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A spokeswoman for the State Department referred to the Taliban operatives released from Guantanamo Bay as part of the deal to retrieve Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl as "gentlemen." In a Monday afternoon appearance with Andrew Mitchell on MSNBC, Marie Harf, the deputy spokesperson at State and an alumna of the Obama campaign, argued with Mitchell over the question of whether or not Congress should have ben notified about the exchange before it occured. Noah Rothman at Hot Air documents the conversation, and near the end of the interview, Harf defends the deal against questions about whether or not the Taliban operatives...

Evolve, adapt or die. That is the fate of our current Republican party. We must evolve as a party and find a way to attract millennials to the conservative movement or we will never succeed in realizing our ideals of individual freedom and freedom from government interference. Initially, I received criticism from political pundits for speaking to non-traditional audiences. I was told it was a waste of time to reach out to these audiences, specifically students from both Howard University and University of California, Berkeley. My response is this: I have never been one to watch the world go by...

If Masood Farivar had been a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, would the Voice of America have hired him? If he were calling for members of the Aryan Nations to be “reintegrated” into Western society, would the New York Times have given him a platform? Islamic jihadists are no less violent, ruthless, and oppressive than the KKK or the Aryan Nations — indeed, more so. But they have a better PR arm.If a Muslim from the United States returns from waging jihad in Syria and sets off a jihad mass murder attack in New York or Washington, will...

A fiery Glenn Beck asserted Wednesday that the “fundamental transformation” of America has already occurred, and it is “time to forget the United States of America that you know.” “If this is what is [I am] required to pledge allegiance to, I am no longer a citizen of this country,” Beck said. “If I am required to pledge allegiance to that, I proudly declare now for my grandchildren’s ears, I am not a part of [it].” Beck was referring to then-candidate Barack Obama’s pledge that “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America” with his...

“There is no education in the second kick of a mule,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. With some such thought in mind, Speaker John Boehner strode to the floor of the House to offer a “clean” debt ceiling bill and relied on Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats to pass it. They did. “Surrender” and “betrayal,” are among the epithets coming the Speaker’s way.Yet Boehner was holding a losing hand. Had he added a GOP wish-list bill to the debt ceiling, Harry Reid’s Senate would have rejected it. President Obama would have denounced it as putting at risk the full faith and...

After an internal debate, the Obama administration has decided to tell American commercial airlines to comply with China's demands to be notified of any flights through a broad swath of international airspace that it has claimed as an air defense zone, officials said Friday. Even as the United States continued to send military planes into the zone in defiance of China's declaration, officials said they expected civilian planes to go along with Beijing's new demands out of an abundance of caution. Officials said they were worried about an accident or unintended confrontation that could endanger civilian passengers. The administration’s decision...

In the French Quarter, the government advisory warns travelers to not go beyond northwestern Dauphine Street and northeast Ursulines Ave. If travelers are in the Garden District, they say not to travel north of St. Charles Avenue or south of Magazine Street.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has called President Obama a “pathetic leader” for his lack of involvement in negotiations to end the government shutdown. He slammed the president’s unwillingness to compromise with Republicans as “immature.” Today on America’s News HQ, Graham told anchor Doug McKelway, “For [Republicans] to suggest to the American people that we could defund ObamaCare or delay it for a year by shutting down the government, I think was unrealistic.” With the debt limit just four days away, Sen. Graham said, “I’m not going to vote for any deal coming out of the Senate that doesn’t have a...

On Monday, former vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting that Republicans drop all Obamacare demands in their push for a deal on the debt ceiling and a continuing resolution to fund the government. Instead, he suggested that Republicans look for a bargain on entitlement reform, a pet project of his, as well as tax reform. “This isn't a grand bargain. For that, we need a complete rethinking of government's approach to helping the most vulnerable, and a complete rethinking of government's approach to health care. But right now, we need...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) narrowly leads the pack of potential GOP contenders in 2016, according to a new poll. If the GOP presidential primary were held today, 17 percent of GOP voters would elect Paul, according to a new Quinnipiac Poll released Wednesday. He leads among Tea Party Republicans as well, with 22 percent. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rates second with 13 percent, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) with 12 percent and Jeb Bush with 11 percent. Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) garner 10 percent. Nineteen percent of Republicans are undecided. Rubio’s numbers have...

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More than once wars have been started by accident, and Sen. John McCain, predicted that a conflict between the Koreas would be a “catastrophe of enormous proportions.” Warning on “Face the Nation” that “North Korea could set Seoul on fire,” the Arizona Republican said that China is failing to rein its ally in. …

Former U.N. Ambassador and Congressman Andrew Young tells Newsmax TV that the United States has “got to have better intelligence and better diplomacy because wars don’t work.” “The only places where we have real troubles are Zimbabwe, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran,” says Young, the former Atlanta mayor who retired last year from the GoodWorks International global advisory firm he founded in 1996. “Russia and China were far greater threats, but we talked to them, we worked with them, we found nonviolent ways to have regime change through evolution rather than through war. What Iran wants and what North Korea...

President François Hollande said on Thursday that Islamist groups holding French hostages in Africa were not trustworthy and should not be taken seriously after Al-Qaeda accused Paris of blocking negotiations for their release. There are a total of nine French hostages on the continent. On Tuesday the Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said France was snubbing talks proposed by the group to free four French citizens abducted in Niger in September 2010. "The less one speaks, the better one can work," Hollande told journalists during a visit to Rungis, a giant wholesale food market just outside Paris. "There have been...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Friday nominated Sen. John Kerry as his next secretary of state, elevating the longtime lawmaker and foreign policy expert to the top diplomatic job he had coveted. "He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job training," Obama said, standing alongside Kerry at the White House. "Few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers or grasp our policies as firmly as John Kerry."

As we debate whether the two parties can ever come together and get things done, here’s something President Obama could probably do by himself that would be a signal accomplishment of his presidency: End the war on terror. Or, more realistically, start planning and preparing the country for phasing it out. For 11 years, the United States has been operating under emergency wartime powers granted under the 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” That is a longer period than the country spent fighting the Civil War, World War I and World War II combined. It grants the president and...

Now on Fox. Reporting that talks with Taliban have collapsed as our surrender date in 2014 is official. Talks were through intermediaries to get some sort of treaty with the terrorists to salvage some shred of respect from Obama's announced surrender. The Taliban refused to release the sole US soldier being held hostage no matter how many terrorists Obama would release from Gitmo. They told Obama, basically, to go to hell. Our surrender in Afghanistan is now complete, along with the Afghani "allies" upping the murders of US troops. Full coverage in The Boston Globe.

The U.S. State Department is currently in negotiations with the Egyptian government for the transfer of custody of Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as “the Blind Sheikh,” for humanitarian and health reasons, a source close to the the Obama administration told TheBlaze. The Department of Justice, however, told TheBlaze that Rahman is serving a life sentence and is not considered for possible release.  Previous calls to the State Department were referred to the Department of Justice and so far, the State Department has neither confirmed nor denied the report.

On Wednesday September 12, 2012 blogger Speak With Authority discovered that five days before 9-11, the US State Department sent out a memo announcing no credible security threats against the United States on the anniversary of 9-11. The Overseas Security Advisory Council, who posted the memo, is part of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security under the U.S. Department of State. The OSAC memo said: Terrorism and Important Dates Global 9/6/2012 OSAC currently has no credible information to suggest that al-Qa’ida or any other terrorist group is plotting any kind of attack overseas to coincide with the upcoming anniversary of September...