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The answer to the big question surrounding Nancy Pelosi’s scheduling of the ObamaCare vote this weekend has been answered. She didn’t schedule it for Saturday because she had the votes — and now Steny Hoyer has admitted as much this morning: A House leader says Democrats haven’t yet lined up enough votes to pass their health care overhaul bill. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland says the vote that House Democrats had scheduled for Saturday could slip to Sunday or early next week. Hoyer acknowledged to reporters Friday that Democratic leaders don’t yet have the 218 votes needed to pass...

MONTREAL — The federal anti-hate law that “official Jews� lobbied for and got passed has, 32 years later, backfired, sowing the seeds for political correctness, media chill and censorship that have undermined the values that define the Jewish People, says Alberta lawyer, author and activist Ezra Levant. Levant, who is Jewish, made the assertion in an Oct. 21 talk to a small audience at Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation about his 900-day saga of being prosecuted by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in his now defunct magazine, the...

BARACK OBAMA’S most devilish political move since the 2008 campaign was to appoint a Republican congressman from upstate New York as secretary of the Army. This week’s election to fill that vacant seat has set off nothing less than a riotous and bloody national G.O.P. civil war. No matter what the results in that race on Tuesday, the Republicans are the sure losers. This could be a gift that keeps on giving to the Democrats through 2010, and perhaps beyond. The governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia were once billed as the marquee events of Election Day 2009 —...

Oops! Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, has discovered that his endorsement can be political poison. Such was the case with his endorsement at the beginning of this month of the very liberal Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, in the New York 23rd CD special election: Club for Growth darling Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party line, and has even garnered the endorsement of Fred Thompson. The guy has legitimate traction, fueled by the fact that Dede Scozzafava, the Republican, is actually the most liberal candidate in the race. (Heck, she has run on the very liberal Working...

A new survey from Neighborhood Research (R) shows that Republican Chris Christie has pulled ahead as voters are breaking late from the undecided column toward the challenger.

So the lefties in Seattle think they can attack Susan Hutchison, who is running for King County executive, by making Hutchison out to be the next Sarah Palin. Hutchison told the Seattle Times that the ad was funny: “The stereotyping of women who run for office is silly. I’m unique. She’s unique. Christine Gregoire is unique. But I think it demonstrates the narrow view we find from my opponent, who likes to lump anyone who doesn’t represent his point-of-view into the same bucket.” Paying for the ad were Service Employees International Union, Planned Parenthood and the Washington State Council of...

From the fringe left Daily Kos to mainstream media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC learned a tough lesson on Thursday as they awoke to find Sarah Palin's Autobiography Going Rogue: An American Life atop the pre-order best sellers lists and daily sales boards for Amazon, Barnes and Noble and nearly every other book retailer websites. The announcement of Palin's release date on Wednesday caused an outbreak of attacks on the former Vice Presidential candidate that would lead you to believe that she had announced a Presidential campaign rather than a book release. Thousands of Internet and print articles attacking...

Media Matters staff has been all over the manufactured scandal haunting Kevin Jennings, the U.S. Department of Education’s director of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools–a.k.a the “safe schools czar.” Jennings, who is gay, has been a target for months, but the very belated discovery of an anecdote in his book “One Teacher in 10″–in which he was told of a young student’s affair with an older man, but didn’t report it–has burned up in the conservative press. First, Media Matters confirmed that the student was of legal age when he came to Jennings. Now, the group has a...

As the town hall meetings on health care started in early August, the Democratic Party's talking points accused the attending citizens of being "demonstrators hired by K Street lobbyists." Then they started calling them a "mob." Getting into the spirit of his party, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called those who oppose Obamacare "evil." Then House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the dissenters "un-American." For good measure, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused them of being Nazis. Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter followed with the assertion that "racism" motivates President Barack Obama's health care opponents. The culmination --...

When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad decided to go on his annual visit to New York this month, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. The Iranian leader, re-elected in June amid widespread allegations of vote rigging, desperately needed to restore credibility at home and abroad. With the results of the contested election confirmed by the authorities and his government sworn in last month, he may have concluded that opposition to his rule was weakening, not least because scores of his opponents had been arrested or intimidated. He probably calculated that turning up for the UN General Assembly, alongside...

A BACK-TO-SCHOOL speech planned by Barack Obama has turned into an ideological battlefield, as conservative parents claim the US President wants to indoctrinate their children. Schools from districts in six US states have refused to show students the televised speech planned for Tuesday, after complaints from parents that Mr Obama wants to spread his "socialist agenda". The protests appear to have left the White House wrong-footed, forcing the revision of an accompanying lesson that had asked students to "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President". It had been hoped Mr Obama's address - about...

What boycott? As I’ve said all along, the Glenn Beck boycott is backfiring. First off, the group behind the boycott, Color of Change, keeps targeting big companies – most recently, RadioShack -- that have never had anything to do with Glenn Beck’s FOX News show. Other advertisers have decided to pull their ads from ALL cable shows, left and right, stripping leftwing media allies like Keith Olbermann with even less ad revenue than ever. But it gets better: according to the latest ratings, viewers are tuning out the wall to wall Ted Kennedy hagiography and watching... Glenn Beck. He has...

Glenn Beck, the conservative commentator and star of one of the most successful shows on Fox News, is under attack. And as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly proved, under attack is the best place for a conservative commentator to be. It allows the blusterer to play victim – and it gives a savvy spin doctor a chance to rile up his base. First, let’s get you up to speed. Last month, Glenn Beck told the hosts of Fox & Friends that President Barack Obama has a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” That statement apparently wasn’t explicit enough, so Beck made sure...

n a deliciously ironic piece, Joanthan Weisman at the Wall Street Journal talks about how the Democrats spent literally years poll-testing and trying to find just the right words and phrases to sell nationalized health care. In other words, they wanted to know how to fool enough people into thinking it was not nationalized health care. The problem is that you can call something a warm, creamy treat, but that doesn't mean it isn't a still pile of crap.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s open letter and Aug. 11 video blog attacking Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko turned out to be a PR windfall for Ukraine, judging from international reaction...Many outside of Russia – and some within -- sided with Ukraine and Yushchenko. "The language [of Medvedev] was reminiscent of [former Soviet leader] Leonid Brezhnev in its detachment from reality,” wrote Anders Aslund, author of “How Ukraine Became A Market Economy and Democracy,” in an Aug. 17 opinion piece published by the Financial Times.

President Barack Obama, his staff and administration, are all in danger of making the worst political mistake of their lives. They seem unable or unwilling to recognize the damage it will cause. And this reality may be America's brightest reason for genuine hope and change. Since the beginning of the August recess the actual "rulers" in this nation have been given their chance to speak. In high school gyms, in church basements, and in community college auditoriums the first real chance for accountability has been measured against the most tone-deaf administration of my lifetime. Retirees, stay-at-home moms, young professionals, and...

Barbara Boxer, the far left U.S. Senator from California, was given a stern face-to-face reprimand by the president of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, Harry Alford, for trying to pit one black group against another instead of addressing issues on their merits. (Snip) In this case, instead of dealing substantively with Mr. Alford’s criticisms of the current Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy bill, Ms. Boxer tried to discredit Alford by pointing out how black groups such as the NAACP and “100 Black Men of Atlanta” were allegedly supporting the bill. (Snip) Mr. Alford scolded her for her divisive, racially charged tactics:...

Government-run Healthcare Would Backfire, Making 'Public Option' the Only OneFormer DNC chair's government-run insurance program is sure to backfire. Just ask his wife the doctor By Phil Gingrey, M.D. Posted May 21, 2009 Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has recently inserted himself into the debate on health reform, creating a website and collecting signatures on a petition calling for a "public option" as part of any health reform bill. The action is unsurprising from an individual who previously called President Obama's healthcare reform plan "perfect" and stated that "it's ridiculous to say care would be inferior" in the...

They didn't bother to research it because according to their thinking, if they don't hurry up and do something, it will only get worse. So they rammed it down everyone’s throat, before anyone had a chance to look it over. A lot of people, including myself, said the best thing to do, is to leave things alone. Those who were less than intelligent, and bought above their means, would lose their

When will the left come to its senses and realize that attacking Rush Limbaugh is never a good idea? President Obama's showed stunningly poor judgment in his attempt to marginalize Limbaugh, and the latest numbers show the predictable result of doing so. The numbers are in — Rush Limbaugh has won a dramatic victory over the Democrats. The White House's unprecedented assault on the talk-radio host has driven his ratings to number one in many of America's biggest, most liberal radio markets. The anti-Limbaugh offensive was a calculated move promoted by Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville to make...

The numbers are in — Rush Limbaugh has won a dramatic victory over the Democrats. The White House's unprecedented assault on the talk-radio host has driven his ratings to number one in many of America's biggest, most liberal radio markets. The anti-Limbaugh offensive was a calculated move promoted by Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville to make Rush a new conservative bogeyman, in the same way they stigmatized Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. The strategy was implemented on Jan. 23 when President Obama lectured a gathering of GOP leaders at a meeting discussing his $1 trillion stimulus package, “You...

The numbers are in — Rush Limbaugh has won a dramatic victory over the Democrats. The White House's unprecedented assault on the talk-radio host has driven his ratings to number one in many of America's biggest, most liberal radio markets. The anti-Limbaugh offensive was a calculated move promoted by Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and James Carville to make Rush a new conservative bogeyman, in the same way they stigmatized Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. The strategy was implemented on Jan. 23 when President Obama lectured a gathering of GOP leaders at a meeting discussing his $1 trillion stimulus package, “You...

President Obama and the Democrats should wave the white flag in their strawman war on Rush Limbaugh. The Media Research Center delivered the grim casualty figures for the Democrats. Since January, the top talk show gabber’s ratings have soared off the charts. Radio affiliates that carry Limbaugh’s syndicated show call the ratings boost he’s gotten from the Democrat’s orchestrated attack on him a “dramatic surge.” This writer predicted as much when President Obama cracked to Congressional Republicans in late January that they should knock off listening to Limbaugh if they expected to get anything done in Congress and with his...

It looks like at least one Huffington Post blogger has been paying attention to the surge in Rush Limbaugh's radio ratings since the White House began attacking him. As chronicled here in NewsBusters by editor Brent Baker, Limbaugh's numbers have increased drastically ever since the organized White House attack. As a result of this Rush Surge, Huffington Post blogger Earl Ofari Hutchinson who also writes a syndicated column, has called upon the Democrats to raise the white flag of surrender: President Obama and the Democrats should wave the white flag in their strawman war on Rush Limbaugh. The Media Research...

President Obama and the Democrats should wave the white flag in their strawman war on Rush Limbaugh. The Media Research Center delivered the grim casualty figures for the Democrats. Since January, the top talk show gabber's ratings have soared off the charts. Radio affiliates that carry Limbaugh's syndicated show call the ratings boost he's gotten from the Democrat's orchestrated attack on him a "dramatic surge." This writer predicted as much when President Obama cracked to Congressional Republicans in late January that they should knock off listening to Limbaugh if they expected to get anything done in Congress and with his...

The more President Obama and the Democrats talk about talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh, the higher his ratings go. And he’s taking all conservative talk radio along for a very exciting ride.

Limbaugh's Ratings Surge Coincides with White House Attacks By Brent Baker Created 2009-03-26 17:14 Just as the White House attacks on him got underway, Rush Limbaugh's ratings began soaring in February, Brian Maloney revealed this afternoon on his Radio Eqaulizer blog [1]: A combination of several powerful forces has resulted in explosive talk radio ratings growth, with indications of much more to come in the months ahead. Primary factor driving the upward move? You guessed it: Rush Limbaugh.... With Limbaugh at the top of his game, with a more deeply loyal audience than ever, the numbers were already expected to...

Posted March 22, 2009 12:23 PM The Swamp by Frank James Earlier this week when the White House was busy throwing Sen. Chris Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, under the bus, the obvious question was why would do that to an important committee chairman of your own party? Yes, the Obama Administration didn't want to take the blame for allowing the AIG bonuses to occur, especially with all the popular anger against the payments. But a Senate chair is a useful ally to have, especially when you know you will need him for further legislative efforts to save the...

US Senator Lisa Murkowski, ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Monday that increasing taxes on the oil and gas industry would have the unintended consequence of driving natural gas producers and independent companies out of the country. In his fiscal 2010 budget released last month, President Barack Obama called for excluding the petroleum industry from a manufacturer's tax credit, which might raise $31 billion in additional taxes from the industry. "People get up in the morning to hate the oil industry," said Murkowski, speaking at Platts Energy Podium in Washington. Murkowski represents Alaska, which after Texas...

Was it the way he seemed to relish their attacks? Or, were Obama's rapidly-sinking approval numbers to blame? Whatever the reason, At least for now, Democrats say they're done utilizing an anti- Rush Limbaugh strategy in an attempt to neutralize their political opposition. Now, it's on to something else. For how long, however? From the Politico: Beginning Sunday, the White House will harness every part of the Democratic Party’s machinery to defend President Obama’s budget and portray Republicans as reflexively political, according to party strategists. A participant in the planning meetings described the push as a successor to Democrats’ message...

Millions of new listeners are now receiving the conservative message directly, without the MSM filter. Many will like what they hear. Many will become right-wing activists. 2010 = 1994.

First, just a word before the following is dismissed by Democratic readers as partisan, or as being from someone who doesn't know what he is talking about. My polling firm, InsiderAdvantage, is non-partisan. It polled the 2008 presidential race for the red-hot political site Politico, and was in a recent speech at Fordham University named by a guru who even D.C. liberals praise as one of the three most accurate national pollsters for the presidential contest. This column isn't about partisanship. It's about strategy. I've only met Rush Limbaugh once. It was back when I was politically active, running Newt...

Presidents throughout history have kept lists of political foes. But the Obama White House is the first I am aware of to pick targets based on polls. Even Richard Nixon didn't focus-group his enemies list. Team Obama -- aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House...

Presidents throughout history have kept lists of political foes. But the Obama White House is the first I am aware of to pick targets based on polls. Even Richard Nixon didn't focus-group his enemies list. Team Obama -- aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House...

Team Obama, aided by Clintonistas Paul Begala, James Carville and Stanley Greenberg -- decided to attack Rush Limbaugh after poring over opinion research. White House senior adviser David Axelrod explicitly authorized the assault. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel assigned a White House official to coordinate the push. And Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gleefully punched the launch button at his podium, suckering the White House press corps into dropping what they were doing to get Mr. Limbaugh. Was it smart politics and good policy? No. For one thing, it gave the lie to Barack Obama's talk about ending "the political strategy...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Rush Limbaugh, the most listened to radio host in America, says recent efforts by the White House and Democrats to demonize him are actually helping his show in financial success and personal popularity. "Revenues at the EIB Network in the first quarter of 2009 are up 13 and a half percent over first quarter revenues of 2008," Limbaugh announced this afternoon, "and at our revenue baseline, that is not an insignificant percentage or amount represented by it." He also noted his staff had just finished an analysis of Arbitron listening data for the first few...

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said "enough is enough" when it comes Democrats delighting in the hullabaloo over Rush Limbaugh. Asked during an interview Monday with The Washington Times if the Limbaugh situation was getting too much play from the Democrats, Mr. Dean laughed and responded: "Of course it is." "You expect people to have fun, and it was fun, but enough is enough," he said. "The reason it's fun is because it's true." The conservative radio host has been a top headline for more than a week after first being scolded for sharply criticizing President Obama and...

One side effect of the Democratic campaign against Rush Limbaugh has been to increase -- dramatically increase -- the talk show host's ratings. This morning I asked Rush if he had any numbers he could share on just what effect the increased visibility has had on his business. This is his response: The latest numbers I have are for January, well before this kerfuffle began, and they are through the roof -- six shares in NY, for example. There are daily ratings taken now in about the top 15 markets but I have not seen them yet. All I can...

Hopefully, it's just a rumor started by the Clintonistas, but is Barack Obama seriously considering appointing Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state? If he pulls the trigger on that appointment, he will deserve what he gets! Obama would do well to remember the history of Harry Truman and Jimmy Byrnes in 1944. Byrnes, known as the "assistant president" in FDR's third term, was widely thought to be Roosevelt's choice to replace Henry Wallace as his running mate on the 1944 ticket. At the last minute, FDR re-considered and decided Byrnes, a South Carolinian, was too conservative and went with...

Well stated by emailers

WASHINGTON (AP) — By claiming that Democrat Barack Obama is "palling around with terrorists" and doesn't see the U.S. like other Americans, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin targeted key goals for a faltering campaign. And though she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret. First, Palin's attack shows that her energetic debate with rival Joe Biden may be just the beginning, not the end, of a sharpened role in the battle to win the presidency.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- One of the leading pro-abortion groups in the nation has a new web site ad it is running on news web sites in battleground states. However, the NARAL commercial may backfire and energize pro-life voters behind John McCain and Sarah Palin because it highlights their pro-life views.The ad isn't what political observers might expect from NARAL -- with something akin to the ads the Obama campaign aired saying McCain is too extreme and featuring little in the way of the candidates' own words.NARAL includes eerie music and claims that McCain and Palin are extreme on...

Republicans' Votes Against Rescue May Backfire Wednesday, October 1, 2008 5:13 PM By: Ronald Kessler Rightly or wrongly, Republicans are being blamed for the failure to pass a financial rescue package, causing a one-day loss of $1.2 trillion in the value of American equities. If the bill does not pass this week, Republicans will be blamed not only for another scary decline in the stock market but also for the ensuing loss of jobs that will accompany what probably will be a deep recession or depression. The reality is that, if they do not receive enough support from Republicans, the...

IN POLITICS, cheap shots and invective are occupational hazards. But when have we seen anything to match the frenzy of rage and contempt set off by the nomination of Sarah Palin? Virtually from the moment John McCain selected her, Palin has been under assault. There has been legitimate criticism, of course. But there has also been a gusher of slander, much of it — like the slur that she isn't the real mother of her infant son, Trig — despicable. For someone who has been in the national spotlight for only three weeks, Palin has been the victim of an...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- There were no surprises, no knockout zingers, but also no bloopers Thursday night in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's first TV interview since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee. Charles Gibson of ABC News was out for blood and inherently applied a double-standard compared with the kid gloves George Stephanopoulos used on Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois on Sunday night. Gibson was out to embarrass Palin and expose her presumed ignorance from the word go. By contrast, when Obama referred to his "Muslim faith" on Sunday and did not correct himself, Stephanopoulos rushed...

Front-runner unplugged Media Infatuation with him backfires Michael Graham By Michael Graham Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - I have one piece of advice for the struggling Obama campaign: Fire MSNBC. They’re killing your campaign. By all accounts the Democrats had a successful national convention in Denver. Their nominee’s speech at the ObamaDome was well received. At one point last week, Sen. Barack Obama had an 8-point lead in the polls. Click to learn more... Today, he’s losing by 4. If you only count likely voters, Obama is down by 10. And he has his fawning friends in the media to...

A series of new MoveOn.org radio advertisements looks like they could backfire, big-time. The liberal group is up with ads against six House Republicans attacking them for their support of offshore drilling. Problem is: most of the targets represent energy-rich districts where drilling is viewed favorably, to put it mildly. One target, Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), represents a west Texas district where the discovery of oil in the 1940s created wealth throughout the region, and the energy industry has since dominated the region’s economy. And four of the six GOP targets hold heavily Republican seats and aren’t even facing credible...

Jesse Jackson must have been forgiven by the Sen. Barack Obama campaign and welcomed into its inner circle. Because it sure seems as if he's giving the campaign advice. Responding to a Sen. John McCain ad knocking him as a world celebrity, Obama essentially accused the McCain campaign of race-baiting. It was a hair-trigger resort to the charge of racism of the sort that Jackson built a career on, making himself radioactive and anathema to the political center. In 24 hours, Obama had lurched his carefully crafted brand in Jackson's direction. And for what? The McCain ad intersperses footage of...

LONDON - He stood in the shadow of the Temple of Hercules, held forth at the Elysée Palace and convened a one-man news conference here on Saturday outside No. 10 Downing St., all with a simple aim: to make a one-term senator from Illinois look presidential to voters back home in America. But along the way to appearing presidential, did Sen. Barack Obama cross a political line -- as he and his advisers quietly feared, and some Republicans hoped -- by coming across as too presumptuous? "In terms of raw politics, in the short-term there's just as much downside as...

Barack Obama's foreign tour loses him ground back home Tim Reid in Washington Barack Obama denied yesterday that he was ignoring the concerns of ordinary Americans while he tours the world, amid signs that the adulation he is receiving abroad has alienated some US voters. After the Democratic presidential candidate holds meetings with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron in London today, the last leg of his nine-day international tour, he returns home to a general election campaign with new polls showing him in a tightening race against John McCain, the Republican candidate. Mr McCain and his surrogates have...