, less prominent members of the Obama lineage, go about their business unperturbed in...

Washington ready to negotiate with Mullah Omar Washington is ready to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and now regards his involvement as crucial to the prospects for peace in Afghanistan, Hillary Clinton has said. By Dean Nelson, South Asia Editor 4:24PM BST 28 Oct 2011 Her comments been taken as a significant shift in American policy from moves to divide the Taliban-led insurgency and isolate Mullah Omar, the man who sheltered Osama bin Laden as he plotted the September 11 attacks, to an acknowledgement of his leadership. It follows the disclosure earlier this month that American officials had met...

Yemen's president on Tuesday called in the U.S. ambassador and told him he would sign a deal to step down, a U.S. official said. The embattled leader, who has made that pledge several times before, spoke as violence shook his capital. President Ali Abdullah Saleh informed Ambassador Gerald Feierstein of a new cease-fire, but clashes on the streets threw that into doubt. Activists said seven protesters were killed and 10 wounded. It was the first meeting between Saleh and a U.S. ambassador since Saleh returned from Saudi Arabia last month, said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. Saleh left Yemen...

Testing a re-election theme, President Barack Obama is telling donors during a fundraising rich tour of three western states that the country is suffering from an economic crisis and from a political crisis. "People are crying out for action," he says. Pointing to elements of his $447 billion jobs plan rejected by Republican lawmakers, Obama said they would likely linger as campaign issues in 2012. "This is the fight that we're going to have right now, and I suspect this is the fight that we're going to have to have over the next year," Obama told about 240 donors at...

A strong earthquake collapsed homes and buildings in eastern Turkey Sunday morning. Casualty report to come. The mid-day earthquake was recorded at 7.3 on the Richter scale, according to a Greek news agency, and 6.6 by the Associated Press.

In late September 2009, ATF Phoenix Group VII supervisor Hope MacAllister walked into the Lone Wolf Trading Company. She had a message for the owner Andre Howard, according to sources familiar with the investigation into Fast & Furious in both DC and Arizona, and the message was this: "The amount of weapons you sell is about to dramatically increase." Howard, the sources say, was cautioned that "he might not have enough stock" to supply the straw buyers that MacAllister somehow knew were on the way and that "he should stock up on what they wanted." MacAllister seemed to know "exactly...

Last night, the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected a portion of the President’s so-called jobs plan, which would have been a mini-“stimulus” program designed to save local public employee jobs. The bill was overwhelming rejected; only gaining 50 votes. The history on local “stimulus” spending is clear: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act established the State Stabilization Fund, a $50 billion slush fund for state and local educators. Projects funded from the program ranged from providing for inflated health care costs to funding water park field trips to buying iPods and iPads for elementary school classes. As a result, 1.6 million teaching...

Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive. “I recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security,” Cole told a panel at the George Washington University law school. The move comes after complaints from advocacy organizations including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and others identified...

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Occupy LA movement grew by the thousands Wednesday as unionized workers, caregivers and their patients joined the call for an end to corporate greed and Congress to put Americans back to work. The demonstrators held large signs, chanted loudly and blew whistles as they marched through the streets of downtown Los Angeles to the steps of City Hall. Organized by the Service Employees International Union, the demonstration was in support of President Barack Obama's American Jobs Act....

Co-founder of the Serbian "Otpor" movement activists, the recommended occupation of a "symbolic places" in U.S. . Belgrade. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and overthrow Serbian professionals, according to the movement conservative conspiracy theories "keep Wall Street Busy" (also: "Occupy") have initiated. Actually there was a veteran of the Serbian "Otpor" movement, which had once brought Slobodan Milosevic to fall, the first gave U.S. activists a crucial advice: the occupation of a symbolic places. The Serbian opposition professionals are by no means a revolution Exporters: Most of the seminars offer anyway on Canvas, founder of European and U.S. universities. "We,...

Unions representing around half of Greece's 4 million-strong workforce have called a 48 hour general strike for Wednesday and Thursday to protest against a sweeping package of austerity measures due to be passed in parliament this week. A wave of smaller strikes over recent days by groups ranging from rubbish collectors to tax officials, journalists and seamen has given a foretaste of this week's protest which will culminate in mass demonstrations in front of parliament, the scene of violent clashes in June. The protest, dubbed "the mother of all strikes" by the daily Ta Nea newspaper, is expected to be...