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Responding to growing calls to appoint an "Ebola czar" to lead America's battle against the deadly virus, sources confirm to Fox News that President Obama plans to name Ron Klain, a longtime political hand with no apparent medical or health care background.

You may be wondering why Barack Obama, with his propensity to name “czars” for every problem that ails us, has not named an Ebola Czar. The reason is because he has, in fact, named an Ebola Czar. So why are we constantly seeing Dr. Tom Frieden of the CDC embarrass himself in press conferences instead of our Ebola Czar? It turns out Dr. Nicole Lurie, the czar in charge of potential infectious disease catastrophes, has made the most of her time by funneling federal dollars to Democratic donors. That would be the federal dollars the left says we need more...

Preparedness: Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain called for an Ebola czar, not knowing one already effectively exists. Why should he, since Nicole Lurie, M.D., M.S.P.H., has been completely M.I.A. You have to wonder sometimes if anyone in a leadership position in the Obama administration bothers to show up to work these days. Case in point is Dr. Nicole Lurie, who arguably should be front and center in planning for and responding to the Ebola outbreak. After all, it's right there in her job title.

CNBC's Meg Tirrell reports the White House has acknowledged shortcomings in the response to Ebola and is considering an Ebola czar.

... What’s particularly interesting about this discussion, then, is that nobody has even discussed the fact that the federal government not ten years ago created and funded a brand new office in the Health and Human Services Department specifically to coordinate preparation for and response to public health threats like Ebola. The woman who heads that office, and reports directly to the HHS secretary, has been mysteriously invisible from the public handling of this threat. And she’s still on the job even though three years ago she was embroiled in a huge scandal of funneling a major stream of funding...

Sen. John McCain suggested Sunday that President Obama should nominate an Ebola czar to lead the nation’s response to the deadly virus. “From spending time here in Arizona, my constituents are not comforted. There has to be more reassurance given to them,” the Arizona Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The College Football Czar: 2014 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2014 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains the Czar's rankings for all 128 teams in Division I-A football, as well as conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you...

One hundred years ago this week, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany exchanged a series of telegrams to try to stop the rush to a war that neither of them wanted. They signed their notes “Nicky” and “Willy.” Cousins who vacationed together, hunted together and enjoyed dressing up in the uniforms of each other’s military officers when sailing on their yachts, these two great-great-grandsons of Paul I of Russia wrote to each other in English, affirming their mutual interests and outlining an agreement that would have resolved the crisis on terms acceptable to both rulers. Yet...

John Holdren is a dangerous left-wing extremist, an ideologue who has expressed open support for forced abortions and mass sterilization programs.

White House science czar Dr. John Holdren wasn’t in the mood to be contradicted on whether global warming was causing “extreme weather.” Holdren described climate scientists whose work contradicts the White House’s global warming claims as outside the “scientific mainstream.” Holdren was asked by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions to cite scientific data that supported claims that droughts and other weather events were being made worse by global warming. Sessions then cited contradicting evidence from climate scientists, including former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer and University of Colorado climate scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. Holdren countered that the likes of Pielke...

President Obama’s latest claims about marijuana are contradicted by research and official positions of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is part of the White House. And Mr. Obama’s words have anti-drug leaders worried about negative repercussions among youth. Mr. Obama claimed to The New Yorker magazine that marijuana is no worse than cigarettes or alcohol and he promoted state efforts by Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law. The National Drug Control Policy’s official stance, posted on the whitehouse.gov website, says the opposite of Mr. Obama on all counts. For example, as...

Specializes in bypassing Congress to enact 'progressive change' A senior progressive strategist and former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton who specializes in the use of executive authority to bypass Congress is reportedly joining the White House. The New York Times is reporting John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, has agreed to serve as counselor to President Obama for a year. Podesta last month announced the establishment of a new group, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, that will work within his Center for American Progress. The new center bills itself as a research and grant-making...

Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the original author of the Patriot Act, says Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be prosecuted for lying to Congress. "Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," the Wisconsin Republican said in an interview with The Hill. He said the Justice Department should prosecute Clapper for giving false testimony during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in March. During that hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Clapper whether the National Security Agency (NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Clapper insisted that the NSA does not...

The College Football Czar: Week 12 Week eleven in review: The College Football Czar has finally seen ESPN’s new Saturday night intro featuring Eminem’s “Berzerk.” In case you haven’t yet had the misfortune of experiencing it, Mr. Em liberally samples (i.e., steals) parts of Billy Squier’s 1981 hit, “The Stroke.” Memo to ESPN: You can’t have it both ways. You must now either pretend that Billy Squier is cool, or admit that Eminem is not. So which is it? The BCS picture cleared up very slightly last Thursday, with Oregon’s 26-20 loss at Stanford, a game whose tone was set...

If you want to know why Democratic Senators appear to be panicking over Obamacare, it is probably because the White House has not been able to convince them that HealthCare.gov will be up and running as promised by November 30. And President Obama's HealthCare.gov surge czar Jeffrey Zients did nothing to calm that panic Friday on a conference call with reporters. Reuters reports: The Obama administration's HealthCare.gov adviser Jeffrey Zeints said on Friday that the trouble-plagued federal healthcare website is improving, but that higher volumes of visitors are exposing new capacity and software issues. In a conference call with...

Maya Shankar, a White House adviser cultivating a team tasked with subtly influencing Americans’ behavior, previously worked closely with the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress, WND has learned. Shankar has discussed utilizing cognitive science for social activism and is a champion of so-called social justice.

The College Football Czar 2013 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2013 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you locate head coaches on the move. Most importantly, it includes early nominees for the...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is announcing a broader opt-out for religious nonprofits that object to providing health insurance that covers birth control. The administration is allowing religious nonprofits to offer coverage that does not include contraception. In such a case, a third-party issuer will handle all business related to providing birth-control coverage for women, according to a source familiar with the changes who spoke only on condition of anonymity.

I hate to criticize a fellow pilot, but when one engages in such sky-high hypocrisy, well . . . On Morning Joe today, former Obama car czar Steve Rattner, a very successful hedge fund manager, decried "climate-change denier[s]." This is the same Rattner who, at last report, owned a "15,000-square-foot mansion on Martha’s Vineyard, to which [he] flies regularly on a Dassault Falcon 2000 jet [see file photo] he pilots himself." Rattner wrung his hands over the fact that we're "putting millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere every day." But just earlier this week, the New York Times...

The College Football Czar Week 9 Week eight in review: It was another above-average week for the College Football Czar, who went 14-4, improving his overall record to 106-50 and his winning percentage to .679. Among his better picks were the demise of the then-undefeated but badly inflated Cincinnati Bearcats, and Louisiana-Monroe’s 43-42 overtime win over Western Kentucky (predicted score 33-32). Although week eight certainly had its share of excitement, it did very little to shake up the rankings. The highest-ranked team to lose to a lower-ranked or unranked opponent was the #21 Bearcats, whose defeat is referenced above. #24...