That noise you hear from the State Dept and White House?….  Yep, it’s the sound of crickets chirping....

Cairo: Egypt’s prosecutor general on Monday ordered the arrest of five prominent political activists accused of inciting violence against President Mohamed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, a step the opposition decried as a reversal for democracy.

The move seemed certain to deepen mistrust in an already polarised political landscape, further complicating Mursi’s efforts to build bridges with his opponents before parliamentary polls the opposition has threatened to boycott.

Those ordered arrested included Ahmed Douma and Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a leading blogger who became a symbol of the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Also ordered arrested were Karim al-Shaer, Hazem Abdel Azeem and Ahmed al-Sahafi. (more…)

EGYPT – Islamic hard-liners stormed a mosque in suburban Cairo, turning it into torture chamber for Christians who had been demonstrating against the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the latest case of violent persecution that experts fear will only get worse.

Such stories have become increasingly common as tensions between Egypt’s Muslims and Copts mount, but in the latest case, mosque officials corroborated much of the account and even filed a police report. Demonstrators say they were taken from the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in suburban Cairo to a nearby mosque on Friday and tortured for hours by hard-line militia members.

“They accompanied me to one of the mosques in the area and I discovered the mosque was being used to imprison demonstrators and torture them,” Amir Ayad, a Coptic who has been a vocal protester against the regime, told MidEast Christian News from a hospital bed. (more…)

EGYPT – Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi warned Sunday of taking unspecified measures to “protect the nation” following violent clashes two days earlier between opposition demonstrators and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Cairo.

“I am president of all Egyptians and I will not allow anyone to tamper with the nation,” President Mursi said in statement posted on Twitter, adding:

“If I am obliged to do what is necessary to protect this nation, I will do, and I fear I am about to do that.”

(more…)

The author of this Telegraph article erroneously calls President Obama’s Arafat speech a mistake and an untentional gaffe.    No.   This was not a mistake – the President delivered his speech exactly where he wanted to, with the exact optic he wanted to express.

(UK Telegraph)  It is simply astonishing that the leader of the free world would agree to speak against a backdrop of a murderous terrorist with American and Israeli blood on his hands. What kind of message does this send to America’s enemies when the president of the United States gives a press conference standing in front of a banner celebrating one of the most brutal terrorists in history? It projects a clear signal that Washington is weak in the face of terrorism, and it is an insult to the memory of those who died at the hands of Arafat’s terror network.

While the Obama White House prides itself on having an extremely slick campaign operation, its ineptness and insensitivity in government, not least on the world stage, can be staggering. President Obama, for example, could not even pronounce the name of Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi on his recent visit to Rangoon, referring to her several times as Aung YAN Suu Kyi. He also famously called the Falkland Islands “the Maldives”, and succeeded in offending the whole of Poland when he referred to a ”Polish death camp” in World War Two.  (more…)

File this under the “B” folder for more insufferably “Bad” ideas….

WASHINGTON DC – Senate Armed Services Committee chief Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) joined with Senate Republicans on Thursday to demand that President Obama take military action to end the Syrian civil war.

Levin and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) sent a letter to the White House urging Obama to consider “limited military options,” including airstrikes, to topple the regime of embattled Syrian president Bashar Assad. (more…)

Will the grown-ups please report to the White House…..

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is postponing an award for an Egyptian activist who rallied worldwide attention against forced “virginity tests” on female protesters because of anti-American and anti-Semitic comments discovered on her Twitter account.

The State Department announced earlier this week that Samira Ibrahim would be among 10 recipients of the International Women of Courage award presented by Secretary of State John Kerry and first lady Michelle Obama on Friday.

But State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday the U.S. would hold off on awarding Ibrahim while officials investigate the tweets, which include support for attacks against U.S. diplomatic installations and praise for a terrorist assault against Israeli citizens in Bulgaria. (more…)

Sharyl Attkisson

Those pesky “rebels” that Hillary, Obama, Powers and Rice supported – the ones who killed Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi – you know, the ones we really didn’t know what their ideology was but we sent them missiles and guns n’ stuff,…. well, they’re back at it again....

[Hat Tip WeaselZippers] LIBYA – Libyan Islamists detained 48 Egyptian Christians in Benghazi last week, torturing them and using acid to burn off tattoos of the cross, according to family members. The Christians, who are peddlers, were arrested by Islamist Salafists in Benghazi, who said they had Christian icons at their marketplace stalls, according to Mideast Christian News.

The men were later reportedly freed and await deportation, but their family members back home told the Egyptian press they were abused while held, initially on charges of proselytizing. “When the residents of the village told me that he was imprisoned, I embraced his sons and told them they would not see their father again,” Fardoos Salib, the mother of Coptic farmer Atif Kamel, told Egyptian newspaper al-Watan. (more…)

Yesterday John Kerry was refused an audience with the true Egyptian democracy movement who oppose the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi –  The opposition party is profoundly disappointed with the Obama administration who now openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood.   The Coptic Christians continue to be persecuted by Morsi and his Islamist government.

Exodus 10:1-19  […] So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. For if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country, and they shall cover the face of the land, so that no one can see the land. And they shall eat what is left to you after the hail, and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field, (link)

Simultaneous to this visit the following “event” was reported in Egypt –  As a reminder to those who thought the account related in the Passover Haggadah might have been an exaggeration – think again.

Millions of locusts have swooped down in a swarm from the sky on to the land of Egypt. (more…)

Keep in mind the Democracy movement, the ‘opposition party’ in Egypt, refused to meet with or talk to John Kerry.   What does that tell you about this administration?  Pay no attention to the suicide vested jihadis’ behind the curtain that backdrops Kerry and Morsi’s handshake.

And to further illustrate the point – please refresh on the December 2011 visit with then Senator John Kerry, and the same newly elected Mohammed Morsi:

[…]  Morsi reportedly assured his visitors that no major changes ‎would be made to Egypt’s constitution or to current investment ‎laws.

He added that there were several principles that all ‎Egyptian political forces agreed must be enshrined in Egypt’s ‎national charter, including those concerning civil rights and ‎general freedoms. However, he stressed that the section of the ‎constitution related to presidential authorities would likely be ‎subject to amendment.‎

Morsi further assured his interlocutors that – in light of Egypt’s ‎central role in the Arab, Islamic and international arena – it would ‎respect all international treaties to which it was signatory, adding ‎that the US could play an important role in achieving political ‎stability and economic recovery for several nations of the ‎region.  (again, this was 2011)

Now To Today….

CAIRO (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday rewarded Egypt for President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges of political and economic reforms by releasing $250 million in American aid to support the country’s “future as a democracy.”

Yet Kerry also served notice that the Obama administration will keep close watch on how Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president, honors his commitment. (more…)