Hump Day Link-Around

Ken Catalino cartoon via Townhall

Better late (in the day) than never, right? The truth is, I’ve got to dump some tabs before I crash my computer. The Obama administration, as always, keeps the 24 hour news cycle busy – never a dull moment with this guy.

Hopefully, if and when Romney is elected, the daily outrages will cease – or at least slow down a bit. The nogoodnick left will always be out there plotting and scheming to overthrow our system of government, but at least if Republicans hold all the reins of power again, the left’s power and influence will be greatly diminished.

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The Washington Free Beacon: Obama’s War on Bald Eagles:

Obama administration proposes loosening rules against ‘programmatic’ killing of bald eagles:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service is proposing to loosen regulations prohibiting the killing of bald eagles for the benefit of renewable energy companies.

The Heritage Foundation’s blog “The Foundry” reports on the latest instance of the Obama administration’s war on wildlife:

A draft regulation first filed in April would allow businesses to apply for 30-year permits allowing them to kill bald eagles in the course of other legal activities. The length of those permits would be a six-fold increase over the five-year window allowed under current law.

The USFWS explains at FederalRegister.gov: “We have reviewed applications from proponents of renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar power facilities, for programmatic permits to authorize eagle take that may result from both the construction and ongoing operations of renewable energy projects. During our review, it became evident that the 5-year term limit imposed by the 2009 regulations (see 50 CFR 22.26(h)) needed to be extended to better correspond to the timeframe of renewable energy projects.”

The Free Beacon’s Andrew Stiles previously reported on how the Obama Administration’s “mean green killing machines” are decapitating golden eagles, threatening hundreds of baby tortoises, and disrupting protected kit fox populations in California.

And now specifically targeting one of the nation’s most patriotic  symbols.

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Reason: The Most Open and Transparent Administration in History Confiscates Cell Phones Before Fundraising Dinner:

Obama’s campaign team has graduated from consigning reporters to the closet during fundraisers, to confiscating the cell phonesof attendees:

Pool reporter David Nakamura of the Washington Post reported that at a $35,800 a head fundraiser at the home of Blackstone COO Hamilton “Tony” James in New York City Monday night, the 60 attendees were asked to place their phones in plastic bags by the door.

An Obama aide called the move it “standard operating procedure,” but veterans of a range of other campaigns said they’d never heard of the practice, which is common in secure White House spaces where there are concerns of espionage, but unknown in contexts in which only political secrets are discussed.

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Iowahawk: The Idiossey:

The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of Obamacles
Revised and Updated

(with Apologies to Homer)

Book the First: A question for the Muse

Speak to me, O Muse, of this resourceful man
who strides so boldly upon the golden shrine of Potomac,
Between Ionic plywood columns, to the kleig light altar.
Fair Obamacles, favored of the gods, ascends to Olympus
Amidst lusty tributes and the strumming lyres of Media;
Their mounted skyboxes echo with the singing of his name
While Olbermos and Mattheus in their greasy togas wrassle
For first honor of basking in their hero’s reflected glory.
Who is this man, so bronzed in countenance,
So skilled of TelePrompter, clean and articulate
whose ears like a stately urn’s protrude?
So now, daughter of Zeus, tell us his story.
And just the Cliff Notes if you don’t mind,
We don’t have all day.

Said the Muse:

I will tell the story of Obamacles through my scribe Iowahawk.
But this poem is copyrighted, so reproduce at your peril.

(Oops!)

Keep reading – at least until Book the Sixth: The Rage of Hildusa, my personal favorite part of the not so epic poem.

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Pathetic… Weekly Standard: Obama Leads by Only 7 in Arkansas’s Democratic Primary:

A new poll of Arkansas Democrats shows Barack Obama receiving support from only 45 percent of Democratic primary voters in Arkansas’s Fourth Congressional District, while 38 percent support his underfunded and relatively unknown primary challenger, Tennessee lawyer John Wolfe, Jr. Seventeen percent are undecided in the district poll.

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The Washington Free Beacon: Obama’s Bad Businessmen:

The president’s most famous business supporters face financial losses, scandals.

A slew of left-wing business moguls are on the skids thanks to poor investment decisions, questionable judgment, and accusations of bribery and cronyism.

Warren Buffett has lent his star power and his surname to President Barack Obama’s push for higher taxes, but his firm and its shareholders have not fared well during the Obama administration. Berkshire Hathaway has underperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by an average of eight percent over the past three years.

Buffett is not the only famous presidential supporter to fall from business grace.

Television titan Oprah Winfrey appears to have lost the golden touch that helped make her the richest self-made women in America and propelled Barack Obama from up-and-coming Illinois senator to the nation’s first black president.

Bloomberg News reported earlier this month that the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) may have lost as much as $330 million  since its launch due to poor ratings and lackluster demand.

Winfrey may be the most famous loser among Obama’s backers at the moment, but she is not the biggest.

Hedge-fund billionaire Philip Falcone has driven telecommunications company LightSquared into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Federal Communications Commission in February revoked its conditional approval of the LightSquared’s broadband wireless network project due to projected interference with GPS technology used by the military.

Shouldn’t be surprising: Socialism is bad for business.

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Atlas Shrugs: Treason: Obama outs Al Qaeda infiltrator for Election Gain:

Treason. Plain and simple. Can we hope a special prosecutor will be named to investigate the White House? I am sure that Patrick Fitzgerald, the Valerie Plame special prosecutor, has little to do these days.

How apathetic are the American people to suffer so contemptible and traitorous an administration with so little outrage?

BOMBSHELL: Al-Qaeda Infiltrator was Working for Brits not CIA, Cover Blown for Election Year Politics PJM.

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LifeNews: Catholic Bishops May Sue Obama Admin Over HHS Mandate:

The nation’s Catholic bishops warned yesterday that they may consider filing suit against the mandate the Obama administration put in place that forces pro-life and religious groups to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

“[F]orcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest,” attorneys for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a letter to the Obama administration. “Absent prompt congressional attention to this infringement on fundamental civil liberties, we believe the only remaining recourse … is in the courts.”

“We believe that this mandate is unjust and unlawful – it is bad health policy, and because it entails an element of government coercion against conscience, it creates a religious freedom problem,” wrote Anthony Picarello, USCCB associate general secretary and general counsel, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel.  “These moral and legal problems are compounded by an extremely narrow exemption that intrusively and unlawfully carves up the religious community into those that are deemed ‘religious enough’ for an exemption, and those that are not.”

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Time to call your Senators…

Noisy Room: MARITIME ATTACK: Law of the Sea Treaty in US Senate for Approval:

The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs is once again diddling with the ultra-massive U.S. sovereignty and communitarian wealth giveaways known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Treaty (UNCLOS or LOST). Whenever one sees “communitarian,” one may think “global communist.”

Neo-Marxist Saboteur Barack Obama‘s State and Defense Departments (including numerous compromised, NATO-head officers) are pressuring the Senate to adopt this travesty after years of resistance dating back to Ronald Reagan’s presidency. If the committee goes forward with it, they could choose either of two paths: 1. the honorable and traditional congressional method of holding hearings, or 2. “fast-track” it, in order to slip voting through with as little light of day or time for the People to react, as possible.

The Senate is still Harry Reid’s crypto-Marxist Senate, and this committee’s chairman is John Kerry, so LOST may pop up for a vote like a rapist plunging from behind the bushes in the dark, within the next few days.

Recent and upcoming reports may be found at Heritage.org: “heritageaction.com/tag/law-of-the-sea-treaty.” Gulag Bound will also continue to monitor: “gulagbound.com/tag/un-convention-on-the-law-of-the-sea-unclos-or-lost.”

For other sources, see in Investors.com, “Obama Seeks Sovereignty Surrender Via LOST Treaty,” May 8, 2012; in U.S. News & World Report, “Kill the Law of the Sea Treaty,” May 10; and at Breitbart, Daily Caller, or American Thinker, “American Sovereignty: LOST at Sea?” by Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, May 14.

Perhaps the most thorough of the most recent articles is found at Liberty News Online, “The Creature from the Ocean’s Floor – the Law of the Sea Treaty,” by John W. Wallace, May 15.

See also: Dick Morris: Third World Ripoff Of Offshore Royalties: Screwed!

Signed in the 70s as part of the “New International Economic Order” heralded by the United Nations and described, accurately by Forbes, as a scheme to “take money from productive First World countries and give it to authoritarian Third World dictatorships.”

Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush refused to send it to the Senate for ratification, but Obama is pushing it, hoping to jam it through the Democratic Senate.

The Treaty requires the United States to pay to an International Seabed Authority half of its oil and gas royalties from wells beyond the 200 mile continental shelf. The Authority would distribute these revenues as it saw fit – with the U.S. casting only 1 of 160 votes in making the decision. Estimates of the total amount of revenue we will forfeit run to the hundreds of billions. Who needs foreign aid?

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This is one of my favorite stories of the week….

John Nolte, Big Journalism: Chris Matthews Is Dumb:

Chris Matthews just isn’t a very bright guy. A decade ago, he at least used to ask interesting questions, but once he was struck with Bush and Palin Derangement Syndrome, he’s become a laughingstock in his quest to carry the left’s water, especially Obama’s.

Not only is Chris Matthews dumb enough to get a leg tingle from President Obama’s dull, pedantic speeches, he’s dumb enough to admit to to those tingles on television.

As if to reinforce my father’s opinion of him, after relentlessly mocking how well Governor Sarah Palin would hypothetically do on “Jeopardy,” Matthews made a king-size fool of himself in reality [video below].

Picture of an idiot in action

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Make sure you’re sitting down for this next one….

Stars and Stripes: Officials: Nearly $2 million in guns, combat gear sold to gangs:

A wide-reaching investigation by military and civilian authorities has uncovered a criminal conspiracy within the Armed Forces to steal and sell nearly $2 million in guns and combat gear to gangs in the U.S. and foreign countries including China, military officials have confirmed.

The probe began more than a year and a half ago when agents with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service began to conduct undercover operations to disrupt and reduce the theft, transfer, sale and possession of stolen U.S. Government property. With the aid of Marine and Naval authorities, NCIS has recovered $1.8 million in stolen guns and combat gear to include assault rifles, night-vision goggles, flashlights and other items, military officials said.

Those involved are accused of stealing, over-ordering or otherwise obtaining equipment and selling guns locally and other gear over the Internet to people in foreign countries including China and Russia, officials said.

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Jill Stanik Illinois Review: Klein got it wrong in book about Obama and Illinois’ Born Alive Act:

Edward Klein’s unauthorized biography of Barack Obama, The Amateur, was released yesterday.

While I appreciate that Klein devoted a chapter of his book, albeit only three pages, to Obama’s opposition as state senator to the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, he got it pretty much all wrong.

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TFP Student Action: Talk about bullying: Pro-homosexual teacher bullies Catholic student:

The latest video released by the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance reports how Daniel Glowacki, a 16-year-old junior at Howell High School in Michigan, was persecuted for refusing to go along with the homosexual agenda in class.

Daniel’s economics teacher, Jay McDowell, queried his students about their position regarding homosexuality.  As a Catholic, Daniel responded that he followed Church teaching on the issue.

According to the interview, the pro-homosexual teacher had a fit. “He said we lost our right to free speech when we stepped inside his classroom,” said Daniel Glowacki. “I’ve never really been yelled at by a teacher like that before, so when he started yelling at me, I was just kind of in shock.”

The Thomas More Law Center is representing the boy in a lawsuit against the local school district and the offending teacher.

The Right Scoop: James O’Keefe exposes voter fraud in North Carolina:

From dead people to non-citizens voting, O’Keefe and his crew once again expose non-existent voter fraud and why we desperately need voter-ID. But they don’t just stop there. They also interview UNC officials who don’t seem to care about voter fraud and even one election judge who says that even though he swore to uphold the Constitution, he really only wants to uphold parts of it.

Watch at the link….

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Big Government: Google Shuts Down Another Conservative Blog: KSM Trial Edition:

This past Sunday morning, I took to my blog, The New York Conservative, to opine on the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (“KSM”) and his fellow terrorists. The full text of the post is available further below.

The New York Conservative was a blog hosted by Google Blogger. I started the blog in February of this year and had posted 17 columns prior to the KSM entry, commenting on political matters and issues affecting the Catholic Church. I would post my entries on Facebook and occasionally would email a link to friends or other interested parties. I received no complaints about the blog whatsoever.

On Monday, the pro-U.S. security group Secure American Now posted a link to my KSM piece on its website. The link received numerous hits and generated multiple comments on the Secure America Now page.

However, a few hours after Secure America Now linked to the New York Conservative, I received a form email, no reply possible, from Google Blogger informing me that the New York Conservative had been deleted. The email classified my blog as “spam” in violation of Google’s terms of service. There was no further explanation. My URL was dead; all of the content, everything I ever posted, was gone.

(Video)The Daily Rushbo: Limbaugh On Zimmerman Broken Nose Evidence: Welcome To The Duke Lacrosse Case All Over Again:

Rush: George Zimmerman is a heck of a lot more Black than Elizabeth Warren is Indian… And I’d almost have to say “If Obama had another Son he would look a hell of a lot like George Zimmerman.

Jim Geraghty:New Ad Reminds Voters Corzine Is Still Raising Money for Obama:

This ad from the AmericanFutureFund hitting President Obama for his ties to disgraced former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, already has more than 214,000 views on YouTube in just two days.

The Cardinal Newman Society, Georgetown Scandal:

From the CNS President, Patrick J. Reilly:  NOW is the time to sign the petition at GeorgetownScandal.com, and help swell our ranks to send a clear message to Georgetown!  The heat is on Georgetown to cancel its invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  Thanks to YOU, we discovered this scandal and raised the alarm, thousands have signed our petition, and other groups have joined in the effort.

Jeffrey Lord, The American Spectator: The Obama Thugocracy:

“We’re playing with water guns, they’re playing with Scuds…. These people are terrorists…. There is a war. If we treat it as less than a war we will lose it.”
—MSCO CEO Mark Stevens to Heritage Foundation on fighting the Left

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Mark Stevens and Frank VanderSloot.

Stevens is the Rush Limbaugh sponsor whose company and personal safety were threatened because he refused to buckle to the far-left haters in the Sandra Fluke affair. He is speaking out again. And he pulls no punches.

But before we get to Mark Stevens and the enthusiastically received, sensational talk he gave at the Heritage Foundation’s 35th Annual Resource Bank conference in Colorado, let’s talk about Frank VanderSloot.

Why?

Because what Mark Stevens is discussing — the rise of “domestic terrorism” associated with the Obama left — and the recent investigation of Romney contributor VanderSloot by a company called Fusion GPS are most assuredly part and parcel of the same issue.

Here is Mr. VanderSloot just last night on The O’Reilly Factor discussing what has been happening to him — correction — is happening to him.

Who paid Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS to investigate Romney contributor Frank VanderSloot?

Now there’s a question for congressional investigators.

Or bloggers.

While the dirt sought on VanderSloot by Fusion investigator Michael Wolf was public — as revealed in this superb reporting by the Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel — (divorce records, a case involving a dispute with an ex-employee) Strassel has it exactly right when she terms this “trolling for dirt.”

Saturday Movie Matinee: Free Tombstone!

Via The Goldwater Institute, A New Showdown in Tombstone:

“The Town Too Tough to Die” is in a standoff with the federal government — one that jeopardizes their very survival. The Goldwater Institute has joined with the historic community to help them assert their constitutional rights. Fox Business host John Stossel interviews Goldwater CEO Darcy Olsen about this landmark case.

Chances are, you have seen this, already, (it’s had over 1,200,000 views on Youtube) but if you haven’t – have a box of Kleenex ready.

Via LifeNews: Video of Mom Rejecting Abortion of Disabled Baby Thrills Facebook:

A video of a mom who shares her account of rejecting suggestions that she have an abortion following the prediction from doctors that he unborn child would be born with disabilities is thrilling Facebook.

Via MRCTV: IRS Loophole Cost US Treasury 4 BILLION+ Per Year:

A News 13 WTHR Indianapolis report uncovered a tax loophole involving undocumented workers that costs taxpayers over $4.2 billion a year. What’s worse is that the IRS has known about the problem for years.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

Via GreenCease: Green Imperialism – The Official Movie Trailer:

A satirical movie trailer made using clips from the Forest Stewardship Council’s conference in Dusseldorf in 2012. The video illustrates how global consumers are being forced to pay more for ‘green’ products, how the FSC and WWF expect consumers to change their behaviour for their pet projects and how ‘green’ certification processes close off markets for developing countries if they don’t play ball with unelected non-governmental organisations.

Via @rdbrewer4 at AoSHQ:  The Media is So Damn Shameless:

The Media Is So Dam Shameless, Mitt Romney a Prankster, Media says Mitt Romney is a Bully, Mitt Romney forcibly cut the hair of student, Media Bias, Dam the Media, Stopping the left.

I’m definitely subscribing to Whateverhappentocomm‘s  Youtube channel.

MORE:

Via The Weekly Standard: Businessman Says He Lost Hundreds of Customers After Attacks by Obama Campaign:

Businessman Frank Vandersloot, the CEO of Melaleuca, has been targeted by the Obama campaign after donating money to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. “Three weeks ago, an Obama campaign website, ‘Keeping GOP Honest,’ took the extraordinary step of publicly naming and assailing eight private citizens backing Mr. Romney,” Kim Strassel of the Wall Street Journal reported. “Titled ‘Behind the curtain: a brief history of Romney’s donors,’ the post accused the eight of being ‘wealthy individuals with less-than-reputable records.’ Mr. VanderSloot was one of the eight, smeared particularly as being ‘litigious, combative and a bitter foe of the gay rights movement.’”

The attacks are working. Vandersloot revealed in an interview on Fox News that his business practice is being hurt by the attacks from the Obama team.

“Those people that I know well weren’t affected by this [attack],” said Vandersloot. “But for people who didn’t know me, who are members of our business or customers, and they were reading this, then we got a barrage of phone calls of people cancelling their customer memberships with us.”

Vandersloot told Cavuto he thought he would have grounds to sue, but since so many of Obama henchmen are slandering him, it would be difficult.

Via The Schiff Report: Taxes, Busybodies, and Soul-Sucking Bureaucracy: The Real Story of Julia:

Red Dawn – One Clenched Fist:

In 1984 a Russian defector named Anatoliy Golitsyn wrote of the period following the collapse of communism. He warned of a renewed attack on the West, engineered by KGB strategists. He said that this attack also had an economic dimension. In his 1984 book, ‘New Lies for Old’, he wrote:

“Liberalization in Eastern Europe on the scale suggested could have a social and political impact on the United States itself, especially if it coincided with a severe economic depression.”

The communist strategists have long been looking for such an opportunity. According to Golitsyn, the communist tracks Western economic developments. They watch for developing weaknesses.

There was another Russian defector named Jan Sejna, who wrote during this time progressive leaders would be elected in Europe and America, they would move their governments toward socialism.

In his 1982 book, ‘We Will Bury You’, he wrote:

“Our relationship with the United States would be the vital element in this phase. By fostering belief in our policy of friendship and co-operation with America, we planned to receive the greatest possible economic and technological help from the West, the same time convince the Capitalist countries that they had no need of military alliances.”

Indoctrinated elected American progressives in government would blindly put trust in both Russia and China.

Jan Sejna also wrote during this time:

“Capitalism would suffer an economic crisis that would bring Europe to its knees and stimulate the influence of progressive forces in European governments. They believe America would be withdrawing its commitments to help former allies”.

Once America had abandoned the defense of Europe, Russia would be convincing the Europeans that the US was pursuing a self-interested policy and even conspiring actively against them; thus we would increase America’s isolation.

The Progressives in America lower defenses and offer access to US military secrets and provide strategic transparency. They remove nuclear deterrents and defund strategic facets of the US military to lead the world in a socialist Utopian world peace.

Once Americas defenses are compromised and trades US sovereignty for world citizenship, she becomes consumed with internal transformational social problems.

Russia and China join forces with their allies to unite in “One Clenched Fist” to dismember America and take her seat as the world leaders and become the new multi-polar world powers.

SEE ALSO:

Rep. Trey Gowdy Suggests House Leadership is Preventing Action against Holder in Fast and Furious Investigation (Audio)

 

Linked by AoSHQ, thanks!

Tuesday Quick Links: A Weak Commander in Chief

Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl

This is an outrage….or “un-freaking-believable”, as Doug Ross puts it.. American POW left to languish while Obama gives away Taliban prisoners:

An American POW has has been held by a Taliban-affiliated terror group for almost three years. And he is never mentioned while Barack Obama releases high-level Taliban detainees from Gitmo in exchange for… their promises not to commit more acts of terrorism.

Bethany Mandel of Commentary Contentions asks: Why Are We Releasing, Not Exchanging, Taliban Prisoners:

On June 30, 2009, almost three years ago, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl of Idaho was kidnapped by the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network. He is the only prisoner of war currently held by the Taliban and recent video releases seem to indicate that he is being kept alive for ransom by the group. A month after his capture the president issued a statement, explaining that he was “heartbroken” over Sgt. Bergdahl’s situation and vowed to bring him home. In three years, this seems to be the only public statement made by the President about Bergdahl.

In December, The Daily Beast was the only outlet to report on a heroic escape attempt by the sergeant. After working for over two years to gain the trust of his captors, Bergdahl jumped out of a first-story window, running into the wilderness. The Daily Beast tells the story,

Mullah Sangin and his brother Mullah Balal, who had been put in charge of the prisoner, organized a search as soon as the escape was discovered. Nevertheless, the sources say, Bergdahl successfully avoided capture for three days and two nights. The searchers finally found him, weak, exhausted, and nearly naked—he had spent three days without food or water—hiding in a shallow trench he had dug with his own hands and covered with leaves.

Even then, he put up a ferocious fight. The two gunmen who found him first were unable to subdue him. “He fought like a boxer,” Hanif was told. It took five more militants to overpower him. Now back in custody, he is kept shackled at night, and his jailers are taking no chances.

This is the caliber of soldier that the United States and its military produces, the American that the president seems to have forgotten about for almost three years.

Shortly before Bergdahl’s kidnapping, the United States was comfortable negotiating the release of terrorists in exchange for British hostages.

No wonder Obama gets such a tepid response whenever he appears before the US Military.

Michelle Malkin: The Gitmo circus:

An exclusive performance of Gitmo Jihad Theater opened over the weekend. What happened underscores why these military tribunals never, ever belonged in the civilian court system that Obama/Holder had pushed for (until running into the common-sense public opposition buzzsaw).

The jihadists’ mockery of America — and more notably, the jihadists’ lawyers’ mockery — outraged 9/11 families…

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One of the defense attorneys insisted on sharia law for all women in the courtroom:

The rumors are true…

Moonbattery: Obama Knew Where Osama Was for Almost a Year

Retired four-star general Jack Keane confirms that it took the Vacillator in Chief almost a year to issue his allegedly gutsy call to make a move on Osama bin Laden.

Watch video at link.

Oh, how interesting….

Rasmussen: Three-Way Race: Romney 44%, Obama 39%, Ron Paul 13%

Send this next one to friends who are susceptible to political propaganda….

CND: The Handbook of Political Manipulation, A-E:

Ad hominem argument– Discrediting or rejecting an argument by making unfounded or irrelevant charges against a party rather than by rationally addressing what is being argued. Also known popularly as “attacking the messenger” or politically as “character assassination,” it is a way of diminishing the merit of an argument or a candidacy for office by spuriously attacking the moral authority of its advocate. It should be pointed out that Democrats consistently ignore their personal hypocrisy in making such attacks. One recent example is the mainstream media’s framing of GOP candidate Herman Cain as a lecher without sufficient evidence, while ignoring Democrat presidential candidate John Edward’s philandering ways.

Appeal to authority – A favorite of elitists and self-described intellectuals, an appeal to authority makes a truth claim based on the reputation of a person, group, or other source. It is often done to diminish an argument made by an intellectual opponent by referring to the supposed prestige of one’s own source. A way of building up such authority may be to call a certain person “the smartest president in American history,” or the “greatest orator since Cicero.” The most famous recent appeal to authority argument is that the “science is settled” regarding the manmade global warming hypothesis, according to a group, the IPCC, whose members and backers receive billions of dollars in grants and other benefits.

Keep reading at link. You can’t help but notice that a good many of these are used copiously by Obama.

Gotta love this…

Angry White Dude: WHAT IF OBAMA HAD A CAMPAIGN AND NOBODY CAME?

Now Hussein finds himself neck and pencil neck with Mitt Romney. Normally, incumbents are way ahead of the challenger with months left before the election. Even Jimmy Carter..the worst American ever born on US soil..was ahead of Reagan at this point. Carter was within the margin of error three days before the election before getting his peanut-picking wussified ass handed to him by Americans sick and tired of weak, pathetic Democrats! So it is not good news for the world’s (and America’s) communists that Hussein is tied with Romney in early May. It means Obama is going to bite the big one in November!

Want proof? Here’s a photo of the basketball arena at Ohio State University where Obama and Moochelle kicked off the “Vacation Across The Nation” campaign tour.

Pic at link. Why isn’t “His Coolness” filling the seats to the rafters?

Weasel Zippers: NY Times: Obama And New French Socialist President’s “Economic Policies Are Closely Aligned”…

Not even hiding it, anymore…

They’re words that have to be read to be believed.

In a news article in the New York Times, the paper suggests that newly-elected Socialist President Francois Hollande and his economic polices are likely a “better fit” for the U.S. economic positions (i.e. the new president’s policies are more palatable to the Obama administration than outgoing President Sarkozy). It then goes on to lay out how the Socialist and Barack Obama are ideologically linked.

 

Tony Katz finds D-bag occupier who appeared on Hannity a job: A Job For Occupier Harrison Schultz, Found Online In Six Minutes:

Occupy spokesman and wannabe bon vivant Harrison Schultz went on the FOX program “Hannity” and, amidst attacking Capitalism and insulting host Sean Hannity for having someone like himself on the program, stated that he has been looking for a job “online” but has been unable to find anything. Tony Katz found a job for him on Monster.com in less than six minutes.

Twitchy: Obama’s ‘Million Dollar Man’ Bill Maher attacks Bristol Palin again:

Surprise, surprise. After little fallout following his revolting comments about women, Bill Maher is attacking Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol again. Since Maher is a big time contributor to Barack Obama’s super PAC, we have a question for the president:

Remember when you said this?

“People’s families are off limits. People’s children are especially off limits.”

Sorry, President Obama, did we fail to let you be clear again? Because obviously what you really meant was, “Children are off limits, unless you’re a bitter misogynist who donated a million bucks to get me reelected.”

Hit the link to read Maher’s latest (not so) bon mots.

Hump Day Link-Around – Forward!

Graphic via Sultan Knish

All American Blogger: Obama Campaign Slogan “Forward” Has History in Communist Propaganda, Probably Just a Coincidence:

Is it really that hard to believe that even if they powers that be didn’t know about the Eastern European communists love affair with the term “Forward,” that they still wouldn’t be drawn to the word for the same reasons? I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were completely ignorant of how often “forward” has been used by communists as slogans and titles.

I just think these communists used the same thinking as the previous communists:

The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.

RS McCain is pithier than usual in his analysis: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky … Obama!

Yes, comrades, they all share the same slogan: “Forward!”

Bruce McQuain makes a brilliant point at  The Conservatory: FORWARD (Or Why Obama May Want To Rethink Using This Slogan)

One has to assume that “forward” is meant to mean to start in a particular direction from the point you now occupy. And that’s where it gets dicey for Obama. What is the point we now occupy from which he’d like to move us “forward”?

Well, shall we make a list to help his campaign?

-Forward to an unemployment rate lower than 8.2% (oh, wait, that was the job of the stimulus.)

-Forward from the first ever credit downgrade (a unique first for a president, no?)

-Forward toward a total debt that is less than our GDP (yeah, that’s not going to happen.)

-Forward toward more government (it does solve all our problems, right? Right?)

-Forward toward more executive “we can’t afford to wait” orders (because now an imperial presidency is a ‘good thing’).

-Forward to more green energy boondoggles (at taxpayers expense, of course.)

Etc, etc –keep reading.

Sultan Knish makes a diagnosis:The Forwardism Disease:

Picking “Forward” as his campaign slogan puts Obama in good company with the likes of Lenin and Mao, and it sounds positive until you stop and realize that it’s meant more as an order than a suggestion. There’s a reason most leftist newspapers with that name add an exclamation mark at the end of it. It’s not a proposal, it’s a command. Lean forward, march forward, live forward and then die forward. We’ve burned the bridges, run up the deficit and trashed the economy so there’s no going back.

An old Soviet era joke told the story of the wife of a Communist leader who upon hearing that her husband had developed a progressive paralysis, clapped her hands and exclaimed that at least it was progressive. That is the underlying message of “Forward” to voters, the country may be paralyzed, but at least it’s a progressive paralysis which leaves us unable to move our heads and stop leaning forward while the Entertainer in Chief croons to us about the wonderful world to come.

The Mental Recession: Shareholder to New York Times: “You’re Willing to Offend the Catholics Because They’re Not Going to Come and Kill You”:

Cliff Kincaid, Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and a shareholder in the company, confronted a group of executives at the Times annual shareholders meeting, accusing them of running the anti-Catholic ad because:

“You’re willing to offend the Catholics because they’re not going to come and kill you.” 

That’s it in nutshell, is it not?  The media is willing to report negatively about other religions, but refuse to cast a negative shadow on Islam.  And fear is the overwhelming factor.

What the media should be doing is an introspection, asking themselves why they are afraid of offending Muslims. When they find that answer, maybe they can more accurately report on the events involving Islamic extremists.

Here is a larger excerpt from Kincaid’s report:

Speaking at the April 25 New York Times annual meeting, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, tried to justify the rejection of an ad calling attention to the alleged oppressive nature of the Islamic religion and the “vengeful, hateful and violent teachings” of Islam’s prophet. He said the ad might incite violence in the Middle East.

 At the same time, he justified the placement of an anti-Catholic ad in The New York Times by saying, “We take political ads that we do not agree with. That is the nature of advocacy advertising.” 

Representing Accuracy in Media, a shareholder in the company for the purpose of getting access to the annual meetings, I told Sulzberger, his executives and other Times shareholders, “You’re willing to offend the Catholics because they’re not going to come and kill you.” 

The full-page, anti-Catholic ad ran on March 9 under the title “It’s time to quit the Catholic Church” and was sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. It showed a cartoon of a Catholic Bishop going berserk over a birth control pill and urged Catholics to leave the church.

Here’s a video clip of Pamela Geller talking about the media double standard at BlogCon in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago: VIDEO #BlogCon2012: “David vs. Goliath: Slaying the Legacy Media”.

The Washington Free Beacon: Obama Attacks Right-to-Work States:

President Obama attacked right-to-work states Monday in a speech to the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department Legislative Conference, saying the measures are political and “not about economics.”

“I believe when folks try and take collective bargaining rights away by passing so-called ‘right to work’ laws that might also be called ‘right to work for less’ laws, that’s not about economics,” Obama said. “That’s about politics.”

Independent Sentinel: Obama About to Cede Sovereignty of Our Oceans to Marxist UN:

Under our Constitution, international treaties must be approved by a 2/3rds vote of the Senate, but there is reason to believe that Obama plans to implement the Law of the Sea Treaty or LOST via Executive Order, flouting the Constitution. This information was buried in a White House report.

Aaron Klein:  President Obama’s ambitious plan for stepped up government regulation of the oceans includes an unreported effort to cede U.S. oceans to United Nations-based international law, KleinOnline has learned.

The plan was previously a pet project of Secretary of Defence [sic] Leon Panetta, who’s ocean zoning scheme was partnered with a globalist group that also aimed to acquiesce U.S. oceans to UN governance.

Obama’s plan is still in its draft form. It calls for an executive order to be issued for a National Ocean Policy  that will determine how the ecosystem is managed while giving the federal government more regulatory authority over any businesses that utilize the ocean.

The executive order is to be based on the recommendations of Obama’s Inter-agency Ocean Policy Task-force, created in 2010 also by executive order….Keep Reading.

The Daily Caller: In stump speech, Michelle Obama evicts mother from White House:

This is just so bizarre….

First lady Michelle Obama has figuratively evicted her 74-year-old mother from the White House in an apparent effort to boost her appeal to middle-class voters.

The eviction notice came April 30 when the first lady told fellow Democrats at a fundraiser that she shared their values. “My family, we lived in a little bitty apartment on the South Side of Chicago over my aunt’s house [and] my mom still lives in that house to this day.”

However, the first lady’s mother, Marian Robinson, has lived in the White House since March 2009, when Essence Magazine announced her move from Chicago to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

“She will stay as long as her son-in-law and daughter want her to stay there,” Angela Burt-Murray, the editor of Essence Magazine, said in an April 2009 “Today” show interview.

White House officials have largely kept Robinson out of sight, and she makes relatively few public appearances. One recent exception came on April 9, when she publicly read ”The Rainbow Fish” (UGH!) at the 2012 White House Easter Egg Roll.

I’ve waited over 24 hours for an explanation to appear why she would lie about something so easy to refute, but I haven’t seen it, yet.

The Daily Caller; TheDC interviews source of $10,000 bounty offered for Obama college transcripts:

Bayne confirmed that neither Gov. Mitt Romney nor his presidential campaign is involved with his group’s effort, or with the $10,000 reward for Obama’s college transcripts. The question itself prompted a laughing fit that lasted for roughly 20 seconds. He also insisted that there are no right-wing pressure groups — what he called “shadow groups” and “beltway douche-bag groups” — pulling the strings.

But like right-leaning groups in Washington, D.C., Bayne believes media outlets have given President Obama a free pass on his personal history. And because academic records are an indication of a candidate’s intellect and seriousness, he said, Obama’s college transcripts are fair game,

But for some reason, he mused, no one has been able to find Obama’s. ”But they sure found George Bush’s college transcripts, didn’t they?”

The website advertising Bayne’s $10,000 bounty reads like a direct challenge to the press.

“You’ve failed, media,” it says.

“You’ve had over three years to vet President Barack Obama. Yet in three years in office and over a year of campaigning beforehand, you have either been oddly uninterested or purposefully ignorant of Barack Obama’s educational history.”

Finding the president’s transcripts, the website adds, “would represent more intellectual curiosity about the leader of the free world than the media has demonstrated since Obama won the Democrat primary.”

The statement provides a link to the college transcripts of former President George W. Bush, which The New Yorker published in November 1999, a full year before his election to the presidency.

“Media, your stranglehold on the truth ends NOW. Let the vetting begin,” the website proclaims.

Hmmmmmm –

iOWNTHEWORLD: Dreams From My Real Father:

“Who’s your real Daddy?” is a question that remarkably continues to dog Barack Obama, even as he proceeds into his fourth year as president.

With the release this July of Joel Gilbert’s full-length documentary, “Dreams from My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception,” the mystery deepens regarding who Obama really is.

 “The film provides the first cohesive understanding of Obama’s deep-rooted life journey in socialism, from his childhood to his presidency,” Gilbert told WND.

Gilbert rejects the official story that the Kenyan-born Barack Obama was the president’s father.

Instead, he argues, Frank Marshall Davis, the radical poet and journalist who was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, was the real, biological and ideological father of Barack Obama.

“I decided to investigate Frank Marshall Davis. His close physical resemblance to Obama was shocking, while Obama little resembled the Kenyan Obama,” Gilbert said. “How could this be?”

The Libertarian Review: U.S. Troops In Neighboorhood Streets Fully Armed:

The photo shown above was taken by a subscriber in the city of Crookston, MN from the front porch of her suburban home.  No, the men pictured aren’t from the local high school’s J.R.O.T.C sqaud – they are in fact trained soldiers serving in the Minnessota National Guard, Unit 2-136 CAB / B Company. Now, I have never personally been to Crookston (although I’m sure it’s lovely), but I’m relatively confident that they are located on domestic soil, and unless I am missing something, the citizens of Crookston weren’t dealing with any natural disaster at the time this haunting snapshot into the coming police state was taken.

No, what was actually going on that morning was a “training exercise” involving a quiet neighborhood that probably isn’t that different from your own. Being the patriot that she is, Maggie decided it might be a good idea to start asking some questions. Nothing too difficult, mainly just what the hell they were doing walking fully armed down a street regularly used to facilitate the innocent pastimes of all American kids.

Glancing at her briefly one Soldier responded, “Just training Ma’am. Joining up with another patrol at the rally point.”

Not accepting this as a reasonable answer to her inquiry, Magge went on, “Oh, ok. What are you training on the streets of town for exactly?”

At that the young soldier replied, “To be honest ma’am, I don’t know.”

Gateway Pundit: Taliban Bomb Kabul… Two Hours After Barack Obama Announces Peace Talks With Taliban:

They said it was in response to Obama’s visit.
The APreported:Taliban insurgents attacked a compound housing foreigners in the Afghan capital Wednesday, killing seven people, hours after President Barack Obama made a surprise visit and signed a pact governing the U.S. presence after combat troops withdraw.

Michelle Malkin: “Sacaja-whiner:” Elizabeth Warren and the Oppression Olympics:

Elizabeth Warren is the Harvard law professor running for Senate in Massachusetts as a Democratic populist-progressive champion. But don’t call her “Elizabeth Warren.” Call her “Pinocchio-hontas,” “Chief Full-of-Lies,” “Running Joke” or “Sacaja-whiner.”

Warren has claimed questionable Native American minority status for years to reap career “diversity” benefits. Now, Cherokee leaders, campaign rival GOP Sen. Scott Brown and an army of Twitter detractors have called her out for gaming the racial-preference system. Live by identity politics, die by identity politics.

The Boston Herald reported last Friday that Harvard administrators “prominently touted Warren’s Native American background … in an effort to bolster their diversity hiring record in the ’90s as the school came under heavy fire for a faculty that was then predominantly white and male.” When asked for proof of her tribal heritage, Warren’s campaign first denied that she had ever bragged about it. But from 1986 to 1995, Warren listed herself as a minority professor in a professional law school directory.

UPDATE:

I don’t have time to give this next one the attention it deserves, but suffice it to say – I agree with Big Fur Hat’s analysis that this is %100 pure, weapons grade  bullcrap.

Pure CRAPOLA – Obama’s “ex-girlfriend’s” Diary:

Vomit-inducing BS ahead:

Genevieve Cook publishes some diary excerpts that she wrote “a long time ago” (and not just before her book deal) about Barack Obama.

The excerpts sound as if she is writing about a vastly deep Albert Schweitzer, and not the pot smoking, basketball playing future community agitator named Barry.

Vanity Fair

Sunday, January 22, 1984
What a startling person Barack is—so strange to voice intimations of my own perceptions—have them heard, responded to so on the sleeve. A sadness, in a way, that we are both so questioning that original bliss is dissipated—but feels really good not to be faltering behind some façade—to not feel that doubt must be silenced and transmuted into distance.

Thursday, January 26
How is he so old already, at the age of 22? I have to recognize (despite play of wry and mocking smile on lips) that I find his thereness very threatening…. Distance, distance, distance, and wariness.

Sunday, February 19
Despite Barack’s having talked of drawing a circle around the tender in him—protecting the ability to feel innocence and springborn—I think he also fights against showing it to others, to me. I really like him more and more—he may worry about posturing and void inside but he is a brimming and integrated character.

As you can imagine, conservative Tweeps had a field day -  Twitchy has the best of the Mockfest: Obama’s steamy love letters and his manufactured history of ‘composite girlfriends’

Feast your eyes on this; beware of the steam emanating off the page!

The letters between McNear and Obama centered around philosophy and literature.

“Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism — [T.S.] Eliot is of this type,” Obama wrote in one letter to McNear. “Of course, the dichotomy he maintains is reactionary, but it’s due to a deep fatalism, not ignorance. And this fatalism is born out of the relation between fertility and death, which I touched on in my last letter — life feeds on itself. A fatalism I share with the western tradition at times. You seem surprised at Eliot’s irreconcilable ambivalence; don’t you share this ambivalence yourself, Alex?”

HUUURRRRRL!

I’m sorry…couldn’t the hipster doofuses back in Chi-town come up with anything better than this drivel?

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!

Monday Morning Ketch-Up After a Busy News Weekend!

Where to even start?

How about Twitter. It seems those wacky progs are at it again with the whole “shutting down the free speech of political opponents” thing they’ve got going.

Twitchy has the story: Twitter suspends another conservative account; Update: Chris Loesch is free, but flag-spam prog brigade still on the loose:

Just as with @FreeMarket_US last week, Twitter has suspended the account of conservative Chis Loesch. Chis is the husband of talk radio host and CNN contributor Dana Loesch and is very active on Twitter. Once again, Twitter’s reasons for suspending Chris’s account are not clear.

However, as @RBPundit and @lheal point out, it is likely due to liberals abusing Twitter’s system for reporting spam.

Because as Andrew Breitbart so aptly put it at CPAC 2012; “They’re a bunch of totalitarian freaks!”

Loesch got his twitter account back, but sans all of his followers. The same thing has happened to scores of other conservatives on Twitter:

It’s not over yet. Coordinated flag-spamming is a problem that Twitter needs to address now and preemptively, not AFTER conservative accounts are targeted and taken down.

More Twitchy: Twitter, you have a problem: Operation Flag the Prog Flag-Spam Abusers:

While Twitter executives sleep on the job, conservatives online are battling not only Loesch’s suspension, but the suspension of more than a dozen — and possibly dozens, if not hundreds more — innocent conservative social-media users who appear to have been maliciously targeted by Twitter abusers. The system is obviously broken and being exploited by vigilantes who oppose everything the engagement-enhancing ethos of Twitter stands for (or is supposed to stand for, anyway).

The targets are not big-time conservative celebs with large followings (which seems to be why Chris Loesch was targeted instead of his fellow conservative activist wife — Breitbart.com editor/CNN contributor Dana Loesch — whose high-follower Twitter account may be more immune to flag-spam attacks).

The progressives never expect pushback. But with the back-to-back suspensions of @freemarket_us and @chrisloesch, the conservative activist community online is banding together to Flag the Flag-Spammers for Twitter to see all in one place — no, not by abusing the flag-spam system, but by naming names and showing Twitter the extent of the problem.

Shane Wright, who himself was the victim of a temporary suspension, has compiled a list of conservatives suspended at some point on Twitter.

He explained to Twitchy how he came about identifying targets (and is working with Ben Howe to spread the word):

Speaking of Andrew Breitbart. Oh man.

Disconcerting news from the department that handled the Breitbart’s autopsy….

The LA Times reported: Possible arsenic poisoning probed in death of coroner’s official:

Authorities said a Los Angeles County coroner’s official, Michael Cormier, appears to have died from poisoning.

“At this point we haven’t ruled out foul play,” said Lt. Alan Hamilton of the Los Angeles Police Department. “It is one of the things being considered. We are waiting for the coroner’s results.”

Law enforcement sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said that finding the presence of poison does not necessarily mean the death was a homicide because the substance could have accidentally entered his system. According to sources, arsenic was one poison being examined as potential cause but stressed no final determination has been made.

Cormier, 61, died last week after being taken to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank from his North Hollywood home. Earlier he had complained of pain and vomiting.

Hospital staff notified police about concerns surrounding the cause of Cormier’s death.

Ed Winter, deputy chief coroner, said that an autopsy had been performed but that a determination of the cause of death has been deferred pending further tests.

The report also notes that Cormier worked as a coroner’s photographer, as well. Did this man have anything to do with Andrew Breitbart’s autopsy? I don’t know. But people are checking to find out.

 WND has more:

Michael Cormier, a respected forensic technician for the Los Angeles County Coroner died under suspicious circumstances at his North Hollywood home April 20, the same day Breitbart’s cause of death was finally made public.

“There are mysterious circumstances surrounding his death,” said Elizabeth Espinosa, a news reporter for KTLA-TV. “We’re told detectives are looking into the possibility that he was poisoned by arsenic.”

***

On April 20, the same day Cormier died, the coroner’s office released its findings into the death of Breitbart, stating the 43-year-old conservative media powerhouse died of natural causes, listing cause of death as heart failure.

“No prescription or illicit drugs were detected.The blood alcohol was .04%,” the official report said. “No significant trauma was present and foul play is not suspected.”

The Washington Post: Boehner: Obama picking fake fights:

House Speaker John A. Boehner scolded President Obama on Sunday for politicizing issues upon which Democrats and Republicans agree, including the need to prevent a hike in interest rates on federal student loans.

“The president is getting some very bad advice from his campaign team, because he’s diminishing the presidency by picking fake fights, going after straw men every day,” Boehner said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Boehner (R-Ohio) told CNN host Candy Crowley that he and the president have a good relationship, but he provided no evidence of that, instead excoriating Obama for his recent speeches attacking the GOP’s position on student loans.

“The point I’ve been trying to make here in the last couple of weeks is that the president’s bigger than this,” Boehner said. He cast his criticism as constructive: “Somebody needs to help him out, so I thought I would.”

Speaking of fake fights: Weasel Zippers: War on Women: Senate Democrats plan another trap for Mitt Romney with female voters:

(The Hill) — Senate Democrats are planning a new ploy to put Mitt Romney and Republicans on the defensive with female voters.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will bring to the floor in coming weeks legislation to protect women from retaliation by employers if they inquire about salaries paid to male colleagues.

Republicans voted in unison to block the bill, the Paycheck Fairness Act, when it came to the floor in November of 2010.

Democrats say it will be difficult for GOP senators to back out of their opposition, especially because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has staunchly opposed the legislation.

Mitt Romney will either have to split with Republicans and an important business group or take a position that could further erode his support among women.

“Romney’s going to be on defense on the Paycheck Fairness Act,” said a senior Democratic aide.

Because according to the Chamber of Commerce, it’s a crap bill:

“This bill would, among other things, expand remedies under [the Equal Pay Act] to include unlimited punitive and compensatory damages, significantly erode employer defense for legitimate pay disparities, and impose invalid tools for enforcement by the Labor Department,” the group wrote.

The Chamber argues the legislation would increase the opportunity for frivolous litigation and could result in increased costs for companies as they hire attorneys and conduct investigations to examine claims.

It says the bill would significantly erode the defenses available to employers under the Equal Pay Act by permitting plaintiffs to challenge legitimate pay decisions if they show other employment practices would not create disparities.

Speaking of the phoney war on women: The Shark Tank: Obama’s “War on Women” Assaults Fort Lauderdale, Sorta:

The front lines on the battlefield of Obama’s “War on Women” are looking pretty thin these days, as a sparsely attended rally of maybe 70 activists showed up in downtown Fort Lauderdale on Saturday to protest….something.  Some of the protestors got a bit ahead of themselves, as their signs demanded that they “Pink Slip Mitt”- before he’s actually been elected.

Can you say “astro-turf”? I knew you could.

HotAirPundit: Solyndra Leaves Behind Trail of Toxic Waste At Facility in California (Video):

A trail of toxic waste from the company touted as a symbol of green technology. This is a must-see video report from CBS San Francisco. The reporters go to a building in Milpitas, CA that was leased by Solyndra where they performed final assembly of solar panels. At the site, they find discarded buckets that are half-filled with hazardous waste  and the place trashed.

LifeNews: Official Won’t Say if Obama Admin Will Protect Chen Guangcheng:

An Obama administration official today would not say whether the Obama administration plans to provide political asylum or some sort of other diplomatic protection for Chen Guangcheng, the forced abortion opponent in China.

Chen, a blind attorney, has been in captivity at his home after spending years in prison after he was convicted in trumped-up charges engineered by family planning and community Party officials for retaliation against his exposing a massive brutal campaign in his home county involving the victimization of thousands in forced abortions and sterilizations.

In a daring rescue attempt, human rights campaigners helped Chen escape his home confinement and took him to an undisclosed location in Beijing — reportedly the U.S embassy — but the Obama administration has given no indication of whether it will provide Chen with political asylum or other diplomatic protection. Leading pro-life campaigners and human rights groups are concerned that if Chen is not protected, Chinese officials may illegally detain him and send him back to prison, home detention or may take his life.

John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, would not provide additional details as to whether Chen is currently under protection at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing or where Chen is hiding after he escaped the house arrest family planning and Chinese Community Party officials had subjected him to since he was released from prison on bogus charges following his exposing a massive campaign of forced abortions.

Well, can Chen help Obama get reelected? That’s the question. Will a pro life activist in China help inspire Obama voters to go to the polls? Hmmmmmm. I hope Guangcheng has a plan B.

Speaking of people who can help Obama get elected: Big Government: Obama White House Fundraises For Anti-Christian Bully Savage:

President Obama’s administration has focused heavily on ending childhood bullying. So why would the Obama administration get behind an anti-bullying organization headed by one of America’s most vulgar, extreme bullies?

The Obama Administration has placed significant support behind the so-called It Gets Better Project. The White House has devoted a specific section of the WhiteHouse.gov website to the Project. President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and many other administration officials have cut videos on behalf of the Project.

The organization is led by Dan Savage – of *Google Santorum* fame. That……person’s “cause” (anti-bullying for gay kids, only) is is being financially supported by the President of the United States. People who have other points of view than Savage may be bullied savagely (no pun intended) and with abandon.

This is the same Dan Savage who spoke at the National High School Journalism Conference last week, where he ripped into the Bible and called religious students “pansy-assed” for walking out on him.

But there’s much more to Dan Savage than just anti-religious bullying. He’s one of the biggest bullies on the planet. And he’s the point person the White House specifically chose – and fundraised for – in order to push their anti-bullying agenda.

The most vile discussion about conservatives ever aired on television took place on the Bill Maher Show, and prominently featured Dan Savage. So cool – he has the ear and the respect and support of POTUS.

What country am I living in, again?

Twitchy: Bully, heal thyself: Backlash for ‘anti-bullying’ speaker Dan Savage:

“It gets better” project head Dan Savage rightly drew fire for his latest display of reprehensible behavior yesterday. This may be the straw that breaks the hypocritical camel’s back and it has sparked the #FireDanSavage hashtag on Twitter.

Oh hey – Remember when Obama said he would be okay with being a one term President? It always struck me as odd because he never stopped campaigning.

Doug Ross: “Obama has held more re-election fundraisers than [the] previous five Presidents combined”:

What do you know. Someone finally reported what everyone was already noticing:

Leave it the British media — in this case London’s Daily Mail (via Weasel Zippers) — to report the inside dirt on the Obama administration’s perpetual campaign.

Barack Obama has already held more re-election fundraising events than all five Presidents since Richard Nixon combined, according to figures to be published in a new book… Obama is also the only president in the past 35 years to visit every electoral battleground state in his first year of office.

The figures, contained a in a new book called The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign by Brendan J. Doherty, due to be published by University Press of Kansas in July, give statistical backing to the notion that Obama is more preoccupied with being re-elected than any other commander-in-chief of modern times.

Atlas: Putin’s Pathetic Puppy — Obama:

There is a remarkable 4 minute-39 second video issued on “Earth Day” (April 22, Lenin’s birthday) last Sunday denouncing the environmental agenda as an “economic suicide pact.” It is entitled “If I Wanted America To Fail” — (link to video):
http://www.youtube.com/v/CZ-4gnNz0vc&hlPlease watch it first before I continue – for I’m going say how it ends.After, with excruciating poignancy, describing all that Zero is doing to ensure the failure of our blessed nation, the narrator concludes with the last thing he would do “if I wanted America to fail… I wouldn’t change a thing.”The answer to our question, is Zero on Putin’s payroll?, is: given his behavior, given his actions as president, it makes no difference whether he is or is not. He could be a full-blown Manchurian Candidate. He could be bought and paid for by the KGB. He could be a brain-damaged black racist moonbat consumed with hatred for America. He could be a megalomaniacal narcissistic sociopath.It doesn’t matter if he actually is any or all of these. What matters is that his actions are such that he could be-for those actions are what he would do if he were. So we need not make accusations for which we do not have solid proof. It suffices to know that, whatever the cause, whatever his motivation, this man means us and our country mortal harm. And he has the capacity, as President of the United States, to do so. His every day in the Oval Office is dedicated to doing so.What matters is: Nobama 2012. Our country’s life depends on it.

Palette Cleanser: Paul Ryan: ‘It’s Not Too Late To Save The American Dream’:

Republicans blasted President Obama and Democrats for failing to act on a budget while trying to sell the American public on the Republican proposal.

In his GOP weekly address, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the debate over the federal budget had the highest possible stakes, asking, “Is it too late to save America from a diminished future?”

Things that make you say…..”uh oh”: World Food Prices Spike As Soy Harvest Collapses:

The US Department of Agriculture believes that soybean production is headed for its biggest global drop ever — or at least since 1965 which is when the US started tracking global soybean production. Prices are now higher than they have been in four years, and could reach record levels later in the year.

The Daily Caller: Brit Hume: Obama’s SCOTUS fight ‘embarrassing,’ ‘exceedingly ineffective’ [VIDEO]

Last week the Supreme Court heard arguments about a controversial Arizona immigration law whose detractors say gives the state the authority to perform a constitutional duty that belongs to the federal government.

But if the Supreme Court should rule in favor of Arizona, it could be seen as another blow to President Barack Obama’s administration, which has come under fire after that same court called into question his signature health care reform law.

On “Fox News Sunday,” political analyst Brit Hume explained why such a ruling could hurt Obama’s brand.

“I think it is damaging, particularly in regard to health care,” Hume said. “This is the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. It is his proudest achievement and if it is struck down by the Supreme Court, it then bears the stamp of illegitimacy. It is already unpopular. It would, I think, in the aftermath be more so.”

Via Patriot Network: Attorney General Facing Contempt Charges:

Michelle Malkin: “Crucify them:” It’s the Obama Way:

Publicly humiliated by the video release of the persecution strategy session (FYI: the video has now been pulled, but there’s a copy here), Armendariz said this week he regretted his “poor choice of words.” “It was an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws. I am and have always been committed to fair and vigorous enforcement of those laws.”

Tyrannical actions, of course, speak louder than weasel words. And the record shows that Obama’s environmental overlords run amok.

It was Obama’s power-mad interior secretary Ken Salazar who vowed to keep his “boot on the neck” of BP after the Gulf oil spill in 2010. Salazar and former eco-czar Carol Browner colluded on a fraudulent report — condemned by federal judges — that completely distorted a White House–appointed expert panel’s opposition to the administration’s job-killing, industry-bashing drilling moratorium.

It was Obama’s EPA that railroaded a senior government research analyst for daring to question the agency’s zealous push to impose rules on greenhouse gases. When Alan Carlin asked to distribute an analysis on the health effects of greenhouse gases that didn’t fit the eco-bureaucracy’s blame-human-activity narrative, he was gagged and reprimanded: “The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has [sic] decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office.” Public-relations management trumped truth in science, the deliberative process, and fairness.

It was Obama’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cahoots with the witch hunters at the Department of Justice, that raided Gibson Guitar factories in Memphis and Nashville three years ago over an arcane endangered species of wood. The guitar police have yet to bring charges, leaving the company in costly legal limbo.

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!

Hump Day Link-Around

Chuck Asay cartoon via Townhall

Michelle Malkin: Conservative consumers: Stand your ground:

Who is Rashad Robinson? And why has his fringe, race-baiting organization been able to pressure several major corporations into abandoning a pro-limited-government legislative association — all for a few cheap social-justice brownie points?

Conservative consumers need to get informed, get active and stand their ground against free speech-squelching progressive activists who have demonized the American Legislative Exchange Council. This isn’t just a battle over ALEC. It’s a war against the left’s shakedown artists taking aim at our freedoms of speech and association.

ALEC, as I reported last week, is the four-decade-old policy organization of state legislators and like-minded business people who believe in “the Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty.” They are under fire from a longstanding network of liberal groups — tied to the Democratic Party — that are unhappy with effective conservative opposition at the state and federal legislative levels.

Anti-ALEC hypocrites seized on the Trayvon Martin shooting case in Florida to blame ALEC and Republican lawmakers for their advocacy of Stand Your Ground self-defense legislation – even though the case does not implicate the policy and ALEC followed Florida’s lead on the legislation. Moreover, eight of the 15 states that have adopted such polices were helmed by Democratic governors at the time of passage.

Read her full report.

Twitchy: Conservatives to Amazon: don’t cave to anti-ALEC Color of Change bullies:

The radical bullies at Color of Change are mobilizing the mob again to boycott and attack companies that support the American Legislative Exchange Council. McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Mars Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, and several other corporations have already caved to the anti-free speech activists. And now, Van Jones and company are shaking down Amazon, State Farm, and Johnson & Johnson, accusing them of funding “voter suppression.”

Moe Lane: As of Monday, Jon Corzine is STILL bundling for Barack Obama?

Unbelievable –

I’m honestly flabbergasted: when the news came in on Saturday that the probably-won’t-be-indicted-for-anything-before-2013 Jon Corzine was still collecting cash for the President, I assumed that this no-doubt-grevious-oversight would be handled by, say, Monday morning.  After all, surely Corzine was radioactive after the suspicious collapse of his company MF Global?  Particularly since there’s now testimony contradicting Corzine’s about what happened to at least some of the 1.2 billion of customer money that went on walkabout during said collapse?

If the rule of law still meant anything in this country, Corzine would already be in federal prison, but it doesn’t so he remains a free man and  money-grubbing Obama is happy to take money from him. The most corrupt President in American history continues to appall.

Wait, there’s more…

Washington Free Beacon: Obama’s Ponzi Scheme Donor:

Bogus hedge fund manager Shervin Neman and wife are max-donors to Obama, DNC and under investigation by SEC.

The Persian-Jewish proprietor of a bogus hedge fund under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission is a prolific Democratic donor who dined at the Obama White House just months before the SEC shut down his Ponzi scheme.

Shervin Neman, a self-described hedge fund manager in Los Angeles, is said to have targeted members of his own Persian-Jewish community in a $7.54 million Ponzi scheme that the SEC claims “raised funds from at least 11 investors in the fraudulent securities offering.”

Neman, the SEC alleges, raised funds by fictitiously claiming he was a hedge fund manager with Neman Financial L.P. After collecting monies from unsuspecting investors, Neman claimed to have invested the money in high-grossing entities such as Facebook stock and foreclosed residential properties.

“Although Neman promised investors exorbitant returns resulting from his investing acumen and access to pre-IPO shares of well-known companies, what they actually received was simply other investors’ monies, the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme,” the SEC alleged in a statement on the matter.

The Quinton Report: Navy to name a ship the USS Harvey Milk?

Good God, make it stop…

Navy Times reports:

An upcoming addition to the Navy’s fleet may be the USS Harvey Milk if Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., and other San Diego gay rights leaders have their way about it.

The GLBT Historic Task Force of San Diego County and Filner sent letters to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week asking for Harvey Milk to be considered as a name for a submarine, carrier or other appropriate vessel, according to a PR Newswire press release.

Milk, a late civil rights icon, was a Navy veteran who served aboard the submarine rescue ship Kittiwake as a diving officer during the Korean War. He went on to be a diving instructor at Naval Station San Diego. Milk, whose parents both also served in the Navy, was honorably discharged at the rank of lieutenant junior grade.

Fire Andrea Mitchell: Obama booed loudly at Fenway Park 100th anniversary celebration in Boston:

Go watch the video – I’m pretty sure I hear a voice of someone yelling, “Go eat a dog!”

The Weekly Standard: Catholic Bishops Take on Obama:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a bold stand for religious freedom. In a recent statement, titled “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty,” the bishops call for repeal of contraception coverage mandated by the Department of Health and Human Services. The clarified position sets up a dramatic confrontation with the Obama administration—and would, if the bishops prevail, help preserve the religious liberty of all Americans.

The HHS mandate requires employers to provide insurance coverage for contraception and sterilization services. It is, according to the bishops, an “unjust law.” They write: “It cannot be obeyed and therefore one does not seek relief from it, but rather its repeal.”

The statement is a rebuke of President Obama and the so-called accommodation his administration proposed in February. It also raises the stakes between the president and the leaders of America’s Catholic Church.

The Right Scoop: Mark Levin: When will Obama speak out about Matthew Owens?

“I want to know when our president, our attorney general are going to speak out. Because frankly, their conduct and their initial words in the Martin/Zimmerman matter…were very provocative. And that’s not the way a president of the United States and an attorney general of the United Sates should behave themselves. We have crimes being committed now that are clearly race-based, without question! Because the perpetrators are saying so. … So this is my question. Why are they so silent? I think it’s absolutely appalling.”

Baldilocks: Obama and The Perfect Storm of Misery (KingShamus):

http://www.luoamerican.com/baldilocks/2012/04/obama-and-the-perfect-storm-of-misery-kingshamus.html

Old And Busted:  Getting people off the public dole.

New Hotness:  Getting lots and lots of people back on the public dole.

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. 

Political Junkie Mom is right.  Having the Obama administration do stuff to increase employment or oil production is just silly rugged individualist conservative yakkety-yak.  Far better for the government to do the things its really good at, like fostering long-term dependency.

Moonbattery: Michelle Obama Behind Misguided Attack on Ann Romney:

According to the National Enquirer, which in this day and age is more reliable than the MSM:

Not being completely beholden to the Democrat agenda, the National Enquirer has become a relatively reliable source of news. Without it, the disgraceful John Edwards would still be one of the most powerful weasels in Washington. Now the Enquirer reveals that the boneheaded Democrat strategy of attacking Ann Romney for raising her children was hatched by none other than Michelle Antoinette:

Talking head Hilary Rosen set off a firestorm when she mocked Mitt Romney for relying on his wife for advice on the economy, sniping that Ann — who raised five sons, has battled breast cancer and suffers from multiple sclerosis — “never worked a day in her life!” …

A publicly sympathetic Michelle, 48, tapped out a message on Twitter, writing: “Every mother works hard, and every woman deserves to be respected.” But behind the scenes, her fingerprints were all over the scandal, said an inside source.

“Michelle had her claws out to get Ann, but it quickly backfired and Barack was livid when he heard she had secretly directed the attack,” said the source. …

“Michelle thought Rosen, an out-of-the-closet lesbian and close pal, could be their attack dog, but she miscalculated badly by going after stay-at-home moms,” said the source.

Gateway Pundit:  Newt Gingrich to Suspend Presidential Campaign:

Newt will campaign in North Carolina this week.
FOX reported:

Newt Gingrich plans to formally leave the Republican presidential race next Tuesday, senior campaign aides told Fox News.

The former House speaker will “more than likely” endorse Mitt Romney when he makes his announcement to either suspend or end the campaign, a source said.

I hope Mitt learned a thing or two about how to deal with the MSM from Newt.

The Daily Caller: Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores:

In Kansas, Cherokee County Farm Bureau president Jeff Clark was out in the field — literally on a tractor — when TheDC reached him. He said if Solis’s regulations are implemented, farming families’ labor losses from their children will only be part of the problem.

“What would be more of a blow,” he said, “is not teaching our kids the values of working on a farm.”

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average age of the American farmer is now over 50.

“Losing that work-ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”

John Weber, 19, understands this. The Minneapolis native grew up in suburbia and learned the livestock business working summers on his relatives’ farm.

He’s now a college Agriculture major.

“I started working on my grandparent’s and uncle’s farms for a couple of weeks in the summer when I was 12,” Weber told TheDC. “I started spending full summers there when I was 13.”

“The work ethic is a huge part of it. It gave me a lot of direction and opportunity in my life. If they do this it will prevent a lot of interest in agriculture. It’s harder to get a 16 year-old interested in farming than a 12 year old.”

This administration is at war with the American way of life…

Israel Matzov: Elie Weisel puts Obama in his place:

Benny Weinthal reports that on Monday, at Washington’s Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel – knowingly or unknowingly – put President Obama in his place.For the Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who also spoke at the Washington event, the meaning of remembrance is not to remain stuck in the past. He said, “So in this place we may ask: Have we learned anything from it? If so, how is it that Assad is still in power? How is it that the number one Holocaust denier [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is still a president? He who threatens to use nuclear weapons to destroy the Jewish state.”

Stacy on the Right: Republicans set to launch Black outreach efforts:

In a very savvy election year move, the Republican National Committee is coordinating a black outreach effort for the 2012 election season.  Although the move seems a bit late in coming, at least an effort is being made.  Chipping away at the the Democrats stranglehold on the black vote is a multi-year effort that will require creativity and tenacity.  Essentially, the war is won on the liberal networks that continually spout complete lies about Republican policies and enforce a zero tolerance rule for defections.

Stacy emails: “I’m still waiting for a day when being a black conservative isn’t a source of anger and hatred from the left, although I love the open arms from the right!”

Kristina Ribali, Freedomworks: BlogCon – Training and Inspiring the Next Generation of Online Activists:

Watch the video…

Big Journalism: NY Times Pledges ‘Unbiased Political Reporting’:

In an unprecedented move, New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane took to the pages of his newspaper on Sunday to pledge to the reading public that they would do a better job vetting the president. Yes, you read that right: the New York Times is now channeling Andrew Breitbart. Here’s what he wrote:

The Times needs to offer an aggressive look at the president’s record, policy promises and campaign operation to answer the question: Who is the real Barack Obama?

Brisbane admits that critics “view The Times as constitutionally unable to address the election in an unbiased fashion.” He admits that The Times “basked a bit in the warm glow of Mr. Obama’s election in 2008.” (That phrase, in and of itself, constitutes significant pro-Obama bias, of course – he uses it twice in the course of the article.) But, he says, the bias wasn’t purposeful: “I think [our reporters] see themselves as aggressive journalists who don’t play favorites.”

*Snort*

The Heritage Foundation: The Federal Budget in Pictures:

The Foundry: Morning Bell: Do You Know What the Constitution Really Means?:

With a handful of words, the Founders set forth a simple principle that protects a central liberty enjoyed by all in this Republic — the freedom of speech, as recognized in the First Amendment. Yet after more than 200 years of history, liberals in Congress — including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — aim to set that freedom on its head so they can further their efforts to silence their political opponents.

The proposal, which is known as the “People’s Rights Amendment,” would amend the Constitution and hold that constitutional rights are only for “natural persons,” meaning that corporations and legal entities would no longer enjoy the freedoms the Constitution guarantees. That would apply not just to companies like General Electric, but also to newspapers, churches, nonprofits, businesses, labor unions and book publishers alike. Individuals acting collectively — whatever their purpose — would wave the freedom of speech goodbye.

The Constitution should not be cast aside so quickly to achieve political ends, and its meaning must be carefully understood and respected. That’s why The Heritage Foundation is proud to announce a new resource to help the American people and their elected representatives learn more about the history of our founding document. Heritage’s Online Guide to the Constitution is a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of every single clause in the Constitution — and it’s available for free at ConstitutionOnline.com.

Weasel Zippers: Rage Inducing: Team Obama Official Says President Still Has Not Held A Reelection Campaign Rally, “Will Let Us Know When It Happens”…

Meaning all those stump speeches through swing states are being paid for by the taxpayer.

AoSHQ: Mitt Just Got Real:

Romney’s speech last night is getting a lot of praise, and the key line, the MJGR, comes in at the 06:28 mark:

Guy Benson at Townhall called it a “very strong address”:

Yes, yes — some formalities remain, but Romney effectively put this primary season to bed with five resounding victories last night.  As expected, he cleaned up in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island; he also prevailed in Delaware, where Newt Gingrich’s running-on-fumes campaign was hoping to make some sort of a stand that might justify its continued existence.  Romney won there by nearly 30 points, which could very well oust the former Speaker from the race.  Having sewn up the GOP nod, Romney addressed a packed hall in New Hampshire and officially turned the page to the general election competition.  Flanked by flag-waving supporters, Romney declared that “a better America begins tonight:”

Rasmussen: Romney 45%, #Obama 44%

Mediaite: Megyn Kelly Guest Alan Dershowitz Slams Zimmerman Prosecutor: Her Affidavit ‘Is A Crime’

The Right Scoop: Bret Baier makes dishonest Debbie squirm over Democrat-lead Senate not passing budget

Tuesday Linkage: It just keeps Getting Better…

Veterans stand up to be recognized at KC tea party, 4/15

Thurber’s Thoughts: BREAKING: First Solar lays off 2,000, closes factory, idles production:

Following bad news over the weekend, another solar firm announces major restructuring moves, including layoffs, today.

First Solar (FSLR) was kicked off the Nasdaq-100 Monday and replaced by Texas Instruments.  First Solar is based in Tempe, AR, but was founded in Toledo under the name of Solar Cells, Inc.  Their only U.S. manufacturing facility is in Perrysburg Township.

In October, they fired their CEO.  In December, they announced 100 layoffs and a delay at their Mesa plant.

Today, they announced further changes, including closing operations and laying off 2,000 – roughly 30% of their workforce:

Gateway Pundit: Horror… To Ease Gas Prices Barack Obama Moves to Control Oil Industry:

Obama wants more government control on oil industry.
FOX News reported, via Free Republic:

Under pressure to take action on rising gasoline prices, President Obama wants Congress to strengthen federal supervision of oil markets, increase penalties for market manipulation and empower regulators to increase the amount of money energy traders are required to put behind their transactions.

The White House plan, which Obama was to unveil Tuesday, is more likely to draw sharp election-year distinctions with Republicans than have an immediate effect on prices at the pump. The measures seek to boost spending for Wall Street enforcement at a time when congressional Republicans are seeking to limit the reach of federal financial regulations.

Obama plans to spell out his $52 million proposal Tuesday at the White House, where he will be joined by Attorney General Eric Holder.

Well there’s a visual for you – Obama announcing his plan to take over the oil industry with the most corrupt Attorney General in US history standing right beside him.

James Pethokoukis: The total intellectual collapse of Obama’s Buffett Rule:

Warren Buffett, President Obama’s favorite billionaire, once said that “you only find out who’s swimming naked when the tide goes out.”

Well, it looks like the tide has gone out for Obama when it comes to pushing his Buffett Rule “millionaire’s” tax. There was never much of an economic rationale for the idea. It would only raise about $5 billion a year over the next decade, a span when the U.S. is on track to compile average annual budget deficits of $1 trillion or more.

Wait, actually it would add nearly $800 billion to cumulative deficits because it would replace the Alternative Minimum Tax, according to government bean counters. No, wait some more! The numbers would probably be even worse. Other taxes targeted at the rich, such as President Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax hikes and recent tax increases in the UK, either raised less than forecasted or lost money.

As Bloomberg recently pointed out, affected taxpayers–fewer than 0.5% of Americans with annual incomes exceeding $1 million and tax rates of less than 30 percent–could avoid the tax via tax-free investments such as municipal bonds. They also could time asset sales for maximum tax benefits, engage in transactions that don’t result in taxable income, and make charitable contributions that yield deductions. “Largely, the Buffett rule is going to be manageable,” said David Miller, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP in New York. “That is, with tax planning, people will be able to avoid it.”

Moonbattracker: Video: Crazed Moonbats Try To Disrupt Romney Tea Party Event:

Robert Costa reported at NRO:

Philadelphia, Pa. — Progressive activists stormed the Franklin Institute this evening. They clashed with tea-party organizer Don Adams, who blocked them from entering. It was a wild, tense scene, just minutes before Mitt Romney appeared here. Adams, who is the man at the door in this video of the incident, tells NRO that the “nasty” exchange is an example of what Romney will face this fall.

Examiner: Media censored seven hate crime mob attacks in Grand Rapids:

You didn’t hear about this is the media, but on the weekend of March 24th and March 25th at least seven white people were brutally beaten by mobs of blacks in Grand Rapids, MI. Five of the victims filed police reports. At least two other victims exist, and there are probably others. The local media has refused to report the cruel attacks and the authorities are resisting any serious charges.

I talked with one of the victims, 37 year old Jacob Palasek. He is a full time student and does computer work part time. He was attacked by a wolf pack of thugs on the corner of Sixth Street and Broadway in Grand Rapids, Michigan just after midnight on March 25th. The location is a mix of stores, offices, and residential neighborhoods. Jacob lives near where he was attacked.

As he was walking to his apartment, he saw three black males loitering. One was on a bicycle. The suspect on the bicycle rode up beside him. Suddenly the thug smashed him in the side of the head with a chain. He was hit two or three more times in the head with the chain before he broke loose and ran to the nearest home. He knocked on the door, hoping the owner would call the police.

All three of the black males then attacked him on the porch. They yelled “this is what you deserve you white piece of shit.” Jacob was hit in the head with the large chain more times. Jacob broke free again and hid behind a dumpster. The attackers initially chased him, but broke their pursuit and walked away. There were some cars driving by and the thugs may have thought a driver was calling 911.

All seven known victims were attacked within about six blocks of where Jacob was attacked. The victims were in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some of the victims were attacked during the day in broad daylight.

Jacob believes he could have died if he was hit with the chain more times. He still has bad headaches and has not been able to work since the attack.

Finish reading, here.Folks, we have a problem.  Attacks like these have been on the increase in cities all across America – and the media chooses to hype an atypical Hispanic on black altercation in Florida, framing it as a racial issue to further inflame these predatory, subhuman thugs?…see also Jack Cashill, American Thinker: Editgate, Spittlegate, and the Left’s ‘Race-Gating’ Tradition:

The phrase “Editgate” established itself virtually overnight.  It fit so well.  This useful compound merges “edit,” in reference to NBC’s incendiary editing of George Zimmerman’s 911 call, and “gate,” the catch-all suffix used to describe a corrupt mess of deception and obfuscation. Already “Editgate” is being used more expansively to include other distortions in the Trayvon Martin case, including ABC’s compression of the police videotape to obscure Zimmerman’s head wound and CNN’s absurdly imaginative translation of the Zimmerman word “cold” into the nearly archaic “coons.”

Together, these three deceptions — and there will be more — have established Editgate as the most consequential high-level fraud in the left’s long history of what might be called “race-gating.”  By this, I mean the purposeful media corruption of a racially oriented story.

The media’s willingness to lie for the cause should shock no one to the right of Bill Ayers.  What is particularly troubling about Editgate is that the major media, which once served as a firewall against fraud, now seem eager accomplices in its commission.

Selwyn Duke, American Thinker: Obama’s America: Why Black Grievance Will Never End:

Obama’s stoking of racial anger, blacks’ assumption that every Trayvon Martin is an innocent victim, and increasing “retaliatory” attacks on whites by the children of BLT and CRT.  And we shouldn’t be naïve enough to think that pandering helps.  You’re not going to prove your goodwill to Jackson, Holder, Al Sharpton, and their fellow travelers by offering handouts, government programs, and quotas.  You won’t prove it by voting for a (half-)black president, which — especially when he is a BLT Marxist radical — is seen just as license to extract more pounds of flesh.  You won’t soothe their savage breasts by taking it on the chin and then saying, “Thank you, sir; may I have another?”  For the Jeremiah Wrights of the world are much like the Independence Day alien who was askedby the American president, “What is it you want us to do?”

His answer: “Die.”

Doug Ross: Dear Mr. Mataconis at ‘Outside the Beltway’: I eagerly await your apology to Rep. Allen West:

• According to The Weekly Worker (the Communist Party newsletter of Britain), “…The [Congressional Progressive Caucus] CPC is ‘organised around the principles of social and economic justice’, a ‘non-discriminatory society’ and ‘national priorities which represent the interests of all people, not just the wealthy and powerful’.” … the CPC platform is “strongly supported by the Communist Party of the United States of America… The CPUSA has served in effect as a loyal tendency inside the Democratic Party for over half a century.”

***

• According to the Democrat Socialists of America, “We work with [various radical] movements to strengthen the party’s left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

In fact, the agenda of the CPC is virtually indistinguishable from Karl Marx’ 10-point Communist Manifesto:

***

In short, the CPC represents a radical Marxist vision for America. It represents Communism. The CPC is antithetical to the United States Constitution, the very document that these Leftists took an oath to uphold! Put simply, they lied under oath.

I encourage you to read the mission statement of the CPC, which represents a laundry list of Utopian dreams that can only be compelled by a massive, centralized, authoritarian federal government. And, that, of course, was something this country’s founders feared.

Shush, Doug – it’s extremely impolite to point out these awkward, inconvenient facts.

See also, Noisy Room: Hiding Behind Names and Cliff Kincaid CFP: Wolf Blitzer Should Apologize to Allen West, making the same “red-baiting” points. Hey, we don’t mind baiting the reds. Someone’s got to do it.

American Vision News: Obama eligibility lawyer admits birth certificate is fake:

Another administrative law judge / attorney general duo has upheld Obama’s eligibility to appear on a state ballot, ruling against a challenge that the president is not a natural born citizen. The hearing, however, allegedly involved a real twist. The Patch.com reports,

Obama was represented by Alexandra Hill of the Newark-based law firm Genova, Burn and Giantomasi.

What struck Apuzzo [plaintiff's attroney], he said, was not just the judge’s decision, but a concession made by Hill that the court has no documented evidence of Obama’s birth. Armed with a number of witnesses, including an expert who was willing to testify that Obama’s birth certificate, posted online in April 2011 by the White House, was fraudulent, Apuzzo was instead told to holster his guns.

“We were willing to present that what’s online has been manipulated by computer, human, or both and that it’s not reliable. I told them I was ready to prove that and if they didn’t want this witness to testify then concede that,” he said. “I got Obama (Obama’s attorney Hill) to concede that there is no evidence before the court as to his place of birth, which includes what’s on the internet.”

Though the judge ruled the Obama isn’t required to prove his ballot eligibility, Apuzzo considers the concession a win of sorts, one he hopes will help his case gain traction should it appear before an appellate court. He stressed that he’s willing to go as far as he can to prove that Obama does not belong on the state’s ballot. Should that mean taking the case to the State Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court, Apuzzo said he’s ready.

That sound you just heard was the collective yawning of thousands of MSM journalists.

Another thing the media is ignoring via Michelle Malkin:  Katie Pavlich exposes “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up”:

Townhall.com editor and rising star Katie Pavlich debuts her first book today — and it’s a blockbuster.

“Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and the Shameless Cover-Up” targets the corruption, incompetence, obstructionism, lawlessness, and anti-gun radicalism of the Obama White House.

Pavlich supplies readers with damning documents, new scoops, interviews with whistleblowers, and a must-have guide to the biggest stain on the Obama administration.

Be sure to read pp. 158 – 163, where Pavlich reports on a possible third gun traced to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.

MRC TV: Outstanding interview with Nonie Darwish April 7 2012

AoSHQ: Obama’s Lawless Bureaucracy Now Trying To Deliver an Unconstitutional Advantage to Big Labor:

A “rule” — written by unelected bureaucrats — proposes that a vote on unionization must occur quickly after the union’s request of such.

Those in business and labor are expecting a vote in the Senate, perhaps as early as next week, on a joint resolution for congressional disapproval that would block the regulation. A Senate Republican leadership aide told The Hill that a vote on the measure was expected sometime over the next two weeks….

Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce oppose the rule, which would speed up union elections. Glenn Spencer, vice president of the Chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, has said in the past that a vote on the joint resolution is likely the most significant labor vote this congressional session.

“This vote is coming soon, and it’s the Senate’s opportunity to tell the board that it has gone too far,” Spencer told The Hill.

Why is Obama’s bureaucracy pushing this?

Because a union might be campaigning for unionization a year before they ask for a vote. If they ask for a snap election, the company has no time to lobby against it.

Activist Post: Haters of Humanity: The Church of Malthus:

Video: Church of Malthus evangelist, Paul Gilding in his “the Earth is Full” talk, tells us one million years of human progress has “finally” reached its limits. This is a tale that has been fallaciously told for at least the last 200 years since crackpot economist Thomas Malthus warned of imminent societal collapse based on a growing population – a prediction, like those of a suicidal doomsday cult, that has been demonstratively and repeatedly proven wrong. Gilding also attempts to link “climate change” in as a manifestation of our reached limits.

Seton Motley, PJ Tatler: Transformational Tax Reform: Withhold Taxes From Every OTHER Paycheck:

On April 1, we became the worst country on Planet Earth in which to open and run a business – from (at least) a corporate tax perspective.  Our rate is 39.5 percent – the highest in the world.  That is stealing.

And not only is the corporate tax rate obscenely high, the code is thousands of pages of nightmare mess.  With its dizzying litany of deductions, exemptions and other a la carte specialty nuttery.

Business tax reform is a vital necessity.  A much lower rate – and a much simpler code – would make the seas much calmer and a whole lot more amenable to job and wealth creation.

The reason there hasn’t been more of a public clamor for corporate tax reform is because most members of the public are employees, not employers.  Relatively few Americans open businesses and actually experience the corporate tax code absurdities first hand.

Which is why a rewrite of the individual tax rate and code – which is just as expensive, complex and asinine – also needs to happen.  To get more Americans on board the tax reform train.

DaTechGuy: Mark Haleprin gives the game away…

in a throw away sentence at the end of a segment on using the “Romney is rich and out of touch” attack. He suggests it could be a winning plan for Obama for his base, and to force a mistake ending with:

“…rather than making the election about the Obama record.”

This is why I’m very confident about November.

Another reason to be optimistic via WaPo: Congressional retirements reach highest point since 1996

Overall, the retirements have hurt Democrats more, with 15 of the 25 House retirements and six of the 10 Senate retirements coming at their expense.

While the retirements have stacked up in both chambers, though, the actual impact on the election will be much more pronounced in the Senate.

While only a handful of the 25 House retirements come from districts that will be competitive this year, most of the 10 retirements in the Senate come in swing (or semi-swing) states.

In the House, fewer than 10 of the 25 retirements are occurring in districts that could change hands. What’s more, because of redistricting, about half of those members were likely to lose anyway

.

In the end, the only retirements that are likely to matter are those of Reps. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) and Tim Johnson (R-Ill.).

In those seats, the other party has significantly better odds at winning the seat now that they don’t face the incumbent. (That’s not to say the seats will flip party control but that the chances are increased with no incumbent running.)

The other retirees — members like Reps. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), David Dreier (R-Calif.) and Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) — all faced tough odds after redistricting and mostly succumbed to their new political realities when they called it quits.

The retirement picture has had much more of an impact on the Senate side, where the retirements of Democratic Sens. Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Herb Kohl (Wis.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) expanded the playing field significantly in the GOP’s favor in 2011 and early 2012.

Fire Andrea Mitchell: Michigan libertarian Rep. Justin Amash demands Eric Holder’s resignation over ‘Fast and Furious’ – 124 members of Congress total:

Michigan libertarian Rep. Justin Amash became the 124th member of Congress to demand Eric Holder resign over the Fast and Furious scandal.

TERESA KOCH: How the ‘War on Women’ convinced me to vote for Mitt Romney:

The Romneys were making their wealth at the same time that they were raising their family – I seriously doubt that they were able to afford a live-in nanny and a score of servants on a student’s salary. The money came later, but it didn’t happen by accident – in reading about Mr. Romney, it becomes undeniably obvious that he is a VERY hard worker who has always been willing to learn how to make things better in the companies that he works for so that EVERYBODY can “share the wealth”. And while Ms. Rosen was busy questioning the monetary value of the “job” that Mrs. Romney has been doing all of these years, perhaps she was hoping that people wouldn’t look too closely at where Ms. Rosen was when she was raising her children.

Make no mistake, Ms. Rosen has also worked very hard to get where she is. She has had a string of very successful jobs, all of which have presumably been progressively more lucrative. And while the Romneys had their children when they were still fairly young (when their first child was born, the Romneys were 24 and 22, respectively), Ms. Rosen didn’t become a mother until she was 41 years old. By that time, she was quite a successful career woman in her own right, as was her partner, Elizabeth Birch (who was 43 years old at the time). In fact, both Ms. Rosen and Ms. Birch were so successful in their respective careers that they were well-known public figures in their fields by the time they adopted their children in 1999. They were most definitely not living in a tiny basement apartment, eating food out of a can while sitting on an overturned milk crate – if anything, THEY are the ones who were much more likely to have had a slew of servants taking care of their kids, cleaning their house, and cooking their meals.

Weasel Zippers: Holder’s DOJ Sends Little-Known Cell To Aid Trayvon Martin Protesters…

Proposed name change: The Department of Social Justice.

Via White House Dossier:

A largely unknown group of Justice Department officials has inserted itself into the local Florida protest movement surrounding the killing of Trayvon Martin, assisting the protestors and attending their meetings and rallies.

While the officials are tasked with preventing racial violence, it appears that in carrying out their duties, they have provided significant assistance to those protesting the killing of Martin, who black, by George Zimmerman, who is half white and half Hispanic. [...]

Cliff Kincaid, CFP: Obama Stimulus Dollars Funded Soros Empire, in Scandal that Dwarfs ACORN and GSA, Says New Report:

Newly recently released tax documents, examined and analyzed by Tina Trent of sorosfiles.com,  reveal how billionaire “philanthropist” George Soros expanded his U.S.-based empire by using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the Obama stimulus. Soros and Obama worked hand-in-glove through the stimulus, which has been called the largest single partisan wealth transfer in American history.

MOTUS: Wanted: Spring Break Chaperones. Adults preferred.

Not a good weekend for the team.

We never really lined up a good replacement for that Meet the Press assignment. You know, the gig that Hilary Rosen was supposed to handle? To keep the WOW drums pounding? Hil was supposed to be a softer version of previous Dem spokesmouth Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Even her entirely new skin didn’t fool anyone.

Keep reading…

Hump Day Link-Around – Reagan Would Have Loathed The Buffett Ruse

Needed: A Marxist-Style Analysis to Understand and Combat the Extreme Left’s Hegemony

Good God – yes, it’s true – Marxist Obama shamelessly invoked Reagan this morning, suggesting Ronaldus Magnus would support his  nonsensical, election year  Buffett *Ruse:

“If it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan rule instead of the Buffett rule,” Obama said in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“I’m not the first president to call for this idea that everyone has to do their fair share,” he said, quoting one speech in which Reagan said it was “crazy” for the rich to be able to use loopholes to get out of paying taxes. “He thought that in America the wealthiest should pay their fair share and he said so.”

In case you’re confused about the Buffet Rule, let Sean Hackbarth of the Free Enterprise Blog set you straight: Buffett Rule is a Tax on Job Creation:

It isn’t part of a comprehensive plan to reduce the deficit, it has nothing to do with helping the millions of unemployed Americans find a job, Deborah Solomon of the Bloomberg View editorial board writes that the rule is “a distraction that further mucks up an already complicated tax code,” and the Christian Science Moniter warns that the big White House push could backfire on Democrats.

So what is this really about?

Bloomberg tells us it’s about the White House targeting 400 people, since most high-income earners already pay a higher tax rate than middle and low-income earners without the Buffett Rule. It’s class warfare.

More along these lines via Washington Free Beacon video: Steve Hayes Rips Buffett Rule - He also ripped reporters for “not doing their jobs” by “putting this into perspective.”

And Rick Santelli weighs in:  BEASTMODE: Santelli Slams Obama Debtbomb.

The Buffet Rule is a cynical election year class warfare ploy. The White House already admitted it would only raise about $5 billion dollars in revenue per year while at the same time the Obama budget is spending trillions. The government needs to either drastically cut spending, or drastically hike taxes on the middle class if it wants to make a real difference in reducing the debt. Guess which one Obama would choose in his second term?

Ronald Reagan called for sweeping reforms and simplification of the American tax code – primarily drastic reductions both in tax loopholes and tax rates, and he took the highest tax bracket of 50% and lowered it to 28% . Reagan wasn’t messing around.

James Pethokoukis of The American Enterprise Blog: Here are some real ‘Reagan Rules’ for Obama:

Apparently President Obama is joking that he’s willing to change the name of the Buffett Rule to the Reagan Rule if that’s what it takes to get it through Congress.  But there are already so many Reagan rules — and Obama is following none of them. Here are few Reagan Rules the president would be wise to follow:

1. Blame government, not business.

2. Cut taxes and make the safety net more efficient.

3. Get government under control.

4. Obey the U.S. Constitution.

5. Don’t forget to cut taxes.

6. Don’t hate fossil fuels.

Read at all at the link.  Reagan would have loathed Obama’s cheap and pathetic class warfare politics.

Bob Owens PJ Media: Why I Called George Zimmerman a Murderer, and Why I Was Wrong:

How naive that post now seems. The narrative created by the media at that time was one of an innocent life taken for no reason at all, by a much older, heavier, and racist man itching for a confrontation.

That was before we found out there was only one gunshot and no coup de grâce. That was before we found out that George Zimmerman had not deluged the local police with 46 paranoid 911 calls in one year, but 46 calls over a period of eight years, which isn’t unreasonable for a community watch volunteer. The media had either lied about how often he called, or purposefully compressed the timeline.

That was before we learned that Zimmerman didn’t know Martin’s race when he made the call, and that race didn’t play a roll in any of the 911 calls the local police had on file.

That was before we discovered that George Zimmerman wasn’t the 240-plus pound bruiser in the five-year-old picture the media used as much as possible, but was listed at a much smaller 170 pounds by none other than the New York Times. That’s a nominal 20 pounds heavier than a teen that stood four inches over him.

That was before we found out that two eyewitnesses placed Martin on top of Zimmerman as the aggressor, and that at least one of them claims it was Zimmerman crying for help.

That was before ABC News attempted to claim police surveillance video disproved Zimmerman’s claim of being injured in what may have been a purposeful deception. The very same news organization was forced to later admit the presence of two lacerations on the back of George Zimmerman’s skull consistent with his claim of self-defense. In the end, details of the beating Zimmerman suffered at Trayvon Martin’s hands were only given a brief mention in the local news.

That was before NBC News was forced to fire a senior producer for selectively editing audio of Zimmerman’s 911 call in a deliberate effort to make him sound racist.

And of course, almost no one knows that on the night he took Trayvon Martin’s life, George Zimmerman willingly consented to take a voice stress analyzer test, a kind of lie detector test used by the Sanford police. He passed it.

The narrative has changed in the wake of new details, eyewitnesses, and embarrassing retreats. The actual story may in fact have been a textbook example of the proper use of deadly force.

Keep reading…

Peter Ferrara, The American Spectator: Why Obama Hates Paul Ryan:

Barack Obama’s address on April 3 at the Associated Press luncheon in Washington D.C. demonstrated why our politics and our country today are seriously dysfunctional, and only the American people can fix it at the ballot box. Find the transcript online and print it out as I did.

I will show below why it reveals that the President, in fact, does not understand the major issues facing the country, indeed, he actually can’t even discuss them intelligently. Moreover, he is hopelessly, abusively dishonest about what he does understand. Thirdly, what he is demanding as policy is irreconcilable left-wing extremism.

Fourthly, what the speech shows is that Barack Obama is very angry. He is angry because he has been completely shown up by Paul Ryan, who stepped up in his budget and provided the leadership that Obama promised America in 2008, and America so badly needs, but that Obama has not only failed to deliver, but refused to deliver. In fact, he has delivered just the opposite. What the speech says to me is that Obama has internal polls showing him getting creamed in public opinion by Paul Ryan. Republicans may have those same internal polls, explaining the surge of interest in Ryan for VP.

What Ryan did most of all that has Obama actually feeling embarrassed if not humiliated is propose in his budget both pro-growth tax reform with bipartisan support, and fundamental entitlement reform that enjoys bipartisan support as well.

Keep Reading…

DaTechGuy: Why the MSM hates new media: Alabama edition:

We think about the the NBC’s and the New York Times as spinning an agenda, we rail about the Jon Stewarts and Stephen Colberts and the false narratives, but in truth to most of the country the NYT is a paper they will never read in their lives and Stewart and Colbert are so insignificant that a 53-year-old move that’s been available on video for decades not only beat them 3-1 in the rating last week but took them in the 18-49 year old demographic.

But for every NYT there are dozens of Birmingham News’ uninterested in violence by Biker Gangs if they are of the wrong color. For every Jon Stewart there are countless Worcester Telegrams who find threats of violence and arson trivial if directed at pro-life centers and for every CNN there is a slew of Torrance Daily Breezes who don’t find the actions or pronouncements of major party congressional candidates worth their time.

During his talk in Lexington Mass. last year Andrew Breitbart urged those in attendance to carry a camera and report and even if it was no more than a Kindergarten teacher pushing an agenda to send him the story and he would make it national. If you are a blogger willing to report on those local stories and promote them up the blog ecosystem you have the power to make a difference. Breitbart understood this and so does every member of the MSM with an agenda who dismisses bloggers and tweeters.

That more than anything else is why they hate you and fear you.

Update: Related thoughts on media hatred and containment from Ed Driscoll and J. Christian Adams

LifeNews: Catholic Cardinal: A Sin to Cooperate With Obama Mandate:

A leading Catholic cardinal at the Vatican has essentially said that complying the with Obama birth control mandate would have Catholics and Catholic organizations participating in sin.

The mandate compels religious employers to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions in health coverage for their employees and a revised mandate will compel them to refer employees for free coverage from their health insurance plans, which will eventually have the payment mandate.

Would the Cardinal also tell the people that voting for pro abort Dems is also sinful, please?

Fox Nation: ‘The Real Obama’: Radical Inner Circle:

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Now, you are who your friends are, right? If we apply that saying to the president, well, we should all be very scared because the list of his friends and those serving in his administration with questionable pasts and beliefs runs very deep.

Tonight, we continue to vet the president. We look at Harold Koh, the top legal advisor at the State Department. Now he espouses some of the most controversial and downright dangerous positions of anybody in Obama’s inner circle.

In 2004, he compared the U.S. under President Bush to the likes of Iraq and North Korea saying, quote, “Several nations who’s disobedience with international law has attracted global attention after September 11 most prominently North Korea, Iraq and our very own country, the United States of America. For shorthand purposes, I will call these three countries the axis of disobedience.”

Maggie’s Notebook: DHS: Millions of Rounds of Ammo – Replacing Bean Bags With Bullets on the Border? BulletProof CheckPoint Booths – for what?:

This story doesn’t go away and no explanation is surfacing. Maybe the Department of Homeland Security routinely buys 450 millions rounds of .40 caliber high performance HST bullets to arm law enforcement around the country, over a 5 year period. Anyone know how and how often we make large purchases (seemingly large) of bullets designed to plow through about anything and do the maximum damage by ravaging whatever it enters? The last I heard, our Border Patrol is armed with bean bags. Murdered Agent Brian Terry had only a bean bag gun to defend himself against the wrong end of an AK-47, furnished to a member of a Mexican cartel member by the U.S. Department of Justice.

I’ve been wanting to write this post - Michelle Malkin: Don’t do business with progressive appeasers:

Let’s stipulate: Activists on the left are free to exercise their rights of speech and assembly to boycott businesses whose politics they oppose. Conversely, activists on the right are free to exercise the power of their pocketbooks and refrain from supporting businesses that shun their values.

So, what are you waiting for, conservatives? There are coordinated shakedowns taking place right now that involve some of America’s most prominent companies who’ve chosen to surrender to progressive bullying and race-card opportunism. Silence is complicity.

On Tuesday, McDonald’s told liberal magazine Mother Jones that the company had “decided to cut ties with ALEC, the corporate-backed group that drafts pro-free-market legislation for state lawmakers around the country.”

The fast-food conglomerate follows in the feckless footsteps of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Intuit (maker of Quick and Quicken Books software) and Kraft Foods — which have all withdrawn support for ALEC after drum-banging from Color of Change.

I can live without all of those brands but one – Going without Coke is going to HURT.

But she’s right. It’s the right thing to do.

Breaking News?-–Political Wire: West Says Nearly Half of House Democrats are Communists

The biggest culprit in Teh War on Wimmins turns out to be….(drumroll please): Obama White House pays women less than men, records show:

Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show.

According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).

 

*Not a typo.

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!

Friday Free-For-All – Obama’s a Dunce

Michael Ramirezpictures Obama as a dunce

Powerline: Obama As Dunce:

Pretty much everyone is piling on President Obama in connection with his airy dismissal of the concept of judicial review. The Department of Justice backtracked today in the form of a letter from Eric Holder to the 5th Circuit panel that asked for clarification of DOJ’s position on that topic. In his letter, Holder admits the obvious…

Keep reading…

The American Spectator’s Ben Stein calls him a “know Nothing”:

Another subject Mr. Obama thinks he knows about and doesn’t is the oil companies. He hates them. He thinks they are subsidized by the workers in the cotton fields and then they exploit those workers. That is nonsense. Every business, every household, gets some deductions or credits for something. That’s the way the tax code works. The taxpayers are not subsidizing “Big Oil” and “Big Oil” is now a lot smaller than it was twenty years ago. Now, the state players in the major oil producing states are the big boys. But why does Mr. Obama loathe the oil companies in the first place? They provide an essential product at a market price. They do not fix prices. The provide employment to millions and a comfortable way to travel to hundreds of millions. Why does Mr. Obama hate them? Because of a juvenile, City College of New York circa 1937 leftist view of the whole world. Sad. Disturbing. That is a highly anti-American worldview.

 

Neal Boortz – goes there- as well he should – as well we all should -  Godwin’s be damned:

Obama is an utter and complete failure as president, but his ego – his narcissism –convinces him that he must have another four years to make his legacy complete.

No … wait a minute.  I’m wussied out on that.  It’s not so much ego and narcissism as it his intense dislike for this country and his desire to fundamentally transform America into the Marxist state he dreamed of as a young adult – all the way through childhood, college and into politics.

Come on, folks.  Wake up and smell the radicalism.  This is a man who was raised by communists.  This is a man who was infused with communist dogma his entire life.

***

OK … here’s the Year of Talking Dangerously  part.  The more I listen to Obama; the more I cringe at his lies and radical rhetoric, the more I am reminded of … brace for it … Adolf Hitler.  I am not the first talk show host to bring up this analogy.  Look – the left gets a pass on comparing every Republican president we’ve had since World War II to Hitler, so I get my say here.  The comparison is not without foundation.  During World War II the United States Office of Strategic Services created a psychological profile of Hitler.  We needed to know what made that despot tick.  Included in that profile were the following primary rules that Hitler followed to gain and solidify his hold on power

• Never allow the public to cool off
• Never admit a fault or wrong
• Never concede that there may be some good in your enemy
• Never leave room for alternatives
• Never accept blame
• Concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong
• People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

You hate to admit it, right?  But you can see every one of those points in Barack Obama and the tactics he is employing to get the four more years he needs to complete his destruction of America as you know it.

In the case of Dear Ruler, his “enemy” is the Republican Party and everything it stands for, including private enterprise.  Obama is engaged in a full-on psychological war against the Republicans, and yesterday’s speech on Paul Ryan’s budget plan was a testament to this.  There was no real reason to pick a fight with Paul Ryan’s plan – it stands little chance of passing the Senate – but for Obama it does make for a great enemy.

I’ve been thinking this since he politicized the NEA in 2009: Triumph of the Hope and Change. As Ace quipped at the time,  “if you don’t want to be called a Nazi, stop doing Nazi stuff.” Well, Obama’s been doing “Nazi stuff” for three straight years – it’s about time people started calling him out on it.

Joseph Curl, Washington Times: Divide and conquer — Obama knows exactly what he’s saying:

“Impeach the Supreme Court Justices If They Overturn Health-Care Law,” wrote David Dow, a columnist for the Daily Beast. “It is the duty of the people to protect the Constitution from the court. Social progress cannot be held hostage by five unelected men.”

And there, in a nutshell, is Mr. Obama’s plan to divide and conquer. Rise up, America, against your nation’s Congress, your nation’s highest court — and even America’s Constitution.

His desperation is now palpable, and it’s only April. This is going to get ugly, people.

The organized left will be mobilized like never before. And remember – the Community Organizer in Chief  considers Americans who don’t support his policies, “enemies”.

An example of the Divide and conquer strategy at work:

Weasel Zippers: Gallup Poll: 51% of Blacks Say Zimmerman “Definitely Guilty” of Crime In Trayvon Martin Shooting, Only 11% of Non-Blacks…

In other words, the race hustlers are winning.

And… No Joke: UN Human Rights Chief Calls For “Immediate Investigation” Into Trayvon Martin Shooting…

Bonus: The AFP refers to Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic.”

This next one hits close to home. As any conservative Catholic could tell you – the Marxists have had much success burrowing  into deepest confines of the church. Like termites, they have chewed up real church doctrine and replaced it with something foul and false. It should be no surprise that Obama would have used those Catholics to exploit the Church.

Big Government: The Vetting: Obama Exploited Catholics To Push Universal Health Care In Illinois:

In 1999, then-State Senator Barack Obama invoked the late radical Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who passed away in 1996, to promote a universal health care law he co-sponsored and which Illinois voters had overwhelmingly rejected.

The bill incorporated language directly from the late cardinal’s 1995 pastoral letter, “A Sign of Hope,” which argued for a “fundamental right” to healthcare, reading, in part: “Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize that right.”

Supporters of single payer health care, like Dr. Quentin Young of Physicians for a National Health Program, understood Bernardin to be calling for a government takeover of health care. “Cardinal Bernardin wrote on the moral questions we’re talking about,” Dr. Young told the Palm Beach Post on January 4, 1998. “His concept was that human dignity requires an ethic that assures health care to all people in a society.”

Seton Motley, Big Government: Obama 2012 and Facebook: Your Privacy, Diminished:

Senator Obama became President Obama in large part because of his much ballyhooed online prowess.

Propelled by Internet, Barack Obama Wins Presidency

Obama Raised Half a Billion Online

How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics

Perhaps the most important amongst Obama’s many cronies are Leftist mega-corporations Facebook and Google – the twin titans of online data compilation.

Candidate Obama wasn’t good – so much as Facebook and Google were good for him.

And it looks like they’re lining up to be good for him again.  We’ll begin with Facebook.

Read his full report…

IBD: Obama Alienates Canada And Mexico At Three Amigos:

Diplomacy: Most summits are mush-mouthed affairs full of pleasantries. Tuesday’s “Three Amigos” summit was different: a litany of how President Obama has alienated our neighbors.

You wouldn’t know this from reading the mainstream media, which reported the disastrous summit with anodyne headlines like: “Obama talks trade, energy with Canada, Mexico leaders at Summit” (Associated Press) and “Obama, Mexico’s Calderon vow more drug crime cooperation” (Reuters).

Obama’s neglect of our nearest neighbors and biggest trade partners has created deteriorating relations, a sign of a president who’s out of touch with reality. Problems are emerging that aren’t being reported.

Fortunately, the Canadian and Mexican press told the real story.

Don Surber: Gather. Reince. Repeat.

The New York Times gave grudging respect to the Republican National Committee for its fund-raising efforts. Reince Priebus as chairman has gathered so much money without spending a lot that he has given Republicans a lead in cash on hand in a year when President Obama has frantically raised money — sending his wife out 43 times to raise money in the last 43 weeks.

The Daily Caller: MSNBC duped: Network runs satirical fake news from Daily Kos as a real story:

Does this surprise you?

On his Wednesday broadcast, Roberts reported that technology juggernauts Apple and Microsoft were “marrying up” and taking on same-sex marriage opponent the National Organization for Marriage.

“In the meantime, get this,” Roberts said. “Tech rivals Apple and Microsoft are marrying up and asking the National Organization for Marriage its supporters to boycott their companies. This follows the release of secret documents last week showing part of the organization’s strategy to quote ‘drive a wedge’ between blacks and gays on the issue of marriage equality.”

Only one problem: They’re not “marrying up,” at least for now.

The report was apparently based on a “satirical post” published on the Daily Kos on Monday by Scott Wooledge. The post was later republished by The Huffington Post’s comedy section and was presented as satire.

“NOTE: This piece is satirical. All quotations are fabrications for the purpose of satire,” the piece read.

That wasn’t the first time it’s happened, either. Moron. I don’t know what could be more humiliating than being punked by a Kos Kiddie’s lame attempt at humor.

Hot Air: Subpoenaed: GOP wants to know why Obama administration misled Americans on drilling ban:

President Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium following the 2010 oil spill caused widespread job losses and a significant drop in energy production in the Gulf of Mexico. Two years later, a U.S. House committee wants to know why the administration misled the public about the drilling ban.

The House Natural Resources Committee yesterday issued its first subpoena to the Department of the Interior after Secretary Ken Salazar refused to turn over documents related to the moratorium. At issue is why Salazar’s department suggested a panel of engineering experts supported the drilling ban when in fact they did not.

Despite the Obama administration’s transparency promises, Salazar has rebuffed the committee’s requests and stymied the department’s inspector general investigation. Salazar, who previously apologized, was defiant when asked about the subpoena:

The bottom line is I’m very comfortable with everything we did including the time out and reset button that we had to put in place in the Gulf of Mexico. What the House Natural Resources and energy committee is doing is simply a distraction in the name of politics.

Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (D-WA) said it was important to understand what happened and why Salazar failed to conduct any technical, scientific or economic analysis prior to imposing the drilling ban. He gave the department one week to produce the documents. The subpoena was a last resort for the committee.

Here’s another one for the committee to look into, since falsifying reports is Salzar’s M/O….

Ace: Former Interior Department Adviser: Ken Salazar Was So Determined To Remove Dams, His Agency Cooked The Books To Get The “Science” He Wanted:

Remember, Obama is the All of the Above Energy Candidate.

Hydroelectric dams create cheap power which do not burn any fuel. Water powers the turbines. Essentially free electricity is generated (though there are of course staffing/maintenance costs, but these are pretty trivial).

So, we’re not interested in combustible fuels. Now we also are dismantling our hydroelectric sources.

A former science adviser to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation was fired in February, shortly after he alleged that the Obama administration intentionally falsified scientific fact in a proposal for dam removal in the Klamath River.

Professor Paul Houser of George Mason University, in an allegation to the Office of the Executive Secretariat and Regulatory Affairs in the Department of the Interior, said that Sec. Ken Salazar’s determination to remove the dams resulted in “intentional biased (falsification) reporting of scientific results.”

He also alleged that when he voiced his concern about the scientific integrity of the press release involving the dam removal in September, very few of his concerns were taken into consideration.

Houser was later terminated from his government job.

Another government whistleblower fired – imagine that.

Media Research Center: Bozell Rejects NBC’s False Apology:

Good. They’re only sorry they were caught.

Last week, NBC’s “Today Show” doctored George Zimmerman’s 9-1-1 call so that his motive for shooting Trayvon Martin appeared racial.  Over the weekend, NBC reported to The Washington Post that an investigation would be forthcoming after the Media Research Center exposed their fraud.  It appears NBC’s investigation has been completed.  Last night, NBC issued a two sentence explanation on it.  Media Research President Brent Bozell says that this is as dishonest as the original piece.

“We reject this fraudulent apology,” said Bozell.  “We’re not surprised. After all, NBC ‘investigated’ itself. We again call on Comcast, not NBC, to investigate this matter — thoroughly, honestly, and professionally.”

In NBC’s apology, they stated that an “error” was made and that they “deeply regret” it.  “There was no ‘error,’ as if a ‘mistake’ was made. This was a willful distortion, deliberately taking the quotes out of context in order to twist their meaning and feed the narrative of a racist assault. The level of dishonesty and journalistic abuse of the public trust is astonishing,” contends Bozell.

Steve Green, Vodkapundit: Your Friday Morning Dose of Doom and Gloom:

Wow — what a stinker of a jobs report. First, let me show you why it’s worse than it looks. Then I’ll show you why it’s even worse than that.

The big number, 8.2% unemployment, is down one-tenth of one percent from last month, on 120,000 net new jobs. But 120,000 is only just barely enough to keep up with population growth, because that’s about how many people should enter the labor force each month, every month, the whole year round. But even more people — 164,000 — simply gave up, stopped looking for work, and are no longer any concern of the BLS. The experts had predicted jobs growth of anywhere from 200,000 to 250,000.

ASIDE: We need to net about 1.5 million jobs a year just to stay even with our growing population. We’ve netted about 2.5 million in the almost three years since the Great Recession ended. So we’re almost two million jobs short of nothing more than treading water. Yeah, that’s bad.

James Pethokoukis: If Obama loses in November, it’ll probably be because of this chart:

While most of the economic focus today is on March’s tepid job growth and the unemployment rate, incomes may well play a bigger political role than jobs in 2012. And the numbers today didn’t look too hot. Wages are going the wrong direction.

Pray for little Bella – Political Hotsheet: Rick Santorum’s daughter Bella has been hospitalized again:

(CBS News) — Rick Santorum and his wife Karen’s three-year-old daughter Bella is back in the hospital, according to a Friday email from his campaign. The release did not detail how serious Bella’s condition was, but the child had a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 18 that claims the lives of most children within a year of birth.

Most comments are sympathetic, but check this out:

by MTATL67 April 6, 2012 11:45 AM EDT

Multiple degrees, doesn’t have to work can run for president and has health insurance for his sick daughter. HHmm one might think Mr. Santorum is an aristocrat.

Seriously?

Michelle Malkin: Marion Barry and the Left’s hatred of Asian entrepreneurs:

Marion Barry’s mouth set him up. The disgraced former mayor of Washington, D.C., caught on tape in a 1990 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 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 (click here for the full story), Barry posted photos of supposedly hazardous stores – including Chinese restaurants surrounded not by trash or toxic waste, but by plexiglass 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.

Oh, and Michelle also spotlights a couple of establishments conservatives may want to avoid: Kabuki: Arby’s fakes a Rush Limbaugh advertising protest; Update: Walgreen’s joins hands with Soros mob:

Last night, I linked to the story about Arby’s blocking conservatives on Twitter for protesting the company’s protest of conservative talk show giant Rush Limbaugh.

Today, the Right Sphere notes that Arby’s president is a big Democrat donor.

Here’s the bottom line on this latest manufactured attempt by the Hush Rush mob to make it appear that he and the radio stations that carry his show are suffering economic harm because of Soros monkey-directed pressure.

It’s complete bull. Total Kabuki theater. Arby’s is not and has not ever been a national sponsor of Rush’s program. In the radio industry, advertisers can buy “Run of Schedule” — commercials that are to be aired during different times of the day for more than one day on local stations. Arby’s most likely told local stations not to run their ads during Rush’s show. That is not a cancellation of an ad buy; there’s no loss of money.

This is prog gesture politics to create the appearance of an anti-Rush advertising stampede. It’s astro-turfed by lying Media Matters hitmen.

Duly noted – Arby’s and Walgreens – I was never a fan of their fake beef, anyway – and Walgreens has nothing CVS doesn’t have.

Good news from Yid With Lid: BREAKING: MJ Rosenberg OUT At Media Matters:

Media Matters For America’s Jew-Hater-In-Chief is out!   I believe he was pushed.  His promise to stop using the Anti-Semitic term Israel-firster made at the beginning of March  did not take the pressure off himself, or that of MMFA.

Tuesday Link-Around — The Vetting Continues

Graphic via Reaganite Republican

America elected a lying, duplicitous, radical community organizer bent on transforming the nation from a free Democratic Republic into something at best resembling a European style Socialist state – at worst a Soviet satellite. The media gatekeepers continue to protect him from scrutiny, the Republican establishment is afraid to confront it because they don’t want to upset the mushy middle  – it’s up to the right-ring blogosphere, once again – to inform the public.

Big Government: The Vetting – Valerie Jarrett Keeps Obama Close to Radical Roots:

The Iranian-born Jarrett (her parents were American expatriates) found a foothold in Chicago politics through her marriage to Dr. William Robert Jarrett, whose father Vernon held sway as a columnist on the Chicago Sun-Times–for a time, the city’s only major black columnist.

In 1991, Vernon Jarrett enthusiastically promoted a Chicago visit by professor Derrick Bell, who was still on voluntary unpaid leave from Harvard Law School, in protest at the faculty’s refusal to hire visiting professor Regina Austin.

Barack Obama, who had joined Bell in that protest, had just graduated from Harvard and had begun work in Chicago at the law firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland, a prominent local civil rights firm.

Bell’s visit had been arranged by the Community Renewal Society, a left-wing group that wanted Bell to help it launch a “racial justice agenda” across the Chicago area. He addressed the Society’s annual dinner, delivering a radical speech on the “permanence” of racism. Describing the civil rights movement as “childlike, trusting, believing, and hopelessly naive,” he suggested a more confrontational approach to race relations.

In addition to the dinner, Bell was invited to conduct a workshop with leading Chicago community organizers. Those invited included Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as well as Father Michael Pfleger, both of whom became notorious during the 2008 presidential campaign.

  Noisy Room: Beck to Publish Blockbuster on Obama’s Communist Mentor:

Seizing on the scandal involving President Obama’s “open mic” obsequious conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Glenn Beck has announced that Paul Kengor’s explosive new book on Frank Marshall Davis will be published this summer through Beck’s Mercury Ink outlet. Davis was a pro-Moscow communist who helped raise and mentor Obama.

Davis, Beck says, is the key to understanding Obama’s pro-Russian foreign policy.

The new Kengor book carries the title, THE COMMUNIST Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor. Mercury Ink, which is publishing the book, is the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts, Inc., a multimedia production company owned by Beck.

In the embarrassing “open mic” incident, Obama told Medvedev that he needed some “space” from the Russians before meeting any more of their demands, and that he would have more “flexibility” after being re-elected. Medvedev promised to transmit the information to “Vladimir,” meaning Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer who is going to assume the Russian presidency for the second time on May 7. Putin has described the fall of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

One of the leading analysts of the international communist movement, Kengor has written that the evidence, including Davis’s 600-page FBI file, demonstrates that “…a mentor of the current president of the United States was a Communist—and not only a party member, but an actual propagandist for Stalin’s USSR…”

Kengor, who is also a professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, has written extensively on “progressives” who came under the influence of the old Soviet Union. His most recent book, Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century, has a chapter on Davis.

A member of the Communist Party USA and under FBI surveillance for 19 years, Davis was a mentor to young Barack Obama while he was growing up in Hawaii, for as many as eight years. Kengor’s new book on the subject could be an explosive development in the presidential campaign and possibly jeopardize Obama’s chances for re-election.

Davis, who advised Obama on matters like race relations and college, was listed on the FBI’s security index, meaning that he could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI material documents Davis’s anti-white and pro-Soviet views, infiltration of the Hawaii Democratic Party, and other activities.

Continue reading.

Western Center For  Journalism: Barack Obama Was A Foreign Student – American Media Threatened Into Silence:

The Postman
Retired United States Postal Worker Allen Hulton recently signed a sworn affidavit for the Maricopa County, Arizona Cold Case Posse convened by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, attesting under oath, to conversations with Mary Ayers, the mother of Bill Ayers. He made his testimony public in a three hour long taped interviewed on March 19th, 2012. Mr. Hutton, by signing an affidavit has subjected himself to laws regarding perjury, not something to be taken lightly as telling the truth is now for him a requirement of law.

His testimony states Mary and Tom Ayers (Parents of Bill ”I don’t regret setting bombs” Ayers) were sponsoring Barack Obama as a foreign student, and financially supporting his education.

This is a huge revelation on not one, but two separate fronts.

Bill Ayers of dubious “Weatherman” fame, was not just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood”, as then candidate Obama brushed aside. The video linked here comes from a televised DNC Debate in the summer of 2008. As Hillary Clinton revealed then, Obama served in a paid position on the Woods Foundation with Bill Ayers and the two were involved in several projects dispersing millions of dollars over several years.

Realistically, the Ayers family could be said to have adopted Barack Obama, if not as a son then certainly as a kindred Marxist spirit, and treated him to one of the finest educations possible.

There is little doubt Mr. Obama has been less than honest with regard to the Ayers family and their significance in his life.
As disingenuous as this is, it is by no means the most important revelation.

If correct, and Obama was introduced to Hulton as a Foreign Student, this means Barack Hussein Obama would have been using a Foreign Passport to get and prove his foreign student status for entrance into Occidental College, Columbia, and later Harvard Universities. Because Hulton has signed an Affidavit, this cannot be disregarded as mere hearsay; it is instead evidentiary in nature.

Hulton documents including affidavit, here.

CNS News: Obama Denounces ‘Radical’ Republican Budget, As Democrats Refuse to Produce One:

(The following AP report does not mention that for the past three years, congressional Democrats have failed to produce a budget of their own. As House Speaker John Boehner said last week, the Republican budget “is a serious effort to deal with the fiscal crisis that we’re facing.  We make the real tough decisions that need to be made.  And I find it interesting that the people who are criticizing our budget are people who have not done a budget.  We’ve been waiting now for over 1,000 days for the United States Senate to act on a budget.” In February, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters, “We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year.”)

WASHINGTON (AP) – In an election-year pitch to middle-class voters, President Barack Obama is denouncing a House Republican budget plan as a “Trojan horse,” warning that it represents “an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country” that would hurt the pocketbooks of working families.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear our local talk radio station’s news on the hour  report the fact that the Democrats haven’t produced a budget of their own for three years in conjunction with the story about Obama blasting the Republican budget.I wasn’t expecting that.

Big Government: Obama Campaign Fail: Top Bundler Accused of Fraud:

The Washington Post reported Saturday that a major Obama bundler has been accused of fraud.

New Yorker Abake Assongba has pledged to help President Obama win reelection, and as one of his 400 volunteer fundraisers, she has delivered $50,000 to the cause. But she is also trailed by some controversy, accused in court of defrauding a businessman out of $657,000, impersonating a bank official and dodging creditors.

No surprise here – the Democrat party has become a national crime syndicate.

Life News: Obama Admin Forced to Pay $120K After Targeting Pro-Lifer:

“After 18 months of litigation, the DOJ’s case was thrown out of federal court, and the department was chastised for filing a case with no evidence. Federal Judge Kenneth L. Ryskamp stated that Holder’s complete failure to present any evidence of wrongdoing, coupled with the DOJ’s cozy relationship with PWC and their joint failure to preservevideo surveillance footage of the alleged “obstruction,” caused the court to suspect a conspiracy at the highest level of the Obama Administration,” Staver said.

“The Court is at a loss as to why the Government chose to prosecute this particular case in the first place,” wrote Judge Ryskamp. “The Court can only wonder whether this action was the product of a concerted effort between the Government and PWC, which began well before the date of the incident at issue, to quell Ms. Pine’s activities rather than to vindicate the rights of those allegedly aggrieved by Ms. Pine’s conduct.”

Judge Ryskamp concluded that “the evidence could not lead a rational jury to find that Ms. Pine’s conduct [i.e., having peaceful conversations with clinic visitors on a public sidewalk] constituted a physical obstruction within the meaning of FACE.” The Judge chastised Holder for seeking to apply federal law in a clearly unconstitutional manner, saying, “Stretching the terms of FACE to apply to this case…so that a desire to provide people with information about alternatives to abortion constitutes an unlawful motive, would unjustifiably impinge on Ms. Pine’s First Amendment rights.”

Life News: Obama’s HHS Mandate: An Evil Violation of Conscience:

The fundamental problem with the contraception mandate is not that complying with it involves objecting employers in moral wrongdoing. At least for some employers, it may well do that, and this certainly makes the mandate morally objectionable, but this is not the fundamental problem. The fundamental problem with the mandate is that it coerces some people into doing what they think is wrong, and this problem remains regardless of whether the coercion excuses the actions of the people being coerced.

Judicial Watch: DHS To Grant Illegal Aliens “Unlawful Presence Waivers”:

In its quest to implement stealth amnesty, the Obama Administration is working behind the scenes to halt the deportation of certain illegal immigrants by granting them “unlawful presence waivers.”

The new measure would apply to illegal aliens who are relatives of American citizens. Here is how it would work, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement posted in today’s Federal Register, the daily journal of the U.S. government; the agency will grant “unlawful presence waivers” to illegal aliens who can prove they have a relative that’s a U.S. citizen.

Currently such aliens must return to their native country and request a waiver of inadmissibility in an existing overseas immigrant visa process. In other words, they must enter the U.S. legally as thousands of foreigners do on a yearly basis. Besides the obvious security issues, changing this would be like rewarding bad behavior in a child. It doesn’t make sense.

Powerline: A Narrow Escape For Taxpayers:

The collapse of the “green” energy industry continued today, as Solar Trust of America LLC filed for bankruptcy. Solar Trust was, it claimed, carrying out the world’s largest solar energy project in California. Two things make Solar Trust’s bankruptcy especially newsworthy: first, Barack Obama’s Department of Energy offered the company a $2.1 billion loan guarantee just last year. Fortunately, Solar Trust turned it down:

Good God – keep reading.

Washington Confidential: Solar company bankrupt despite ‘win-win’ DOE loan: The list of bankrupt solar companies has grown since Schmidt scolded Solyndra investigators. How many more might go bankrupt? Secretary Chu won’t say.

Moe Lane: Debbie Wasserman Schultz gets eviscerated by Doug McIntyre of 790 KABC:

Hey, who wants to hear Debbie Wasserman Schultz do the rhetorical equivalent of stepping on a Bouncing Betty?  Well, we all do, of course.  The video below is theoretically 3 minutes, 26 seconds long – but you’ll have to stop it at least twice so that you can recover from your laughing fit.

Anyway, I don’t know Doug McIntyre, don’t know his politics, don’t really know his media market.  But what I do know is that he will be avoided by the DNC in the future, if only because any Democratic staffer who gets within fifty feet of him will probably now spontaneously burst into flames.

(An updated variant of this post has been crossposted to RedState)

Moe Lane

[UPDATE] We now have a transcript! A taste, via The Washington Free Beacon:

MCINTYRE: The mayor of Los Angeles [Antonio Villaraigosa] was hit with the largest ethics violations in the 200 year history of the city, three of his campaign bundlers are doing the perp walk, and if it wasn’t for millionaires and billionaires, there wouldn’t have been a shovel stuck in the ground in Los Angeles in the last five years. He makes backroom deals with big billionaire developers, while pretending to care about the 99 percent—please, we know the man’s record, we’ve lived with it.

DWS: Well, okay, Doug, is there something else you’d like to talk about? Because I think we’ve probably exhausted this part of the conversation.

Watch video at link.

CNS News: Philly Mayor: Bad Spinach Gets More National Attention Than Black-on-Black Violence:

Black-on-black violence is a “disease” that deserves a “national investigation,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter told a Youth Violence Prevention forum in Washington on Monday.

“It is a disease,” Nutter said. “It’s a rash, and if there were a rash killing a hundred and some odd young people on a daily basis we’d be doing something about it.”

The Truth About Guns: Quote of the Day: Narrative Destroying Edition

That would be the Zimmerman racial profiling narrative – which now lies in tatters, not that the truth matters to the likes of Sharpton, the New Black Panthers, and the Obama.

WyBlog: This blog proudly stands with “wrong people”

Hump Day Link-Around

Gary McCoy cartoon via Townhall.

Michelle Malkin: The war on Wisconsin:

Now is the time for all good tea partiers to come to the aid of Wisconsin. Fiscally conservative leaders in the Badger State are under coordinated siege from Big Labor, the White House, the liberal media and the judiciary. The yearlong campaign of union thuggery, family harassment and intimidation of Republican donors and businesses is about to escalate even further. This is the price the Right pays for doing the right thing.

The most visible target is Gov. Scott Walker, who faces recall on June 5 over his tough package of state budget and public employee union reforms. Three state GOP legislators — Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Sen. Van Wanggaard and Sen. Terry Moulton — also face recall. A fourth target, staunch union reformer and Second Amendment advocate Sen. Pam Galloway, announced she was stepping down last week — leaving the legislature deadlocked and Democratic strategists salivating.

Walker and the GOP majority ended the union compulsory dues racket, allowed workers to choose whether to join a union, curtailed costly bargaining rights and enacted pension and health contribution requirements to bring the government in line with private-sector practices. The Walker reform law helped prevent massive layoffs in public education by saving tens of millions of dollars in bloated benefits bills. Ending the state union monopoly on teachers’ health insurance plans allowed dozens of school districts to switch their coverage to more competitive bidders.

The free-market MacIver Institute reports that at least 25 school districts did so, saving the districts more than $200 per student. Hundreds of millions more in savings are in the works as school districts and local governments turn deficits to surpluses. And Walker’s actions have nearly wiped out the nearly $3.6 billion deficit he inherited from his free-spending predecessors.

Another embarrassing defeat for Holder’s rogue DOJ: Judge acquits Hutaree militia members of conspiracy charges:

In a 28-page decision, Roberts wrote, “The evidence is not sufficient … to find that defendants came to a concrete agreement to forcibly oppose the authority of the government of the United States as charged in the indictment.”

Prosecutors said Hutaree members were anti-government rebels prepared for a violent strike against federal law enforcement. There was never an attack, and defense lawyers said the government used members’ offensive remarks about police to build a criminal case.

The FBI had planted an informant and an agent inside the Hutaree militia starting in 2008, and the audio and video evidence the agency collected became the cornerstone of the government’s case.

“The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level,” the judge said. She said David Stone Sr.’s “diatribes evince nothing more than his own hatred for — perhaps even desire to fight or kill — law enforcement; this is not the same as seditious conspiracy.”

Gina Balaya, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment.

Maybe the DOJ could look into this injustice, now: Elderly Couple Terrorized Out Of Their Home By Spike Lee  What color are they, though? In ObAmerica, that would be the determining factor in deciding whether or not their rights have been violated.

And how about that New Black Panther Party?  What is it – day 4 or 5 of their illegal bounty to capture a man who hasn’t been charged of any crime in Florida, and not a single peep out of the Obama administration or DOJ. How can this be?

Now, via *Gateway Pundit, New Black Panther Leader Malik Shabazz Threatens to “Burn This City Down” at Detroit City Meeting (Video):

New Black Panther leader Malik Shabazz threatened to “burn this city down” at a town hall meeting in Detroit on Monday. About 30-40 people disrupted the meeting Monday.
“And, before we let you take over our city, we will burn it down!”

Have we finally become a Banana Republic?

*Not THE Malik Shabazz who is the leader of the New Black Panther Party – this is another Malik Shabazz who may or may not be affiliated with the New Black Panthers, and who claims the title of “Minister”.

By the way, in case you’re wondering what CNN did to get on Media Matters’ sh*t-list,  occasional honest and hard-hitting interviews like this Anderson Cooper interview of a Black Panther leader answers your question.

During an odd and fiery interview on CNN Monday night,  Anderson Cooper tussled with Mikhail Muhammad of The New Black Panther Party over the group’s reaction to the death of Florida Teen Trayvon Martin. The New Black Panther Party has offered a reward for the capture of Martin’s shooter George Zimmerman, and cited “street people law” during the interview Monday night as justification for charging murder against George Zimmerman while calling for a citizen’s arrest.

“He committed murder, he committed a hate crime,” Muhammad told Cooper of Zimmerman, explaining, “we decided to take it upon ourselves and coalition with other groups, with other black people who have had enough.”

Anderson continued to remind Muhammad that Martin’s father has explicitly rejected the “eye for an eye” rhetoric that some members of The New Black Panther Party have used, but the spokesman appeared to ignore the father’s request.

“We are military, we are here to support Trayvon’s family,” Muhammad argued, adding that the government wasn’t really there for Trayvon Martin and that “they have killed millions of black men and women.”

“You tell our justice department and Eric Holder and our President Obama to get off up their ass and do the work and the rest is done!” Muhammad went on to say. When pressed by Cooper on the legality, he responded that he could make a citizen’s arrest of Zimmerman, who has not yet been charged for anything, because the New Black Panther Party member doesn’t “obey the white man’s law,” but rather the “street people’s law.”

If you don’t know what I mean by “Media Matters Sh*t list”, see Jeffrey Bell’s must-read, The Plot to Get Rush.

Let’s stop here for a moment for a brief bit of historical background — not a detour but a very necessary context.

It is a big mistake — a really big mistake — to dismiss what’s being done to Rush Limbaugh as just some crazy guys at Media Matters.

When we work our way through what Angelo Carusone and his Media Matters comrades and others are doing when they target Rush, or went after Glenn Beck, or plan to do in targeting Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin and who knows who after that (Levin? Laura?) remember: this is the way the Left — the global left throughout history, not simply the American Left today — has always behaved. A fanatical intolerance is part of the leftist DNA.

The late Austrian free-market economist Ludwig von Mises described the leftist method of operation as “fanatical and intolerant.” It works, he said, this way:

Socialism… works on the emotions…to stifle the voice of reason by awakening primitive instincts.

Primitive instincts.

And that most primitive of human instincts? You got it.

Fear.

The skillful, clever use of fear (not to mention hate) is the defining trait of leftists throughout history. Fear is the primitive emotion the left feeds on like a junkie needs drugs. It is a trait repeatedly manifested in history by the use of intimidation or bully-boy tactics to assert raw power. It is the vividly identifiable scarlet thread of intolerance that has shown itself in one leftist movement after another on down through the centuries, regardless of nationality.

Read the whole thing, 9 pages long in all, but well worth your time.

And one more thing.

What is it Angelo Carusone is quoted as doing in that 2010 Raw Story interview? A story that was in fact focused on Glenn Beck?

Here’s the verbatim.

…Carusone is mounting similar campaigns targeting Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and CNN.

Beck is now off Fox’s air.

The Rush campaign is now in progress — but in spite of all this, in fact precisely because of all this, his audience is sticking — not to mention getting pretty damn mad.

CNN? What did these poor struggling media mushies do? No idea. But they have somehow offended the sensibilities of Commissar Carusone.

CNN sometimes strays from the left-wing narrative – that is not to be tolerated!

Doug Ross: Top 10 Reasons Obamacare IS Constitutional…

 I can assure you, despite all of the hullabaloo from the hoi polloi, that Obama is entirely, 100% Constitutional, no if’s and’s or but’s.

Seton Motley: ‘The Constitution is the Ultimate Pre-Existing Condition’:

Less Government President Seton Motley’s remarks at Tuesday’s Tea Party Patriots Road to Repeal ObamaCare rally (though he sometimes goes extemporaneous):

“Are these mics hot?

“First, we are very pleased the Supreme Court decided not to wait to hear this case until after the election – when they would have more flexibility.

“Because there is plenty of unConstitutionality on which to rule right now – that cannot wait until more convenient times for ObamaCare proponents.

“The Constitution is the ultimate pre-existing condition.

“The Constitution ascribes the federal government limited, enumerated powers.  Mandating that everyone purchase health insurance is, quite simply, not one of them.

“Neither is a virtual takeover of 1/6^th of the economy – the entire health care sector.  Which is what ObamaCare, in its essence, is.

Thousands of patriots rallied in Washington DC, and Jefferson City, at the AFP held Hands off my Healthcare rallies, yesterday.

LifeNews: Obama HHS Mandate Wasn’t Just About Contraception:

An ancient example of resistance to a tyrant’s attempt to coerce violations of religious conscience provides an interesting perspective on resistance to the Obama administration’s recent healthcare coverage mandate.

“Contraception” is not exactly the right term. The HHS mandate implementing Obamacare requires insurance plans of religious employers to provide not just contraception but also sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs–”morning-after” (and even “week-after”) pills designed to cause the death of a conceived human embryo rather than prevent conception. The technical term for such drugs is abortifacient, though they often are called, euphemistically, “emergency contraception.”

“Cram-down”is a perfect term for HHS’s policy, however. The whole point, it seems, is to override religious objections to such a policy to the maximum extent politically possible, out of an intense ideological commitment to contraception and abortion as “preventive health care.” It is vital, the ideologues say, to prevail over religious objections precisely in order to advance, and permanently entrench, this particular ideology and, further, to vindicate the power of government to impose such policies on everyone. Religious objections must be overcome, in part for the sake of overcoming religious objections.

Read on as the author recalls the biblical example from Maccabees: How Eleazar and an entire family of brothers were victims of a tyrannical ruler, and who were tortured to death because of  their refusal to violate their consciences.

But the story of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and Eleazar, remains a remarkable two-thousand-year-old parable about tyranny and conscience, about cram-downs, accommodations, deception, and adherence to principle. There are relatively few instances in recorded modern western history when government has insisted on vindicating its authority and overriding religious conscience for its own sake–purely for the symbolism of power prevailing over conscience.

I’ll be happy when justice is finally served in this case: Atlas Shrugs Free Michael Behenna: Scapegoating a Hero rotting in Leavenworth Date for Oral Arguments Set and a New Fund

The Circle of Moms blog is hosting a contest – Top 25 Political Moms – 2012

I’m not going to tell you how to vote, but Lonely Conservative has the best chance of beating the top vote getter, a far-left mommy blog. The contest goes on for about another week, and you can vote once a day.

Weasel Zippers: Poll: 68% Disapprove of Obama’s Job Handling Spike In Gas Prices…

Ouch, I guess no one was fooled by his phoney, face-saving photo-ops, last week.

Popular at Moonbattracker, right now:

Video: Trayvon Martin Anti-Violence Protester Beats Up Girlfriend, Goes To Jail

Video: Florida Dems Paying People To Protest Allen West

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From the desk of the Speaker of the House: Speaker Boehner Seeks Answers on President Obama’s “Flexibility” on Missile Defense:

Washington (Mar 28)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) today sent a letter to President Obama requesting answers about his comments to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev concerning America’s missile defense program. In October, Speaker Boehner delivered an address on the president’s “reset” policy with the Russian government in which he urged the administration not to make any unilateral concessions to the Russians that would diminish America’s missile defense capabilities. A PDF of the letter sent today can be found here.

Neutralize the left’s callus and evil death wishes for Dick Cheney and wish him a speedy and full recovery: GET WELL SOON MR. VICE PRESIDENT!

In a very scary and cynical interview that sounded more like a “Death Panel” under Obamacare, NBC’s Matt Lauer said “[Cheney's] case has re-opened debate on whether rules should be changed to favor younger patients”

NBC’s medical editor Nancy Snyderman said Cheney’s operation “…raised a lot of ethical questions, moral questions, about whether the Vice President, in fact, should have received his heart…”

Even more hateful were the comments posted on Democratic Underground, a website well-known for it’s extreme left slant. The follow are all quotes from their website!> “I hope he dies a slow death” > “Cheney is a murderer” > “I hope dick is in pain and drowning in his own fluids” > “I’m not going to feel anything but intense gratitude… [when he dies]“

Is this kind of sick demented talk even worthy of our attention? The answer is yes.

PLEASE SIGN IT NOW AND FORWARD IT TO OTHERS! SIGN THE GET WELL SOON CARD HERE!

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Fausta: Cuba: The Pope’s shameful trip:

 

Benedict turned a deaf ear to the people clamoring for freedom – in the video above you can hear the chant of “libertad, libertad” (freedom, freedom).

The Catholic Church remains silent on arrest of protestor and hundreds of dissidents in Cuba, yet,

Unofficial reports also seem to confirm the future saint Fidel’s first miracle: the instantaneous disappearance from the island of the Ladies in White and all dissidents.

The hand of God lets go of Cuba and Cubans?

Hump Day Link-Around: Santorum’s Victory Speech, Romney Not Sealing The Deal, Get Out, Newt!

Rick Santorum’s Victory Speech in Louisiana after his wins in Alabama and Mississippi:

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum addressed a crowd of supporters Tuesday night in Lafayette, Louisiana, after he was the projected winner in Alabama’s primary. “We’re campaigning everywhere there are delegates because we are going to win this nomination before the convention,” he told the crowd, saying he was headed to Puerto Rico for two days of campaigning there.

Analysis of last night:

Erick Erickson, Red State: Not Closing the Deal:

Newt Gingrich last night proved he is neither a regional candidate nor a spoiler. His influence is headed into Ron Paul territory. Gingrich could not win the deep south. He won Georgia and South Carolina. A Catholic yankee from Pennsylvania won Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and will probably win Louisiana. Even with Gingrich in the race, Santorum beat Romney. He was no spoiler. Gingrich’s final act could be king maker by getting out and endorsing, but pride cometh before the fall. Gingrich is in mid fall. What a sad end to a brilliant legacy. But his campaign is over. All we need is Haley Joel Osment and M. Night Shyamalan to point out to him he is dead.

Newt has played an important role in the primaries, by showing the other candidates how they must expose the Democratic media complex’s bias at every opportunity. Knowing what Obama is, and recognizing his administration’s Alinsky tactics, Newt’s rhetorical missiles hit Obama’s Achilles heel; his thinly veiled radicalism. The only bombs Mitt is willing to lob are aimed at his conservative counterparts. He continues to insist that Obama is a decent guy with good motivations who is just in over his head. Yesterday, his son actually said of Obama, “I think he’s great.”  The base keeps looking for an alternative to the bland, milquetoast, ruling class candidate.

But, I regret to say the time has come time for Newt to get out!

Dan Riehl concurs: I Backed Newt But The Honorable Thing For Him To Do Is Drop Out:

By losing as he did last night, he proved he can’t win much of anywhere. His candidacy is not viable. The only honorable move left for Newt is to drop out. Do the right thing, Newt. Enough GOP primary voters have spoken that, in my opinion, the best thing Newt can do now is to show some respect for them.

Please do the right thing, Newt.

Weekly Standard, Morning Jay: Morning Jay: Santorum’s Wins Come at Gingrich’s Expense:

The problem for Santorum is that he only netted six delegates over Romney in these two contests – and I am guessing that as of Wednesday morning (after American Samoa and Hawaii come in) Romney will have won the most delegates for the whole day. So, with many of Santorum’s best states now having finished voting – the caucuses in the Farm Belt and now much of the South – Romney still has a large delegate lead, with both California and New York still to come.

Thus, last night confirmed for me what I think is the dominant theme of this race: Romney is far from the consensus choice of the Grand Old Party, but his position in this race is strong enough that it is difficult to see how Santorum takes the nomination from him without changing pretty dramatically the dynamics of the race.

Romney Failed To Close The Deal! Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

In this video commentary, I discuss how Mitt Romney failed to close the deal and has now lost seven Southern or Border States. You can’t win the nomination with half a party! Tune in!

Smitty at The Other McCain:  Inevitability?

By the eye, Mitt has outspent his remaining three opponents combined by 2:1. . .But, for all that negative ad carpet bombing, he’s barely holding his own overall.

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In other news….

Duane Lester, RWN: Planets Aligning for Jacob Turk in Bid for Missouri’s Fifth District:

In 2008, Turk lost by 88,000 votes. In 2010, he was only 17,000 behind. Granted, 2008 was a big year for Democrats and 2010 an election dominated by the Tea Party. 2012 is up for grabs. If Republicans can motivate the base to turn out to vote against a second term for Obama, it could translate to big wins down ticket for people like Jacob Turk.Turk also has the added benefit of early financial support this time around.

“Not only did people want us to run, they said they’d cut a check early for us. And they were true to their word. As of December 31, we had raised ten times more than we had two years ago at the same time.”

Specifically, he had raised $114,964, more than he ran his first two campaigns on, combined.

Things finally seem to be coming together for Turk, and 2012 could be the year he finally wins, removing a lying, race baiting, Communist sympathizer from office and replacing him with conservative Marine Corps veteran.

For the sake of Missouri’s Fifth, and the country, I hope it is.

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Gateway Pundit: It’s Tea Time… ROAD TO REPEAL RALLY – March 24 – Washington DC:

Confirmed speakers include: Herman Cain, Ken Cucinelli, Steve Bannon, Jim Hoft, Tom Price, Louie Gohmert and others…

Government run health care is the best example of everything wrong with the federal government. It is financially reckless. No one knows what it will ultimately cost – or where the money will come from.

Additionally, ObamaCare will grow the federal government into every aspect of our lives. It will grow government into a massive bloated bureaucracy making health care decisions that directly affect you. In fact, the federal government must hire more than 17,000 IRS agents to enforce the law.

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Conservative News Daily: The Case to Impeach Obama Builds: Why the Right Should Start Preparing:

There is currently a resolution in Congress that would condemn Obama for “impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.” The central complaint is that the president committed our troops to an act of military aggression in Libya without an act of war, authorization, or even consultation with Congress after 60 days, as stipulated by the War Powers Act.

-

But reinforcing the conclusion that Obama does not even believe he needs Congressional authorization to wage war in principle is the recent testimony of his CIA Director Leon Panetta. The CIA director, who was not an intelligence expert by specialty before being appointed to recent security positions, provided a statement to Senate Armed Services Committee member Jeff Sessions that implied the president may use military force abroad without a declaration of war and without Congressional approval. Panetta’s remark was made in the context of a potential U.S.-led military campaign against Syria and carries implications for a looming armed conflict with Iran.

“You know, our goal would be to seek international permission,” Panetta said. “And we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from Congress.”

This specific remark, both brazen and profound in import, prompted Congressman Walter Jones to introduce House Concurrent Resolution 107, which would condemn President Obama for committing the “impeachable” offense of illegally committing American troops to military engagement. This is more than campaign electioneering from a Congressman in a safe district.  Our entire system of checks and balances and divided powers are at stake, not to mention our national sovereignty. Foreign policy analyst Bruce Ackerman rightly points out that Obama has done more to push this administration in the direction of an “imperial presidency” than George W. Bush ever did.

Building the case for Obama’s eventual impeachment, should it be required under this term or (heaven forbid) a subsequent one, is a list of twenty-one illegal acts brought forth by nine state Attorneys Generals. The diverse list includes everything from the National Labor Relations Board’s bullying of Boeing to the FCC’s imposition of net neutrality-type regulations in defiance of defeated legislation. Most significantly, it includes the PPACA (otherwise known as Obamacare), whose provisions of disputable constitutional authority are slated to be ruled on in the Supreme Court. The federal healthcare law continues to be very unpopular, including in several election “swing states.”

Not mentioned is Obama’s birth certificate forgery, which one would think is also a serious crime….

***

Selwyn Duke, The American Thinker: Why Obama’s Birth Certificate Matters, Especially Now:

There was a time when someone could perhaps justify sitting on the fence on the matter of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.  There were those on the left who could chalk doubts about its authenticity up to conspiratorial internet paranoia.  As for the right, there was every reason to worry about being the victims of an Alinsky-style setup designed to marginalize opponents.  In other words, let the other side double down on an incredible claim, and then, at the most opportune time (October surprise?), provide irrefutable evidence to the contrary and make them look like deluded wackos.  So, for a long time, there might have been reason to watch, wait, and let the wheels of investigation render their judgment.

That judgment is in, and the time for waiting is over.

With the results of Maricopa County, AZ sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “Cold Case Posse,” an incredible claim has become an incredible situation: a team of professional investigators, commissioned by a major law-enforcement agency, has determined that the alleged birth certificate produced by the president of the United States is a probable forgery.

Process that for a moment.  The regime of the world’s most powerful nation — a republic that prides itself on adherence to the rule of law — is likely peddling a forged document.  What say you, citizen?

I already know: “W-w-w-we c-c-can’t w-w-win on th-th-th-is issue…”

***

Rush Limbaugh: An Assault on the Symbols of America:

RUSH: There is nothing sacred anymore.  An Indian tribe in Wyoming has been given a permit to shoot bald eagles.  How does something like that happen?  How do you get a permit to shoot bald eagles?  I thought they were endangered or protected or something.  But this Indian tribe in Wyoming has been given permission.  Meanwhile, the Democrat Party headquarters in Lake County, Florida, has been flying a version of the American flag where Obama’s face is where the stars used to be.

It was an actual flag. They have taken an American flag, they’ve taken the stars out of it, and in the blue rectangle where the stars are they have put a picture of President Obama.  There seems to be a war on the symbols of America.  And in the case of the bald eagles, it’s a shooting war!  You can shoot bald eagles and now Obama’s face is on an American flag at Democrat Party headquarters in Lake County, Florida.

Speechless.

***

 Big Hollywood: EXCLUSIVE: Chris Rock Attacks Conservative Author Over Tea Party Question:

The New York Times bestselling author of the explosive new book, Hollywood Hypocrites: The Devastating Truth About Obama’s Biggest Backers, Jason Mattera, had his crew’s camera snatched and hurled by comedian Chris Rock when he asked the star why he has called the Tea Party racist (video below).

“I was stunned,” said Mr. Mattera in an exclusive interview with Big Hollywood. “Tea Party members get called the worst things imaginable and still remain peaceful. But ask a big Hollywood celebrity to explain himself and the guy goes ballistic, wrestles the camera away from my camerawoman, chucks it 50 feet, and then challenges me to a fight. It’s unreal. And it perfectly illustrates why I decided to investigate and writeHollywood Hypocrites.”

The confrontation, which took place around 2:00 a.m. on January 23, 2012, at Spike Lee’s Sundance Film Festival after party at Tao night club, ended with Chris Rock challenging the conservative author to a fight, says Mr. Mattera:

Video at link…

***

Newsbusters: Open Letter to MSNBC President Phil Griffin: Take Responsibility for Hateful Ed Schultz:

Your network, working on marching orders from Media Matters, is on a mission to take Rush Limbaugh off the air. Far from being an independent journalistic enterprise, MSNBC is the very essence of a political lapdog of the far left.

Just last night on MSNBC, Ed Schultz, Al Sharpton, and Lawrence O’Donnell all devoted time on their programs attacking Rush. In each case, they grabbed at thin air looking, looking, looking for the opportunity shamelessly to keep the story alive.

These assaults by MSNBC have nothing to do with what he said about Sandra Fluke, and everything to do with censoring prominent voices on the right. Gas prices are nearing $4 a gallon, the unemployment rate hovers over 8%, the US debt is soaring to astronomical highs, but MSNBC is too busy to cover these legitimate news stories. Instead you go after Rush.

And you’re doing it in the most hypocritical manner imaginable.

Keep reading…

***

The Mental Recession: Voter Fraud Juror – There Were “Just Too Many Charges”:

Yesterday, after repeated declarations from the jury that they were hopelessly deadlocked, the Judge in the New York voter fraud trial pulled the plug and declared a mistrial, ordering the case retried.  The result was unsurprising and likely appropriate considering the circumstances.

One of the jurors is now speaking out about deliberations.  And what does come as a surprise is one of the reasons she says they could not reach a verdict – they were too confused.

Apparently, despite the fact that they were encouraged by Judge Pulver to take their time and work things out, and despite not being bound by any timeframe to reach a verdict, the jury allegedly tossed their hands skyward, and declared the numerous charges to be impossible to keep track of, and too complicated.

***

Zombie: New Rules for Old Farts:

If you remember when health insurance was optional, you are an old fart.

If you are polite to strangers, you are an old fart.

If you’ve ever changed a typewriter ribbon, you are an old fart.

If there was only one fat kid in your class, you are an old fart.

If you think “Occupy” is a verb and not a noun, you are an old fart.

If you just want to be left alone, you are an old fart.

If you remember when only sailors had tattoos, you are an old fart.

If you remember when civil rights meant equal rights, not reverse discrimination, you are an old fart.

If you’ve never uploaded naked photographs of yourself, you are an old fart.

Thursday Link-around – America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President

Cartoon by Darleen Click, Protein Wisdom

Historian David Barton calls Obama America’s Most Biblically-Hostile U. S. President:

When one observes President Obama’s unwillingness to accommodate America’s four-century long religious conscience protection through his attempts to require Catholics to go against their own doctrines and beliefs, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Catholic. But that characterization would not be correct. Although he has recently singled out Catholics, he has equally targeted traditional Protestant beliefs over the past four years. So since he has attacked Catholics and Protestants, one is tempted to say that he is anti-Christian. But that, too, would be inaccurate. He has been equally disrespectful in his appalling treatment of religious Jews in general and Israel in particular. So perhaps the most accurate description of his antipathy toward Catholics, Protestants, religious Jews, and the Jewish nation would be to characterize him as anti-Biblical. And then when his hostility toward Biblical people of faith is contrasted with his preferential treatment of Muslims and Muslim nations, it further strengthens the accuracy of the anti-Biblical descriptor. In fact, there have been numerous clearly documented times when his pro-Islam positions have been the cause of his anti-Biblical actions.

Listed below in chronological order are (1) numerous records of his attacks on Biblical persons or organizations; (2) examples of the hostility toward Biblical faith that have become evident in the past three years in the Obama-led military; (3) a listing of his open attacks on Biblical values; and finally (4) a listing of numerous incidents of his preferential deference for Islam’s activities and positions, including letting his Islamic advisors guide and influence his hostility toward people of Biblical faith.

Read on to see Barton’s carefully compiled and lengthy lists of 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, Acts of preferentialism for Islam.

I’m glad that someone went to the trouble of assembling the evidence in an easy to read, condensed form.

Those of us who have been paying attention, have watched Obama’s animus toward Judeo-Christian values for the past several years in horrified disbelief. It is the reason why so many people doubt Obama is really a Christian himself, even though he claims to be.

***

The Foundry: Morning Bell: The Calls for Liberty Have Not Been Silenced:

Call it what you want — a circus, a sideshow, or just plain old political rhetoric — but for the past week America has watched the media elite and some in Washington bend over backward to turn attention away from an issue that is fundamental to the future of this country: Obamacare’s attack on individual liberty. While those who favor its mandates may think they have changed the debate and quelled opposition, they are sorely mistaken.

It all stems from a decision by the Obama Administration to mandate that religious employers, including schools, hospitals, and charities, provide health care coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and contraception despite the fact that such coverage is in total contradiction of many of these groups’ core religious beliefs. Some have attempted to make this a debate about other issues, but despite their efforts, the core complaint about this anti-conscience mandate remains: The President’s policy is an unprecedented attack on all Americans’ rights as protected by the First Amendment. And those who prize religious liberty aren’t backing down.

In a letter last week to Catholic bishops in the United States, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York and president of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, described his resolve to continue opposition to the mandate, despite the White House’s call to come to the table of so-called “accommodation”:

***

John Hawkins, RWN: The Rush Limbaugh Boycott Is A Miserable Failure, Ha Ha Ha!:

This boycott may actually end up HELPING Rush because what’s going on with Carbonite is giving people the idea that Rush’s show can have a massive impact, both positive and negative, on the price of a company’s stock. Now that would be ironic…

***

Legal Insurrection: Carbonite shoots its business model in the foot:

It is significant that Carbonite not only lost access to Rush’s audience, it angered that audience by deviating from its previous non-political advertising policy and seeming to take sides by continuing to advertise on liberal talk shows where the personal invective is more frequent and more pronounced.

As Investors Business Daily puts it:

In expressing his own opinion about Limbaugh, Friend put Carbonite out front in a way that now has it in a delicate balancing act between forces who endorse and oppose its actions.

If the history of newly issued small capitalization high-growth public offerings is any guide, if Carbonite misses its sales, retention or revenue goals even by a little, the market reaction may make this past week’s decline seem like the good old days.

At that point, VC and public investors will have to ask, did our CEO put his own political leanings ahead of the interest of the shareholders?  And if so, was it worth shooting Carbonite’s business model in the foot?

***

Sweetness and Light: David Axelrod To Appear On Bill Maher Show:

From The Daily:

Obama adviser slams Romney for Limbaugh while planning to go on Maher

WND: Did threats silence media on Obama probe?

The lead investigator in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s review of the authenticity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate today unloaded a bombshell about the case: that he was told by sources members of the media were threatened with federal investigations should they continue to report on the birth certificate issue.

Lead investigator Mike Zullo told WND that as he was preparing information to be presented to the public “it was clear that the mainstream media was not going to be in attendance” at the sheriff’s scheduled new conference, where he presented facts suggesting both fraud and forgery in the image of a Hawaiian birth certificate that the White House released last yearas “proof positive” of Obama’s eligibility for office.

“During our investigation, we actually were told [that media] had been threatened with FTC investigations. Commentators [had been] threatened with their jobs,” Zullo said.

The threats were so intimidating that some individuals quit their positions over safety concerns for their families, he said.

Yid With Lid: Can You Judge A President by His Jew-Hating Friends?

Yesterday’s release of the Barack Obama/Derrick Bell Harvard tape was seen by many as another example of the President’s long history associating with radicals. There is another interpretation however. When Obama urged people to open up their hearts and minds to Bell it was another case of him “cozying” up to an Anti-Semite.  Understand we are not talking about people who are Anti-Israel (although there is a huge crossover of the two) but people who regularly use Anti-Semitic stereotypes or more direct derogatory comments about Jews.

***

Protein Wisdom: “The Vetting: CNN Implodes Over Breitbart’s Obama/Bell Video”:

Note: We don’t need to apologize for vetting Barack Obama. We don’t need to let Soledad O’Brien try to redefine and neuter critical race theory and dissemble about what its aims were. We don’t need to fear smirking innuendo that, because we have actually read and understood what “theorists” like Professor Bell advocate, we are somehow pasty racist pussies afeared of the revenge of Mandigo.

We are allowed to reject those premises — and rather than take the easy way out and try to avoid being put into positions where thinly-veiled accusations of racism are levied against us (we’re still being counseled to watch what we say, so as not to draw the attentions of those whose very goal it is to comb our political speech for snippets they can remove from context and use to create false narratives about what we believe, which they pin back on us) — we need to make our political opponents express their indictments directly, and then beat them back forcefully until they come to understand that the ease with which they launch these smears has the consequence that the public recognizes just how cynical and disingenuous and ideologically motivated they are.

Video at the link.

And this next story answers O’Brien’s guest’s question to Joel Pollak – What are you frightened of?  What is it about Professor Bell’s critical race theory that so upsets you?

Selwyn Duke of The American Thinker: Was Boy in K.C. Fire Attack a Victim of His School’s Racist Teaching?

The boy raised his hand, eager to answer the question.  “What would you know about it?” exclaimed the teacher dismissively.  “You’re not our race.”

This was not dialogue from a Hollywood movie.  According to a woman named Melissa Coon, it was what a teacher at East High School in Kansas City told her 13-year-old son, Allen, when he attempted to answer a question during Black History Month.  Coon identifies that teacher as Mrs. Karla Dorsey, who is black; Allen is white.

As has already been reported, Allen was a victim of a vicious racial attack last week in which two older black teens doused him with gasoline and set him alight, saying, “This is what you deserve.  You get what you deserve, white boy.”  Not surprisingly, Coon has pulled her son out of East High and, concerned about further racial violence, intends to leave the K.C. area.

While this crime is making headlines, Coon states that it was merely the horrible culmination of continual racial harassment her son had to endure at East High.  Moreover, after conducting an investigation that included extensive interviews with parents and students, I’ve learned that Coon’s son is not alone.  Other white students also report a pattern of racial harassment at the high school at the hands of their peers — and, shockingly, their teachers.

Two of these victims were the twin 14-year-old daughters (first names withheld upon request) of Karin Wildeisen.  Ever since their family relocated from Texas, they had endured racial animosity in the Kansas City school system and inappropriate behavior by staff, which included teachers laughing while boys humiliatingly manhandled the girls and a teacher slapping one of them on the backside.  But there was far worse to come.

The twins started coming home and talking about the goings-on in an advanced-English class taught by a teacher Wildeisen identifies as Ms. Veda Monday.  Wildeisen said that her daughters told her, “There are four white kids in the class; they are being targeted racially.”  They said that Monday, who is black, was feeding the class racial material, about which Wildeisen notes, “She’s teaching advanced English; she has no reason to be teaching civil rights.”

But then there was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  One day, Monday allegedly showed an explicit film involving portrayals of whites lynching blacks and then, reports ex-Texan Wildeisen, “in front of the class attacked my daughters, telling them that ‘everybody from Texas is ignorant rednecks’” and that all white people were “responsible for Jasper because [their] skin is white.”  This reference is to an atrocity in Jasper, TX, in which three white men murdered a black man in 1998.

Where would a teacher get the idea that all whites are responsible for the Jasper tragedy?  It’s not hard to figure out.  Black liberation theology (BLT) instructs, writes the man some regard as its father, Professor James Cone, that “[a]ll white men are responsible for white oppression.”  And how common is BLT?  Well, Cone’s books were required reading at Barack Obama’s longtime house of worship in Chicago, Trinity United Church of Christ.

Keep reading…Duke’s only getting started. That school is an abomination.

Welcome to Derek Bell’s, Jeremiah Wright’s, and Barack Obama’s America.

***

Big Government: Obama Forced His Students to Read Bell at University of Chicago Law School:

Barack Obama made his own students at the University of Chicago Law School read some of Derrick Bell’s most radical and racially inflammatory writings.

In 1994, Barack Obama taught a course at the University of Chicago Law School entitled, “Current Issues in Racism and the Law.” The reading list and syllabus for that class were made available by the New York Times in 2008, though there seems to have been little analysis of its content by Jodi Kantor, the Times’s Obama correspondent.

Obama routinely assigned works by Bell as required reading, including Bell’s racialist interpretations of seminal civil rights laws and cases. No other scholar’s work appears as often in the syllabus as Bell’s does.

Obama relied particularly heavily upon Bell’s major work, Race, Racism, and American Law (1973). Now in its sixth edition, the book lays out Bell’s Critical Race Theory, which is based on the Alinskyite presumption that all of law is a construct–not of justice, but of power exercised by whites against blacks.

***

Big Government: Revealed: Derrick Bell’s HBO Sci-Fi Blaxploitation Flick:

Derrick Bell, the man whose scholarship inspired Barack Obama, was the Jeremiah Wright of academia.

And a Hollywood cult hero.

Bell was one of the chief proponents of Critical Race Theory, a radical doctrine that holds that American legal institutions—including our civil rights laws—perpetuate white supremacy.

Bell’s ideas were not only radical, but bizarre. After leaving Harvard (he resigned in 1992), he wrote a racialist, antisemitic fictional essay titled “The Space Traders,” which Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski described in the New York Times with disgust:

Imagine, if you will, that space aliens land in the United States and offer ”untold treasure” in exchange for surrendering all black citizens to them. What does white America do? It votes to accept the deal by overwhelming margins. So says the law professor Derrick Bell, who poses the question in an allegorical tale he calls ”The Space Traders.”

There is opposition, however. Jews condemn the trade as genocidal and organize the Anne Frank Committee to try to stop it. Empathy from another group that has suffered oppression? Not according to Bell. Instead, Jews worry that ”in the absence of blacks, Jews could become the scapegoats.”

Such parables pass for legal scholarship these days…

The Foundry: Derrick A. Bell Visited the White House Twice in 2010:

Heritage could not independently confirm that the Derrick A. Bell listed is the same individual who spoke at the rally. The White House did not return a request for comment.

The Right Scoop: 1990 – Thomas Sowell explains Derrick Bell:

Great video picked up by the Breitbart crew in the vetting of Barack Obama. Sowell, in this video, describes how Bell didn’t just want Harvard to hire a black woman, but a black woman who didn’t “think white”. In other words, it was more about ideology thank skin color.

As Dr. Melissa Clouthier explains on twitter, the idea of Critical Race Theory means “Merit-based is wrong. Color-blind is wrong. (Non-white) Racial supremacy is right.”

And this radical view is what Barack Obama decided to take a stand for at Harvard. Wow.

Hack Wilson: Who is Professor Derrick Bell and what is Critical Race Theory?

Freedom’s Lighthouse: Rick Santorum: “An Honest President would Tell You that We are at War with Radical Islamists” – Video 3/7/12

***

The Right Scoop: Unbelievable: Panetta cites international law as legal basis for military action:

No need for Congressional approval in the age of Obama.

***

WHD:Carney: The GOP is Politcizing Keystone. The GOP?

This is what’s known in the comedic world as “a good one.”

Said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney today:

The president believes that it is wrong to play politics with a pipeline project whose route has yet to be proposed.

President Obama late last year rejected a route for the Keystone pipeline through Nebraska after his own administration had declared it environmentally sound, caving only after a large group of angry environmentalists SURROUNDED THE WHITE HOUSE and demanded he block the plan.

So he moved to please the enviros, an understandable political calculation that will nevertheless hurt the nation by denying us all that wonderful black gold from Canada for at least another year.

***

The Other McCain:Ziegler: Breitbart Thought Matt Drudge Was ‘In the Tank’ for Obama in 2008:

In a Wednesday talk-radio appearance, conservative filmmaker John Ziegler said that the late Andrew Breitbart told him that during the 2008 presidential election campaign, Matt Drudge altered content on his famous Drudge Report site in such a way that Breitbart believed Drudge was “in the tank” for Barack Obama.

As so many of us suspected at the time.

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!

Monday Catch-Up

Seton Motley, Less Government: Obama to Replace Biden on the 2012 Ticket with…the Chevy Volt:

President Barack Obama is, as we know, oh so thoroughly invested in General Motors (GM).  Both monetarily ($50 billion) and metaphorically.

Obama is campaigning for reelection on the utterly failed “success” of the auto bailout.  On which he once promised we’d make money – then had to begrudgingly up the (admitted to) loss from $14.3 billion to $23.6 billion.

(And We the Taxpayers still own 500 million shares of GM stock – which is tanking.  So that loss number still has growth potential.)

And nothing better epitomizes Obama’s all-encompassing uber-failure than the expensive, uber-subsidized, overproduced, unprofitable, unpopular, combustible Volt.

So why shouldn’t Obama on his reelect ticket replace Vice President Joe Biden – who delivers him very little – with the Volt – which delivers him so much?

In oh so many ways, the bankrupt GM and its miserable Volt epitomize the bankrupt and miserable Obama Administration.

Big Government: Is the IRS Attempting to Intimidate Local Tea Parties?

In January and February of this year, the Internal Revenue Service began sending out letters to various local Tea Parties across the country. Mailed from the same Cincinnati, Ohio IRS office, these letters have reached Tea Parties in Virginia, Hawaii, Ohio, and Texas (we are hearing of more daily). There are several common threads to these letters: all are requesting more information from these independent Tea Parties in regard to their nonprofit 501(c)(4) applications (for this type of nonprofit, donations are not deductible). While some of the requests are reasonable, much of them are strikingly onerous and, dare I say, Orwellian in nature.

Keep reading. Don’t worry -  I’m sure they’re just as interested in the financial status of OWS.

The New American: AG Holder Could Be Jailed for Ongoing Fast & Furious Cover-up:

Tensions are rising quickly in the investigation of the deadly federal gun-running operation “Fast and Furious” as Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice continues to unlawfully withhold subpoenaed documents. The persistent stonewalling prompted Congress to renew its warning that contempt proceedings against top Obama administration officialsare imminent if the cover-up does not end.

The Justice Department missed another deadline earlier this month to hand over key information to congressional investigators, asking — yet again — for more time to consider the requests and produce the documents. The media barely noticed. But after a year of stonewalling and cover-ups, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has had just about enough.

In a letter dated February 14, Rep. Issa warned Holder (above) that failure to comply with a congressional subpoena is a violation of federal law. About two thirds of the document categories sought by investigators have been unlawfully withheld without any proper justification, he said, noting that much of what has been handed over was so heavily redacted as to be rendered useless.

As such, the letter ordered the nation’s top law enforcement officer to appoint a DOJ representative who will “serve as the conduit for dealing with the contempt proceedings, should the Department continue to ignore the Committee’s subpoena.” If convicted, Holder could face jail time and hefty fines.

“The Justice Department’s request for additional time has, unfortunately, not been followed by efforts to bridge the significant differences between its legal obligation to Congress and the reality of its stonewalling,” Chairman Issa said in a statement blasting the DOJ. The Committee declined Holder’s request for more time.

Rep. Issa emphasized that, in light of the ongoing DOJ cover-up, Congress had no choice but to take action. “If the Justice Department cannot commit to providing, at a minimum, a detailed description of documents it is withholding, and the legal basis for doing so, then the Committee has no other option than to move forward with the contempt process against Attorney General Holder,” he said in the statement.

Big Journalism: MMfA’s David Brock Paid Former Partner $850k in “Blackmail” Settlement:

Grey threatened to go public about Brock and Media Matters’ finances after he accused Brock in a civil suit filed in Washington of taking $170,000 in possessions, including an $8,000 Louis Vuitton suit bag, paintings, a rug, a chandelier, a painted bust of a Roman soldier and a pair of carved wooden chairs upholstered with purple fabric. Those possessions were displayed in the Washington townhouse where the couple entertained liberal movers and shakers in happier times.

Brock took Grey’s threats seriously and called police in 2010. In the police report, filed by Metropolitan Police as a stalking incident, Brock accused Grey, also 49, of attempting to blackmail him with a series of emails threatening to “release specific derogatory information about [Brock] and his organization to the press and donors that would be embarrassing to him and cause harm to the organization …”

The American Spectator: Santorum’s Tax Plan:

In the Wall Street Journal today, former Senator and current Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum lays out his economic and tax framework.

He begins with an aggressive attack on Mitt Romney:

Attempting to distract from his record of tax and fee increases as governor of Massachusetts, poor job creation, and aggressive pursuit of earmarks, he now says he wants to follow my lead and lower individual as well as corporate marginal tax rates.

It’s a good start. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough. He says his proposed tax cuts would be revenue neutral and, borrowing the language of Occupy Wall Street, promises the top 1% will pay for the cuts. No pro-growth tax policy there, just more Obama-style class warfare.

By contrast, in my first 100 days as president, I’ll submit to Congress and work to pass a comprehensive pro-growth and pro-family Economic Freedom Agenda.

Santorum then highlights 10 areas of tax and economic policy:

1. Increase energy production
2. Reduce regulation, especially at EPA
3. New tax rate structure, with only two rates (10%, 28%), along with tripling child deduction and eliminating marriage penalty
4. Cut corporate tax rate in half, to 17.5%, and eliminate tax on repatriated income
5. Cut spending $5 trillion over five years
6. Repeal Obamacare (mentioned along with the requisite attack on Romneycare.)
7. Balance budget in 4 years and support Balanced Budget Amendment
8. Support free trade agreements
9. Reform, reduce, and block grant entitlement programs
10. Housing: Phase out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allow tax deduction for capital loss on homes

It’s a strong plan, commendable for its relative simplicity, with little to disagree with.

Continue reading at the link.

Big Government: Reagan Economists: Newt’s Economic Plan Is The Most Pro-Growth:

While Mitt Romney has only just come out with a new 20% income tax economic plan, after months of campaigning, Stephen Moore, senior economics writer for the Wall Street Journal, says Newt Gingrich’s plan is indeed the most pro-growth.

Breitbart TV: Newt: I’ve ‘Fallen Short Of The Glory Of God’:

Speaking at the First Redeemer Church in Cumming, Georgia, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said he has, “Fallen short of the glory of God.” Gingrich leads in the polls in Georgia ahead of the March 6 primary.

Something is rotten in the state of New Mexico —

Firearms Coalition: Terri Reese Released on Bail!

Prosecutors claim that denying bail to the Reeses follows a precedent set in a “similar” recent case in Columbus, New Mexico.  In that case, the mayor and other prominent citizens – all Mexican-Americans with close ties to Mexico – were actively working directly with Mexican drug gangs in a trafficking scheme.  Those defendants were held without bail as flight risks.  The Reeses are accused of, at worst, selling to questionable buyers and have no personal or family connections with Mexico.

Terri Reese recently had a new bail hearing in which prosecutors showed a video of an informant purchasing ammunition.  At the close of the sale Terri tore a mailing label off of a box with a comment about not wanting it to be traced back to them.  The prosecutor insisted that this was proof that Terri knew the ammo was destined for Mexico.  Terri’s lawyer explained that store labels on trash left at informal shooting areas had led to friction with local property owners.  He also pointed out that Terri had called ATF about a woman she suspected might be making straw purchases.  She was told they would look into it and that she should carry on as normal.  The woman turned out to be a government informant.  Sales to that informant constitute the core charges against Terri Reese.  As of press time, we are still awaiting a bail decision from the judge.

Meanwhile Eric Holder again testified before the House Government Reform Committee investigating the Fast & Furious fiasco in which government agents instructed gun dealers to sell thousands of firearms to suspected gun traffickers.  We now know that there was never any plan or attempt made to track or follow the guns and that Washington was actively seeking numbers from those sales to bolster support for a rule requiring dealers to report sales of multiple semi-auto long guns.  Several federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency and the FBI have admitted knowing about the tactics and being advised by DOJ to leave it alone.  The inter-agency cooperation clearly indicates very high-level involvement in keeping the Gunwalking scheme going, yet no one in a position of authority at the DOJ admits to authorizing the operation which has contributed to hundreds of murders – including that of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

The American Thinker: Why is Obama in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood?:

Obama has decidedly moved from an alliance with Israel to an alliance with the Islamists.

MK Aryeh Eldad, in a speech given in the fall in the U.S., when Israel was intending to act against Iran militarily, said word came down from the White House that “if you act alone, you will remain alone.”  Because Israel is so dependent on the U.S. for resupply of weapons and munitions in a prolonged war, this threat changed the calculus immediately.  It is true that when Mahmoud Abbas was threatening to go to the U.N. for recognition, the Obama administration lobbied around the world for negative votes.  But at the same time, Obama threatened Netanyahu that Obama would withhold his veto if Israel took punitive action against the PA by annexing some of the territories or by withholding funds.  Finally, he used the same threat to get Israel to instruct AIPAC to lobby Congress not to punish the PA by withholding U.S. funds.

Over the last six months, Israel has been warned by a succession of senior military and administration officials not to attack Iran, at this time, all in the name of giving sanctions a chance.  But who believes that sanctions will stop Iran?  And who believes that that the U.S. will in the end attack Iran to stop them?

So while Obama is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, he is keeping Israel under his thumb.

Isi Leibler takes exception to all this and reminds everyone:

[T]his organization [The Muslim Brotherhood]  represents one of the most fanatical and dangerous of the radical Islamist groups in the region, with a dark record of violence and terrorism imbedded in its DNA. It is rabidly anti-Western, anti-Christian, antisemitic, committed to imposing sharia law and a global Caliphate – and willing to employ any means to further its objectives.

Many would argue that Obama is also “anti-Western, anti-Christian[, and] antisemitic.”  Judging by his policies, they would be right.

Flashback: Founder Of The Muslim Canadian Congress Says Muslim Brotherhood Has Infiltrated White House (With Updates):

Fatah campaigned for Barack Obama, and now is now saying, via Noisy Room:

“I want you to focus and I hope you can talk to your families and your friends and your neighbors that when someone says that there is a penetration of Jihadi Islamists within Canadian society, do not dismiss it as some right-wing xenophobic racist rant.

Today in the White House there are three members of the Muslim Brotherhood that influence Obama’s policy.

• One is Rashad Hussain of Indian origin who is the American Ambassador to the 52 nation organization of Islamic countries.
• Dialia Mogahed who writes his speech who comes from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
• Just day before yesterday, another woman, an academic, was appointed in that circle.

This is happening while we sit silent and I say that as a Liberal Democrat, as someone who worked and campaigned for Barack Obama.

We have evidence in Canada of this penetration that’s going on.”

What we’re seeing is a Radical Islam/WH alliance that  is proving to be very much to Israel’s detriment.

RS McCain, The American Thinker: The Fight and the Fighter:

As with Romney’s previous attacks on Newt Gingrich, Santorum finds himself presented with a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t dilemma: The attacks cannot simply be ignored and yet, when the target responds, he is accused of being “defensive,” of seeming “angry” or even “whining.” Nevertheless, the very fact that Romney has found himself having to spend millions of dollars in an effort to avoid an embarrassing defeat in his native Michigan is testimony to the power of Santorum’s challenge. He has made a direct and quite personal appeal to blue-collar voters in the state he calls “America’s industrial heartland.” During his Sunday night speech, while discussing his energy policy, Santorum elicited cheers when he said, “I’m not a Texas oilman… [but] yes, I have an energy background: My grandfather was a coal miner.”

Thursday Link-Around, Beelzebub Edition

Via The People’s Cube

The People’s Cube: The Teachings of Jesus and Obama: A Reference Chart

The Other McCain: Satan Angered by New Poll Showing Santorum Ahead 34%-18% in Wisconsin:

…a new poll conducted by Marquette University shows Republican voters in Wisconsin are clearly anti-Satan:

Rick Santorum ………… 34%
Mitt Romney …………… 18%
Ron Paul ………………… 17%
Newt Gingrich …………. 12%

Michelle Malkin: The high priests of eco-destruction:

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 (pdf) by Dr. Corey Goodman, a high-ranking member of the National Academy of Sciences. Extensive information about Jarvis’ 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 Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Sens. 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.”

Atlas Shrugs: Submission: Groveling Hussein Obama Apologizes to Afghan President:

Does the humilation ever end under this president? Will this man every let us hold our heads up as Americans under his reign?

It was stomach churning to watch this video yesterday of a US four star General groveling for forgiveness to jihadists for “mishandling” extremist materials.  The fish stinks from the head down and this is Obama’s foreign policy. Is it any wonder that jihadist attempts in this country have skyrocketed under this asshat?

And what is he on his belly for? This:

Religious materials — including Qurans that were burned at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, sparking Afghan protests — were removed from the library of a detainee center “because of extremist inscriptions” on them, a military official said Tuesday.

There was “an appearance that these documents were being used to facilitate extremist communications,” a military official said.

“Additionally, some of the documents were extremist in and of themselves, apparently originating from outside of Afghanistan,” the official said.

The official said the material was burned, but authorities are attempting to determine how much.

Line-o-the-day, right here:

Obama is forcing the Catholic church to violate its doctrines while cravenly submitting to Islamic teachings about the quran. Where is the respect to Christians that he demands we give to Muslims? And where the hell is the GOP?

The craven appeasers in this administration understand there will be no deadly riots in the streets when it tries to force its will on Catholics.

Have you seen this, yet?: Creeping Sharia: Citizens restrain Muslim shouting “Allah is great” on Portland to Houston flight (video):

The TSA said the incident was not a security issue. “Continental Flight 1113, Portland to Houston, returned to Portland when a passenger refused to obey the ‘No Smoking” sign. The passenger and traveling companion were taken off the plane,” Christen David of United/ Continental Corporate Communications said in a released a statement.It was not known what charges would be filed.

Not a security issue. Little old ladies and and young children are getting groped in the groin by TSA screeners, while “non security threats” like this guy get on  – Houston, we’ve got a problem.

Creeping Sharia: Muslim who disrupted Continental flight arrested in vehicular jihad 2 days earlier

Ironic Surrealism noted the same Muslim was arrested two days earlier:

An intoxicated Saudi Arabian man visiting relatives in the area led police on a car chase around Ashland Sunday night and rammed two patrol cars before he was arrested, police said.

Yazeed Mohammeda Abunayyan, 19, drove the wrong way on Siskiyou Boulevard “several times,” with at least three police cars in pursuit, Ashland police Sgt. Bob Smith said Monday.

Smith said Ashland Sgt. Art Le Cours located Abunayyan as he drove his California-licensed silver Ford sedan into the Safeway parking lot. There, Abunayyan clipped the front passenger side of Le Cours’ patrol car, then attempted to run over a pedestrian in the parking lot, Smith said.

Then he was allowed to get on a plane.

Andrew McCarthy at The Corner:  Guess Who Decides What FBI Agents Get To Learn About Islam?

While we’re on the subject of the Muslim Brotherhood, this February 16 report from Steve Emerson at the Investigative Project on Terrorism will be an eye-opener. As I mentioned in my column over the weekend, the FBI — following the administration’s lead — is purging its training materials of publications that are deemed offensive to Muslims (you know, crazy stuff like claims that passages in the Koran and Hadith promote violent jihad, Islamic supremacism, killing of apostates, oppression of women, etc.). So what are the criteria the Bureau uses to figure out what materials are offensive? And who decides?

You’ll never guess.

Zilla: Bloggers Beware – A Cautionary Tale:

There is festering parasite clinging to the underbelly of the Dextrosphere…

Consider yourselves forewarned – this cretin is a has had a presence in the right-wing blogosphere for years under various blog titles. Best to avoid it.

Points and Figures: 15 Questions The Mainstream Media Would Ask Barack Obama If He Were A Republican (Of course, he wouldn’t be a Republican if these questions needed to be asked):

The only thing they don’t ask Republican candidates about much is economic questions and debt questions. Instead they ask horribly slanted, often irrelevant questions designed to make them look bad and help Obama. We’ve heard questions about contraceptives, religion, Newt’s angry ex-wife, Cain’s employees, Romney’s personal wealth, Gardasil, etc. Newt’s rise was because of the way he attacked the media and Obama in the debates because of the stupid and obviously planted questions.

So, what would happen if the mainstream media treated Barack Obama the exact same way they treat Republicans? The questions might sound a little something like this.

1) Numerous Mexican citizens and an American citizen have been murdered with weapons knowingly provided to criminals by our own government during Operation Fast and Furious. If Eric Holder was aware that was going on, do you think he should step down as Attorney General? Were you aware of Fast and Furious and if so, shouldn’t you resign?

2) In 2010 you said Solyndra, a company that donated heavily to your political campaign, was “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” Today, Solyndra is bankrupt and the taxpayers lost over $500 million on loans that your administration knew might never be paid off when you made them. How do you respond to citizens who say this is evidence of corruption in your administration?

Etc. Keep reading. Sometimes it’s fun to play make-believe.

Disgusting, but predictable, Obama Camp joins the deplorable Kos in an attempt to prop up who they consider the weakest candidate, because “it’s freaking hilarious”: USA Today: Obama runs anti-Romney ad in Michigan:

Obama’s campaign is running an ad in Michigan promoting rescue of the car business, and bashing Republicans for opposing government assistance to once-ailing industry.

“Don’t bet against the American worker,” Obama says in the ad.

The commercial also features a picture of Republican candidate Mitt Romney over a newspaper headline, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

Will Obama’s ad push some votes in Tuesday’s primary to Romney opponents, particularly Rick Santorum?

You want “freaking hilarious”? See the  Pic of the Day via Looking Spoon, as seen at Larwyn’s Links  – it made me spit out my coffee, this morning.

Gotta take a break – Check back – more to come.

MORE:

Ace of Spades HQ: Santorum Suspects Romney-Paul Alliance; Other People Suspecting This Include Me, Everyone Else:

What an odd alliance. Made up of one person I loathe and another person I used to oppose. And now I’m okay with it.

Politics, bedfellows, etc.

Santorum says they’re in cahoots.

Really Ace? You’re okay with it? I seem to remember you saying you’d support Obama over Paul.

Nasty New Ron Paul Ad Hits Gingrich Hard

Incidentally, let me go on the record here: For any Paul fans who are thinking “This is his time,” I heretofore state I will not support, or vote for, Ron Paul, under any circumstances whatsoever.

That’s where I’m coming form. Under no circumstances whatsoever will I vote for this reactionary, anti-semitic peacenik “We brought 9/11 ourselves” pacifist Chomnskyite crank.

And I’ll say it: I will, yes, be amenable to Barack Obama being re-elected under those circumstances. As members of the Purity Brigade used to tell me– Sometimes you win by losing.

I would decide at that point to use my own “Sometimes we win by losing” chits at that point. As was said of Mike Castle — it’s better that we lose, because at least the guy in office won’t be one of our own, making those bad decisions.

Anyway, that’s my line in the sand. I figure a lot of people agree. Might as well just put that on the record, that for some of us, Ron Paul is not an acceptable third, fourth, or fifth choice.

Paul thinks he can possibly win, and so goes after Gingrich.

Now, it’s worse – he doesn’t even think he can win, but he’s going after Santorum, now,  just so he can “have a presence at the convention”.  Or perhaps more…

I think the whole thing is grotesque, but that’s just me.

***

A win for religious freedom and a harbinger of things to come in the contraception mandate wars: Michelle Malkin: Becket Fund victory: Federal judge upholds religious liberty in Washington state:

Attention, Washington, D.C.

Pay attention to Washington state.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has worked vigilantly to protect religious freedom across the country, prevails in a key health care case involving pharmacists and abortion pills:

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Uh oh – Satan’s having conniptions, now….

Latest polls via Charles B:

WSJ: Poll: Santorum Surges in Pennsylvania:

A new poll from Franklin and Marshall College shows Mr. Santorum gaining steam in Pennsylvania and now leading former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 45%-16%. The other two candidates are in single digits: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich comes it a 9% and Ron Paul at 7%.

American Research Group:

Rick Santorum continues to lead the Michigan Republican presidential primary. Santorum leads with 38% and is followed by Mitt Romney with 34%, Ron Paul with 12%, and Newt Gingrich with 7%.

Santorum has gained 1 percentage point since a similar survey conducted February 15-16, 2012, Romney has gained 2 percentage points, and Gingrich has lost 3 percentage points since the last survey.

Santorum leads Romney 40% to 36% among self-identified Republicans, followed by Gingrich and Paul with 7% each. Among self-identified independents and Democrats, Santorum leads with 33%, followed by Romney with 31%, Paul with 21%, and Gingrich with 6%.

New Field Poll: Santorum surges among California GOP voters:

SACRAMENTO — California’s Republican voters have warmed up to the surging candidacy of Rick Santorum but also are expressing growing dissatisfaction with the field of GOP presidential candidates, according to a Field Poll released Wednesday.

The former Pennsylvania senator is preferred by 25 percent of the state’s registered Republicans, a turn-around that has come partly at the expense of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose support in the state has plunged.

Santorum was supported by just 2 percent of California GOP voters in a Field Poll taken last November. His growing popularity since then has been driven in part by those who said they identify with the tea party or classify themselves as strongly conservative.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney remained Republicans’ top choice, getting support from 31 percent.

The survey’s timing was key. Field interviewed Republicans Feb. 2-18, a period that included Santorum victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado.

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I’d be remiss not to mention this latest example of internet jackassery from the left:

Just One Minute: Charles Blow Columnist, Social Scientist, Bigot, And Fool:

Jim Geraghty of NR calls out NY Times columnist Charles Blow for a religious slur aimed at Mitt Romney:

Hmm, mocking Mormon’s religious undergarments?  My, my.  Are these the standards at the Times?

As to what set Blow off, the offending portion of the debate seems to be this:

ROMNEY: John, you know, I think as Rick has just said, this isn’t an argument about contraceptives, this is a discussion about, are we going to have a nation which preserves the foundation of the nation, which is the family, or are we not? And Rick is absolutely right.

When you have 40 percent of kids being born out of wedlock, and among certain ethnic groups the vast majority being born out of wedlock, you ask yourself, how are we going to have a society in the future? Because these kids are raised in poverty in many cases, they’re in abusive settings. The likelihood of them being able to finish high school or college drops dramatically in single-family homes. And we haven’t been willing to talk about this.

Romney alludes to the fact that Rick Santorum made a similar point earlier, yet he didn’t draw any Blow-tweets about his Magic Rosary – whatever.

Is it possible that Romney and Santorum had a point about the perils of broken homes?  Let’s cut to a Times columnist for guidance:

Keep reading. Turns out the Times have had much to say about the “perils of broken homes”…

See also, Ace of Spades, who had a little bit of fun with Blow, this afternoon, on Twitter.

 

Linked by Michelle Malkin, thanks!