Gingrich hands Piers Morgan’s hat to him in this interview. Not only does Gingrich accuse Morgan of, essentially, working for Obama, he eviscerates the Obama record, noting that the US is in the worst recovery in 75 years and that Obama’s approach is “crippling” the poor.
Photo credit: An Honorable German
By Kyle Munson. President Barack Obama’s impact on what is arguably the Iowa State Fair’s most storied watering hole has become a morning-after mini-debate over the breakfast bacon thanks to a tweet from Sen. Chuck Grassley, as well as fairgrounds chatter.
Obama’s fair stop Monday evening required shutdown of the popular Bud Tent, the heart of fairgrounds nightlife at the intersection of E. 33rd Street and Grand Avenue. Fairgoers eager to greet the president were ushered inside, screened and scanned by the Secret Service and penned in by yellow caution tape. The entire production required at least two hours, and the president’s sleek black coach bus pulled away from the Bud Tent by 8:30 p.m.
On one hand, [the Bud Tent owner Mike] Cunningham, 39, appreciated the historical significance of Obama’s visit: His great-grandfather, Lloyd Cunningham, was secretary of the fair board from 1942 to 1962 and was on hand to greet then-President Dwight Eisenhower when Ike visited the centennial fair in 1954 with Iowa’s own President Herbert Hoover in tow. (That was the first of four visits by sitting presidents, followed by Gerald Ford in 1975, George W. Bush in 2002 and Obama on Monday.)
On the other hand, the small business owner side of Cunningham fumes that the president “put a damper on what I’m trying to do here.” His Bud Tent was shut down at the most lucrative time of day, with a popular rock cover band, Hairball, about to perform at the Susan B. Knapp Amphitheater next door with legions of thirsty fans.
“I was in a position to make a campaign donation against my will,” said Cunningham, a Republican. Read more from this story HERE.
And here’s the video of Obama splurging on ten beers to pass around to the dozens of folk (except the Romney supporter) surrounding him at the fair:
Governor Sununu and CNN’s Soledad O’Brien get into it in this clip from a live CNN interview today. The fireworks start at 2:10 with Sununu telling Soledad that she might as well “put an Obama bumper sticker on [her] forehead.”
Photo Credit: Talk Radio News Service Creative Commons
Ever since the 2009 GM bailout by “progressive” big government ended the pensions of 20,000 retirees at Delphi auto parts manufacturing, the White House and the Department of Treasury have laid the blame on the steps of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
Internal government emails have been obtained that show the U.S. Treasury Department, run by Timothy Geithner, was behind those termininations. All 20,000 of the pensions seem to have been ended strictly for the reason that those retirees did not belong to labor unions.
Perhaps the National Labor Relations Board was too busy preparing to harass another private sector company planning to hire non-union workers to get involved.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to file any criminal charges against top Wall Street bankers with connections inside the Department of Justice or who had made political donations to the 2008 presidential campaign of the current White House occupant.
Over the years, both the Oval Office and Holder have talked tough, aggressively attacking big fat cat bankers, blaming their reckless speculation for the 2008 financial collapse. The Government Accountability Institute has found that Holder still has not “filed a single criminal charge against any top executive of an elite financial institution.”
All talk, no action. Sound tough for the union organized OWS crowd, but do nothing to upset potential campaign donors. The heck with credibility, the “progressive” Party Pravda will run interference for the re-election campaign.
Overseas, Iran has vowed it will not allow Assad to fall in Syria.
“Iran will never allow the resistance axis – of which Syria is an essential pillar – to break,” said Saeed Jalili, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary. The “axis of resistance” includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, all of which are anti-Western and openly hostile towards Israel and the United States.
Assad reassured Jalili by saying: “The Syrian people and their government are determined to purge the country of terrorists and to fight the terrorists without respite.”
If Assad is overthrown, Iran will lose influence over Syria and a crucial link to Hezbollah.
Could it be that Muslim Brotherhood influence over the White House has surreptitiously led to policies that support the creation of a regional Caliphate? What other way is there to logically explain policies that support rebellions to overthrow some Middle Eastern dictators, but not support rebellions hostile to the Iranian regime or its allies?
With so much baggage for the White House to carry through the campaign, their “Priorities” are to have their “progressive” allies run misleading ads that attempt to tie Mitt Romney to death.
Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting the Oval Office is running a new ad that blames Mitt Romney for a family losing health insurance which contributed to a woman dying from cancer.
It apparently makes no difference to the “progressive” super PAC that Romney left Bain Capital years before the GST Steel bankruptcy in 2001. In addition, the cancer casualty Ranae Soptic died in 2006, long after the GST plant had been closed.
In another move to distract attention away from the dismal economic performance of the White House, the Oval Office occupier was overheard whispering to a top fundraiser that GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney wanted to name Gen. David Petraeus as his choice for Vice President.
The White House was more than happy to clutter the news cycle by dismissing the Drudge Report. Anything to keep the pathetic economic record of the White House out of the headlines will suffice.
Press Secretary Jay Carney reminded reporters to “be mindful of your sources” when asked about the Petraeus rumor. “I can say with absolute confidence, such an assertion has never been uttered by the president. And again be mindful of your sources” said Carney.
And so it goes for the most open, transparent White House in American history. They are more than happy to talk about anything but their own record.
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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/
The U.S. Interior Department opened the door to the possibility of an oil pipeline across the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and to oil and gas leasing on 11.8 million acres of it.
The draft development proposal unveiled Monday by U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar represents the federal government’s first coordinated plan for the 22-million-acre reserve, which has seen limited oil production in recent years despite controversy over potential threats to wildlife.
The reserve, which lies west of the oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope, is home to the famous Western Arctic caribou herd, numbering about 325,000, and a smaller herd of 45,000 caribou that migrates near Teshekpuk Lake.
The largest single block of public land in the country, the reserve contains an estimated 549 million barrels of economically recoverable oil and 8.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The compromise plan — unveiled after a long study that collected more than 400,000 public comments — would continue to protect some of the most ecologically sensitive areas, including Teshekpuk Lake, home to tens of thousands of geese and brant that migrate to the far north during sunny Arctic summers.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo credit: jumpinjimmyjava
The poll, called “The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism,” found that the number of Americans who say they are “religious” dropped from 73 percent in 2005 (the last time the poll was conducted) to 60 percent.
At the same time, the number of Americans who say they are atheists rose, from 1 percent to 5 percent.
The poll was conducted by WIN-Gallup International and is based on interviews with 50,000 people from 57 countries and five continents. Participants were asked, “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person, or a convinced atheist?”
The seven years between the polls is notable because 2005 saw the publication of “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris, the first in a wave of best-selling books on atheism by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and other so-called “New Atheists.”
“The obvious implication is that this is a manifestation of the New Atheism movement,” said Ryan Cragun, a University of Tampa sociologist of religion who studies American and global atheism.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo credit: mikebaird
The high-seas driftnetter the U.S. Coast Guard chased across the North Pacific Ocean has been turned over to Chinese Fishery Law Enforcement.
The crew from the Hawaii-based cutter Rush, which had been patrolling Alaska waters, boarded the ship, identified as the Da Cheng, just over two weeks ago and found 30 metric tons of illegally-caught albacore tuna and six metric tons of shark and shark fin on board.
While in Kodiak, Coast Guard Admiral Robert Papp called the 177-foot gillnetter a pirate ship, prompting Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu to call for prosecution of not only the crew, but of the illegal seafood’s buyers.
High seas driftnetting has been outlawed by international treaty for 20 years. The 10-mile nets the Da Cheng and other illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing boats efficiently catch tuna, but also scoop up everything in their path. Some nets are lost and drift for years, killing thousands of fish.
Read more from this story HERE.
Photo credit: IowaPolitics.com
Chris Christie, the sometimes abrasive but always entertaining governor of New Jersey, is set to be announced Tuesday as the keynote speaker for the Republicans’ national convention later this month.
Christie, who considered a 2012 presidential bid of his own before endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is already at work on his speech to the convention in Tampa, Fla.
His record of cutting his state’s budget, curtailing public sector unions and dealing with a Democratic legislature with disarming and combative confidence all were expected to be on display as he looked to fire up his party’s base.
The scheduling decision was first reported online by USA Today early Tuesday and confirmed by Republican officials directly involved in convention planning. The Republican officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the formal announcement was not planned until later Tuesday.
“I’ll try to tell some very direct and hard truths to people in the country about the trouble that we’re in and the fact that fixing those problems is not going to be easy for any of them,” Christie told USA Today in an interview announcing his speech. He said he will describe his experiences in New Jersey as evidence that “the American people are ready to confront those problems head-on and endure some sacrifice.”
Read more from this story HERE.
“Too many folks still don’t have a sense that tomorrow will be better than today. And so, the question in this election is which way do we go?” President Obama asked at a fundraiser in Chicago on Sunday.
“Do we go forward towards a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared?” Obama asked. “Or do we go backward to the same policies that got us in the mess in the first place?”
“I believe we have to go forward,” Obama said. “I believe we have to keep working to create an America where no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what your last name is, no matter who you love, you can make it here if you try. That’s what’s at stake in November. That’s what is why I am running for a second term as president of the United States of America.”
Photo credit: Majordomo2012
Mitt Romney’s pick of a Democratic punching bag, Paul Ryan, as his vice president, enables Obama and the Democrats to shift the debate from jobs and the economy to pushing grandma off a cliff. The latter actually took the form of an anti-Republican ad on Medicare from a “progressive” group supporting Obama. It has now been resurrected for dramatic effect.
Bulletin News, a good summary of how the major media are framing the campaign, reports, “The consensus media view on both TV and print is that Ryan’s selection is likely to spark a prolonged debate on his budget plan, diverting the public’s attention away from the economy and thus boosting the President’s reelection hopes.”
In order to counter this liberal media bias, Romney and Ryan went on one of the top liberal shows, the CBS News “60 Minutes” program, to defend their proposed reform of Medicare. It was nearly the equivalent of Sarah Palin going on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to discuss her reading habits. As Palin herself has written, that was done at the suggestion of a John McCain adviser, Nicole Wallace, who used to work for Couric and CBS News. It was a trap designed to carry on a narrative about what the liberal media wanted the public to believe about the Republican ticket. That narrative then was that Palin was not qualified to be vice-president.
The narrative has now been changed from jobs to entitlements, a shift that could cost the GOP many thousands of votes from seniors scared of losing their benefits. Liberals are gleeful. Many conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, are falling in line behind the Republican ticket.
The problem in 2008 went beyond advisers, as the HBO film “Game change” made clear. Despite elements of Palin-bashing, it accurately depicted McCain as a candidate who did not want to take the gloves off when attacking Obama. McCain was shown being offended when Republicans suggested Obama and/or his associates were anti-American or had Muslim sympathies.
Read more from this story HERE.