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President Obama: I’m going to win reelectionBy Amie Parnes - 01/26/12 07:07 PM ET President Obama said in no-uncertain terms on Thursday that he will win his re-election campaign in November. Asked by ABC News’s Diane Sawyer if he was going to win, Obama replied: “Yes.” He also told Sawyer he would "fight with every fiber of my being" for a second term. "How much do you want it?" Sawyer asked Obama in the interview. "Badly," Obama said. "Because I think the country needs it." Just a few months ago Obama described himself as an underdog in the 2012 election....

"First of all, I don't put people on food stamps. People become eligible for food stamps. Second of all, the initial expansion of food-stamp eligibility happened under my Republican predecessor, not under me. Number three, when you have a disastrous economic crash that results in 8 million people losing their jobs, more people are going to need more support from government."

There's a curious thing going on in the GOP primary race for the presidential nomination. A few people have remarked on it, but mostly it's gone unnoticed. When looked at from a historical viewpoint, it's remarkable, but when looked at in specific, it's normal. It confirms what we pretty much already knew. Where's George W. Bush? The most recent ex-president is usually perceived to be a power broker in his party. His opinion is sought; his endorsement is desired. He works behind the scenes to promote one candidate or another. Bill Clinton, although leaving office under a cloud (a cloud...

(CBS News) Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Sunday it was "irresponsible" for former President George W. Bush to set a withdrawal date from Iraq, and that President Obama should have re-evaluated that date upon taking office. Cain, in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," said that a "responsible Commander in Chief" would have consulted military commanders on the ground and asked, "Should we continue with this or should we modify it?" "Look, President Obama changed a lot of other things that Bush started, so I don't believe that he's doing it because it was in the Bush doctrine,"...

Sources tell ABC News that the president will announce today that US troops in Iraq will draw down to zero by the end of the year. A White House official says that at approximately 11:30am today, President Obama convened a secure video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to talk with him about this news.

As the Congressional hearing on the failed solar energy manufacturer Solyndra gets under way, it's already clear that the Obama administration is prepared to fall back on a tried and tested strategy: blaming Bush. In prepared testimony released ahead of the hearing before the House Energy and Commerce committee, the director of the Department of Energy's loans office, Jonathan Silver, emphasizes that the program that eventually granted a $535 million loan guarantee to the troubled firm was created during the Bush administration. Not only that, Silver says,

CBS White House correspondent Norah O'Donnell said President Obama displayed his engagement to the federal government's response to Hurricane Irene by returning a day early from vacation and meeting with the head of FEMA. O'Donnell says the administration wanted to make sure no comparison to the government's handling of Katrina was made. "I think it's important to note too that the Obama administration was really determined to avoid any comparisons to the failed federal government response to Hurricane Katrina. So, President Obama made a very public display of his engagement on this issue. He returned from his vacation a day...

CARSON CITY – The jobless rate in Clark County has climbed for the fourth consecutive month, hitting 14 percent in July, the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reported today. “It’s clear that unemployment figures are moving in the wrong direction and that is especially troubling for the thousands of Nevadans seeking employment,” Gov. Brian Sandoval said. Statewide unemployment rose from 12.4 percent in June to 12.9 percent in July with 169,400 out of work.

Barack Obama is setting a record-setting number of records during his first year in office. Largest budget ever. Largest deficit ever. Largest number of broken promises ever. Most self-serving speeches ever. Largest number of agenda-setting failures ever. Fastest dive in popularity ever. Wow. Talk about change. Just one year ago, fresh from his inauguration celebrations, President Obama was flying high. After one of the nation’s most inspiring political campaigns, the election of America’s first black president had captured the hopes and dreams of millions. To his devout followers, it was inconceivable that a year later his administration would be gripped...

At his campaign-style town hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa, President Obama compared the criticism he has received from Republicans and other political opponents to the troubles faced by President Abraham Lincoln during the civil war. "Lincoln," the president said, "they used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me." The president's remarks came in response to a question from a woman who said that congressional Republicans are refusing to be a "good partner" to work with the president. "What happens to our democracy?" the woman asked. "We are in a very divided country right now. What...

At a town hall meeting on his campaign-style tour of the Midwest, President Obama claimed that his economic program "reversed the recession" until recovery was frustrated by events overseas. And then, Obama said, with the economy in an increasingly precarious position, the recovery suffered another blow when Republicans pressed the White House for federal spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the national debt limit, resulting in a deal Obama called a "debacle." "We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months...

What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them.

As Barack Obama continues to blame his predecessor for the tanking economy and the chronic unemployment that Obama promised to avoid with his big stimulus package more than two years ago, and as other Democrats get aboard the Blameshift Express, Byron York attempts to set the record straight. He focuses on the claim that eight years of spending and “reckless tax cuts� by the Bush administration bankrupted the country. When one looks at the numbers, the Democratic argument doesn’t stand up at all: This week a Florida Democratic representative, Corrine Brown, explained her vote against the debt-ceiling agreement by citing...

White House on worst market drop since 2008: ‘Markets go up and down’ 1 hr 5 mins ago The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 512 points Thursday, erasing this year’s market gains, but the White House had little to say besides “markets go up and down.” “I don’t have a specific reaction to the market. Markets go up and down,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “There is no question that we have — this economy has faced headwinds this year, a variety of them including the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the increase in oil prices, energy...

Yesterday, I rebutted the strange New York Times chart making the rounds which makes it look as though the Bush administration and Republican Congresses have been responsible for all of the spending growth of the last generation. Today, John Hinderaker points out another chart from Heritage, which shows exactly where the debt expansion occurred, and who is responsible for it:Of the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling we have now, $4.5 trillion got added by Democrat-controlled Congresses since taking control in 2007. That corresponds exactly with the expansion in spending by Democratic Congresses over the same period:Again, this new chart doesn’t exactly...

Atlanta Cheating Scandal Teachers Blame Testing!by Jaymie Pierce July 11, 2011 06:55 PM EDT Teachers caught in the big Atlanta schools cheating scandal complain about the pressure of achieving scores and targets from administrations in the school districts. Furthermore, they are attesting that it is the fault of the "No Child Left Behind Act." The Atlanta Journal reported today that the findings from the investigations gave three primary areas for the wide-spread cheating. The report indicates that all schools would be considered failing under the "No Child Left Behind Act" expecting 100% proficiency. The stern actions of sanctions against teachers...

SALT LAKE CITY — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is taking a new approach to hammering Pres. Barack Obama and campaigning in Iowa. Romney seems to be choosing his words more carefully as he verbally attacks Obama, Politico concludes in an article published Thursday. The piece compares a Romney campaign stop in Pennsylvania last month with his visit Wednesday to Southern California. "Romney spoke Wednesday in front of a long-defunct mall near Los Angeles, and repeatedly pointed out that the mall's closure wasn't entirely Obama's fault. 'Obviously, the challenges here are not all the result of the current administration,' Romney...

With President Obama and Republican leaders calling for cutting the budget by trillions over the next 10 years, it is worth asking how we got here — from healthy surpluses at the end of the Clinton era, and the promise of future surpluses, to nine straight years of deficits, including the $1.3 trillion shortfall in 2010. The answer is largely the Bush-era tax cuts, war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, and recessions.

REVISH: "There's still a lot of frustration from people continuing to wait for that change that you promised, they don't feel better off now than they were 3 years ago. How do you convince them we're headed in the right direction?" OBAMA: "Well, look there's no doubt that we've gone through the toughest economic situation that we've seen since the Great Depression. I think the vast majority of people understand that this is something that we inherited and that when I came into office we'd already lost 4 million jobs and the few months after I got sworn in we...

JUBA — Saturday meant that South Sudan and its black tribesmen would for the first time be linked politically with sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya and Uganda are already laying strong economic ties with their northern neighbor, an oil-rich country that may one day ship its oil to a Kenyan port, instead of through the pipelines controlled by Khartoum. "From today our identity is southern and African, not Arabic and Muslim," read a hand-painted sign that one man carried as he walked through the crowds. South Sudan first celebrated its new status with a a raucous street party at midnight. At a...

JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan became the world's newest nation early Saturday, officially breaking away from Sudan after two civil wars over five decades that cost the lives of at least 2 million people. Residents of the new nation — the Republic of South Sudan — danced in the streets, banged on jerry cans and chanted the name of the world's newest president, Salva Kiir. South Sudan earned independence at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, the culmination of a January independence vote guaranteed in a 2005 peace deal that ended the most recent north-south war. Saturday's early morning celebrations were joyous...

During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama ran more against lame-duck President Bush than against his Republican opponent, John McCain. The campaign is now long over, and yet President Obama still seems haunted by the ghost of his predecessor. Last week, for example, he was railing at the Bush phantom, whom he blamed for his received economic mess. In the world of Barack Obama everything he inherited was someone else’s fault — unless he believes past policies offer him some advantage and thus are to be claimed as entirely his own. The stock market is sliding. Gas and food prices are...

President Barack Obama is pivoting from diplomacy on the world stage to the intimate and delicate domestic task of acting as healer-in-chief to a devastated community. The president travels to tornado-wrecked Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, a day after returning from a six-day European tour of Ireland, England, France and Poland. After days of focusing on the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world, he'll turn to an even more critical connection: his own, with the American people. The president will visit with survivors and family members of the worst tornado in decades, a monster storm that tore through Joplin...

The Obama administration is urging Congress not to adopt legislation that would reaffirm and arguably expand the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed just three days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In addition, for the first time, the administration is formally threatening a veto over Congress's efforts to limit his authority to release Guantanamo prisoners and to transfer war-on-terror prisoners held by the U.S. military to the U.S. for any reason. There is a belated quality to the veto threat since Obama previously objected to but ulitmately signed a series of bills which had provisions effectively...

Auto bailout could be Barack Obama's secret weapon By: Ben Smith and Byron Tau May 14, 2011 07:04 AM EDT President Barack Obama and his allies in two big industrial unions appear poised to make the auto bailout — begun under President George W. Bush in 2008 — a central issue of the 2012 campaign. With General Motors back on its feet — it announced $2 billion in new investments at 18 GM plants Tuesday — and losses from the government’s intervention shaping up to be minimal, Democrats hope to punish Republican presidential candidates for their early opposition. The party...

(CNSNews.com) – Information from an al-Qaida operative named Hassan Ghul, captured in Iraq in 2004, provided the “key moment” in identifying the notorious courier that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, a U.S. government official confirmed to CNSNews.com. Further, the official said, high ranking al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) – the mastermind of 9/11 -- and Abu Faraj al-Libi, each tried to mislead interrogators about the courier, whose nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. KSM identified al-Kuwaiti as not important, while al-Libi declined even knowing him. This greatly conflicted with what other detainees had said. The...

*Snip to the summary*To sum it up, everything we as conservatives believe about our country's defense, the War on Terror, interrogation, special ops / black ops, Gitmo, and the realities of the world was validated. Our ideas won. Our tactics won. An enemy we never hesitated to call out was killed. Everything liberals believe about the same was defeated. They are trying to take credit for a win in a war they never acknowledged with tactics they openly hate. With a childish liberal in the White House, that may not be evident to much of the country at the moment....

"The Oval Office, I always thought I was going to have really cool phones and stuff. . . I'm like, 'C'mon guys, I'm the president of the United States. Where's the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up?' It doesn't happen." -- President Obama The list of people I feel sorry for is long. It includes not just all of the people I know personally who are suffering from one misfortune or another, but the billions around the world who're having a rougher time than they ought: Japanese earthquake victims, targets of ethnic cleansing, etc. Then there's...

Sierra Nevada snowpack stands at 165 percent of average, a level not seen since 1995 and one that puts the 2010-2011 winter near the top of the record lists. "This year's snowpack counts as one of the big ones -- there aren't many of them," said Maury Roos, veteran meteorologist with the California Department of Water Resources. During their monthly snow depth survey in a field near the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort, department officials Wednesday morning found 124 inches of the powdery, white stuff. A staggering 740 inches of snow have fallen at Donner Summit this winter -- one of only...

I watched in fascination last night as Sean Hannity interviewed Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann and Congressman Anthony Weiner in a segment of his show discussing the budget and the difficulty for Democrats to find areas in which to make cuts. Hannity began the segment with the following question to Congressman Weiner: (during the course of the interview, the Congressman attacked Michelle Bachmann by calling her "Bachmann" as if they were two guys sparring in a boxing ring -- the disrespect was obnoxious and she handled it with class): "All right, Congressman, here's why we are in this position. This is just...

The U.S. Navy was repositioning its heavy-hitting warships around North Africa tonight as America and Britain dramatically increased pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which had been on pirate-hunting duty off the coast of Somalia, has now steamed to the mouth of the Suez Canal in the Red Sea. The deadly strike force aboard the nuclear-powered carrier is already within flying distance of Libya but the Enterprise is said to be heading closer to country and its rogue dictator.

President George W Bush has deplored the "freedom deficit" in the Middle East and said the United States must remain focused on the region "for decades". "Our commitment to democracy is being tested in the Middle East," he said in a televised Washington speech in defence of US democracy. Mr Bush said dictators in Iraq and Syria had "left a legacy of torture, oppression, misery and ruin". Turning to Iran, he warned that "the regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy". But some governments in the region were...

To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush's Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge refinery. A few months later, the refinery opened in the piney woods of Treutlen County, Ga., as the taxpayers of Georgia piled on another $6 million. In 2008, the ethanol plant was the first beneficiary of the Biorefinery Assistance Program, pocketing a loan for $80 million guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayers. Last month, the refinery closed down, having failed to squeeze even a drop of ethanol out of its pine chips. The Soperton,...

Chris Matthews Blames Egypt Riots on George W. Bush and Iraq War By Noel Sheppard Created 01/29/2011 - 12:17pm By Noel Sheppard | January 29, 2011 | 12:17 Noel Sheppard's picture It's a metaphysical certitude that whenever anything happens in the Middle East, the media will quickly blame former President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. Not missing the opportunity to do so, Chris Matthews began the 5PM installment of "Hardball" Friday connecting the riots in Egypt to a man that has been out of office for two years (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST:...

Greenlit by Dubya, accelerated by Obama. Or at least, that’s what the cyborg time travelers who brought the worm back from the future would have you believe. The evidence is only circumstantial, but … there’s an awful lot of it. Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s...

Nearly two years into the Obama presidency, voters still believe the nation’s continuing economic problems are due more to President George W. Bush than to the policies of the current occupant of the White House. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters think current economic problems are due primarily to the recession which began under the Bush administration. Forty-two percent (42%) say Obama’s policies are more to blame.

The Interior Department reversed a Bush-era policy on wilderness on Thursday, restoring the authority of its Bureau of Land Management to identify and recommend new areas for protection. Green Since 2003, the department has excluded wilderness as a criterion it applies in managing federal lands for the public benefit. “The new Wild Lands policy affirms the B.L.M.’s authorities under the law — and our responsibility to the American people — to protect the wilderness characteristics of the lands we oversee,” the bureau’s director, Bob Abbey, said in a statement. Environmentalists welcomed the decision but questioned why it had taken nearly...

<p>Say what you want about WikiLeaks - and I don't much like what it has done - it nevertheless would be useful for its founder, Julian Assange, to follow George W. Bush as he lopes around the country, promoting his new book, "Decision Points." When, for instance, Bush attempts to justify the Iraq war by saying the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein, Assange could reach into his bag of leaked U.S. government cables and cite Saudi King Abdullah's private observation that the war had given Iraq to Iran as a "gift on a golden platter."</p>

Hypothetical scenario: A guy and his wife go to see her family for a holiday. It's a mostly cordial day, spent eating, talking about firearms and collectibles and other things of common interests. One thing the guy notices, though, is that his MIL, who isn't a football fan, makes it a point to ask him, "What did you think about the Vikings cutting Randy Moss?" Now this is an innocent question on its face, right? Problem is, this MIL has a habit of asking this same question over and over: "What do you think about..." and then fill in the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed Republican-funded attacks for her low approval ratings Wednesday, moments after Democrats re-elected her to head the party as minority leader in next year’s Congress. “How would your ratings be if $75 million were spent against you?” Pelosi said, after being asked about her low approval ratings. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll taken at the end of October found that only eight percent of independents have a favorable view of Pelosi and just 24 percent of the general population approves of her job as Speaker. In the waning days of the 111th Congress, 73 percent disprove...

SOUTH BEND — If you ever wondered how much difference just one letter can make when it comes to a message, ask the thousands of people who drove by a digital billboard near the intersection of Ironwood and State Road 23 between Thursday and Monday morning. The ad urged people to go to the "southbendon.com" website for a look at the "15 best things about our pubic schools." That's right, the billboard said "pubic" instead of "public" schools. The letter "L" had been left out of the word public. Lee MacMillan of South Bend said his wife spotted the error...

Ingenious! Here we all thought Karl Rove was bashing Delaware conservative Christine O’Donnell and all along he was just raising money for her senatorial campaign. Karl Rove walked back his attacks on Christine O’Donnell this morning on FOX News. “My job as a Fox analyst is to call it as I see them,” Rove explained this morning. “My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican.” Rove listed all the reasons he’s said in the past why O’Donnell has destroyed the GOP’s (already outside) chances at a Senate majority — the problems with “honesty” he first mentioned on...

<p>While President Obama vacationed in Martha's Vineyard, the Oval Office got a makeover, but one quote on the new carpet is wrongly attributed.</p>

President Obama criticizes the economic policies of former President Bush and the current "partisan minority" in Congress. Obama asks Republicans to drop the economic "blockade."

Lauer to Laura Bush: Is It 'Painful' to Be in New Orleans, Since So Much Blame Is Laid At Your Husband's Feet? Today co-anchor Matt Lauer traveled to New Orleans, on Friday, to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and interviewed the likes of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, former FEMA Director Mike Brown, current Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, but saved any sort of direct shots at George W. Bush for his interview with Laura Bush.

(snip) The tiny, reddish-brown parasites, which live on warm human blood, were once nearly extinct. But thanks to a growing resistance to pesticides, and an increasingly mobile human population, they’ve had a resurgence since the mid-1990s. For years, they’ve been enjoying city life, crawling out at night from all sorts of mattresses to feed. The difference now, exterminators said, is they’ve made sizable inroads into suburbia. (snip) In the past decade, most urban-dwelling bedbugs arrived on the backs of roaming college students or migrant workers from South and Central America.Once they settle and mate, their offspring will eventually set off...

Everyone remember this Obama doozy from a year ago? (h/t Gateway Pundit) [VIDEO AT SITE] Now, my administration has a job to do, as well, and that job is to get this economy back on its feet. That's my job. (Applause.) And it's a job I gladly accept. I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, well, this is Obama's economy. That's fine. Give it to me. (Applause.) My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and harp and gripe. (Applause.) The AP: With four simple words — "Give...

NEW ORLEANS -- Five years after he documented the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, Spike Lee returned to New Orleans with his new movie showing the city's agonizing efforts to return to normal. The premiere Tuesday included hours one and four of the HBO documentary, "If God Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise." "The first hour was very, very emotional," said Sharon Starks, 53, who said she had a purse full of tissues after seeing the first Lee film on the hurricane. "But the second hour I was just angry. It was about the BP oil spill and I just felt...

Googled "Fish Kill" and used advanced search to limit to last 30 days. Below are a few of the reports but there are literally thousands all across the country. Delaware Bay - fish kill 'highly significant' Baytown, Tx - Fish kill in Burnet Bay Hancock County, Mississippi - EOC Director: Fish kill after oil washes up, “ALL the crabs are crawling up on the bank”; “Dying everywhere” says fisherman New Jersey shore - Cause of Fish Kill: Low Oxygen or Scared to Death? Fishy theories don't explain why seagulls won't eat the dead fish washed up on the shore ALBERT...

Embattled Rep. Maxine Waters on Friday blamed the Bush administration for her ethics problems -- saying she had to intervene with the Treasury Department on behalf of minority-owned banks seeking federal bailout funds -- including one tied to her husband -- because the Treasury Department wouldn't schedule its own appointments.