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I wrote about it here recently: Israel’s ambassador to Denmark and the head of Copenhagen’s Jewish community have both warned Jews in that city that if they don’t want to be roughed up on the street by anti-Semites, they’d better not wear anything that would identify them as Jews – and, for good measure, they should also lower their voices when speaking Hebrew. The other day, in a supremely depressing article for Israel National News, Giulio Meotti provided a round-up of similar developments from around Europe. For instance: a Jewish theological seminary in Potsdam has asked its rabbis not to...

Still developing

The Washington Post, the same newspaper that falsely smeared border state gun dealerships as cartel suppliers before the Fast and Furious scandal broke, has a new piece out by Ann Marimow fawning over former Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Jason Weinstein, who resigned in September. A high achiever Weinstein came to Washington as a teenager in 1982 to compete in the National Spelling Bee, having won the regional championship in San Antonio. The son of a hospital administrator and a nurse, he was a high achiever from the get-go. He also was captain of the math and debate teams...

The proposal to legalize “same-sex marriage” in the State of Rhode Island is immoral and unnecessary. Despite enormous political pressure, the General Assembly should stand firm, resist the current fashionable trend, and continue to uphold its longstanding commitment to marriage as traditionally defined. The multiple problems associated with “homosexual marriage” have been explained in this space on many occasions in the past. The proposal to legalize same-sex marriage is an attempt to redefine the institution of marriage as it has existed in every culture from the very beginning of human history. Marriage between a man and a woman was designed...

A socialist government official in Andalusia, Spain, called for a local Catholic bishop to be “muzzled” for arguing that men and women are both different and complementary. Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Cordoba should be silenced for leveling attacks against “real and effective equality between men and women,” charged Miguel Angel Vazquez, a member of the Socialist Party and spokesman for the Andalusian provincial government. Read more: http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/World.php?id=6802#ixzz2HKHjM53m

CHICAGO – A Chicago medical examiner says a lottery winner was fatally poisoned with cyanide a day after he collected nearly $425,000.

These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions. This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them...

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My mother always used to say, "Life is the best teacher." Sure is -- and sometimes it smacks you right upside the head. It appears that this has happened with Barack Obama supporters now witnessing their paychecks shrink in the wake of tax increases. And they're none too happy. In fact, they're shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Providing examples of this liberal anger and angst, Joseph Curl writes: "What happened that my Social Security withholding's in my paycheck just went up?" a poster wrote on the liberal site DemocraticUnderground.com. "My paycheck just went down by an amount that I don't...

Policy-wise, this is an oldie but a goodie, I guess, even though we’re still spending tons of money on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae more than four years after the crash. Wells Fargo CEO Robert Kovacevich can't believe that we haven't learned the lesson from 2008 and gotten the government out of the home mortgage industry, and tells CNBC's Squawk Box that the two organizations made that crash exponentially worse than it needed to be: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exacerbated the 2008 mortgage crisis, and that’s why the U.S. government should get out...

Squee! As Twitchy reported, binders full of moochers stopped hoarding birth control when the nefarious pill-stealer Romney lost the election. Now, they are empowering themselves by groveling at the feet of their birth control sugar daddy master.

<p>Al Gore and his co-investors just sold liberal cable channel Current TV to Al Jazeera, the network bankrolled by the emir of Qatar. How much in carbon offsets does Mr. Gore need to balance his estimated $100 million from the sale to an oil sheik?</p>

A group critical of President Barack Obama's choice of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense on Monday purchased the Web site domain ChuckHagel.com to oppose the former Nebraska senator's nomination. The Emergency Committee for Israel, an advocacy group led by Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, is sponsoring the new site and has already produced television ads against Hagel's nomination. The site highlights Hagel's Senate votes on the United States' relationships with Israel and Iran.

ART CASHIN: Veteran Traders Have Noticed A Peculiar Pattern During The Final Hours Of Trading Sam RoJan. 7, 2013, 11:11 AM Stocks have started 2013 on a positive note, closing at a five-year high on Friday. So, are people feeling bullish? Art Cashin, UBS Financial Services Director of Floor Operations, is a tad skeptical. He points to some imbalances during end-of-day trading in this morning's "Cashin's Comments": Some On-Close Support For the “New Money” Thesis – As we have noted repeatedly during this New Year’s rally, several of us old fogeys believe most of the fuel for the move...

The amazing thing about this is how they all kept a straight face. Or, do you think they honestly believe this nonsense?

SNIP Hagel, however, has friends in Democratic lobbying circles. The powerful Washington D.C. organization known as the Podesta Group is reportedly asking defense contractors for financial support to run ads defending the Hagel nomination. Fox News White House Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry reported on Friday: (2:15 in) "Sources confirm to Fox [that] Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta has been hired by a firm known as the Bipartisan Group to help mobilize support for Hagel. And defense contractors received calls this week urging them to be ready for a Hagel pick as soon as Monday, and asking them for...

Many Americans were shocked to learn about Georgetown University Professor Louis Michael Seidman’s advocation for the U.S. to abandon the Constitution — the central document that has helped spawn America’s growth and progression for hundreds of years. As previously reported, the constitutional expert recently noted his belief (via an op-ed) that a blind allegiance to the outdated document is perilous. On Friday, he defended his controversial views about some purportedly “evil” provisions in the Constitution in an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETF6XFiQe7I

Instapundit points to this bit of happy news culled from John Hanger, a Democrat who is running for governonr of Pennsylvania, where has been secretary of the state department of the environment and a commissioner of the public utility commission: US energy related carbon emissions in 2012 will fall below 5,300 million tons or down about 12%, compared to the peak emissions of 6,023 million tons in 2007. Through this September, carbon emissions have been down every month in 2012, when compared to each of the first 9 months of 2011 and 2010. No other country matches that record. www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec12_3.pdf/sec12_3.pdf/....

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Well, it's bad news for Danny Glover and MoveOn, anyway. They started a grassroots movement to get the New York Times columnist an appointment to Barack Obama's Cabinet in replacement of the departing Tim Geithner. MoveOn even sent a petition request to its large e-mail list, demanding a Paul Krugman nomination: Hollywood actor and liberal activist Danny Glover is trying to send a message to President Barack Obama: “Nominate Paul Krugman for Treasury Secretary.”Obama has yet to tap anyone to fill the slot, soon to be left vacant by outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. On Sunday the liberal advocacy group...

Media cult coverage to begin shortly.

A self-described 'spiritual guru' has sparked outrage in India after saying that the 23-year-old rape victim who died after being assaulted by six men was partly responsible for her own attack. Asaram Bapu said that Jyoti Singh Pandey, whose fate has drawn the sympathy of the world and been treated as a national tragedy within India, was 'as guilty as her rapists'. He added that she should have been more friendly to her attackers if she wanted to preserve her own life. Politicians and web users have reacted with fury to the 71-year-old guru's comments. Asaram Bapu's controversial intervention in...

Remember Karen Lewis? She’s Chicago thuggery personified. I introduced you to her last September when she spearheaded the abandonment of 350,000 schoolchildren over merit-based pay, teacher evaluations, and a 16 percent pay raise: Derision is her specialty. Her tirades at teachers’ confabs are infamous. Don’t feel sorry for her when she moans about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bully tactics and trash mouth. Lewis has one of her own. Well, that trash mouth is baaaaack. Intrepid Kyle Olson of EAGNews.com caught Lewis joking about labor leaders who seriously contemplated killing the rich during the “robber baron” era. When Lewis appeared at the...

President Obama will deliver a second inaugural address later this month. He’ll no doubt reflect on what he’s done during his first four years in office — and on his signature healthcare law in particular. Let’s reflect with him. During his first campaign for the presidency in 2008, the president promised that his health reform plan would “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family” by the end of his first term. Well, that first term is just about up. And health insurance isn’t any cheaper. In fact, it’s more expensive. Premiums have increased by an average of $3,065....

Growing up in Kentfield, James Macmillan failed to take to any of the gentlemanly pursuits presented by his father, Hugh. Fencing, sailing, fly fishing all came and went. What captured James Macmillan was the Lee-Enfield locked in the wine cellar. Once he saw that World War II rifle, Macmillan wouldn't let up until he was old enough for the range. Finally, at age 12, he lifted that heavy wooden stock, bolted a round into the chamber and fired. The recoil nearly knocked him over, and by the time he got home, his shoulder was black and blue. He had his...

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Apparently Republican career politicians inside the Beltway have a collective death wish. Faced with what they believed to be political impasse, they opted to completely abandon their conservative base and give their full support to the abhorrent and fiscally reckless policies of Barack Obama and the Democrats. Of course Republicans would argue that since Obama won reelection in November, they must acquiesce to his uncontested leadership. Sadly, they give no thought to the possibility that perhaps it is their constant inexcusable capitulation to the liberal establishment which has, more than any other factor, empowered the left as the dominant political...

Thousands of Spanish medical workers and residents are marching through downtown Madrid to protest against government budget cuts and plans to partly privatize their cherished national health service. The demonstration is the latest of several, described as a "white tide" because of the color of the medical scrubs many protesters wear. The protesters walked Monday behind a large banner saying, "Healthcare is not to be sold, it's to be defended." Healthcare and education are currently administered by Spain's 17 semi-autonomous regions rather than the central government. Madrid proposes selling off the management of six of 20 large public hospitals and...

As sheriff of Illinois’ largest county, I am responsible for providing safe roads. We are all safer when every driver is trained, tested, licensed and insured. That is why I support SB957, legislation that requires unlicensed immigrant drivers to obtain Temporary Visitor Driver’s Licenses. Illinois already offers a Temporary Visitor Driver’s License to immigrants with non-work visas. Immigrants are driving every day. They need to get to work, take their children to school, shop at grocery stores or go to church. The TVDLs are visually distinct with a purple background. They are marked on the front that they are not...

Really, I can’t completely blame foreigners who hold us Americans in contempt. I know that’s a controversial statement, but my reasoning is explained with two questions: Do people generally respect those who allow themselves to be used as a doormat? And, then, how do people usually feel about the character of a traitor? Now consider what foreigners see from modern America. We not only allow aliens to transgress our borders and often refuse to deport them, but we then also sue each other, with many among us fighting tooth and nail for the “rights” of these interlopers. Where other nations...

Arnold Schwarzenegger says 'Terminator' and other violent movies shouldn't be blamed for mass shootings Arnold Schwarzenegger may be one of the world's biggest action stars but the former governor of California says violence in films is entertainment and should not be linked to tragic events like the Connecticut school shooting in which 20 children died. The star of films such as 'The Terminator,' 'Predator' and 'True Lies' told a press conference ahead of the opening of his new movie, 'The Last Stand,' that 'one has to keep (the two) separate.' '(This is) entertainment and the other thing is a tragedy...

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, upon signing income tax hikes into law on January 12, 2011: We had to take decisive action. Â… Our fiscal house was burning. Almost two years later, the Land of Lincoln is still aflame. The state began its 2013 fiscal year this past July with an estimated $8 billion of unpaid bills and a total of some 160,000 bills awaiting payment.What about additional tax receipts garnered by the stateÂ’s dramatic income-tax hikes? Unseen and unfelt, according to the Republican state comptroller, who has acknowledged that the gains were undercut by financing pension contributions, Medicaid expansion,...

Remember that Nancy Pelosi told us that we needed to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. Barack Obama promised to “bend the cost curve,� too. Looks like both of them were right, at least according to the Paper of Record, which discovers to its surprise that dumping nebulous mandates on insurers causes them to bend the cost curve sharply upward (via Instapundit): Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid...

Two months after the president handily won a second term and the Democrats increased their numbers in both the House and Senate, GOP congressional leaders were in no position to negotiate a good “fiscal cliff” resolution. So it’s not at all surprising that what emerged from the Biden–McConnell negotiations has satisfied almost no one, and certainly not many conservatives. That being said, the January 1 tax deal needs to be put into proper perspective. The media are fixated on what is being called an Obama victory: He forced the GOP into retreat on the top income-tax rate. Yes, that was...

After doing everything it can to ensconce a new word, “Islamophobia,” into conversational English, the nation's most visible Islamist group is trying to stop use of a well-established word: Islamist. Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper released a column urging journalists to “(d)rop the term ‘Islamist.’” It was added to the latest Associated Press Stylebook—the guide for spelling, punctuation and other rules—that is used by journalists at the smallest community papers and the largest television networks, Hooper wrote. AP defines Islamists as “Those who view the Quran as a political model encompass a wide range of Muslims,...

Chuck Hagel's Record On Gay Rights 1996: ... says he would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act 1999: ... opposes repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy 2005: ... Hagel calls on the [Nebraska] court to reverse its decidsion, complaining the court had overridden Nebraska voters who opposed gay marriage Chuck Hagel's Apology: Too Little, Too Late Log Cabin Republicans ...

Sometimes, “good riddance” just doesn’t suffice. It is hard to imagine a bureaucrat who has done more comprehensive damage to American interests than Lisa Jackson, the departing head of the Environmental Protection Agency. During her four years as administrator, Jackson has put her radical environmental agenda before the wellbeing of the U.S. economy, the integrity of science, and even the structure of the American political system itself. Start with her regulatory record. Since January 2009, Jackson’s EPA has issued 20 “major” regulations — defined as rules with an economic cost of $100 million or more each year. Incidentally, that $100-million...

US president Barack Obama is reportedly considering implementing the most comprehensive gun control measures seen in decades. US president Barack Obama is reportedly considering implementing the most comprehensive gun control measures seen in decades. A task force led by vice-president Joe Biden is reportedly considering wide-ranging proposals going well beyond simply reinstating a ban on assault weapons and high capacity ammunition. The Washington Post reports that a national data base tracking gun sales, mental health checks, and background checks are all on the table. And in a move that is set to anger opponents of gun control, the taskforce is...

The publication of Friday's "Employment Situation" report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) gives us our first opportunity to take stock of the first four years of Barack Obama's presidency. This is because the jobs numbers are the first of the major economic data series to be reported after the end of a period. The jobs numbers are especially illuminating, because the impacts of changes in government policies show up first and fastest in total employment. By way of illustration, total employment peaked in November 2007, but it took until December 2008 for the National Bureau of Economic Research...

Are Democrats done raising taxes on the American people? “No,” says House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “We can raise more revenue,” says Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). And Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says “there are still deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code which ought to be looked at very carefully.” …

Now The FBI Has A Corporate Anti-Fraud Program That Scans Emails For 3,000 Suspicious Phrases Linette LopezJanuary 7, 2013 Given how notorious Wall Streeters are for writing embarrassing e-mails that are later used against them in court (see: Libor scandal), they should really take note of this news. The FBI has developed new software that scans e-mails for buzz words and phrases that indicate the sender (and receiver) or said mail are up to no good, the FT reports. There are over 3,000 words and phrases that would raise a red flag in the program. Accounting firm Ernst and Young...

In the ongoing dispute over the Spratly Islands claimed by China and Vietnam, the latest development is that China is opening up 3G services on the islands, not only to Chinese soldiers but also for the country’s fishermen. The development will be yet another drop of lemon in the souring of Sino-Vietnamese relations in the past year. The Vietnamese government even voiced its complaint on nguyentandung.org, the Vietnamese Prime Minister’s website. The island disputes recently ignited with anti-China protests in May 2011 after Chinese patrol boats attacked two Vietnamese oil exploration ships near the Spratly Islands. Chinese soldiers and fishermen...

Five weeks after the Obama administration asserted that a United Nations vote on upgrading the Palestinian entity’s status “does not establish that Palestine is a state,” Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday ordered that all references to the Palestinian Authority be changed to the “State of Palestine.” From passports to postage stamps, diplomatic mission titles to official stationery, the name of a state that does not legally exist will replace that of the self-rule administration established under the Oslo Accords, brokered by the Clinton administration in the early 1990s. Abbas issued the decree instructing the change several days after saying during an...

Listen Live: Sound Off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9 a.m. to noon ET (Da ily Thread)Sound Off Connecticut is a popular conservative/libertarian call in talk show hosted by Jim Vicevich weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon ET. Although based in Connecticut, the show welcomes callers from all over the United States! This is your chance to sound off America! Call into the show toll free (800) 966-9842! Listen to the LIVE AUDIO STREAM at http://wtic.com - it's free and NO registration is required! If you're in southern New England listen over the air to WTIC 1080 AM, the 50,000...

Here we are, a little over three weeks after the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., a little over two weeks after the National Rifle Association said there should henceforth be armed guards at every school, and at least one school system, Marlboro Township in New Jersey, is taking its advice. Under a 90-day pilot program in partnership with local police, students who returned to school last week found their campuses patrolled by armed officers.

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER PAUL KRUGMAN: Obama Must Be Ready To Mint The Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin Joe WeisenthalJanuary 7, 2013 The movement to mint a trillion dollar platinum coin gets its biggest backer yet: Paul Krugman. In a new post up titled Be Ready To Mint The Coin he writes: It’s easy to make sententious remarks to the effect that we shouldn’t look for gimmicks, we should sit down like serious people and deal with our problems realistically. That may sound reasonable — if you’ve been living in a cave for the past four years.Given the realities of our political...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Police say U.S. Sen. Rand Paul's son was arrested after a flight from Kentucky to North Carolina. The Charlotte Observer reports http://bit.ly/13cI8me 19-year-old William Hilton Paul was arrested Saturday morning at Charlotte Douglas International Airport and charged with alcohol-related offenses.

Four Chinese Surveillance Ships Push Their Luck With Japanese Patience Agence France PresseJanuary 7, 2013 Four Chinese government ships entered territorial waters around Japan-controlled islands at the centre of a dispute on Monday, the Japanese coastguard said. The four marine surveillance ships were seen moving within 12 nautical miles of the islands, known as the Senkakus in Japan and the Diaoyus in China, just before midday, the coastguard said in a statement. It was the first time since December 31 -- and the 21st time since Japan nationalised the islands in September -- that any state-owned Chinese ship has been...

After spending more than a year investigating allegations that Google favored its own products when producing search results, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided against imposing any serious punishment on the search giant. In response, Google is both celebrating the decision and also using the FTC report for its own benefit. The FTC decision is in line with earlier reports that suggested government officials simply didn't have much proof of any wrongdoing by Google.