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On the eve of U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s appearance before Congress, a senior Justice Department official said the agency cannot meet the deadline Republican lawmakers have set to turn over more documents on the “Fast and Furious” gun operation or be held in contempt of Congress. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole said that the Feb. 9 deadline to submit all documents on the botched gun operation set this week by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was “impossible to meet.”

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican anti-poverty official has been fired after posting a comment on social media sites suggesting that poor people smell bad. Mexico's anti-poverty agency says Carlos Talavera has been fired as director of outreach brigades in the western city of Uruapan after a Facebook posting of his was re-tweeted on social media sites. The original comment appears to describe an event attended by poor people and reads roughly "truth is this smells impressively bad, poor things."

When comparing and contrasting Biblical Christianity with Mormonism, should one limit consideration of “Mormonism” to what minimalists deem “official” and “binding”? I answer “NO” for a number of reasons: Mormons, even minimalist Mormons, disagree amongst themselves over what constitutes “official” and “binding” doctrine. Some restrict it to recently emphasized teaching via institutional channels (regardless of whether it is in the Standard Works). Some restrict it to the Standard Works alone. Some restrict it to what is recently emphasized by the Church which is ALSO in the Standard Works. Some restrict it to what a particular individual has an emotionally epiphanous...

<p>"I don't really care about the economy. I couldn't care two f*cks about what happens if, you know, we have another Great Depression."</p>

In "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991, Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." In "Virginia Senate Candidate Honors Hamas Associate" at FrontPage, October 25, Ryan Mauro discusses yet another American politician...

Palestinian Authority’s envoy to Canada was told to leave the country after she tweeted a link to a video urging a “war" to destroy Jews.” The Palestinian Authority envoy to Canada was told to leave the country after she tweeted a link to a video of an Arab girl calling for a “war to raze oppression and injustice to destroy Jews.” The PA official, Linda Sobeh Ali, told Canadian media that she had not seen the video which she sent on Twitter with the notation, ”Check this out.” She apologized but charged that the incident was "intentionally magnified and misinterpreted...

MONROE, Mich. — A blast that turned a vehicle along a Michigan street into a blackened shell and seriously injured an attorney and his two sons was the result of a car bomb, police said Wednesday. Emergency responders rushed to the site of the Tuesday evening explosion near a highway underpass in Monroe, about 35 miles southwest of Detroit, the Monroe Police Department said. The vehicle's three occupants were taken to St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo, Ohio, about 20 miles south of Monroe. They were listed in serious condition Wednesday. The blast came from a car bomb, Donald Dawkins,...

Senior Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath said Wednesday that the Palestinians' statehood bid at the United Nations is the only alternative to violence, stressing that the UN move will give the Palestinians the change to promote their rights. "The UN is the only alternative to violence," Shaath said during a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly."It will be very costly to us and the Israelis. Our new heroes are Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King."

Officially, China does not wage acts of cyber-warfare against the United States. Unofficially, mounting evidence points to Chinese entities attacking multiple entities in the U.S., from government agencies to private corporations and nonprofits. Now comes a more tangible, damning piece of evidence. Buried in an official military documentary, a six-second clip aired on Chinese TV shows a custom-built computer program launching a cyber-attack from a compromised U.S. IP address. (RELATED TECH: Federal push for cloud technology faces skepticism) The Epoch Times broke the story early this morning, revealing that a Chinese military university uses software to launch attacks against websites...

Because BBM, which rioters are using to communicate, is not traceable by cops, PM David Lammy says it’s “one of reasons why unsophisticated criminals are outfoxing an otherwise sophisticated police force.” LONDON – What, you might wonder, is the modern urban guerilla’s rioting weapon of choice? A machete? You might think so. But for most of the youngsters looting and ransacking the streets of London for the past three nights, cement blocks, iron bars and supermarket trolleys seemed to do the job of smashing in shop windows just as well. A balaclava? Perhaps. Per the multiple videos posted on Twitter...

In a response filed yesterday to a federal judge’s order May 11, an FBI official offered no denials about the existence of video images captured by more than 20 surveillance cameras operating prior to 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, in the vicinity of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Instead, he explained that officials at the bureau merely cannot find the tapes and raised the possibility that they “might have been misfiled and thus could be located somewhere other than in the OKBOMB file (though it would be impossible to know where).”

A top official from the U.S. Black Chamber, Inc. – the Obama-backed, rival upstart to Harry Alford’s National Black Chamber of Commerce – has a checkered past and faces criminal charges from allegations he exploited a Hurricane Katrina victim. According to Raleigh, N.C.-based WRAL, which broke the story, Brandon Trainer, who led the North Carolina Regional Black Chamber of Commerce and served as treasurer for the U.S. Black Chamber, skipped town in 2006 when he was charged with defrauding a Hurricane Katrina victim out of $1500.

Comments follow statements by Donald Trump questioning legitimacy of president's birth record The Hawaiian state health official who personally reviewed Barack Obama's original birth certificate has affirmed again that the document is "real" and denounced "conspiracy theorists" in the so-called "birther" movement for continuing to spread bogus claims about the issue. Other political news of note Ryan defends plan for Medicare redesign House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan defended his plan to redesign the government’s biggest health insurance plans on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, saying it was necessary to avert a sovereign debt crisis. Hawaii official denounces 'ludicrous' birther...

I mean, yes, they feel that way, but you're just not supposed to say it. While I love the ClimateWire headline -- "U.S. vows continuing effort toward a 17% emission cut" (subscription required), sort of like I vow to continue my effort toward hitting fewer pedestrians when I drive...not to hit fewer pedestrians when I drive...ah, J-school -- the following excerpt from the piece is simply beyond belief. Speaking to a U.N ‘Kyoto II' negotiating group in Bangkok, U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing "noted in a series of slides that U.S. emissions have declined about 8.7...

(CNSNews.com) –Jamie Gorelick, a former Clinton administration official who has reportedly made the Obama administration's to become considering the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was paid more than $26 million in total compensation as a top executive at Fannie Mae--before taxpayers had to bail out the mortgage giant. Gorelick, who left the Clinton Justice Department in 1997 to work for Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines, was paid $26,466,834 in salary, bonuses, performance pay and stock options from 1998 to 2003, according to the Report of the Special Examination of Fannie Mae (2006), conducted by the Office...

A key U.S. official landed in Cairo on Monday to meet with military leaders and discuss the extra aid promised by Washington to help Egypt with its democratic transition. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns arrived days after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced Egypt would be receiving an extra $150 million to help with the political transition. The $1.5 billion in foreign aid the U.S. gives annually to Egypt, which is unchanged in the State Department's budget.

An Obama administration official on Wednesday confirmed that four states -- including Florida, Tennessee and Ohio -- have been granted waivers from the regulatory requirements of the national health care law. Steve Larsen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, confirmed the news under questioning from Rep. Cliff Stearns at an oversight hearing for the House Energy and Commerce committee.

President Obama will offer three plans to phase out the troubled home lending agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an administration official said Tuesday night. The plans range from a full government guarantee of the housing market to removing nearly all federal backstops for housing loans, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plans were first reported Tuesday night by The Wall Street Journal.

David Hansell, acting assistant secretary for a children and families agency within the Health and Human Services Department, on Monday touted the Obama administration’s “acceptance and embrace of the LGBT community,” including its efforts to encourage same-sex couples to adopt children. LGBT refers to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons. The “Adopt Us Kids” Web site, described as “a cooperative agreement with the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children & Families, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,”

A White House senior adviser said Tuesday night that President Obama is "going to address [gun control]." In an interview with NBC's Brian Williams, David Plouffe responded to criticism that the president did not mention gun control in his State of the Union address. Some Democrats on Capitol Hill and gun-control advocates have called for new legislation in the wake of the deadly shooting that killed six and injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) earlier this month. Plouffe said Obama's speech on Tuesday was focused on the economy. He added that the president has been clear on his views on gun...

The Interior Department’s top drilling declined to give details on when the department will begin issuing new deepwater drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico. “I don’t want to hazard a guess as to exactly when the first deepwater permits will be issued,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said Wednesday. He added that he hopes new deepwater permits “will be approved before too long.” Bromwich said last week that he expects to begin issuing permits before the second half of the year. Asked by reporters for a more specific date, Bromwich

NEW ORLEANS -- A White House appointee says preserving a Gulf Coast ecosystem damaged by decades of erosion and months of crude oil that gushed from a deep-sea well off Louisiana will be an enormous undertaking, the "grandaddy" of restoration projects. "I have been involved in many ecosystem restoration projects, but this is the grandaddy of them all," said John Hankinson, a veteran of restoration projects in Florida. Hankinson was appointed in October as executive director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, a group that will recommend how to use the heavy fines likely to confront energy company...

Obama to delay 2012 budget by about a week: officialTue Dec 28, 7:01 am ET HONOLULU (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, who has pledged to tackle long-term U.S. debt and deficit challenges, will delay the delivery of his fiscal year 2012 budget by about a week until after February 14. An administration official said on Monday the delay was due to the long time it took for the U.S. Senate to confirm Jack Lew as Obama's new budget director, and because funding decisions for 2011 went so late into the year. The Democratic president nominated Lew in July but the...

CNN) -- Eighteen people were killed in separate shootings throughout Mexico's Ciudad Juarez on Saturday, marking it as one of the bloodiest days this year in the nation's most violent city, officials said Sunday. In one incident, a family of seven was slaughtered while they were outside their home in the southeastern part of the city, Chihuahua State Attorney General's Office spokesman Carlos Gonzalez said. "Among [the seven killed] were two brothers who we believe were targeted," Gonzalez said. Local newspaper El Diario de Juarez reported that five of the bodies were found inside a car and another two bodies...

A former official with the Federal Election Commission, Hans von Spakovsky, blasted the Reid campaign, saying they are clearly engaging in coercion and illegal coordination under federal campaign finance rules. “I’ve never seen anything this blatant,” he told The Examiner. “Most corporations stay far away from this because they know they can get in big trouble if they tell their employees to go out and vote for a particular candidate. That’s a big no-no.” “There are two issues. The first is illegal coordination. The Reid campaign is specifically asking a corporation with the help of a union to get voters

At a debate sponsored by the Illinois League of Women Voters between Democratic incumbent Rep. Melissa Bean, GOP challenger Joe Walsh and Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer Wednesday, the audience loudly objected when the moderator, Kathy Tate-Bradish, insisted on proceeding without reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. In the end, she didn’t stand a chance against the 300-member audience. The camera captures Republican Joe Walsh’s reaction: Ms. Tate-Bradish reportedly scolded the crowd after the pledge ended, blaming the outburst on the Republican candidate. The LWV executive director, Jan Czarnik, also condemned the Pledge’s recitation, telling the local news, “It’s a phony...

Martin Freeman is set to star as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's two-movie adaptation of The Hobbit... Thorin Oakenshield...Richard ArmitageFili...Aidan TurnerKili...Rob Kazinskyetc...

Alan Krueger, a top economics official at the Department of Treasury, will leave his post next month to return to academia, becoming the latest in a string of departures from the Obama administration's economic team. A spokesman for the Treasury confirmed that Krueger, assistant secretary for economic policy, would return to Princeton University, where he previously served as a professor of economics. News of Krueger's departure comes after several other high-profile announcements of Obama economic advisers resigning amid concerns over the sluggish pace of the recovery.

An adviser to China's central bank has rebuffed criticism from the US over Beijing's exchange rate policy. In a speech in Beijing, Li Daokui said China "will not appreciate the yuan solely because of external pressure". His comments follow strong criticism in America that the yuan is significantly undervalued, damaging US exports. (Snip) China denies keeping its currency artificially cheap, and has warned against foreign pressure over what Beijing regards as an internal matter.

Washington - A former US State Department official has been sentenced to life in prison for spying, while his wife was ordered to spend nearly seven years behind bars for helping to pass highly classified information to Cuba, the Justice Department said Friday. Walter Kendall Myers, 73, and wife Gwendolyn, 71, pleaded guilty in November to espionage charges and acting as agents for the Cuban government. Myers had also admitted to passing top secret information in a conversation with an undercover FBI agent, the Justice Department said.

THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, DC -- Senior White House officials acknowledged Wednesday afternoon that the new regime of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran “would not be sufficient” in and of itself to change the behavior of the Iranian government and convince its leaders to stop its nuclear weapons program. But, they emphasized, these sanctions are just the beginning – the “1” of a “1,2,3 punch,” as one senior White House official put it. The next step: on June 17 the European Council will meet and impose even stricter sanctions on Iran. Then Congress will pass additional tough sanctions, which...

President Obama said Thursday that the White House is preparing to issue a formal explanation regarding the allegation that it offered Rep. Joe Sestak a job to drop out of the Democratic primary race against Sen. Arlen Specter. The president, addressing the matter in public for the first time since the Pennsylvania congressman leveled the claim in February, said the statement should answer questions about the claim and insisted "nothing improper" happened.

(CNSNews.com) – Palestinian Authority chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Wednesday he found “distasteful” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s invoking of the Bible to highlight the longstanding Jewish claim to Jerusalem. The veteran P.A. official made the comment after Netanyahu noted during a special parliamentary session marking “Jerusalem Day” that the words “Jerusalem” and “Zion” appeared in the Old Testament, the Jewish Tanakh, 850 times.

WASHINGTON — A top Obama administration official who's helping lead a campaign for energy conservation has a major financial interest in two companies that are poised to benefit from the government's spending. Cathy Zoi, the assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy, owns between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of stock in Landis+Gyr, a Swiss-based manufacturer of special electric meters that are used to create an efficient "smart" grid of electricity use.

A senior US official on Monday doubted that North Korea was involved in the recent sinking of a South Korean warship, in which dozens of crewmen are missing. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said that while South Korea was leading the investigation into Friday night's maritime explosion, he had heard nothing to implicate any other country. "Obviously the full investigation needs to go forward. But to my knowledge, there's no reason to believe or to be concerned that that may have been the cause," Steinberg told reporters.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama wants to nominate Janet Yellen, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, to take over as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, an administration official said Friday. Yellen, who was a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, is considered a dove on monetary policy, meaning she is more worried about high unemployment than rising inflation. She would become the second highest ranking Fed official. Obama is also considering filling two other vacancies on the Federal Reserve board with Sarah Raskin, the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation, and Massachusetts Institute of...

The woman that poses as Barack Obama on all his social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter is connected to the far-left organization MoveOn.org. For those scratching their heads, the President in theory is a member of these websites. However, he obviously isn't responsible for typing in the little messages that are going out to his followers almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

COPENHAGEN – Police foiled an attempt to kill an artist who drew cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage in the Muslim world, the head of Denmark's intelligence service said Saturday. Jakob Scharf, who heads the PET intelligence service, said a 28-year-old Somalia man was armed with an ax and a knife when he attempted to enter Kurt Westergaard's home in Aarhus shortly after 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Friday.

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.

Blogger Amanda Hess of the Washington City Paper suggests a new story for The Washington Post on the gay left waging war on the Catholic Church over the city council's imposition of "gay marriage" rules without a referendum: A new Web site hopes to use the oldest trick in the book to combat the Catholic Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage: A good, old-fashioned forced outing! At ChurchOuting.org, you’re invited to scroll through a list of every Achbishop, Bishop, and Reverend in the Archdiocese of Washington, zero in on one you know is gay, and then submit your “detailed account of...

The chief federal oversight official for the stimulus program said in a letter Wednesday that he can’t certify whether the number of jobs “created or saved” by stimulus funds is accurate. Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney was responding to a request for information by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In a letter to Issa dated Nov. 17, Devaney wrote, “Your letter specifically asks if I am able to certify that the number of jobs reported as created/saved on Recovery.gov is accurate and auditable. No, I am not able to...

Senior Hizbullah official Mahmoud Kamati on Wednesday mocked IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and said all of Israel was within his group's fire range. "Ashkenazi's threats are baseless and are an attempt to draw attention away from the enemy's defeat in Gaza and in Lebanon," Kamati said in an interview with Al-Jazeera. He went on to boast that "all the cities and all Israeli military and industrial centers are within Hizbullah's fire range."

The plot thickens on the media’s character-lynching of Rush Limbaugh. Of the four stories ran on ESPN.com about Limbaugh’s bid for the Rams (October 6, October 12, October 15, and another October 15) none of them mention that NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as council to Attorney General Eric Holder and member of Barack Obama’s transition team. The October 12 article references Smith’s anti-Limbaugh email meant to garner opposition against the radio host’s bid. The report refers to Smith only as the executive director of the NFLPA. Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s...

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A White House official "misspoke" when he said the Obama administration would not allow the Goldstone report recommendations on Israel's conduct in the Gaza war to reach the International Criminal Court. A top White House official told Jewish organizational leaders in an off-the-record phone call Wednesday that the U.S. strategy was to "quickly" bring the report -- commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council and carried out by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone -- to its "natural conclusion" within the Human Rights Council and not to allow it to go further, Jewish participants in the call...

WASHINGTON (AP) - With negotiations on a new international climate treaty proving difficult, the Obama administration's chief climate negotiator on Thursday called on the Senate to act as soon as possible and pass legislation to control the gases blamed for global warming. Todd Stern, the State Department's special envoy for climate change, told a House panel that it was critical for the Senate to pass legislation to give the U.S. the "credibility and leverage" that it needs to convince other countries to reduce their pollution. While Stern cited progress, he said there's still a divide between developing countries worried that...

(IsraelNN.com) Elliot Abrams, who served under United States Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, took issue Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's claims that there were no understandings between the Bush administration and Israel about construction for natural growth in Judea and Samaria. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Abrams said, "Despite fervent denials by Obama administration officials, there were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank."

WASHINGTON (AP) - An Obama administration official says the Treasury will propose the creation of a regulatory agency to protect consumers in their credit, savings and other banking transactions. The new agency is one of the central elements of President Barack Obama's overhaul of the financial regulatory system. The president is set to announce his broad plan on Wednesday.

The Service Employees International Union's highest-ranking California officer has resigned that position and two other leadership posts in the wake of an internal investigation of payments to her ex-boyfriend, it was announced today. The SEIU said its inquiry found no wrongdoing by Annelle Grajeda, who was one of six executive vice presidents of the national union as well as the head of its California council and the local that represents Los Angeles County workers. The union said Grajeda, who could not be reached for comment, had decided to become an assistant to the SEIU's secretary-treasurer in Washington, D.C. Grajeda had...