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The U.S. Senate today approved to a prominent federal court pro-abortion Cornelia Pillard, a law professor President Barack Obama selected for an appointment to the most important appeals court in the nation. Obama’s pick for the D.C. Circuit Court, who is one of the most pro-abortion ever nominated, previously was a filibuster victim, but that changed when Senate Democrats unilaterally changed the filibuster rules to prevent pro-life Republicans from blocking such judges. Pillard was confirmed 51-44 to the DC Circuit Court after Senate Republicans had previously defeated her nomination before Reid deployed the Nuclear Option was employed. All of the...

I’m confused. Last week Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said if she could vote for Obamacare again, she would. Now for some reason she’s completely distancing herself from it? If you are to believe this ad, President Obama lied to her constituents. Not her (via Politico)(VIDEO-AT-LINK) But there’s just one problem here: in 2009 Landrieu herself said if Americans liked their health care plans, they could keep them. Oops:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) The ad spot above is deceptive and misleading. It puts all the blame on the president, when in truth she built support for -- and ultimately helped pass -- Obamacare. At the...

The Environmental Protection Agency was warned as early as July 2010 that a senior executive who claimed to be a CIA agent was collecting pay and bonuses not allowed by law but took no action for years, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general. Auditors warned EPA administrators that continuing “retention bonuses” for John C. Beale, which were not authorized, had pushed his salary above the legal maximum, according to the report, obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post. In July 2010, the EPA’s human resources office contacted Beale’s Office of Air and Radiation with a document it...

House Speaker John Boehner went off on outside conservative groups Wednesday morning for pushing against the new budget deal. "They're using our members and they're using the American people for their own goals," he said. "This is ridiculous." Several key conservative groups are against the sequester relief within the new budget deal. "Though conservatives support more spending restraint, the discretionary spending limits defined in the Budget Control Act represent a promise to the American people to marginally slow the growth of government," reads a letter signed by the heads of Heritage Action, the Family Research Council, and the American Conservative...

DENVER—If Democrats were trying to put the calamitous Evie Hudak era behind them on Tuesday night, they didn’t quite succeed. A Democratic Party vacancy committee selected Arvada city councilwoman and Hudak associate Rachel Zenzinger to fill the vacancy left by Hudak’s eleventh-hour resignation last month in the face of a recall threat. Zenzinger’s position on hot-button issues like gun control remains to be seen, but in the short run she’s not going to make anyone forget about Hudak. Zenzinger served as Hudak’s campaign manager in the 2012 election and was reportedly Hudak’s choice for the vacancy. While ProgressNow Colorado praised...

The Obama administration overruled career Homeland Security officials and expedited visa applications for about two dozen foreign investors for a politically connected Las Vegas casino hotel after repeated pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his staff, according to internal government documents obtained by The Washington Times. The move to overturn what is normally a non-appealable visa decision came despite concerns about “suspicious financial activity” involving some of the visa applicants from Asia, and it ultimately benefited several companies whose executives have donated heavily in recent years to Democrats, the documents show. It also ensnared Mr. Obama’s current nominee...

Democrats make a lot of silly statements. The trick isn’t finding a pronouncement by a liberal politician which — in a way nearly unique to politics — simultaneously brings a grimace, a giggle, and a groan, but figuring out whether the speaker is an outright liar or just living in a liberal echo chamber reminiscent of Pauline Kael (or at least the political mythology surrounding her). Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is a reliable representative of the outright liar camp: No echo is loud enough to make her actually believe that Democratic candidates...

The Democratic pollster Democracy Corps, commissioning research from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, recently dug into that foreign species commonly referred to as “the conservative voter.” In a dispatch that reads like the curious field notes Charles Darwin scribbled while observing the natural wonders of the Galapagos, the Democratic pollsters have found that the family Republican is made up of a variety of genera, including moderates, tea partiers and socially conservative evangelicals. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pollsters discovered that these factions are distinct and not especially friendly towards one another; but the report is not without surprising findings. The top of that list...

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings is in South Africa for Nelson Mandela's memorial, but that doesn't mean he's abandoned domestic policy. In fact, Cummings said he and other Democrats in the official delegation have used the trip to debate with Sen. Ted Cruz on Obamacare. "He got an earful from many of us -- I mean it was a very good conversation, nothing negative," the Baltimore Democrat said in an interview from Johannesburg. "I just reminded him that I'm concerned about the many people in my state and his state who have no health insurance." Cruz -- a Texas Republican best...

I’m honestly surprised. The last three national polls before this one showed his job approval rebounding somewhat from the depths of November. He’s still bleeding politically from ObamaCare, but perceptions that the website has at least improved a little seem to have slowed it for awhile. And last Friday’s jobs report was downright upbeat by the standards of Obamanomics. You’d think The One would, at last, have a little good news in store for him from Quinnipiac.Nope. This is a bloodbath. President Barack Obama’s job approval among American voters drops to a new low, a negative 38 – 57 percent,...

For Democrats especially, any talk about cutting billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is uncomfortable and certain to create internal strife. But negotiators on the farm bill believe they’ve found a way to make about $8 billion in savings from the program palatable for most Democrats. The key is eliminating a loophole that enables states to help some low-income residents with nominal subsidies to pay for their heating in the winter in order to trigger much higher food stamp benefits. Some states, such as New York, will make a $1 Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program payment to low-income...

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.. NATIONAL EMERGENCY!.. NUCLEAR LIBERALISM.. EMINENT With the economy at a DEFCON 3 STATUS, neither our elected Representatives, nor the American electorate, appear to be justifiably ALARMED, or unaware, unprepared, or just unwilling, to pull us back from the brink.. I, as an adult, and a patriot, refuse to believe any intelligent citizen, would willingly allow our National decline without at least an effort to recover.. No matter the cause, or the origin of the problems, which are no longer debatable, the evidence is overwhelming that our Nation is in dire straits, and heading for a cliff.. One...

Whoops, there it is: Sarah Palin’s fear of enslavement to the Chinese may actually be true. “Don’t wish for something, you just might get it” is a paraphrase of the often-cited Chinese proverb. The former GOP vice presidential nominee had called on MSNBC to cancel Martin Bashir’s talk show. Bashir was, at the time, serving as the conscience of the network, striking fear into those who defied political correctness. Not since King George has a Brit been so brash. Leaving aside Piers what’s-his-name, perhaps. To no one’s surprise, a few weeks ago. Marty found something Ms. Palin said to be...

DOVER, Del. (AP) - The state of Delaware is working to set up a task force to help residents with a hoarding problem. As many as 45,000 people in the state are estimated to have problems with hoarding. In advance of the hoarding task force, the state is creating an advisory panel to try to determine stakeholders who may be able to offer input into hoarding issues.

Ben Affleck is smart enough to know an actor taking up political causes can shatter the illusion movies are meant to conjure. Yet the Argo director and avowed liberal still sticks his foot in his mouth during a new interview with Playboy Magazine by insulting half of his audience. Seems he's not sure he can be friends with anyone who pulls the lever repeatedly for GOP politicians. The future Dark Knight (Affleck plays Batman in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel) said he can't help but consider an actor's politics while watching movies, and he takes that information to heart....

There are plenty of reasons this is the lowest point of Barack Obama's presidency. He hasn't fulfilled a major legislative campaign promise, his signature second-term immigration initiative is paralyzed, and the administration may never entirely recover from the unforced errors surrounding the Affordable Care Act's rollout. But don't blame these problems alone for Obama's record-low 40 percent approval rating. In truth, his agenda went off the rails on a crisp December morning last year, when Adam Lanza strolled into Sandy Hook Elementary and killed 20 children and six adults. Obama hasn't gotten back on track since. The Connecticut massacre set...

With the GOP in disarray and the president an increasingly lame duck, Democrats need to take the next three years to refind their focus. Between 1968, when Lyndon Johnson left the White House, and the end of the century, the nation elected only two Democratic presidents. Both were Southern populists who had been careful to differentiate themselves from Great Society and their liberal predecessors. That all changed in 2008, when Barack Obama defeated the party-establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, and then Republican John McCain with a campaign that pledged to end political and ideological polarization with pragmatic problem-solving—from a liberal point...

Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief over what effectively passes as a re-launching of the Obamacare website, with some lawmakers now expressing optimism that the healthcare reform law will fall to their political benefit. Democratic office-holders like Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, expected to face a tough 2014 re-election campaign, are once again embracing the Affordable Care Act. But Republicans argue the Affordable Care Act remains problematic and unsalvageable for a long list of reasons that extend well beyond a website, citing concerns about issues ranging from security to individuals losing their insurance coverage. “The American people have been...

Xadrian R. McCraven has a criminal history that includes “at least” 24 arrests on charges including arson, illegal gun possession, attempted robbery, drug possession and aggravated assault, according to federal court records. He’s also an Illinois state prison official. On the job since July 1, he makes $110,000 a year as an administrator with the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. McCraven, 44, who lives in Chicago, pleaded guilty to a weapons charge in 1989 and was found guilty of reckless conduct in 1998 in connection with a domestic-battery arrest, records show. He was...

We have to kill eagles in order to save them. That’s now the official policy of the U.S. Interior Department. On Friday, the agency announced that it would grant some wind-energy companies permits that will allow them to kill or injure bald and golden eagles for up to 30 years without penalty. The move is an unprecedented gift to the wind-energy industry, which has been lobbying for the 30-year permit for several years. Shortly after the deal was announced, the wind-energy lobby issued a statement that would make George Orwell proud. An official with the American Wind Energy Association declared...

America’s “schizophrenic” approach to the Middle East could result in many key Arab states deciding to align themselves more closely with Russia, the rulers of Bahrain warned on Sunday. In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the Crown Prince of Bahrain, warned that Barack Obama's administration would lose influence in the region if it persisted with what a “transient and reactive” foreign policy. There has been a sharp rise in tensions between Washington and several major Arab states in the wake of last month’s controversial interim agreement with Iran over its nuclear programme. Citing President...

Why Americans Are So Angry The Economist Dec. 8, 2013, 4:07 PM Flag Burning Obama protestFlickr/Kevin Skahan A protester burns an American flag during a rally against President Obama in Oakland July 23, 2012. �   BELIEVE the polls, and Americans have decided that they live in Italy: hobbled by dishonest leaders and such endemic corruption that only fools would trust strangers. Grim findings have been coming thick and fast. Most Americans no longer see President Barack Obama as honest. Half think that he “knowingly lied” to pass his Obamacare health law. Fewer than one in five trust the...

**SNIP** Democrats could make Republican delays as painful as possible, such as keeping the Senate in session all night and on weekends. "We're going to seek to achieve as much as we possibly can and hope Republicans will cooperate with us, instead of just using knee-jerk obstruction," said Adam Jentleson, spokesman for Reid. Republicans are already using the rules to flex their muscle. When the Senate recessed for Thanksgiving, it did not approve a batch of noncontroversial nominations and bills, which it usually does before such breaks. With 60 votes still required to end filibusters against legislation, Republican senators are...

I presume that this is the “new and improved” Obamacare that everyone is suddenly supposed to be enthusiastic about: After refusing for weeks to detail the extent of back-end problems with healthcare.gov, the Obama administration on Friday said a technical bug affected approximately 25 percent of enrollments on the federal exchanges in October and November. Those technical bugs, separate from the troubles consumers had experienced accessing information on the website during the first two months, are posing a significant new problem for those who signed up and are expecting insurance coverage come Jan. 1. One in four of those applications...

At the "Fast Food Forward" protest on Thursday, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) demanded that Pres. Obama sign an executive order bypassing Congress and unilaterally raising the federal minimum wage. Rep. Ellison told the crowd that they should join him in demanding that Pres. Obama skip seeking Congressional approval and raise the minimum wage on his own - and that he sent the president a letter on Wednesday presenting his demand: (VIDEO-AT-LINK)"We in Congress will try to raise the minimum wage. We got opponents on the other side of the aisle who say that there shouldn't be no minimum wage. So,...

Democrats have justifiably rejoiced in the divisions within the Republican Party which hamper its ability to speak with one voice and act with unity of purpose. The tea party faction within the GOP, once an unalloyed good that propelled the party to electoral victory in 2010, has been more of a headache than a boon ever since. The conservative faction of the Grand Old Party is often credited with robbing the party of electoral victories, torpedoing bipartisan legislative deals, and elevating gaffe-prone voices that force the GOP’s moderates to adopt a perpetual defensive crouch. The temptation for Democrats to partake...

On the basis of information brought to light by NLPC, Nigerian-born physician Dorothy Ogundu was arrested yesterday. She is charged with multiple counts of grand larceny, forgery and falsifying business records by the New York state Attorney General. Ogundu ran a Queens, New York Health clinic for which Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) secured $380,500 in federal funds. She is a prominent Meeks supporter, and until yesterday, a fixture of the Queens political scene. After reviewing Meeks' earmarks in 2011, NLPC decided to take a closer look at Angeldocs, Inc., which operates the Aki Life Health Center located in Queens, New...

See also: Barack Obama Fesses Up on Uncle Omar When that charge was yelled out during Obama's address to Congress, the liberal media were in lockstep in their condemnation of the North Carolina congressman, Joe Wilson, who admittedly violated congressional protocol in defensible defense of his constituents and his country. Likewise, author, Jack Cashill, has for years been publishing growing evidence here at American Thinker that the man who calls himself Barack Hussein Obama is not what he appears to be. A Cashill piece posted yesterday elicited a comment with a link to a telephone interview from a black radio...

Recordings of 911 calls from last year's Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting were released Wednesday, and they not only paint a picture of anguish and tension inside the building, they also show Newtown dispatchers mobilizing help, reassuring callers and urging them to take cover..... The calls were made public under a court order after a lengthy effort by The Associated Press. Prosecutors had argued that releasing the recordings would only cause more anguish for the victims' families.... One of the first callers to Newtown police was a woman who said in a trembling, out-of-breath voice: "I think there's somebody shooting...

White house officials claim they were unaware that ornaments of Mao Tse-tung were hung upon a Christmas Tree there.

Good stuff from Jonathan Turley at today’s House hearing on executive power, although I regret that I couldn’t find a more user-friendly format for you to watch. There’s no compilation clip; you’ll have to make do with the C-SPAN embed by fast-forwarding to the time cues I give you and being patient while the vid buffers (and buffers, and buffers). At 1:10:55 he describes the “royal prerogative” that the Constitution was designed to eliminate but which Obama, through the growth of the administrative state and his own expansive view of executive discretion, is now flirting with. At 2:53:45, he applies...

“Historians and pundits always say that the first real decision a governor makes is the one of running mate,” Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald, Ohio Democrats’ likely nominee for governor next year, wrote to supporters when he announced he had chosen state Sen. Eric Kearney (D) as his running mate. FitzGerald may be starting to wish voters weren’t paying attention to his first gubernatorial decision. That’s because, in the two weeks since joining the ticket, Kearney has been under almost constant barrage for owing back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. And the campaign’s response to the revelations about their...

The new mayor of New York City (Bill de Blasio) was an active supporter of a brutal communist regime well known as one of the worst human rights abusers in Latin America, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch. It’s not information likely to be featured in the mainstream media, which has largely focused on de Blasio’s community organizing and work on behalf of the less fortunate. After all, he says the middle class is in danger of disappearing and he’s vowed to increase taxes for the rich, create more affordable housing and end the police department’s stop-and-frisk policy because...

Tuesday, December 03, 2013 Illinois high school requires parents to self-identify as liberal or conservative An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a "political spectrum." The survey is part of Oak Forest High School's Common Core curriculum, which according to the school district's website is to ..."provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students...

Politics: We keep hearing about how the Republican Party is full of radical Tea Party crazies. But our latest IBD/TIPP Poll shows that it's Democrats who are out of touch with reality and well outside the mainstream. The public overwhelmingly believes the country is headed in the wrong direction, that current economic policies aren't working, that President Obama is doing a bad job, that government should be smaller and that ObamaCare should be repealed. But not Democrats. On issue after issue, in fact, Democrats are the outliers by wide margins, according to an analysis of the December IBD/TIPP survey.

For years, MSNBC host Chris Matthews has been sitting patiently behind the emergency glass waiting for President Barack Obama to come wildly swinging the ax of panic. As recently as August, Matthews cited Obama’s careful avoidance of the network, which just last month was forced to discipline two hosts for conduct so indefensible they could not continue to represent MSNBC, as an indication of his and his colleagues’ neutrality. On Tuesday, the air raid sirens blared and the president came screaming out of the fog begging for aid. Matthews’ interview with the President of the United States will air on...

Despite consistently beating the drum for an increased minimum wage, President Obama’s highly organized grassroots organization is offering jobs that don’t pay at all. “OFA is now accepting applications for full-time and part-time HQ Interns for the Spring 2014 and Summer 2014 HQ Internship Programs in Chicago, IL,” reads the job posting listed at Organizing for Action’s site, BarackObama.com. “This is a 14-week, unpaid internship program,” continues the listing. OFA, which describes itself as the nonprofit organization established to advance the national agenda Americans voted for when they re-elected President Obama in 2012, says it seeks candidates “with a strong...

The Obamacare insurance marketplace is even more vulnerable to security breaches since the administration “fixed” Healthcare.gov, according to a cyber security expert. Health and Human Services (HHS) released a progress report on Sunday following its self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to repair the website, saying that the “team has knocked more than 400 bug fixes and software improvements off the punch list.” The administration said that the “site capacity is stable at its intended level,” though the site continued to crash on Monday. The eight-page report made no mention of the website’s numerous security flaws, which experts say put Americans’ personal...

Former President Bill Clinton, who prodded President Obama last month to keep his promises on Obamacare, said Tuesday that the political damage for Democrats from the flawed law will be “minimal.” “I believe that if the computer problems are all fixed, and it’s up and running by — and healthy in the next several weeks, I think that the damage will be minimal,” Mr. Clinton told interviewer Jorge Ramos of Fusion. “It’s getting better. I think it’ll be fixed by — in the next few weeks. If it’s worked through, I think within four or five months people will be...

Just because California Democrats hold every statewide office and a supermajority in the Legislature doesn't mean they're not worried about 2014. Some Democratic insiders fret that, essentially, life may be too good for the party right now. Their lurking fear: Without a high-profile presidential election or a big-name Republican challenger lined up yet against Gov. Jerry Brown, Democratic voters won't be interested enough to cast ballots in November. If that happens, the GOP could pick off a few seats in the Legislature, wrecking the Democrats' two-thirds majority and damaging Brown's ability to move his agenda. Adding to Democratic insiders' anxiety...

The U.S. economy has performed better since World War II when the president is a Democrat rather than a Republican, two prominent Princeton University economists conclude. The reasons, they say, involve more luck than successful policies. Over the past 64 years and 16 presidential terms, the U.S. grew at an average rate of 4.35% when a Democrat was in the White House and at a 2.54% when a Republican was, a gap the economists call “astoundingly large.” The research was done by Alan Blinder, a macroeconomist who served in the Clinton White House and has advised several Democratic candidates, and...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact.com is holding its annual “lie of the year” contest in which the site’s editors and reporters will choose between 10 finalists for the biggest political whopper of 2013.

Wendy Davis. Alison Lundergan Grimes. Mary Burke. Allyson Schwartz. Michelle Nunn. Natalie Tennant. The Democratic Party is hoping 2014 will be a Year of the Woman—again. As party operatives prepare for the 2014 midterm elections, Democratic women are being cast in starring roles, on the ballot and at the ballot box, as the party tries to take back politically important governor's mansions and keep its fragile majority in the Senate. "The importance of women to the Democratic Party in 2014 cannot be overstated," said Jess McIntosh, a spokeswoman for EMILY's List, which recruits and supports Democratic women candidates. "They are...

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) told the Rev. Al Sharpton of MSNBC on Wednesday that Sharpton and the pope are "on the same wavelength." McDermott's observation on what he perceives as the similarity between Sharpton and the pope came up in a discussion of food stamps. McDermott noted that when Jesus fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, “he didn’t charge food stamps.”(VIDEO-AT-LINK) “When Jesus had those five loaves and two fishes, he didn't charge food stamps. He didn't ask anybody how much money they had. He fed them because they were hungry, and that's really...

The traditional view of American political parties and their special interest groups is that the Republican Party represents big business and social conservatives while the Democratic Party represents labor unions and the poor. However, evidence suggests that this situation has changed. Labor unions and the poor are still linked with the Democratic Party. Small business is strongly with the Republicans at the moment, thanks to Obamacare, and social conservatives still lean Republican (and certainly not toward the Democrats). However, big business has now aligned itself with the Democratic Party. Big business is working with the Democrats in favor of immigration...

New York Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel denied that President Barack Obama lied when he repeatedly claimed those who liked their healthcare plans could keep them under Obamacare, claiming that the ensuing criticism is instead “all about Obama.” Rangel appeared alongside North Carolina Republican Rep. Renee Ellmers to discuss Obamacare’s political future with Fox News’ Shannon Bream on Sunday. After checking in on a fatal subway derailment in Rangel’s New York district, Bream asked the congressman if he would be open to modifying parts of the healthcare law that need work. “I don’t know what you mean by modification,” Rangel protested....

After two months of massive glitches and bugs on the healthcare.gov website, the Obama administration says they met their self-imposed deadline of getting the site running smoothly. The administration said Sunday the site is now working for just about everyone but warned it still needs more fixes. Valley Health's health insurance enrollment campaign in Barboursville, WV proved that while the site has improved many problems, there are still kinks that need to be fixed. During Thanksgiving weekend, Valley Health helped those in need of health insurance sign up at the Huntington Mall in Barboursville, WV. In three days, certified assisters...

**SNIP** But after Obama’s initial success, the backlash set in, and it has been growing with a vengeance since the botched Oct. 1 rollout of the HealthCare.gov website. At this point, Obama’s only hope of mitigating the damage, both practical and political, is to delay the individual mandate until 2015. That’s the only way voters will understand that Obama genuinely wants to make Obamacare right. Otherwise, Republicans will capitalize on the perception that the president is unjustly asking the middle class and working poor to pay for his administration’s mistakes. Obama has two choices: He can nip that probable GOP...

SACRAMENTO, California — An ongoing federal investigation of a California senator is roiling the Democratic leadership in Sacramento and threatens to complicate relations in the majority party when lawmakers reconvene in January. FBI agents raided the offices of Sen. Ron Calderon in June, but the drama escalated within the past month when the Los Angeles-area lawmaker tried to tar his fellow Democrats after they stripped him of his committee assignments and one called for his resignation. Calderon has denied allegations he took money in return for promoting bills, but some analysts say the inquiry could affect the re-election chances for...

Mega-donor and Hollywood figure Haim Saban, a longtime Hillary Clinton backer, on Friday said he’d “pitch in with full might” if she launches a likely 2016 campaign, describing a growing consensus that she is President Barack Obama’s “natural successor.” The remarks to Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper came several months after the media tycoon privately commissioned a movie about Clinton upon her departure from the State Department, featuring international figures including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama singing her praises as Secretary of State. “I hope she will run. She would be a wonderful president,” said Saban, who gave $1...