If you receive this and you hate it and you don’t want to ever read it no matter what...that is fine; email me back and you will be deleted from my list.

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). If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, let me encourage you to do so: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but through Me.” “Believe in Me and you will have eternal life. Believe not, and the wrath of God will abide on you.” (John 14:6 3:16).

A pastor who attended the Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House wears a hoodie sweater. Of course, this does not mean that President Obama is a radical. I am sure that my pastor will be wearing a hoodie for Easter Sunday as well.

8-year-old downloads iPad application, which leads to the capture of crooks with $350,000 worth of stolen stuff.

A Lexington, KY t-shirt company is under investigation by the city's Human Rights Commission after they refused to print t-shirts for a local gay rights organization.

Mitt Romney wins primaries in Maryland, D.C. and Wisconsin. Santorum says it’s halftime; Gingrich admits he will not win.

Disability claims are going up just as jobless benefits begin to run out. Many people about to lose their unemployment benefits are able to develop a disability which allows them to continue drawing a government check.

For months, I have mentioned the 30 or so jobs bills which have been piling up in the Senate after being passed in the House. President Obama finally signs one of these.

This Monday, former Arkansas governor and one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee will launch a three-hour radio program on almost 200 stations across the country, going voice-to-voice with Limbaugh in the noon-to-3 p.m. time slot, Monday through Friday.

After the President made some confused remarks about the limits of the Supreme Court, a Texas judge ordered his attorney general, Eric Holder, to submit a 3-page, single-spaced paper explaining the interaction of the court and the executive branch. Holder complied with the demand.

Although the Stock Act passed and was signed into law, it apparently has no teeth. I don’t believe that it deals with one of the most abused actions of a congressman, who buys property on the cheap, and then begins to earmark businesses and construction around this property, increasing its value tremendously over a short period of time. However, at least there is enough here to embarrass a sitting Senator or Congressman (although they ought to get jail time for the evil that they do). NY Democrat Louise Slaughter, by the way, has pushed this legislation for years.

President Barack Obama has told Iran the United States would accept Tehran having a civilian nuclear program if the Islamic state can prove it is not seeking atomic weapons.

NBC News has fired a producer who was involved in the production of a misleading segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. The segment strung together audio clips in such a way that made George Zimmerman's shooting of Mr. Martin sound racially motivated. This was only

one of several items misrepresented by the press from the very beginning, to make Zimmerman seem like a racist who went out with the express purpose of killing a Black man. The words, physicality and actions of Zimmerman have been consistently misrepresented; and the sort of person Trayvon Martin had become, as well as his own physicality, has also been consistently misrepresented by the media. It took awhile before the Obama Media Complex told this story, and with a lot less air time and column-space than they gave to the misleading audio. And to this day, so-called reputable news organizations continue to misreport this story.

50-year-old white man on life support after Black teens beat him with a hammer, same Florida town as Trayvon Martin shooting.

Keith Olbermann, who was fired by MSNBC, has now been fired from Current TV, Al Gore’s “news” station. Olbermann and Current are suing one another. Who was the last FoxNews host to leave in a huff, with mutual suits going on? Because of its low ratings, Current may lose its spot in the Time Warner lineup.

Speaking of global warming, the debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.

A California solar energy company that was unable to meet a deadline for an Energy Department loan guarantee last year has sought bankruptcy protection in Delaware. They received a $2.1 billion loan from the taxpayers.

Even if President Barack Obama approved the controversial Keystone XL pipeline tomorrow, at least some Canadian oil would still flow to Asia, according to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It sounds like favorable pricing is probably off the table as well.

Please tell me this is a joke: An elderly woman was ordered to find a new GP because the "carbon footprint" of her two-mile round trips to the surgery where she had been treated for 30 years was too large.

UK school changes nursery rhyme lyrics from "Baa Baa Black Sheep" to “Baa Baa Little Sheep.” That’s not insane.

Massachusettes school changes lyrics from "God Bless the USA" to "We Love the USA."

New (not so) shocking study reveals that the University of California is a hotbed of leftist faculty and politically correct thinking where many students are receiving a weak and unbalanced education, according to a report by a conservative organization of professors and administrators. Shocking, if you have been in a coma for the past 20 years.

The Democratic Party's newly appointed Jewish outreach liaison is pictured on Facebook in a series of provocative photos with her friends holding dollar bills and referring to themselves as "Jewbags" and the "Jew cash money team."

The New Black Panther Party in Florida declares they will conduct "county-wide and state-wide defense training and community patrols to protect against racial violence and attacks."

Congressional Black Caucus is using the Trayvon Martin incident to pitch for more gun laws, ignoring what is going on today in Chicago, a Democrat controlled city with a surfeit of gun laws.

Two twin grenade blasts Saturday killed an estimated two people and injured over 30 in a Kenyan city where Christians had gathered to hold an outdoor worship service.

The president of Somalia's Olympic committee and the head of the national football federation were killed in a bomb blast set off by a female suicide bomber.

Two young Tunisians have been sentenced to seven years in prison for posting cartoons of the prophet Mohammad on Facebook.

An Egyptian court sentenced a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.

The Nigerian Islamic group Boko Haram celebrated Easter by setting off two car bombs near Sunday services to kill 50 Christians.

The White House will give $1.5 billion in foreign aid to Egypt, after a meeting with representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood in Washington.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber today as they took pictures and went sightseeing in an Afghanistan park.

An FBI review of agent training material critical of Islam uncovered 876 offensive or inaccurate pages that had been used in 392 presentations, including a PowerPoint slide that said the bureau can sometimes bend or suspend the law.

President Obama, on what will happen if the Ryan budget is passed: "We wouldn't have the capacity to enforce the laws that protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the food that we eat. Cuts to the FAA would likely result in more flight cancellations, delays and the complete elimination of air traffic control services in parts of the country. Over time, our weather forecasts would become less accurate because we wouldn't be able to afford to launch new satellites and that means governors and mayors would have to wait longer to order evacuations in the event of a hurricane. That's just a partial sampling of the consequences of this budget."

President Barack Obama: "Ultimately, I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." Nearly every word of that is untrue.

President Obama: "We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress, on a economic issue, like healthcare - like I think most people would clearly consider commerce - a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner [vs New York, 1905]."

Press Secretary Jay Carney: First of all, the president was asked a question and then responded to it. Secondly, as I just said, he made an observation about why he believes that - well, first of all, he believes the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Why he believes it is constitutional and why he believes that the Supreme Court will, in keeping with 80+ years of judicial precedent and Supreme Court precedent, will defer to Congress on its authority to pass regulation on issues of national economic importance like our healthcare system. It's the reverse of intimidation. He's simply making an observation about precedent and the fact that he expects the Court to adhere to that precedent.

Press Secretary Jay Carney: “What I acknowledged yesterday is that speaking on Monday the president was not clearly understood by some people because he is a law professor, he spoke in shorthand.” Translation: “You are not smart enough to understand the President; he is a law professor and you’re not.”

President Obama: "I hear politicians talking about values in an election year. I hear a lot about that. Let me tell you about values. Hard work, personal responsibility - those are values. But looking out for one another. That's a value. The idea that we're all in this together. I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper. That's a value." Insofar as we know, President Obama has never given dime one to his half brother in Kenya, whom he has met.

President Obama: “We didn't simply work that hard in 2008 just to clean up the mess that had been left...And we have been spending the last three years cleaning after some of that mess. And I don't want to have to do it again.”

President Obama: “[Ronald Reagan] could not get through a Republican primary today." And yet, nearly every Republican candidate speaks of his affection for President Reagan.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner: "There is no economic or financial case for using the fear of future deficits to cut as deeply into core functions of the government, to weaken the safety net or fundamentally alter Medicare benefits as do the Republican proposals." Let’s just keep spending money.

President Obama on the Ryan budget: "It's a Trojan horse. Disguised as deficit reduction plan, it's really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country. It's nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism."

President Obama: “[Republicans have] one message and that is, we're going to make sure that we cut people's taxes even more - so that by every objective measure our deficit is worse and we will slash government investments that have made this country great."

DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "President Obama rightly is making sure that the American people understand that there is a dramatic difference in the two visions they will have to choose from in this country come November. And that is a vision that he has laid out and is moving us toward to make sure that everyone in America has a fair shot, that everybody gets a fair shake and everybody play business the same set of rules. And the middle class and working class families have a chance of success, and it's not just wealthy people and the most fortunate who can have the wind at their backs. That's what Mitt Romney is about and this is a dramatic contrast. And i n addition to that the unbelievable budget cuts and cutting our way to deficit reduction that really is not a path to prosperity, it's a path to poverty, is something that the American people need to know."

President Barack Obama: "I don't need to tell anyone here that progress is hard, change can come slow, opportunity and equality don't come without a fight. Sometimes you have to keep fighting even after you won some victories. Things don't always move forward, sometimes they move backward if you're not fighting for 'em."

DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "I think Mitt Romney has been so focused on trying to out-right-wing and embrace extremism that he is really beholden and has tied himself to his support for personhood amendments, his belief that Roe versus Wade was one of the worst decisions handed down by the Supreme Court, his support for the Blunt-Rubio amendment which says that bosses get to decide for their female employees what kind of access to health care they can have. And so every day there's another example of how out of touch the Republicans are."

President Obama: "When people say we should get rid of Planned Parenthood, they're not just talking about restricting a woman's ability to make her health decisions. They're talking about denying, as a practical matter, the preventive care, like mammograms, that millions of women rely on." Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms; it writes referrals for the patient to have them done elsewhere.

Vice President Joe Biden to a hosted law enforcement and first responders event, and how reducing spending will bite the 1% in the butt: "The first guy who's going to have a problem is the guy whose $3 million home is on fire and you can't get a truck out there. The first guy that's going to have a problem is the person who has real assets and finds their house burglarized or robbed, or their Porsche is stolen."

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin: “[the link between carbon-sparked global warming and severe weather] has been proven. It's been proven time and time again, and the science is clear. Tell me (recent weather outbreaks) are a coincidence. I

don't believe it...[buying hybrid cars may be costly, but] it's your money or your life. The warming climate is changing our weather patterns. We're experiencing more severe events."

Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen: "The situation we're creating for young people and future generations is that we're handing them a climate system which is potentially out of their control. We're in an emergency: you can see what's on the horizon over the next few decades with the effects it will have on ecosystems, sea level and species extinction."

Vice President Joe Biden: "I think our energy policy is the best it's ever been."

Joe Biden on the GOP: "They're emasculating all the efforts to deal with renewable energy."

Former Green Jobs czar Van Jones: “Republicans tried to make the word Solyndra this kind of horrible world and like `Oh my God' . it's still fine for them to do this war on American technology...This is quasi-treasonous from my point of view. How can you let American industry be wiped out?”

President Obama: “Families were enticed, and sometimes just plain tricked, into buying homes they couldn't afford. Huge, reckless bets were made with other people's money on the line.” Perhaps the president has heard of Solyndra or Solar One or any other of the many “green” companies which got loads of taxpayer money before going broke.

Nancy Pelosi: “And we had 40% approval for the Congress. ” For a brief period of time, Congress had a 39% approval rate under Pelosi’s leadership. It was quite a bit below that for most of her speakership. She personally had a 24% approval rating.

Nancy Pelosi of Obamacare: "I think that it is the crown jewel. It is the greatest achievement; but with stiff competition." Because President Obama accomplished so much.

Van Jones on libertarians: "They say they're Patriots but they hate everybody in America who looks like us. They say they love America but they hate the people, the brown folk, the gays, the lesbians, the people with piercings, ya know ya'll."

President Obama's Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis: “[Dolores Huerth is] my teacher, my role model, and mi hermana...[she is] a "living legend." Huerta is a socialist co-founder of the United Farm Workers, an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and has praised Hugo Chavez to high school students.

Young California protestor after being pepper sprayed: "We won! We won! They pepper-sprayed us!"

Jesse Jackson’s Easter message: "But why was He killed? Because He fought and occupied the corrupt temple."

Van Jones: "[The] Occupy movement pretty much saved the entire country from destruction."

Left-Wing Terrorist Bill Ayers: "I get up every morning and think...today I'm going to end capitalism."

Van Jones: "You've got the perfect storm building. You've got all the passion around Trayvon, and what a horrible injustice that was. And it turns out you can draw a direct line back to the Koch Bros, you can draw a direct line back to to mainstream corporations..." That’s not crazy talk.

First Lady Michelle Obama:"Keep up the great work," when accepting an anti-war petition at a fundraiser in San Francisco last week from a CodePink member. When CodePink is not collecting signatures, they are going naked and semi-naked in banks or in protest of BP.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard: "You think it's tough being African-American? Try being me. Try being an atheist, childless, single woman as prime minister."

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "You know, what Mitt Romney and the Republicans have been doing to themselves every single day is showing women in this country day after day that they are callously indifferent to women's health, to the priorities of women."

Nina Turner (Ohio congresswoman): “...it really is unfortunate that we have occupiers of state houses and general assemblies these days that all they care about is prohibiting women and their rights to high-quality health care, reproductive care.”

MSNBC’s Martin Bashir: "[Republicans] happy for him [Obama] to have been involved in using his labor to build the White House, but for him to win an election and live in the White House, that's just not acceptable."

Professor Michael Eric Dyson: "I think these are code words; wolf whistles, dog whistles. If you can't accept Barack Obama in the presidency as an intelligent, articulate African American man going about trying to negotiate between competing claims and rival arguments about what is right and wrong, than you can't accept anybody."

Congressional Black Caucus resolution: “[George Zimmerman's] unfounded assumptions and racial bias led to the use of deadly force."

New Black Panther poster: "No School, No Work, No Shopping. . . Demand the Arrest of George Zimmerman." Zimmerman's face in the poster is overlaid by crosshairs. That’s not crazy.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, about Trayvon Martin being suspended from school the day he was killed: "We must stop suspending our children. Invest in them. Educate them." Martin had a baggie with marijuana residue in it.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky on Trayvon killing: “it’s just incredible; [it’s] a modern-day lynching."

Black Juvenile to his 5 Black juvenile friends, as they approach 78-year-old white Dallas Watts, as he walked home from the store: "Take him down."

While Mr. Watts was down the boys kicked him, shouting, "[Get] that white [man]. This is for Trayvon. . . Trayvon lives, white [man]. Kill that white [man]."

New Black Panther Party Malik Zulu Shabazz: “Our belief teaches us that we obey man's law, but wen there's a conflict between man's law and God's law, we are duty bound to follow the law of God. And God says that justice must be done. And so we received a revelation, those that work in that particular department in the party received a revelation to work with the community there, and they came together with a $10,000 reward offer for a legal citizen's arrest. Some are calling it a bounty.”

President Obama to the American Society of News Editors, in case they are not getting their stories straight: "As all of you are doing your reporting, I think that its important to remember that the positions that I am taking on the budget and a host of other issues if we had had this discussion 20 years ago or even 15 years ago, they would have been considered as squarely centrist positions. What's changed is the center of the Republican party." What could be more centrist than a $1.3 trillion deficit year after year? What is the tax and spend party, once again?

AP president Dean Singleton: “President Obama made history as the first minority to be elected President. Even many who opposed his election felt proud of our country as he took the oath of office. As President, he inherited the headwinds of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. He pushed through Congress the biggest economic recovery plan in history and led a government reorganization of two of the big three auto manufacturers to save them from oblivion. He pursued domestic and foreign policy agendas that were controversial to many, highlighted by his signature into law of the most comprehensive health care legislation in history. And the budget plans proposed by the President, on the one hand, and Republicans on the other hand, aren't even on the same planet. Many Democrats believe that his agenda doesn't go far enough and most Republicans believe it goes way too far. While we thought the 2008 White House race was rough and tumble, the 2012 race makes it look like bumper cars by comparison. Our country has become more polarized. The one percent and the 99 percent are at each others' throats.”

Nina Totenberg, NPR: “And if you look at, if you look at the taxes paid today in brackets of about 20 thousand, you see that actually the people who pay the most are between $60,000 and $125,000. And then, and they pay about 30 percent in income, taxes across the board. It then starts to go down for people who make more than that. And, and this proposed budget would give all of the benies so to speaked to unearned income. Salaried people would be paying more and more, and unearned, and people who made a lot of money would be paying less and less.” Truth is not important to those who give us the news. She is either ignorant or she willfully misrepresents the facts.

AP headline after disappointing March jobs report: “US job market takes a break after hiring binge” In almost every economic story featuring the President, there is a happy face put on the story.

Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer: “Despite the pullback in March, the economy has added 858,000 jobs since December—the best four months of hiring in two years.” Which is false.

CNBC guest, economist Mark Zandi, who has worked with the Obama administration: "The other thing I want to point out, and you know, I'm trying to find some silver linings in the data. It's obviously not positive, but one other silver lining is that you'll notice that the job losses in state and local government is starting to moderate. And I think that's a real trend. You know, there are more layoffs coming, but the worst of the layoffs are behind us. And that's also going to be a significant positive going forward. That's a big negative, that's going to be less of a negative."

Dan Rather, HDNET: “But this will be, let's don't forget that race will be a factor in this [2012] presidential campaign. Yes, the country can feel good about we elected a person of color, which I did not expect to see in my lifetime. But race will be a factor in this.”

From Reuters: “NBC News's decision to air an edited call from George Zimmerman to police in the moments before he shot Trayvon Martin was ‘a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call,’ according the president of network's news division”

Daily Beast/Newsweek headline for David R. Dow article: “Impeach the Supreme Court Justices If They Overturn Health-Care Law”

NY Times’ Thomas Friedman: “"I think it is the fact that in my view the Republican Party is no longer a conservative party. It's become a radical party on a lot of these key issues. ”

Rich Benjamin on the NY Times Opinion page: “Mr. Zimmerman reacted very differently, taking out his handgun and shooting the youth in cold blood.”

Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten does a humorous column on how is dog is a Republican: “I've been living with my dog for five years now, but only recently did I come to accept Murphy's red-state politics...Like other Republicans, Murphy shows inappropriate interest in the reproductive systems of women she does not know, shamelessly sticking her nose into their business. It can be a problem on walks. But other things are more nuanced. Murphy is a culture warrior. She has a rigid worldview, with exacting standards about what constitutes acceptable personal behavior. When she sees something of which she disapproves, she will glare indignantly at the offender, throw her head back and bay like the hound she is...Like other Republicans, Murphy demands less government; she makes this position abundantly clear anytime I attempt to govern her behavior in any way inconsistent with her immediate desires, such as horking up maggoty chicken from the gutter, which she will do with subversive glee while in a protective crouch”

Michael Miller of the New Times Blog: “Neo-Nazis are currently conducting heavily armed patrols in and around Sanford, Florida and are "prepared" for violence in the case of a race riot.” The Sanford, FL Police Department deny any indication of neo-Nazis patrolling anywhere in Sanford.

Politico's Dylan Byers and Mackenzie Weinger report that Gov. Sarah Palin told CBS' Katie Couric in 2008: "I can see Russia from my house." Tina Fey said this in an SNL skit. These are political junkies who should have a clue. They have since corrected this.

CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele: "That's kind of the climate change we are seeing. You know, extremes are kind of ruling the roost and really what we are seeing, more become the norm...global warming is really kind of a misnomer. Global climate change-so the colds are colder and warms are warmer, and the severes more severe."

Heading in ABC story on global warming: “America's Prestige Damaged by Its Climate Denialism; World Has `Given Up' on Hoped-for U.S. Leadership”

AP article this week: "Al-Qaida has been blamed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of people." 11 years later, they are not quite ready to make that jump to saying that they actually did it.

New York Times' recently installed Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren tweeted: “What do #Israel and #Iran have in common? Jailing journalists.” She first defended this tweet, because of an article she linked to; but then backed off.

Rev. Ruth Hawley-Lowry, blogging for the Huffington Post: “This week is Holy Week. So what do Trayvon Martin, Dr. King and Jesus have in common? No, this question isn't the beginning of a bad joke - the answer is hopefully apparent. They were all killed in the midst of a political climate that justified fear and legalized hate.”

Alec Baldwin tweet about a NY Daily News Reporter: “Here's the nutty bitch who crashed the yoga class today with Snooki Alvarez... pic.twitter.com/OQeXTJvq”

The View's Joy Behar: "Shouldn't [Palin] be turning letters somewhere on some game show at this point? Why is she still involved in the conversation politically? ...who cares what she thinks about at this point?" Palin’s appearance on the Today Show had a slighter better audience than Katie Couric hosting another show on another network.

Oprah Winfrey: "I'm 100 percent behind our president. I actually love our president, and have the utmost respect for him and that office and what it takes to be there...[but]I will not be out there [campaigning] because I'm trying to fix a network."

President Obama: "I believe that it is part of our solemn responsibility to future generations that we look after this planet; that we make sure our air is clean and our water is clean; that we're not poisoning our kids."

Rep. Peter DeFazio: "...the Ryan budget would actually cut transportation by 35 percent from current levels. Or the flat-earthers who say there's no federal interest in a national transportation system. One of those three things is going to come out of their (the Republican) side....We are going to lose half of the proposed projects this construction season around America, tens of thousands of jobs, needed investment because they got a bunch of bozos in their caucus who don't believe we should have a national transportation system."

D.C. Councilman Marion Barry: "We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops. They ought to go. I'm going to say that right now. But we need African-American businesspeople to be able to take their places, too."

Howard Dean: "The Republican party is gay-bashing, Muslim-bashing, Latino-bashing, immigrant-bashing, women-bashing every day."

Nancy Pelosi: "I say to my Republican friends, and I do have many, `Take back your party, this is the Grand Old Party. Take it back from extremists who are taking it over the edge, anti-government ideologues who really don't believe in a public space."

Pelosi fund-raising email: “We're close to an incredible milestone in our campaign to stop endless Republican extremism.”

A Virginia elementary school teacher told her students that "Republicans are stupid" and "they don't care about anyone but wealthy people and businesses." This is a quote of a quote.

Former White House "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones: "The impact of the Tea Party's reckless policies would be to financially decimate our government, further dismantle America's middle class, and strengthen the chokehold that the top 1 percent has on the economy. Nonetheless, the Tea Partiers effectively seized the public narrative in 2009 and congressional power in 2010, quelling the wave of hope generated by the 2008 election."

Lee Whitnum, of opponent Chris Murphy: "I'm dealing with a whore here who sells his soul to AIPAC, who will say anything for the job." AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Whitnum and Murphy are both democrats.

Nina Turner (Ohio congresswoman): “...I would ask the women of this nation to use their political power and their passion to clean state houses and governor's mansions across this country and take out the right-wing occupiers and replace them with elected officials who believe in equality and justice for all.” Of course I know what she meant. The same as I understood what Palin meant when she drew crosshairs on certain congressional districts.

Dr. Omar Ja'ara, lecturer at Al-Najah University in Nablus: “We have a great leader, Saul, [in the Quran] who defeated the nation of giants and killed Goliath. This is a great Muslim victory. The Muslims of the Children of Israel went out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and unfortunately, many researchers deny the Exodus of those oppressed people who were liberated by a great leader, like Moses the Muslim, the believing leader, the great Muslim, who was succeeded by Saul, the leader of these Muslims in liberating Palestine.”

Current TV statement: "Current seeks a determination that it is no longer obligated to pay a dime to Mr. Olbermann who, having already been paid handsomely for showing up sporadically and utterly failing to keep his end of the bargain, now seeks to be paid tens of millions more for not working at all."

Van Jones: "I think if he [Obama] came out as gay, he wouldn't lose the black vote. President Obama is not going to lose the black vote no matter what he does."

Former White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein: "When I worked for the administration I was very active in the implementation of the Recovery Act. And one thing we found about clean energy was that if you build a solar plant you are going to hire a lot of people. If you run a solar plant, it doesn't take a ton of people to run some of these plants.”

Canadian President Stephen Harper: "We cannot be, as a country, in a situation where our one and, in many cases, only energy partner could say no to our energy products. We just cannot be in that position."

Cheadle follow up tweet: “It was "an error made in the production process that we deeply regret." Really? "Error?" Anybody out there know anything about editing?” I always liked Cheadle as an actor; I like him a little bit more now.

Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission: "This [shooting of Trarvon Martin] will be vetted in court, not in a mob mentality that's been juiced up by Al Sharpton, who is a provocateur and a racial ambulance chaser of the first order, and aided and abetted by Jesse Jackson."

Accounting executive of Keith Olbermann in an email: "The problem is with him . . . the man who professes to be for the 99% doesn't want any of the 99% talking to him or being near him."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): "It makes no sense to make this attack on women. If you don't feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters."

MSNBC’s conservative, Joe Scarborough: “I can tell you, Planned Parenthood, in my neighborhood, is not seen as a noble organization.”

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell: “In Texas and Arizona, Joe, it really is. I'm not talking about the abortion services, I'm talking about the basic screening health care: they're the provider.“

Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University Professor and MSNBC Contributor: “Look all of this othering of Obama, like he's from some other planet. Everything he does is subject to a different lens and seen through a microscope that really tends to pick him apart. I think it's indivisible from the broader issue of his race, of his being a black man with a certain kind of authority. These are impolite things we don't want to talk about. We think that they're being extraordinary ratcheted up. But I don't see any other way to explain it but a remarkable resistance to the integrity of this man that has no other explanation.”

George Will: “But regardless of his skin pigmentation, what he said was factually, demonstrably false. He said something would be unprecedented that has many precedents, probably thousands since 1803.”

Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal: “Can I say this -- the president is known as an extremely bright man. He was an instructor of constitutional law. For him to say something so deeply incorrect and almost unknowing about the -- the purpose of the Supreme Court seemed provocative. At the very least sloppy and what the heck is he doing? But at the most, provocative. A real brush back. A real, I'm going to go to war with the court.”

Bill Plante, CBS news: What he said on Monday was an obvious misspoken moment because he talked about the court not being in a position to overturn an of Congress -

Plante: You're standing up there twisting yourself in knots, because he made a mistake and you can't admit it.

Carney: No, no, Bill, I am acknowledging that - you're sharing in the righteous indignation here that your colleagues -

Plante: No, I'm just being - I'm just noting that you're twisting yourself in knots.

Carney: The president spoke in answer to a question, relatively briefly, and in the context of this case, made the statement that there is no judicial precedent - that there is long judicial precedent which would argue that the court should not overturn this law. I totally grant to you that he did not refer to the commerce clause. He did not refer to the whole context. I think he believed that that was understood. Clearly, some folks - notably the person sitting in that chair and others - missed that. And, uh, and, uh - no, no, look. There's a lot of - it's kind of ridiculous to believe that the president wasn't talking about the context of the case, but I completely concede that he did not describe the context when he took the question and answered it on Monday. He then, when asked again Tuesday, provided the full context. And so, did he clarify his comments? Absolutely. Did he expand on them? Absolutely. Yes, Scott. God, you guys. It's your job to come up with clichés - game on, and things like that. But I'm not going to engage in that.

CNN Newsroom, anchor Kyra Phillips: “Wait, are you saying that gay marriage is not important?”

Rep. Allen West: “I think if you poll the American people, Kyra, I don't think they'll bring up gay marriage as one of the top concerns."

Phillips: “I think no doubt people are concerned about jobs and the economy, but gay marriage is a big issue. You were military. Don't ask, don't tell ...”

Although West attempting to speak about the economy, Phillips went back to this topic again.

A CNN/ORC Poll asked which issue is the most important facing the country today. "Policies toward gays, lesbians" was one of the selections, which were presented in random order. The economy, the federal budget deficit, health care, Afghanistan and illegal immigration topped the results. Only 2% of respondents thought policies toward gays and lesbians were the most important issue.

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist: Because the Republicans in Congress are less popular than the Democrats in Congress than the President in the White House. So if you put Mitt Romney, and you want to make this campaign about budget and budget cuts and tax cuts for the best off, the angry affluent if you would. I mean, that's where Obama wants to fight the campaign, not on the economy itself or unemployment or five million missing jobs. Fight it on the budget and turning Medicaid over to the states and privatizing Medicare.

Nina Totenberg, NPR: Fight it on student loans. He wants to fight it on, you know, an end to student loans.

Totenberg: .the safety net, an end to research which has made, scientific research which has made this country great. Those are the things that, you know, you can sound the alarm bells on. And conversely, the Republicans want to make it about the end of the country by fiscal default.

Charles Krauthammer: Obama will win the argument if the electorate is as gullible as Nina and Mark and Evan in accepting what the Administration is saying about the cuts. You just said cutting student loans. Actually, the Ryan budget keeps the level of public Pell grants exactly where it is. What Obama speaks about when he talks about a cut is he wants to keep inflating the amount of spending the government is doing. Today the government spends 25 percent of the economy which is the highest since the Second World War. The average is 20 percent. He's now at 25 percent. So what he calls a cut means the not increasing of a budget he's already inflated radically. There are no cuts in student loans.

Bret Baier, FOX News: Democrats put forward a budget that failed in the House, a version of the president's budget was voted on in the House and Democrats said it was a stunt, but it fell 414-0. Senate Democrats have not passed a budget resolution in 1,070 days. Why?

Jay Carney, White House: Come on, Bret. You can cite, and I know you often do the statistics that represent, you know gimmickry and stunts --

Carney: Look, it is our preference that Congress work and the Senate effectively pass a budget. You know --

Baier: So why doesn't the president call Harry Reid and say, 'Why don't we get a budget on the table and vote on it?'

Carney: Bret, I know that's what you want to make the segment about. The president put forward and laid out his budget proposal which has at its core, a balanced approach, a balance to this day that Congressman Ryan rejects. There is a lot of citation on cable and elsewhere about the Simpson-Bowles commission.

Baier: Harry Reid controls the Senate. And he has to have a 51 number to get a Senate budget resolution passed through. Why doesn't he put something close to the president's budget on the table in the Senate and pass it with 51 votes? He has the votes.

Carney: Bret, the president has put forward a budget proposal. He would absolutely be delighted if Republicans were willing to approach our deficit challenges in the same balanced way that every bipartisan commission says we must. And that the Simpson-Bowles commission, which a lot of people like to cite as a high standard which has to be met, included on its membership, Congressman Ryan and two other House Republicans. And guess what? They voted against it.

Baier: It's not 60 votes. It's all Democrats. All Democrats could vote on a budget, they could vote on it tomorrow and they could pass it if they put it on the table. You know that. So why doesn't the president call Harry Reid and say 'do that'?

Carney: Bret, I know that's what you want to make this segment about. You know that the only way in modern day Washington to achieve a significant budget compromise is when both parties are willing to work together. That doesn't mean a unanimous Republican vote in the House or a unanimous Democratic vote in the Senate. It means coming together in a balanced way on a balanced approach. The president and Democratic leaders have demonstrated their willingness to embrace a balanced approach that the American people overwhelmingly support. What the Ryan Republican Budget does is say that we should double down on the same policies that got us into the fiscal mess and economic mess that we're just recovering from. That's a fact.

Baier: Okay, we're not making headway on the point but what we'll come back to it.

Paula Priesse: “April 5th - What our media first told us about George Zimmerman: 1) Said to the dispatcher: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black." (NBC) 2) Video shows him uninjured (ABC) 3) Used a racial slur (many sources) 4) Paranoid, called 911 46 times in 14 months (NY Times, NPR & others) and 5) Weighs 240 lbs (NY Times) Now the latest: 1) NBC admits audio editing 2) ABC says video does show possible injury 3) CNN reports enhanced audio places doubt on racial slur 4) Called 911 46 times but over 8 years not 14 months and 5) Weighs 170 lbs not 240 The good news? The media managed to spell Zimmerman's name correctly over 50% of the time! P”

Sarah Palin, in beating Katie Couric in the ratings: “I'm ecstatic we beat the `perky one.' ”

Rush Limbaugh: "This is what liberals do. Liberals want to take all risk, all danger. That's why they tell you coffee will kill you. Then one day oat bran will kill you. Then MSG will kill you. You can't have coconut oil on your popcorn in the movies. They want to take all risk out of life."

Rush Limbaugh: "Liberals have to have demons, they have to have enemies, and his enemy will float. One month it's me. The next month it's the Supreme Court. The next month it's George Zimmerman. Now it's gonna be Augusta National for a while. Every day there's a new enemy or two to take the focus off his failures."

Paul Ryan on Obama’s speeches on Ryan’s budget: “He's distorting the truth - I`ll leave it at that.”

Rush Limbaugh: "I think there's panic because the mysticism of 2008's gone, and it's been replaced with a record here that's embarrassing. It's a record of utter failure, and he can't run on it, and so he's got to have enemies."

Rush Limbaugh: "In all the years that I have been on the radio, it has never occurred to me to do what NBC did with a piece of audio. It never occurred to me just to make a point or just to further my agenda. What good is it if it's a lie? And had I, can you imagine?"

Rush Limbaugh: "Why is it that every time that there is a political dispute, you people on the left have to assign hate to it and automatically exempt yourselves? You are the haters. You are the people that have this barely controllable rage coursing through your veins, not us."

Rush Limbaugh: "The media's like advertising, they have vastly more power over our thinking than we realize. Even the smartest among us, even the most conservative among us are not immune to it."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama is the least competent person to ever sit in the White House to lecture anybody about budgets and spending and priorities."

Rush Limbaugh: "The Tea Party engineered the 2010 midterm elections. The Tea Party engineered this massive landslide victory which equals a massive landslide defeat for the Democrats. The Republican Party didn't do anything."

Rush Limbaugh: "What I think most women care about is their children and their future, as well as their present. What kind of a mess is their school? What is the country going to be like when their kids grow up and get out of school? What are their kids going to know when they get out of school? Are they gonna be properly educated? This is what I think women care about."

Rush Limbaugh: "Obama should have to answer for some things, not Paul Ryan. He should have to answer for what actually is 10.9% unemployment. For the longest period in our history, more people have dropped out of the workforce than at any time in modern history. Obama needs to be made to answer for this."

Rush Limbaugh: "If the workforce participation rate, the labor force participation rate were the same as it was when Obama took office, the reported unemployment rate today would be 10.9%. And that's why the workforce has to be tweaked by the Labor Department, to get to 8.2. It's very simple."

Rush Limbaugh: "I've tried to say the reason the unemployment number can go down when they add people to the unemployment rolls is that the universe of jobs is shrinking. There are fewer jobs against which to compare those out of work, the labor force participation rate."

Brett Baird, after pointing out that the Senate had not passed a budget for 1070 days and then being accused of presenting statistics that represent gimmickry and stunt by Jay Carney: “What’s gimmickry about not present—passing a budget in the Senate?” And “So, why doesn’t the President call Harry Reid and say, ‘Why don’t we get a budget on the table and vote on it?’”

John Stossel, “The Media, and How We Get it Wrong.” This is not as good, but it is still good.

FoxNews host Brett Baird interviews Jay Carney for 7 min. This is about the most flustered I have ever seen Carney get. Because Baird tends to be quite fair, people do not realize that he will go for the jugular.

Conservative legal scholar confronts CNN's Toobin For defending Obama (audio and text)

AP President Dean Singleton gushing over President Obama in an introductory speech.

Bill Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, former 60's radicals, members of the Weather Underground; upset that military allowed to board plane first. This is the couple in whose home President Obama began his political career. Video is at the bottom; it’s around 7 min. long.

1) As I have noted earlier, everything that Sarah Palin has said for the past year or so, I have agreed with, which is not something I could say about any of the Republican presidential candidates. She recent suggested that Allen West be picked as vice president. That would be an outstanding choice. Like Marco Rubio, conservatism is in this man’s soul; he does not need note cards to talk about it. He has never used the words “severe conservative” to describe himself.

2) When reading an article on the Obama campaign in search of a slogan, it saddens me to admit that a campaign slogan is extremely important. More than once, I have had Obama supporters parrot back to me “Hope and change” to explain why they voted for him in 2008. Right now, they have several options: Winning the Future, We Can't Wait, An America Built to Last, An Economy Built to Last, A Fair Shot.

3) People want to believe in a power greater than themselves. This explains why Democrats, whose faith in God is less tethered to anything objective like the Bible; or who do not believe in God at all; have a great deal of faith in government and leftist leaders who promise them hope and comfort. So, not matter what the government promises to do, they tend to believe it, regardless of all evidence to the contrary.

4) President Obama and the Democratically controlled Senate have had 4 chances to get a budget; without any success.

5) Although a lot has been made of Oprah Winfrey’s network (OWN) not doing very well, that is not a very big deal. Entrepreneurs in the United States tend to fail more than they succeed; but when they succeed, it usually makes up for the failures. Since her success was not ever running a network, it is possible that she ought to step aside and let someone else do that part of it (maybe she has someone else in that position; I really don’t know).

A form of Obama’s budget was voted down in the House 414 to 0. 1070 days have passed since the Senate passed a budget. The Senate voted down his budget last year at 97 to 0.

March 2012 deficit: $196 billion—a typical yearly budget deficit under George Bush hole in March, back in the days when we had budgets. This is the 40th straight month of deficits.

More than 10.5 million people - about 5.3% of the population aged 25 and 64 - received disability checks in January from the federal government, an 18% jump from before the recession. This explains why those looking for a job continue to dwindle; they find a way to get a check by doing nothing.

The economy under Ronald Reagan for 19 out of 20 months from April 1983 to November 1984, averaged 248,000 jobs per month with a workforce that was 30% or so smaller. 18.4 million jobs added under Reagan from the November 1982 end of that decade's recession to when he left office in January 1989.

The economy under Bill Clinton added 200,000 or more jobs in 22 of 24 months from April 1993 to March 1995, and had another run of 38 months out of 49 from May 1996 through May 2000. The former was what one would expect an economy to do coming out of a recession. The latter was largely due to supply-side economic policy changes, primarily a 1997 capital-gains tax cut, which took effect after Clinton's reelection.

The only reason that it's "tough" for the economy to create 200,000 jobs a month with millions of workers available is that the administration's policy choices (stimulus, heavy regulation, anti-business bully pulpit, looming ObamaCare) have been so counterproductive.

From Newsbusters.

Michigan has gone from a 14.3% unemployment rate in 2009 to around 9% as of late. Their governor used to be a prominent Democrat, but no more. About when did that change? Election time?

Buyers who choose Nissan's all-electric Leaf ($28,421) over its approximate gas-powered equivalent, Nissan's Versa ($18,640), will likely wait nearly 9 years until they break even, according to a new report by The New York Times that examines the cost of fuel efficiency. For drivers of the Chevrolet Volt ($31,767), the wait is even longer - 26.6 years.

86% of American adults believe the person known to history as Jesus Christ walked the earth 2,000 years ago.

53% believe that President Obama is governing like a partisan Democrat than in a bipartisan manner.

32% of Likely U.S. Voters disagree and think he is governing on a bipartisan basis.

26% of the nation's voters strongly approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president.

12% of American Adults think the United States has the best tax system in the world.

46% of government workers believe their private sector counterparts work harder than they do, while just 32% percent say the opposite. My late cousin Richard used to say, “If you’re not working for the state, you’re working too hard.”

Journalists give standing ovation to President Obama; they clap while sitting for Mitt Romney.

Under President Obama’s budget, the interest on the national debt will exceed the defense budget. Will this be on television?

You no doubt here the unemployment numbers each week, and how we ticked down from 8.2% to 8.1%; but have they ever mentioned the number of people not in the labor force? It is now up to 87,897,000. Those people are no longer counted towards unemployment, so it can appear as if unemployment is being reduced.

During the Bush years, all of the Iraq casualties found their way to lead the news; and many liberals explained, “This is not bias; if it bleeds, it leads.” There have been a number of killings in Afghanistan, but without near the new coverage.

One of the biggest stories this week was Obama saying some crazy things about the Supreme Court and what they could and should do; and how the entire week was spent with him and Jay Carney walking those remarks back. Obamacare being ruled over in the Supreme Court is a very big flipping deal.

Romney did next to nothing this week; so, who does SNL spoof this week? Romney, for about the 10^th time in the cold open. Since it is election year, do not expect Obama to get seriously spoofed. In fact, when was the last time he was in any skit?

Props to NY Democrat Louise Slaughter, who has been pushing the Stock Act for years. An almost-toothless version of the Stock Act has been passed, which is a start.

Not judicial activism = taking out a law that Obama does not approve of (like the Defense of Marriage Act)

Judicial activism = finding new rights not originally found in the constitution; finding new sub-groups not mentioned in the constitution and giving them preferential treatment; making laws or regulations which were no in effect before and requiring those laws or regulations obeyed

The Democratic approach of simply making up “women’s issues” where there were none appears to be working well. A recent poll has Obama way ahead of Mitt among women. Credit the Obama press for much of this success.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi predicted a 6 to 3 Supreme Court verdict upholding her, and President Obama's, health care overhaul.

That free birth control could trump, in many women’s minds, an out-of-control deficit.

Over 50% of the people will not know why we have a constitutional government and why all government officials pledge their allegiance to upholding. the constitution.

If the Supreme Court throws out the federal health care law, it "would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

After remaining mostly silent on the topic, President Barack Obama stepped into the debate over how the Supreme Court might rule on the health care law, the signature legislation of his presidency.

In a Rose Garden press conference on April 2, 2012, the president expressed confidence that the nine justices will uphold the law and said that to do otherwise would be an example of "judicial activism" so often maligned by Republicans. He listed some benefits of the law that have already taken effect -- drug discounts for Medicare beneficiaries and millions of children gaining coverage.

"So there's -- there's not only an economic element and a legal element to this, but there's a human element to this. And I hope that's not forgotten in this political debate.

"Ultimately, I'm confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," he said.

Two terms stood out to us in that statement: "strong majority" and "unprecedented."

Is Obama, a Harvard Law-educated president, correct in his characterization of how the bill passed Congress? We remembered the vote as quite narrow. And what about the historical implication of overturning it?

For this part of the claim, we turned to the congressional record of votes on the health care bill from late 2009 and early 2010.

The health law took an unusual path to passage. Usually, the House and Senate pass different versions of a bill, then they work out their differences in a conference committee. A unified bill comes out of that committee, and both bodies vote again on the new bill. Then, if it passes, the president signs it.

In the case of the health care bill, the House and Senate had each passed different versions in 2009. It was expected the two bills would be integrated in conference committee, then voted on again. But before that could happen, the Democrats lost their 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. (Republican Scott Brown in January 2010 won the seat formerly held by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.) Anything that came out of conference committee at that point could have been held up in the Senate, blocked by 40 Republican senators.

Democrats decided to get around this by having the House simply accept the Senate's version of the bill. Then Democrats in the House and Senate used a different measure -- a reconciliation bill, which requires only a simple majority -- to modify the law they had just passed.

Numerically speaking, neither vote reflects a very large margin of victory. In the Senate, 60 votes was actually the exact minimum needed to prevent a filibuster -- not a vote more. And in both chambers, not a single Republican voted for for the bill.

The Supreme Court routinely reviews laws passed by Congress and either upholds or overturns them. For Obama to suggest that such an action would be unique in American history is something of a head-scratcher.

We could name numerous examples of the Supreme Court tossing laws passed by a "democratically elected Congress," starting with Marbury vs. Madison, in 1803.

For a more recent example, Senate historian Don Ritchie cited the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act, which made it a federal offense to knowingly possess a firearm in a school zone. But in United States vs. Lopez, the court said the federal government could not use the commerce clause to restrict guns.

"Lots of laws have been overturned," Ritchie said. "That's what the Supreme Court does."

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at University of California at Los Angeles and blogger who considers himself center-right or libertarian-conservative, even cited a case that was passed by a large majority in Congress and then tossed out by the court.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 passed unanimously in the House and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate. The law protected religious individuals and organizations from government interference with the practice of their faith. But the court, in the 1997 case City of Boerne vs. Flores held that the statute was unconstitutional because it exceeded federal power.

Volokh said the Boerne case is noteworthy in the health care debate because it was also a federalism case, meaning it was being challenged under the 10th Amendment that says powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states.

Another interesting point: Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens, two of the court's liberal justices, joined the majority opinion.

"Were they stopped by the fact that this was a federal statute enacted by a nearly unanimous vote of the Congress? Absolutely not," Volokh said.

What's more, he said, the Supreme Court is not supposed to consider a law's popularity.

"It's not its job to do that," Volokh said. "You could imagine justices being influenced because justices are human. But according to the Constitution, a law is a law. . and a law that unconstitutional is unconstitutional.

"They're not supposed to look at these things, and there's considerable evidence that they often don't."

What else might Obama have meant when he said overturning the health care law would be unprecedented?

He was asked for just such clarification a day after the press conference at a luncheon with members of the Associated Press.

Obama's response: "We have not seen a court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on an economic issue, like health care ... at least since Lochner. Right? So we're going back to the '30s, pre-New Deal."

He further explained that, because the court has extraordinary power as the final say on laws, it "has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected Legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this."

The president seemed to be framing the health care case in historical terms. He said that no law on an economic issue such as health care has been overturned in decades, and he cited Lochner vs. New York, a controversial 1905 decision striking down a New York labor law because it interfered with employer/employee contract rights. The case marked the beginning of what came to known as the Lochner era of the court, when justices overturned several laws through the 1930s on the grounds that they were an overreach by government into business.

Obama further added that overturning such a far-reaching law as the health care bill would be atypical use of the court's power.

So, when given the chance to explain, Obama wasn't saying it would be unprecedented simply for the Supreme Court to overturn a federal law.

But "this is not any law," said Norman Ornstein, a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"At least since the early part of the New Deal, when you had a Supreme Court that blocked at least a few initiatives of the new Roosevelt administration, we haven't had a major social policy overturned," he said. "And I don't think any of them were as sweeping or significant in their effect on the country as this one (the health care law). They didn't overturn Social Security; they didn't overturn the (Works Progress Administration)."

He continued: "If you're looking at things that have had a big effect on people's lives, you'd say Social Security and Medicare are the two biggest ones in the last 80 years. And I think you could make the case that while this (the health law) doesn't affect everybody in the same way -- most people already have health insurance -- but everybody's lives would be changed by this law because of the way that insurance would be provided and other changes in the law that affect how you deliver health care. And we're talking about something that impinges on 17 percent of the economy, and that's big stuff."

Ornstein said that since the 1930s, there has been "a wide acceptance of the role of government in the economy and affecting the social fabric of the country."

"A decision that would not only affect the health care law but would also raise questions about other mandates... this could challenge the entire New Deal and post-New Deal structure of America. You'd have to say that's unprecedented."

That was a lot of Supreme Court history. First, let's review Obama's statement: "Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."

There's simply no support for the assertion that the law was passed by a "strong majority." It was passed along party lines in a sharply partisan climate, and the 60 votes in the Senate were the minimum needed to keep Republicans from bottling it up in a filibuster.

But the "unprecedented" idea is more nuanced. It's without question that the Supreme Court overturning a law passed by Congress -- by any margin -- is a common and routine occurrence, and by no means without precedent. Volokh gave us a close analogy with the case of Boerne vs. Flores, a religious freedom law that glided through Congress but was held unconstitutional by a majority of the court, including two of its liberal justices.

However, Obama's elaboration a day later at least gives us more to think about. He argued that invalidation of the health care law would represent a court action unseen since the Great Depression on an issue that affects every American. Ornstein echoed that interpretation, saying that a ruling by the court which overturns a major social policy and challenges prior court rulings would be unprecedented.

But we're taking Obama literally, and that historical perspective was not reflected in his original statement, which is what we're ruling on. He simply said the law passed with a strong majority and overturning it would be unprecedented. Wrong and wrong. We rate the statement False.

Total Federal Spending Proposed By Obama's FY2012 Budget Through 2021. (OMB, 9/1/11)

Amount Obama's FY2012 Budget Would Add To The Debt Through FY2021. (OMB, 9/1/11)

Cumulative Deficits Caused By President Obama's Deficit Reduction Proposal. (OMB, 9/19/11)

Total Interest Payments On The National Debt Due To Obama's Proposed Budget, FY2012-2021. (OMB, 9/1/11)

Added To The National Debt Since Obama Took Office. (U.S. Treasury Department, Accessed 2/3/12)

True Cost Of ObamaCare Once Fully Implemented. (Office Of The Speaker Of The U.S. House Of Representatives, Report, 1/6/11)

Annual Cost Of Federal Regulations. (Small Business Administration, September 2010)

Projected FY2012 Budget Deficit Under Obama's "Deficit Reduction" Proposal. (OMB, 9/19/11)

Federal Budget Deficit For FY2011 - Second Highest In U.S. History. (CBO, 10/7/11)

Federal Budget Deficit For FY2010 - Third Highest In U.S. History. (CBO, 10/7/10)

Total Cost Of Obama's First Stimulus With Interest. (CBO, 8/24/11, CBO, 1/27/09)

Net Interest Payment On Our National Debt In 2021 Due To Obama's Proposed Budget. (OMB, 9/1/11)

Amount Of Medicare Cuts In ObamaCare. (CMS Chief Actuary Richard S. Foster, Memo, 4/22/10)

Stimulus Loan To The Failed Solar Company Solyndra. (The Oakland Tribune, 11/4/10)

Amount Of Taxes In ObamaCare. (Letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 3/18/10; Joint Committee On Taxation, 3/2/10)

Debt Service Costs For Borrowing To Pay For Obama's First Stimulus. (CBO, 1/27/09)

Amount Government Expects To Lose On Bailouts Of Auto Industry. (The Detroit News, 1/30/12)

Stimulus Funds Sent To Tax Cheats. (Government Accountability Office, April 2011)

Amount Taxpayers Will Not Recover From Bailout Of Chrysler. (FactCheck.org, 6/6/11)

Annual Paperwork Burden Hours Imposed By Regulators In 2011. (American Action Network, 1/2/12)

Number Of Americans Living In Poverty (Supplemental Poverty Measure). (US Census Bureau, 11/7/11)

Record Number Of Americans Living In Poverty (Official Measure). (U.S. Census Bureau, 9/13/11)

Record Number Of Americans Receiving Food Stamps. (Department Of Agriculture, 2/1/12)

Amount Obama Has Raised From Wall Street - More Than All The GOP Candidates Combined. (Dan Eggen And T.W. Farnam, "Obama Still Flush With Cash From Financial Sector Despite Frosty Relations," The Washington Post, 10/19/11; TW Farnam, "MF Global Ties Awkward For Obama Campaign," The Washington Post, 11/2/11)

Americans Working Part-Time For Economic Reasons. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Number Of Americans That Fell Into Poverty Since Obama Took Office. (U.S. Census Bureau, 9/13/11)

Number Of Mortgages Either 30 Days Delinquent Or In Foreclosure. (Lender Processing Services, 1/19/12)

Americans Unemployed 27 Weeks Or Longer. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Obama Campaign Cash Raised By Bundlers In The Lobbying Industry. (The New York Times, 10/27/11)

Workers Granted Waivers So That ObamaCare Would Not Outlaw Their Health Care Plan. (HHS.gov, Accessed 1/9/12)

Stimulus Funds Sent To Indonesia To Discourage Air Pollution In Jakarta. (The Daily Caller, 7/7/11)

Jobs Lost Since Obama Took Office. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Americans That Have Given Up Looking For Work. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Construction Jobs Lost Since Obama Took Office. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Manufacturing Jobs Lost Since Obama Took Office. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Private Sector Jobs Lost Since Obama Took Office. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Jobs Lost Since Obama's Stimulus Was Passed. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Private Sector Jobs Lost Since Stimulus Was Passed. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Number Of Local Government Education Jobs Lost Since Obama Signed A $10 Billion Teacher Union Bailout He Said Would Save 160,000 Teacher Jobs. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12; The Washington Post, 8/10/10)

The Number Of Stimulus Checks Sent To Dead Or Incarcerated People. (The Wall Street Journal, 10/7/10)

Record Number Of Pages Added To The Federal Register In 2010. (Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2011)

Number Of Heavy And Civil Engineering Construction Jobs Lost Since The Stimulus Was Passed. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Your Share Of The National Debt. (U.S. Treasury Department Accessed 2/3/12; U.S. Census Bureau, Accessed 2/3/12)

Pages Of New Rules Added To The Federal Register During Obama's First Two Years In Office. (Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2011)

The Number Of Jobs Obama Knew His Drilling Moratorium Would Kill. (The Wall Street Journal, 8/21/10)

Annual Cost Per Household From Federal Regulations. (Small Business Administration, September 2010)

Increase In Your Share Of The National Debt Since Obama Took Office. (U.S. Treasury Department Accessed 2/3/12; U.S. Census Bureau, Accessed 2/3/12)

Negative Effect Of Debt On Gross National Product Per Person In 2035. (CBO, 6/22/11)

Cost Per Employee That Federal Regulations Place On Small Businesses. (Small Business Administration, September 2010)

Number Of Tax Delinquents Who Received Stimulus Funds. (Government Accountability Office, April 2011)

Year That The Social Security Trust Fund Will Be Exhausted. (The Trustees Of Social Security & Medicare, 5/10/11)

Year That The CBO Predicts Medicare's Trust Fund Will Be Exhausted. (CBO, 1/31/12)

Number Of Waivers Granted To Unions And Businesses So That ObamaCare Would Not Outlaw Their Health Care Plans. (HHS.gov, Accessed 1/9/12)

Number Of Regulations That Would Impact Small Businesses Proposed By Obama Administration In First Two Years In Office. (Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2011)

Days Since Harry Reid's Senate Has Passed A Budget Resolution. (S. Con. Res. 13, Roll Call 173; 4/29/09)

Number Of Regulations Proposed By Obama During First Two Years That Have An Economic Impact Of Over $100 Million. (Competitive Enterprise Institute, 2011)

Current Or Former Registered Lobbyists In The Obama Administration. (Center For Responsive Politics, Opensecrets.org, Accessed 2/6/12)

Americans Who Rate The Economy As "Not So Good" Or "Poor." (The Washington Post/ABC News Poll, 2/6/12)

Small Businesses That Could Be Forced To Change Health Care Plans As A Result Of ObamaCare. (NFIB, 7/11)

Stimulus Funds For Wind, Solar And Geothermal Energy Projects That Went To Foreign Firms. (Investigating Reporting Workshop/ABC's World News Tonight/Watchdog Institute, 2/8/10)

Federal Debt Held By The Public As Share Of GDP By End Of The Year. (CBO, 1/31/12)

Americans That Are Worried The Economy Will Get Worse Rather Than Better Over The Next Year. (Gallup, 1/25/12)

Americans That Say The Country Is Headed In The Wrong Direction. (CNN, 12/23/11)

Americans Worried That The Value Of Their Home Won't Increase. (Gallup, 1/25/12)

Households That Receive Some Form Of Government Assistance. (The Wall Street Journal, 10/5/11)

Top Tax Rate By 2014 Under Obama's FY2012 Budget. (The Washington Post, 5/16/11)

Increase In National Debt Since Obama Took Office. (U.S. Treasury Department Accessed 2/3/12)

Americans Who Approve Of Obama's Handling Of The Economy. (The Washington Post/ABC News Poll, 2/6/12)

Number Of Weeks That It Takes To Find A Job. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Americans Who Approve Of Obama's Handling Of The Budget Deficit. (The Washington Post/ABC News Poll, 2/6/12)

Record Number Of Straight Months With Unemployment Rate Above 8 Percent. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Households That Receive Either Food Stamps, Subsidized Housing, Cash Welfare Or Medicaid. (The Wall Street Journal, 10/5/11)

Share Of Existing Home Sales In December That Were Distressed Properties (Foreclosures And Short Sales). (National Association Of Realtors, 1/20/12)

Unemployed Workers Out Of Work For Over A Year. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Home Loans Underwater (Negative Equity) In Third Quarter Of 2011. (Reuters, 11/29/11)

Amount GNP Would Be Lowered Due To Debt's Effect On Economic Growth By 2035. (CBO, 6/22/11)

Cut To Medicare Benefits When Trust Fund Is Exhausted. (House Ways & Means Committee Hearing, 6/22/11)

Workers Unemployed, Underemployed Or Marginally Attached To The Labor Force. (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Accessed 2/3/12)

Percent Of Home Loans Delinquent In November. (Lender Processing Services, 1/27/12)

Percent Of Mortgage Loans In Foreclosure During December 2011. (Lender Processing Services, 1/27/12)

Decline In Median Home Sale Price In The Last Year. (National Association Of Realtors, 1/20/12)

Obama pointing fingerThe faith - or lack thereof - of President Obama has been in question since his 2008 campaign. Many Americans are unsure of the president's religious affiliation, and many others are convinced he is a Muslim. Events throughout the last three years have given credibility to anti-religious, anti-Christian, and other antagonistic claims against the president. But a recent article by faith and American freedom historian David Barton might just solidify these claims.

Barton has recently published an article detailing no less than 50 anti-Christian and anti-Jewish actions of the president since his inauguration in January 2009. Barton's findings have led him to proclaim that President Obama is "America's Most Biblically Hostile U.S. President," which is also the title of his document.

The full list of grievances is broken down into four categories: Acts of hostility toward people of biblical faith, Acts of hostility from the Obama-led military toward people of Biblical faith, Acts of hostility toward biblical values, and Acts of preferentialism for Islam.

Barton said it would not be accurate to simply call him anti-Catholic. Barton shares his reasons for calling Obama anti-biblical:

A partial list of actions Obama has taken against centuries old American religious freedoms include:

May 2009 - Obama declines to host services for the National Prayer Day (a day established by federal law) at the White House.

Oct. 19, 2010 - Obama begins deliberately omitting the phrase about "the Creator" when quoting the Declaration of Independence - an omission he has made on no less than seven occasions.

April 2011 - For the first time in American history, Obama urges passage of a non-discrimination law that does not contain hiring protections for religious groups, forcing religious organizations to hire according to federal mandates without regard to the dictates of their own faith, thus eliminating conscience protection in hiring.

January 2011 - After a federal law was passed to transfer a WWI Memorial in the Mojave Desert to private ownership, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the cross in the memorial could continue to stand, but the Obama administration refused to allow the land to be transferred as required by law and refused to allow the cross to be re-erected as ordered by the Court.

June 2011 - The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burial ceremonies at Houston National Cemetery.

September 2011 - The Army issues guidelines for Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that "No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials and/or facts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit."

February 2012 - The Air Force removes "God" from the patch of Rapid Capabilities Office (the word on the patch was in Latin: Dei).

February 2011 - Obama directs the Justice Department to stop defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

May 2009 - While Obama does not host any National Day of Prayer event at the White House, he does host White House Iftar dinners in honor of Ramadan.

2010 - While every White House traditionally issues hundreds of official proclamations and statements on numerous occasions, this White House avoids traditional biblical holidays and events but regularly recognizes major Muslim holidays, as evidenced by its 2010 statements on Ramadan, Eid-ul-Fitr, Hajj, and Eid-ul-Adha.

When this partial list is considered it becomes clear that president Obama is not interested in religious freedom for Americans. He has taken deliberate steps to attack many religious freedoms we have enjoyed for centuries and doesn't seem concerned with objections from American citizens.

As we approach the 2012 election this list and other possible attacks on religious freedom should be heavily considered by people of faith across America before casting our votes. Is this the kind of "representation" we desire in the White House? Are we really better off today than we were before president Obama took office?

One thing is certain, as Christians we must step up to our responsibility to vote. Then we must be sure to vote according to our biblical values for the candidate that most closely resembles the faith and values we hold dear.

The chilling words of Barton should stay with every one of us as we prayerfully consider who we will vote for in 2012:

Cardinal Dolan thought he heard Barack Obama pledge respect for the Catholic Church's rights of conscience. Then came the contraception coverage mandate.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops is careful to show due respect for the president of the United States. "I was deeply honored that he would call me and discuss these things with me," says the newly elevated Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York. But when Archbishop Dolan tells me his account of their discussions of the ObamaCare birth-control mandate, Barack Obama sounds imperious and deceitful to me.

Mr. Obama knew that the mandate would pose difficulties for the Catholic Church, so he invited Archbishop Dolan to the Oval Office last November, shortly before the bishops' General Assembly in Baltimore. At the end of their 45-minute discussion, the archbishop summed up what he understood as the president's message:

"I said, 'I've heard you say, first of all, that you have immense regard for the work of the Catholic Church in the United States in health care, education and charity. . . . I have heard you say that you are not going to let the administration do anything to impede that work and . . . that you take the protection of the rights of conscience with the utmost seriousness. . . . Does that accurately sum up our conversation?' [Mr. Obama] said, 'You bet it does.'"

The archbishop asked for permission to relay the message to the other bishops. "You don't have my permission, you've got my request," the president replied.

"So you can imagine the chagrin," Archbishop Dolan continues, "when he called me at the end of January to say that the mandates remain in place and that there would be no substantive change, and that the only thing that he could offer me was that we would have until August. . . . I said, 'Mr. President, I appreciate the call. Are you saying now that we have until August to introduce to you continual concerns that might trigger a substantive mitigation in these mandates?' He said, 'No, the mandates remain. We're more or less giving you this time to find out how you're going to be able to comply.' I said, 'Well, sir, we don't need the [extra time]. I can tell you now we're unable to comply.'"

The administration went ahead and announced the mandate. A public backlash ensued, and the archbishop got another call from the president on Feb. 10. "He said, 'You will be happy to hear religious institutions do not have to pay for this, that the burden will be on insurers.'" Archbishop Dolan asked if the president was seeking his input and was told the modified policy was a fait accompli. The call came at 9:30 a.m. The president announced the purported accommodation at 12:15 p.m.

Editorial board member Joe Rago predicts how the Supreme Court will rule on ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion and the law's severability.

Sister Carol Keehan of the pro-ObamaCare Catholic Health Association immediately pronounced herself satisfied with the change, and the bishops felt pressure to say something. "We wanted to avoid two headlines. Headline 1 was 'Bishops Celebrate . . . Accommodations.' . . . The other headline we wanted to avoid is 'Bishops Obstinate.'" They rushed out a "circumspect" statement, which Archbishop Dolan sums up as follows: "We welcome this initiative, we look forward to studying it, we hope that it's a decent first step, but we still have very weighty questions."

Within hours, "it dawned on us that there's not much here, and that's when we put out the more substantive [statement] by the end of the day, saying, 'Whoa, now we've had time to hear what was said at the announcement and to read the substance of it, and this just doesn't do it.'"

Archbishop Dolan explains that the "accommodation" solves nothing, since most church-affiliated organizations either are self-insured or purchase coverage from Catholic insurance companies like Christian Brothers Services and Catholic Mutual Group, which also see the mandate as "morally toxic." He argues that the mandate also infringes on the religious liberty of nonministerial organizations like the Knights of Columbus and Catholic-oriented businesses such as publishing houses, not to mention individuals, Catholic or not, who conscientiously object.

"We've grown hoarse saying this is not about contraception, this is about religious freedom," he says. What rankles him the most is the government's narrow definition of a religious institution. Your local Catholic parish, for instance, is exempt from the birth-control mandate. Not exempt are institutions such as hospitals, grade schools, universities and soup kitchens that employ or serve significant numbers of people from other faiths and whose main purpose is something other than proselytization.

"We find it completely unswallowable, both as Catholics and mostly as Americans, that a bureau of the American government would take it upon itself to define 'ministry,'" Archbishop Dolan says. "We would find that to be-we've used the words 'radical,' 'unprecedented' and 'dramatically intrusive.'"

It also amounts to penalizing the church for not discriminating in its good works: "We don't ask people for their baptismal certificate, nor do we ask people for their U.S. passport, before we can serve them, OK? . . . We don't serve people because they're Catholic, we serve them because we are, and it's a moral imperative for us to do so."

To be sure, not all Catholics see it that way. Archbishop Dolan makes an argument-which he prefaces with the admission that "I find this a little uncomfortable"-that federal intrusion bolsters those who are more selfishly inclined: "Some Catholics . . . are now saying, 'Fine, we'll get out of all that. It's dragging us down anyway. Rather than be supporting 50 Catholic schools in the inner city where most of the kids are not Catholic, and using a big chunk of diocesan money to do that, we'll just use it for the schools that have all Catholics, and it'll serve us a lot better.' . . .

"I find that, by the way, to be rather un-Catholic," he continues. "I don't know what that would say to the gospel mandate to be 'light to the world' and 'salt of the earth.' It's part of our religion to be right out there in the forefront, right there in the nitty-gritty."

An insular attitude, Archbishop Dolan suggests, plays into the hands of ideologues who favor an ever-more-powerful secular government: "I get this all the time: I would have some people say, 'Cardinal Dolan, you need to go to Albany and say, "If we don't get state aid by September, I'm going to close all my schools."' I say to them, 'You don't think there'd be somersaults up and down the corridors?'"

Another story comes from the nation's capital: "The Archdiocese of Washington, in a very courteous way, went to the City Council and said, 'We just want to be upfront with you. If this goes through that we have to place children up for adoption with same-sex couples, we'll have to get out of the adoption enterprise, which everybody admits we probably do better than anybody else.' And one of the City Council members said, 'Good. We've been trying to get you out of it forever. And besides, we're paying you to do it. So get out!'"

What about the argument that vast numbers of Catholics ignore the church's teachings about sexuality? Doesn't the church have a problem conveying its moral principles to its own flock? "Do we ever!" the archbishop replies with a hearty laugh. "I'm not afraid to admit that we have an internal catechetical challenge-a towering one-in convincing our own people of the moral beauty and coherence of what we teach. That's a biggie."

For this he faults the church leadership. "We have gotten gun-shy . . . in speaking with any amount of cogency on chastity and sexual morality." He dates this diffidence to "the mid- and late '60s, when the whole world seemed to be caving in, and where Catholics in general got the impression that what the Second Vatican Council taught, first and foremost, is that we should be chums with the world, and that the best thing the church can do is become more and more like everybody else."

The "flash point," the archbishop says, was "Humanae Vitae," Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical reasserting the church's teachings on sex, marriage and reproduction, including its opposition to artificial contraception. It "brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the church, that I think most of us-and I'm using the first-person plural intentionally, including myself-kind of subconsciously said, 'Whoa. We'd better never talk about that, because it's just too hot to handle.' We forfeited the chance to be a coherent moral voice when it comes to one of the more burning issues of the day."

Without my having raised the subject, he adds that the church's sex-abuse scandal "intensified our laryngitis over speaking about issues of chastity and sexual morality, because we almost thought, 'I'll blush if I do. . . . After what some priests and some bishops, albeit a tiny minority, have done, how will I have any credibility in speaking on that?'"

Yet the archbishop says he sees a hunger, especially among young adults, for a more authoritative church voice on sexuality. "They will be quick to say, 'By the way, we want you to know that we might not be able to obey it. . . . But we want to hear it. And in justice, you as our pastors need to tell us, and you need to challenge us.'"

As we talk about sex, Archbishop Dolan makes a point of reiterating that his central objection to the ObamaCare mandate is that it violates religious liberty. In their views on that subject, and their role in politics more generally, American Catholics have in fact become "more like everybody else." When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he found it necessary to reassure Protestants that, in the archbishop's paraphrase, "my Catholic faith will not inspire my decisions in the White House."

"That's worrisome," Archbishop Dolan says. "That's a severe cleavage between one's moral convictions and the judgments one is called upon to make. . . . It's bothersome to us as Catholics, because that's the kind of apologia that we expect of no other religion." But times have changed. Today devout Catholic Rick Santorum is running on the promise that his faith will inform his decisions-and his greatest support comes from evangelical Protestants.

The archbishop sees a parallel irony in his dispute with Mr. Obama: "This is a strange turn of the table, that here a Catholic cardinal is defending religious freedom, the great proposition of the American republic, and the president of the United States seems to be saying that this is a less-than-important issue."

Religious freedom has received a more sympathetic hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court-which, coincidentally, has had a Catholic majority since 2006. In January, in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, the court ruled unanimously in favor of an evangelical Lutheran church's right to classify teachers as ministers and therefore not subject to federal employment law. Archbishop Dolan sums up the decision: "Nowhere, no how, no way can the federal government seek to intrude upon the internal identity of a religion in defining its ministers."

But whether the government has the authority to define a ministry-excluding, as the ObamaCare mandate does, church-affiliated institutions like hospitals and schools-is a separate legal question, one that may be resolved in litigation over the birth-control mandate.

It's possible that the Supreme Court or a new president will render the issue moot. After our interview, the archbishop has a question for me: If the high court rules against ObamaCare, will that be the end of the birth-control mandate? Probably not, I tell him-though such an outcome seems much likelier now than it did early in the week when we met. The justices could end up striking a blow for religious liberty without the question even having reached their docket.

Rick Santorum is right. Pushing back against Democrats' attempts to frame him as a religious menace, the GOP presidential candidate forcefully turned the tables on the White House: "When it comes to the management of the Earth, they are the anti-science ones."

Scrutiny of the White House anti-science brigade couldn't come at a better time (which is why Santorum's detractors prefer to froth at the mouth about comments he made four years ago on the existence of Satan). It's not just big-ticket scandals like the stimulus-subsidized Solyndra bankruptcy or the Keystone pipeline debacle bedeviling America. In every corner of the Obama administration, the radical green machinery is hard at work - destroying jobs, shredding truth, and sacrificing our economic well-being at the altar of environmentalism.

Take Obama's head of the National Park Service - please. While serving as the Pacific West regional director of the NPS, Jon Jarvis was accused of at least 21 instances of scientific misconduct by Dr. Corey Goodman, a high-ranking member of the National Academy of Sciences. Extensive information about Jarvis's alleged role in cooking data about a California oyster farm's impact on harbor seals at Point Reyes was withheld during the 2009 nomination process. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ignored complaints and follow-up from both Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and Republican senators James Inhofe and David Vitter.

The National Research Council determined that the NPS had "selectively" slanted its report on the oyster farm. The federal Marine Mammal Commission found that "the data and analyses are not sufficient to demonstrate a causal relationship" between the farm's operations and harbor-seal health. In a letter blasting the NPS for bullying the small oyster farm, Feinstein - normally a reliable eco-ally - concluded earlier this month that the "crux of the problem is that the Park Service manipulated science while building a case that the business should be shuttered."

Given Salazar's own role in manipulating science while building his case for the White House offshore-drilling moratorium - actions for which several federal judges spanked Salazar over the past two years - it's no wonder he's looking the other way.

Remember: Two years ago, Salazar and former Obama eco-czar Carol Browner falsely rewrote the White House drilling-ban report to wholly manipulate the Obama-appointed panel's own overwhelming scientific objections to the job-killing edict. Despite repeated judicial slaps for their "determined disregard" for the law, the Obama administration continues to suppress documents related to that junk-science scandal. Last month, House Republicans threatened to subpoena the Interior Department for information. Call it a greenwash.

Water wars and the Delta smelt. The infamous, endangered three-inch fish and its environmental protectors continue to jeopardize the water supply of more than 25 million Californians. Federal restrictions have cut off some 81 billion gallons of water to farmers and consumers in Central and Southern California. Previous courts have ruled that the federal biological opinions used to justify the water cutoff were invalid and illegal. Last September, the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of California admonished two federal scientists for acting in "bad faith." The judge's blistering rebuke of the Obama-administration scientists concluded that their slanted testimony about the delta smelt was "an attempt to mislead and to deceive the Court into accepting what is not only not the best science, it's not science."

GOP representative Devin Nunes, who represents the hard-hit San Joaquin Valley area, noted that Salazar recently "doubled down on the illegal policies of the Department of Interior and attacked critics as narrow minded and politically motivated. Ironically, these were the same basic criticisms levied against his department by the federal court."

While Salazar manufactures a new biological opinion on the matter to get the courts off his back, unemployment and drought plague the Central Valley. And the White House stands by its "scientists."

Dams in distress. In Siskiyou County, Oregon, local officials and residents announced last week that the county intends to sue Salazar and Team Obama over their potential removal of dams on the Klamath River. Once again, the administration's systematic disregard for sound science and the rule of law is in the spotlight.

Salazar is expected to make a decision by the end of March on environmentalists' demands that four private hydroelectric dams be demolished to protect salmon habitats and "create" demolition and habitat-restoration jobs. Opponents say Salazar has already predetermined the outcome. Green activists blithely ignore the massive taxpayer costs (an estimated half-billion dollars) and downplay the environmental destruction the dam removals would impose. GOP congressman Tom McClintock put it most charitably: "To tear down four perfectly good hydroelectric dams at enormous cost is insane."

People of faith aren't what's bedeviling America. Blame the voodoo high priests of eco-destruction in Washington who have imposed a green theocracy on us all. Science be damned.

Marion Barry's mouth set him up. The disgraced former mayor of Washington, D.C., who was caught on tape in a 1987 crack cocaine sting, made an even bigger disgrace of himself and his city on Tuesday. Celebrating a Democratic primary victory, the city councilman attacked small businesses owned by "Asians" in his district. Then the race-baiting clown doubled down.

Barry told supporters in D.C.'s Ward 8: "We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops. They ought to go." Once pushed out, Barry promised, he would replace the foreign invaders with "African-American business people." Barry then took to the social networking platform Twitter to expound on the perils of "dirty" Asian shops in his neighborhood.

As documented by my Twitter curation start-up Twitchy.com, Barry posted photos of supposedly hazardous stores -- including Chinese restaurants surrounded not by trash or toxic waste, but by Plexiglas barriers and reinforced doors. Barry explained that Asian-owned businesses that had the audacity to protect themselves from crime were "lowering standards" in his constituents' communities.

In Barry's bizarre world, law-abiding entrepreneurs who take steps to prevent robberies are the ones who threaten Ward 8's quality of life -- not the armed thugs who threaten honest livelihoods in the first place. Vigilant wealth creators taking care of their families? Scourge of D.C. Profanity-spewing drug addicts inciting hatred against successful achievers of the American Dream? Model citizens!

As a commenter on DCist.com noted, 2010 Census data showed that "Asians made up 0.4 percent of the Ward 8 population (blacks made up 93.5 percent, a 1 percent increase from 2000). If anything, Asians are moving out, not in -- the Asian population decreased 13.6 percent (from 301 people to 260 people) between 2000 and 2010. Meanwhile, the child poverty rate in Ward 8 sits at 48.3 percent, a 1.2 percent increase since 2000 -- in contrast, the District's overall child poverty rate decreased 3 percent since 2000. Now that's what I call defying the odds."

If Barry's ignorant slurs had come out of the mouth of, say, former GOP Gov. George Allen of Virginia (pummeled for his "macaca" gaffe), there would be calls for his head from every civil rights organization in the Beltway. While the Washington Post reported that Barry "apologized," he showed typical fake penitence for "offending" Asians and claimed he was "taken out of context."

By "Asian," he blubbered to a local TV reporter, he didn't mean "Asian." He really meant all "those persons (who) come into our community, whatever color they are; it happened to be Asian initially." Put the prejudice pipe down, buddy.

Instead of showing true remorse, Barry dug in deeper with even more divisive, entitled and militant us vs. them propaganda: "We're spending our money there, and we demand respect," he told the Washington Post. "We demand they participate in community affairs. We demand they give jobs to Ward 8 people regardless of their cultural situation. That's as American as apple pie."

But Barry's not alone. His incendiary rhetoric echoes other liberal black leaders who have long made a sport of scapegoating Asian immigrant entrepreneurs across the country. Just this February, Jeffery Muhammad, the veteran Nation of Islam leader in Dallas, lashed out at Asian-American business owners for being "just the latest in a long line of people who have come to this country -- like Jews, Italians, Indians and now Asians -- who have sucked the blood of and exploited the black community."

Rapper Ice Cube, now a mainstream actor and comedian, penned "Black Korea" to demonize Korean store owners in South Central Los Angeles:

So they watch every damn move that I make.

They hope I don't pull out a gat and try to rob

they funky little store, but b***h, I got a job.

... So don't follow me, up and down your market,

or your little chop suey ass'll be a target

of the nationwide boycott.

And Al Sharpton, now a prominent MSNBC host, was caught on tape stoking hatred against Chinese-owned chicken restaurants and Korean grocers:

"We're the black chicken friers of the universe. We gonna go buy some Col. Sanders chicken. Then the Chinamen comin' and (inaudible) ... Koreans sell us watermelons. We eat watermelons all our lives. But they gonna come cut it up, put it in a bucket with a rubber band around it, and we gonna buy it like it's somethin' and we didn't know what it was."

Few dare to call out black racism against Asians. Those who do are met with nasty racial epithets, of course. Last year, when I called attention to flash mobs of black assailants in Denver, Wisconsin, Philadelphia and New York who were explicitly targeting Asian students and elderly Asian women for brutal assaults, my e-mail box filled with vitriol:

"(D)oes your family still live in poverty? Not anymore, since you married into the tribe ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME GI."

President Obama, commander-in-chief of post-racial America, was unavailable for comment.

After last night's vote there is no doubt it will be Mitt Romney running against President Obama next November. And the President is already defining his opponent as a guy who cares only about the rich and if elected would harm every day Americans.

The strategy is not new because the Republican Party wants to cut government spending. Some people will be adversely affected. Thus, Mr. Obama will say if you don't want to pay for a woman's birth control, you're anti-woman. If you don't want to spend more money on education, you don't care about the kids. And if you call for Medicare reform you want to hurt the elderly, et cetera.

President Obama and the Democrats are the party of compassion. Mitt Romney and the Republicans are the bad people who just don't care except about the rich, of course, they want them to get even richer at everybody else's expense.

Now, Democrats and liberal Americans will buy that and conservative Americans and Republicans will not. But it is those in the middle, the Independents, who will decide the election. President Obama has won huge advantage in courting them, the media. And now I'm going to show you something truly amazing.

The Associated Press is the most widely distributed news service in the country. The Chairman of the Board at the AP is a man named Dean Singleton. He's a big shot. And the other day he was speaking to the American Society of Newspapers Editors. big shots all. Singleton is also the Chairman of the Media News Group which owns dozens of newspapers like "The Denver Post," "The Salt Lake Tribune" and "The San Jose Mercury News."

DEAN SINGLETON, AP CHAIRMAN: As President, he inherited the head winds of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. He pushed through Congress, the biggest economic recovery plan in history and led a government reorganization of two of the big three auto manufacturers to save them from oblivion. He pursued domestic and foreign policy agendas that were controversial to many, highlighted by his signature into law of the most comprehensive healthcare legislation in history.

O'REILLY: I'm surprised Singleton wasn't wearing an Obama button. I mean, come on.

The President well understands most in the media will back him and portray Mitt Romney as a mean, rich guy. But it will go beyond that as MSNBC demonstrated last night.

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Mormonism was created by a guy in upstate New York in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it. Forty-eight wives later, Joseph Smith's lifestyle was completely sanctified in the religion that he invented to go with it, which Mitt Romney says he believes.

O'REILLY: What a smear. Are you kidding me? That's like saying no Episcopalian or Anglican could run for president because of Henry VIII. And so the campaign is underway, it could be the dirtiest in the nation's history.

Just call me Miss Cleo, psychic to the stars. Just minutes. just minutes after I told you last night that the Democratic Party's strategy to re-elect President Obama will be to attack Mitt Romney and the Republican Party, presto a few minutes later Howard Dean shows up on MSNBC and says this:

HOWARD DEAN: The Republican Party is gay-bashing, Muslim-bashing, Latino- bashing, immigrant-bashing, women-bashing every day. And so the -- young people are just not going to vote for Romney because they are not going to -- they think insurance should actually pay for birth control. They don't -- their friends are gay, Muslim, Latino and so forth and so on. They are sick of this stuff.

O'REILLY: Now, I want to thank Governor Dean for making me an oracle. It was nice of him to do it. So, what we have here is the Democrats trying to put together a coalition of the aggrieved. Millions of Americans who feel they're not getting what they deserve. And of course, President Obama is here to help them.

Now, that analysis is not a slap at the President. Unlike some of you, I don't think he's a bad guy. But I do think he's misguided philosophically and because of that is doing damage to the country's economic infrastructure.

But I don't see him as Dr. Evil. In fact, I have never ever seen Mr. Obama with a cat.

DR. EVIL: As you know, every diabolical scheme that I have hatched has been thwarted by Austin Powers.

O'REILLY: Now, seriously here is how the campaign is going to unfold. The coalition of the aggrieved will be stoked up by guys like Howard Dean and a variety of other liberal bomb throwers. They will put forth that America is not a fair country and that the only person who can make it fair is President Obama. The bomb throwers will then slime Mitt Romney in every way possible.

Now, on the other side, conservatives and Republicans will make a mistake if they sink into that swamp. At this point, everybody knows President Obama. You don't have to demonize the man. You either like him or you don't. But everybody does not know how much danger there is in uncontrolled federal spending. That is what Mitt Romney and the Republicans have to make crystal clear. How a $16 trillion dollar debt that continues to rise will affect every American. If they can get that point across, everybody will be aggrieved. Not just a few selected minorities.

99% movement on track to train 100,000 demonstrators. Posters say that this Spring movement will be nonviolent. :) Apparently, the demonstrators in Oakland never got word of this.

George Zimmerman the only person who stood up for homeless Black man beaten by cop's son, spent countless hours trying to organize Black community to seek justice.

From the Chicago Tribune Editorials: Surprise! You owe another $54 billion. A new report forces the question: How could Illinois pols do this to taxpayers?

Former GM executive op-ed column on how the Chevy Volt is akin to sending man to the moon.

RUSH: The Heritage Foundation in its Morning Bell blog this past week had an interesting post called "Beware the Taxmageddon -- In a mere 271 days, you and your fellow Americans will be hit with a tax [increase] the likes of which this country has never seen. The Washington Post aptly called the unprecedented $494 billion tax hike 'Taxmageddon,'" the Washington Post called it that! The "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke described it as a 'massive fiscal cliff.' Whatever your preferred imagery, it's a really big deal. Despite all the warnings, President Barack Obama has kept his silence while Congress has made no apparent effort to prevent this impending calamity to families and the economy.

"The prevailing wisdom is that 'something will get done' in a lame duck session of Congress after the election. But why wait? And why after the election? Here's why you should be worried. For starters, remember that this is the same President who in 2009 promised, 'if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime.' That's a vow he's broken, and in 2013, things are going to get even worse if this year Obama doesn't lead and Congress doesn't act. Katy, bar the door, there's big trouble in store. The tax man won't draw his billions from the American taxpayer with just one big needle -- the massive tax increase will be the product of tax policies expiring in seven different categories, on top of five new Obamacare tax hikes taking effect."

Grand total of twelve new tax increases coming, and here are some of the details: "'Almost 34 percent of the tax increase from Taxmageddon comes from the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. These cuts are best known for reducing marginal income tax rates, but they also reduced the marriage penalty, [the Bush tax cuts] increased the Child Tax Credit and [the Bush tax cuts increased] the adoption credit, and [the Bush tax cuts] increased tax breaks for education costs and dependent care costs.'" That's all gone when they expire. "'Another 25 percent of Taxmageddon comes from the expiration of the once-temporary payroll tax cut.

"'The expiration of the patch on the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) -- which would raise the income threshold over which families qualify for the AMT to prevent middle-income families from paying this tax that is only supposed to impact "the rich" -- accounts for 24 percent of the total potential 2013 tax increase.'" An Alternative Minimum Tax that's supposed to only affect those who aren't paying any taxes will affect so many Americans that 24% of the largest tax increase in history will come from the AMT hitting more people than ever before.

"The balance of the tax hikes comes in part from new taxes under Obamacare, the expiration of tax cuts in the 2009 [porkulus], the expiration of a group of policies known as 'tax extenders,'" and it goes on and on and on. But it's huge. And if you add rising gasoline prices to it and everything else that's seeing the price increase because of inflation, it is an all-at-once explosion of tax increases that's gonna destroy disposable income. And it's all planned. And it's all planned to hit after the election. Just like Obamacare doesn't get fully implemented until 2014, when theoretically, Obama's no longer accountable because he will not be facing an election again.

Not Even State-Run AP Can Hide That the Unemployment Number Went Down Because Fewer People are in the Labor Force

RUSH: Let me just tell you about the unemployment number. You've been paying attention to this. I want to remind you, for the past two or three months, when I have been trying to explain the correlation between the shrinking labor force to the unemployment number, I have had, I can't tell you, how many people sending me notes saying, "You're wrong. You're missing this. You're using the wrong calculation. You don't know what you're talking about."

I've tried to say the reason the unemployment number can go down when they add people to the unemployment rolls is that the universe of jobs is shrinking. There are fewer jobs against which to compare those out of work, the labor force participation rate. And now not even the AP and the other State-Controlled Media can hide it. They're all admitting it now. We've got this number, there are fewer people looking for work, fewer people in the labor force. We've got an unemployment rate that fell from 8.3 to 8.2%. But if the workforce participation rate were the same as it was when Obama took office, this 8.2% rate would be 10.8 today, if the same number of jobs existed.

But that many more were not being filled because people aren't looking for them anymore. What's happened is that Obama and his team have simply erased over two million jobs from the universe of possible jobs to get. I've never understood why people argue with me about this. "You don't know what you're talking about." The obvious question, "Why do we care about job growth?" Why are we worried about creating new jobs, then? We're worried about creating new jobs because jobs are disappearing, and so are people looking for work. There are two things happening. Fewer people are looking for jobs, and there are fewer jobs to have. This is how the regime does it. You eliminate the total number of jobs from the statistical calculation altogether.

The AP has even caught onto this. The media realizes that this is not good. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is claiming the unemployment rate's gone down another one tenth of 1%. But even AP has to admit that it's not because of hiring. The employment rate fell not because anybody's hiring anybody. It's only because more and more people are simply giving up looking for work. AP even admits it. They're not touting this as great news. That's how bad it is, 8.3 to 8.2, they have an open template here, if they want, to start talking about how great this recovery is, how wonderful Obama's policies are finally taking hold. But they can't because there isn't any good news here. It's only because more and more people are simply giving up looking for work. And this is the seasonally adjusted number.

I have another story here that illustrates how every month we get a revision that is never reported. The number today will be revised upward in a month, and that has happened 11 out of the last 12 months. It's the same thing with the economic growth rate. They report it, then they revise it sometime later, and it's never as strong or as good as they said it was. But all you really need to know here is this: If the workforce participation rate, the labor force participation rate were the same as it was when Obama took office, the reported unemployment rate today would be 10.9%. And that's why the workforce has to be tweaked by the Labor Department, to get to 8.2. It's very simple. If you take over two million jobs out of the universe but don't change the number of people looking, you're gonna have, obviously, a higher level of reported employment.

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.

Conservative Review
Issue #222	Kukis Digests and Opines on this Week’s News and Views	April 9, 2012