Yesterday, Mitt Romney caused a stir when he made the following remarks about the poor during an interview with CNN:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich…. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Following this comment, CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien prodded Romney to clarify his remarks.

“We will hear from the Democrat party, the plight of the poor…. You can focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus…. The middle income Americans, they’re the folks that are really struggling right now and they need someone that can help get this economy going for them.”

The media, Democrats, and many Republicans are painting him as out-of-touch, while expressing their concern that he is apathetic to the plight of the poor. However, they are missing the point. The real outrage is not that he doesn’t want to do more for the poor; it’s that he thinks they are taken care of with the welfare state. Worse, he believes that the welfare state is, more or less, functioning properly. Fear not, ‘any minor glitches would be repaired by Mr. Fix It.

It is precisely this sentiment that makes Romney disqualified for the Republican nomination. Romney doesn’t believe that the welfare system is fundamentally flawed; that the welfare state is the consummate enemy of the poor; that unlimited welfare is what perpetuates and exacerbates poverty. He thinks it is working relatively fine, albeit in need of some minor tweaks here and there.

As Senator DeMint noted, this could have been a teachable moment – a moment for Romney to shine. He could have gone on offense by explaining how it is these very welfare programs that have failed to deracinate poverty, even though they have been in place for decades. He could have shown how the only thing that is stimulated by these programs is the dependency of the program itself. $30 billion spent on food stamps gives rise to $60 billion, which now gives rise to $80 billion. He could have defended the inherent compassion of conservative free-market policies in weaning people off these programs and creating upward mobility.

Read More at Red State By Daniel Horowitz, Red State

On top of the campaign to pressure New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to release terrorist killer Judith Clark from prison, the far-left is asking President Obama to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, an American Indian activist who was convicted of the execution-style murders of FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams.

February 4 has been declared “International Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier,” who was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

A group working for Peltier’s release, in an email to its supporters, says, “Several high-level meetings (some with Administration officials) are expected to occur in Washington, D.C., in early 2012.” No officials were named, however.

The campaign has the support of actor Danny Glover, whose film company, Louverture Films, has taken up the cause of freeing the convicted killer. The Glover company, which has received over $19.7 million from the Marxist regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, is involved in the publicity campaign for “Wind Chases the Sun,” a film that glamorizes Peltier.

Another Danny Glover project, “The Black Power Mix Tape,” features former Communist Party activist Angela Davis.

Read More at Canada Free Press By Cliff Kincaid, Canada Free Press

Mossad chief Tamir Pardo held secret talks with top U.S. officials in recent days, cursory comments made during a public Senate hearing indicated on Tuesday.

The clandestine Washington visit was exposed during a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was participated by CIA Director David Petraeus, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate panel.

During the meeting, Feinstein asked Clapper whether or not Israel intended to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, with the top U.S. intelligence official answering that he would rather discuss the issue behind closed doors.

Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo and cited what he called Israel’s growing concern over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The CIA chief also said that it was important to note that Israel considered a nuclear Iran as an existential threat.

Read More at haaretz.com By Barak Ravid, Haaretz.com

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Ron Paul has known for more than a week that he would finish fourth in Florida.

So instead, he skipped the Sunshine State and campaigned in states like Maine, Colorado and Nevada.

“We’ve been having a fantastic trip,” Paul said to cheering fans in Henderson Tuesday night, adding that he had called Mitt Romney to congratulate him on his big Florida win. To Romney, Paul said: “I would see him in the caucus states.”

While the media spotlight has been on Florida, Paul has been waging a quieter, parallel campaign in the caucus states with contests coming up in February. Unlike Florida — which awards its 50 delegates through a winner-take-all process — many of these states distribute delegates proportionally, allowing second and third place winners to nab some of them.

The result is that the Texas congressman could end up winning more delegates over the next few weeks than anyone except Romney.

Read More at Politico By James Hohmann, Politico

WASHINGTON – House Republicans are expanding their probe into the Obama administration’s energy programs, investigating $500 million in green job training grants that placed just 10% of trainees in jobs, according to a government report.

The program’s goal was to train 124,893 people and put 79,854 in jobs. But 17 months later, 52,762 were trained and 8,035, or roughly 1 in 10, had jobs. Those numbers come from an audit by the Department of Labor’s inspector general, which recommended that the administration end the program and return unspent money.

President Obama has made green jobs a cornerstone of his economic agenda. In his first 2012 campaign ad this month, he said clean energy industries created 2.7 million jobs and were “expanding rapidly.” But Republicans have pounced on failures, such as the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel maker backed with a Department of Energy loan guarantee.

Citing what he calls “abysmal results” in the job training program, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is demanding answers about how the Department of Labor awarded the grants, which were funded out of the 2009 stimulus bill.

But Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates defends the initiative, saying the inspector general’s audit used old numbers and that it was never designed to provide immediate results.

Read More at USA Today By Gregory Korte, USA Today