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COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama has suffered the second embarrassment over oil imports within the space of a week. Brazil, whose offshore deposits of oil were sought by the Obama administration, has signed contracts with China for the product. According to the Washington Times, Brazilian offshore crude may number about 38 billion barrels. Obama went to Brazil last month to put in a bid for the oil, offering loans and other support to develop the oil in an "environmentally responsible matter," The Hill reported at the time. Republicans criticized that initiative, pointing out Obama has placed roadblocks in the way...

(CNSNews.com) - In a speech delivered at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama argued that while a limited government that preserves free markets "speaks to our rugged individualism" as Americans, such a system "doesn't work" and "has never worked" and that Americans must look to a more activist government that taxes more, spends more and regulates more if they want to preserve the middle class. "'[T]here is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. 'The market will take...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday he doesn't think taxpayers will recover much of their $528 million loan to bankrupt solar firm Solyndra, calling the situation "extremely unfortunate" while continuing to defend his actions to prop up the company before its failure. Chu testified Thursday for the first time before the House committee investigating the Solyndra loan. He insisted that the decision in late 2009 to approve the loan guarantee was his own and "absolutely was made only on the merits." He said it was not influenced by political considerations. But he acknowledged that chances are dim for taxpayers to...

Operation Fast and Furious has left a hideous scar on our nation to date. It should result in the prosecution of Attorney General Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke, and a slew of ATF supervisors who oversaw the ridiculous operation from the word go. As a result of their foolishness and criminality, taxpayer money was used in the purchase of weapons intentionally passed to criminals, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is dead, hundreds upon hundreds of Mexican citizens have been killed, and over one thousand firearms are still unaccounted for... Yet as bad as Fast and Furious was, and...

Even if ObamaCare survives Supreme Court scrutiny next spring, its trials will be far from over. That's because the law has a major glitch that threatens its basic functioning. It's so problematic, in fact, that the Obama administration is now brazenly trying to rewrite the law without involving Congress. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act offers "premium assistance"—tax credits and subsidies—to households purchasing coverage through new health-insurance exchanges. This assistance was designed to hide a portion of the law's cost to individuals by reducing the premium hikes that individuals will face after ObamaCare goes into effect in 2014. (If...

New Czars Exercise Unprecedented Control over Government Policies and Programs While Operating Under a “Veil of Secrecy” Judicial Watch, the public interest organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released “ President Obama’s Czarspdf,” a special report on the President’s appointing of “policy advisors,” many of whom enjoy positions of power and authority in the administration and yet have not been subjected to vetting and confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Judicial Watch’s extensive investigation exhaustively documents these czar appointments and details the control these czars exercise over government operations. From the report’s introduction: “This Judicial Watch Special Report analyzes...

It seemed like a trivial matter: On Wednesday, House Republicans forced the president to delay his speech to a joint session of Congress by one day. Who cares? The White House cares. Very much. “It is a big deal that the House said ‘no’ to the president from our end,” a White House source with intimate knowledge of what took place between the House and the president told me Thursday. “This confirms what we all know: They will do anything in the House to muck us up.” On Wednesday, the White House staff did not know exactly what President Barack...

They want to cut military pensions. The Obama Administration’s panel of smart guys has decided military retirement has to go. Welfare can stay, free pills for Grama can stay, bogus SSI checks for life can stay, Food Stamps for soda and steak can stay, cushy federal civilian benefits stay, congressional compensation packages remain the same, but pensions for guys on their fourth tour, well, we can’t afford them. You now what this means? It means the military is a small and Republican-leaning voting bloc that the Democrats don’t care about alienating. It means that veterans have no political pull –...

The requirement, which the administration intended to back using data from their own "Fast and Furious" gun smuggling, now faces multiple suits. Firearms retailers, a leading industry trade organization, and Americans’ most powerful gun lobby are making good on a threat to challenge the Obama administration’s attempt to assert gun control measures by executive fiat. The legal challenge is being supported by the Second Amendment Task Force, a bipartisan group of congressional legislators that asserts the ATF lacks the authority “to track the purchases of law-abiding Americans.”J&G Sales in Prescott, AZ, and Foothills Firearms in Yuma, AZ, intend to challenge...

Would it be too much to ask President Obama to at least pretend to be "presidential" for at least a week? A day even? We've gone from the tradition of George Washington, the reluctant candidate, to Obama, the candidate who will "kill" to be reelected.  There are reports today that the Obama camp is throwing in the towel; giving up even pretending that the President deserves re-election based upon his record.  Now, according to Politico.com, "the candidate who ran on 'hope' in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his...

Democrats across the U.S., watching a roiling stock market and a stagnating economy, say President Barack Obama needs a message and policy response as big as the crisis moment the nation is facing. Adjusting his tone amid those complaints, Mr. Obama is toughening his demands for short-term jobs spending and drawing sharper contrasts to his Republican opponents both in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail. Plunging stock prices, a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating and a near-default on federal debt have triggered fears that Mr. Obama is doing too little to cure an ailing economy and to persuade...

Gallup delivers two blasts at the Obama administration today for its handling of the economy. The first comes in its daily tracking poll, which reacted rather badly to Barack Obama’s speech from the White House yesterday. His approval rating dropped three points to its previous low of 40% after only one cycle of polling. Disapproval rose back to 50%, up two points from the day before. That sharp drop could amplify over the next couple of days, especially considering the beating Obama is taking across the political spectrum for his ill-considered rehash of an address. It’s possible that we will...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Does anybody now doubt that this is on purpose? I mean, after all, Barack Obama inherits a AAA credit rating from George W. Bush, and look what he does to it. Obama is always running around complaining and whining and moaning about all that he inherited from George W. Bush. Well, he inherited a AAA credit rating, an unemployment rate of 5.7%. Does anybody doubt that this is on purpose? Well, look, my credit rating doesn't suck. There are a lot of individual Americans whose credit ratings aren't in trouble. The United States has never been in...

<p>He was a half hour late. His head turned from side to side as if he were attending a tennis match. He practically never looked in the camera, as if he were averting our gaze. And those were the strong parts of President Obama’s disastrous speech.</p>

CNBC just broke in and told the audience that the President has requested airtime and will speak to the nation at 1300hrs EST (12 noon central, 10 AM PST) on the US national debt downgrade.Developing...

U.S. President Barack Obama hailed a positive jobs report on Friday but said more job growth is needed and predicted the situation will improve over time. Commenting on a Labor Department report that 154,000 jobs were created in July and the jobless rate ticked down slightly to 9.1 percent, Obama said, "We've got to do better than that." "We are going to get through this. Things will get better. and we're going to get there together," he said. Obama, speaking to American veterans, said the U.S. economy has faced a tumultuous year and noted markets around the globe have had...

Surrogates for the president's campaign are pushing back early against criticism on the economy, and are developing lines of attack against his potential Republican opponents, especially Mitt Romney. "It's not going to be 2008 'Yes, we can' anymore. I think it's going to be slash-and-burn," said Democratic pollster Paul Maslin. "We have an embattled incumbent who doesn't have much hope of improving his standing except by point of comparison with his Republican opponent. It's going to be a very different kind of election that's going to be brutal, to be honest."

Just a crawl at present.

Barack Obama was meeting with union leaders at the White House Tuesday morning, part of an effort to retain organized labor’s support going into the 2012 election. A meeting with the AFL-CIO Executive Committee at 9:15 a.m. was the first item listed on Obama’s public schedule for Tuesday. The meeting is closed to the press.

The circus has been let completely loose, with the president now expected to address the nation following the Senate vote on the debt ceiling which by implication is expected to pass without a hitch. Naturally should the Senate vote by some miracle fail, Obama may be forced to scramble as his prepared and teleprompted remarks end up being completely useless. Watch what is hopefully the very last chapter of the farce (at least for another year) live here.