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Today, the President released his 2012 federal income tax returns. He and the First Lady filed their income tax returns jointly and reported adjusted gross income of $608,611. The Obamas paid $112,214 in total tax.

Ed Morrisseyflagged this Politico piece earlier but I want to pay special attention to Huck's comments. Gabe Malor called BS on them on Twitter this morning. I think he's right. Huckabee's latest shot across the party establishment's bow: “The last two presidential elections, we had more moderate candidates, so if anything a lot of conservatives went to the polls reluctantly or just didn’t go at all,” said Huckabee in a separate interview. “If all of the evangelicals had showed up, it may have made a difference.”…Huckabee, like Santorum, was a bit incredulous at the attempt to fault social conservatives when...

Nebraska and Maine distribute their electoral votes by district, I believe...with the "popular vote" winner in the state getting the TWO votes that represent the Senate delegation. So what if every state had this kind of distribution? What if electoral vote distribution was awarded to each candidate by how they did in each DISTRICT, with the winner of the popular vote in each state getting the two "senate" votes? How would Romney have fared then? I am betting he still would have lost, but by a thinner margin.

Federal investigators are probing allegations that Rep. Michele Bachmann, or members of her staff, inappropriately used money raised during her presidential campaign, her lawyer and former campaign staffers said today. Bachmann has not been formally accused of any wrong doing, but staffers said they had been questioned by federal authorities. The investigators are working on behalf of the Office of Congressional Ethics. Bachmann's attorney confirmed to ABC News.com that Bachmann was being probed by the OCE, but denied any wrongdoing. "There are no allegations that the congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing," campaign lawyer William McGinley told ABCNews.com in a statement....

For as long as he’s been president, Barack Obama, has been the top target for attack at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. D.C. But this year, there may have been a close second: the Republican political-consultant class, which many CPAC attendees blame for the party’s poor 2012 showing. Newt Gingrich bashed them for being “out of step,” Sarah Palin called on activists to “furlough the consultants,” pollster Kellyanne Conway railed against a “staff infection,” and Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Center, told me that “the last thing we want is for the anti-conservative professional class...

Melowese Richardson voted a reported six times for President Obama in November of 2012. Twice she used her real name, then another four using the names of her relatives. If convicted she faces a maximum of 12 years in prison. More disturbing is that Richardson is a long time poll worker and has worked for the Board of Elections in Hamilton County, Ohio since 1998. People like her were watching the polls when President Obama won by close margins, often with "odd" voting totals, in November. Richardson Among these statistical anomalies occurred in Pennsylvania, when President Obama received over 99%...

Mitt Romney is coming back into public view. This weekend the former Republican presidential candidate will appear on "Fox News Sunday," his first interview since losing to Barack Obama nearly four months ago. And on March 15, Romney will speak to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the same event at which he declared himself a "severely conservative Republican governor" during a 2012 speech. Romney's re-emergence is likely to be met by a mixed response from Republicans. Yes, many respect him as a decent man who has done a lot of good things in his life. But just as...

Yep, Sen. Rand Paul - some Libertarian leanings and all - (and not all bad, either, especially with his middle of the road approach on foreign policy, him being neither interventionist nor isolationist) is certainly not a shill for the GOP-e... and we have had enough of that. Rand Paul will deliver the Tea Party, while Rubio gives us Dem lite.

According to pollster Rasmussen, last week 42% of registered voters gave the President 'positive marks' on job creation-  huh? Barack Obama has created ZERO net jobs- hello! The current unemployment rate -identical to when he first took office- SHOULD have been a hint, no? And would you imagine that 62% of voters now favor smaller government -with fewer services/lower taxes- here just a couple months past an election in which Americans returned a far-left Cloward-Pivenist for another 4 years of fiscal mayhem...? Perhaps some supporters were genuinely surprised by Obama's Big Government, rabble-rousing, class-warfare coronation speech last week -even disturbed/disappointed- but you would...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) thanked his Sarah Palin fans for their help in getting the newly elected tea party favorite into office. In a message through Palin’s PAC on Tuesday, Cruz wrote: “We started out as underdogs in a long, competitive primary. But despite the odds being stacked against us, Governor Palin and SarahPAC showed daring leadership by endorsing my campaign. The Governor’s vision and the support of patriots like you helped transform my long-shot candidacy into victory on election night.” In July, the former Alaska governor made her first 2012 campaign stop and rallied for Cruz...

So last week, in what was perhaps a moment of madness, I posted a request on my Facebook page: Tell me your political predictions for the year. Among the more restrained answers: “Hyperinflation,” “Civil War,” “financial collapse,” “terribly awful things.” Optimist though I am, I can’t help feeling there’s something to this downhearted consensus. After living through the most peaceful and prosperous half century that any nation has ever experienced in the history of humankind, it seems impossible to believe we would re-elect a mediocre reactionary out to “fundamentally transform” our success into failure. But we did, and that’s —...

Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s latest annual report for 2011-2012 says that its affiliated clinics performed 333,964 abortions in fiscal 2011. That works out to an average of one abortion every 94 seconds. … The 2011-2012 report states that Planned Parenthood received $542.4 million in “government health services grants and reimbursements,” which it states includes “payments from Medicaid managed care plans.” …

Dear Mr. Security Agent, Federal, state, or local. You, the man or woman with the badge, the sworn LEO or FLEA and those who inhabit the many law enforcement niches in between and on all sides. This essay is directed to you, because in the end, how this turmoil about gun control turns out will depend largely upon your decisions and actions over the coming months and years. I sincerely wish that members of Congress—who may soon be voting on new gun control measures—would read this essay, but I realize that’s a pipe dream, considering the impenetrable bubbles around those...

Chuck Hagel's Record On Gay Rights 1996: ... says he would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act 1999: ... opposes repealing the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy 2005: ... Hagel calls on the [Nebraska] court to reverse its decidsion, complaining the court had overridden Nebraska voters who opposed gay marriage Chuck Hagel's Apology: Too Little, Too Late Log Cabin Republicans ...

Hurricane Sandy victim Scott McGrath unloaded on President Obama and Washington elites in an interview with Neil Cavuto today on "Your World." Here are some great quotes from Scott McGrath. Full Transcript to follow McGrath: 'This country is in debt. We are so eager to help other countries that we forget our own people.' 'They have to change this and cut out the pork. We can't accept it if it's gonna put us in more debt down the road.' 'A quick fix is not gonna help us....in the long run I don't want to be paying more taxes down the...

Stick To Your Guns Justin Giles, Sergeant US Marine Corps (former) Imagine you are walking through the woods on a dark cloudy night. You are startled by a vicious, snarling beast concealed in the blackness. Not knowing what else to do you scramble up a tree, afraid and unsure what to do next. This is a natural human response to an encounter with an unknown foe. Because of this weak human tendency, military commanders throughout history have studied their potential enemies in minute detail. One man who understood this well was 6th Century B.C. Chinese General Sun Tzu.“It is said...

Guns: The mayor of what is at once America's most gun-controlled city and its murder capital wants an assault weapons ban like the one he pushed in 1994. Except it didn't work then, and it won't work now. Nathaniel T. Jackson, 40, an alleged gang member with a long arrest record, was gunned down last week outside a store in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, becoming the Windy City's 500th murder victim in 2012. Up to 80% of Chicago's murders and shootings are gang-related, according to police. By one estimate, the city has almost 70,000 gang members. A police audit last spring...

In 2012, gun control failed spectacularly. The largest and most obvious failure was Chicago, in the last state to forbid the carrying of guns for self defense (except for the politically connected) with the most draconian gun control in Illinois. Chicago suffered over 500 murders in 2012, most of them committed with illegal guns. There are hardly any others in Chicago, except for those in government hands, just as most gun controllers want. Report: 532 Murdered in Chicago in 2012 The old media, the same old media that makes anti-heroes out of those who slaughter children when they can use...

It's a two part question: How was 2012? Do you expect 2013 to be different?

A graph prepared by an author and member of the state gun rights group Georgia Carry.org notes a marked increase in active killer events in spite of federal laws intended to help curb such incidents. GCO research staffer Michael Menkus, previously brought to the attention of Gun Rights Examiner readers as the author of “Guns Good Bans Bad - An Analysis of U.S. Department of Justice 2010 Crime Statistics,” recently completed a chart that demonstrates a quadrupling of these events (see photo accompanying this column). “Along with studying how changes in carry laws change crime rates, I also study...