Stopped clocks are right twice a day, and Al Gore can be too, assuming you use a generous definition of “day” and “twice”… and “right”.

Long after the media had shamefacedly retired the “Arab Spring” in the same closet where they keep the Mondale presidency and Grateful Dead memorabilia—Al Gore brought it out with impeccable timing on an episode of “Where on TV is Keith Olbermann”.

We need to have an American Spring,” Gore said. “You know, the Arab Spring—the nonviolent part of it isn’t finished yet—but we need to have an American Spring, a kind of an American Tahrir Square.

And this time no CBS reporters will have to be sexually assaulted. But the Goracle of Montecito, like a stopped clock, got the time wrong. The American Spring was in 2010. It was in the roar of Tea Party crowds gathering for popular protests around the nation. And the role of Mubarak was played by his distant cousin, Barry.

You can always tell the revolutionaries from the tyrants by seeing which group issues bulletins about the dangers of extremism, and which tells the government to go to hell. Last year a lot of people told the government to go to hell… and that worries the government.

 Read More at Canada Free Press  By Daniel Greenfield, Canada Free Press

New rules designed to prevent the deportation of illegal immigrants who keep to the law once they are here will supersede court orders, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith contends.

Even when a judge has ordered an alien to leave the country, the government can overturn it, the Texas Republican said during a radio interview.

“This is clearly amnesty,” Smith told talk show host Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo on San Antonio’s WOAI News Radio. “It is clearly circumventing the right of Congress to try to implement policy.

“They can even reverse a final order by a judge who has told an individual that they have got to leave the country. Even that can be reversed and that individual may not be sent home.”

The new rules, which were introduced by executive order after the administration felt if could not get them through Congress, state that deportations should be focused on “criminal aliens, those who pose a threat to public safety and repeat immigration law violators.”

Read More at Newsmax By Martin Gould,Newsmax

Sarah Palin has said she will make a decision on whether to run for President before October. Until the former Alaska governor formally reveals her intentions, her actions and words will be viewed differently by those inclined to think she is running and those who think she is a drama queen, a mere Tea Party tease, determined to keep herself in the spotlight to assure future income and remain relevant in the national conversation.

Just as blacks and whites viewed the aftermath of events such as Hurricane Katrina and the controversies surrounding people such as O.J. Simpson and Barry Bonds through completely different prisms, Palin’s actions and words serve as a political Rorschach test that is interpreted alternatively by her supporters and detractors.

Palin’s public statements and actions, if taken at face value, though, reveal a person who has called for a candidate to “shake things up,” but who is herself wavering on that “earth-shattering” decision.

Signaling a Run

In April, Palin went to Wisconsin, into the eye of the storm during a…

Read More: Human Events

It’s certainly a political phenomenon, but is the Tea Party also a “Spiritual” movement?

For the past two years, a number of media outlets have highlighted the intermingling of Christianity and Tea Party philosophy. Some have lamented the combination of the two, while others have sought to showcase how the Tea Party’s basic tenets align with Christian principles.

In his new book, “The Great American Awakening,” South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint’s (also apparently known as “Senator Tea Party”) discusses his take on the Tea Party as well as his faith. If you don’t already know it, DeMint is an unabashed “Tea Party Republican” and Christian.

While his book focuses primarily on the American political system and the rise of the Tea Party, DeMint claims that the book’s title is reminiscent of the Second Great Awakening (a time of religious revival in the early 1800s). As RNS highlights, the connection between one of America’s most well-known political movements and the Christian faith is overtly made in DeMint’s words:

“(The Tea Party) is as much a spiritual awakening as a political awakening. The concern about our country…has awakened the faith of many people.”
In “The Great American Awakening,” DeMint goes as far as to tie concern over the government’s size and scope to religion. He writes:

“Big government is a religious issue. History shows in nations where there is a big government, there is a little God. When people are dependent on government, they are less dependent on God, and their spiritual fervor fades. Socialism and secularism go hand in hand, as do faith and freedom.”

Read More at the Blaze By Billy Hallowell, the Blaze

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it obtained documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) showing that the Obama White House helped coordinate a multimillion dollar taxpayer-funded campaign to use Internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo to drive Web traffic to a government Web site promoting the Affordable Health Care Act (also known as Obamacare). The expressed purpose of this campaign is to increase public support for the president’s health care overhaul among key Obama campaign demographics, specifically Hispanics, blacks, and women.

The 2,328 pages of records, obtained by Judicial Watch pursuant to a March 23, 2011, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, Judicial Watch v. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 11-608), include internal correspondence between officials at the HHS office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA), as well as communications with representatives from The Ogilvy Group, the public relations firm hired by the Obama administration to manage the Obamacare campaign. The following are highlights from the documents:

The Obama HHS launched a campaign to track Internet searches and to use online search engines such as Google and Yahoo to drive traffic to a government Web site promoting Obama’s healthcare overhaul. Using “pay-per-click” advertising tools, such as Google Adwords, HHS purposely targeted for influence people searching the term “Obamacare,” a word that has been described as “disparaging” by political agents of the president. One HHS email details: A few keyword groups continue to be top performers, and have subsequently driven most of the traffic to the campaign Web sites:

Affordable Care Act, including such terms as health care reform, government health insurance, Obamacare, and affordable care act.

Health Insurance Group, including terms as health insurance.

Health Care Group, including terms as health care.

Read More at PR Newswire PR Newswire