Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann is suspending her campaign, a GOP source familiar with her plans told CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash on Wednesday. - A Republican source familiar with Bachmann's plans told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King earlier Wednesday Bachmann "will acknowledge the reality of Iowa's vote" a at Wednesday morning press conference. King's source said, "she deserves the chance to say this in her own words but it is safe to say we don't see a viable way forward," and confirmed that a planned post-Iowa trip to South Carolina "isn't going to happen." King's source is involved in the campaign's post-Iowa deliberations but insisted on anonymity and on being characterized only as a GOP source familiar with Bachmann's thinking.

Once again, the Republican Party is being tempted to vote for "the lesser of two evils". A lot of Republicans are actually considering voting for Mitt Romney because they have bought the lie that he has "the best chance" of defeating Barack Obama in 2012. But just because he is the Republican candidate that is most like Barack Obama does not mean that he has the best chance of defeating him. The truth is that no self-respecting Republican should ever vote for Mitt Romney. A vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for the New World Order. Romney comes from the financial establishment, he is being showered with money from the financial establishment and he supports all of the goals of the financial establishment. This year, millions upon millions of dollars are being funneled into Romney's campaign and into pro-Romney organizations. The New World Order is literally trying to buy the 2012 election for their dream candidate. Romney would be the ultimate Wall Street puppet, and if you cast a vote for Mitt Romney you are playing right into the hands of the financial elite. If you do not believe that a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for the New World Order, just consider Mitt Romney's positions on the issues...

04 Jan 2012 Ballots are missing from two counties in Iowa. (Fox News, live report, 01:40 AM ET) 04 Jan 2012 [Of course! Even Karl Rove's 10 million dollars/sleazy pac couldn't seal the deal for corpora-terrorist Mitt Romney -- ergo, ballots are 'missing!' Rove is on the air on Fox, citing a 'credible source' explaining how Mitt Romey's vote may have been 'undercounted' in one Iowa county. On Fox, Rove predicted a Romney victory by 14 votes.]

China has voiced strong opposition to the US-led push for unilateral sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, reiterating that Tehran's nuclear issue must be resolved diplomatically. - "China has consistently believed that sanctions are not the correct way to ease tensions or resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear program," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. "The correct path is dialogue and negotiations. China opposes putting domestic law above international law to impose unilateral sanctions on another country," he said. Hong also defended China's oil and trade ties with Iran and criticized the Western sanctions that could frustrate such relations.

The United States will continue to deploy its warships in the Gulf, a defense spokesman said on Tuesday after Iran threatened to take action if the U.S. Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the Gulf.

When asked later Tuesday if the U.S. intends to send naval reinforcements to the Gulf in response to Iranian talk of closing the Strait of Hormuz, Pentagon spokesperson George Little did not answer directly but said, "No one in this government seeks confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz. It's important to lower the temperature." Also referring to Iranian threats on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. saw "these threats from Tehran as just increasing evidence that the international pressure is beginning to bite."

Earlier on Tuesday, Iran said it would take action if a U.S. aircraft carrier which left the area because of Iranian naval exercises returns to the Gulf. The state news agency IRNA quoted army chief Ataollah Salehi as saying that "Iran will not repeat its warning ... the enemy's carrier has been moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill. I recommend and emphasize to the American carrier not to return to the Persian Gulf." Iran completed 10 days of naval exercises in the Gulf on Monday, and said during the drills that if foreign powers imposed sanctions on its crude exports it could shut the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped.

Fars News Agency: Senior MP: Persian Gulf Needs No Big Brother
PressTV: US vows to keep warships in PG
Russia Today: Iran ‘recommends’ US stay out of Persian Gulf - Video
Jason Ditz: US Vows to Keep Warships in Persian Gulf
AWIP: Iran warns US carrier to stay out of Persian Gulf

GOP Presidential contender Rick Santorum, who appears likely to come from far behind to finish in the top 3 in Tuesday's Iowa Caucuses, is trying to out-do his former Congressional colleague Newt Gingrich when it comes to insulting Palestinians. - Gingrich called the Palestinians an "invented" people who didn't exist until sometime in the 20th century. Santorum criticized Gingrich’s widely-reported remarks as “provocative,” but his own more extreme views got little attention at the time because he was considered a hopeless back-of-the-pack candidate and not being taken very seriously. But now that he is rising rapidly in the polls, his comments deserve a second look. As far as Santorum is concerned, Palestinians don’t exist. “There are no Palestinians,” he told a questioner at a campaign event in Iowa. You can see the video here. "All the people who live in the West Bank are Israelis. There are no Palestinians. This is Israeli land," the former Pennsylvania senator said.

AWIP: Gingrich calls Palestinians 'invented' people
Slate: The U.N. Should Accept Palestine as a Full Member State - Former Palestinian presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti explains why Israel and the United States are on the wrong side of history.
National Post: Santorum: Putting the screws to Iran

Zakariyya Daoud, a former Palestinian political prisoner, who got seriously ill while in Israeli prisons, and was only released on August 22, 2011, died of cancer on Monday, he was diagnosed in prison Israeli prisons and was deprived of the needed and specialized medical attention.

Israel released Daoud, 43, after he spent nine years out of a 16-year sentence due to the ongoing decline in his health condition. He is a father of four children; Ahmad, 19, Wisal, 20, Malak, 14, and Dalal, 13, the Maan News Agency reported. He was kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel on February 10th, 2003, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) reported. The PPS said that Zakariyya had cancer that spread in his body due to the lack of specialized medical treatment in Israeli prisons.

PIC: Center: Death of Issa proves Israel’s criminal practices against prisoners

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Undercover Israeli security forces kidnapped a Palestinian child in Aisawiye, to the north east of occupied Jerusalem, on Tuesday evening, local sources said. - They said that the disguised soldiers broke into the village and chased a number of children who all managed to escape except the 6-year-old child Mohammed Ali Dirbas. The sources noted that back up units rushed to the scene and fired tear gas and stun grenades at nearby houses and groves, which caused breathing problems for tens of civilians.

Israeli paper, Haaretz, reported that recent Israeli and Palestinian statistics revealed that the demography of the country will significantly change by 2015, and the Jewish majority will sharply decline and the number of Arabs and Palestinians will exceed the number of Jews. - The paper stated that, according to Palestinian statistics conducted by the Palestinian Census Bureau, the number of Palestinians in the Palestinian territories is currently 4.2 Million; 2.6 of them are living in the West Bank, and 1.6 in the Gaza Strip. In addition to 1.4 million who live in the 1948 territories (Israel), which brings the estimated total to 5.6 Palestinians. Israeli statistics revealed that the population of Israel is now 7.8 Million; 5.9 million Jews, 1.6 million Palestinians and 325,000 of different nationalities. Statistics regarding the natural growth of the population revealed that by 2015, the Jewish population will be demographically equal to the number of Palestinians (6.3 Million Jews and 6.3 Million Palestinians). According to the statistics, there will be a Palestinian majority in the land by 2020, as the number of Palestinians is expected to rise to 7.2 million while the number of Jews is expected to rise to 6.8 million.

"Most people don't understand what they have been part of here," said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. "We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them."

"It is pretty exciting," said another young American soldier in Iraq. "We are going down in the history books, you might say." (Washington Post, December 18, 2011)

Ah yes, the history books, the multi-volume leather-bound set of "The Greatest Destructions of One Country by Another." The newest volume can relate, with numerous graphic photos, how the modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a quasi failed state; how the Americans, beginning in 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one dubious excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly, ... how the people of that unhappy land lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives ... More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lying anywhere in wait for children to pick them up ... a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again. [The story in pictures:]

Evils of the U.S. Iraqi Invasion
Iraq babies born deformed depleted uranium
Casualty figues — Injury and Death
Body count in Iraq
WELCOME TO WAR

Robert Parry: America’s Debt to Bradley Manning - MUST SEE VIDEO
New York Post: Meet the big shot - SEAL is America’s deadliest sniper
ANSWER: 'A great national tragedy for Iraqis' - VIDEO

Google is getting into some hot water after some stealthy bloggers caught the search engine giants breaking their own rules. - An online ad campaigned launched by Google to promote its own products, specifically the Chrome web browser, has been revealed to using shortcuts to skip rules that the company itself put in place in order to keep search engines fair in returning their results. According to Google’s own rules on paid links, “Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the Web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results.” In order to keep the Web operating justly then, Google proposes coding to be added to websites that keep paid links from landing within the regulations set forth in their guidelines. Google, however, is dismissing those guidelines themselves.

The Taliban announced Tuesday that they will open an office in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar to hold talks with the United States, an unprecedented step toward a peace process that might lead to a winding down of the 10-year war in Afghanistan. Although U.S. and Taliban representatives have met secretly several times over the past year in Europe and the Persian Gulf, this is the first time the Islamist insurgent group has publicly expressed willingness for substantive negotiations.