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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has provided Congress with 1,364 pages of documents detailing how the department gave inaccurate information to a U.S. senator in the controversy surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, the flawed law enforcement initiative aimed at dismantling major arms trafficking networks on the Southwest border. In a letter last February to Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had not knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to a straw purchaser

Texas Governor Rick Perry, played by SNL's Bill Hader, paid a visit to 'Weekend Update' to explain his recent strange behavior in New Hampshire that some have speculated was driven by drinking too much alcohol. Republican presidential candidate Governor Rick Perry gave a remarkable speech in New Hampshire last week that set in motion broad speculation that Perry, who is losing badly in every nationally-recognized poll, was intoxicated. Perry contended the speech was more reflective of the fact that he "felt great" during it, according to the Washington Post, where full video of Perry's speech was included.

The Associated Press is reporting the following: "The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers — the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday. "When Bush, a Republican, was president, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Tucson, Ariz., used a similar enforcement tactic in a program it called Operation Wide Receiver. The fact that there were two such ATF investigations years apart in separate administrations raises the possibility that agents...

There's a troubling irony in today's vigorous debate about environmental policy. Some of the most vocal groups clamoring for a cleaner planet are also the ones stalling progress toward that same goal. A closer look at contemporary interest-group politics reveals why this is the case. Republicans and Democrats both desire cleaner air and water. As policymakers we debate the best way to achieve these goals, balancing environmental progress with economic costs. We consider and weigh multiple objectives: grow jobs, expand the economy and protect the planet. While not always agreeing on the means, we share the same aspirations. But some...

Casey Anthony's mother testified Thursday she used the family's computer to search for suspicious items like "chloroform" -- potentially undercutting the prosecution's attempt to pin those searches on Anthony, who is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter. Cindy Anthony told a jury for the first time Thursday that she used her home computer to look up "chloroform" and other search terms in March 2008 -- even though records show she was at work at the time of the searches, according to prosecutors.

A blog purportedly written by a gay woman in Syria, which described life in Damascas amid the current political unrest, has been revealed to be a hoax. A Girl Gay in Damascus gained a worldwide readership and was closely followed by news organisations. But the true author has now come forward - Tom MacMaster, an American man studying in Scotland. Many Syrian activists have reacted angrily, accusing him of trivialising or even harming their cause. "One day if I'm kidnapped by my government, many readers won't care because I could turn out to be another Amina," wrote one Lebanese blogger....

...“Paula Brooks,” editor of Lez Get Real since its founding in 2008, is actually Bill Graber, 58, who said he is a retired Ohio military man and construction worker that had adopted his wife’s identity online... Brooks’s identity came under suspicion after news broke that a woman called Amina Arraf on the blog “A Gay Girl in Damascus” might not really be a Syrian lesbian. Over the weekend, as journalists, bloggers and fans of Amina hunted for clues to the identity behind the blog, Brooks came under review as a possible suspect. Liz Henry, a Web producer at BlogHer.com, questioned...

Today CNN quoted Rush Limbaugh, who said "Thank God for President Obama." What CNN did not make clear, however, was Rush was being HIGHLY sarcastic during his monologue and was thanking him for saying one thing and doing another. This is, of course, a fine example of what we are fighting in terms of MSM bias. CNN basically lied to their entire viewing public without actually lying. The implication is that Rush was thankful for Obama and what he did in terms of bringing Osama to justice...which anyone who actually heard the monologue can tell you is not true.

The University of Wisconsin has decided to act against doctors in their system that provided fraudulent medical excuses for demonstrators in Madison earlier this year. The medical school reviewed allegations against 22 of its faculty/staff and will remove them from “leadership positions” and dock their pay: UW Health doctors who wrote sick notes for protesters at the Capitol in February face penalties up to a loss of pay and leadership positions, the UW School of Medicine and Public Health said Tuesday. The medical school reviewed 22 UW Health doctors said to have been involved in writing medical excuses for protesters...

<p>Walter E. Williams, (born 1936 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania ) is a conservative American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University , as well as a syndicated columnist and author.</p>

That was the headline on this March 2000 story in England’s Independent: Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and the excitement of waking to find that the stuff has settled outside are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters – which scientists are attributing to global climate change – produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries. The first two months of 2000 were virtually free of significant snowfall in much of lowland Britain, and...

During Thanksgiving weekend I went to see the movie REDS with Bruce Willis. Awesome movie and I highly recommend it. But during the trailers they showed the movie FAIR GAME with Sean Penn, supposedly based on the Plame/Wilson affair. I groaned when I saw it. It appears my groan was warranted. Here is the WaPo: (h/t Dan Riehl) In fact, "Fair Game," based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi...

A screenshot of one of the images obtained by Gizmodo.  The website Gizmodo has published 100 pictures of body scans taken at an Orlando Federal Courthouse. The scans are not from the "naked scan" machines that the Department of Homeland Security announced were going into 28 airports in the country, earlier this year. Instead, they are much more pixelated and less embarrassing.Still Gizmodo points to TSA's Advanced Imaging Technology's privacy policy, which states that the machines "cannot store, print, transmit or save the" images and that they are "automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely...

A new poll released by Gallup shows that American distrust in the mass media has reached a record high. This is the fourth straight year that a majority of respondents have said that they have little or no trust in the media, but the 57% who say that this year is a new record for the poll. According to the poll, 48% of respondents say the media is too liberal, 15% say it is too conservative and 33% say it is “just right.” You can see how the responses have changed over the years here: (snip to picture of chart)...

Friend - With Congress's August recess now under way, Republican members of Congress are starting to show up at Tea Party events and campaign rallies all over the country. We saw last year during the fight for health reform that this is a time when the extremists run rampant. Remember "death panels?" This year, Republicans are looking to have it both ways, trying to appeal to independent voters while making promises to the Tea Party crowd to pursue an extreme right-wing agenda if they regain control of Congress. Who knows what's being said when the cameras aren't running? We don't...

Add a new one to the list: fake virgins. A growing number of Chinese women -- mostly in their 20s and about to get married -- are opting for a surgical procedure called "hymen restoration," which returns the hymen to its condition before it was ruptured, which typically occurs during first sexual contact but can also happen while playing sports or doing other strenuous activities. Even as China has flung open its doors to the West and modernized, a deeply conservative and chauvinistic attitude persists. Many men, including white-collar professionals, say they want to marry a virgin. And increasingly liberated...

The following 65 names are confirmed members of the now-defunct JournoList listserv. 1. Ezra Klein 2. Dave Weigel 3. Matthew Yglesias 4. David Dayen 5. Spencer Ackerman 6. Jeffrey Toobin 7. Eric Alterman 8. Paul Krugman 9. John Judis 10. Eve Fairbanks 11. Mike Allen 12. Ben Smith 13. Lisa Lerer 14. Joe Klein 15. Brad DeLong 16. Chris Hayes 17. Matt Duss 18. Jonathan Chait 19. Jesse Singal 20. Michael Cohen 21. Isaac Chotiner 22. Katha Pollitt 23. Alyssa Rosenberg 24. Rick Perlstein 25. Alex Rossmiller 26. Ed Kilgore 27. Walter Shapiro 28. Noam Scheiber 29. Michael Tomasky 30....

The Great Recession, which rolled over our financial lives like one of P.J. Keating's giant pavers, is most likely over. Home sales, while still far below the levels of a year ago, have risen for three straight months—a first since 2004. The stock market has rallied 44 percent since March, thanks to renewed optimism and improving earnings from big companies like Goldman Sachs and Apple. In June, seven of the 10 indicators in the Conference Board Leading Economic Index pointed upward, including manufacturing hours worked and unemployment claims. Macroeconomic Advisers, the St. Louis–based consulting firm, says the economy is expanding...

The NAACP has passed a resolution that condemns what it feels is rampant racism in the Tea Party movement. Members passed the measure on Tuesday at the organization's 101st annual convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Tea Party activists have swiftly denounced the action as unfounded and unfair.

Now Most Americans Think Gulf Wildlife And Beaches Will NEVER Recover Gus Lubin Jun. 16, 2010, 11:31 AM Image: the sierra club A new Gallup poll shows most people are very pessimistic about the oil spill. 59% of Americans say local wildlife will never cover. 49% say local beaches will never recover. Nearly everyone thinks wildlife and beaches will take more than ten years to recover. Most people say the spill will hurt the economy (83%), push up gas prices (79%), and push up food prices (79%). The polling numbers tell you everything you need to know about major publicity...

There are glimmers of hope for Democrats battling to retain control of Congress in this fall's elections, with the party holding a slender edge in public trust for shepherding the economy and small gains in those saying their finances are healthy, according to a new poll. The reeling economy remains the American public's top concern, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted earlier this month, making public attitudes about it crucial for both parties' hopes in November. The good news for Democrats: By a slim margin (47% to 42%), people trust them more than Republicans to guide the economy. And...

One of the enduring story lines of Barack Obama’s presidency, dating back to the earliest days of his candidacy, is that the press loves him. “Most of you covered me. All of you voted for me,” Obama joked last year at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. But even then, only four months into his presidency, the joke fell flat. Now, a year later, with another correspondents’ dinner Saturday night likely to generate the familiar criticism of the press’s cozy relationship with power, the reality is even more at odds with the public perception. Obama and the media actually have...

Aha! ...Aha! Aha! Aha!Associated Press writer Jesse Washington has investigated the March 20 incident in Washington, D.C. at which members of the Tea Party supposedly hurled the N-word at black Congressmen. Well, no recording of that word being used could be found but that hasn't stopped Washington from blaming the Tea Partiers...for posting the "wrong" video of that incident on YouTube. I kid you not: Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists...

OPINION Rush Limbaugh, Healthcare and Idle Threats Threats like his vow to leave the United States lose all meaning if they're not followed through on. By Joe Queenan April 2, 2010 As the battle over "Obamacare" was reaching fever pitch, Rush Limbaugh threatened to leave the United States if the healthcare bill passed. Well, the bill did pass, and he's still here. This reminded me of the time one of my friends vowed to change his citizenship and move to Ireland if George W. Bush got reelected. Bush did get reelected, but my friend never left New Jersey. Neither did...

New research in the US suggests a large minority of Americans hold extreme opinions on president Barack Obama. A poll by market research company Harris Interactive shows that not only do two in five Americans believe Obama is a "socialist", but one-third still believe he is Muslim. A full 38 percent believe he is going to take away US citizens' right to hold arms; 29 percent that he wants to sell-out the US to a "one-world government"; 27 percent that he resents the country's heritage; and 23 percent that he is a racist and anti-American, alike. But this is just...

Please, stop saving me money! You are going to insure more than 30 million uninsured and save me a trillion dollars! Just like when you passed no-fault car insurance to save me money: My car insurance went from $320 a year to a current $1,522 a year. Or just like the Homestead Rebate program to save me money on my real estate taxes, which went from $1,380 a year when it was passed to a current $6,830 per year. Please vote against the health-care plan. I can't afford your savings. Dennis Hassis Cinnaminson

When does bragging become illegal? Federal courts in California and Colorado will soon hear two cases that struggle with the question of whether lying about military service is a criminal offense. In California, Xavier Alvarez said during a public meeting that he received the Medal of Honor for his time in the Marines. Alvarez never served in the military and pleaded guilty to misrepresenting himself on the condition that he could appeal on the basis of the First Amendment. In Colorado, Rick Strandlof said he was a former Marine with a Purple Heart and Silver Star, claims which he used...

In January 2009 we brought a six-man camera crew to Washington to create a documentary on the subject of the annual March for Life called Thine Eyes. What motivated Steve Sanborn, the organizer of the project and a March veteran, was the media's historic failure to capture the numbers, the demographics or the spirit of the marchers. With the advantage of rooftop cameras, we estimated there were about 350,000 participants, about 75 percent of whom were under 25, with more females than males among the young people. I also assigned our six cameramen to find as many pro-abortion protestors as...

The most disgraceful thing is happening! Pro-lifers are receiving phone calls from people claiming to be Mass Citizens. The callers say that Mass Citizens is not supporting Scott Brown because of his position on health care! The truth is that Mass Citizens is supporting Brown because of his position on health care! These deceitful calls are coming from 202-461-3441, a Washington, DC number. The phone company says this is a company called SOOH. Pro-lifers are not the only victims of this scam. Our MCFL sleuths have found that this same number is calling people across the state claiming to...

A reporter trying to question Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley was involved in a scuffle with one of her aides. John McCormack of the Weekly Standard fell Tuesday night as he tried to speak with the Democrat while simultaneously videotaping her and trying to pass a metal grate on a Washington sidewalk. Photos and video of the incident show Coakley aide Michael Meehan trying to help McCormack up. A scuffle broke out as Meehan tried to block McCormack and determine if he was an operative of a rival campaign. Coakley is seen ignoring McCormack. The trip prompted criticism, since Coakley...

As you start to read all this, you'll laugh at how incestuous it all gets. Let's start with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which as I've noted in the past is tied in with the Soros foundation. Together, the two worked on something called The Project on Death in America.(PDIA) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2341083/posts And speaking of Mr Soros, he himself(his foundations) have given directly to NPR. Compared to some of the other numbers I'm seeing, it's a small amount of $250,000. But it doesn't matter. Soros money is soros money in my book. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2396058/posts Additional information about RWJF can be found here....

During the 70 years that the communists controlled the Soviet Union, they had a peculiar way of teaching history to the people. They would teach things as historical fact that never happened. If you were one of those who took umbrage with their revisionist history lessons, you would soon find yourself living in a tiny apartment in a part of the country where they laugh at anyone who claims the world is getting warmer. In a communist country this is the only way to convince the masses that they are actually better off than anyone in the history of...

Sorry for the vanity folks, but I stumbled across this video last night. It's a couple years old, before Al Franken was shaming the state of Minnesota as a Senator. An excerpt from a public forum featuring he and Ann Coulter, I think this so perfectly encapsulates Franken's weaselly methods in his attempts to smear conservatives as "liars," that it deserved addressing. Please take a few minutes to watch. Then, take a minute to read the ACTUAL ARTICLE by Thomas Friedman in question, and come back for my commentary. Now, did you notice what Franken did there? He started in...

Give this much to Sarah Palin: She is so dependably wrong that she makes it easy to pick sides. After exposing President Obama’s plans to kill the elderly and disabled with his death panels, she has moved on to climate change, seizing on the recent scandal over stolen e-mails as evidence that global warming is a liberal myth. Let’s look at the record. A few weeks ago, a computer hacker stole documents and e-mails from a server at Britain’s Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Some of the e-mails were between scientists at the center and a...

Phelim McAleer is an investigative journalist who spends much of his time debunking the Global Warming hoax. It was McAleer who asked a question of Al Gore a few months ago that caused the former VP's head to start melting (video at end of this post). McAleer is also the director and producer of Not Evil Just Wrong documentary which looks at how environmental extremism is damaging the lives of the most economically vulnerable populations (see trailer below) Today the "Global Warming Mafia" gave new credence to the charges raised by Climategate, that there has been a concerted effort to...

For the first time, in a long time, there is actually some tangibility to the abortion debate in this country. Yes, after years of Democrats dodging around the issue by saying they don't approve of abortions, but favor a woman's right to choose (the same way they supported the troops but still were rooting against them in Iraq and Afghanistan) Democrats in the House were forced to vote whether they would support government-subsidized abortions as part of the new health care bill. In an amendment to the House's health care bill, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) proposed an amendment which essentially...

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the target of an elaborate hoax by the Yes Men leading some major media outlets to believe that it had reversed its opposition to the Kerry-Boxer climate bill pending approval in the Senate. Now it seems the chamber has officially expressed support for legislation that would cut carbon emissions — but still in confusingly vague terms. Apparently, the organization sent a letter to Senators Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe (full text), the party leaders in the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee where the bill is being amended, supporting climate change...

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, held hearings yesterday to look into fraudulent letters which were sent on behalf of the coal industry to several members of congress. The original hearing was to take place on October 15, but was postponed until yesterday morning. The committee lined up the following witnesses: Rep. Tom Periello (D-Va.) Mr. Jack Bonner, Bonner & Associates Mr. Steve Miller, President and CEO, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity Ms. Lisa M. Maatz, Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, American Association of University Women Mr. Hilary...

An intern for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was ejected Wednesday from a conference held at the US Capitol Visitors Center Congressional Auditorium after behaving in a threatening manner and repeatedly violating conference rules by attempting to record conference speakers who have been the subject of death threats by Muslims. The CAIR official, Iyad Awadallah of Boca Raton, Florida, was ejected from the conference and escorted from the premises by Capitol Hill police. Awadallah showed up at the International Legal Conference on Freedom of Speech and Religion sponsored by the International Free Press Society and the Liberty Legal Project...

An Article Published in the October/09/ 2009 by newspaper DanTri in Hanoi indicated police arrested two suspects as they committed assault other people are journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and her Husband . http://dantri.com.vn/c20/s20-355166/tran-khai-thanh-thuy-bi-bat-ve-toi-co-y-gay-thuong-tich.htm The photo which shown an injured man Nguyen Manh Diep in the hospital (Anh Nguyễn Mạnh �iệp bị đánh vỡ đầu) actually a fake photo . The photo was taken in 2005 and later photoshop the date imprinted on the photo to Oct/09/2009 In order to make it looks genuinely as the recent date . The said photo above could be opened by using wordpad to...

The source link is to the comment section at Hotair. This link is to the referenced questionaire http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32843690/ns/health-health_care/

Print Headline: "Patriots or Pinheads? Tea Party movement must contain its extremes" ... For its critics, the tea party was a rabble-rousing mob of right-wing hotheads and religious nuts who lack the education to know the difference between a communist and a Nazi – but who are sure that our black president is both. The truth is surely closer to what Byron York of The Washington Examiner said he saw – a wide variety of people espousing different points of view, united in their fear of the future and bedrock belief that Washington is not to be trusted.

Here's a stunner.After the campaign speech Barack Obama delivered to Congress tonight the state-run media reported that Dear Leader's talking points were not true. They were being kind. This made it past the editor's desk at the AP: *************President Barack Obama used only-in-Washington accounting Wednesday when he promised to overhaul the nation's health care system without adding "one dime" to the deficit. By conventional arithmetic, Democratic plans would drive up the deficit by billions of dollars. The president's speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance. OBAMA:...

Yesterday, news broke out that Barack Obama's communist Green Czar was a 9-11 Truther. The White House much later in the day released a statement saying Van Jones was "not now or ever" involved in the 9-11 Truther movement. Jones said the petition he signed in 2004 did not reflect his views. Not true. This article at Rense.com from 2002 links Van Jones to the 9-11 Truther movement at its infancy: [*SNIP*]

Experts who track hate groups across the U.S. are growing increasingly concerned over violent rhetoric targeted at President Obama, especially as the debate over health care intensifies and a pattern of threats emerges.

Democrats Will Likely Prevent Vote to Remove Abortion From Health Care Washington, DC -- When members of Congress return from their August recess, the first battle over the abortion funding found in the health care bills will occur in the House. There, it appears Democratic leaders will prevent a vote on an amendment to remove the abortion funding from the bill. Story and action alert at: http://www.LifeNews.com/nat5356.html

President Obama's 45-minute sit-down with reporters from the Roman Catholic news media came just as the Fourth of July weekend was about to open, the only reason I can see that it hasn't gotten a lot more attention. I counted a half-dozen surprises from the interview, occasioned by the president's first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI this week. 1. Obama appeared to buck the White House line on abortion. As they've met with abortion-rights supporters and opponents in crafting a "common ground" plan on reproductive issues, Obama aides have been careful to say that the administration is not trying to...

DRUDGE IS SAYING SCHEDULED FOR A VOTE, IT HAS NOT PASSED, DO NOT LISTEN TO THE TROLLS THAT ARE COMING THROUGH AND SPAMING US THAT THEY HAVE WON. THEY HAVEN'T!

First, the lie is spread around with a press release headline: Ohio Catholic Priest Comes OUT as a Drag Queen with a Billboard Dance Hit. Then it builds with more sensationalism in the press release itself: "In celebration of Gay Pride Month, Big Mama Capretta reveals the surprise truth about her identity. By day, Capretta is none other than Father Anthony, a proud practicing Catholic priest from Columbus, Ohio! Big Mama Capretta's new hit single 'Big Mama's House' is currently #25 on the U.S. Billboard Club Play dance chart." Next, the Advocate, an "award-winning LGBT news site", basically copies down...

On Morning Joe today, Joe Scarborough nailed the Washington press corps for its sycophantish performance at the White House Correspondents Association dinner this past Saturday night: “like a bunch of teenage girls waiting for a Bay City Rollers concert, waiting to scream at the top of their [lungs].” Mika Brzezinski, agreeing with Joe, lifted the veil on the goings-on behind the scenes, describing an enraptured TV production crew scrambling to get the most flattering shots of the prez and First Lady. View video here.