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WASHINGTON — The burst of job growth in January gives President Obama a fresh — but tricky — opportunity to revise the grim economic narrative of his presidency while offering Mitt Romney a choice: embrace a new optimism or campaign against a sinking economy even as it shows signs of turning around. The Labor Department reported on Friday that the unemployment rate had fallen all the way back to the level of President Obama’s first full month in office, to 8.3 percent, from a high of 10 percent in late 2009. Yet unemployment also remains higher than it has been...

This morning, in the middle of his campaign National Prayer Breakfast speech, President Obama delighted those of us who love irony by quoting C.S. Lewis. It was an interesting moment in a speech that put forth the notion that taxing the wealthy is right in line with the teachings of Jesus. I mean, Jesus did hang out with tax collectors, right? The idea that government welfare is somehow the fulfillment of Jesus’ teaching on charity is a common misconception that many people make, Christians included, and it’s the main reason that liberals believe conservatives are Christian hypocrites. Perhaps if the...

Just checking to see if anyone else is watching. FYI..I had to turn the sound down on his show today.

A wind farm that was to be the first such large-scale operation in central Minnesota is about a year behind schedule. Edina-based Geronimo Wind Energy has the necessary permits to build the 95-megawatt wind farm. But the company hasn't been able to find a utility company willing to buy its energy. Geronimo spokesman Charlie Daum attributed the delay to a slow market. "That's really the only thing that's holding us back right now," Daum said, adding that the situation was "not a concern as much as a frustration." By now, as many as 60 turbines, each about 400 feet high,...

From the primitive land of the Arabian Peninsula of over 14 centuries ago rose Muhammad, an illiterate hired hand of a rich widow Khadija, claiming he was the bearer of a perfect life prescription from God—the Quran. He claimed humanity could do no better than to follow its precepts as well as to emulate Muhammad’s own life example for a guarantee of bliss and salvation. In exchange for this, people had to embrace Islam—surrender—by surrendering their liberty to Muhammad. Islam is the most successful fraud in the history of humanity and it is a great success. Millions of mullahs and...

President Obama and the first lady gave a glimpse of their lighter sides Tuesday night, exchanging in playful – and at times downright flirtatious – banter at a glamorous million-dollar campaign fundraiser at the Gotham Theater in New York City. Taking the stage to introduce her husband before a crowd of 400 donors, the Michelle Obama hailed the event as “sort of like our date night.” “I would like to thank all of you for planning such a lovely, intimate evening for the two of us,” she said, with a tinge of sarcasm that drew laughter from the crowd. ”A...

Taking a bit of a pool here...Hussein's one trick left, and it is one of diminishing returns, is to run in front of his sycophant press and pretend he is a problem solver. So when does he do it again? My guess is next Thursday.

The much touted unity agreement signed between rivals Fatah and Hamas has still failed to produce a unity government amdist fierce bickering. Since rival factions Fatah and Hamas announced a reconciliation after four years of often violent fueding following Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007, the promised coalition government remains unformed due to disputes over fundamental issues, including who will serve as prime minister. While leaders in both factions have tried to play down the lack of progress and missed deadlines, barbs are being traded daily in Palestinian Authority and Hamas-run media outlets. As a result, what both sides...

Time: Your Icemaker Is Killing the Earth By Lachlan Markay Created 04/18/2011 - 4:37pm By Lachlan Markay | April 18, 2011 | 16:37 This just in, courtesy of Time Magazine: Mother Gaia is dying and your ice maker is the perp. Continue churning out ice with your automated cube-maker, and you'll be contributing to the plight of the 50 million refugees the United Nations insists anthropogenic global warming has caused will cause by 2020. Time took a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology showing significant energy use by ice makers and ran with it. Want to save...

Earth Hour. Save the planet. Go green and dark for one hour. Woot! The lights stayed on at my house. Not only were the lights on, but flood lights were on as well. We had one oven, fridge, freezer, computer, TV, and other electrical devices on at the home. We were happy to consume all that coal fired electricity along with a bit of wind power and hydropower tossed into the mix.

NEW YORK (AP) -- There's a new author in the White House: Michelle Obama. The first lady has signed with the Crown Publishing Group for a book about the garden she started on the South Lawn of the White House and the benefits of healthy eating.

President Obama’s only event at the White House that isn’t closed to the press on Wednesday is a ceremony in which he’ll accept an award for being open to the press. According to his public schedule, Obama has four behind-closed-doors meetings from 10 a.m. to 3:05 p.m.: his daily briefing, a talk with the USAID administrator, a session with senior advisers, and a huddle with his defense secretary. All of the meets are in the Oval Office, and all of them are “closed press,” the White House says. But at 2:55 p.m., Obama will emerge to “accept an award from...

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson compared NFL owners' treatment of players to "modern-day slavery," according to an online interview published Tuesday by Yahoo! Sports. Yahoo's Doug Farrar, who conducted the interview Friday with Peterson, removed that comment from the story later Tuesday, explaining on Twitter that he wants to give Peterson the chance to provide context. Peterson, who is known to be thoughtful when speaking with the local media in Minnesota, is in Africa with other NFL players on a goodwill trip and unavailable for immediate comment.

Assassination target Rep. Gabrielle Giffords now is breathing on her own, defying almost all odds after Saturday’s shooting attack that killed six. "I'm happy to say she's holding her own," neurosurgeon G. Michael Lemole Jr. said, adding that Rep. Giffords, 40, can breathe on her own without a breathing tube. Her medical team prefers to use the tube in order to prevent infection. Jared Lee Loughner aimed at her in front of a Safeway supermarket Saturday, when she was hosting a community meeting. After shooting at her, he continued on a shooting spree, emptying out a cartridge of 30 bullets,...

It seems like a cheap shot for global warming doubters to jump on the first major snow storm of every year to expound on the follies of climate science. But I’m so angry about how politicized climate science has become, and the evidence against the alarmist claims about anthropogenic (man-made) global warming has become so overwhelming, that I thought I should bring some of the latest articles to your attention. Find them at www.mrformansplanet.com

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is setting aside 187,000 square miles in Alaska as a "critical habitat" for polar bears, an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas. The total, which includes large areas of sea ice off the Alaska coast, is about 13,000 square miles, or 8.3 million acres, less than in a preliminary plan released last year. Tom Strickland, Interior assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, said the designation would help polar bears stave off extinction, recognizing that the greatest threat is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate...

Of all the people in all the world, NBC chooses to honor the provocateur behind one of the most controversial projects in America. On Thanksgiving. This morning I spent a few minutes on the Pat Campbell Show in Tulsa, discussing the outrageous decision by the Park51 group — the group that’s developing the Ground Zero Mosque — to apply for $5 million in taxpayer funds to continue development of that monument. That has certainly reignited the debate over the mosque project itself, which is a $100 million effort that so far has a whopping $20,000 banked. Well, guess what? Park51...

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) seeks the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) may have some explaining to do to fellow GOP colleagues as he seeks the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, given the incoming wave of new conservatives who may not appreciate some aspects of Upton's voting record.Upton joined with Rep. Jane Harman (D.-Calif.) in  2007 to co-author the legislation that effectively banned indoor incandescent light bulbs in the United States. In the last Congress, he an Harman teamed up again to offer new legislation that would extend the...

As Yoda has said repeatedly, the Federation of the Obamocracy is a case of the Dark Side, interfering with the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms on our experimental gun platforms.. And This Interference MUST be met with the full force of patriot ridicule. So be it. May the farce, errr..FORCE be with you patriots and may the DARK SIDE go pizmo on Nov.2nd!

SAN FRANCISCO -- In an unusually strong attack on politically powerful deniers of global warming, 255 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 32 from Northern California, have charged that opponents are using "McCarthy-like tactics" against legitimate climate scientists. The letter condemning "political assaults" on climate researchers was published Friday in the journal Science, and was sent earlier to the White House Office of Science and Technology, where John Holdren, its director, is President Obama's science adviser.Members of the Academy of Sciences, who are frequently called upon to advise the federal government and its agencies on scientific questions, normally...

radio.barackobama.com The fate of health reform has been a focus of debate in living rooms and offices, on TV and online -- and on talk radio. And since millions of folks turn to talk radio as a trusted source of news and opinions, we need to make sure OFA supporters are calling in with a pro-reform message.

It's moments like this one -- our Health Care Moment, we could call it -- that make numerous friends of democracy and good government want to pull the covers over their heads and leave a wake-up call for next month. The health care charade has gone on for a year. Polls suggest most Americans don't want the measures now on offer. Republican leaders want to start the whole thing over again. The president says no, because he's got his own plan and a date with the TV audience Thursday to explain why nothing his Republican guests will propose, unless it's...

As D.C. continued to dig out from Snowmageddon and is keeping an eye on another storm system, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was busy making a climate change announcement. NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information...

When Republicans take President Obama up on his invitation to hash out their differences over health care this month, they will carry with them a fairly well-developed set of ideas intended to make health insurance more widely available and affordable, by emphasizing tax incentives and state innovations, with no new federal mandates and only a modest expansion of the federal safety net. It is not clear that Republicans and the White House are willing to negotiate seriously with each other, and Mr. Obama has rejected Republican demands that he start from scratch in developing health care legislation. But Congressional Republicans...

A federal immigration judge will decide Thursday whether President Obama's aunt, who has been in the United States illegally for years, will be allowed to stay. Zeituni Onyango, 57, applied for political asylum in 2002, citing violence in her native Kenya. She is the half-sister of the president's late father.

Congress has been working on a health care bill for the better part of a year. The coverage of the legislation inevitably takes on a day-to-day, blow-by-blow account of the political machinations in Washington, D.C. The public option is in, then it's out, then maybe it's in with a trigger, then it's out, then maybe Medicare is expanded to include some as young as 55, then that's out. The legislation will have changed more between the time we write this and you read it. Anything to come up with 60 votes in the Senate in a big hurry. What's easy...

Let's see now... Over in Copenhagen, we have Robert Mugabe, perhaps the most brutal and corrupt despot in Africa, whose life's work has been to destroy the once-prosperous country of Zimbabwe, lecturing the West on the "hypocrisy" of its position on climate change. (Zimbabwe doesn't have to worry about greenhouse gas emissions, because, thanks to Mugane, its economy is in a state of collapse.) We have the government of China, which won't allow its citizens free access to the Internet, complaining that the climate summit is "not transparent." We have Hugo Chavez, who took time off from shutting down Venezuela's...

The fight over global warming science is about to cross the Atlantic with a U.S. researcher poised to sue NASA, demanding release of the same kind of climate data that has landed a leading British center in hot water over charges it skewed its data. Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said NASA has refused for two years to provide information under the Freedom of Information Act that would show how the agency has shaped its climate data and would explain why the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data going as far back as...

The Norwegian Government has allocated NOK 92 million to cover extraordinary costs in providing security for US President Barack Obama when he arrives in Oslo to accept his Nobel Peace Prize in December. The police will have NOK 80 million to draw on, and the Norwegian Defence NOK 12 million. Justice Minister Knut Storberget has said that if needed, another NOK 42 million will be available, depending on the length of Obama's visit. Nothing is official as yet, but the President may make a short stop-over at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, before landing in Oslo on December 9th...

Will Obama save Christmas? How many of you are planning for your Christmas and devising ways to not spend? This has been a big theme for the past month or so in my family. Our family decided 'regifting' this year is the way to go. We're drawing names and giving something unused from our house that we don't need. Stuff like picture frames, platters, duplicate power drills or screwdrivers, and odd things that are nice, but we don't use. Presents we've gotten over the years. My junk in storage. Nice things we just don't need or use. This Christmas, I...

Friday, October 9, 2009 The Nobel Farce By David Reagan Once again the Norwegian Nobel Committee has surprised the world with its Peace Prize Award by granting it to President Barack Obama. Keep in mind this is the same group that gave the award to Al Gore in 2007 and Jimmy Carter in 2002. What was Al Gore’s accomplishment? The production of a documentary film that propagandized the myth that global warming is due to carbon emissions. Big deal! And Jimmy Carter? Well, the worst president of the 20th Century distinguished himself as a rabid anti-Semite, a vociferous America-basher, and...

The most popular headline at the Real Clear Politics Web site the other day was: "Is Obama Becoming A Joke?" With brilliant comedic timing, the very next morning the Norwegians gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. Up next: His stunning victory in this year's Miss World contest. Dec. 12, Johannesburg. You read it here first. For what, exactly, did he win the Nobel? As the president himself put it: "When you look at my record, it's very clear what I have done so far. And that is nothing. Almost one year and nothing to show for it. You don't believe...

AP: OSLO, Norway. A woman who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Obama through security today, and touched the hem of his garment. The woman claimed that she said within herself: "If I shall touch only his garment, I shall be healed." And Obama, turning and seeing her, said, "Be of good heart, daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." In response, Obama was granted the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Former Vice President Al Gore and current White House climate change czar Carol Browner are warning companies and lawmakers that the courts will step in to regulate greenhouse gases if Congress fails to act. "All of the discussion has been about the president and the Congress," Gore told journalists at a U.N. press conference Tuesday. "We have a third branch of government: the courts."

Kane cheated. But don't expect him to be contrite. Local radio host Kane of 99.5 FM said on his show Wednesday that he was responsible for engineering and perpetuating a bogus story that national media covered widely last week. Repeating a stunt that had been successful in other radio markets, Kane deployed an intern to stand by the side of Leesburg Pike near Tysons Corner with a sign announcing infidelity: "I cheated. This is my punishment." Then the young man, who called himself William Taylor, gave Kane an exclusive interview about the whole affair. Kane (who refuses to disclose his...

Before the Senate takes its summer break, a handful of Senators are taking a chance to trash the climate bill. A group of moderate Senators wrote a letter to Barack Obama telling him that they cannot support the climate bill unless it's further weakend ease the burden of cap and trade policies. Seperately, John McCain ripped the bill while talking to Stephen Moore at the Wall Street Journal. . . . . . Over at the Wall Street Journal, John McCain takes a harder stance, saying, "this 1,400-page bill is a farce. They bought every industry off—steel mills, agriculture, utilities...I...

<p>Fellow Freepers, which sort of conservative described in this list are you?</p>

Time magazine devotes a feature of more than 4,700 words to the dispute between George W. Bush and Dick Cheney over the former’s refusal to pardon Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice presidential aide convicted of obstructing an investigation into the leaking of a CIA officer’s identity

Next time someone tells you intelligent design is “based on religion,” you might point him to American Founder Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. As I explain in a special July 4th edition of ID the Future, Jefferson not only believed in intelligent design, he insisted it was based on the plain evidence of nature, not religion. Ironically, the critics of intelligent design often think they are defending the principles of Jefferson. The National Council for the Social Studies, for example, claims that intelligent design is religion and then cites Jefferson’s famous Letter to the Danbury Baptists calling...

Rooters AFPUPI, 09-JUIN-23 Jimmy Carter today declared today that Iran's June elections were conducted in a "free and fair" manner, especially when compared with the USA's 2000 and 2004 elections which were "obviously flawed". He blamed the current violence on an "irresponsible" 2008 speech to the Iranian people by former president Bush that instigated anti-social tendencies in some the voting public of the nation of 70 million workers.

"We need to send a message to Congress and the president that we want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet," says Hansen, who has likened coal-fired power plants to "factories of death" and claims he was muzzled by the Bush administration when he warned of drastic climate changes.

Antarctic warming isn't evidence of climate change – despite what scientists would have us believe Just about every major outlet has jumped on the news: Antarctica is warming up. Most previous science had indicated that, despite a warming of global temperatures, readings from Antarctica were either staying the same or even going down. The problem with Antarctic temperature measurement is that all but three longstanding weather stations are on or very near the coast. Antarctica is a big place, about one-and-a-half times the size of the US. Imagine trying to infer our national temperature only with stations along the Atlantic...

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) pauses during a ceremony in Janusz Korczak Square at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, July 23, 2008. Obama began a visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday pledging staunch support for Israel and saying that if elected, he would work to reinvigorate the Middle East peace process. REUTERS/Jim Young (JERUSALEM) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez urged Colombian rebels on Sunday to lay down their weapons, unilaterally free dozens of hostages and put an end to a decades-long armed struggle against Colombia's government. Chavez sent the uncharacteristically strong message to the leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, saying their ongoing efforts to overthrow Colombia's democratically elected government were unjustified. "The guerrilla war is history," said Chavez, speaking during his weekly television and radio program, "Hello President." "At this moment in Latin America, an armed guerrilla movement is out of place." Such declarations were unexpected from...

It has been a long and slow devolution from the Federalist Papers to Monday Night Raw. ... Monday night, in a state of utter disbelief, I witnessed the intersection of surrealism that may portend the downfall of America. Osama bin Laden could not have devised a more fiendish way of eradicating American self respect, or of amplifying inanity to near-atomic destructive levels. Our presidential candidates appeared and talked smack on a professional wrestling television program. ... When I caught wind that McCain, Clinton and Obama would make appearances on a wrestling telecast, I had an overwhelming urge to crack open...

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The federal government is investigating whether the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety violated the civil rights of Iranian immigrants by refusing to provide them with driver's license tests in their native Farsi language. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched the investigation in March after a complaint filed on behalf of two Iranian nationals living in Bartlesville accused the state agency of unlawful discrimination based on their national origin, according to a letter from the NHTSA to Public Safety Commissioner Kevin Ward. Public safety officials said Tuesday that offering state driver's license tests in Farsi could force...

Earlier this week, I argued that Canada's human-rights censors have managed a seemingly impossible task: They've found a way to rehabilitate the image of neo-Nazis, transforming them from odious dirtbags into principled free-speech martyrs. Case in point: At this week's much-anticipated human-rights hearing in Ottawa, a team of journalists and bloggers were campaigning openly in support of hatemonger Marc Lemire. The villains were Canadian Human Rights Commission (HRC) investigator Dean Steacy and the other apparatchik who've made a career out of parsing Lemire's phobic Web postings. Tuesday's hearing probably won't change the outcome of the case against Lemire: Like a...

OTTAWA -- Investigators at the Canadian Human Rights Commission share control of an online identity called Jadewarr, which they have used to anonymously monitor and contribute to controversial far-right and white supremacist Web sites, in a strategy that a prominent defendant calls entrapment. The admission came in testimony Tuesday at the final day of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's hearing in the case of Marc Lemire, who is charged with violating the Human Rights Act's controversial hate speech section because of comments posted on his FreedomSite. Legally, the admission by CHRC investigator Dean Steacy, and the subsequent cross-examination by Mr....

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named actor George Clooney, who has campaigned for refugees in Darfur, as a U.N. "messenger of peace" on Friday to promote the world body's peacekeeping efforts. Clooney is the ninth U.N. messenger -- people chosen from the fields of art, music, literature and sports who have agreed to help focus attention on the United Nations' work. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said Clooney would have a special emphasis on peacekeeping. She said he had been "recognized for focusing public attention on crucial international political and social issues." Clooney, who is currently in Sudan, will...

The Republican presidential candidates shown leading the race in recent polls all believe global warming is a serious threat and caused by human activity. When asked at today's Des Moines Register debate in Iowa to raise their hands if they believed climate change were indeed a real problem caused by people, Sen. John McCain, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Gov. Mitt Romney all responded in the positive. "Climate change is real. It's happening. I believe human beings are contributing to it," Giuliani said, calling for a "Manhattan Project" to wean America off foreign energy sources....