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Despite the fact Barack Obama is married with two children, Newsweek magazine is dubbing him “The First Gay President” on its latest cover, crowning him with a rainbow-colored halo. The cover comes in the wake of Obama’s newly declared support for homosexual marriage in America. The edition, which hits newsstands Monday, features a column by Andrew Sullivan, an openly homosexual self-titled conservative political pundit. “When you step back a little and assess the record of Obama on gay rights, you see, in fact, that this was not an aberration. It was an inevitable culmination of three years of work,” Sullivan...

An absolutely inevitable headline, although its somewhat awkward timing is sure to raise a few eyebrows.  President Obama was expected to come around on this issue after the 2012 election, but this week's firestorm finally pushed the White House's lame and cynical  "he's evolving" formulation to the brink.  Caught in an untenable position, Obama at last decided to share his true thoughts on same-sex marriage with the American people, via a hastily-arranged interview with ABC News (video HERE):   "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and...

Pelosi: GOP tax bill ‘doesn't have a shot’By Mike Lillis - 12/09/11 01:01 PM ET Republican "extremism" is the only thing stopping Congress from finalizing an extension of the payroll tax cut and getting out of town for the holidays, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi charged Friday. The California Democrat hammered the tax package from House Republicans, warning that the addition of "poison pill" riders — particularly language expediting approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline — means the bill is dead on arrival. "Their proposal doesn't have a shot," Pelosi said during a brief press event in the...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is holding a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill hostage to win leverage in a separate fight over taxes, GOP lawmakers claimed Tuesday. The GOP members said Reid is ordering Democratic conferees on the spending bill to not sign off on a deal so that he can keep the House in session to work on legislation extending the payroll tax backed by President Obama. The House is set to vote on the payroll bill on Tuesday, but Senate Democrats oppose the measure. If the omnibus moved forward, the House could move its payroll bill and...

Pelosi says Democrats can reclaim House majority in 2012 electionBy Associated Press Updated: Thursday, November 3, 1:05 PM WASHINGTON — Democrats have a chance of reclaiming control of the House in next year’s election, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. The California Democrat told reporters that the Republican-controlled House has not created any new jobs in the weak economy. She also says Democrats have raised more money than GOP candidates so far this year. “We have definitely put the House in play,” she said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Afghanistan to encourage President Hamid Karzai to continue efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. Mr Karzai has expressed frustration at the process after the assassinations of several key Afghan leaders. US officials say Mrs Clinton also wants to convince Afghans that Washington is committed to a long-term relationship with their country. The US is planning to withdraw troops and hand over security to the Afghans. "She wants to signal US support for a secure and stable Afghanistan," a US official told journalists travelling with Mrs Clinton. Her visit to Afghanistan was not...

Via the Jawa Report, the surreal postscript to Obama’s decision to target an American citizen. An official from the U.S. State Department has called the Charlotte family of al-Qaida propagandist Samir Khan to offer the government’s condolences on his death in a U.S. drone attack last week in Yemen, according to a family spokesman. “They were very apologetic (for not calling the family sooner) and offered condolences,” Jibril Hough said about the Thursday call from the State Department to Khan’s father, Zafar. The phone call came a day after the family released a statement through Hough that condemned the “assassination”...

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) tells MSNBC regulations create jobs because a business will have to hire people to help them comply with the new requirement. "I think the answer is no," Ellison said when asked if he believes regulations kill jobs. "And here is why: When we talked about increasing fuel efficiency standards, the industry responded, and they need engineers and designers and manufacturers, and they need actually more people to help respond to the new requirement."

It now appears that the Energy Department was something of a haven for Obama fundraisers who wanted to affect policy after the election. ABC News is reporting that several Obama fundraisers found themselves helping out around the place. Some of them had ties to green energy projects that DOE ended up supporting. Well known already is DOE’s precipitous and calamitous decision to fund Solyndra, which was backed by Obama fundraiser George Kaiser. Also known is that another Obama fundraiser, Stephen Spinner, was involved in advising on the Energy Department’s loan program. His wife’s law firm represented Solyndra, but the firm...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu acknowledged Thursday making the final decision to allow a struggling solar company to continue receiving taxpayer money after it had technically defaulted on a $535 million federal loan guaranteed by his agency. Chu spokesman Damien La­Vera said in a statement that the secretary approved the restructuring agreement for Solyndra because it gave the company “the best possible chance to succeed in a very competitive marketplace and put the company in a better position to repay the loan.” On the political front, Chu’s admission came as some members of Congress were asking whether Chu went too far...

Yesterday, the Turkish media reported, “Turkey … agreed with the US on a deal involving the transfer of US-engineered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could prove crucial in combating terrorism.” The Predator drones, expected to be delivered in June 2012, are supposed to help the Turks combat terrorists, which in Ankara’s narrow definition means the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) crossing into Turkey from the Iraq border. The Predators, said Turkish defense minister İsmet Yilmaz, “are UAVs with better qualities and features than the [Israeli-made] Herons.” Ankara, the report explains, was “disappointed by Israel's failure to return six Herons it had...

Obama said the U.S. recovery suffered setbacks this year due to problems around the world, including the Arab Spring uprisings that drove up energy prices and worries about the financial health of European countries. "They have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced. It is now being compounded with what is happening in Greece," Obama told an audience of about 400 in Mountain View in California's Silicon Valley. "So they are going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world and they are trying...

Hacked or h*ng? Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY 9″) finds himself in a late night online pickle. This evening a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner’s yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in his underwear with an erection. The photo was reportedly sent to a woman on Twitter. We’ve protected her name and her account, which was at one time verified to be active but has since been deleted after the photo in question was deleted. Coincidentally, the rest of the photos in the congressman’s alleged yfrog account were also deleted around 11 p.m. eastern. Weiner, who...

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY 9″) finds himself in a late night online pickle. This evening a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner’s yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in his underwear with an erection. The photo was reportedly sent to a woman on Twitter. We’ve protected her name and her account, which was at one time verified to be active but has since been deleted after the photo in question was deleted.

The U.S. has “raced” to control space exploration, nuclear arms and electronics. Since taking office, President Obama has introduced the idea that the U.S. is now battling China — the world’s largest polluter — in new race for world domination. A clean energy race. “The nation that leads in the creation of a clean-energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy,” the president has said. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has repeated the message several times, creating a frenzy to “go green,” before China does. If America really is in such a race, the Energy and Commerce...

Note: The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-barack-obama-release-nuclear-posture-review Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release April 06, 2010 Statement by President Barack Obama on the Release of Nuclear Posture Review One year ago yesterday in Prague, I outlined a comprehensive agenda to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to pursue the peace and security of a world without them. I look forward to advancing this agenda in Prague this week when I sign the new START Treaty with President Medvedev, committing the United States and Russia to...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/08/live-stanford-s-sustainability-summit Home • The White House Blog The White House Blog Live from Stanford: Secretary Chu on the Global Clean Energy Challenge Posted by Secretary Steven Chu on March 08, 2010 at 01:45 PM EST What are the steps we must take as a nation to create new, clean energy jobs and ensure America’s long-term competitiveness? What are the consequences for our climate of inaction? How can science and technology offer us new and better choices – and how can America’s young people make a difference? Today, I’m returning to Stanford University, where...

Many of us had just the grandest time conducting worthless research for the old monopolistic phone companies.  Dr. Steven Chu, our Secretary of Energy was one of the typical products of that era of unfocused industrial research.  He nurtured his career in what had become the most arrogant and unfocused lab of them all, Bell Laboratories.   If you landed one of those storied jobs as a newly minted Member of Technical Staff, you could expect to conduct research indistinguishable from that of any academic scientist supported by government agencies like the National Science Foundation. That a once glorious Bell Labs...

When it comes to greenhouse-gas emissions, Energy Secretary Steven Chu sees Americans as unruly teenagers and the Administration as the parent that will have to teach them a few lessons. Speaking on the sidelines of a smart grid conference in Washington, Dr. Chu said he didn’t think average folks had the know-how or will to to change their behavior enough to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--A grant program introduced in the federal stimulus package passed earlier this year was intended to jump-start investment in renewable energy, but the rules of the program threaten to hobble it from the start by restricting private equity involvement in any projects the government backs. The rules, published July 9, exclude from the program any projects with investors that have tax-exempt status. That was done because the grant program is intended to replace tax credits, which have become less widely used as taxable incomes have fallen.... However, most private equity firms receive backing from tax-exempt limited partners...

After the selection of a largely centrist economic team, liberals have been asking when President-elect Obama would give them a seat at the table. Well, now we know, and Americans should strap themselves in. Mr. Obama is stocking his energy shop with the greenest of greens who want to move fast on a very aggressive climate agenda. Here come the carbon busters. It's striking that the moderate in this bunch may be Steven Chu, who has reportedly been tapped as Energy Secretary. Though a political unknown, Mr. Chu is the respected director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where the...

WASHINGTON -- Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put a plug in for administration efforts to make lamps and lighting equipment use less energy. "I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses," the president said, standing alongside Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.

WASHINGTON - The government's inadvertent and red-faced Internet posting of a 266-page list of U.S. nuclear sites provided a one-step guide for anyone wanting details about such sensitive information. Obama administration officials said Wednesday the document contained no classified material about nuclear weapons. They contended the locations and other details already were available from public sources. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said "a snafu" led to the online posting. "A little embarrassing," he acknowledged. The document, stamped "highly confidential safeguards sensitive," made it onto the Government Printing Office's Web site - and why that happened was not immediately clear. A newsletter...

Mr. Chu said Thursday he feels “like I’ve been dumped into the deep end of the pool” in confronting questions about oil policy,...." he doesn’t know what the Obama administration would urge the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to do at its meeting next month."...." “I will be speaking and learning more about this in order to figure out what the U.S. position should be"....He later told reporters on a conference call that his response to the question reflected “more of my naiveté than anything else.“

 One of them wanted to see Americans paying $8 a gallon for gasoline. Another tried to block access to domestic oil reserves that could one day exceed those in Saudi Arabia. Another thinks global warming is a dire crisis justifying a massive crackdown on energy -- decades after saying the same thing about global cooling. Yet another had a position in the one of the world’s top socialist organizations.Meet the Obama administration’s energy team.Forget everything you’ve heard about the president’s moderate picks on the economy, national security and other issues. When it comes to energy policy and related environmental concerns,...

We can expect a proliferation of new regulations that will reach into every area of American life and commerce. What do President-elect Barack Obama’s leadership picks tell us about the kinds of energy and environmental policies we can expect in the next four to eight years? On balance, they suggest we are in for a radical shift away from George W. Bush’s pro-market policies and back to the aggressive regulatory approach favored by the Clinton administration. Let’s take a look at Obama’s prospective appointees.Lisa P. Jackson Obama’s pick for administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be the first African...

I had an OMG experience when I clicked on this. The Obama administration really intends to act in a big way on this climate change bull stuff. Don't miss Obama's video (you'll have to click through to the article.) Obama's caveat about there being only one president seem hollow here.-- AZLiberty We need strong U.S. leadership on climate change, especially as we head into next year's COP-15 talks. President-elect Obama has already spoken more boldly (by far) on climate change than almost any other American elected official:Obama on YouTube There is often, however, a large gap between words and...

So Steven Chu, President-elect Obama’s likely choice to head the Department of Energy, is a proponent of energy efficiency and conservation as the first step in rejigging America’s energy mix. But since conservation alone won’t do it, what are his ideas about finding new supplies of energy? Dr. Chu’s marquee work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is the Helios Project. ... Helios has focused largely on biofuels ... is looking to make second-generation biofuels more viable. ... What about other energy sources? Big Coal won’t be very happy if Dr. Chu gets confirmed as head of the DOE—he’s really,...

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has backed up campaign promises to focus on green energy with an Energy Secretary nominee who experts say will provide scientific expertise and pragmatism to the search for new clean sources of fuel. Obama's pick, Nobel physics laureate Steven Chu, has been a strong advocate for making buildings more efficient to cut energy use to counter global warming and climate change. "If I were emperor of the world, I would put the pedal to the floor on energy efficiency and conservation for the next decade," Chu told Reuters in an interview last year. Chu has led...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Nobel laureate Steven Chu as energy secretary and Lisa Jackson to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to media reports Wednesday. Obama is also expected to name Carol Browner as energy 'czar,' the reports said. Chu, a Chinese-American, won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1997.

Congressman Hinojosa files for bankruptcyby Action 4 News Staff Posted: 02.03.2011 at 6:46 PM WASHINGTON (AP) -- An eight-term Texas congressman who serves on the House Financial Services Committee has filed for personal bankruptcy and is blaming his family meat company for his problems. According to federal bankruptcy court documents, Democratic Rep. Ruben Hinojosa has $2.9 million in liabilities, though he also has nearly $1.5 million in assets. **SNIP** The Financial Services panel has jurisdiction over legislation affecting banks. House aides and outside experts say the House has no rules forbidding a lawmaker who owes large sums to a bank...

This satirical ad pilliories the now-infamous moment in June, 2009 when Boxer asked an Army brigadier to call her "Senator" and not "Ma'am" during a committee hearing: it concludes with her gleefully signing a $900 billion stimulus bill. [Boxer is so full of herself that she makes a self-caricature of herself for an ad ridiculing her pretensions and self-importance]

Washington: Social Security is deep in the red, the post office is losing billions, and Fannie Mae's back for another handout. These and other examples speak volumes about government fecklessness and negligence. Social Security checks mailed in 2010 will total $41 billion more than the program will collect in payroll-tax revenues, trustees reported last Thursday. The program will also run a deficit next year, before briefly returning to surpluses for a few years. Then the red ink will be back — for good — starting in 2015, a year earlier than previously projected. Some analysts believe that while deficits begin...

When the Commerce Department reported Friday that the economy had grown at a humble 2.4 percent in the second quarter, even the liberal Washington Post suggested President Barack Obama’s policies were not leading to the sort of economic growth necessary to reduce unemployment, which has risen from 7.7 percent to 9.5 percent since Obama took office. “The recovery is fading, and a troubling pattern is setting in: economic growth that is too slow to put Americans back to work,” said the first paragraph in the Post’s report on the new GDP numbers. But in the worldview presented in an early...

Health Reform: Key provisions of the president's health care reform are about to take effect. Don't expect any of it to be pretty. It turns out that — as predicted by health experts, and reported on this page — ObamaCare will make health insurance premiums rise rather than fall. This and other unpleasant truths are revealed in a new report from two Republican senators, which charges that "when measured against the administration's own stated goals, the new health law fails to address the top health care concerns of the American people." Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Barrasso of Wyoming...

-- snip --Although it cannot create jobs, government can retard job creation. An EPA ban on mountaintop mining will wipe out thousands of jobs in Appalachia, according to the National Mining Association. The ban on deepwater drilling -- which promises to extend beyond six months since the advisory committee to evaluation drilling safety has not even met -- will cost 20,000 jobs. Financial regulation promises to drive tens of thousands of Wall Street jobs overseas to free-market havens like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Switzerland. Pending cap and trade legislation will further sap growth and reduce competitiveness, leading to further job...

(CNSNews.com) – At an event celebrating Gay Pride Month on Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton encouraged State Department employees to let teenagers know homosexuality is okay. “We’ve come such a far distance in our own country, but there are still so many who need the outreach, need the mentoring, need the support to stand up and be who they are and then think about people in so many countries where it just seems impossible,” Clinton said. “So I think that each and everyone of you, not only professionally, particularly from State and USAID and every bureau and every embassy...

WASHINGTON -- This week the Drudge Report gave emphasis to its lead headline that a CNN poll found 52% of its respondents opposed to the reelection of President Obama with the boldfaced screamer: "Shock." Who is shocked? The American people are a sensible lot. Frankly I am not shocked. This administration is as inept as you would expect an administration to be when presided over by the most inexperienced and most far-left president in modern American history. Mr. Obama is out of his depth. Moreover, he and his aides are oblivious to political realities. A perfect example of this is...

At a recent Colorado town hall, University of Colorado at Boulder student Zach Lahn asked President Obama how private insurers could be expected to compete with a public health care plan. Lahn, 23, also told Obama, "I'd love to have a debate just all out, anytime, Oxford-style, if you'd like" on health care. Obama answered that "UPS and FedEx are doing a lot better than the Post Office." (If I were Obama, I wouldn't mention the post office while touting public health care.) Then the president observed, "It's good to see a young person who's very engaged and confident challenging...

One Democrat calls his rival the "anti-Christ of outsourcing" U.S. jobs and argues that he's trying to buy a win in the Virginia primary. The other fires back, labeling his opponent a sexist who is hostile to affirmative action and is, at heart, a Republican. Accusations fly freely in the Democratic primary between decorated Vietnam veteran and Reagan-era Navy secretary Jim Webb and former Internet industry lobbyist Harris Miller. The winner Tuesday will face first-term Sen. George Allen, a potential 2008 presidential candidate. Virginia is unaccustomed to primaries, especially bitter ones; the last Democratic Senate primary was in 1994. The...