The cartoons mostly come from:

www.townhall.com/funnies.

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Previous issues are listed and can be accessed here:

http://kukis.org/page20.html (their contents are described and each issue is linked to) or here:

http://kukis.org/blog/ (this is the online directory they are in)

I attempt to post a new issue each Sunday by 5 or 6 pm central standard time (I sometimes fail at this attempt).

I try to include factual material only, along with my opinions (it should be clear which is which). I make an attempt to include as much of this week’s news as I possibly can. The first set of columns are intentionally designed for a quick read.

I do not accept any advertising nor do I charge for this publication. I write this principally to blow off steam in a nation where its people seemed have collectively lost their minds.

And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, always remember: We do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12).

This Week’s Events

Talks between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and China have begun so that Canada will sell their oil to Chine—the oil that Obama refused via the Keystone XL pipeline. Somehow, environmentalists, who oppose the opening up the Keystone XL pipeline in the United States, have determined that trekking the oil halfway across Canada and then shipping it by sea to China, and then having it refined in China will be less harmful to the environment.

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

Republican candidate Rick Santorum wins Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, all by double digits. He is tied in some national polls with Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wins Maine, edging out Ron Paul by 3 points. Mitt Romney also won the CPAC straw poll this year.

Another Obama bundler has been found to have earmarked stimulus money for Obama donors.

Fisker Automotive, a California-based electric car start-up company, is laying off some of its staff in order to try to reserve enough capital in order to qualify for more federal help from the Department of Energy.

It has come out that Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee steered millions of dollars to the University of Houston while her husband was working there. She is one of 15 other members of Congress who also directed federal dollars to colleges where family members work.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided that churches may no longer rent public school buildings. This will involve about 70 churches and a few scattered other religious groups, and Feb. 12 marks the end of this practice. Bloomberg claims to be doing this under the mantra of separation of church and state.

President first said, that as a part of the healthcare law, some Catholic institutions (schools or soup kitchens, for instance) would have to purchase healthcare insurance which included contraception paid for, including the morning after pill, which many consider an abortive procedure. Apparently, both Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Bill Daley warned against this ideological move. When there was a serious backlash from Catholics and other religious groups as well, the Obama administration pretended to compromise and say, healthcare providers would pay for these items themselves. Catholic leaders are saying, this is not a compromise.

The Obama administration has announced a new "public advocate" charged with listening to immigrants' concerns about its law enforcement policies. They have also reduced the number of immigrants who are being deported.

Two American brothers of a Mexican casino magnate who fled drug and fraud charges in the United States and has been seeking a pardon enabling him to return have emerged as major fund-raisers and donors for President Obama's re-election campaign.

Thirty-three members of Congress have directed more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers' own property, according to a Washington Post investigation. A common practice among legislators, Republican and Democratic alike, is to earmark a project near to property that they own, so that the value of that property is increased. This helps to explain why so many congressmen are also such savvy investors.

South Carolina passed a new voter ID law, and Attorney General Eric Holder has blocked them, so now South Carolina is suing the federal government. I do not recall any time in the past where there were so many lawsuits back and forth between the federal government and individual states.

Oklahoma state Sen. Constance Johnson (D) was so enraged at a "personhood" bill that sought to define human life as beginning at the moment of conception - even before the egg is implanted in the womb - that she offered her own amendment which would have added this language: ". any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman's vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child."

Some Blue Dog Democrats will not be running against, and Nancy Pelosi is cited by at least one as being the reason why.

A group of Republican lawmakers is protesting the removal a reference to God in the patch logo for the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO).

Investigation of alleged bribery under Foreign Corrupt Practices Act could be the greatest danger to Rupert Murdoch's media empire

FOIA requests have revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring online political dissent.

The FBI has warned that anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States. The Occupy types? They’re fine; but the TEA party; that’s another story.

John Chambers of Standard & Poor's has stated that the U.S., if they continue without a plan to contain $1 trillion deficits, could face another rating downgrade in the next 6 to 24 months.

Protesters at Friday's "Occupy CPAC" event were actually organized and paid by the AFL-CIO. They are out-of-work union people who got $60/each to show up. Some had no idea what CPAC was.

Anti-Mitt Romney ads to be run by Obama SuperPAC in Florida.

The Michigan state government now has a $457 million surplus. Most people know Michigan as one of the states hit the hardest by this recession and “recovery.” Would you like to guess whether they have a Democrat or Republican governor? Here’s a hint: business taxes were reduced.

U.S. officials tell NBC news that deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel's secret service.

At a closed-door retreat in a Long Island mansion late last October, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his topmost aides brainstormed about how the global organization could benefit from a "unique opportunity" to reshape the world. According to a document obtained by Fox News, the 29-member group, known as the United Nations System Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB), discussed bold ambitions that stretch for years beyond the Rio conclave to consolidate a radical new global green economy, to promote a spectrum of sweeping new social policies and to build an even more important role for U.N. institutions, with the intent "to manage the process of globalization better."

According to U.S. Intelligence, Al-Qaeda in Iraq is behind recent bombings in Syria, acting under the direction of Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

Jihadists are moving from Iraq to Syria, as are weapons being sent to opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Saudi Arabia will launch a military nuclear program immediately if Iran successfully developed atomic weapons. They will buy nuclear weapons from Pakistan.

Interpol got a Saudi journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad. The journalist faces the death penalty.

The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

An Iranian government-affiliated agency has banned dolls of the Simpsons cartoon characters, who join Barbie and others on a toy blacklist.

Say What?

Liberals:

President Barack Obama: "I deserve a second term.”

President Obama: "What's frustrated people is that I haven't been able to force Congress to implement every aspect of what I said in 2008. It turns out that our founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about changes than I would like sometimes."

Obama: "One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there, there is gonna be just a lot of money floating around and I guarantee a bunch of it's gonna be negative." Unions spent $300 million to get Obama elected in 2008.

Department of Homeland Security "lexicon" defines "militia extremists": “Groups or individuals who facilitate or engage in acts of violence directed at federal, state, or local government officials or infrastructure in response to their belief that the government deliberately is stripping Americans of their freedoms and is attempting to establish a totalitarian regime. These individuals consequently oppose many federal and state authorities' laws and regulations, (particularly those related to firearms ownership), and often belong to armed paramilitary groups.”

Jacob Lew: "He's not saying that they shouldn't pass a budget. But we also need to be honest. You can't pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes and you can't get 60 votes without bipartisan support. So unless. unless Republicans are willing to work with Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid is not going to be able to get a budget passed." Either Lew is intentionally misleading the public here, or he does not know. You cannot filibuster a budget. This is, more or less, how Obamacare was passed in the very end.

White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew: "The American people should be pleased that we now have a recovery that is taking root. The job growth across all the sectors of the economy, it's not the result of people leaving the workforce. It's the result of private sector job creation. This is good. The thing that we have to be careful about is to make sure that Washington doesn't get in the way."

Senate leader Harry Reid on the transportation bill that Republicans offered an amendment on, to counterman Obama’s contraception mandate: "Here is a bipartisan bill to create and save jobs. Every state in the union is desperate for these dollars. But to show how the Republicans never lose an opportunity to mess up a good piece of legislation, listen to this: They're talking about First Amendment rights, the Constitution.”

Harry Reid: “In exchange for extending this middle-class tax break, Republicans are insisting, among other things, we pass an unrelated ideological piece of legislation that will make our water less safe to drink. This would allow mercury and other carcinogens to be put in our water supply. That's pretty stark compromise. We'll give you a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans if you will let us continue to put things like arsenic and mercury in the water of the American people. That's not a very good deal. ”

Former Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones: "I'm tired of being accused of being anti-American. They call it class warfare. . . if anything, it's warfare against people who have no class. . . they won't even return our phone calls when our houses are underwater."

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg: “We sitll had a cop shot last week with a gun that somebody had even though federal laws prohibited that person from having a gun.”

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on why President Obama has reversed himself on SuperPAC’s: "The President made a decision, which I think was a wise one that he was not going to unilaterally disarm and leave the field to the Koch Brothers to decide who would be President of the United States and to control the congress.”

President Barack Obama: “And I think what Americans what to hear more than anything else is `how are you going to help me right now?'”

New Jersey Education Association executive director Vincent Giordano, who makes $500,000 a year, in opposition to a voucher system: "Life's not always fair, and I'm sorry about that, but to suggest that we take money from taxpayers and give it to certain taxpayers to use to educate their kids outside of the public school just seems to me to be [wrong]." If New Jersey went big on the voucher system, Giordano loses this salary. Not fair.

Angie Murie, executive director of Planned Parenthood Waterloo Region in Canada: "I wrestle with gender-based abortion more than any other reason [for having an abortion]. From a macro perspective, I don't think it is a good idea for us to be eliminating women. But if you look at it at the individual level, which is what we do, I don't have any right to say that one person's reason is better or worse than another's." Recall how many people argue for abortion on the basis of rape or incest; or even because the baby won’t be properly cared for due to finances. Here, she admits that, if someone wants to kill their baby for being the wrong gender, then, that’s okay too.

Melaney Linton, who will now oversee Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast: "I am honored and humbled to be entrusted with such a sacred duty. I pledge to do everything in my power to fight back against the ideological attacks on Planned Parenthood and women, so that no teen will ever say she didn't know how she got pregnant, no one will ever be denied basic reproductive health care, and no woman will ever be forced to bear children she cannot adequately support."

Laura Murphy, the ACLU's director of the Washington Legislative office, in an email: "Anti-choice forces around the country are yelling from the rooftops about religious freedom, but what they actually mean is the use of religion to discriminate and deny millions of women access to birth control."

Pro-abortion group, EMILY's List statement: "A person may decide not to use a medication, but that's their decision. Institutions that serve a broader public have an obligation to respect our nation's core value of individual liberty, as we respect their religious beliefs."

Rev. Al Sharpton: “You have tyranny by the majority; you cannot have rights voted on...if you had civil rights voted on, I’d be sitting in the back of the bus.”

Sheila Jackson Lee on why there shouldn't be voter id laws: "We travelled half way around the world and couldn't get a copy of my mother's birth certificate." Her mother was born in Florida.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., concerning a campaign donor's purchase of a plane ticket for a woman he had an extramarital affair with, at his behest: "[It was] not a personal benefit to me, I don't believe, under the House rules. A benefit to the person for whom he bought the ticket. He didn't buy tickets for me. Did I direct him? I did,"

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee: "The mantra of the Republican party is: Do no work, help no one, take away the highest essence of all religious faith, love and charity. They have a single purpose which is to defeat the president who happens to be named Barack Obama. This is the most historical period in our lifetime and I believe it will be tainted, it will be shameful period."

Rep. Bennie Thomas: “Every now and then, you have to look at the enemy. And I say just, switch over to Fox TV for 30 seconds, see what the enemy is doing, and then switch right back, because then you understand what the enemy is all about.”

Brad Johnson of Think Progress headline: “Access To Birth Control Is A Fundamental Component Of Climate Survival”

It’s all about race:

Democratic consultant, Bob Shrum: “You look at those tea party rallies - they can't deal with the fact that a black man is president of the United States. That is why they call him the other, that's why they call him alien.”

Vice President Joe Biden: "These are the same guys who are calling the president a `food stamp president,' a thinly veiled - I don't know what it is, but it's inappropriate." I guess this is a dog-whistle accusation of dog-whistle racism.

The Compliant Obama Press Corps:

CNN's Don Lemon to Obama's HHS Secretary: "Do you get the sense that the outrage over the original plan was manufactured to hurt the President politically with Catholic voters?"

NPR commentator E.J. Dionne Jr., on NBC: “Barack Obama is a moderate progressive with the emphasis on moderate.“

Zanny Minton Beddoes, on HBO, concerning Rick Santorum’s 2006 book: “I read a little bit of his book this week, which is terrifying - logical, but terrifying - and there was a review of it, I think it was the Philadelphia Inquirer when it first came out and it said that Santorum would be a fine mind for the 13^th century. And it's kind of right. It's logical, it's natural law, it's the kind of Catholic absolutist view of the world of several centuries ago.”

On NBC’s Meet the Press, Rachel Maddow: “Rick Santorum says that he would like states to be able to make contraception illegal.” My memory is, she is never questioned on this, although she provides a very tortured argument for this opinion.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews of Obama: "I think that smile of his is worth five to ten points in the general [election]."

ABC's Barbara Walters wrote her memoir Audition, using as its selling point a tale of her tawdry 1970s affair with married black Sen. Edward Brooke. However, when she interviewed former Kennedy mistress Mimi Alford, Walters four times said that Alford was greedy, saying, "She'll make a lot of money!" and “Ms. Alford, I have to bring something up. Because as I said, you're going to sell a lot of books. There's a lot of juicy details and after 50 years you remember all of them. But there are two things that trouble me. One, did you think at all of Caroline Kennedy, who's alive today, and her children when you wrote this book, which did not have to be written?”

NBC Today’s co-host Ann Curry to Kennedy mistress Mimi Alford: "What about Caroline [Kennedy], who is still alive?...Did you think about, as you talk about unburdening yourself, the idea that you've burdened other people now with this?"

_______________________________________

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, Host: “Brad, how can Romney claim to be fighting for the middle class when his backers are some of Washington's most notorious lobbyists and when he wants to repeal legislation that's been of direct benefit to many poor people in this country?”

Brad Woodhouse, Communications Director Democratic National Committee: “Well, he can't be, and Martin, he's not. I mean, he's certainly not looking out for the middle class.”

And are you now waiting for a token conservative to weigh in? You’d be waiting a very long time. That was it, point/counterpoint, which agree with one another.

________________________________________

Chris Matthews, Host: “This week a new book by Mimi Alford, the 19-year-old intern who writes that Jack Kennedy seduced her in the White House. Which brings us to this week's big question: Does this story and others like it diminish Jack Kennedy's place in history? John.”

John Heilemann, New York Magazine: “I think not at all. The notion of Jack Kennedy as a horn dog is pretty much priced into the stock I think historically on him.”

How did these two men feel about Herman Cain?

_______________________________________

Former Newsweek editor Evan Thomas: “I mean, while he is saving the world from the Cuban missile crisis and doing great affairs of state, he is having affairs not just with her but plenty of women. He obviously compartmented his life incredibly. I mean, I think, unbelievably, he had a good marriage even as he was doing all this terrible stuff.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Doesn't it strike you? You put together her story with the new Jackie tapes.”

Thomas: “Yes. I mean, she was clearly devoted to him. If it's possible for- to be a serial philanderer and have a good marriage, I guess it's not, but somehow he did.”

...

Matthews: “You know, it's interesting here as you talked a moment ago about how the inner play works. Here is the guy as president of the United States, married. And what seems to be when you listen to the tapes from Jackie and everything we know, a full marriage, where they shared emotions and the ups and downs of life in the White House and all that. Jackie knew all about politics. And yet this was going on. Do you think it affected negatively? Is there any evidence if he hadn't gotten caught, is there any damage to his work?”

_______________________________________

From PBS:

Gordon Peterson, Host: “I heard Howard Fineman say on MSNBC that Mitt Romney is like a giant hairball that the Republicans can't cough up.”

Charles Krauthammer: “I like your choice of objective sources.”

Liberal Celebrities:

Scarlett Johansson on Rick Santorum’s sweater vests: "I mean, sweater vests are, I guess, charming for family photos and dinner with the grandparents; but I think you wear a sweater vest ironically, right?”

Actor Samuel L. Jackson: "I voted for Barack because he was black...That's American politics, pure and simple. [Obama's] message didn't mean %$^#@ to me. In the end, he's a politician.”

Actor Daniel Radcliffe [Harry Potter}: "I'm not religious, I'm an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation. We need sex education in schools...But they [other Republican candidates] disgusted me less than candidates like Rick Perry, who made that ridiculous advert wearing `the Brokeback jacket', and I think pretend to be homophobic just to win votes."

When Redcliffe was asked if he wished that Barack Obama would publicly back gay marriage: "Yes, I do, but can he really? Of course he's in favour of it, but he has to be careful about saying so. I'd rather have someone like him in the White House than the alternative."

Liberals from the past:

President Obama 2011: “I think that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt. They don't have majority support in Egypt. They are -- but they are well- organized. And there are strains of their ideology that are anti-U.S. There is no doubt about it.”

Candidate Obama in 2007 on SuperPAC’s: "You can't say yesterday that you don't believe in them and then today, have three-quarters of a million dollars being spent for you. You can’t just talk the talk...you have to look at how they act when it’s not convenient; when it’s hard. One thing I’m proud of is, I’m strong on this; I walk the walk."

Robert Engelman of World watch, 2010: "Increasing women's reproductive rights should be at the heart of the climate discussion, in the same basket as strategies like increasing energy efficiency and researching new technologies."

Liberal civility:

Bill Maher: “We have a new frontrunner - I feel like I say that every week - for the Republicans. Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum. It was, I know, for the longest time, he was on the end of the debates. The little creep that could, Rick Santorum.”

Crazy Muslims:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "The Iranian nation has smashed a new and modern idol. The world arrogance (the United States) and colonialists (the West), in order to dominate the world, created an idol called the Zionist regime (Israel). The spirit of this idol was a story called the Holocaust. . . The Iranian nation with courage and wisdom smashed this idol to free the people of the West (of its hold)."

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniya: "They want us to recognise the Israeli occupation and cease resistance but, as the representative of the Palestinan people and in the name of all the world's freedom seekers, I am announcing from Azadi Square in Tehran that we will never recognise Israel."

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: "From now onward, we will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this. The Zionist regime is a true cancer tumor on this region that should be cut off. And it definitely will be cut off.”

Muhammad Al-Mane'i, Sinai Bedouin: “There was a time when they would bring us jeans. These pants used to have belts. If you looked at these belts from the front, you'd find a secret compartment, and when you opened it, you would find a magnet inside. When we asked what these magnets were, we were told that they cause sterility.”

Hazem Saleh Abu Ismail, Egypt's presidential candidate and a vocal supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood: "If you claim that Allah considers it your personal freedom, show me your reference? Nobody has ever said that - except for people have no understanding of Sharia...If you join (military), then you are obliged to wear their uniform, to attend their classes, to attend the training with them and to obey their leader."

Islamic sermon in Malaysia: "Whether they realise or not, if a person asks another person or his partner to `Be my Valentine?' it is clearly an act that is against the Islamic faith and that would invoke the wrath of Allah.”

Federal Territory PAS information chief Mohamad Suhaimi Abdul Aziz: "It is sinful to promote Valentine's Day as it could lead to moral decadence, especially among youths."

Egyptian cleric Mazen Sirsawi: “The Caliph Al-Mahdi, the Emir of the Believers, was like a sword on the necks of the infidels, apostates, and heretics. Whenever he heard of a heretic, he summoned him, no matter what. Even when he was on his deathbed, they brought before him some treacherous heretics, who toy with religion. One of them was brought before the Caliph, who was drawing his last breath. The Caliph said: ‘By Allah, if I have only two words left, I say: Kill him! I will seal my life with ‘Kill him!’ He said: ‘Kill him, and chop off his limbs, one by one, so that I will please my Lord.’ They did as he wished, and the Caliph counted the limbs and said: ‘Allah, I have done with him what pleases You. Enable me to do the same to all his ilk.’ Anyone who wants to affront the shari'a and become a heretic, anyone who behaves stupidly, thinking that this is a game, should not think that this will go unpunished. Today, these criminals want us to become used to this. They want us to hear this and remain silent. When someone curses our Lord, [they want us to say]: ‘Never mind, this is democracy, freedom, and so on. Let's keep quiet about it.’ Absolutely not! This will never be. One must never remain silent before the people of Falsehood. When Allah made a covenant with the people of knowledge, ‘You shall make it known to people and not hide it.’ Beheading them should be easier than cutting the buttons off their shirts.”

Liberals making sense:

The Washington Post: “By disproportionate numbers, these Americans have given up looking for work, making the nation's recovery appear better than it is. If the unemployment rate counted the 2.8 million people who want jobs but have stopped looking, it would sit at 9.9 percent rather than its current 8.3 percent.”

Joe Biden: “Government subsidies have impacted upon rising tuition costs.” As for the rest of his quote; well, no longer making sense.

Former Democratic congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper: "I would have never voted for the final version of [Obamacare]...if I expected the Obama Administration to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic Colleges and Universities to pay for contraception."

Chris Matthews: "It gets to that interesting point, to me, which is frightening, when the state starts telling the church what to do and then the church can no longer teach. If the church teaches it's morally wrong to use birth control how can you make the teacher pay for birth control without losing their authority, their moral authority?"

Chris Matthews: “We've all been trained for this and a lot of Catholics are going to rally to the Church and say good for those bishops; this is the first time I think they're standing up for something that I believe...And the government is now saying you must put your imprimatur, you must take your hand to something you have told us forever is wrong. And they can't do it. And I tell you, as much strength as they show in this, the more I think even liberal Catholics are going to be proud of them. And this may come to civil disobedience. If they round up all the bishops and all the cardinals and put them in prison, I tell you, a lot of Catholics will say, you know what? I understand this issue. I get it why they're fighting.“

Sen. Joe Lieberman tweet: "I am opposed to the Administration's new requirement that religious org.'s must offer employees contraception benefits."

Sen. Bob Casey in a letter to President Obama: "I believe, just as strongly, that religiously affiliated organizations like hospitals and universities should not be compelled by our Federal government to purchase insurance policies that violate their religious and moral convictions."

Sen. Ben Nelson: "This was a bone-headed decision by HHS."

Moderates/Affiliation Unknown:

TV personality Adam Carolla on the new LA beach ordinances: “The beach is a great little microcosm of what's going on with this country. We're gonna save everybody because God forbid some kid could get hit with a Frisbee or someone could take in second hand smoke or some dog could run across their beach towel. Yes, its true we've eliminated every possibility of someone being concussed by a Nerf football, but we've also eliminated all possibility of fun.” Adam seems to be a conservative?

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke: "It is very important to look not just at the unemployment rate, which reflects only people who are actively seeking work. There are also a lot of people who are either out of the labor force because they don't think they can find work or in part-time jobs...The 8.3 percent [unemployment figure] no doubt understates the weakness of the labor market in some broad sense.”

Clint Eastwood: “It’s halftime in America.”

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan: "The federal government should do what it's traditionally done since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of a church."

Sharene Odho of Occupiers who have moved into her apartment complex rent free: "They poop on the walls! It's like we live in a huge crack house now."

Joe Scarborough: "If the federal government can do this to the Catholic church, can they not do this to any church?" Nowadays, Joe leans right, but barely.

Crosstalk:

MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough: "What would the New York Times editorial page say about a Republican Senate that didn't produce a budget in over a thousand days?"

Mark Halperin: "They would be getting creamed."

_______________________________________

Jake Tapper, ABC News: So, therefore, the Senate should pass a budget as well?

Jay Carney, White House: I don't have - well, I don't have an opinion to express on how the Senate does its business with regards to this issue. The fact is, because of the negotiations over the debt ceiling, that resulted in the Budget Control Act, we have an unusual situation here in that the top lines for the budget going forward have already been set and agreed to by Republicans and Democrats alike.

Tapper: I'm not actually asking your opinion but the White House's opinion. The position the White House has?

Carney: Well, I don't have -

Tapper: The white house has no opinion about whether or not the Senate should pass a budget? The president is going to produce one? The Fed says not having one is bad for growth but the White House has no opinion about whether -

Carney: I have no opinion, and the White House has no opinion on Chairman Bernanke's assessment of how the Senate ought to do its business. What the president believes is important is that the Budget Control Act that was signed into law by him last year provides the top line spending caps for the coming budget and he will, obviously, need those when the budget is put forward and he looks forward to the Senate acting on the policy initiatives contained within his budget that will reflect the priorities he laid out in the State of the Union. And also will reflect the priorities he laid out when he put forward his deficit and debt reduction proposal back in September. So I don't think there is any - there will be, nor is there now any doubt about the president's view on where we ought to move with the budget.

_______________________________________

Stephanie Cutter, Obama Deputy Campaign Manager: “[Having Super-PAC’s is] to insure that the voices of the small donors don’t get washed out.”

President Obama in 2010: “Millions of dollars into phoney front groups—you’ve seen them; they’re called Americans for Prosperity, Moms for Motherhood, you know...they don’t have the guts to say, ‘We’re funding this,’ so they hide behind these front groups—you don’t know who these groups are, you don’t know who’s funding them. They can spend without limit. These rulings are not just a threat to Democrats, they are a threat to our democracy.”

Obama: 2010: “This summer they’re also seeing a flood of attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless sounding names. We don’t know who’s behind these ads and we don’t know who’s paying for them.”

_______________________________________

Fareed Zakaria: "Will you vote for President Obama?"

George Soros: "Oh, definitely."

_______________________________________

Reporter: "Mr. Hoyer, around the same time of the State of the Union [on Jan. 24], I think it was the same day, Republicans were trying to hit Senate Democrats for 1,000 days without passing a budget, and then you talk about this milestone today, 400 days without a jobs bill in the Republican House. But then on Friday [Democratic Senator Harry] Reid said that he didn't think they needed to bring a budget to the floor this year [and that] the Budget Control Act can serve as a guideline."

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer: "What does the budget do? The budget does one thing and really only one thing: It sets the parameters of spending and discretionary caps. Other than that, the Appropriations committee are not bound by the Budget committee's priorities. The fact is, you don't need a budget. We can adopt appropriations bills. We can adopt authorization policies without a budget. We already have an agreed-upon cap on spending."

_______________________________________

Whoopi Goldberg: Now, there are lots of headlines right now about battles over birth control and abortion rights. A federal judge in Texas has is upholding a law that provides abortion providers to show or describe to women an ultrasound of the fetus before he can have an abortion.

Barbara Walters: And the heartbeat.

Joy Behar: It's very totalitarian in my opinion. I mean, it smacks of forcing somebody to confront something that they have already decided they don't want to deal with.

Conservatives:

Texas Governor Rick Perry: “I just went home and reloaded my mags.”

Andrew Breitbart: "I have videos, this election we're going to vet him [Barack Obama]...We are going to vet him from his college days to show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008."

Andrew Breitbart: “I don’t care who our candidate is and I haven’t since the beginning of this [primary]...there are two paths—one is America and the other is Occupy...if you’re not in that bunker [with me] because you’re not satisfied with that candidate, more than shame on you, you’re on the other side.”

Paul Ryan, on the President’s budget: “It seems that the president is doing little more than class envy and the status quo.”

Rep. Allen West: "It is the liberal philosophy not the conservative one that views humans as selfish automatons. Liberals worry that what's best for the individual might not be better for the public at large; but that philosophy assumes something vicious about each and every one us. It assumes we only care about ourselves. For far too long we've allowed the other side to paint us as racist, as sexist, inhumane war mongers well today as a conservative black Republican and former solider, I'm here to set that record straight."

George Will: "The Catholic bishops, it serves them right. They're the ones who were really hot for ObamaCare, with a few exceptions. But they were all in favor and this is what it looks like when the government decides it's going to make your health care choices for you."

Senator Jeff Sessions: “I would like to suggest something called the 'Solyndra Rule.' Under this rule, before any proposals are offered to raise taxes, we first put an end to the wasteful and inappropriate spending in Washington. Until we do, raising tax rates only funds Washington's continuing abuse of all American taxpayers.”

Sarah Palin on a conservative who introduced her: “She’s not just a momma grizzly; she a momma grizzly who’s probably packin’, so don’t mess with Millie.”

Sarah Palin: “Nothing says America louder or prouder than chopped Harley hogs driven by our heroes, those vets.”

Palin: “[Obama] mucked it up.”

Palin: “This government isn’t too big to fail; it’s too big to succeed.”

Palin: “Americans should not be working so hard so that Washington can spend easy. He [Obama] says that he has a jobs plan now, a jobs plan to Win the Future; WTF, I know—[pause for audience response]—and I’m the idiot.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner: "The federal government has drifted dangerously beyond its constitutional boundaries. This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country must not stand and will not stand."

Mitt Romney: “I was a severely conservative Republican governor."

Sarah Palin on Mitt Romney: "[Romney’s] idea of conservatism is evolving. I base this on a pretty moderate past that he has had, even, in some cases, a liberal past. He agreed with mandating on a state level what his constituents needed to be provided, needed to purchase in the way of health care under Romneycare. I am not convinced, and I don't think the majority of GOP and independent voters are convinced, and that is why you don't see Romney get over that hump. He's still in the 30 percentile mark when it comes to approval and primary wins and caucus wins. He still hasn't risen above that yet because we are not convinced."

Frank Luntz on Barack Obama: “[He’s the] best teleprompter reader we’ve ever had.”

Neil Cavuto: “You go the pump and you keep getting kicked in the gas.”

Neal Weinberg, quoting Tom Waits, on the Affordable Care Act: “The big print giveth and the little print taketh away.”

Karen Handel, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure official who resigned Tuesday, over first the withdrawal of support for Planned Parenthood and then the reinstatement of this support: "Last time I checked, private nonprofit organizations have a right and a responsibility to be able to set the highest standards and criteria on their own without interference, let alone the level of vicious attacks and coercion that has occurred by Planned Parenthood. It's simply outrageous."

New Jersey governor Chris Christie: "America should stand by its friends and its democratic allies, even, and sometimes especially, when it's unpopular to do so. And you know I know, that it may not be fashionable in some of the chancelleries, the foreign ministries, and salons around the world to talk about why America stands with Israel - but that's no excuse not to be saying, and saying it loudly. I read a quote from President Franklin Roosevelt which has thought made this point much better than I ever could. He says, `Please judge me by the enemies I have made.' In that same spirit, I would like to say to all of you tonight: I admire Israel for the enemies it has made."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "In such a region, the only thing that ensures our existence, security and prosperity is our strength. We are obligated to continue to develop the military, economic and social strength of the state of Israel."

Charles Krauthammer: "I think Israel will strike [Iran’s nuclear plants] because it cannot live under the threat of annihilation from Iran."

Philip Ellender, president and COO of Government and Public Affairs for Koch Companies Public Sector LLC: "We will exercise our First Amendment rights and not be intimidated or silenced by the President's aides and his allies who criticize private citizens that disagree with the President's policies. These most recent statements concerning the White House's decision to embrace Super PACs are hypocritical for the President, who as a candidate in 2008 broke his promise to use public campaign financing, and became the first major party presidential candidate in history to turn down public financing in a general election. It is worth noting that President Obama outraised and outspent his opponent by hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2008 Presidential campaign, relying in large part on the same corporate executive funding sources whose productivity, business practices, and profitability he pretends to denounce. Apparently, the President and his allies do not want to lose that perceived fundraising advantage during the 2012 Presidential campaign, and are trying to intimidate into silence those who may disagree with them and who may decide to support other candidates."

Rush Limbaugh: "We're told independents want compromise, people getting along. Um, have you ever noticed that independents never, ever get worried, upset, angry, or bothered by what Democrats say, only Republicans? It's just amazing."

Rush Limbaugh: "There's something unprecedented going on here. Woodrow Wilson dreamed of this, FDR dreamed of this, Obama is doing this."

Rush Limbaugh: "Santorum is very fluent in the language of conservatism. It's natural. It pours out. And explaining, for example, the theory of limited government is second nature to him. He doesn't have to be taught it. He doesn't have to have it written for him. He doesn't have to be briefed and he certainly doesn't have to be tutored right before he goes out to speak about it."

Rush Limbaugh: "The people who are not voting for Romney are not doing it because I'm telling them to, or because anybody else is telling them to. They're doing it because they genuinely have a problem with Romney."

Rush Limbaugh: "The banks were forced by the government at the point of a gun to loan to people they knew couldn't afford the mortgages. That's what really happened. That's the root of the subprime mortgage crisis. Social justice, affordable housing, the so-called good intentions and don't judge us on the failure of our results."

Rush Limbaugh: "I never think about a speech much in advance because I just can't. I can't write speeches so I never think about it 'til right before it so what I think about is fresh in my mind."

Rush Limbaugh: "The entire welfare system in this country -- the social safety net, whatever you want to call it -- is destroying people. It's robbing them of their dignity. It's robbing them of their humanity. It's robbing them of their potential."

Rush Limbaugh: "You know, the point of government assistance ought to be to remove people from it. But with the Democrat Party and Obama, the objective is to increase the number of people."

Rush Limbaugh: "Since when does a president have the power to threaten to issue a rule gutting religious liberty and then claims the power to make compromises on that issue?"

Rush Limbaugh: "So each and every day, little by little, Barack Obama tramples on the Constitution, usurps authority that he doesn't have, in the midst of an uproar. He might surrender a little bit of it where everybody thinks that they're winning and they beat back the ugly collectivist, when in fact the collectivist and the central planner has solidified his claim to power that he doesn't have over the Constitution."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama can mandate that we buy insurance, and now Obama can mandate what insurance companies must offer -- and after mandating what insurance companies must offer, then Obama can mandate what insurance companies can charge for it? Freedom doesn't mean anything to this guy! Freedom doesn't mean anything to this regime or this administration."

Rush Limbaugh: "Barack Obama has just achieved making abortion and contraception on demand, paid for by taxpayers part of the fabric of American life. By edict. He just issued the edict from the White House. There's no legislation. There's no participation by the elected representatives of the people."

The Conservative Press:

FoxNews host Chris Wallace: “Where does the president get the authority to require contraception to be required for free?”

Jack Lew, the President’s Chief of Staff: “The president has this authority from the Affordable Care Act.” [quoted from memory, but that’s the gist of it]

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Chris Matthews: “Isn’t that the classical Washington gimmick, that you are going to claim savings from money you weren’t going to spend anyway?”

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FoxNews commentator Angela Tantaros of Mitt Romney: “If you have to be coaxed on conservative words, you probably aren’t a true conservative.”

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FoxNews guy Greg Gutfeld: “Only Madonna could be so thick as to have a message of world peace during the world’s most violent game.”

Conservatives from the Past:

John Adams: "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."

Ronald Reagan: "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

Reagan: "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."

Reagan: "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

Reagan: "The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

Reagan: "I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born."

Watch This!

Andrew Breitbart speaking at CPAC, and he was quite entertaining. He mentions his dinner party with Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorn. It’s pretty rousing. Transcript from this speech.

Sarah Palin at CPAC. Also rousing. How many people in the audience wish that she was running for president?

The debt generation; this coming year, I won’t be voting for Obama. Send it to your favorite teen.

Hannity “Faith in America” is a great special. This is not the entire show, but it is a good clip. I have been unable to find the entire show, but there is a good chance that it will be re-broadcast.

Hating Breitbart movie trailer. Obscenity at the end, but the trailer is excellent.

CPAC interviews. Dana Loesch

You may recall from last issue or the one before of the Black Republican Charlotte Bergman, who was told in a radio interview “Get you stupid ass up outta my studio.” and “I don’t need to shake your hand...I’m scared that some of your whiteness might rub off on me.” This is an interview where she was afforded a little more respect and courtesy.

Pete Hoekstra’s “Racist” Ad During Super Bowl

The Obama flip-flop on SuperPAC’s.

Obama, in 2004, attacking President Bush for job losses in the United States.

Obama's Unpaid Bill? Springfield Says President Owes $55,000 For 2008 Campaign Event. Video and text both.

Paula Priesse, because of the gulf oil spill, lives a petroleum free life.

Patriot rappers (includes Steve Crowder).

2000 ad for Senate candidate Barack Obama.

FOX News Analyst Kimberly Guilfoyle says that she was not spanked until she got older. This admission surprised me as well.

Obama in 2000, saying that he and his opponents are all progressive urban democrats.

Joe Biden Prophecy Watch

The anti-Israel rhetoric is being ramped up in the Middle East, and there appears to be a concerted effort by the Obama administration to tamp down on Israel defending herself.

A Little Comedy Relief

Jodi Miller: “The Obama administration is trying to sign up more food stamp recipients but we here at Newsbusters have a foolproof strategy; reelect President Obama.”

Jodi Miller: “Chris Matthews says he has seen a real level of national hatred against President Obama that he never saw before. So, obviously, Matthews was in a coma curing the entire 8 years of the Bush administration.”

Short Takes

1) Anytime you hear about a stimulus package being developed where money will actually be sent out into the world to stimulate our economy—whether this was put together by Democrats or Republicans—it is probably just the party in power paying back its donors. Some is sent out legitimately, but that is simply to give cover to the paybacks.

2) Ask a liberal friend, is there anything, anything at all, that government should not pay for? Is there anything that, if you found out that government was paying for it, that would cause you to change parties and vote for a conservative instead?

3) Clint Eastwood was in an ad called Halftime in America. Now, I know that Eastwood is a conservative, and was surprised, as the ad to me, it sounded like both approval for the auto company bailout and it seemed like a halftime ad for Obama as well (although, his name is not used in the commercial, nor are the words automobile bailout. Some have suggested that this was the intent of the ad, and that Eastwood was tricked into doing it. Interestingly enough, the advertising agency that created the commercial, Wieden + Kennedy, has members who have designed Obama campaign items or who have worked on behalf of Democratic causes. Eastwood has denied any political motive and says that he is not supporting any candidate at this time.

4) One of the reasons why we had troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan is, this put us on both sides of Iran. As we pull more and more troops out of the region, Iran is getting nuttier and nuttier, one of their websites speaking of annihilating Israel in 9 minutes.

5) Florida and Nevada were way down with regards to voter turnout in the Republican primary. This is not good news for Republicans. In Florida, Mitt. Romney buried this state 10 feet deep in negative ads; and in Nevada, it was considered a foregone conclusion that Romney would take this state.

6) I have heard story after story about how the TEA party has been pulling the Republican party to the right; and even causing the Republican party to be extreme (like, a balanced budget and basing our government on the Constitution is extreme); but I have somehow missed all of the stories about how the Democrat party was been transformed dramatically since Bill Clinton, and very dramatically since John F. Kennedy.

By the Numbers

The American public's dependence on the federal government increased by shot up by 23% in just two years under President Obama, with 67 million now relying on some federal program.

Year      Money Spend on Dependence Programs

1962                    28.3%

1990                    48.5%

2003                    68.3%

2010                    70.5%

Americans who rely on government receive an average $32,748 worth of benefits, surpassing the average American's disposable personal income of $32,446. And the reason we should work is...?

54% of Americans ages 18 to 24 currently have jobs. That's the lowest employment rate for this age group since the government began keeping track in 1948. 62% who had jobs in 2007.

Last year, a federal program paid out $1.6 billion to cover free cell phones and the monthly bills of 12.5 million wireless accounts. This is about double of what it was in 2008. Why are we doing this at all?

President Barack Obama's budget request to Congress on Monday will forecast a deficit of $1.33 trillion in fiscal year 2012 and will include hundreds of billions of dollars of proposed infrastructure spending. The projected deficit is higher than the $1.296 trillion deficit in 2011 and also slightly higher than a roughly $1.15 trillion projection released by the Congressional Budget Office last week.

Global warming enthusiast Prof Phil Jones recently flew 20,000 miles to Tahiti and back to preach about global warming. He has flown more than 250,000 miles in the past 5 years to preach about the dangers of global warming. The boffin's fuel-burning flights mean his carbon footprint is so big it would take 95 acres of trees a year to absorb it all, according to Government figures. He is being a whole lot smarter flying to warm places rather than into cities in the north covered with snow.

In 2008, unions spent $300,000,000 to help Obama get elected.

Movieguide identified 91 movies in 2011 that scored high in "conservative/moral categories" and they earned an average of $59 million apiece. On the other hand, it identified 105 movies that scored high in "liberal/leftist categories," and each of those titles earned an average of just $11 million.

27% of prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba re-engaged in terrorist or insurgent activities, according to a report by Republicans on a House Armed Services subcommittee.

100,000 Christians have fled Egypt since Arab Spring and Islamists rise to power.

Planned Parenthood makes $164 million per year performing abortions.

The Obama campaign put 5,000 ads into 25 swing-state markets Jan. 19-25,. That's about 33 ads daily in each television market. They were to combat ads put out by Americans for Prosperity, an independent group backed by oil barons Charles and David Koch. Their ad attacked Obama over the failed clean energy company Solyndra, which went bankrupt after receiving government loans.

A Little Bias

The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an "extremist." Journalists were also cautioned against using images suggesting the preacher is overweight.

The NY Times, AP, and other news outlets reported Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent speech, but left off the part about Israel being a “cancerous tumor” and how he wanted to “cut it off.”

Brent Bozell at the Media Research Center did extraordinary investigative research into what the broadcast networks and the cable networks were doing on this issue of the Obama contraception mandate. He found was that ABC and NBC did not cover this story for a full 16 days, CBS covered it only after 10 days, and CNN mentioned it briefly when the original decision came down, and then not again for 10 days.

Politico's online poll question of the day is "Do you think the president's decision to compromise on his birth-control policy was the right call?" Here are the menu of answers:

Yes -- His effort to find a middle ground makes him look fair and reasonable.

No -- His willingness to make concessions on a matter of principle makes him look weak.

I'm not sure.

According to the Heritage Foundation Barack Obama's policies, in just two years, have resulted in the number of Americans who rely on a federal program spiking by 23 percent to 67 million. Yet there was no mention of this grim figure on the Big Three network (ABC, CBS and NBC) evening or morning news programs. Obviously, this sort of thing is unimportant to the American public.

Polling by the Numbers

Winthrop University:

Nearly 30% percent of adults in South Carolina do not know who the vice president is.

Pew Research:

37% of Americans say there is a great deal of bias in news coverage

30% say there is a fair amount of bias.

21% perceive not too much bias

10% say there is no bias in the news.

74% of Republicans who agree with the TEA party ideals say there is a great deal of bias in the news coverage.

CPAC Straw Poll:

Mitt Romney                                                                                                                         38%

Rick Santorum                                                                                                                      31%

Newt Gingrich                                                                                                                       15%

Ron Paul                                                                                                                                 12%

Saturday Night Live Misses

What a shock! SNL opener takes on the republican candidates! Who would have thought? Is this every opening save one this season?

So far, I have not seen much of anything about Obama. His requirement for Catholic institutions to provide birth control and the morning after pill did not even rate a what were you thinking bit, because, to them, it makes perfect sense in all respects. It was not a bad move for Obama to do what he did, so they can find no humor in it.

The long list of green businesses, all headed by or closely associated with Obama donors and bundlers; they get a lot of money from the government and then go bankrupt—there is no incisive, biting comedy there? You can’t do a “real” news conference?

Or how about a new bit. “What news conferences would be like if the press was not in the bag for Obama?” Any chance SNL might be able to do something with that?

Yay Democrats!

Quite a number of Democrats opposed Barack Obama when it came to this imposition of healthcare mandates upon Catholics in areas where it violated their beliefs. Even Joe Biden warned him about this.

Obama-Speak

Phrases with the words rights or justice in them. These are simply political positions Democrats wanted enacted into legislation.

Create and save jobs (used this week by Harry Reid) means “we don’t have to provide you with any objective proof that we had any affect upon the job market.”

Political Chess

Whether Obama can do anything or not is not important; he will portray himself as doing things for the people, every week. The $25 billion bill to “fix” the housing crisis is one of those approaches.

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In order to get voters on board for his reelection, President Obama has begun to give away free stuff. Insurance companies would now pay for free contraception products, including the morning after pill. Also, various banks would participate in a settlement where they will give back $25 billion to some people caught up in the mortgage crisis.

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Have you noticed the first lady on nearly every television show in the past 2 or 3 months? My guess is, she is the most popular known person from the Obama administration, so that she hopes to improve her husband’s chances of winning the upcoming election. I still predict that she will run in 2016 or 2020.

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Ohio Democrat gives occupiers tickets to disrupt Ohio Governor Kasich state of the state speech. Apparently they were bussed in from somewhere else.

More Proof Obama is an Amateur

I have not had much to say in this particular column for quite awhile, as Obama has made, in my opinion, very few amateur mistakes. My thinking here is, not that he chooses to do something ideologically stupid—that is the thrust of his administration, in my opinion. But that he, given his far, far left bias, manages to do something really stupid outside of this bias. He’s done two, recently. Letting Canada sell oil to China instead of the USA was a very bad move on his part. He could have easily made the case to environmentalists that, this oil is going to get used, so why not have the U.S. use it at lower gas prices? However, what I think puts Obama in a box is, he wants higher fuel costs, so that people will use less fossil fuels (an unscientific misnomer, by the way). So, this may have been so ideological for him, that he still said no to more oil and cheaper gas prices.

However, most recently is his debacle with the Catholic Church and requiring Catholic institutions which served non-Catholics t provide insurance for women which included the morning-after pill (an abortive drug) as well as contraceptive drugs and devices (which goes against the church’s teaching). Here is what I think was going through their minds when this was decided: since most Catholic women use birth control of some form or another, President Obama will simply bring the Catholic church into the 21^st century, and slip in the morning after pill as well. I think that he had his backup position already set to go—that health insurance providers would simply provide this service for free, so the church and their people would not be paying for it. I think from polling (which they keep citing, along with many news organizations) made their decision for them (which is what Clinton did). Obama already had the ideological predisposition for free contraception and easy abortive pills; and that the polling indicated to them that, maybe the church would object, but the parishioners would not. Wrong.

News Before it Happens

In the Bible, in the last days, Israel is going to be surrounded by armies. Although I do not believe that we are in the last days, necessarily, given all the vile threats coming our of Iran, now would be a very good time to pray for Israel (if you have already believed in Jesus Christ).

Prophecies Fulfilled

I have said that the biggest problem with our nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan, is we did not allow for Christian evangelism and that we did not push freedom of religion upon them, when we had the power to demand this. As a result, our alliance with these countries is going to be weak and not last very long. Already, the alliance between the U.S. and these two countries is beginning to fray.

Great Headlines

Class-Warrior Barack Obama And His Fellow One-Percenters To Dine On Poularde, Leg Fricassee And Chocolate Cemeux At San Fran Fundraiser. From Weasel Zippers

Missing Headlines

The Himalayas Aren’t Losing Ice

Obama Donor Involved in Earmarking Stimulus Money

Democrat Jackson Lee Sending Money to Husband’s Employer

Bloomberg: Churches Can No Longer Rent School Buildings

Obama Appoints Illegal Alien Advocate

33 Members of Congress Siphon Money/Projects to their Property or Nearby

New Possible Downgrade for U.S.

Some Occupy CPAC Were Paid

Michigan Now in Surplus

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Tries to Wealth Redistribution to Global Warming

Iran Issues More Threats to Israel

Come, let us reason together....

Why the World Needs America

Foreign-policy pundits increasingly argue that democracy and free markets could thrive without U.S. predominance. If this sounds too good to be true, writes Robert Kagan, that's because it is.

By Robert Kagan

History shows that world orders, including our own, are transient. They rise and fall, and the institutions they erect, the beliefs and "norms" that guide them, the economic systems they support-they rise and fall, too. The downfall of the Roman Empire brought an end not just to Roman rule but to Roman government and law and to an entire economic system stretching from Northern Europe to North Africa. Culture, the arts, even progress in science and technology, were set back for centuries.

Many of us take for granted how the world looks today. But it might look a lot different without America at the top. The Brookings Institution's Robert Kagan talks with Washington bureau chief Jerry Seib about his new book, "The World America Made," and whether a U.S. decline is inevitable.

Modern history has followed a similar pattern. After the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, British control of the seas and the balance of great powers on the European continent provided relative security and stability. Prosperity grew, personal freedoms expanded, and the world was knit more closely together by revolutions in commerce and communication.

With the outbreak of World War I, the age of settled peace and advancing liberalism-of European civilization approaching its pinnacle-collapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism, despotism and economic calamity. The once-promising spread of democracy and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of fascist and totalitarian neighbors. The collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark age-though if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might have-but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating.

Would the end of the present American-dominated order have less dire consequences? A surprising number of American intellectuals, politicians and policy makers greet the prospect with equanimity. There is a general sense that the end of the era of American pre-eminence, if and when it comes, need not mean the end of the present international order, with its widespread freedom, unprecedented global prosperity (even amid the current economic crisis) and absence of war among the great powers.

American power may diminish, the political scientist G. John Ikenberry argues, but "the underlying foundations of the liberal international order will survive and thrive." The commentator Fareed Zakaria believes that even as the balance shifts against the U.S., rising powers like China "will continue to live within the framework of the current international system." And there are elements across the political spectrum-Republicans who call for retrenchment, Democrats who put their faith in international law and institutions-who don't imagine that a "post-American world" would look very different from the American world.

If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is. The present world order was largely shaped by American power and reflects American interests and preferences. If the balance of power shifts in the direction of other nations, the world order will change to suit their interests and preferences. Nor can we assume that all the great powers in a post-American world would agree on the benefits of preserving the present order, or have the capacity to preserve it, even if they wanted to.

Take the issue of democracy. For several decades, the balance of power in the world has favored democratic governments. In a genuinely post-American world, the balance would shift toward the great-power autocracies. Both Beijing and Moscow already protect dictators like Syria's Bashar al-Assad. If they gain greater relative influence in the future, we will see fewer democratic transitions and more autocrats hanging on to power. The balance in a new, multipolar world might be more favorable to democracy if some of the rising democracies-Brazil, India, Turkey, South Africa-picked up the slack from a declining U.S. Yet not all of them have the desire or the capacity to do it.

What about the economic order of free markets and free trade? People assume that China and other rising powers that have benefited so much from the present system would have a stake in preserving it. They wouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Unfortunately, they might not be able to help themselves. The creation and survival of a liberal economic order has depended, historically, on great powers that are both willing and able to support open trade and free markets, often with naval power. If a declining America is unable to maintain its long-standing hegemony on the high seas, would other nations take on the burdens and the expense of sustaining navies to fill in the gaps?

Even if they did, would this produce an open global commons-or rising tension? China and India are building bigger navies, but the result so far has been greater competition, not greater security. As Mohan Malik has noted in this newspaper, their "maritime rivalry could spill into the open in a decade or two," when India deploys an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean and China deploys one in the Indian Ocean. The move from American-dominated oceans to collective policing by several great powers could be a recipe for competition and conflict rather than for a liberal economic order.

And do the Chinese really value an open economic system? The Chinese economy soon may become the largest in the world, but it will be far from the richest. Its size is a product of the country's enormous population, but in per capita terms, China remains relatively poor. The U.S., Germany and Japan have a per capita GDP of over $40,000. China's is a little over $4,000, putting it at the same level as Angola, Algeria and Belize. Even if optimistic forecasts are correct, China's per capita GDP by 2030 would still only be half that of the U.S., putting it roughly where Slovenia and Greece are today.

As Arvind Subramanian and other economists have pointed out, this will make for a historically unique situation. In the past, the largest and most dominant economies in the world have also been the richest. Nations whose peoples are such obvious winners in a relatively unfettered economic system have less temptation to pursue protectionist measures and have more of an incentive to keep the system open.

China's leaders, presiding over a poorer and still developing country, may prove less willing to open their economy. They have already begun closing some sectors to foreign competition and are likely to close others in the future. Even optimists like Mr. Subramanian believe that the liberal economic order will require "some insurance" against a scenario in which "China exercises its dominance by either reversing its previous policies or failing to open areas of the economy that are now highly protected." American economic dominance has been welcomed by much of the world because, like the mobster Hyman Roth in "The Godfather," the U.S. has always made money for its partners. Chinese economic dominance may get a different reception.

Another problem is that China's form of capitalism is heavily dominated by the state, with the ultimate goal of preserving the rule of the Communist Party. Unlike the eras of British and American pre-eminence, when the leading economic powers were dominated largely by private individuals or companies, China's system is more like the mercantilist arrangements of previous centuries. The government amasses wealth in order to secure its continued rule and to pay for armies and navies to compete with other great powers.

Although the Chinese have been beneficiaries of an open international economic order, they could end up undermining it simply because, as an autocratic society, their priority is to preserve the state's control of wealth and the power that it brings. They might kill the goose that lays the golden eggs because they can't figure out how to keep both it and themselves alive.

Finally, what about the long peace that has held among the great powers for the better part of six decades? Would it survive in a post-American world?

Most commentators who welcome this scenario imagine that American predominance would be replaced by some kind of multipolar harmony. But multipolar systems have historically been neither particularly stable nor particularly peaceful. Rough parity among powerful nations is a source of uncertainty that leads to miscalculation. Conflicts erupt as a result of fluctuations in the delicate power equation.

War among the great powers was a common, if not constant, occurrence in the long periods of multipolarity from the 16th to the 18th centuries, culminating in the series of enormously destructive Europe-wide wars that followed the French Revolution and ended with Napoleon's defeat in 1815.

The 19th century was notable for two stretches of great-power peace of roughly four decades each, punctuated by major conflicts. The Crimean War (1853-1856) was a mini-world war involving well over a million Russian, French, British and Turkish troops, as well as forces from nine other nations; it produced almost a half-million dead combatants and many more wounded. In the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the two nations together fielded close to two million troops, of whom nearly a half-million were killed or wounded.

The peace that followed these conflicts was characterized by increasing tension and competition, numerous war scares and massive increases in armaments on both land and sea. Its climax was World War I, the most destructive and deadly conflict that mankind had known up to that point. As the political scientist Robert W. Tucker has observed, "Such stability and moderation as the balance brought rested ultimately on the threat or use of force. War remained the essential means for maintaining the balance of power."

There is little reason to believe that a return to multipolarity in the 21st century would bring greater peace and stability than it has in the past. The era of American predominance has shown that there is no better recipe for great-power peace than certainty about who holds the upper hand.

President Bill Clinton left office believing that the key task for America was to "create the world we would like to live in when we are no longer the world's only superpower," to prepare for "a time when we would have to share the stage." It is an eminently sensible-sounding proposal. But can it be done? For particularly in matters of security, the rules and institutions of international order rarely survive the decline of the nations that erected them. They are like scaffolding around a building: They don't hold the building up; the building holds them up.

Many foreign-policy experts see the present international order as the inevitable result of human progress, a combination of advancing science and technology, an increasingly global economy, strengthening international institutions, evolving "norms" of international behavior and the gradual but inevitable triumph of liberal democracy over other forms of government-forces of change that transcend the actions of men and nations.

Americans certainly like to believe that our preferred order survives because it is right and just-not only for us but for everyone. We assume that the triumph of democracy is the triumph of a better idea, and the victory of market capitalism is the victory of a better system, and that both are irreversible. That is why Francis Fukuyama's thesis about "the end of history" was so attractive at the end of the Cold War and retains its appeal even now, after it has been discredited by events. The idea of inevitable evolution means that there is no requirement to impose a decent order. It will merely happen.

But international order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others-in America's case, the domination of free-market and democratic principles, together with an international system that supports them. The present order will last only as long as those who favor it and benefit from it retain the will and capacity to defend it.

There was nothing inevitable about the world that was created after World War II. No divine providence or unfolding Hegelian dialectic required the triumph of democracy and capitalism, and there is no guarantee that their success will outlast the powerful nations that have fought for them. Democratic progress and liberal economics have been and can be reversed and undone. The ancient democracies of Greece and the republics of Rome and Venice all fell to more powerful forces or through their own failings. The evolving liberal economic order of Europe collapsed in the 1920s and 1930s. The better idea doesn't have to win just because it is a better idea. It requires great powers to champion it.

If and when American power declines, the institutions and norms that American power has supported will decline, too. Or more likely, if history is a guide, they may collapse altogether as we make a transition to another kind of world order, or to disorder. We may discover then that the U.S. was essential to keeping the present world order together and that the alternative to American power was not peace and harmony but chaos and catastrophe-which is what the world looked like right before the American order came into being.

From:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213262856669448.html

Gospels Contradict Obama's Idea Of A Socialist Jesus

IBD Editorial

Church And State: President Obama has taken a very powerful name in vain in defense of his class warfare economic policies. In fact, Obama encourages a sin Jesus Christ repeatedly admonished: envy.

Attending the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama declared that raising tax rates on higher incomes "coincides with Jesus' teaching that 'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'"

It is disgraceful enough for a president to use a religious event to push an economic agenda that has already insured his place in history as the food stamp president.

But Obama began his remarks by claiming there was nothing political in what he would be saying.

He was there, he said, so that he and the attendees could "come together as brothers and sisters and seek God's face together."

After getting "caught up in the noise and rancor that too often passes as politics today, these moments of prayer slow us down. They humble us," the president said, adding that "we can all benefit from turning to our Creator, listening to Him, avoiding phony religiosity, listening to Him."

This from a president who has conspicuously neglected attending religious services during his time in office - until recently, that is, with his re-election campaign revving up.

It looks to be a cynical manipulation of those who hold deep religious beliefs, little more.

Sanctimonious talk about "turning to our Creator, listening to Him, avoiding phony religiosity" from a president leftist comic Bill Maher is convinced is really a secular humanist just like his mother, whom Obama described as having "a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution."

Considering that the rest of Obama's prayer breakfast speech was all politics, how can he not be judged guilty of "phony religiosity" himself?

The president said televangelists "come by the Oval Office .. . and we'll pray together."

Imagine the media clamor if a Republican president said this. But don't expect a peep in the news raising church and state issues about this.

According to President Obama, Jesus's "command to 'love thy neighbor as thyself '" is behind his expansion of government and regulation, and his tax increases.

Everything his administration has been doing, from foreign aid to Uganda to Dodd-Frank making "too big to fail" a permanent fixture of financial institutions, is apparently based on the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Then, a moment later, he shamelessly pivots and quotes C.S. Lewis - a conservative who would be appalled by Barack Obama's ideas - saying that Christianity has no "detailed political program."

In fact, Christ repeatedly warned against exactly the kind of class envy Obama has made the foundation of his economic policies and campaign rhetoric.

When asked if the Jews should pay taxes to Rome, Jesus famously asked to be shown the tribute coin bearing the image of Tiberius and replied, "Render therefore the things that are Caesar's to Caesar and the things that are God's to God."

The left would like to interpret that as, "pay your taxes and shut up."

But it has throughout most of the history of Christianity been used by the church as a restriction on state power - especially as relates to interfering with religious practice.

In the Parable of the Generous Employer, Christ condemns the worker who complains to his boss that "thou hast made them equal to us that have borne the burden of the day" by paying other workers more.

"Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" the employer asks in response, in a Gospel passage that eloquently champions private property.

Jesus Christ was no socialist.

In fact, unlike the utopians who lead the Democratic Party today, Christ realized that "the poor you will always have with you."

From:

http://news.investors.com/Article/599947/201202021852/obama-claims-jesus-endorses-his-economic-program.htm

Obama at Occidental 'was looking forward to an imminent... revolution, where the working class would overthrow the ruling class'

Interview

Dr. John Drew was a classmate of President Obama's at Occidental College. He was interviewed last week by Paul Kengor on The Glen Meakem Show, and Doug Ross transcribed the interview.

Q: I interviewed you for my book Dupes a year ago and you had contact me a couple of years ago because you read a piece that I wrote for American Thinker and it was called "Dreams from Frank Marshall Davis" and it was on Obama's background and youth. Frank Marshall Davis was an actual Party member and that's something, John, I spent two or three years on investigating, but there's no question about it... the documentation is there, a 1957 Senate report called him "and identified member of the Communist Party", there's an FBI file that's 600 pages, and I took ten or twelve pages from that report and put it in the appendix of my book. It even lists Davis' Communist Party card number, which was 47544, so very clear. Why is all of this relevant? Well, I think it explains, at least to some degree, that -- if he's not a Communist, he's at least very far to the left -- and has some very left-oriented views. But you met Obama when he left Frank Marshall Davis in 1980 coming from Hawaii and went to Occidental College. So tell us about when Obama got there and when you met.

A: I see myself as Barack Obama's missing link from his exposure to Communism through Frank Marshall Davis and his later exposure to Bill Ayers and Alice Palmer in Chicago. So, as far as I can tell, I'm the only one of Obama's extended circle of friends who's spoken out and verified that he was a Marxist-Leninist in his sophomore year of college, from 1980 to 1981.

I met him because I graduated from Occidental College in 1979 and I was back at Occidental visiting a girlfriend. I met him because of the relationship which I'd started my senior year at Occidental --

Q: By the way, tell us where Occidental is. We're way out here in Western Pennsylvania.

A: Sure, Occidental College is in the Eastern Los Angeles area. It's a very prestigious, very beautiful, sort of very garden, rose-garden sort of college, with three- or four-thousand students --

Q: And pretty competitive, I mean Obama would have had to have good grades and been a good student to get accepted there.

A: Yeah, my sense is because of affirmative action, guys like me were going to Occidental instead of even better schools and guys like Obama were going to Occidental instead of, uh, less challenging schools. A lot of very successful people were there, were part of Obama's social circle at the time.

Q: Now, was Occidental known for radical left politics? Would that have been an attraction for Obama?

A: Yeah, I'm certain that it was. It was considered sort of the "Moscow" of southern California. There were a lot of Marxist professors, many of whom I got to know pretty well, not just there but also at Williams College in Massachusetts. Two of the same Marxist-Socialist professors were on the staff with me at Williams.

Q: So, that might have been an attraction for him? I'm trying to think, what would have made him go to Hawaii to Occidental? Do you think Frank Marshall Davis could somehow have been an influence in having him choose Occidental?

A: I don't have any evidence of that...

Q: Because they won't release his records, I called them --

A: Yeah, I think that's odd. I don't know, I got straight A's my first year, it sounds weird, but I don't talk about it, Paul, you'd think that if Obama did well he'd release those transcripts.

Q: Now, this is speculation, but do you think those files might hold a letter of recommendation from Frank Marshall Davis? Right? Why not?

A: Wow.

Q: Davis was a mentor. Davis writes about him in Dreams From My Father very warmly, in fact Obama writes that Davis gave him advice on women, on race, on life, on college. So, he must have recommended Occidental, but it's sad we have to speculate. If they'd just release these records...

A: Well, this is what I know for sure, and this is why I'd sought you out, to be helpful to the historic record, is to verify that Barack Obama was definitely a Marxist and that, it was very unusual for a sophomore to be as radical, or as ideologically attuned as young Barack Obama was. I think people like David Remnick [a biographer], they make it sound like Frank Marshall Davis had no impact on Obama and that his friend Mohammed Shandu somehow converted him to Marxism at Occidental. And my impression is that Obama was the leader of that group and Obama was already very ardent and committed to Marxism. And Shandu struck me as somewhat more passive. So it doesn't fit the story that I read in Remnick's story The Bridge.

Q: And Remnick did not contact you, did he?

A: No! No! ...Well, Remnick interviewed my girfriend, Carolyn Bosch -- she's on three or four pages -- and they interviewed a guy named Gary Chapman, a guy who was very active in the Democrat Student [Socialists'] Alliance.

Q: I like David Remnick. I use his book in my Compartive Studies class at Grove City College.

A: He's a sharp guy. And he's got some good facts in there, but he didn't want to hear from little Dr. Drew...

Q: ...You said that Obama was introduced to you at Occidental as a Marxist because you were one at that point.

A: Yeah, that's embarrassing, but I had studied Marxist Economics at Sussex College in England. I had a junior year scholarship over there, and did my senior honor's thesis on Marxist Economics when I was at Occidental College. And I actually founded the Democrat Student Socialists' Alliance, under a different name, in 1976... it was as Marxist as you could get, but they come up with a more general name while I was away in England.

Q: ...John, you had told me before, and I'm reading from my book, that "Obama was already an ardent Marxist in the fall of 1980 when I met him. I know it's incendiary to say this, but although he said in Dreams From My Father that he'd 'hung out with Marxist professors', he did not explain in that book or clarify is that he was 100% in total agreement with those professors.

A: Yeah, you've got that exactly right. Obama believed, at the time I met him, this was probably around Christmas time in 1980. I'd flown out on Christmas break from Cornell, where I was in grad school. And Obama was looking forward to an imminent social revolution, literally a movement where the working classes would overthrow the ruling class and institute a kind of socialist Utopia in the United States. I mean, that's how extreme his views were his sophomore year of college.

...I was a comrade, but I was more... the Frankfort School of Marxism at the time. I was, I felt like I was doing him a favor by pointing out that the Marxist revolution that he and Caroline and Shandu were hoping for was really kind of a pipe-dream. And that there was nothing in European history, or the history of developed nations, that would make that sort of fantasy, that Frank Marshall Davis fantasy of revolution, come true.

Q: So you had a realistic sense that, even though you liked these ideas, that you knew they wouldn't really work?

A: Right... [There were some] who were puzzled why they didn't see Marx's predictions come true, and weren't interested in the role of psychology or false consciousness in preventing a revolution from happening. I was a card-carrying Marxist, but I was more of an east coast, Cornell University Marxist at that time.

Q: But Obama thought it was practical. He thought it could happen in America?

A: Oh, yeah! He thought I was a little reactionary... or insensitive to the coming needs of the revolution! He was full-bore, 100% into that very, kind of simple-minded Marxist revolutionary framework.

Q: And, also at this time, this is 1981, Jimmy Carter was President [?] and Ronald Reagan was yet to call the Soviet Union 'the Evil Empire' when he becomes President. Did you have talk about the election, about Reagan. I mean, that must have really upset Obama?

A: You know, it's so long ago. My clearest recollection was that we were more concerned with more U.S. intervention in Latin America and the repression of Communist and Socialist forces like the Sandanistas and things like that... this sound weird, but there was part of me at the time that was ready to go off and fight with the Sandanistas against the Contras. I was pretty crazy, Paul...

Q: Now this gets to a critical point and I know Obama supporters want me to ask this... to be fair, look where you were then and where you are today...

A: Oh, yeah. Now I'm a Ronald Reagan, church-going, Baptist conservative, so...

Q: So, what about Obama. That's the... trillion dollar question? ...We have to know this stuff about our Presidents, you can't leave this about biographies...

A: Well, I think that he, I've challenged President Obama to explain how he evolved this Marxist-Leninist viewpoint he had in his sophomore year of college. And he's just never articulated how he changed. In fact, he's buried and, I think, lied about his ideological convictions of his youth. And we can trace it all the way to Alice Palmer, I think, in 1995 [the Illinois state senator who he replaced]... who attended the Communist Party "Politburo" event. Or she was part of a big international Communist convention in Moscow!

Q: ...And Palmer was with Obama in the living room of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn when -- and The New York Times even wrote about this -- there was sort of a political blessing, where Palmer identified Obama as his chosen successor...

A: ...Well, I think I can knock down some doors here but stating that he had a very consistent ideology, I think, probably from the time he was in [Hawaii] to the time he was with Palmer and Ayers in Chicago. I think his current behavior demonstrates that he still has some ideological convictions. When ever he talks about taxing the richest two-percent? I think he knows that will harm the economy. To him, the redistribution of wealth is extremely important. And he never took economics or science like I did. He went straight to law school, never had any business experience, never had a payroll to meet. And I think he's locked in a very dangerous mindset, where if he didn't fight to redistribute the wealth that he'd be violating [his] ideology.

...You see people like Van Jones, who's an admitted Communist, you see Anita Dunn, who's praising Mao Tse-Tung, to me, it's like Obama's Marxist-Socialist ideology is hiding in plain sight! It's frustrating to me. It seems to me like people should be up in arms about this!

...I think whenever he talks about people clinging to their guns and religions due to economic stress, that's just the standard Marxist argument... he's still using the standard Marxist architecture, the way he talks about things. I think he's surrounded by people who share that mental architecture!

...I feel like our nation's life is at stake.

From:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/10/exclusive-transcript-obama-at.html

Obama's Green Robber Barons

by Michelle Malkin

Had enough of fat cat Barack Obama, his jet-setting wife and his multi-millionaire Chicago consigliere/real-estate mogul Valerie Jarrett attacking the "rich"? Well, brace yourselves. You'll be hearing much more from the White House about the "wealthy few" who aren't paying their "fair share" as Obama's re-election campaign doubles down on class-war demagoguery.

As usual, there's always a set of immunity charms for the privileged friends and family of the ruling class. When it comes to all the Green Robber Barons who've reaped an obscenely unfair share of billions of tax dollars from the Obama administration, the envy trumpeteers will be quieter than a nest of mute church mice.

Obama's State of the Union address defiantly pitched a new round of clean energy spending orgies to help the "middle class." But how have the serial bankruptcies and near-bankruptcies of several federally subsidized solar companies -- all under Obama's watch -- helped anyone but an upper-crust elite of eco-crats and their lobbyists and consultants?

Bankrupt Solyndra, billionaire George Kaiser. In the wake of the half-billion-dollar Solyndra stimulus bust, company officials revealed plans to hand out hefty bonuses totaling $500,000. Months before the politically connected solar energy manufacturer went belly up, it was doling out bonus payments of between $40,000 and $60,000 to several executives. Last week, a local CBS News crew caught employees at the Silicon Valley headquarters trashing solar panel glass tubes worth an estimated $10 million.

The now-abandoned Taj Mahal complex cost ordinary Americans more than $733 million. But billionaire Democratic donor and frequent White House guest George Kaiser, whose nonprofit foundation was Solyndra's biggest investor, is still sitting pretty. He and the other private investors of Solyndra will recoup their losses ahead of taxpayers. And while they blast their GOP opponents, double-standard Democrats will remain AWOL on the glaring tax-avoidance strategies of the wealthy Kaiser Family Foundation.

Bankrupt Beacon Power, fat Democratic coffers. This green energy storage plant filed for bankruptcy last fall after a $43 million injection of Obama Department of Energy loan guarantees. Federal election record filings show that CEO William Capp contributed to the 2008 Obama campaign, as well as several left-wing New England Democratic candidates. Beacon Power lobbyist Steve Wolfe was a former aide to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Beacon sought bankruptcy shelter two days after the White House responded to fiscal watchdogs' demands for a review of the DOE's shoddy loan monitoring programs.

Bankrupt SpectraWatt, red-faced Goldman Sachs. A solar cell company based in New York, SpectraWatt went belly up last August despite a half-million-dollar federal stimulus boost and lucrative backing from politically connected Goldman Sachs -- whose ties reach deep into the Obama Treasury Department, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, White House National Economic Council and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. itself. The eco-failure was dumped in a fire sale for less than $5 million.

Teetering Nevada Geothermal, cheerleading Harry Reid. Despite $150 million in federal DOE and Treasury Department subsidies -- not to mention personal lobbying by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- this alternative energy project is on the brink of failure. A Deloitte and Touche audit grimly concludes that the company "has incurred net losses over the past several years, has an accumulated deficit of $44.0 million and an anticipated inability to retire its long-term liabilities." According to CBS News, the company's latest SEC filings warn of multiple defaults.

My scouring of White House visitor logs shows nine visits from another Green Robber Baron, Illinois-based Exelon's CEO John Rowe, who met with the president and former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel multiple times. As Forbes magazine reported: The clean energy company "has very deep ties to the Obama Administration. Frank M. Clark, who runs ComEd, helped advise Obama before he ran for president and is one of Obama's largest fundraisers. Obama's chief political strategist, David Axelrod, worked as a consultant to Exelon. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped create Exelon" -- where he raked in more than $16 million over two years.

Remember: "Fairness" is in the eye of the wealth redistributors.

From:

http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2012/01/25/obamas_green_robber_barons/page/full/

Student Loan Debt Hell: 21 Statistics That Will Make You Think Twice About Going To College

by ilene

Is going to college a worthwhile investment? Is the education that our young people are receiving at our colleges and universities really worth all of the time, money and effort that is required? Decades ago, a college education was quite inexpensive and it was almost an automatic ticket to the middle class. But today all of that has changed.

At this point, college education is a big business. There are currently more than 18 million students enrolled at the nearly 5,000 colleges and universities currently in operation throughout the United States. There are quite a few "institutions of higher learning" that now charge $40,000 or even $50,000 a year for tuition. That does not even count room and board and other living expenses. Meanwhile, as you will see from the statistics posted below, the quality of education at our colleges and universities has deteriorated badly. When graduation finally arrives, many of our college students have actually learned very little, they find themselves unable to get good jobs and yet they end up trapped in student loan debt hell for essentially the rest of their lives.

Across America today, "guidance counselors" are pushing millions of high school students to go to the very best colleges that they can get into, but they rarely warn them about how much it is going to cost or about the sad reality that they could end up being burdened by massive debt loads for decades to come.

Yes, college is a ton of fun and it is a really unique experience. If you can get someone else to pay for it then you should definitely consider going.

There are also many careers which absolutely require a college degree. Depending on your career goals, you may not have much of a choice of whether to go to college or not.

But that doesn't mean that you have to go to student loan debt hell.

You don't have to go to the most expensive school that you can get into.

You don't have to take out huge student loans.

There is no shame in picking a school based on affordability.

The truth is that pretty much wherever you go to school the quality of the education is going to be rather pathetic. A highly trained cat could pass most college courses in the United States today.

Personally, I have had the chance to spend quite a number of years on college campuses. I enjoyed my time and I have some pretty pieces of parchment to put up on the wall. I have seen with my own eyes what goes on at our institutions of higher learning. In a previous article, I described what life is like for most "average students" enrolled in our colleges and universities today....

If you are a parent and you are shelling out tens of thousands of dollars every year to pay for college you need to know the truth.

You are being ripped off.

Sadly, a college education just is not that good of an investment anymore. Tuition costs have absolutely skyrocketed even as the quality of education has plummeted.

A college education is not worth getting locked into crippling student loan payments for the next 30 years.

Even many university professors are now acknowledging that student loan debt has become a horrific societal problem. Just check out what one professor was quoted as saying in a recent article in The Huffington Post....

Anyone that is thinking of going to college needs to do a cost/benefit analysis.

Is it really going to be worth it?

For some people the answer will be "yes" and for some people the answer will be "no".

But sadly, hardly anyone that goes to college these days gets a "good" education.

To get an idea of just how "dumbed down" we have become as a nation, just check out this Harvard entrance exam from 1869.

I wouldn't have a prayer of passing that exam.

What about you?

We really do need to rethink our approach to higher education in this country.

Posted below are 21 statistics about college tuition, student loan debt and the quality of college education in the United States....

#1 Since 1978, the cost of college tuition in the United States has gone up by over 900 percent.

#2 In 2010, the average college graduate had accumulated approximately $25,000 in student loan debt by graduation day.

#3 Approximately two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loans.

#4 Americans have accumulated well over $900 billion in student loan debt. That figure is higher than the total amount of credit card debt in the United States.

#5 The typical U.S. college student spends less than 30 hours a week on academics.

#6 According to very extensive research detailed in a new book entitled "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses", 45 percent of U.S. college students exhibit "no significant gains in learning" after two years in college.

#7 Today, college students spend approximately 50% less time studying than U.S. college students did just a few decades ago.

#8 35% of U.S. college students spend 5 hours or less studying per week.

#9 50% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to write more than 20 pages.

#10 32% of U.S. college students have never taken a class where they had to read more than 40 pages in a week.

#11 U.S. college students spend 24% of their time sleeping, 51% of their time socializing and 7% of their time studying.

#12 Federal statistics reveal that only 36 percent of the full-time students who began college in 2001 received a bachelor's degree within four years.

#13 Nearly half of all the graduate science students enrolled at colleges and universities in the United States are foreigners.

#14 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the unemployment rate for college graduates younger than 25 years old was 9.3 percent in 2010.

#15 One-third of all college graduates end up taking jobs that don't even require college degrees.

#16 In the United States today, over 18,000 parking lot attendants have college degrees.

#17 In the United States today, 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees.

#18 In the United States today, approximately 365,000 cashiers have college degrees.

#19 In the United States today, 24.5 percent of all retail salespersons have a college degree.

#20 Once they get out into the "real world", 70% of college graduates wish that they had spent more time preparing for the "real world" while they were still in school.

#21 Approximately 14 percent of all students that graduate with student loan debt end up defaulting within 3 years of making their first student loan payment.

There are millions of young college graduates running around out there that are wondering where all of the "good jobs" are. All of their lives they were promised that if they worked really hard and got good grades that the system would reward them.

Sometimes when you do everything right you still can't get a job. A while back The Huffington Post featured the story of Kyle Daley - a highly qualified UCLA graduate who had been unemployed for 19 months at the time....

The sad truth is that a college degree is not an automatic ticket to the middle class any longer.

But for millions of young Americans a college degree is an automatic ticket to student loan debt hell.

Student loan debt is one of the most insidious forms of debt. You can't get away from student loan debt no matter what you do. Federal bankruptcy law makes it nearly impossible to discharge student loan debts, and many recent grads end up with loan payments that absolutely devastate them financially at a time when they are struggling to get on their feet and make something of themselves.

So are you still sure that you want to go to college?

Another open secret is that most of our colleges and universities are little more than indoctrination centers. Most people would be absolutely shocked at how much unfiltered propaganda is being pounded into the heads of our young people.

At most colleges and universities, when it comes to the "big questions" there is a "right answer" and there is virtually no discussion of any other alternatives.

In most fields there is an "orthodoxy" that you had better adhere to if you want to get good grades.

Let's just say that "independent thought" and "critical thinking" are not really encouraged at most of our institutions of higher learning.

Am I bitter because I didn't do well? No, I actually did extremely well in school. I have seen the system from the inside. I know how it works.

It is a giant fraud.

If you want to go to college because you want to have a good time or because it will help you get your career started then by all means go for it.

Just realize what you are signing up for.

Go to

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/student-loan-debt-hell-21-statistics-will-make-you-think-twice-about-going-college if you would like to see the links for those 21 points.

Obama's 2013 budget proposal launches election-year debate

By Lori Montgomery, Washington Post

President Obama will send Congress a 2013 spending plan that would raise taxes on the rich and pump nearly $500 billion into new transportation projects over the next decade, launching an election-year debate over the budget that promises starkly different visions for managing government debt and the sluggish economy.

As they prepare to face voters in November, neither the president nor congressional Republicans are expected to roll out many new or potentially painful prescriptions for slowing the rise of the $15 trillion national debt. After failing repeatedly last year to forge a bipartisan consensus, few in either party see much point in trying again now.

Instead, Obama will on Monday reprise recommendations he unveiled last fall that seek to reduce borrowing by more than $3 trillion over the next decade while spending more in the short term to bring down persistently high unemployment.

The president's blueprint calls for reductions in spending on federal health programs and the military, a small raise for federal workers and more than $1.5 trillion in new taxes on corporations, hedge-fund managers and the wealthy, in part through the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts on annual incomes of more than $250,000.

Obama also has called for changes to the tax code that would require households earning more than $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes, but senior administration officials said Friday that the blueprint will provide no additional details on how such a levy would be structured.

To achieve his debt-reduction goal, Obama would rely on an accounting maneuver that permits him to claim about $850 billion in savings over the next decade by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a move Republicans have rejected as a gimmick. Obama would use a portion of those savings to finance new road and rail projects, rather than dedicating the full sum to lower deficits.

Obama's budget also calls for new investments in education, manufacturing and federal research and development, and it would devote an additional $350 billion to boosting economic growth. That sum includes extending a temporary payroll tax holiday and emergency unemployment benefits through the end of the year. Both are scheduled to expire at the end of this month and are currently the focus of intense debate in Congress.

The president's plan would push this year's deficit above current projections, with the budget gap growing to $1.33 trillion - slightly higher than last year's $1.3 trillion deficit and $200 billion more than congressional budget analysts recently projected for the fiscal year that ends in September.

The deficit would fall to $900 billion in 2013, and government borrowing would continue to slow through 2022, leaving the debt elevated by historic standards but no longer growing faster than the overall economy.

Senior administration officials said the blueprint offers a balanced approach that would protect the middle class while asking for greater sacrifice from the most fortunate. Every dollar in tax increases would be matched with $2.50 in spending cuts, they said, counting $1 trillion in previously adopted cuts to agency budgets.

Republicans immediately attacked the higher deficit figures, noting that Obama had failed to achieve his 2009 goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term.

"This unserious budget is a recipe for debt, doubt, and decline," Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said in an e-mail. "It would make our economy worse by imposing massive tax increases on small business and still pile up enormous debt that stirs greater economic uncertainty."

Next month, House Republicans plan to offer a more austere fiscal blueprint that rejects tax increases, preferring to stabilize borrowing by making deep cuts to government services, including Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor. Like last year's GOP budget, it will call for repealing Obama's initiative to expand health coverage for the uninsured while ignoring calls for short-term economic stimulus.

Aides say they expect House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to make one significant adjustment: replacing his plan to wholly privatize Medicare for new retirees in 2021 with a new privatization strategy that would preserve the 47-year-old federal health program - making the budget less vulnerable to partisan attack.

The GOP presidential candidates have largely embraced Ryan's cuts-only vision, often tacking on more dramatic reductions. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said Friday that he would raise the eligibility age for Social Security, which is currently on track to hit 67. And former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has called for immediate cuts in Social Security benefits, rejecting the more common approach of protecting current retirees and people older than 55.

Meanwhile, Romney, Santorum and former House speaker Newt Gingrich are calling for massive tax cuts that even some Republicans worry could make it tough to reduce borrowing.

"I've become very concerned about deficits," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. "Clearly tax reform should help us create economic growth. But I don't know that we can, at this point in time, expect to have any significant tax cuts that adversely impact the deficit."

Both Obama and Ryan will map strategies for saving at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade that would eliminate the threat of across-the-board cuts scheduled to hit next January. But nobody is counting on either plan to be adopted.

House appropriators say they will use the president's request as a starting point for agency spending bills. But Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who is battling to maintain control of the Senate, announced earlier this month that he would not stage a vote on a full budget plan this year.

In addition to being messy, divisive and pocked with political land mines for vulnerable incumbents, a budget vote is unnecessary, Reid said, because legislation adopted during last summer's showdown over the federal debt limit set spending levels for 2013 agency budgets.

"We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year," Reid told reporters. "We already did that."

Republicans blasted Reid's decision as irresponsible and politically driven, noting that a full-blown budget debate would require Senate Democrats to decide whether to accept or reject Obama's tax increases and perhaps outline a vision for reining in spending on Social Security and Medicare, popular but expensive programs that are projected to drive future borrowing. Obama and congressional Democrats have said they would be willing to revamp the programs, but only if Republicans drop their objection to higher taxes on the rich.

Despite the ideological impasse, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he will take another stab at drafting a long-term plan that could tame the debt and garner bipartisan support.

"What are the odds? The odds aren't good. But we have to try," Conrad said, noting that many senators are eager for a "break-the-glass" blueprint that could be implemented quickly if a political consensus - or a new economic crisis - were suddenly to emerge.

"It's absolutely imperative that we have plans on standby," he said, "in case, God forbid, something were to happen."

From:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/obamas-2013-budget-proposal-looks-to-tame-national-debt/2012/02/10/gIQALfaC5Q_story.html

At last count, there were over 2300 comments on this article.

Mind Control in Texas

Posted on the Blaze by Madeleine Morgenstern

[File this under, not all of Texas is Texas]

Kindergarteners at a Texas elementary school were sent home with lyrics to a pro-President Barack Obama song that included such lines as "Barack Obama is the man" and "He's our man, yes we can!"

The song, part of a Black History Month program, was forwarded from a parent at Tipps Elementary School in Houston to Joe "Pags" Pagliarulo, a nationally syndicated radio host and frequent fill-in for Glenn Beck. Included with the lyrics was an apparent memo to kindergarten teachers that said kindergarteners would be "required" to learn the chant for the program [all spelling errors below are original]:

From:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/hes-our-man-yes-we-can-shocking-obama-song-taught-to-kindergarteners-at-tx-school/

Hacker Group Warns Israel

To the government of the state of Israel.

We are Anonymous.

For two long we have tolerated your crimes against humanity and allowed your sins to go unpunished.

Through the use of media deception and political bribery, you have amassed the sympothies of many. You claim to be democratic, yet in reality this is far from the truth, in fact your only goal is to better the lives of a select few while carelessly trampling the liberties of the masses. We see through the propaganda that you circulate through the main stream media and lobby through the political establishment.

Your Zionist bigotry has displaced and killed a great many. As the world weeps you laugh while planning your next attack. All of this is done under the veil of peace but so long as your regime exists peace shall be hindered.

You label all who refuse to comply with your superstitious demands as anti semetic. And have taken steps to ensure a nuclear holocaust. You are unworthy to exist in your current form. and will therefore face the wrath of anonymous. Your empire lacks legitimacy and because of this you must govern behind a curtain of deceit. We will not allow you to attack a sovereign country based upon a campaign of lies. Your grip over humanity will weaken and man will be closer to freedom.

But before this is accomplished the people of this world will rise against you and renounce you in all your worth. Our crusade against your reign of terror shall commence in 3 steps.

Step one will be initiated after the release of this video and will be comprised of systematically removing you from the internet.

Step two will be later disclosed and is already in initiation. And as for step 3, well think of this one as a present from Anonymous to you. We will not stop untill the police state becomes a free state.

We are anonymous.

We are legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Video

The 2012 Index of Dependence on Government This article is filled with charts and graphs.

Your 3rd-Grader's Social Studies Text Book, a Cornucopia of Left-Wing Crackpottery Part of the observation on this 3^rd grader’s book:

There is no mention of the two-party system, nor the fact that there exists a group called "The Republican Party" And there is no mention of a Republican President other than Abraham Lincoln, who merits but a picture and a single sentence. In fact, you would not know from reading this book that there ever was a Republican President. (Doug Ross’s Journal was filled with good stuff today).

I guess that conservatives are going to be putting out movies as well (although getting them distributed may be more difficult). This is one that is about the corruption of Solyndra and ACORN.

The Media-Created Camelot; and they do not like anyone suggesting that it was any different.

Wigderson Reviews A Nation of Moochers

WSJ Almost Uniquely Raises Self-Insurance Issue in 'Immaculate Contraception' Editorial.

CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Suddenly Skips Accepting Award at CPAC

Emory University law professor John Witte, Jr. laid out a bold but reasoned approach on how to accommodate sharia (Islamic law) in the United States and other Western nations - one that protects religious freedom and human rights (Witte’s lecture begins at 9:30). Huffington Post’s written version covering this story. So, when someone tells you, “Sharia law in the United States? Poppycock!” You know where to direct them.

NBC, the same network skillfully edited God out of a clip of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance during last year's U.S. Open golf tournament was unable to edit outa female rapper "flipping the bird" at 114 million viewers during Madonna's halftime show.

Why Would a Guy Who Forecast 'Death of Conservatism' Be Time's Designated 'Expert on the Right'?

Will.i.am loves Obama and so he does a video to show that. Yes we can Many stars help him out.

Very Snarky NY Times review of by former intern of John Kennedy who had an affair with him. Sure, Mr. President, if You Really Want Me To. Once Upon a Secret': Mimi Alford on Her Affair With Kennedy. By Janet Maslin.

Several Democrat women are quite upset with MSNBC’s Morning Joe where they do not believe that Obama’s contraception mandate was given a fair shake.

Foreclosure Expert on Entitlement Mentality

RUSH: We'll start in Collinsville, Connecticut, with Melissa. I'm glad you waited, and welcome to the program.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush, it's such a pleasure to talk to you so thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: I had to call in about this whole foreclosure matter because this is my business. I own what is called a loss mitigation company and my company negotiates short sales for homeowners who are in some stage of foreclosure --

RUSH: Okay, hang on just a second, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I need you to slow down a little bit so I can hear you. And I want you to explain for people that don't know, when you negotiate a short sale for homeowners who are in some state of foreclosure, what does that mean? You mean you're negotiating a sale where the price is less than what they paid for it?

CALLER: Exactly, yep, a homeowner who owes more on a mortgage or mortgages, because often time these days there's more than one on the property. And they can't sell their house (unintelligible) to pay off the loans, and I go in and negotiate with their banks for how that loss is gonna be handled. So just in general numbers, let's say that they have a hundred thousand dollars in loans on their property, they can only sell the house for $80,000, so my job is to go in and negotiate with the bank for that $20,000 difference to either write it off, take the loss, let it go, or come up with some kind of an equitable arrangement with the homeowner to repay that difference.

RUSH: How often does that happen, that last option? How often is there a negotiation where the homeowner will pay something toward the difference?

CALLER: Well, more and more these days. I mean I should say that I've been in this business for almost a decade now, so I've seen a lot of changes in the housing market and I've seen a lot of changes in the economy. I see a large shift in the attitude of my clients, the homeowners, and what their level of responsibility should be here.

RUSH: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell us what that is. What is the shift?

CALLER: I have to tell you that over the past couple of years -- and I don't think it's a coincidence that it has been ushered in with Obama being elected -- I have a lot of clients these days that really feel that they should have no responsibility towards their mortgage.

RUSH: I was afraid you were going to say that. I somehow knew you were gonna say that. It all fits with this mode of dependency that we've been talking about today.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: The sense of entitlement.

CALLER: It is a big sense of entitlement. I get the classic, "The bank is getting a bailout, where is my bailout? The banks are making money, I should be let go of my mortgage," and I get the classic, "I was tricked into buying this house. I was tricked by the loan officer --"

RUSH: Wait a sec.

CALLER: I get that more and more.

RUSH: Have you ever asked them what that means, they were tricked into buying house?

CALLER: I do and I have to be very careful, because obviously I'm a conservative so I've learned as a business owner not to get into political discussions with my clients, but I do have to ask them, "You go to a closing, you sit down at an attorney's office or a title company. You sign documents to purchase a house. You do it front of a notary public. Are you not reading what you're signing?"

RUSH: That's not what I mean. I'm talking about before they even get the closing, like I was once tricked into buying a house with bad advice. I was told it would be the best investment I ever made. And it was just friends of mine. They said, "You're throwing money away renting. You've got to go buy a house." So I applied and got a loan, you know, mortgage and so forth. Turns out I couldn't end up affording it. I had to get out of it. The bank didn't trick me. I qualified, barely. I got tricked by conventional wisdom, by well-meaning friends. But what Obama's talking about is that somebody's minding their own business and a banker comes along and says, "You know what, you need to buy a house. I'm here to make you a loan, and even though you can't afford it, don't worry, you're never gonna have to pay it," and then they find out they are gonna get bills. That's what Obama is trying to claim happened here. Do you know anybody who was minding their own business, had no desire to buy a house, and got tricked into buying one?

CALLER: Never. I've never -- I've done personally over a thousand of these short sales in my career, and I've never seen somebody held a gunpoint, arm twisted behind their backs and forced to buy a house.

RUSH: Right. Now, closing, you know, the terms of the deal, all kinds of chicanery can happen there.

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: And that might qualify as trickery. But Obama is trying to say that people who have no business being given loans were given loans. They were tricked, and I just have never heard anybody that I know who had a mortgage say they were tricked into applying for one, getting one, buying a house or whatever.

CALLER: I think the really sad thing, too, is that that attitude and people listen to the media, they listen to the radio, they read the newspaper, and now I have clients who are just your average, run-of-the-mill middle class hardworking homeowner that are adopting these strategies. They're asking for, you know, "Where's my bailout?" They're telling me that, you know, "Chase Bank made a profit last quarter so therefore they should eat the loss on my loan." They're grabbing little sound bites and adopting this attitude, and I find it really sad because it really has just jumped exponentially in the past couple of years.

RUSH: Well, I'm sure you're right and I'm not surprised. When people who are paying their mortgages, and at the time of the subprime mortgage crisis, by the way, despite the tenor of reporting and the crisis attached to it, the vast majority, well over 92 or 93% of the people were paying their mortgages, and then those people began to learn that there was this whole program out there for people who couldn't pay their mortgages, who were given mortgages, who were put in these houses all because it was affordable housing and they learned later it was called the subprime mortgage crisis or what have you.

The people who have been paying are now the ones saying, "Wait a second here, I'm the one paying. I'm the one meeting my responsibilities. I'm the one following through on my commitment. The people out there who aren't, I gotta pay for them, too? And I have to still keep paying for mine?" So I can understand the thinking of some people who might want to rebel, "Well, look, if these people aren't gonna pay, why should I? Why are they protected? Why are they privileged? Why are they special, just because they have less money than I do? Why do they not have to pay for their house? I'm just not gonna pay anymore. Make 'em come take the house away."

Obama Gives Out Free Cell Phones

RUSH: TIME Magazine: "Last year, a federal program paid out $1.6 billion to cover free cell phones and the monthly bills of 12.5 million wireless accounts. The program, overseen by the FCC and intended to help low-income Americans, is popular for obvious reasons, with participation rising steeply since 2008, when the government paid $772 million for phones and monthly bills." Can I give you the numbers here again? In 2008, the federal government paid $772 million for phones and monthly bills. Since 2008, since Obama, $772 million has become $1.6 billion. It's more than doubled.

"But observers complain that the program suffers from poor oversight, in which phones go to people who don't qualify, and hundreds of thousands of those who do qualify have more than one phone. Last summer, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story shed some light on a government program that relatively few Americans knew existed. The Lifeline program provides low-income Americans with free cell phones." They're not smart phones at least, but that's probably coming. "It covers up to 250 free minutes each month. As many as 5.5 million residents in Pennsylvania alone could qualify for the program, which is funded primarily by the Universal Service Fund fee added to the bills of land-line and wireless customers."

So all of us are paying $1.6 billion in our phone bills to cover free phones and accounts for 12.5 million people. (interruption) Well, I guess you could probably apply to get you a government phone with your government mortgage payout. Yeah, you should go for it. You don't even have to be underwater. You can apply. Some of these people have more than two phones, more than two accounts. That's the thing. Obama's stash. What else is in there?

What else is gonna be made available to people before November of this year? What other goodies are people going to be able to have just for asking or just for being an American or just for being one of the 99%? Or just for being screwed by the rest of the country, just for being screwed by this unfair Constitution and Declaration of Independence. This is how we're gonna make it up to you for all of the rotten treatment you've had since this country was founded, $1.6 billion, free cell phones and the monthly bills, one and a half million wireless accounts, that's up from $772 million.

RUSH: This free cell phone and minutes program, it's called SafeLink. This is the program I just told you about, $1.6 billion totally from taxpayers and your phone bills, to pay for 12.5 million Americans to have free cell phones and free cell usage of 250 minutes a month. And this, for those of you watching on the Dittocam, is one of the advertising techniques. You can find this in websites. They buy space in magazines and so forth, and this is one of the many ways in which you can apply. From the SafeLink website: "How to qualify: If you already participate in other state or federal assistance programs such as federal public housing," you're qualified.

"If your total household income is at or below 135% of the poverty guidelines set by your state and/or the federal government..." Sounds to me like they're trying to "trick" poor people into getting free phones here, just like they "tricked" people into getting mortgages. This is a trick! They're tricking people into getting free phones. "And if you refer a friend to the program..." They are advertising this, and they are trying to expand this! You know, the point of government assistance ought to be to remove people from it. But with the Democrat Party and Obama, the objective is to increase the number of people, and they use you.

Not you, obviously, but they use other people who are dependent to recruit others. In the cell phone program, "You can get an additional free 100 minutes if you recommend a friend." That's right. It says plain as day here: "Pay nothing!" exclamation point. "No bills, no contracts, no credit checks, no hidden fees. Don't worry, you can't go over your free minutes. You can purchase more if you need them, and you can get a hundred free minutes by recommending a friend to the program." They've spent $1.6 billion, up $772 million since 2008. SafeLink is one of these free Lifeline providers (they're the biggest, in fact) and, if you get food stamps, you can get a free cell phone. If you get food stamps -- and what is it, 48, 49 million Americans are on food stamps?

This is the "food stamp president," as Newt properly says. You qualify for a free cell phone. "That's right, 100 SafeLink bonus minutes will be sent to your phone on your next monthly delivery for each friend who gets qualified for SafeLink services. Your friends who get qualified for Lifeline services receive 30 bonus minutes on their monthly delivery, too." I got a note during the break: "Oh, yeah, Rush. This program, you're acting like you just now heard of it." I did just now hear about it! I heard about it in TIME Magazine. "Oh, Rush, this program's been around forever. In fact, the people that have these phones call 'em 'Obama phones.'"

I'm not surprised. They call them Obama phones.

TIME: Washington Footing the Cell Phone Bill for Millions of Low Income Americans

Safelink Wireless: Get an Obama Phone

What Does "Trickery" Mean to You?

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I just had a memory flash. I just remembered -- and I spent some time here checking it out. Obama himself, Obama his own self has been saying for years that he knows people who were tricked into buying a mortgage. He had a speech July 29th of 2008 before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Conference. Really? (interruption) No, I'm not making it up, Snerdley. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials on July 29th, 2008. This is in the midst of the presidential campaign, and Obama's out there saying, "For eight long years, Washington has not been working for ordinary Americans and for hardworking Latino-Americans.

"Few have been hit harder than Latino-Americans and African-Americans. You know what I am talking about. You know the people like the couple I met in Las Vegas who were tricked into buying a house they couldn't afford and are at risk of facing foreclosure..." And in one of his stump speeches before the AFL-CIO, April 2, 2008, he said, "You know, the people like the couple I met in Las Vegas who were tricked into buying a house they couldn't afford. They are at risk of facing foreclosure." He says, "Think about it: The top mortgage lenders spent $185 million lobbying Congress. We wonder why Washington looked the other way when they were tricking families into buying homes they couldn't afford."

This is outrageous!

He actually said that: "We wonder why Washington looked the other way when they were tricking families into buying homes they couldn't afford." This is a total rewrite of history. This is a total fabricated, made-up, 150% lie. "Washington looked the other way when they were tricking families," and in another stump speech he talks about this couple in Las Vegas that he knew. So apparently Obama knows the woman that were tricked into getting a mortgage they couldn't afford. Two people! He never named 'em. I'm sure he could produce 'em, and I'm sure they'd have the biggest sob story you've ever heard. They probably lost all their pets. The movers came and took away every family heirloom. I can imagine this sob story. But it's a total lie. Washington didn't "look the other way when they were tricking families into buying..." Washington was making the banks loan the money -- and Obama knows it, ladies and gentlemen.

RUSH: Here is Ted in East Greenwich in Rhode Island. Great to have you on the EIB Network, Ted.

CALLER: Hey, good afternoon, Rush.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Happy to be here. I'm one of these people that they tried to give a bad mortgage to.

RUSH: You got tricked?

CALLER: Well, no. What happened is I went to see a house, and I was in Southern California. I told the builder, "I don't think I can afford it." He had me see his mortgage lender. When I got there, they worked up the numbers. They told me to fill in the personal data and don't worry about the value section. They'll fill it in for me. I went home, I looked at what the payments would be, I realized it wasn't possible. I asked my kids, "Hey, do you want us to buy this house? No money for food. " My kids voted for the food.

RUSH: I don't blame them. Kids are smart that way. But did I hear you right, you don't consider this an example of you being tricked into this?

CALLER: Well, you know, they tried to give me a loan I couldn't afford but the thing is individual responsibility.

RUSH: But you were in the market for a house in the first place?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I was in the market for a house.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: I went and saw a beautiful house, not sure I could afford it.

RUSH: Okay, look...

CALLER: The builder hooked me up with a mortgage lender.

RUSH: See, now, I'm probably gonna incur some wrath. I appreciate your story. I'm probably gonna incur the wrath of some people here. I'm not saying that people that want to sell you something don't try to sell you on the idea. You go buy a car, they're always gonna try to get you to buy one more expensive than you go in for. But you know that. That's not trickery. That's the sales technique. At some point, people have to be responsible here, like this guy's kids ended up being responsible. They want to eat. What good is a nice house if they can't eat? I know you go in... One of the best sales pitches I ever heard was shortly after I got to Sacramento. The car I arrived in was falling apart. It was a Pontiac something or other. I don't remember what car. It was a four-door, family sedan. It wasn't a LeMans or a GTO. It was falling apart.

So I got out there and the radio station, go see X, and they had a dealer who spent a lot of money advertising on the radio station. "This is the greatest guy! You've never more cars. It's the most solid guy. Rush, you have never met a guy like this," and it was a salesman at the radio station telling me this. I didn't know enough to know that this guy was getting a bird dog: If I go buy a car from this guy on his recommendation, he's gonna get kickback. I'm a naive dunce. I didn't know that. I thought they were being honest. "This guy, he's the greatest guy! You go out there, whatever you want, he's gonna make you a deal. You tell him I said so."

"Okay, fine."

So I go out there, and they tried to push me into a car. I forget what it was, but there was a car on the lot that I really wanted. It was cheaper than what they were trying to sell me, and they said, "Nah, you don't want that! You're not gonna look good in that car. Go ahead and sit in this. Let me take a picture."

I said, "You gotta be kidding?"

"No, I want to show you. You're gonna look better in this car."

It went round and round and round, and finally the guy said, "Look, you know what the problem with the car you want is? It doesn't leave you any room for growth. You drive that car and you're telling people that's all you're ever gonna have. You need to figure that you're gonna get a raise in a year or two and buy a car you can afford then."

And I said, "You think that's true? You think I'm gonna get a raise in a year or two?"

"Oh, yeah, everybody, you're gonna get a raise. Always buy more than you can afford because it will be an inspiration and a motivator to work hard."

That was his sales pitch. Now, was that trickery? I needed a car, I was out there to buy a car, they tried all kinds of things to tell me that I shouldn't buy the one I wanted 'cause it wasn't as expensive, but I don't consider that trickery. Now, Obama might. I guess if you were a socialist utopian the automobile buying experience would be this. You want a car. You go to the dealer and say, "I want that one," and they give it to you. I bought the one I wanted. I hung tough. I liked it better. I bought the one I wanted. The guy eventually gave up and acted like, "Okay, it's your life, if that's what you want to say about yourself."

Well, I did get a raise in a year or two, but point is I did not buy more than I could afford. That's what they were trying to get me to do on the basis that some day I would be able to afford it. They tried all the social peer pressure angle. My point is, that, to me, is not trickery. Trickery would be, I don't need a car, somebody calls me or gets a hold of me or I find out somehow that I can go get a car that I can't afford and everything's gonna be okay because that's what happened with the subprime mortgage. People that had no business buying homes were told they could get a house and not have to worry about paying for it. (interruption) What did you say to me? No, it's not that I'm smart. It's that I knew what I wanted, and I didn't want what they were trying to move me up to.

I wasn't out-toughing these guys. I just remained dedicated to my desire. Anyway, I just don't chalk that up as trickery. That's just these guys trying to do their job. (interruption) Raised whose salary? Oh, the caller, right, the lender, on the form they were pretending that he had more money than he did, but that's not what Obama wants people to think he's describing what he talks trickery. I know what Obama wants people to think, that people, innocent bystanders got roped into buying something they didn't want, didn't need, and couldn't afford. That did not happen, is my point.

RUSH: Look, folks, I'm not naive here. I know what's going on with this Obama business. We've even had one of these experts in this whole business call us and tell us how people were being advised to zero out people's credit histories and qualify them automatically, all the shenanigans that were being played. The guy that called just a moment ago gave us the example of how bankers would fake credit reports. We had a call about that not long ago, make it seem like they had good credit, fake their salaries. Everybody forgets the fear of government in this if you don't make these loans. The whole point of this is that the government was ordering these banks to get this done, to make these loans. Not interview people. Not make it possible. But to get it done.

They were gonna have to jimmy some things here to make it look good on paper because any time there's a paper trail it has to match up. But I'm telling you it is the full force of government with the accompanying fear that makes this happen. Now, I know what Obama's doing when he goes out like he did today, or any other day and starts talking about people getting tricked. I know exactly what he's doing. You have to be very careful when you describe it. There's a racial component to this. We all know it's there. We know what the code words are. I get so sick and tired, the story last week, Juan Williams puts out this asinine story, food stamp president is racial code word, which is absurd.

Okay, how's it feel? Obama starts talking about bankers, Wall Street bankers, what does that mean to certain elements of our population? You know as well as I do what that means. Obama's audience is the poor, disadvantaged minorities, and these big evil Wall Street bankers, everybody knows who they are, and Obama's doing what? Getting even with them. I'm trying to discuss this without the racial component as a means of simply informing people what was going on regardless, as he continues to lie about this.

RUSH: You know what getting tricked is? Getting tricked is being told that Obamacare would push down the deficit and health care costs. That's getting tricked. Getting tricked is liberalism costing us $16 trillion since it got hold of the government. You talk about tricks, Obama's full of 'em, and they're all on us.

RUSH: I'll tell you who was largely behind this whole subprime mortgage scandal and d Obama's announcement today forgiving even more loans, this foreclosure assistance program, $25 billion shakedown of the banks. It's ACORN! ACORN is behind this, ACORN's behind the foreclosure deal. It's a payoff for them. Obama's community organizer buddies. ACORN was tricking more people into mortgages than any bank. They were getting a cut on each one of these! "ACORN, calling themselves The Bottom Line..." They had to change their name and a bunch of different places. After they said, "We're going out of business, too much controversy," they just reformed under different names. One of them is The bottom Line. It's one of the groups that wanted the settlement to be for $300 billion instead of $25 billion, and from ACORN's website:

"[W]e've helped over 50,000 families to achieve their dreams of homeownership since 1986. ... ACORN Housing Counselors make the homebuying process more accessible to first-time buyers. Instead of having to approach bankers or contend with brokers, first-time homebuyers can meet our counselors in the local ACORN Housing office to pre-qualify for a mortgage. If you have credit problems, you'll learn ways to resolve them." Yeah. We'll just pretend that you don't! ACORN is as involved in this as any evil banker. In addition to that, ACORN is a bunch of thugs who were acting as enforcers for Obama where all these banks are concerned. This whole thing is just hideous, and the way Obama and the Democrats continue to lie about this to this day.

Regime Shakes Down Banks for $25 Billion

Obamaville: A Story of Dependence

Wake Up, America! Your Freedom is Under Assault Each and Every Day

Conservatism Will Attract Independents

Romney Attempts to Display His "Severe" Conservatism at CPAC

LA Beaches ban frisbees and footballs

Gay Marriage Poster Couple Divorce

Global Warming Hoax Exploded.

Since there are some links you may want to go back to from time-to-time, I am going to begin a list of them here. This will be a list to which I will add links each week.

Two if by sea (mostly conservative blog site with lots of graphics in information):

http://www.2ifbyc.com/index.shtml

The Newsboy Post has a lot of very anti-Obama material—with lots of pictures and graphics—but he does not let off Republicans either, as I came across an article on the richest Congressmen. There might be some nutty stuff here.

http://newsboypost.blogspot.com/

News and opinion:

http://www.freespeechamerica.org/index.php

The Patriot Update

http://patriotupdate.com/

Energy News:

http://fuelfix.com/

The Hot Air Pundit Blog (a collection of news videos):

http://www.hapblog.com/

Conservative blog; but well-researched and carefully backed up:

http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/

Oversight and Government Reform Committee, website on Operation Fast & Furious:

http://issues.oversight.house.gov/fastandfurious/

People are claiming that this is real, objective political journalism:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/

Waffles at Noon (conservative news (but it has an irritating advert with it):

http://wafflesatnoon.com/

Socially liberal; economically and politically conservative:

http://markhumphrys.com/

Journalism.org; how journalism is covering stories and what the big trends are.

http://www.journalism.org/

Many Economic issues, as well as conservative critiques of various Republicans:

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/

Nonpartisan business news:

http://www.businessinsider.com/

Keeping track of Obama’s promises (although this appears to lean left, it is probably more fair than anything from the Obama Media Complex:

http://obamawatch.wikidot.com/

A similar site on Obama keeping his promises, and also biased. For instance, on government spending, this is shown to be a promise which has been 12% kept, whatever that means.

http://promises.nationaljournal.com/

Great news source; the Gateway Pundit:

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/

Thoughts from a Conservative Mom:

http://www.thoughtsfromaconservativemom.com/

Doug Ross blog; mostly a collection of articles, news links, photos and cartoons; some actual blogging.

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/

Political News Now; the Snow Report

http://www.politicalnewsnow.com/

The Long War Journal

http://www.longwarjournal.org/

Christine Rouselle’s website:

http://thecollegeconservative.com/christine-rousselle/

Ending Spending:

http://endingspending.com/

The Congressmen spending huge amounts of money and those who attempt to curb this spending:

http://endingspending.com/sheriffsandbandits/

Very good free enterprise blog and news source; The American:

http://www.american.com/

Crossroads GPS site (the YouTube site is the best organized):

http://www.youtube.com/CrossroadsGPSChannel

http://www.crossroadsgps.org/

http://www.nomoreblankchecks.com/

Excellent set of short videos:

www.youtube.com/user/LearnLiberty

Split nation (news and opinions from both sides):

http://www.splitnation.org/

Very interesting economic news and views:

http://www.zerohedge.com/

The Bluegrass pundit (a collection of stories of the day): pumpkin

http://www.bluegrasspundit.com/

The Global Warming Policy Foundation:

http://www.thegwpf.org/index.php

Current list of Obama’s executive orders:

http://1461days.blogspot.com/2009/01/current-list-of-president-obamas.html

The Times Watch, which gives example after example of the latest bias on mainstream news sources:

http://www.mrc.org/timeswatch/default.aspx

A syndicate of talent:

http://www.creators.com/

Conservative Daily News:

http://conservativedailynews.com/

Merging Corruption:

http://emergingcorruption.com/

Liberal blogger:

http://doninmass.com/

Pro/Con on important issues:

http://www.procon.org/

Stolen History. This is a Black historian who seeks to teach the actual history of the Black man in America:

http://stolenhistory.org/

Which interest groups support which party?

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php

Open Secrets:

http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php

Honest news on the Occupy movement:

http://www.owsexposed.com/

Are you a woman who wants a nice bag which is the right size to carry a weapon?

http://designerconcealedcarry.com/

Political Cartoons:

http://drawfortruth.com/

News opinion site I am still thinking about:

http://www.maggiesnotebook.com/

Examples of liberal results:

http://urbangrounds.com/

The Global Warming Policy Foundation:

http://thegwpf.org/index.php

The Occupy unofficial site:

http://www.occupytogether.org/

The Freedom Post, a conservative blog who often likes facts and figures.

http://www.myfreedompost.com/

Conservative blogging from the great unwashed

http://www.policymic.com/main/index

The Right Scoop, where there are a number of videos, mostly of recent speeches of presidential candidates.

http://www.therightscoop.com/

James O’Keefe’s website (independent journalist):

http://www.theprojectveritas.org/

Rebel Pundit; citizen journalism from the belly of the beast:

http://rebelpundit.com/

Free Republic:

http://www.freerepublic.com/home.htm

Anti-Wall Street groups include:

Stop the Machine under October 2011, which apparently had permits for months for October. This is very organized; these are not people who just showed up suddenly. Their issues: protect the planet, healthcare for all, end wars, tax the rich and end corporate welfare.

http://october2011.org/

Freedom’s Lighthouse:

http://freedomslighthouse.net/

The Swine Line (Citizens Against Government Waste):

http://swineline.org/

Right Change:

http://www.rightchange.com/

Misfit Politics on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/misfitpolitics

Translating Jihad:

http://www.translatingjihad.com/

The Five Myths archive of the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/five-myths/2010/07/06/ABCCtvO_linkset.html

The Obama Diary (this is a very pro-Obama diary with lots of videos):

http://theobamadiary.com/

I Hate the Media:

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/

In case someone tells a fib about Obama, we need to turn that person in. Luckily, the President has provided for us such a website:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/signup/o2012-attackwatch-report-an-attack or after they have your email address, then use:

http://AttackWatch.com

The Obama Diary. This appears to be a pretty serious site, dedicated to telling you what the president is doing right:

http://theobamadiary.com/

Tomorrow’s Economy Today (lots of graphs).

http://www.economy-tomorrow.com/

We the people; online petitions from the people to the White House:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/WeThePeople

Conservative blogging and news:

http://senseofevents.blogspot.com/

Political news site; looks comprehensive and possibly non-partisan:

http://electzu.com/

Workforce Fairness Institute (it sounds like a liberal group, but it looks like a conservative group):

http://www.workforcefairness.com/

Wrote Left Turn and measures media bias as well as individuals. There is a 40 question test to measure your political quotient and the quotient of various media outlets are given.

http://www.timgroseclose.com/

Conservative Refocus (conservative opinion and a little news):

http://www.conservativerefocus.com/index.php

News and right-leaning commentary

http://www.frumforum.com/

Big Hairy News (right-leaning tongue-in-cheek and some actual news, sort of):

http://peacemoonbeam.typepad.com/bighairynews/

National Taxpayers Union:

http://www.ntu.org/

Millionaires who think they should pay more taxes:

http://patrioticmillionaires.org/

Sunshine State News (almost the only news service which ran a story on Mack’s Penny Plan). They are not a conservative news source, by the way.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/

Bankrupting America:

http://www.bankruptingamerica.org/

Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis (a number of fairly easy to understand article on economic matters):

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Start Thinking Right, a mostly conservative blog, but he does not support every single conservative in each and every case:

https://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/

The cut, cap and balance amendment:

http://www.cutcapandbalanceact.com/

Club for Growth:

http://clubforgrowth.org/

Social Network of the Revolution (they seem to be a conservative organization):

http://rtr.org/

Watts Up With That (a lot of recent scientific news is posted here—there were 9 stories for July 5^th alone):

http://wattsupwiththat.com/

Corruption Chronicles (wtching things judicial):

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog

If you are a small business and you want to air out your problems with how government has hampered your business, here’s the place to go (enjoy the video):

http://jobs.majorityleader.gov/

Excellent economic news:

http://www.zerohedge.com/

Uncover age, sometimes a sensational right wing blog site:

http://www.uncoverage.net/

The Bare Knuckled Pundit, a right-wing blog site with in-depth articles.

http://www.bareknuckledpundit.com/

Front Page Mag; in-depth right-leaning stories:

http://frontpagemag.com/

Framing the Dialogue (mostly individually produced blog postings and interesting articles):

http://www.framingthedialogue.com/

Obamacare 411 (stories about what to expect from Obamacare):

http://obamacare411.wordpress.com/

The U.S. misery index, determined month-by-month:

http://www.miseryindex.us/customindexbymonth.asp

TEA Party . Org (conservative news and views):

http://www.teaparty.org/

Seems to be a middle-of-the-road news organization; iwatch news:

http://www.iwatchnews.org/

Front Page magazine, which is conservative with Jewish emphasis:

http://frontpagemag.com/

The fake Obama Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002453027874&sk=info (the name "Harrison J. Bounel" - a suspected Obama alias, based on official records)

Our Dirty Spending Secrets:

http://www.dirtyspendingsecrets.com/

The Right Perspective (blog):

http://rightperspective.wordpress.com/

Conservative byte (conservative blog; news):

http://conservativebyte.com/

The Government is not God, a political action committee:

http://www.gingpac.org/

Obama’s autopen twitter account:

http://twitter.com/#!/ObamasAutopen

The Minority Report (conservative blogging and news):

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/

Shadow Government Statistic; excellent economics site (some information is free, but this is a subscription site):

http://www.shadowstats.com/

A George Soros funded site to go after specific Fox anchors through their advertisers (is there any parallel to this on the right?):

http://dropfox.com/

Cato Institute’s Downsizing Government

http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/

Cool blog with a lot of excellent articles:

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/

Slimeball comics:

http://slimeball-comics.blogspot.com/

Anti-Fox, anti-conservative “news and opinion” site:

http://www.newscorpse.com/

Lots of current vids:

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Men with Foil Hats (occasionally borders on conspiratorial without being completely nuts; mostly a repository of news stories from elsewhere):

http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/

iwatch news is a repository of interesting news items; there might be a slight left slant? It is hard to tell.

http://www.iwatchnews.org/

Calculated Risk Blog:

http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html

Calculated Risk Charts and Graphs:

http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html

This website, asks the eternal question...

http://www.isglennbeckright.com/

Renew America:

http://www.renewamerica.com/

The Party of 1776:

http://www.partyof1776.net/

Climate Realists:

http://climaterealists.com/index.php

In case I did not list it before, Iowa Hawk (insightful economic blogging):

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/

American Legislative Exchange Council (Limited government, free markets and federalism):

http://www.alec.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home

Right Wing News Watch

http://www.rightwingnewswatch.com/

It is mostly libs who post here, but this way, you get their weird perspective on things political:

http://www.politico.com/arena/

The Right Scoop:

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Pro-Life Unity:

http://www.prolifeunity.com/

Christian Healthcare Ministries (an alternative to health insurance)

http://chministries.org/

Daniel Mitchell’s blog:

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/

Capitalism Magazine

http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/

The truth wins (mostly commentary on economics).

http://thetruthwins.com/

Conservative 21 (blog)

http://www.conservative21.com/index.cfm

Translating Jihad. What is broadcast in the Arabic is one thing; and how it is said in English is something entirely different:

http://translating-jihad.blogspot.com/

The Center for Responsive Politics:

http://www.opensecrets.org/

What if George Bush did that?

http://whatifgeorgebushdidthat.wordpress.com/

The Lonely Conservative (news and conservative opinion):

http://lonelyconservative.com/

The right weather underground (blog, with some emphasis upon the phony green agenda).

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/sebastianjer/

An article on the federal reserve:

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/fed_reserve.htm

The Economic Collapse Blog:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Albert Mohler’s blog, which is Christian and conservative:

http://www.albertmohler.com/

Readers begin a discussion, and other join in:

http://ricochet.com/

The Other Half of History (the history which is ignored in the modern classroom):

http://historyhalf.com/columns/

American History:

http://wallbuilders.com/

Citizen Tom (news and conservative commentary):

http://citizentom.com/

Pronk Palisades (recent news and editorial videos and links):

http://raymondpronk.wordpress.com/

The Right brothers (sort of newsy and commentary):

http://therightbrothers.posterous.com/

Freedom Fighter’s Journal (news and opinion articles):

http://ronbosoldier.blogspot.com/

Liberty’s Army (mostly economic and middle eastern revolutionary news right now):

http://www.libertysarmy.com/

News and opinion articles:

http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/

STORM’s official Revolutionary document:

http://www.leftspot.com/blog/files/docs/STORMSummation.pdf

Climate Depot’s 321-page 'Consensus Buster' Report:

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims--Challenge-UN-IPCC--Gore

The Iowahawk, which is a blog, at times, heavy with stats, and at other times, it is hard to tell:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/

Liberal collector of links and liberal news:

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/

Good conservative news blog:

http://a12iggymom.wordpress.com/

The radio patriot; a news repository and right-wing blog:

http://radiopatriot.wordpress.com/

Glenn Beck’s news page; almost everything is a video:

http://www.theblaze.com/

Conservative Girls are Hot:

http://girlontheright.com/

The Food Liberation Army (I am still unsure whether this is a put-on or not):

http://www.freeronald.org/en/fla/

Good news site—Buck’s Right:

http://www.bucksright.com/

In case you want to refer others to this; statistical comparison between gays and straights:

http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02

Palestinian Media Watch:

http://palwatch.org/

Right Bias:

http://rightbias.com/

Red, White and Blue news:

http://redwhitebluenews.com/

The Right Scoop (lots of videos):

http://www.therightscoop.com/

Excellent news source:

http://home.myway.com/

Union refund? Really?

http://www.unionrefund.org/

The Right Reasons (news and opinion):

http://www.therightreasons.net/index.php

Meadia Research Center where the bias of mainstream news is exposed again and again.

http://www.mrc.org

Pundit and Pundette:

http://www.punditandpundette.com/

News directly from people in Egypt (called Broadcasting from Tahrir Square):

http://eltahrir.org/

Stand with Us:

http://www.standwithus.com/

A George Soros funded site:

http://thinkprogress.org/

Progressive media matters action network:

http://politicalcorrection.org/

The Jawa Report (there is some moderate emphasis upon Islam):

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/

Kids Aren’t Cars:

http://www.kidsarentcars.com/blog/

Stuff you probably did not know about greenhouse gases (this is a good link for friends):

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

The Top 100 Effects of Global Warming (I am fairly certain that this is serious; but it is really hard to tell). It is saying goodbye to French Wines, glaciers, guacamole, mixed nuts, French fries, baseball and Christmas trees and saying hello to cannibalistic polar bears, jellyfish attacks, giant squid attacks, more stray kittens, suffocating lemmings, burning cow poop and acidic oceans.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/09/climate_100.html

Comprehensive List of Tax Hikes in Obamacare (this includes individual health insurance costing as much as $695/month by 2016—which is not the only cost):

http://www.atr.org/comprehensive-list-tax-hikes-obamacare-a5758#

Tammy Bruce

http://tammybruce.com/

[California’s] Public Speakers blog:

http://pubsecrets.wordpress.com/

Flashpoint—California’s most significant political news:

http://www.flashreport.org/

The Publius Forum (more of a newscast than a blog; located in Chicago, I believe):

http://www.publiusforum.com/

Political Chips:

http://www.politicalchips.org/

Brits at their best:

http://www.britsattheirbest.com/

Political Affairs, which used to be called the Communist (in case you are interested in what the Democratic Par, I mean, the communist party is up to.

http://politicalaffairs.net/

Headlines, short news stories:

http://www.thehotjoints.com/

Christmas is evil (Muslim website):

http://xmasisevil.com/index2.php

Conservative blogger:

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/

Verum Serum

http://www.verumserum.com/

The Tax Professor Blog

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/

Moonbattery:

http://www.moonbattery.com/

Arbitrary Vote:

http://arbitraryvote.com/home

The Party of Know:

http://thepartyofknow.com/

Slap Blog

http://slapblog.com/

The latest news from Prison Planet:

http://prisonplanet.tv/

http://prisonplanet.tv/latest-news.html

Right Wing News:

http://rightwingnews.com/

The Frugal Café:

http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/

The Left Coast Rebel:

http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/

The Freedomist:

http://freedomist.com/

Greg Gutfeld’s website:

http://freedomist.com/

This is one of my favorite lists; this is a list of things which global warming causes (right now, it causes over 800 things—most of these are linked):

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

The U.K.’s number watch:

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm

100 things we can say goodbye to (or, hello to) because of Global Warming (all of these are linked). They are very serious about these things, by the way:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/09/climate_100.html

If you are busy, and just want to read about the Top Ten things:

http://planetsave.com/2009/06/07/global-warming-effects-and-causes-a-top-10-list/

Observations of a blue state conservative:

http://lonelyconservative.com/

Thomas “Soul man” Sewell’s column archive:

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell1.asp

Walter E. Williams column archive:

http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/

Israpundit:

http://www.israpundit.com/

The Prairie Pundit:

http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/

Conservative Art:

http://secularstupidest.com/

Conservative Club of Houston:

http://www.cclub.org/welcome

Conservative blog, but with an eye to the culture and pop culture (there is a lot of stuff here):

http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/

Conservative and pop culture blog (last I looked, there were some Beatles’ performances here):

http://thinkinboutstuff.com/thinkinboutstuff/nfblog/

Raging Elephants:

http://www.ragingelephants.org/