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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his nation on Friday evening that he had refused the Biden administration’s request for a “pause” in fighting, ostensibly for humanitarian purposes. Netanyahu recounted that he had met earlier in the day with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and showed him footage of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. (Breitbart News was among the first to review that footage last week in Israel.) He continued: “I conveyed to him that we are continuing with all our might. Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire that does not include the liberation of our hostages. Israel will...

Yesterday was slightly heavy on the breaking news front, so this (not unexpected) development went largely overlooked.  President Obama held a photo-op to highlight his decision to veto the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act, which appropriates $612 billion in defense spending -- a figure that matches Obama's military budget request.  Among other things, the legislation pays the troops and gives them a raise.  It sailed through the Senate with 70 votes, attracting dozens of Democratic votes at both ends of Capitol Hill.  But in an escalation of partisan politics, Obama has refused to sign the measure into law in an effort to coerce Republicans into...

From the beginning of the week to the end, the president made crystal-clear to anyone who paid attention that he was over his head in this position and that he was startlingly disengaged in all but the most trivial of ceremonial matters. Obama's agents hammered out a proposed tax deal in which he seemed to play no significant role and which totally undercut his promise to end tax cuts for the rich. That redistributive, economically ridiculous position is one of the few things on which he has not heretofore been a slippery, tilting-at-straw-men con man. It is perfectly consistent with...

We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops. There isn't much left to lose! Which may explain Tuesday's press conference. President Obama was supposed to be announcing an important compromise, as he put it, on tax policy. Normally a president, having agreed with the opposition on something big, would go through certain expected motions. He would laud the specific virtues of the plan, show graciousness toward the negotiators on the other side—graciousness...

In what may have been his very first feeble attempt at bipartisanship since being elected over two years ago, President Obama promptly destroyed any smidgin of good will he may have accumulated by mewling to the press about the perfidy of Republicans as he announced his deal to extend unemployment benefits (again!) in exchange for dropping a greatly-desired-by-Democrats tax increase. In response to a reporter’s question about rewarding the “obstructionism” of the Republicans, the President had this to say: “It’s tempting not to negoitate with hostage takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that...

QUITO, Ecuador, Nov. 16 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the ability of terrorist organizations to move people, weapons and money across the many borders of Central and South America could be constrained only by increased cooperation among the governments and militaries in the region. At the start of meetings with defense ministers from the Western Hemisphere, Mr. Rumsfeld cited the skill of the groups Hamas and Hezbollah - which are on the United States government's list of terrorist organizations - in raising money in the region. And he warned that smugglers' routes now used to move...

Manhunt for Saudi hostage-takers Police have been checking cars throughout the city A nationwide manhunt is under way in Saudi Arabia for at least three Islamic militants who evaded capture after a bloody 25-hour hostage siege in Khobar. Police have set up checkpoints to catch the gunmen who killed 22 people and took about 50 foreigners hostage. Officials say the group's leader was wounded and captured, but that the others escaped using hostages as human shields and then hijacking a car. But one hostage has claimed security forces allowed the gunman to escape. VICTIMS' NATIONALITIES Eight Indians Three Filipinos Three...

German police are questioning five men arrested after they seized the Iraqi embassy in Berlin claiming to represent a group opposed to President Saddam Hussein. There is intense speculation about the aims of their group, the Democratic Iraqi Opposition of Germany, and about whom it represents. Mainstream opposition organisations have described it as "obscure". The five - some of them armed - stormed the embassy on Tuesday afternoon, taking four hostages including the acting ambassador and his appointed successor. Elite German officers retook the embassy building in a lightning raid five hours later, without firing a shot. Motives unknown The...