“State Department” on The Daily Caller

May 15, the day after the anniversary of Israel’s creation in 1948, is known in the Arab world as “Nakba Day,” or “the day of the catastrophe.” We can expect Arab militants to spend Tuesday hurling rocks and firebombs at Israeli passersby as an expression of mourning over Israel’s defeat of the invading Arab armies. Probably not many of the rioters realize that while Arab tanks and planes were unable to prevent the birth of the Jewish state, the U.S. State Department almost succeeded in doing so. (more)

President Barack Obama told a crowd at Disney World in Orlando, Fla., that he is “directing the State Department to accelerate our ability to process visas by 40 percent.” (more)

A Hindu and a Muslim walk into Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office and tell her they have an act. (more)

NAIROBI, Kenya — The United States government is increasingly concerned about the Twitter account of the Shabab militant group of Somalia, with American officials saying Monday that they were “looking closely” at the militants’ use of Twitter and the possible measures to take in response. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration has begun its effort to further isolate Iran internationally by instructing U.S. diplomats abroad to tell their host governments about an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was to individually brief members of the Security Council on Wednesday. (more)

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Federal investigators raided the home of former State Department contractor Kathleen McGrade on Thursday morning. At least eight vehicles belonging to federal investigators were on scene when The Daily Caller arrived. An unverifiable number of investigators were inside the home. (more)

Washington (CNN) – The U.S. government is not aware of any specific threat of a terrorist attack to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement Friday. (more)

The popular blogging platform, Tumblr, has a new set of adopters. Government agencies, from the State Department to the National Archives, are using the microblogging site to give people a look at their inner-workings. (more)

Former President Jimmy Carter and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari were hoping to visit the State Department this week to brief officials on their recent trip to North Korea, but nobody at the State Department was available to meet with them. (more)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Arab leaders to move “faster and further” in reform in a speech Tuesday at the U.S.-Islam World Forum Tuesday, rousing audience members as she pushed leaders to give citizens a bigger role in regime change in the Middle East and North Africa. (more)

(CNN) — An American man has been detained in North Korea, two State Department officials told CNN. (more)

WikiLeaks may have joined the ranks of naked pictures, drunken tweets, and pictures of you taking part in illegal activities as things that you probably shouldn’t post on your Facebook or Twitter if you’d like to get a job after graduating from school. (more)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was right on the money when she said in September that Mexico is beginning to resemble Colombia of 20 years ago, according to leaked diplomatic cables. (more)

What Mexico is to the United States’ narcotic black market, Iran is quickly becoming to its neighbors, suggest State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks. American diplomats in both Kuwait and Azerbaijan are looking at Iran as the next large exporter of narcotics to Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other counties in the region. (more)

A federal judge on Friday sentenced a former State Department worker who is the great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell to life in prison without possibility of parole for spying for Cuba and sentenced the man’s wife to more than 5 years behind bars for helping her husband steal U.S. secrets. (more)

Israel has announced the formation of its own commission to investigate last month’s seizure of an aid flotilla attempting to break the country’s blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza. The operation resulted in the deaths of nine passengers, though Israel maintains that the deaths only occurred because the activists threatened the lives of the soldiers attempting to board one of the boats. The United Nations has expressed a desire for an internationally led inquiry into the incident, but Israel has refused to acquiesce to the body’s request thus far; instead, Israel maintains that its own commission’s report will be sufficient. The New York Times reports: (more)

Torture victims won a victory Tuesday when the Supreme Court ruled that federal law does not automatically protect ex-officials of foreign governments from lawsuits over the abuse. (more)

Full disclosure: I support a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians — consistent with Israel’s security. But even I, a strong supporter of the peace process, was shocked when I heard my own government “condemn” Israel and “summon” its ambassador to the State Department shortly before the Sabbath last Friday night to be read a harsh “démarche” (letter of condemnation) by the department’s second-highest official. And if that isn’t enough, the statements were immediately leaked to the press, indicating that the U.S.-Israel “relationship” was “at risk.” (more)

For the first time in memory, the federal government has closed for three straight days. “Snowmaggedon” has shut down Washington, D.C. and its suburbs. With the third storm within a week hitting the region, causing white-out conditions, even Uncle Sam can’t function. (more)

The U.S. government has determined that the 10 American Baptist missionaries detained by the Haitian government on kidnapping charges and held in squalid conditions without medical care for days had no “malicious intent” in trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country following the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. (more)