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"My plans says we’re going to put teachers back in the classrooms, construction workers back to work," President Obama said at a campaign event today. "Tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your workers a raise –- that’s my plan." "The Republicans plan, Obama says, boils down to this: 'Dirtier air, dirtier water, less people with health insurance.'"

President Barack Obama will fulfill his vow to sell his jobs plan in the four corners of America Monday, after warning a Republican win in 2012 elections could "cripple" the country. Obama was to appear in a town-hall style meeting sponsored by executive social network LinkedIn in San Jose, before tapping donors in Democratic strongholds in San Diego and Los Angeles. Faced with a recalcitrant Congress and Republicans who accuse him of waging class warfare over his call to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires, Obama told supporters Sunday to brace for a "tough" reelection campaign.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The editrix of the most widely read political newsletter in the world -- that would be mine -- the Limbaugh Letter, Diana Allocco... (interruption) No, no. No, no, no. It's Italian. (laughing) Somebody asked, "Is that a nickname for being an idiot?" Not "a loco." No, no, it doesn't mean that. It's not a nickname for being an idiot. Not "a loco." No. A loco is a Democrat; a loco is just crazy. That's her name: Allocco. It's not a description, is her name. We're working on the next issue of the Limbaugh better, and she found...

News is breaking out all over Capitol Hill just now: The president is threatening to veto House GOP conservatives’ proposal to cut spending now, cap future spending, and balance the budget. So, to be clear, to use that over-worn Obama phrase, the White House is against Cut, Cap and Balance. Spread the word. Call their bluff. *** WashTimes’ Emily Miller: “Obama just issued a veto threat for a bill that would give him a $2.4 trillion debt ceiling increase. So, who’s risking default now?” Via Jamie Dupree: Read the White House veto threat. The fear-mongering intro: The Administration strongly opposes...

Fearful that a failure to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling “could lead to the end of government as we know it,” Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ken) has proposed legislation that would grant President Barack Obama unilateral authority to increase the nation’s debt load. “In an ideal world decisions on how much the government ought to spend should be made by Congress,” McConnell said. “However, the current crisis requires that we think outside of the ‘Constitutional box.’ With the legislative power split between our two Parties there is no chance for an agreement on how to deal with this crisis. Our...

RWBNews: Hitting the debt ceiling means there will be a 44% cut in spending. The decision as to what would not get paid falls on the Treasury Department. The U.S. Treasury will not default Despite all the rhetoric and posturing we see in the media and in Washington D.C., it is safe to say categorically that the U.S. Treasury will not default on its debt after August 2nd, even if the debt ceiling is not raised. Not only will the Treasury be able to pay interest on U.S. debt obligations, but there is money for other essential programs as well....

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's latest attempt to convince some Republicans that boosting the debt limit is necessary does not seem to be gaining traction. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) maintained Wednesday that the government has "numerous tools" available to avoid a default, and that one would only occur if Geithner was unwilling to use them. "Secretary Geithner's approach to dealing with the looming debt crisis is to take his hands off the wheel and let the car careen over the cliff," he said. DeMint's statement comes in response to a letter Geithner sent to him and fellow GOP lawmakers, urging them...

W.H. warns of debt 'calamity' By ABBY PHILLIP | 05/18/11 4:12 PM Updated: 05/18/11 4:56 PM In an effort to clamp down on “misinformation” about the debt ceiling and to ratchet up the pressure on Congress to act, the Obama administration said Wednesday that there is no “Plan B” for the government if Congress fails to raise the borrowing limit. Unlike the budget standoff in March, where a plan would have gone into place if the government shut down, an administration official warned that there is no “secret plan” that would kick in if the government runs out of borrowing...

NEW YORK – Beck’s departure from Fox News marks the welcome removal of an incendiary talk-show host who reveled in apocalyptic shtick and the politics of incitement, writes John Avlon. Plus, the Fox-Beck divorce. The nightly nervous breakdown will not be televised. Glenn Beck is going off the air on Fox News. It is a remarkable reversal of fortune for a man who one year ago was banking $32 million annually, teaching Americans how to fear-monger for fun and profit. But with his ratings down nearly 50 percent and advertisers abandoning the show, Beck’s apocalyptic shtick has been getting rancid...

IT'S not bad enough that thousands of people may be dead from Japan's earthquake and devastating tsunami. No, the media is instead obsessing over a nuclear reactor that has killed no one and probably never will. This scaremongering over the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex is extraordinary. Already anti-nuclear activists, rebadged as nuclear "experts", are out spreading terror. And what's a nuclear holocaust story without Helen Caldicott, actually a paediatrician and anti-nuke hysteric? So there she was, too, on 3AW, warning that if the reactor blew up, "hundreds of thousands of Japanese will be dying within two weeks of acute radiation...

Germany has temporarily shut down seven of its nuclear power plants while it reconsiders its nuclear strategy. Chancellor Angela Merkel said all reactors that went into operation before 1980 would be taken offline, while safety checks would be carried on the country's remaining plants. All safety questions would be answered by 15 June, she said.

Hours after a massive earthquake rattled Japan, environmental advocates connected the natural disaster to global warming. The president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Staffan Nilsson, issued a statement calling for solidarity in tackling the global warming problem. “Some islands affected by climate change have been hit,” said Nilsson. “Has not the time come to demonstrate on solidarity – not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming?” “Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do,” he added. Global Warming enthusiasts have also taken to Twitter to...

Democrat raises fears about GOP budget cuts forcing kids to become criminals. As the fight about cutting federal spending in the budget gets nastier and the GOP and the Democrats dig in their heels, some politicians are getting more extreme in their rhetoric. One of them, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in particular is using fear mongering tactics to make an emotional appeal to whomever is out there in the public and will lend her his ear. According to the Florida congresswoman, if cuts to childcare are made, then moms everywhere all of a sudden won’t be able to send their kids...

Washington: The US National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for parts of New York, New Jersey and other states along the east coast of the United States as a major winter storm bears down on the area on Sunday. A band of frigid weather was snaking up the East Coast on Sunday, promising blizzards and a foot of snow for New York City and New England, while several states made emergency declarations as the storm caused crashes on slick roads. Heavy snow and blizzards in parts of North Carolina were making driving conditions difficult, and there were dozens...

Paul Krugman Says GOP 'Zombies' Are Going to Eat Obama's Brain By Tim Graham Created 12/20/2010 - 3:10pm By Tim Graham | December 20, 2010 | 15:10 Tim Graham's picture Let's hope the editorial page editors at the New York Times aren't too fond of the "No Labels" movement to soften the tone of our national debates. Because columnist Paul Krugman is comparing his conservative opponents to...brain-eating zombies. The column's title is "When Zombies Win." It concludes: Yes, politics is the art of the possible. We all understand the need to deal with one’s political enemies. But it’s one thing...

Time magazine's news judgment is truly puzzling. With just weeks to go before a crucial midterm election, their cover story package is ten pages stuffed with “The Secret World of Extreme Militias.” Voters are poised to sweep a pile of Democrats out of office from coast to coast, and they're camped in Zanesville, Ohio with a right-wing militia that claims 300 members as the nation's number one news story? (Katie Couric tweeted on Wednesday that she was eagerly reading it.) Time editor Richard Stengel announced they gave new hire Barton Gellman six months in the field chasing the whisper of...

Ed Rendell to left on MSNBC: ‘Get over it’ By: Andy Barr October 5, 2010 12:44 PM EDT Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell says discouraged liberals need to “get over it” and support the Democratic Party, before they regret it. “This isn't about President [Barack] Obama,” Rendell said on MSNBC’s “Last Word” Monday night. “It's about whether the Democratic Party, not perfect, but certainly bent on trying to preserve theories in government and progressive practices, is going to be in charge of the Congress or the Republican Party. And it's not the Republican Party of old. This is a scary Republican...

Hector Manrique takes a look around his taqueria and sighs. It's 3:30 in the afternoon, and usually around this time at least five or six tables are occupied by day laborers fresh off work, or schoolchildren and families in search of a torta or taco after school. But today, Taqueria Guadalajara's plastic lawn chairs and tables are empty, and so is the tip jar on the counter. Street traffic in this predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of Phoenix, Arizona, is also lighter than usual, says Manrique, who opened the casual Mexican eatery in 2003. Not even a week has passed since Gov....

Recent research from the New York Times / CBS News poll revealed that 18% of Americans identify themselves as supporters of the Tea Party, classify themselves "very conservative" and are very pessimistic about the direction of the country and severely critical of Washington and, of course, Obama. Over 90% of them believe that the country moves to a wrong path and the same percentage disapproves of the president and his administration policy. Already 92% of respondents estimated that Obama leads the country "toward socialism" (an opinion shared by more than half the population in general). Moreover, the expressions of popular...

RUSH: Let's go back, April 24th, 1995, Mississippi, Minnesota. CLINTON 1995: We hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that -- by their very words, that -- violence is a acceptable. You ought to see -- I'm sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. It is time we...

This Week in Progressive Media Who is more of a threat, left-wing crazies or right-wing crazies? For its coverage of the Hutaree Militia story, Firedoglake.com carries Rachel Maddow’s extensive reporting of the FBI infiltration and capture of the members of the violent Christian militia group. Maddow tries to gauge the seriousness of their threat, describing the oddly named militia as a “strange combination of absurd and scary” with names “out of a Calvin and Hobbes strip” but spends 10 minutes exploring who they are and the charges against them. Are they representative of other right-wing groups? A guest on her...

"When a state official can deploy not only the vast resources of his office, but hire outside counsel at taxpayer expense to try and block millions of Floridians from finally getting access to health care, it's time to stop and demand some accountability," Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said at a press conference this afternoon.

Ed Miliband’s adverts banned for overstating climate changeThe adverts' claims 'were not supported by science' TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department...

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is very influential in the current administration, almost single handedly responsible for defining “domestic terrorists” for the Department of Homeland Security and ratcheting up the racial rhetoric like never before in U.S. history, in the name of so-called “social justice.” In the latest diatribe to come out of the Montgomery Alabama based mini-ACLU, titled - Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism—the group lays out their justification for striking fear in the hearts of every Tea Party, 912 and town hall activist, angry over the federal governments mishandling of their...

LOS ANGELES (March 2) -- The number of American anti-government militia and "patriot" groups, largely dormant since their heyday in the mid-1990s, mushroomed at an "astonishing" rate last year, raising "grave concern" about the potential for future domestic terrorism, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The nonprofit civil rights organization, which tracks the hate movement and anti-government groups, counted 512 militias and related groups in 2009, up from 149 groups the year before. And, it said, the movement has added a layer of racism largely absent a decade ago. At the same time, the organization...

On the eve of the first National Tea Party Convention, the Democratic Governors Association blasted a dire fundraising e-mail to supporters, warning that the loosely organized movement has become a “truly dangerous” political force. “These guys aren’t going away. They’ve proven they can raise millions in a matter of hours and they’re skewing elections across the nation,” wrote Colleen Turrentine, the DGA's finance director. “Can you imagine the havoc they would wreak if they took office en masse?” Turrentine continued. “If they had their way, how many states would even stay in the U.S.?” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32485.html#ixzz0ebuObAML

The head of health at the Council of Europe, Wolfgang Wodarg, called the swine flu scare a “false pandemic” orchestrated by drug companies looking pull in large profits from the vaccines. Saying it was “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century,” Wodark said, “[Swine flu] is just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu. The great campaign of panic we have seen provided a golden opportunity for representatives from labs who knew they would hit the jackpot in the case of a pandemic being declared.” The...

<p>After months of fear, media coverage and government warnings there wasn't as much demand for the swine flu vaccine in New York state as expected.</p> <p>Truckloads of swine flu vaccines are being returned by counties that say the expected demand for the shots never happened.</p>

Some of you may find this to be a big surprise, but a Harvard study shows that the great swine flu pandemic was oversold. Shocking I know, as one doctor points out, “The H1N1 pandemic was a pandemic that never materialized.” Then I guess you could call the swine flu pandemic oversold, wouldn’t you think? The Harvard study uses the deaths from H1N1 back in the spring and projecting what they would have been in the fall suggests that the swine flu pandemic was indeed oversold by a government willing to allow its citizens to be in a constant state...

Check out this video of Obama lying and trying to scare people into voting in Obamacare... Karen Travers, ABC said this about the video- President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.” The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails. “If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going...

In light of a perceived swine flu outbreak, the World Health Organization raised its influenza pandemic alert to its second highest level in May – but evidence reveals the agency may have made it easier to classify the flu outbreak as a pandemic by changing its definition to omit "enormous numbers of deaths and illness" just prior to making its declaration. WHO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, issued its pandemic declaration – the first in 40 years – just as 74 countries had reported 144 deaths from the novel H1N1 infection. The world was gripped with fears of...

ATLANTA – Federal health officials now say that 4,000 or more Americans likely have died from swine flu — about four times the estimate they've been using.

The experiment goes something like this: A volunteer subject sits at a desk in a room, thinking he's there to answer some survey questions, but in reality, this is an experiment on human behavior and covert influence. A researcher sits on the other side of the desk, facing the subject. There is a glass jar on the desk, filled with cookies. The researcher casually asks the subject, "Would you like a cookie?" And some percentage of subjects say yes, but it's a small number, perhaps something like 15% - 20% (I don't remember the exact numbers, but that's not important...

Within minutes, six-year-old Rubjit Thindal went from happily chatting in the back seat of the car to collapsing and dying in her father's arms. "If we had known it was so serious, we would have called 911,'' Kuldip Thindal, Rubjit's distraught mother, said in Punjabi yesterday. "She just had a stomach ache -- she wasn't even crying.'' Rubjit was pronounced dead at hospital barely 24 hours after showing signs of a fever. Later, doctors told her parents she had the H1N1 influenza virus. She is believed to be the youngest person in Canada with the virus to have died.

PARENTS have accused early childhood centres of "greenwashing" their children by burdening them with the responsibility of saving the world.Tots as young as three have sent letters to Kevin Rudd about their passion for green living and asked companies to reduce their packaging.Others are growing their own food, repairing toys and walking to preschool in an effort to reduce their toll on the environment.But experts have called for caution in teaching children about climate change because of the potential for fear, anxiety, frustration, anger and despair at catastrophic events.Mother Paula Driscoll, from Sydney, said environmental disaster was the new...

'In keeping with the administration's proactive approach" to swine flu, the White House has announced that President Obama has declared the disease "a national emergency." It's the second such declaration, with the first in late April. And in case you didn't know what "proactive" meant before, now you do: "hysterical." Just nine weeks ago, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued its report with a "plausible scenario" of 30,000 to 90,000 deaths peaking in "mid-October." It's now late October and past time for a reality check. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer release specific...

A few days ago, I was sent a link to a screed by MSNBC's left-wing anchorman Ed Schultz, in which he explained opposition to the president's health-care reform. "The Republicans lie. They want to see you dead. ... They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don't have anything for us." Next, a link to the syndicated show of right-wing radio talker Alex Jones ... "They'd love to kill 10,000 Americans," and, "The republic is falling right now." This, increasingly, is the sound of our political conversation. It is not new to call this kind of...

It's just what the primetime cable news lineup needed - another hour-long program tilted toward left-of-center politics with character assassination on conservatives. CNN Headline News debuted its "The Joy Behar Show" on Sept. 29, which included appearances by lefty comedian Jeanane Garofalo, CNN's Jack Cafferty and actress Bette Midler. Garofalo doubled down on her low regard for conservative 9/12 and tea party protesters, labeling them as racists. Cafferty went after President Barack Obama for his disregard of the carbon footprint his lobbying efforts in Copenhagen for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. However, actress-turned-Vegas entertainer Bette Midler went straight...

About a dozen retired generals and admirals, trying to add momentum to President Barack Obama’s effort to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, are accusing former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz of scaremongering about the dangers of closing it. “It’s up to all of us to say these arguments advanced by Cheney and his acolytes are nonsense and that really what they’re doing is undermining our national security by delaying the date at which Guantanamo is closed,” retired Brig. Gen. James Cullen, a former chief judge of the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, told POLITICO Tuesday. “Some...

As contemptible as this is, I’ve got two good reasons to spare you a harangue about it. One: I’ve already written that harangue, and after the summer coup in Tehran and another year of cheat-and-retreat on their nuclear program, it’s truer now than it was then. And two: Thankfully, this old crank’s isolationist denialism is so fringe on the right that not even mainstreamers who are sympathetic to his broader agenda, like Glenn Beck, will go near it. It’s almost not worth bothering about. But suffice it to say, in the unlikely event that the three-percent rEVOLution ever commands the...

A politically-skewed activist organization has warned law enforcement officials nationwide of the threat posed by the so-called “Patriot movement.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)'s Fall, 2009, issue of the “Intelligence Report” expands those designated as extremists, with alarmist language artificially combining a disparate group. The report said, “Militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and a range of other activists of the radical right are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing.” On the SPLC website, one report claims, "anti-government rhetoric spills into the Mainstream," listing conservative celebrities like Sean Hannity and Red State's Erick Erickson as purveyors of "white-hot...

Navy Chemist Trashes New York Times for 'Continuously regurgitating fear-mongering, anecdotal clap trap of global warming propagandists' 'Your coverage of the climate issues is a reflection of either extreme negligence or simply scientific illiteracy' Guest Essay By Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired U.S. Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry. Hertzberg is featured on page 174 of the 2009 U.S. Senate Report of More Than 700 Dissenting Scientists on Global Warming. Dr. Hertzberg's August 19, 2009 Letter To The New York Times is Reprinted Below: Distortions and misrepresentations of your coverage of global warming/climate change I am a scientist...

I'll give it to you in one word: Independents. If House Democrats want to avoid losing 20 seats in 2010, they know they will have to fight and hold on to as many Independents as possible, period. Lose them and they will lose the House, it's just that simple, and they know it. Thus the creation here of late in the mainstream press of the local militia and Nazi memes. It's an old political trick. Fanaticize the right with a bogus militia scare, throw in a couple of swastikas and watch the Independents stream back into the fold. So get...

Conservative groups are rejecting as "anecdotal and exaggerated" a report out of the Southern Poverty Law Center that claims the election of a black president has fanned the flames of a resurgent anti-government "militia movement." The SPLC report cited a recent rash of ideologically driven violent crimes, rising gun sales, a reported rise in the number of militia groups and level of activity and stern warnings from law enforcement officials about the potential for violence in concluding that "there are unmistakable signs of a revival" since the 1990s. The assessment said Latino immigration, and particularly the election of President Obama,...

"Sometimes I think they want Obama to get shot. I do. I really think that there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out." So said liberal talk radio host Ed Schultz Tuesday. I kid you not. What follows is a YouTubed audio of these absurd comments along with a partial transcript (h/t our friend Brian Maloney):

Child with possible meningitis was 'failed by system' say parentsThe parents of a two-year-old girl thought to have died from meningitis after they were told she was suffering from swine flu said yesterday that she had been "failed by the system". Georgia Keeling, from Norwich, died after being rushed to hospital on Tuesday. Her parents, Paul Sewell, 21, and Tasha Keeling, 22, said they contacted health services, including NHS Direct, the swine flu helpline and the emergency services, five times after their daughter first developed a temperature on Saturday. The couple said that by Tuesday she had also developed a...

Polar bears are not dying out and Turkey Twizzlers are fine, according to a new book from scientists wishing to challenge science "scare stories" Contrary to widely held belief, polar bear populations are rising, according to the scientists It is widely thought that the polar ice caps will melt, causing sea levels to rise, resulting in the loss of cities along the coast, as well as a the majority of polar bears. And if global warming does not kill us, then obesity or heart disease will thanks to an addiction to junk food and salt. But a new book, compiled...

The FDA says consumers should stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel and related products immediately. All the over-the-counter products contain zinc. Scientists say that ingredient may damage nerves in the nose needed for smell.

President Obama pushed hard Monday for a health care overhaul, saying the system is "a ticking bomb" for the budget that could propel America down "the route of GM" without a legislative fix. Obama went before the American Medical Association in Chicago to declare anew that the existing system leaves too many uninsured and forces "excessive defensive medicine" by doctors worried about malpractice suits. He also declared once again that he does not favor socialized medicine and cautioned people to beware of "scare tactics and fear-mongering" by critics who make this claim. Obama did tell his audience of physicians and...

State's future at stake in May 19 vote John Wildermuth,Matthew Yi May 9, 2009 If California voters reject a package of budget measures in next week's special election, it will set off a fiscal free-for-all that could set the state's course for years to come. Defeat of the measures on the May 19 ballot would chop nearly $6 billion in expected revenue from next year's budget, on top of a projected $8 billion deficit left by shrinking tax collections. Proposals by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others to close that gap are driving a wildfire of criticism across the state. Deep...