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Allow me to take a card from President Barack Obama’s playbook and recant a former message. No, not that former President George W. Bush is the source of all things going wrong, including the Chicago Bears and Cubs being awful sports teams, European antagonism and the swine flu. The message I wish to repeat is Obama’s presidency so far has been a failed one. First let us consider that apparently this H1N1 situation is a national emergency. Yet the administration has failed to present any evidence to back this announcement. Their buddies in the media can do nothing but repeat...

The mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki invited President Barack Obama on Tuesday to visit the two cities hit by American nuclear weapons ... ... during the Second World War, AP reports. AP: "The two cities' mayors formally invited Obama on Tuesday to visit sometime before next May, but U.S. officials say it is highly unlikely he will travel to either city during his Nov. 12-13 visit to Tokyo. "An April speech Obama gave in Prague calling for a world free of nuclear weapons raised expectations, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month heightened them further. "'Many of the...

When Gunnery Sgt. Marcus Hyman was told he’d get to sit down with Barack Obama on Monday, the Marine knew what he wanted to find out: What’s the president’s plan for Afghanistan? Obama didn’t go into great detail answering Hyman, the young man said after their chat, but the future of the faltering war was clearly on the president’s mind during his afternoon visit to Jacksonville Naval Air Station. (snip) Not everyone in the audience was as excited — some sailors said they were upset about being ordered to come — but for many, the speech was a unique opportunity.

Memo to the White House political smart guys: It’s not that the body isn’t cold yet; it’s that the body is not even dead yet. There will be plenty of time after the election for you to explain that Creigh Deeds’s loss in Virginia had nothing to do with the president’s 25-point drop in job approval. It had nothing to do with the fact that a majority of Americans in every survey disapprove of the policies the president is advocating. Nothing to do with the 4.2 million jobs lost since Inauguration Day. Nothing to do with the 36 percent rise...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is drawing criticism from his congressional colleagues, but President Obama offered him some warm words at a Miami fundraiser for the Democratic congressional campaign committees last night. Obama, in introducing the members of Congress in attendance, called Grayson – along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek – as “outstanding members of Congress.” Obama may regret his praise of Grayson, who is now drawing fire from members in both parties for referring to Linda Robertson, the adviser to Obama’s Fed Chief Ben Bernanke as a “K Street whore” in a radio interview last month. And...

(snip) Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development have commissioned the first-ever national study of housing discrimination on the basis of sexuality and have expanded the definition of a "family" to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals. HUD said a new rule clarifying what is considered a "family" is needed to ensure subsidized housing is available to all families, "regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity." "The evidence is clear that some are denied the opportunity to make housing choices in our nation based on who they are, and that must end," HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said....

President Barack Obama will announce a $3.4 billion investment of stimulus funds to modernize the electric grid at an event in Arcadia, Fla., Tuesday, administration officials said. One-hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and others will receive grants of between $400,000 and $200 million to help build a nationwide "smart energy grid" that will cut costs for consumers and make the nation's electrical system more reliable. The grants are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs - the administration did not say exactly how many - and also lay down the infrastructure to create a new renewable energy industry,...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. --...

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama said his cap-and-trade tax plans would "bankrupt" anyone building a coal-fired power plant. Although those taxes haven't materialized, the Environmental Protection Agency has put the brakes on 79 surface mining permits in four states since he was elected. The EPA says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. But the agency went even further last week, announcing plans to revoke a permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia - a move that has caused anxiety among coal-state Democrats about the future of the...

We asked Terry O'Neill, the new president of the National Organization for Women, what she thought of those Democratic women and others quietly complaining about a "boy's club" atmosphere at the White House, as exemplified by the president playing basketball earlier this month with 11 members of Congress and four Cabinet Secretaries -- all men. As the New York Times and cable news chatter looked at whether the Obama White House is too fratty yesterday, President Obama brought along a woman golf partner for the first time in his 24 golf outings as president, domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes. Is...

A top White House economic adviser will make the case for healthcare reform this afternoon while taking shots at Bush administration policies. In a speech to the liberal Center for American Progress, Christina Romer, Director of the Council of Economic Advisers, will argue that the actions of the Bush administration--and not stimulus spending--were largely responsible for the current deficit. According to excerpts released by the White House, Romer will cite a study concluding that "roughly half of the long-run deficit is due to the policy actions of the past 8 years," while "just 3 percent of the long-run fiscal problem...

Roughly $211 billion separates what the country owes and its self-imposed credit limit. And by Friday, after another week of massive debt sales by the Treasury Department, that gap will likely have narrowed considerably. It is now expected that the $12.104 trillion debt ceiling could be breached by the end of November. It is also expected that lawmakers will raise the ceiling, as they have done more than 90 times since 1940 -- eight of them since 2002. If they don't, the government could be forced to shut down. But that's not the worst that could happen. In fact, the...

BRATISLAVA - Corruption, doubts over Afghan leadership and faltering public support have emerged as the main stumbling blocks to a demand for more North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan. NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, had wanted NATO defense ministers meeting in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava on Thursday and Friday last week to agree to raise troop numbers in Afghanistan. The United States and NATO troops commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has asked for 40,000 more troops. Rasmussen made energetic appeals to NATO states to endorse the general's plan, which also calls for a shift in...

A month into reviewing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama appears to be operating in an increasingly narrowing space between reality on the ground in Afghanistan, and political camps in Washington, with pressure closing in from all sides. Leading one camp is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is urging the president to make a decision on strategy in Afghanistan as soon as possible, and follow the recommendations laid out by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his Aug. 30 assessment on how to succeed in Afghanistan, (snip) On the other side is Vice President Joe Biden, who reportedly favors a counterterrorism strategy...

The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel headline for Sunday, October 25th screams:  "Swine flu a national emergency." Oh, really. Looks like President Obama has gone ahead and declared that the swine flu outbreak is indeed a national emergency.  And we know that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel,  has stated in the past that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."   Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has more power and authority to bypass federal rules regarding the operations of hospitals and alternative care sites.   And the government has taken another step towards grabbing more power in controlling the population of America because of Obama's...

A great week for Glenn Beck show and FNC. Not so great for the Obama attack machine and democrats. Clip 1 : Glenn Beck Clips 10-23-09 Seg1- GREAT! Running America the Chicago Way, Mafia & Baseball Bats Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. Tonight here are the question we are going to talk about : Chicago type lessons and are they being applied ? And who is going to whacked, and why ?.... It's the Chicago way. If you don't know what that is let me play you a scene from the movie ‘The Untouchables.’ (Plays clip of Sean Connery...

This past week showed us why modern liberalism poses such a grave threat to the United States of America as we know it. It's not because liberals want a strong, secure social safety net for the poorer among us. The truth is, we should have a strong, secure social safety net for the poor, and we should end corporate welfare to help pay for it. No, it's not that. It's not because they want peace and love. Don't we all? So hail to Peter, Paul and Mary, I swear it's not too late. No, it's not that. It's not because...

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor is criticizing the White House’s strategy of targeting Fox News as “not the American way.” “When you have the White House focusing on one news outlet, it is a little strange. We believe in free press and freedom of speech in this country,” Cantor said Thursday night during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “Why would the White House choose to go after its critics instead of trying to bring people together?” the Virginia Republican asked. “After all, this president ran on trying to unite this country, trying to bridge the differences so...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. The...

Last night, former Vice president Cheney had some harsh comments about President Obama’s decision making process about strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying "the White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger." At this afternoon’s briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs fired back. “It's a curious comment,” Gibbs said, arguing that “the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President...