op ed review 3/18
80% Say They’re Not Better Off Now Than Four Years Ago
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/293296/mere-80-say-theyre-not-better-four-years-ago
Congressional Budget Office: Debt is exploding under Obama policies
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74109.html
Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday that the size of the U.S. national debt and the rate at which the debt is accumulating will lead the United States to “ruin” -- and no other outcome is mathematically possible
Some 10,215 new federal regulations from the Obama administration are costing consumers, businesses and the economy overall $46 billion annually, more than five times the regulatory price tag of former President Bush in his first three years in office. Worse: just implementing those regulations had a one-time additional cost of $11 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation analysis.
President Obama's national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
Almost two-thirds of Americans, 65 percent, said they disapprove of the way Obama is dealing with rising prices at the pump, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds. Only 26 percent – the president’s lowest rating in the poll — said they approve of his handling of gas, while a majority, 52 percent, said they “strongly” disapprove.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73875.html
President Obama's approval rating has hit the lowest level ever in CBS News polling, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times survey.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57395703-503544/poll-obamas-approval-rating-sinks-to-new-low/
The fallout from two major polls yesterday—Washington Post/ABC and New York Times/CBS—finding measurable and significant drops in support for Barack Obama nationwide during the past month has instantly changed the national conversation. Obama is in trouble, and there’s no pretending he isn’t. One poll might have been viewed as an outlier, but two polls taken around the same time with the same sample size of American adults can’t be dismissed as statistical noise
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/03/13/obama-poll-troubles-and-2012-strategy/
You can almost hear the note of surprise in their voices when you read the Washington Post and New York Times reporters' stories on their papers' latest political polls. Surprise! Just when they thought that Barack Obama was pulling ahead, with positive job ratings, and just after the mainstream media have been savaging Republicans for two words Rush Limbaugh uttered on his radio program, Obama's numbers seem to be tanking. Actually, the numbers are not so striking or so surprising.
VP Joe Biden tells 87 couples who paid a minimum $10,000 for dinner that Republicans are out of touch. “These guys don’t have a sense of the average folks out there. They don’t know what it means to be middle class.”
President Obama's campaign staff made the curious decision to build a fundraising message around their candidate's apparent weakness, warning supporters that Mitt Romney would beat Obama if the election were held today.
Obama Fares Worse Among Women after Month-Long Contraception Mandate Battle…..Washington Post poll contradicts Washington Post narrative about female voters.
A resurgent Rick Santorum swept to victory in primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, upending the race for the Republican presidential nomination yet again and trying to nudge Newt Gingrich toward the sidelines.
http://www.ocala.com/article/20120313/APP/1203130549
If you thought the tea party was over, think again. Kathleen Sebelius just shot a flare into a dynamite factory. On Monday night, Ms. Sebelius’s Department of Health and Human Services released a final decree concerning a troubling codicil in the individual mandate section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Boil it down, and it comes to this: Next year, every American adult will be required by law to pay for abortions.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/13/the-next-big-scandal-taxpayer-funding-for-abortion/
President Obama has never apologized to Mexican President Felipe Calderon for the 300 civilians murdered with weapons the United States provided to Mexico’s drug cartels, but on Sunday he found time to place a call to Afghan president Hamid Karzai apologizing for deaths caused by an American soldier this weekend in Afghanistan.
Britain intends to tell the European Court of Human Rights that Christians should not be permitted to wear the symbol of their faith at work
Meanwhile, the most influential leader in the Muslim world has issued a fatwa to destroy Christian churches. “If the pope called for the destruction of all the mosques in Europe, the uproar would be cataclysmic….”.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/16/destroy-all-churches/
The Justice Department's civil rights division has blocked a new photo ID requirement for voters in Texas because many Hispanic voters lack state-issued identification. Texas follows South Carolina as the second state in recent months to become embroiled in a court battle with the Justice Department over new photo ID requirements for voters.
http://news.yahoo.com/justice-dept-opposes-texas-voter-id-law-144238429.html
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THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Gerald R. Molen is an Oscar-winning film producer whose credits include "Rain Man," "Minority Report," "Twister," "Schindler's List" and "Jurassic Park."
My fellow patriots,
…..An event took place in 2008 that changed the world we live in. It changed the face of America, it changed the direction of our moral values, it changed how we view the future and how we see ourselves as human beings and it changed the make up of our basic freedoms that we so irreverently tossed aside for entitlement freebies and empty promises by the engineers at the helm.
Thus, I have some questions; As we sit at the precipice of financial collapse from debt and entitlements, how much time do we have? Can we reverse course?... are we too late? No. Not really. That is the one thing we do as Americans ... once awakened from a slumber and the realization sinks in that we are in a pot of dirty soup up to our noses and some bunch of dirt bags are throwing in more slop to hopefully drown us in our own spittle, we fight. We fight hard and will win in the end because we always have. It's in our DNA. The sad part is we have to get to the point of losing everything before we stand tall and state unequivocally, "No more. Stop the madness. Stop it now!"
The event I speak of, of course, was the presidential election of 2008. We put a man in office, a man not really qualified to be a dog catcher, much less the most powerful man in the world. We refused to listen to what he was saying. We missed the first gasp of incredulity when he promised to transform America. Oh, we bought into the cliched slogans of "hope and change." We liked his smile, his ability to read from a teleprompter, his super-friendly demeanor and his charismatic oratorical skills. Yeah, we jumped in with both feet thinking the country would show the world we had found our mojo and racism was gone forever.
Once again, our ears failed us. Our eyes failed us. We failed to hear that horrific sucking sound of our falling into the vortex of calm voices pushing us ever so gently but with assured and deft platitudes, into the hell of our own making. We found that the dreaded four-letter word that could burn the eardrums of a sweet mother or even a hard-hearted father did not start with the letter 'F.'…..There are worse four-letter words that not only burn the eardrums but they singe the soul. They change life as we know it. They create an environment of hell on earth. And alas, sometimes they come wrapped in the promises of easy living, free lunches forever and fun times at the social picnic. But as the wrappings are peeled away and truth is revealed, and we see the four-letter words that imprison us with our own trappings. They become clear and defined. They are "fear and envy" and the worst four letter word of all, "hate."
Hate fuels the fear, the envy, and we bind ourselves to the adversary by falling into the trap of each of them. We can never lose our awareness that those who perpetrate the lie and the hate by using their best tools of fear and envy and class warfare are alive and well and doing their very best to take our basic freedoms away from us…
Another part of the ongoing dilemma is that the President surrounded himself with self-proclaimed Marxists, socialists, communists and progressives. Why? Is the answer that he embodies some or all of those ideological characteristics? I think so. Each of them arrived with an agenda to turn America into the vision of themselves and the despicable goal of changing America into a European style state of fear and class warfare. Sadly, we see it happening before our very eyes, but we refuse to stand up and make our presence and our voices known. That must change. We have to get involved. If we sit still for the usual emanations from Washington, D.C. and say nothing, do nothing, we will be nothing. Who to blame? Only ourselves.
Now we are confronted with the possibility of changing the mistake the country made in putting Obama in the highest office in the land by electing a new POTUS. But will we? Will the majority fall on their faces while groveling at the feet of the feed-lot proprietor? Will our defenses be pushed aside by the desire to partake of the entitlements the proprietor doles out as temporary freebies and the empty promises of a better life if only we will give our souls and our minds to this false benefactor? Or will we stand up to the forces of promises of easy living and more and more entitlements? It won't be easy, but it is necessary, or we won't live in the America we grew up in….
We need to reawaken our memories. Give them a jolt. Then each of us should care enough to get off our butts and do something about the crisis we find ourselves in. When we do not, we condemn our progeny to a lifetime of debt and potential servitude to the miseries of progressive lifestyles and socialist living conditions. The era of personal responsibility will be gone forever and the future we leave to the next generations will fall on our inability to shoulder the reasoning of our forefathers and the burdens of freedom. Yes, there is a price to pay for the greatness of America. Are we and will we stand up to the task and be willing to carry our portion of that burden? It is my fervent and continued prayer that we will find the resolve, the strength, the willingness and the love of country enough to make a difference.
By the way ... Last month, the conservative side of politics lost a champion of truth and a strong voice in the conservative movement with the passing of Andrew Breitbart. He was a man of high intellect, vision and courage. He never backed away from a fight and was responsible for turning out those who sought to endear themselves at the public trough via their egregious actions and poor moral values. He disclosed them and brought them to the bar of justice for the American people to see and judge for themselves. He was a great example for all of us to aspire to. We cannot allow his passing to be just a closing of another chapter in the fortunes of America. We must carry his part of the burden he was so willing to share for all of us.
In freedom and in purpose, I am……..Jerry Molen
Edited for length, read the entire article here:
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FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"If the left really cared about women, they have lots of misogyny on their own side to police without ever having to worry about conservatives. Plus, their own side might actually listen to them. But they tolerated a Senator who left a woman to drown in a car. And enthusiastically supported a president who sexually harassed women and dismissed accusations of rape against him. And just look at how they treat Sarah Palin. So if a liberal says he cares about women, tell him, 'You care about women the same way I care about your face.' Then punch him really hard in the face."
-Frank J. Fleming
"Feminists are declaring a sex strike for Obamacare-subsidized birth control. The group Liberal Ladies Who Lunch is organizing 'Access Denied,' a week-long exercise in self-denial starting April 28. The strike is supposed to motivate men to stand up for government-funded birth control 'because when we lose our reproductive choices, so do they.' This is akin to protesting welfare cuts by getting a job. ... In this case, activists are abandoning the activity that causes their supposed need for the birth-control handout. ... Conservatives should applaud the strike. Abstention is well-regarded on the right, and not simply because it is 100 percent effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Taking a week off from promiscuity may give young women an opportunity to think about their life choices. Perhaps there is more to being a woman than ensuring the government supplies the means to engage in limitless hookups. Nursing chastity for a week puts necessary perspective on the type of subsidized sexuality that's at the center of the debate."
-The Washington Times
"President Obama compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the struggle to bring about change. The comparison is flawed. They spent years in jail before taking political power, while politicians from Chicago do it the other way around."
-Argus Hamilton
"The Air Force is pulling nine cargo aircraft from military operations to support President Obama's stepped-up visits to campaign events. Good. Now he can carry his entire ego with him on the trail."
-Fred Thompson
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LEFTIST WATCH
In an interview published by The Washington Post on Friday, cartoonist Garry Trudeau, creator of “Doonesbury,” likened the pre-abortion sonogram required by a new Texas law to rape. “You tell me the difference,” Trudeau said. The Texas law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry, requires that abortionists administer a sonogram to a pregnant woman 24 hours before aborting her baby.
The nation’s largest labor unions, whose support has been a mainstay of the Democratic Party, have set aside their frustrations and disappointments in President Obama and formally lined up behind his bid for a second term.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/03/afl-cio-labor-unions-line-up-behind-obama/
A man described as a President Obama fanatic pleads guilty to threatening to kill Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/justice/man-pleads-guilty-to-threatening-arpaio-03142012
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BOOKS, FILM
Are you sick of self-important celebrities preaching against “global warming,” yet flying private planes to their countless homes? Fed up with lectures about charity and philanthropy from miserly rockers who will do anything for a tax break? Disgusted by leftist stars decrying the evils of the Second Amendment as their personal bodyguards pack more heat than a Chuck Norris kick to the face? The same Hollywood loons who got Barack Hussein Obama elected in 2008 will do so again in 2012. That is, unless we muzzle them. Four years ago, Republicans sat back like wimps and let Obama’s celebrity-fueled cool machine steamroll them into electoral smithereens. This time, we must do the steamrolling. New York Times bestselling author of Obama Zombies and gonzo journalist Jason Mattera takes the first stand with Hollywood Hypocrites, as he slays the Left’s sacred celebrity cows and teaches Obama’s Tinseltown foot soldiers their most important lesson yet: No longer can they attempt to deny Americans the very liberties they use to catapult themselves to prosperity and stardom. "Best-selling Brooklyn bruiser Jason Mattera unleashes a barrage of body blows to Hollywood’s holier-than-thou limousine liberals that may make them think twice next time they open their pretty mouths.” –Andrew Breitbart
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GLOBALONEY
"If I was a bird, I'd be an angry bird right now," said David Almasi, executive director of the National Center for Public Policy Research and director of the National Center's "Occupy Occupy DC" project. "Countless innocent birds that only want to be with their eggs die every year from crashing into wind turbines. The environmentalists who promote wind energy at the expense of the birds are green pigs!"
http://secure.campaigner.com/Campaigner/Public/t.show?R4Eb--CWgx-o75G48
The nearly 60-year record of 132.6 inches of snow in Anchorage, AK is almost broken.
“Most polar ice ever recorded” So much for an ice-free Arctic. Henry Hudson’s long-ago dream of a Northwest Passage that would link England to the Orient by sea will have to wait another century as Mother Earth gives him the cold shoulder.
http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/archives/52724
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ISLAM
The mullah was astounded and a little angered to be asked why the accidental burning of Korans last month could provoke violence nationwide, while an intentional mass murder that included nine children last Sunday did not. “How can you compare the dishonoring of the Holy Koran with the martyrdom of innocent civilians?” said an incredulous Mullah Khaliq Dad, a member of the council of religious leaders who investigated the Koran burnings. “The whole goal of our life is religion.”
Pamela Geller was struck by that ad The New York Times ran the other day, “It’s Time To Quit The Catholic Church“, an “open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics”. So she sent in her own ad, “It’s Time To Quit Islam“, an “open letter to ‘moderate’ Muslims”. Analogous artwork, same pitch, only difference being the intended target. The Times’ Senior Vice-President for Corporate Hogwash called to tell Miss Geller that – surprise! surprise! – they were way less eager to rush this one into print:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/293451/quit-and-dead-mark-steyn
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THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Election year math: It'll all come down to three states that went for Obama last time. the final battleground is likely to be North Carolina, Virginia and Colorado. Now, what do these three states have in common? Very simply, they are the nation's new "suburbs," the emerging middle ground between urban centers of the East and West Coasts and Upper Midwest, all voting Democratic, and the great rural in-between that is now wedded to the Republicans. These are Joel Garreau's "Edge Cities" or David Brooks' "Latte Towns" -- take your pick -- inhabited by Richard Florida's "Creative Class." Their voters are college-educated, employed well-paying, high-status jobs, but far enough away from the media centers so that they haven't yet bought into the liberal dogma that the only way for things to be "fair" in America is to vote for Democrats.
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/15/election-year-math
Is it possible to turn on the TV today without being told how wonderful Barack Obama is? Apparently not, for on Wednesday’s American Idol – yes, the nation’s premier musical competition – the Commander-in-Chief was gushed and fawned over like a rock star.
Debra Saunders: “The 2012 general election ought to be about the role and finances of the federal government, but Santorum is mired in a traditional values war…..I'll defend to the bitter end Santorum's right to his deeply held religious beliefs. But a man who wants to be president and represent the American people shouldn't talk like an exorcist.”
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/12/3975445/obama-administrations-hypocritical.html
It's vital for Americans to realize that Obama has already surrendered the defense of the civilized world. We know that, because the critical window of opportunity to prevent Iranian nukes has been closing, closing, closing. The risk of preventive action is getting greater by the day, which means that the optimal time for intervention is now fading as the Iranians continue to disperse and fortify their nuclear industry.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/iran_obama_has_surrendered.html
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ARTICLES
As we have been again reminded by the Barack Obama Administration’s fraudulent Sandra Fluke, abortion-pill-and-birth-control assault on the First Amendment, we are staring down the barrel of the ObamaCare gun. Its 2014 full-on implementation will lead inexorably to more and more rescissions of our Constitutional rights, a downward spiral of poorer, slower medical attention, rationing thereof - and ultimately all of us herded into the government-only Communal Care Pit….
U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg's groundbreaking March 5 ruling that Maryland cannot refuse to issue a handgun permit to an otherwise qualified individual unless that person has an acceptable reason for wanting one is a jurisprudential gem that correctly shifts the burden of proof from the citizen to the government. His elegant reiteration of basic Second Amendment rights in Woollard v. Sheridan will be quoted for generations: "A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right's existence is all the reason he needs."
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NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Republicans Mock Obama Documentary With Fake Movie Poster
http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/republicans-mock-obama-documentary-with-fake-movie
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LATE NITE:
Leno: ….They say gasoline could be $6 a gallon. But the good news is the White House says President Obama is aware of the problem, and will continue to talk about it between fundraisers……President Obama said he's set up a task force to look into high gas prices. He'd look into it himself, but he's busy working on those NCAA tournament brackets.
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WISE WORDS
"The preservation of freedom is the protective reason for limiting and decentralizing governmental power. But there is also a constructive reason. The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or in literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government."
-Milton Friedman
"I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research. ... God Almighty does not throw dice. ... Before God we are all equally wise -- equally foolish. ... My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds."
-Albert Einstein
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5:22 PM
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