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President Obama on Thursday hailed his administration for its transparency. “This is the most transparent administration in history,” Obama said during a Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout. “I can document that this is the case,” he continued. “Every visitor that comes into the White House is now part of the public record. Every law we pass and every rule we implement we put online for everyone to see.” The president said this holds true even on the issue of Benghazi, a controversy which he said was “driven by campaign” year politics and one that Congressional Republicans were clinging to even though...

In less than four weeks since President Obama proposed sweeping new gun control laws and a ban on assault-style weapons, the backlash from law enforcement groups that strongly support the Second Amendment has surged and now there are 10 state sheriffs associations opposed to the president.

That's right -- not just Nixon ... Nixon and Bush. Can vilification from the left get much worse than that? Cornel West continues to demonstrate why parents might want to think better of sending their children to Princeton, where West purportedly teaches when he isn't gushing over hip-hop and engaging in arcane rants over the airwaves. (audio clip after page break) On his most recent radio show with co-host Tavis Smiley, West condemned President Obama's legal justification for drone killings of Americans suspected of involvement with al Qaeda, saying Obama had become no different than George W. Bush and Richard...

'Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health-care costs," the president claimed Tuesday. This ranks as one of the biggest State of the Union whoppers ever told. In fact, not only are health-care costs climbing, but employers are also shifting those costs onto the very "middle-class" families Obama spent much of his speech championing. Since ObamaCare was enacted, family health-insurance premiums on average have soared $3,000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The president promised the law would slash premiums by an average of $2,500 per family. That means he's broken his word by $5,500....

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate failed to pass a cloture resolution on the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as secretary of defense, with 58 in favor and 40 against ending debate on the matter, with one senator voting "present." A 60-vote majority is required to end debate before the nomination can proceed to a simple majority vote, and it appears the Senate is going to come up short. Hagel's nomination was approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week in a 14-11 party line vote. Although Hagel came under fire for remarks he made about Israel...

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President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday. “During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released. Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in...

The White House and President Obama’s supporters insist that he’s making his first trip to Israel next month to assure the Jewish state that if push comes to shove with Iran, he’ll have Israel’s back. But North Korea’s nuclear test Tuesday morning could indicate that it’s already too late for that. If North Korea has the bomb, then for all practical purposes Iran does, too. If that’s so, then Obama’s policy of prevention has failed, and containment—a policy that the president has repeatedly said is not an option—is in fact all Washington has. If this sounds hyperbolic, consider the history...

In an apparent planning snafu, President Obama today will visit an early learning school in Decatur, Georgia that happens to be in recess this week. But no problem: According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, staff and bus drivers will be summoned back to work for the day to accomodate Obama’s appearance. College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center Principle Suzanne Kennedy alerted parents that the staff will interrupt their vacations for the “amazing opportunity” for students to “expand their worlds” by seeing the president: President Obama’s visit is an honor for College Heights and the City Schools of Decatur. Since the school...

General Motors reported earnings today that appeared non-eventful on the surface. Upon further inspection there are some underlying concerns, including a glaring one-time event that stands out. That is an adjustment to earnings with a tax benefit (as opposed to paying taxes) of $35 billion for a "deferred tax valuation release." This was coupled with a goodwill impairment charge of about $27 billion, which allows GM to reduce the previously unusually high goodwill assets that were recorded on its balance sheet. GM uses non-GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) to calculate its calendar year operating income of $7.9 billion. The GAAP...

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.” This additional preschool access would, of course, be funded through federal and state coffers. President Obama is headed to Georgia today to “formally unveil his proposal for expanding early childhood education,” reports the Washington Post. You can read the President’s proposal here. It calls for a state-federal partnership guaranteeing that all 4-year olds at families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line receive access to preschool, as well as entails a “massively expanded...

Barack Obama's 2012 Presidential campaign was described succinctly in this term: "Destroy Mitt Romney"Never mind ideas or themes. Just destroy him. Thanks to the left's intellectual deficit, it worked. Thing is, it's not over. There's always someone new in the GOP to destroy and today it's Marco Rubio, despite the pleadings of David Ignatius of the Washington Post. CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Marco Rubio has been designated as the Republican respondent, right, which is pretty smart I guess because he's the hot hand. Immigration jumps right out at that guy when you see him. He's Cuban-American, he’s talked on the issue....

After four years of Barack Obama's diplomatic 'leadership' and billions of dollars in attempted friendship aid, a new public opinion poll reveals that 92% of Pakistanis now disapprove of the United States. The results could have been worse. Not much. But a little. Fully four Pakistanis out of 100 do approve of the United States, President Obama and his policies. They, however, seem to keep kind of quiet about their views in that rowdy land. That's the lowest favorable rating Pakistan's citizens have ever given their ostensible North American ally. The new Gallup Poll, out this morning, reports that the...

Sen. Rand Paul told USA Today Wednesday that he is prepared to put a "hold" on John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA and to filibuster it if necessary until the administration responds to his questions about the use of drones in the United States. The Kentucky Republican said he would do "whatever it takes" to block Brennan's confirmation until he directly answers whether American citizens legally can be killed by drone strikes within U.S. borders. ...

From his very first state-of-the-union utterance last night, associating himself with President Kennedy, President Obama got it wrong, and it was mostly downhill from there: “51 years ago,” he began, “John F. Kennedy declared to this chamber that ‘the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.’” Great alliteration; bad constitutionalism. Yes, in a very narrow sense the Constitution makes the political branches partners for progress. But it also, most definitely, makes the branches, and those with authority within them, rivals for power. Indeed, throughout the Federalist Papers we learn how the Constitution pits power against power...

When I heard about the cancelled tour due to a hip injury my first thought was “oh oh, there goes the ski vacation.” Thankfully I heard wrong, it was Lady Gaga, not Lady M, with hip issues. So I think we can assume that the traditional President’s week trip to an unnamed luxurious resort is still on.  I do know that Big Guy is going golfing with the boys in the swanky West Palm area, where just about everyone can afford to pay a little bit more. (snip)Today’s challenge: name the number of problems that Big Guy identified in the SOTU...

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said Wednesday he was unimpressed by efforts from fellow House Republicans to lay blame for the sequester on President Obama, calling the moves "disingenuous." "I think it's a mistake on the part of Republicans to try to pin the sequester on Obama," Amash told Buzzfeed. "It's totally disingenuous. The debt ceiling deal in 2011 was agreed to by Republicans and Democrats, and regardless of who came up with the sequester, they all voted for it. So, you can't vote for something and, with a straight face, go blame the other guy for its existence in law."...

Vatican insiders today report what is an apparent "testing the water" move by the White House to suggest President Barack Obama as a possible replacement for retiring Pope Benedict XVI. Father Guido Sarducci, unofficial Vatican spokesman, confirmed that a "highly placed person" in the administration had floated the idea of naming Obama the Vicar of Christ on Earth when Pope Benedict steps down at the end of the month. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was quick to state that any talk of the President leaving his current office to assume the duties of the supreme pontiff was irresponsible. "We...

As the details about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, continue to emerge, a new ebook claims to unveil what it says are the “both uncomfortable and unsatisfying” facts surrounding the events leading up to, during and after the attack. Some have already said the details included in ”Benghazi: The Definitive Report,” which was released Tuesday by authors Jack Murphy, a former Army Ranger and member of the 5th Special Forces Group, and Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL, are “shocking but hard to prove.” Webb is the editor-in-chief of SOFREP.com (the Special Operations...

Brigitte Gabriel, one of the world’s leading experts on Islamic extremism, said over the weekend that there will be new information to come out on the Benghazi attack that will leave people “amazed and shocked” when they finally hear it. “As someone working with the intelligence community…more information is going to come out regarding the Benghazi attack that will really leave people amazed and shocked how we have been — on how we are defending the country,” Gabriel said on Fox News. The story exploded on TheBlaze, with 550 comments and over 12,000 “shares” on social media outlets as of...