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During an interview with WAGA, President Obama attempted to make excuses for his failed promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office.

Desperate to win re-election, President Obama is taking inspiration from a tactic used by China’s Chairman Mao during so-called "Cultural Revolution."In order to spread his ideology, he creates his own army of brainwashed propagandists who are supposed to popularize talking points sent to them directly from the White House. Modern days hongweibings (Chinese for red guards) are called the Truth Team, and if everything goes as planned, the president will have an army of over two million Americans on his side.The Obama administration unveiled on Monday a campaign created to crush the GOP competition come November, a mission that...

Remember, There's Maine "I think I have a natural connection with the people of Maine. Mainers tend to be fiscally conservative, and as governor of a state next door, Massachusetts, they know that I was the guy that balanced the budget all four years and lowered taxes 19 times. So I think I've got a good chance of getting support from our friends in Maine." -- Mitt Romney in an interview with WCSH of Portland, Maine. Maine Republicans will on Saturday evening announce the results of precinct-level straw polls taken at 36 of 39 caucuses being held across the state's...

Chu: Expect more loan guarantee failuresBy Ben Geman - 02/10/12 05:47 PM ET Energy Secretary Steven Chu again warned Friday that more recipients of Energy Department green technology loan guarantees will likely collapse even as he touted the strength of the program overall. The warning comes as many Republicans are continuing to assail the green energy loan program as a risky use of taxpayer dollars. “We have always known that there were inherent risks in backing innovative technologies at full commercial scale, and it is very likely that there will be other companies in the portfolio that won’t succeed,” Chu...

Massimo d'Amore, the divisive figure at the center of many of PepsiCo's biggest marketing campaigns over the past several years, is retiring. -snip- Mr. d'Amore has cast a long shadow at PepsiCo and in the marketing world. A charming Italian, he has been lauded as both innovative and creative, but has also been a lightning rod for controversy. He oversaw the creation of new logos, packaging and marketing campaigns for several brands, including Pepsi, Tropicana, Gatorade, Mtn Dew and Sierra Mist.

A gray 2005 Chrysler 300C leased by Barack Obama in 2004 failed to sell for the asking price of $1 million on eBay, the Chicago-area seller said. Lisa Czibor, the eBay seller working on behalf of owner Tim O'Boyle, said the $1 million asking price may have been too high for bidders and the auction ended Wednesday without any bids meeting the minimum, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.

President Obama: “I deserve a second term” By Erik Wasson - 02/05/12 04:57 PM ET President Obama in a pre-Super Bowl interview aired on Sunday said that despite being unable to completely turn the economy around in three years, he still deserves to be re-elected. “I deserve a second term but we're not done,” Obama told NBC's Matt Lauer in an interview broadcast from the White House. Lauer noted that in a pre-Super Bowl interview three years ago, Obama had said "If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” Obama said...

A wealthy Florida man has adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend as a daughter in a move critics say will protect the man's assets during an upcoming lawsuit surrounding a deadly car accident. Polo Club Palm Beach founder John Goodman, 48, adopted his longtime partner Heather Laruso Hutchins in October, The Palm Beach Post reports. The strategy could shore up Goodman's wealth as he confronts a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the parents of Scott Patrick Wilson, The Associated Press says. Wilson was killed in 2010 when Goodman allegedly ran a stop sign. The trial begins March 27. Goodman had previously set...

A Massachusetts woman says the FBI used a chain saw blade to cut through her door and held her at gunpoint for at least 30 minutes before agents realized they were conducting a raid at the wrong home. Judy Sanchez, of Fitchburg, says she awoke to heavy footsteps in the stairwell on Jan. 26 and walked into her kitchen in time to see a blade chop through her door. "I took two steps, face the second door, and I heard the click of a gun, and saying, ‘FBI, get down,’ so I laid down on my living room floor,” Sanchez...

I think the judges would give this to him...

Inspired by this story from The Hill

PepsiCo will take the first step toward finding an eventual successor to Chief Executive Indra Nooyi next month when it plans to ask several top executives to step up their duties. The beverage and snack giant, which is set to release the results of a months-long review on Feb. 9, will give at least two executives additional responsibilities, anointing them as possible replacements, a source close to the company said.

Andrew Restuccia of The Hill is reporting that Ener1, a battery company that President Obama referenced in his State of The Union Speech on Tuesday as an example of successful energy investments, has just filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Reports say President Obama’s State of the Union Address tonight will be focusing, in part, on economic fairness.... “He’s going to convince me he’s interested in fairness when he gets those 20,000 workers to work,” Grassley says. “He’s the only person standing in the way of those 20,000 jobs. You can’t blame John Deere, you can’t blame Caterpillar, you can’t blame Wall Street, you can’t blame anybody else. So if he’s going to be fair and equitable, create those 20,000 jobs.” Grassley says the pipeline also promises to create another 120,000 jobs indirectly. Grassley, a Republican, says America needs more...

One thousand days is long enough to get a lot done. An elephant needs only about two-thirds of that time for a full-term pregnancy. In the past 1,000 days, the Egyptians figured out how to overthrow their government. The Libyans figured out how to overthrow their dictator. Theoretically, man could travel to Mars and back in that time. However, the U.S. Senate has failed to figure out how to propose and pass a budget for this country as required by law in that time. It is only fitting that President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address on...

COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama has suffered the second embarrassment over oil imports within the space of a week. Brazil, whose offshore deposits of oil were sought by the Obama administration, has signed contracts with China for the product. According to the Washington Times, Brazilian offshore crude may number about 38 billion barrels. Obama went to Brazil last month to put in a bid for the oil, offering loans and other support to develop the oil in an "environmentally responsible matter," The Hill reported at the time. Republicans criticized that initiative, pointing out Obama has placed roadblocks in the way...

Voters are deeply divided on President Obama's accomplishments in office — with a majority reporting that the president has accomplished "not much" or "little or nothing." A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that 52 percent of voters have a negative assessment of the president's track record. The survey finds that 12 percent of voters believe he has accomplished a "great deal," while 35 percent describe his accomplishments as a "good amount." Among those who believe the president has not accomplished much, 56 percent blame Obama for that state of affairs, while 18 percent blame Republicans in Congress. And 19...

I’ve always said that if someone calculated a ratio of credit-for-things-accomplished/things-accomplished President Obama would score extremely low. Andrew Sullivan collects the facts. One question I was left with after reading this was why does the President score so low on that ratio? Why hasn’t he gotten more credit for what I believe history will ultimately judge as a record of remarkable accomplishments?

Militants believed to belong to al-Qaeda launched Monday offences on government institutions in the southeast city of al-Baythda,some260 Kilometers southwest the Yemeni capital of Sana'a. The militants continued their assault today and seized control of the central prison releasing all of its inmates. They also attacked an intelligence prison in the city and set it ablaze , leaving a soldier killed and another injured.

It’s official: Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history after passing 80 bills — fewer than during any other session since year-end records began being kept in 1947. Furthermore, an analysis by The Washington Times of the scope of such activities as time spent in debate, number of conference reports produced and votes taken on the House and Senate floors found that Congress set a record for legislative futility by accomplishing less in 2011 than any other year in history. The Senate’s record was weakest by a huge margin, according to the futility index, and the House had its...

... Washington’s new diplomatic initiative has fallen on deaf ears, with Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai remarking pointedly, "The normal trade relations and energy cooperation between China and Iran have nothing to do with the nuclear issue We should not mix issues with different natures, and China's legitimate concerns and demands should be respected. We believe the normal economic ties between countries in the world and Iran should not be affected."

Trying to jump-start his re-election with hometown fund-raisers and rallies, President Barack Obama told 500 cheering fans Wednesday, “Everything that we fought for is now at stake in this election.” He repeated the message at more intimate gatherings in private homes in Lake View and Kenwood. He fired up the troops in his very first visit to his national headquarters in the Prudential Building. And he even stopped in to his own home for 20 minutes at the end of the night before flying back to Washington, D.C. He hopes the fund-raisers bring in more than $2 million for what...

President Barack Obama plans to create a U.S. government task force designed to monitor China for possible trade and other commercial violations as part of a larger White House effort to get more assertive with Beijing this election year, people familiar with the matter said.

Obama recently signed a mysterious new law that proclaims all American soil is a "battleground," thereby allowing the president to indefinitely detain any American citizen without charges. Critics fear Obama will use his fun new unconstitutional powers to make his political enemies disappear, but that may not be necessary. The way things are going, most patriotic Americans will soon be six feet under, felled by apoplectic strokes brought on by reading the latest outrage committed by our "Commander in Chief." He may not have a limit to what he'll inflict; but our collective blood pressure may have a limit to...

Project Shield was supposed to make citizens safer. But in the end, the $45-million Homeland Security program more resembled a disaster, wasting taxpayers’ dollars and failing to make a single citizen more secure. The failed Cook County initiative was replete with equipment that failed to work, missing records and untrained first responders according to a report by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The report, to be released Monday but obtained by The Sun-Times and NBC5 News, found “millions of tax dollars may have been wasted.”

(Iselin, NJ) -- Two Federal Reserve officials are telegraphing support for more action to invigorate the nation's economy. The president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank wants moves to help the housing market.

With a dwindling market share and increasingly public PR fiascoes, electronics mega-chain Best Buy has seen better days. And after the publication of a lengthy Forbes article detailing the ways in which the retailer is its own worst enemy, some have begun the countdown clock until the boys in blue go bankrupt. We would normally expect Best Buy to treat the Forbes piece the same way they would a complaining customer — by looking the other way and going on a smoke break in the back parking lot. But the CEO of Best Buy must have realized that shareholders know...

Chelsea Clinton’s much-trumpeted deal with NBC seems to be nearly done. Her contract is for only 90 days, and while she’ll provide the network with two more stories, sources say it is not certain she’ll immediately sign again.

Drive through New Hampshire in the next week, and you will see a staggering number of Republican yard signs. They’re everywhere: It seems like every third house has a sign up. They’re on front yards and in the windows of businesses. They’re in every neighborhood representing every demographic. They’re in front of homes along rural roadways, in front of suburban homes in the big southern towns, and in the conservative blue-collar neighborhoods of Manchester. And there are even Republican yard signs all over the capital city of Concord — a largely Democratic-leaning town in this swing state.Barack Obama is in...

General Motors plans to ask Volt owners to bring their electric cars into dealers to strengthen the structure around the batteries, according to a report. The move is similar to a recall and involves the 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S. in the past two years.

Embattled PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi is considering laying off roughly 4,000 workers and ending the company’s 401(k) match in order to boost earnings, The Post has learned. A final decision could be made in days, according to sources close to the situation. “They are burning the furniture” is how one source described the proposed actions, referring to quick-strike actions undertaken after the usual means of accomplishing the goal of increasing profits have failed. Nooyi has been testing the patience of company directors who are fretting over the lack of a clear heir apparent, a series of marketing missteps and a...

Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection filing in the coming weeks should efforts to sell a trove of digital patents fall through, people familiar with the matter said. The struggling photography icon, which employs about 19,000 people, is in discussions with potential lenders for around $1 billion in so-called debtor-in possession financing that would keep it afloat during bankruptcy proceedings, the people said. A filing could occur as soon as this month or early February, one of the people said. A Kodak spokesman said the company "does not comment on market rumor or speculation."

If you’ve ever watched a beagle track down a rabbit or a bloodhound track down an convect, you might get a glimpse into the workings of Rep Darrell Issa, a Republican from California. Issa is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This basically means that he heads the main investigative body used to delve into the Obama administration and their dealings. Because of his bulldog tenacity of not letting go until the job is done, many on Capitol Hill refer to Issa as Mr Subpoena. In an interview given over the weekend, Issa said, “If...

... Cpl Kavanagh lied about his age to join the Cheshire Regiment at 15 and was sent to the Third Anglo-Afghan War in May to August 1919. He wrote: “The endurance and experience gained by the tribesman from years of incessant raiding make him a formidable enemy. “He will sometimes hide his rifle and appear as a peaceful villager.” One tip to young recruits was: “Avoid shaking hands with a strange Pathan. They will seize with their left hand and stab with their right.” Cpl Kavanagh continued serving with the British army and was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. He...

Exam results dip as students swap degree work for demosCambridge University students have underperformed in exams because they ditched their studies to protest about tuition fees, according to the Provost of King’s College. By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent 8:00AM GMT 01 Jan 2012 Undergraduates at King’s College, Cambridge, have been so busy demonstrating against the rise in tuition fees and university funding cuts that they neglected their studies, according to the college’s Provost. As a result, the institution has seen its proportion of first class degrees fall and has nosedived down the college league table rankings from 14th to 20th...

Leaving behind a year of bruising legislative battles, President Barack Obama enters his fourth year in office having calculated that he no longer needs Congress to promote his agenda and may even benefit in his re-election campaign if lawmakers take little action in 2012. Devoid of any major policy pushes, much of the year will instead focus on the biggest goal of all: winning a second term. The president will keep up a robust domestic travel schedule and aggressive campaign fundraising and use executive action to try to boost the economy. Unlike the partisan, down-to-the-wire fights over allowing the nation...

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a severe recession. Slashing government spending in a depressed economy depresses the economy further; austerity should wait until a strong recovery is well under way. Unfortunately, in late 2010 and early 2011, politicians and policy makers in much of the Western world believed that they...

WILLMAR — The Willmar Municipal Utilities Commission on Tuesday rejected a motion to study the feasibility of a solar project for Willmar Municipal Utilities at this time. The commission defeated a motion to sign a nonbinding letter of intent with tenKsolar of Minneapolis to study the feasibility of a 600-kilowatt-hour project as a showcase to prospective national and worldwide customers. The study had been proposed by tenKsolar executives Joel Cannon, chief executive officer, and Jim Losleben, business development vice president.

NEW YORK -- Business conditions in Texas-area manufacturing weakened noticeably in December, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, while key subcomponents staged a modest rebound from the last reading. The bank said its general business activity index plunged to -3.2 in December from 3.2 in November. Readings below 0 indicate contraction, and positive numbers indicate expanding activity. Key sub-components painted a mixed picture, with some indicating a slowdown and others forecasting improvement. The production index for the current month rebounded to -1.3 from -5.1 last month, still mired in negative territory after plunging to a...

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry failed to submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the Virginia primary ballot, state GOP officials said Friday evening. Perry’s campaign told state election officials it had submitted 11,911 signatures, but a Virginia Republican familiar with the situation said that the Texas governor did not submit the required 10,000. Earlier Friday, the Republican Party of Virginia certified former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) to appear in the March ballot. Four candidates — Romney, Perry, Paul and former House speaker Newt Gingrich — turned in thousands of signatures by the deadline. State...

About 100 years...

And Obama again proves that only gullible, stupid people vote for him. [VIDEO AT SITE] Posted on the pomposity that is the site of the "Office of the President Elect" it says this: Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack...

For anyone in the DC area who relies on metrorail, a wheel fell off one of the trains on the Orange Line this morning and the entire system is snarled, with people still stuck on the train. Those who made it off are reporting that Metro still made them pay exit fare and somehow find their own alternative transportation.

The South Carolina Republican Presidential Primary is on January 21, 2012. I live in South Carolina, so the Republican Presidential candidates have just about a month to convince me of one thing: that he or she will help cure the disease and not just the symptoms. I already know that it's imperative that President Obama not win a second term, and not just to save me from more gray hairs and so-not-cute wrinkles due to constant scowling at the nightly news. But, just as important and too often forgotten is the need for a President who will have the strength...

Microscopic-scale medical robots represent a promising new type of therapeutic technology. As envisioned, the microbots, which are less than one millimeter in size, might someday be able to travel throughout the human bloodstream to deliver drugs to specific targets or seek out and destroy tumors, blood clots, and infections that can't be easily accessed in other ways. One challenge in the deployment of microbots, however, is developing a system to accurately "drive" them and maneuver them through the complex and convoluted circulatory system, to a chosen destination. Researchers from Korea's Hanyang University in Seoul and Chonnam National University in Gwangju...

Officials from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc. have expressed concern to members of Congress that the two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly. Pete Isberg, president of the NPRC today wrote to the key leaders of the relevant committees of the House and Senate, telling them that “insufficient lead time” to implement the complicated change mandated by the legislation means the two-month payroll tax holiday “could create substantial problems, confusion and costs affecting a significant percentage of U.S. employers and employees...” The NPRC ... represents organizations that provide...

--Olive Garden's struggles continue to weigh down Darden's earnings --Darden says Olive Garden didn't change with the times coming out of recession --Expects lower commodity inflation, more cost savings initiatives in second half of FY12 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Darden Restaurants Inc.'s DRI -.00% fiscal second-quarter earnings fell 28% on continued woes at the casual-dining company's Olive Garden restaurant chain. Over the past year, Darden, which also owns Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse, has struggled to garner momentum for Olive Garden, its largest chain, chalking up the sales and traffic declines to promotional misfires and increased competition.

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families. "Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses,...

Oops - somebody was having fun with the screen layout at Fox this morning.