Gallup: Americans Who Think We’ll Be Worse Off in 4 Yrs Doubled in 4 Yrs

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photo credit: donkeyhotey(CNSNews) – The percentage of Americans who think America will be worse off in four years has more than doubled in the four years since Barack Obama was first inaugurated as president, according to the Gallup poll.

In a survey conducted Jan. 9-11, 2009–concluding just nine days before Barack Obama’s first inauguration as president–Gallup asked American adults: “Do you think the country will be better off or worse off four years from now?”

At that time, 72 percent said the country would be better off, 20 percent said it would be worse off, 4 percent said it would be the same, and 4 percent said they had no opinion.

This time, only 54 percent said they believed the country would be better off in four years, while 41 percent said they believed it would be worse off, 3 percent said it would be the same, and 2 percent said they had no opinion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Atheist Group at Dartmouth Plans anti Mother Teresa Event

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An atheist group at Dartmouth College is planning an event aimed at skewering the reputation of the late Mother Teresa.

The Atheists Humanists Agnostics (AHA) club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing the program on Tuesday and promising a “full-out romp against why one of the most beloved people of the century, Mother Teresa, is as Hitchens put it… ‘a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.’”

Mother Teresa is widely known for her life’s work of aiding the poor and comforting the sick.

The e-mail says the group plans to screen an anti-Mother Teresa film, discuss Hitchens’ book, Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, and question how the public has been “conned into thinking this woman [Teresa] was good.”

The e-mail states Teresa, who is on her way to sainthood in the Catholic church, “was not a friend of the poor,” but “was a friend of poverty.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Michael Moore: ‘Drive the rich right off their fiscal cliff’

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Liberal film director Michael Moore has big plans for President Barack Obama’s second term, he just needs Obama to hear him out.

In an open letter to the president, Moore congratulates Obama on the recent victory and lays out his vision for the president’s second term — a left-wing wish list, shunning compromise and taking it to the rich.

“This was truly another historic election and I would like to take a few minutes of your time to respectfully ask that your second term not resemble your first term,” Moore writes, noting that he does not want to see Wall Street “darlings” running the economy and wants Obama to “fight” to resolve the issues still on the table.

“Your fellow citizens have spoken and we have rejected the crazed ideology of this Republican Party and we insist that you forcefully proceed in bringing about profound change that will improve the lives of the 99 percent,” Moore writes. “We’re done hoping. We want real change. And if we can’t get it in the second term of a great and good man like you, then really — what’s the use? Why are we even bothering? Yes, we’re that discouraged and disenchanted.”

According to Moore, so far he likes what he has seen — “At your first post-election press conference last Wednesday you were on fire….MORE OF THAT!! PLEASE!!” — but he does not want to see compromise, and instead wants swift moves to the left, including driving the “RICH RIGHT OFF THEIR FISCAL CLIFF.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Hey GOP, Take the Palin Cure: She’s hot, she’s blue collar, she’s electable.

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The Republican Party has been doing a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing since the presidential election. Half the conservative columnists and bloggers say the GOP lost because it overemphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. The other half says the party didn’t emphasize them enough. And everyone denounces Project ORCA, the campaign’s attempt to turn out voters via technology.

But I’ve got a suggestion for cutting short the GOP angst: Sarah Palin for president in 2016.

You think I’m joking? Think again.

In 2008, Palin, running as my party’s vice presidential candidate, was widely supposed to have cost John McCain the election. But that wasn’t so. A national exit poll conducted by CNN asked voters whether Palin was a factor in their voting. Of those who said yes, 56% voted for McCain versus 43% for Barack Obama.

Furthermore, Mitt Romney, the GOP’s anointed contender this year, got almost a million fewer votes than McCain did in 2008. (Meanwhile, President Obama, although winning reelection, lost far more voters than the Republicans, with nearly 7 million fewer voters checking his name on their ballots than did in 2008).

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Media Freak Out Over Rubio’s Remarks on Age of the Earth

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The media are in full freak-out mode over Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s comments about the age of the Earth.

“I got a chill when I read Rubio’s statements,” Phil Plait, an astronomy blogger, wrote in a story at Slate.

It all started when GQ magazine published an interview with the Republican senator on Monday that included the question, “How old do you think the Earth is?”

Scientists estimate that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, though Christians cite the Bible in saying the Earth is younger. It’s the sort of question meant to give insight into whether someone believes in evolution or creationism — or both.

“I’m not a scientist, man,” Rubio responded to the question from the GQ reporter, going on to explain that the question is “one of the great mysteries.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Al Gore Redux: World Bank Report Warns of ‘Devastating’ Global Warming

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photo credit: alex e. proimosA major World Bank report warns that Earth may be heading for a 4° Celsius (7.2° Fahrenheit) temperature rise by 2100 that would bring unprecedented heatwaves, droughts and floods – effects that put some of the poorest nations at highest risk.

“No nation will be immune to the impacts of climate change,” states the new report titled “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided.”

“However, the distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently unequal and tilted against many of the world’s poorest regions, which have the least economic, institutional, scientific, and technical capacity to cope and adapt,” it adds.

The report arrives ahead of the next round of United Nations-led talks aimed at crafting a new global climate pact, which begin in Doha, Qatar in late November.

“As negotiators head to Doha for the climate talks, they must bring a greater sense of urgency and purpose to these negotiations,” said Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, a think tank.

Read more from this story HERE.

Treasury Secretary Geithner: Lift Debt Limit to Infinity (+video)

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photo credit: usembassynewdelhi(CNSNEWS)Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Friday that Congress should stop placing legal limits on the amount of money the government can borrow and effectively lift the debt limit to infinity.

On Bloomberg TV, “Political Capital” host Al Hunt asked Geithner if he believes “we ought to just eliminate the debt ceiling.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Geithner said.

“You do? Will you propose that?” Hunt asked.

“Well, this is something only Congress can solve,” Geithner said. “Congress put it on itself. We’ve had 100 years of experience with it, and I think only once–last summer–did people decide to use it to threaten default on the American credit for the first time in history as a tool for political advantage. And that’s not a tenable strategy.”

See video below:

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Rush Limbaugh Takes On GOP Critics

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Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh hit back hard Monday against Republican critics who say his commentary hurt GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s failed presidential run.

GOP strategist Mike Murphy said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the primaries were “driving the Republican brand right now to disaster” and that Republicans needed to acquire a view of the country “that’s not right out of Rush Limbaugh’s dream journal.”

Limbaugh’s response: “What, folks, did I or any of you have to do with the Republican primary? Did not Murphy get the candidate he wanted? All these consultants, do you realize they get rich no matter who wins or loses? Little-known secret. They get rich no matter who wins or loses,” Limbaugh said on his radio show, according to a show transcript.

“But [in] the Republican primary, as far as he’s concerned, there were too many conservatives in it saying too many stupid things,” Limbaugh added. “We need to get rid of conservatism, is what is he’s saying.”

Next up was GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who last week at a University of Delaware panel discussion said that Limbaugh’s “white, 65 plus and rural” audience is “not what the country looks like anymore” and that Limbaugh was driving a message of “total ludicrous nonsense.”

Read more from this article HERE.

See transcript of Limbaugh’s program HERE.

Turkish Prime Minister: ‘Israel Is A Terrorist State’

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A top Turkish official has claimed that Israel is committing acts of terrorism by bombing Hamas targets in Gaza.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told the Eurasian Islamic Council conference in Istanbul that the Jewish state is systematically mass-killing Muslims.

“Those who associate Islam with terrorism close their eyes in the face of mass killing of Muslims, turn their heads from the massacre of children in Gaza,” Erdogan said, according to Reuters. “For this reason, I say that Israel is a terrorist state, and its acts are terrorist acts.”

The conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated last Wednesday after an Israeli airstrike killed the terror group’s military commander, Ahmed Jabari.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hamas Missile Strike Gets Personal

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Like many of us, I’ve been carefully watching operation “Pillar of Cloud” launched by Israel against the forces of darkness. Israel is the last country on the planet that would attack its neighbors without an enormously just cause. It’s the last country in the world that would launch a massive aerial strike against anyone, unless its very survival was in the balance. I know because I grew up there. My entire family is still there, many of whom are under constant daily missile attacks, attacks which have been haunting them for more than a decade.

With that being said, this article is not an attempt to analyze the war, nor is it an attempt to coin a superficial solution to the almost-eternal battle between good and evil. Rather, I would like to tell a personal story, which just so happens to have involved not just myself, but also 2010 US Senate candidate Joe Miller.

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel with Joe and his son Jacob all over Israel in October of 2011. Although I was born in Israel and lived there half of my life, Joe and I still managed to tour many sites around the country which I had never been to before. From the Golan Heights in the north, to Masada and the Dead Sea in the south, we tried to cover as much ground as we could during the two weeks we were in country.

One of the places on our tour map was the city of Sderot. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Sderot, it is the closest Israeli city to the Gaza Strip, literally, only a few hundred meters from the border fence. The residents of Sderot have only 10 to 15 seconds to find the nearest bomb shelter when the sirens go off, indicating another missile from Gaza is on its way.

As it turned out, a personal friend of mine who lives in Israel, and who has some connections around the country, managed to arrange for a personal tour of Sderot for us. We were graciously hosted by the Sderot Media Center and its director, Noam Bedein. We toured much of the town and were briefed on the unique issues the city is facing in light of its extremely close proximity to Gaza.

One of the spots we arrived at was a small hill overlooking the Gaza Strip. The hill itself wasn’t more than 20 or 30 yards away from the nearest family homes behind us. Immediately in front of us, near the bottom of the hill, was the borderline fence between Gaza and Sederot.

Looking at the proximity of Gaza, along with the pock-marked walls of many of the nearby buildings, helped us appreciate what the brave residents of Sderot have been dealing with for the past 12 years. But we could only start to imagine what it is like to always worry about being 15 seconds away from the nearest bomb shelter, or what it feels like for Sderot’s children to be shocked awake in the middle of the night by the missile siren, and then try to run for their lives to a bomb shelter. It is truly something that most Americans can’t even begin to comprehend.

While we were standing on that hill, Noam Bedein gave us a very detailed explanation about the surrounding areas, the security issues facing the residents of Sderot, and the unbearable circumstances affecting everyone’s daily routines. He also explained how the Sderot Media Center attempts to inform the outside world about what is going on in Sderot.

So why this anecdote of our trip to Sderot? In part because the current Gaza war is being waged just 5 minutes outside of Sderot and many Hamas missiles are raining down on its people.

But what really spurred me to write this article is the following fact: the exact spot where Joe, his son Jacob, I and Noam were standing while looking at Gaza and listening to Noam’s overview suffered a direct missile hit less than 24 hours ago. [The picture above is Joe standing at that spot, overlooking Gaza]

It is one thing to hear about the missile strikes on Sderot, not knowing the terrain, but it’s a totally different experience when you know and understand that if the missile would have hit just another 20 yards behind where we had been standing, it likely would have wiped out an entire family.

This is the life the people of Sderot have to live, while the world watches, yawns, and goes about its way. The world only wakes up when Israel retaliates and drops bombs on the missile launchers, trying to prevent the indiscriminate missile strikes against its civilians.

It is my hope and prayer that one day, Joe, I, or anyone else who feels like it, can stand on top of that small hill in Sderot – or anywhere else in Israel, for that matter – in peace and safety.

But the answer is not pacifism.

Golda Meir, one of Israel’s Prime Ministers once said, “If the Arabs laid down their arms today, there will be peace tomorrow. If Israel laid down her arms today, there will be no Israel tomorrow.”

Truer words have never been spoken.