LONDON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tried Monday to patch back together a conference with Syrian opposition leaders that was to be the centerpiece of his debut overseas trip, urging Syrian rebel leaders not to boycott the meeting and insisting that more help is on the way in their fight against President Bashar Assad.

Kerry not only made a public plea at a joint news conference Monday with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, he also called Moaz Khatib, leader of the Syrian Opposition Council, “to encourage him to come to Rome,” a senior U.S. official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. (more…)

“And with that, what I want to do is clear out the press, so we can take some questions.”

Last year we wrote several articles about Darden Restuarants owners of Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse.  Specifically, how their progressive ideology disconnects them from business sense.   At the time we spotlighted a few specific examples from their ideological organization, and flawed business model.  We penned:

[…] You see the point is, Progs believe in their progressive ideology with such core reverence, they are constitutionally incapable of seeing how detached they are from the rest of us.  It is an emotion over logic thing for them.

That’s why they look at each other cross-eyed, whether in the Olive Garden board room, or the MSNBC punditry round table following the Wisconsin Election.

Same-Same.  (link)

The problem really began in 2011 when they decided to join Michelle Obama: (more…)

The legacy of The Obama Curse continues.    Last week Ray’s Hell Burger restaurant closed after being the spotlight of President Obama’s visits.

Prior to that Chet’s restaurant in Ohio closed it’s doors after Obama stopped by and mentioned them in one of his political speeches.

Then there was Cardinal Fastner, the Ohio company who went bankrupt after Obama visited and gave a speech at their plant….

….And who can forget Caterpillar Co., after Obama praised their intention to hire more workers if the stimulus was passed.   The stimulus passed and Caterpillar was forced to lay off 2,500 workers.

The latest victim, golfer Tiger Woods, who spent the last weekend with Obama practicing golf only to find himself today losing match play in the very first round of the Match Play Championship. (more…)

For the same reason it is unlawful NOT to hire illegal immigrants, the Obama administration is now claiming it is unlawful not to hire criminals.

When you pre-screen job applicants based on legal work eligibility status you are adversely impacting job seekers based on race/origin/nationality (disparate impact), a federally protected category.  So too, when you pre-screen eligibility based on criminal record you adversely impact blacks.

Not hiring someone because they are illegally in the United States is unlawful by EEOC standards. They are applying the same logic to criminals.

WASHINGTON DC – Criminal background checks have become all the rage in Washington, D.C., as politicians scramble to try to ensure that anyone who ever even thought of owning a gun is subjected to a thorough electronic proctology exam.

However, one group that appears immune to background check fever are the ever helpful Obama officials at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).

The EEOC and OFCCP have each determined that employers who use background checks as one of the determinants of whether to hire a prospective employee may be engaging in prohibited discrimination. (more…)

Few people actually recognize the influence of Turkey as the intentional new Middle East gatekeeper post Gadaffi.  But let there be no doubt Turkey retains a vastly superior influence over the Islamification of the West than any other national head.

 ANKARA, FEBRUARY 19 – Some 17,000 new mosques have been built during Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 10 years of leadership, Milliyet reports.

In the same period the amount of public schools has remained at 32,000 while the number of mosques has jumped from 76,000 to 93,000. Turkey’s secular opposition has accused Erdogan of having a ”secret plan” to re-Islamisize the nation. (more…)

How dare the bitterclingers present a counter argument to the regime !!

WASHINGTON – Vice President Joe Biden was caught off guard Tuesday by questions he was asked during a Facebook Town Hall with Parents Magazine.

One questioner equated gun control to drug control — if criminalizing drugs didn’t get them off the streets, why will criminalizing guns? — and a second asked if limiting assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would limit people’s ability to protect themselves.

“Is this Parents Magazine? I have Parents Magazine. I’ve never heard anybody in Parents Magazine ask these kinds of questions,” Biden said. (more…)

The “Debt” is the amount you owe.  The “Deficit” is the amount you are overspending in relation to your income expense ratio.

President Obama claims to have reduced the deficit, the amount he is spending in excess of the revenue via taxation.    Yet simultaneously he is growing the Debt.   Once again, the last federal budget signed into law was signed by George W Bush in September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008.    Since Obama took office he has not had a budget for one single day.

(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama claimed today that since he has been president both parties have worked together to cut the federal deficit by $2.5 trillion— (*snip, over ten year plan or $250 billion per year)  despite the fact that the national debt has increased $5.19 trillion during Obama’s presidency, which more than it increased under all presidents from George Washington through Bill Clinton combined.

“Over the last few years both parties have worked together to reduce our deficits by more than $2.5 trillion,” Obama said in a speech at the White House in which he called on Congress to avoid modest automatic cuts in anticipated spending that are set to begin on March 1. (more…)

BREAKING: DAVID AXELROD JOINS NBC NEWS AND MSNBC AS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) February 19, 2013