Gingrich: ‘Even More Power and More Control’ for Obama (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP/J. Scott ApplewhiteBecause the Senate wasn’t functioning the way President Obama thinks it should, he supported Democrats Thursday as they overturned 200 years of Senate tradition by essentially doing away with the filibuster.

Democrats invoked the so-called “nuclear option,” allowing presidential nominees be confirmed with 51 votes, instead of 60.

“[T]his was one more step to give President Obama even more power and even more control,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Thursday on CNN’s “Crossfire.”

The Senate changed its longstanding filibuster rules only for presidential nominees, not for legislation — but Gringrich said that will probably change, too.

“And I think what struck me, I think this is a very historic vote. I don’t think this is just a tactic. And if you watch the president’s press conference today, the entire opening of the press conference is a litany of legislative problems. He doesn’t get to the appointments until after he goes through layer after layer of legislative problems, which signals to me he intends to unwind the entire filibuster by the time this is done.”

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Conservative Groups That Backed Wisconsin Gov. Walker Appear Target of Secret Govt. Probe

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Photo Credit: APDozens of conservative groups that support Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker reportedly have been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor demanding donor lists and other documents pertaining to their backing of Walker’s union overhaul and recall fight.

The so-called “John Doe” investigation bars those subpoenaed from talking publicly.

But Eric O’Keefe, director of the Wisconsin Club for Growth, told The Wall Street Journal recently that investigators have raided at least three homes and that he “wants the public to know what is going on,” despite the personal risk.

He also suggested the probe is having a chilling effect on conservative groups as Walker approaches a 2014 re-election effort.

He said the subpoenas, including the one he received in early October, “froze my communications and frightened many allies and vendors of the pro-taxpayer political movement in Wisconsin. … The process is the punishment.”

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Benghazi Witnesses: ‘Personnel were Not Armed’

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Photo Credit: WND Testimony by Benghazi witnesses and victims stating personnel inside the U.S. special mission were not armed directly contradicts the State Department report on the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, WND has learned.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee, told Fox News that State Department employees inside the mission “were not armed, not kitted up and there hadn’t been any shots fired from our side as far as the testimony reveals.”

Westmoreland was commenting on closed-door testimony given to his intelligence committee.

In contrast, the extensive report released by the State Department-sponsored Accountability Review Board, or ARB, specifically states personnel inside the mission protecting the compound and Ambassador Chris Stevens were armed and had their security kits.

The ARB states all assistant regional security officers, or ARSOs, were armed during the attack.

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GOP Congressman Serves Up a Steaming Plate of ‘I-Told-You-So’ over Obamacare and the Shutdown (+video)

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Photo Credit: Gage SkidmoreCongressman Raul Labrador isn’t unrepentant for the Republicans’ role in the fight over Obamacare that lead to the government shutdown — especially since the White House has unilaterally delayed multiple portions of the law since its implementation.

“There wasn’t a single Republican that wanted to shut down the government,”Labrador said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. ”We all knew that on October first there was a new healthcare law that was going to impact every American and that was the only opportunity we had to do a fight on Obamacare.”

Labrador mocked Democrats for fighting so savagely against GOP proposals only to clamor for the very changes that the GOP was requesting as soon as President Obama’s signature piece of legislation went into a tailspin.

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Turning Off the Next Generation of Politicians

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Photo Credit: itupicturesDuring the 2012 presidential election, we conducted a national survey of more than 4,200 high school and college students. We asked about their attitudes toward politics and current events, their career aspirations and their political ambition. The results are stark. Only 11 percent of our survey respondents reported that, someday, when they were older, they might consider running for political office.

In fact, they’d rather do almost anything else.

In one set of questions, we presented these high school and college students with four career options — business owner, teacher, salesperson or mayor of a city or town — and asked which they would most like to be, assuming that each position paid the same amount of money. Nine out of 10 respondents chose a career other than mayor as their first choice. Nearly 40 percent reported that mayor would be their least-desired job.

We also asked which of the following higher-echelon jobs they found most appealing: business executive, lawyer, school principal or member of Congress. Serving as a member of Congress came in dead last, with just 13 percent of young people choosing it. It placed first on the least-desirable list.

The fact that young Americans do not want to run for office cannot be divorced from their perceptions of the political system, which could not be much worse. Eighty-five percent of our survey respondents did not think that elected officials want to help people; 79 percent did not consider politicians smart or hard-working; nearly 60 percent believed that politicians are dishonest; and fewer than 30 percent said they thought that candidates and elected leaders stand up for their convictions.

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Alaska Urges Australians to Venture to Arctic Circle for ‘Wintry Version of the Outback’

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Photo Credit: APA total of 36,000 Australian tourists visited Alaska in the summer of 2011 – the year Australia overtook the UK to become the state’s biggest market – and numbers are increasing every year.

Visit Anchorage vice-president for tourism development and sales, David Kasser, said Australians visiting America’s largest and most remote state tended to stay longer than their international counterparts – an average two to three weeks. They also tend to be older and wealthier, making them good spenders.

However, he said Australian tourism was dominated by cruises along the Inside Passage in the state’s southeast, with 96 per cent of visitors travelling there.

In contrast, the second most popular region – south central – attracted just 29 per cent of Australian tourists.

“I like to call the seven-day Inside Passage Cruise the Alaska Starter Cruise,” said Kasser, who was in Australia this week to promote his state.

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The ‘Fatal Conceit’ of President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius

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Photo Credit: Washington ExaminerI have lined up my Christmas presents this year for President Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

I will send them both a copy of the last book written by one of greatest economists of the last century, and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics in 1974, F.A. Hayek.

The book is called The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism.

Although the language and discussion of the book is not all that simple, the basic point is, I think, pretty straightforward. Hayek summed it all up in his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize.

He noted the critical importance that we know what we don’t know. Thinking you know what you don’t and can’t know, the illusion that men can plan, organize, and control things far beyond their understanding is the “fatal conceit” of socialism.

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Boy Buried In a Sinkhole for Four Hours Miraculously Comes Back to Life (+video)

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Photo Credit: CBNIn just a few seconds, a carefree hiking trip on the sand dunes of mount baldy, Indiana turned into a nightmare. Greg Woessner and his friend Keith walked along the top of the dune. Greg’s son Nathan and Keith’s son Collin were behind them.

“They were playing around, running around, up and down the hill,” remembers Greg. “We heard Collin screaming and hollering, that Nathan had fallen in a hole.”

“We quickly ran down there, and found the hole that he was in,” adds Keith. “And we were able to talk to him.” Greg and Keith told Collin to run down the hill and call 911. Keith’s wife Rachel made the call.

Operator: “9-1-1.”
Rachel: “Yes, I’m at the Mt. Baldy beach, and my friend’s son, he got stuck in
a sand dune and he’s like under the sand and we can’t get him out.”
Rachel: “My husband and his dad are trying to dig him out.”
Operator: “OK, we get it, we’ve got them on the way, OK?”
Rachel: “OK, thank you.”

“He sounded so close,” says Greg. “You couldn’t see him. It was so dark. Keeping him calm was my first thing. He was saying he was scared.”

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Man Attacks, Threatens to Shoot Pro-Life Activist Outside Abortion Clinic

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Photo Credit: Life News An angry man jumped out of his vehicle and threatened to shoot pro-life activist Mark Gietzen, who had offered to help him as he left a woman for an abortion at the South Wind Women’s Center abortion clinic, located inside a building where George Tiller once operated in Wichita, Kansas.

Gietzen, Director of the Kansas Coalition for Life, was setting up a pro-life display early on Thursday, November 21, when the man drove into the abortion clinic parking lot and dropped off a woman. As he left, Gietzen offered him pro-life literature and urged the man to go back and bring the mother of his baby out of the clinic.

As the man lunged at Gietzen, a clinic security guard, who happened to be nearby, intervened. According to Gietzen, the security guard “attacked [the man] from behind, locking both of his arms around the young man’s arms and torso, and lifted him off the ground in a full-body hug.”

Gietzen called the police but the man had already fled by the time they arrived. As the police were taking Gietzen’s statement, the man returned and was detained by police. It is unknown at this time if the man was actually charged. Wichita Police Officer G. R. Morris issued Gietzen a case number: 13C77676.

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Karzai Insists U.S. Forces Killed Civilians in a Raid

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Photo Credit: Omar Sobhani/Reuters
For the second time in less than a week, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has picked a high-profile fight with his American allies, in the midst of a grand council that he convened to support a long-term security agreement with the United States.

American officials reacted with anger and exasperation on Saturday after Mr. Karzai publicly accused American Special Forces troops of killing civilians in a raid on an Afghan home; American officials said it was an Afghan-led raid that killed only insurgents.

Moreover, Mr. Karzai’s aides continued to insist that even if the council, or loya jirga, ratified the bilateral security agreement with the United States, Mr. Karzai would not sign it until next year, after a presidential election to choose his successor, but before he leaves office.

The remarks from the president’s camp left many people wondering why Mr. Karzai had convened a loya jirga, bringing to Kabul 2,500 Afghan notables from around the country, dismissing most employees from work for six days and locking down a city of five million so thoroughly that all roads to it were blocked for several days.

Even Mr. Karzai’s allies were at a loss to explain what he hoped to gain from the perplexing series of events around what was expected to be a straightforward deal. Mr. Karzai had earlier asked the Americans to delay signing the security agreement until a new president was elected, possibly allowing him to pass responsibility for the deal to his successor.

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