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Another audience member questioned the candidate about Santorum awarding former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky with the Angels in Adoption Award. Santorum explained that he lacked knowledge of the situation at the time and noted that the award has since been withdrawn. In response to his explanation, the audience member asked, "So we shouldn't trust Obama with our kids, but we can trust you?"

It is, of course, reason to celebrate that Flagstaff is on track to finish 2011 without a single murder inside the city. Flagstaff is hardly Mayberry, RFD, but violent crimes of all types have plummeted in recent years, thanks to more community policing and better use of neighborhood-level police reports. We'd like to think that the absence of a murder so far this year is due, in part, to those initiatives by the police and community leaders. But we are also realistic enough to know that lethal violence in a state with lax gun laws is hard to keep at...

One poll is getting the big headlines this morning: NBC poll: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul neck-and-neck in Iowa; Newt Gingrich in 5th The numbers from that poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday: Romney 23% Paul 21% Santorum 15% Perry 14% Gingrich 13% Bachmann 6% Similar numbers from a Rasmussen poll conducted Wednesday: Romney 23% Paul 22% Santorum 16% Gingrich 13% Perry 13% Bachmann 5% Thesed results have been enough to move Santorum to third place in the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls, but there’s yet another poll — conducted Thursday by We Are America — which shows Santorum now...

My local "news" outlet on in my YMCA cardiovascular room just showed an extensive story just oozing with admiration for how Hussein handled the little baby at the Marine base that grabbed his face. Nothing but a big smooch to these fake journalist's little tin god. Made me want to hurl.

On Friday's CBS Evening News, as correspondent Sharyl Attkisson filed a report to inform viewers that the House of Representatives had approved the Senate plan for a two-month payroll tax cut extension, Attkisson included a clip of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid directing a "lecture" at and blaming House Republican freshmen for the delay, as she recounted his hope that they had "learned a lesson." While the report included two soundbites from Democrats that allowed them to put forth some of their message - in the form of one clip each from Reid and President Obama - the CBS correspondent...

For the first time since 1949, the United States is poised to become a net exporter of petroleum, according to the Petroleum Supply Monthly report for November, put out by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Jeremy Friesen, a commodity strategist at Societe Generale SA in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News that part of the reason for the shift is that America's consumption of oil has remained stagnant compared to the rest of the world. "The U.S. has been flat or down for overall oil consumption versus the world, which continues to rise mainly due to emerging markets," he said. "Latin...

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea says a fierce snowstorm paused and the sky began glowing red above sacred Mount Paektu just minutes before leader Kim Jong Il's death. State media say the ice on volcanic Lake Chon at the mountain in the far north cracked with a load roar. And in the city of Hamhung, a Manchurian crane circled a statue of Kim's father, late President Kim Il Sung, before alighting on a tree, its head drooping before it took off toward Pyongyang. State media say Kim died Saturday morning at age 69. His death was announced two...

HBO Films seems to have two essential mission statements. First, to corner the market on Al Pacino’s good acting (see: Angels in America, You Don’t Know Jack, the upcoming Phil Spector biopic. Second, and more importantly, the moviemaking arm of the network appears to be constructing a complete chronology of American history, from the Revolution (John Adams) through the Great War (Band of Brothers, The Pacific), and right up to our disturbing modern moment (Recount, Too Big to Fail). Next year’s Game Change is an intriguing new entry in the HBO History canon, adapting the addictive behind-the-scenes muckrake of the...

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama's approval rating, a crucial indicator of his reelection chances, is on the rise, according to a new national survey. A CNN/ORC International Poll out Tuesday also indicates that the partisan battle over extending the payroll tax cut may be partially responsible for the jump in the president's numbers. Full results (pdf) According to the survey, 49% of Americans approve of the job Obama's doing in the White House, up five points from last month, with 48% saying they disapprove, down six points from mid-November. The 49% approval rating is the president's highest since May,...

From Jake Tapper’s Tweet: A group of progressive media stars meeting with POTUS at the WH -- @AriannaHuff, @WeGotEd, @EzraKlein, @KatrinaNation, @ChrisLHayes et al 1 hour ago via TweetDeck Progressive talking heads and journolisters meeting the President? Any guesses in the comments as to their meeting agenda? I’m sure the these transparent media folks will disclose this on their shows tonight or within their column inches soon.

Protesting villagers in southern China said they will march on government offices this week unless the body of a local leader is released and four villagers in police custody are freed. The 13,000 residents of Wukan, in the wealthy province of Guangdong, are in open revolt against officialdom and have driven out local Communist Party leaders who they say have been stealing their land for years. Many local businesses have been closed for the past week while schools have been shuttered as riot police blockade the village, which has for months been the scene of occasionally violent protests over land...

Breaking New Study => Newt Gingrich’s Amnesty Plan ~ Covertly Gives 3.5 Million Criminal Aliens U.S. Jobs & U.S. Residency. This Is Larger Than The 1986 Blanket Amnesty! The most recent polling finds that Republican voters have elevated Newt Gingrich to presidential frontrunner status. But it is difficult to believe that those supporting him agree with his amnesty plan or are even aware that his proposal sounds like it would give U.S. jobs and residency to around 3.5 million illegal aliens (according to a new Pew Hispanic Center study). Unless Gingrich supporters push him to back off, he is promising...

It has been a terrible week for Newt, a very good week for Mitt, and a week of surprising momentum for the two Ricks. The Washington Examiner, the center-right alternative to the Washington Post and Politico which is staffed by the best of center-right journalists and pundits, endorsed Mitt Romney. About Newt the editors said "[H]e is like an exploding cigar, waiting to be lit." The National Review narrowed the field to Romney, Santorum or Huntsman. (Santorum's "moneybomb" had a good first day for the "little engine that could" among the campaigns.") About Newt, the NR editors opined: "We fear...

Jessica Lynch was just 19 when the world first saw her — a broken, blond soldier caught on combat video in Iraq, her face wearing something between a grimace and a grin. The Army supply clerk was being carried on a stretcher after nine days as a prisoner of war. She had been captured along with five others after the 507th Maintenance Company took a wrong turn and came under attack in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. Eleven of her fellow soldiers died. Lynch had joined the Army at 18 to earn money for college and become a school teacher....

The Obama administration is alerting employees to the possibility of a government shutdown if talks on bills to fund the government and extend the payroll tax cut collapse later this week. With Congress facing a midnight Friday deadline to either pass a short-term or final measure to fund government operations for the remainder of the fiscal year, Cabinet secretaries and agency heads planned to send an e-mail message to workers by close of business Wednesday informing them that a shutdown could occur, according to multiple administration officials familiar with the plans. In a statement, Office of Management and Budget spokesman...

> According to Automotive News, Honda has issued an ultimatum to its dealers: Stop selling cars below invoice price through these websites, or lose the per-car marketing spiffs that the factory gives dealers. Since Honda corporate turned the screws on its dealers in October, TrueCar says Honda sales through its service are down. >

Iran discovers gas field in Caspian SeaAP – Sun, Dec 11, 2011 TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's oil minister says the country has discovered a huge gas field containing an estimated 50 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Caspian Sea. **SNIP** Iran sits atop the world's second largest proven reserves of natural gas and is the second largest OPEC oil producer.

The retail giant stopped advertising on TLC's "All-American Muslim" after a conservative group known as the Florida Family Association complained, saying the program was "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."

As California Mandate Looms, Some LGBT Curriculum Already In Place By Debra Goldschmidt In 10th grade English at Los Angeles’ Grover Cleveland High School, Danielle Taklender's students read the book "Luna" by Julie Anne Peters. It's a story about a transgender teen. Taklender has been teaching the book for seven years without any fanfare or push back. It’s getting noticed now as her school district takes the lead in developing a plan to comply with the first state law mandating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history and social science curricula. The California law, which takes effect in January, stops short...

Please contact Mercersburg Academy, a coed boarding high school in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania; this Monday, December 12, Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan is delivering the "Schaff Lecture on Ethics and Morals" -- a unfortunate choice, given the intellectually dishonest and deceptive Aslan's demonstrably unethical behavior over the years.