Presidential candidate and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann stopped by Glenn’s NYC radio studio Monday for a talk that spanned national security, the possibility of economic collapse, and the implications of a second Barack Obama term.

Congresswoman Bachmann laid out her expansive policy knowledge, foreign affairs acumen, and expressed her deep concerns about the future of the country.

Among her most stark analytic points was that “The table has been set for a worldwide nuclear war against Israel.”

Rep. Bachmann also added that “We can’t think we are invincible just because we are the United States of America.”

When Glenn pushed her on the possibility of civil war, Bachmann responded ominously: ’We Are Headed For Harder Times Than People Realize.’

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Read More at The Blaze By Buck Sexton, The Blaze

When Newt Gingrich says he never lobbied, he’s not telling the truth.

When he was a paid consultant for the drug-industry’s lobby group, Gingrich worked hard to persuade Republican congressmen to vote for the Medicare drug subsidy that the industry favored. To deny Gingrich was a lobbyist requires an Obama-like word parsing over who is and who isn’t a lobbyist.

Gingrich stated last week on Fox News, “I do no lobbying of any kind. I never have. A very important point to make. I have never done lobbying of any kind.”

But the facts contradict that claim.

First of all, we know that Gingrich has been paid by drug companies and by the drug lobby, notably during the Medicare drug debate. A former employee of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, (the main industry lobby) told me Gingrich was being paid by someone in the industry at the time. A spokeswoman for Gingrich’s health care consulting firm, Center for Health Transformation, told me that drug companies have been CHT clients. PhRMA confirmed in a statement that they had paid Gingrich. Bloomberg News cited sources from leading drug companies Astra-Zeneca and Pfizer saying that those companies had also hired Gingrich.

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 Read More at washingtonexaminer.com By Timothy P. Carney, washingtonexaminer.com

“The New Malthusians” sounds like the name of a new wave or punk band, but just as new wave is old school, there is never anything new about Malthusianism no matter how many times it gets punked. Only the band members change.

When the world’s population reached the estimated 7 billion mark a few weeks ago, the most famous Malthusian of modern times, Paul Ehrlich, made a few encore appearances for old time’s sake, but for the most part Ehrlich and his generation of Malthusian rock stars, such as Garrett Hardin, Lester Brown, and the Club of Rome, appear about a fresh as Keith Richards after a 7 am wake up call. The old guys really need to be retired (well, actually, Garrett Hardin is long dead anyway), to make room for the new kids. The criteria for making the list are simple: a winner’s Malthusianism has to be essentially unmodulated from the older kind, be relentlessly monotonic, be extremely lucrative, and/or a pretext for increased centralized political power.

The competition is fierce, but herewith the top five “New Malthusians” for a cover tribute band for the early 21st century:

1. James Hansen, NASA’s chief climate scientist. I’ve debated Hansen on a couple of occasions, the most memorable being at the New School in New York in 2006, when he let fly with the comment that his treatment at the hands of the Bush Administration, which monitored his many media interviews, was the kind of thing you expected from Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. He’s also called trains carrying coal to power plant’s “death trains to Auschwitz.” And he wonders why people think he’s an “alarmist” about climate change. The guy is a manic depressive, which comes with Malthusian territory I suppose, but as John noted here already, it’s really really lucrative. My pal Chris Horner offers more damning details here. There’s lots here to work with, but for years Hansen has been saying time is running out. The most recent I can find is a 2009 article saying Obama only has four years left to save the planet. Since Obama clearly isn’t going to make it, can we expect Hansen to shut up at the end of next year? Of course not; too many lecture fees and prizes to be had.

2. Bill McKibben, Middlebury College. His big thing these days is climate change—what a surprise—though he did write the quintessentially Malthusian book back in the 1990s entitled Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single Child Families. Like Hansen, he wins all the best prizes and hangs out with all the best people. I am sure the prizes look nice on the mantle. Lately he’s been leading the protests outside the White House against the Keystone pipeline, declaring that if the pipeline is built, it’s “game over” for the climate. But if Canadian oil goes to China instead of us, how would it be different? Don’t ask. That would be an inconvenient question.

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Read More at powerlineblog.com By Steven Hayward, powerlineblog.com

Since losing control of Congress in the 2010 midterm elections, President Obama has increasingly turned to executive orders, regulations, and federal fiats to implement his agenda in a program the White House has dubbed “We Can’t Wait.” Analysts say Obama hopes the end-run around the legislative branch will allow him to campaign against a “do-nothing Congress” in 2012. However, a new Rasmussen poll finds a whopping majority of Americans oppose his most recent executive action on health care reform. Only 27 percent of those surveyed approve of the president’s new program to distribute $1 billion in grants to organizations that promise to find new ways to increase employment in the medical industry. Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 63 percent, say the president should work with Congress on implementing the bill, as the Constitution requires.
Obama unleashed the grant proposal after Congress refused to pass his “jobs” bill.

“This will open the inbox for many innovators and organizations that have an idea to bring to the table,” said Dr. Donald Berwick, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “We’re seeking innovators, organizations and leaders that have an idea to bring into further testing.”

Unfortunately, Berwick idealizes the British National Health Service, which is infamous for rationing care to the ill. In 1993, Berwick insisted: “Using unwanted procedures in terminal illness is a form of assault. In economic terms, it is waste.” More recently, Berwick has declared, “Excellent health care is by definition [wealth] redistribution.” He is joined in the administration by Henry J. Aaron, Obama’s nominee for the Social Security Advisory Board, who for nearly 30 years has promoted health care rationing along the British model. His 2005 book Can We Say No? argues “health care rationing in the United States is advisable, even inescapable.”

The Washington Post reports the nation will face a shortage of 63,000 doctors by 2015. However, ObamaCare’s funding formula will decrease the pool further yet by paying doctors less. Lower pay translates to fewer doctors, which in turn results in rationing by necessity. With funding changes under ObamaCare, the Office of the Medicare Actuary forecast that within nine years Medicare will pay doctors less than Medicaid. Conservative analyst John Goodman explained, “From a financial point of view, the seniors will be perceived as less desirable customers than welfare mothers.”

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Read More at Floyd Reports By Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports