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Obama rejects criticism of his agenda as "socialism" Photo 3:22pm EST By Jeff Mason and Caren Bohan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama launched a vigorous defense of his economic agenda on Wednesday, rejecting critics who call his policies "socialism" and insisting he aims to boost U.S. competitiveness abroad. Speaking to the Business Roundtable, which groups some of the country's top chief executives, Obama called for support of his administration's efforts to overhaul financial regulation, revamp the health insurance industry and create jobs. "Contrary to the claims of some of my critics and some of the editorial pages, I am...

The Office of Personnel Management will be reviewing political appointees who have "burrowed in" to federal career jobs over the past five years, according a memo issued by Director John Berry to all government agencies and executive departments. "Burrowing in" is what Beltway insiders call it when someone who was appointed by say, President George W. Bush, leaves an appointed position to take a career job inside the government. "While political appointees may not be excluded from consideration for federal jobs because of their political affiliation, they must not be given preference or special advantages," Mr. Berry said in his...

Frank Rich: Only Stalinists Use Words Like "Stalinist" One of Jesse Walker's most interesting observations in his already-classic October piece on "The Paranoid Center" is that, in a direct inversion of Richard Hofstadter's theory, the establishmentarians who try to scare us about the terribly dangerous fringe end up aping the tactics and even language of the people they so loathe. New York Times columnist Frank Rich, whose commentary about the political right this year has been among the very stupidest in a remarkably dull-witted season, manages to go one step further: In an op-ed on New York's Dictrict 23 congressional...

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...

Stalin’s grandson blames Poland 09.10.2009 16:01 Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, the grandson of Joseph Stalin, is suing an opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta and a civil rights society Memorial for defamation of the Soviet dictator and blaming Poland of having masterminded the libel. Yevgeny Dzhugashvili says that an article published in Novaya Gazeta, in cooperation with Memorial, is a lie. The article claims that Stalin personally ordered the deaths of thousands of Soviet and Polish citizens in Katyn. Stalin’s grandson, who was not present at the hearing in a Moscow court, is demanding 10 million ruble (23,000 euro) compensation for moral damage, claiming...

Albert Axell, the American military writer, historian and author of Marshall Zhukov: The Man Who Beat Hitler, explains just how much the West has undervalued the Soviet Union’s contribution to victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Related Articles The Red Army saved Europe Dancing with Hitler at the abyss Hidden past inside the secret cities Do you believe people are still interested in WWII, which was over a fairly long time ago? My friend, a British professor, told me about a survey that revealed striking ignorance: 95pc of young people in the UK believe Germany was an...

At Rick Warren's Saddleback forum, Obama was asked which current Supreme Court Justices he would not have nominated. His answer: Justices Thomas and Scalia. [my favorites]. He also voted against John Roberts. What does that say about who he would nonminate? What does that tell us about Sotomayor?-videos

What if an American President campaigned as a pragmatic centrist, promised tax cuts to 95% of the American people and pledged himself to a new era of government honesty, openness and bipartisanship, but never had any of those intentions? The result might be a cabinet full of tax cheats, political cronies and lobbyists, and a president peddling an overstuffed budget of liberal dream-schemes at a time when the American economy can least afford an extra nickel for folderol or fiddling. Meanwhile Rome is burning. President Obama rolls the dice and grabs a can of kerosene. This president's budget, plus the...

In early October, as the meltdown of the financial industry gained momentum following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 59% of U.S. voters agreed with Ronald Reagan that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Since then, the stock market has fallen roughly 3,000 points, millions of jobs have been lost, nearly a trillion dollars has been spent so far to bail out the financial industry, an additional $787-billion government stimulus package has been approved, and a new president has taken office who has proposed spending billions and...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 38% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty percent (30%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +8. Since release of the President’s budget, the number of Republicans who Strongly Disapprove has grown to 57%. That’s up fourteen percentage points since Thursday morning. Only 8% of Democrats share such a negative assessment.

Republicans will deeply regret the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General. During his confirmation hearings, Holder declared without hesitation, "Waterboarding is torture." This should have terrified Republican senators because it was a sure signal to the left-wing blogosphere that they are going to enjoy four years of show trials. Torture is a crime and Holder will prosecute President Bush and other officials for condoning it. Republicans should have jumped on his comments and opposed Holder's nomination for these dangerous views on what constitutes torture in the fight against terrorism. Republicans tried to pressure Mr. Holder to promise not to...

"And the KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work. And it, it gave people in the former Soviet Union, a communist country, an opportunity to do something important and worthwhile."

I read in AT that a statue of bloodthirsty revolutionary Che Guevara has appearedChe in Central Park in Central Park, so I went to 5th Ave. & 60th street to see it for myself. The statue is supposed to be on display until, significantly enough, May 1, 2009. It is definitely not a permanent location. This Doris Freedman Plaza is a concrete cobblestone area located just outside the southeast entrance walkway to the park. A mounted poster states the exhibit of three statues, Julius Ceasar, the "Anthropomorphic cabinet woman" (from a Dali painting) and Che Guevera were all inspired by...

I want you to be there with me on Election Night when the results come in. We're planning a big event that will include tens of thousands of supporters in Grant Park in downtown Chicago. We're saving some of the best seats in the house for 5 people who have given to the campaign before -- and who decide to make a donation one last time before Sunday at midnight. If you're selected, you can bring a guest, and we'll fly you in and put you up in a hotel for the night. You'll go backstage at the big event...

MORE THUGGISHNESS: Obama threatening the licenses of TV stations that run NRA ads. Haven't we had about enough of this? Related item here. They told me that if George W. Bush were re-elected there would be brazen efforts to suppress free speech on political grounds -- and they were right! UPDATE: Still more on the ad-silencing effort here. ANOTHER UPDATE: "I fear that under the Obama administration, the lawyers sending these letters will be government employees." Plus, from Jacob Sullum at Reason, Why Obama is Vulnerable On the Second Amendment. MORE: Prosecutors and sheriffs threatening to prosecute Obama critics?...

The time has come to declare whom I will be voting for. When I made my decision four years ago and supported the re-election of George W. Bush, I said at the time the overwhelming issue for me was international Islamic terrorism, including al-Qaida. The goal of Islamic terrorists was, and still is, to re-establish the caliphate encompassing most of the Muslims living in a host of nations from Spain to Indonesia and placing them under a single religious leader with full authority over the civil affairs of the countries, in the style of Iran. That goal includes the deaths...

The stunning comments from Democrat Sen. Barack Obama that the United States needs a "civilian national security force" that would be as powerful, strong and well-funded as the half-trillion dollar United States Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force have mysteriously disappeared from published transcripts of the speech. In the comments, Obama confirmed the U.S. "cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set." Campaign officials have declined to return any of a series of WND telephone calls over several days requesting a comment on the situation. Nor have they posted a transcript...

When a high-ranking U.S. senator sounds more like Karl Marx than Adam Smith over the issue of energy prices, it must be an election year. Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, appeared on CNBC’s June 10 “Squawk Box” pushing government control of corporate profits. Dodd said he considered a company to be “doing very, very well” with profits above $8 or $10 per barrel of oil. He said he advocated a windfall profits tax, where Congress would determine what amount of profit is fair and what isn’t. Co-host Joe Kernan called the Connecticut senator on...

Publisher Peter Osnos, who admits to personally working with former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan on his new book, What Happened, began his career as an assistant to I.F. Stone, the pro-communist "journalist" named as a Soviet agent of influence who was the uncle of Weather Underground communist terrorist Kathy Boudin. But the connections don't end there. Boudin's son Chesa was raised by Barack Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were Boudin's comrades in the communist terrorist group, after Kathy Boudin went to prison for her involvement in an armed robbery and assault that took the...

Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, left the position today, to be replaced by Clinton's former top White House aide, Maggie Williams. The change formalizes a shift in the campaign's power structure that began to set in after Clinton's win in New Hampshire, I've obtained a copy of Solis Doyle's email to the campaign's staff, sent about 15 minute ago: Over a year ago Hillary launched her campaign for President. Her announcement began a historic effort that has inspired millions and brought hundreds of thousands to their feet all across this nation. I have been proud to manage this campaign,...