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Michelle Obama criticizes the worship of celebrities, sports stars By Emily Goodin - 05/17/13 02:06 PM ET Michelle Obama on Friday urged black youth to stay in school instead of dropping out to become a "baller or a rapper." The first lady, speaking to graduates at Bowie State University, a historically black college, criticized the worship of sports stars and celebrities. "Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV," she said of black youth. "Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader,...

In explaining why President Obama didn't call the Boston bombings a "terrorist attack," former adviser David Axelrod said, "I'm sure what was going through the president's mind is -- we really don't know who did this -- it was tax day": "The word has taken on a different meaning since 9/11," Axelrod said of the phrase "terrorist attack." "You use those words and it means something very specific in people's mind. And I'm sure what was going through the president's mind is -- we really don't know who did this -- it was tax day. Was it someone who was...

Never let a tragedy go to waste. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Monday quickly used the explosions in Boston for political gain, linking the Republican Party to the horrific act. At 4:10pm, Kristof tweeted, "explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment." [SECOND UPDATE: More journalists are politicizing the tragedy. See below.]

Eighth-graders in Wisconsin’s Union Grove school district were assigned to fill out a “Liberalism vs. Conservatism” crossword puzzle, and they learned some new and very questionable “facts.” Students learned conservatism is “the political belief of preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms … ” Conversely, they learned liberalism is “the political belief of equality and personal freedom for everyone, often changing the current system to increase government protection of civil liberties.” See the photos here. The crossword puzzle was part of a civics assignment that was forwarded to EAGnews by Tamara Varebrook, a local conservative activist whose eighth-grade daughter...

A mother at a Wisconsin public school said her daughter’s eighth grade class was assigned a worksheet with some eyebrow-raising definitions for “conservatism” and “liberalism.” Conservatism, it stated in part, believes in “preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms” while liberalism is for “equality and personal freedom for everyone.” “This is indoctrination,” Tamra Varebrook, a Republican activist in Racine, Wis., told TheBlaze on Thursday after her 13-year-old daughter showed her the crossword-style vocabulary sheet from Union Grove Elementary School earlier this week. Varebrook first talked about the assignment with the news arm of the conservative Education Action Group. Varebrook...

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems to think that only white people can be racist. On Monday’s Hardball, he actually said, “Racism is the belief that one race - whites - should rule all others” MATTHEWS: Well actually, Rushbo, racism is the belief that one race – whites - should rule all others. Get your definitions straight.

In a time of severe budget constraints, two factors explain why the White House can afford to welcome more than 30,000 people Monday for the 135th annual Easter Egg Roll: corporate sponsors and souvenir eggs. Nearly a century ago, Congress empowered the National Park Service, which oversees the Easter Egg Roll, to accept private donations for its operations. So when her twin boys came home from kindergarten and told her the Easter Egg Roll might be canceled, Victoria Knight-McDowell, owner and chief executive of Pine Bros. Softish Throat Drops, wrote a check for $25,000 to make sure that would not...

So I just noticed today that a few of my "Facebook friends" more like 2 people I haven't spoken to in twenty years, had those stupid gay marriage red equality signs up. I defriended them all, anyone else have the same thing happen?

Analysis March 25, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to organizers, nearly one and a half million people joined the third demonstration in five months against the legalization of same-sex “marriage� by the French government in Paris, on Sunday. Meanwhile, large numbers of demonstrators who were unable to join the main venue – which had filled up by 3 p.m. – or who headed straight to the largest and most prestigious Parisian thoroughfare, the Champs-Elysées, were sprayed with tear-gas and beaten as they neared the presidential palace. Victims included children as young as 6 years old, elderly gentlemen, women of all...

Actress Daryl Hannah says she suffers for her hard-left activism. The Splash star, talking up her appearance in the new assault on climate change skeptics dubbed Greedy Lying Bastards, says being outspoken in Hollywood comes with a price. CM: Do you think that your acting career has suffered in any way — or that you’ve lost any roles — because of your outspoken activism? DH: I know that’s been the case in some instances, for sure. But that’s OK. The truth is, I’m a human being above all. I love life. And I’d love to see life go on on...

Twitchy.com has been all over the story of NBC’s latest… I was about to say “latest ethical lapse,” but that would imply they have any ethics to begin with. Let’s just call it the latest example of NBC lying so egregiously, even a few other liberal media outlets are calling them out on it. Twitchy deserves our thanks for catching the lie and presenting the truth. And now the cover-up begins at NBC. Erik Wemple at WaPo has the latest: MSNBC is reviewing its portrayal of the testimony of Neil Heslin, the father of a Sandy Hook victim, at a...

Today on MSNBC contributor Karen Finney called to Republicans “crazy crackers on the right" who use “hateful language." Video at link: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/01/29/Liberal-Host-Republicans-Are-Crazy-Crackers-Who-Use%20-Hateful-Language

A hunting buddy of mine emailed me from the waiting room of his doctor’s office in Columbus, Ga., a few days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He was cringing in embarrassment as an old redneck spewed racially divisive rhetoric in front of African-American patients. Then my friend’s embarrassment turned to astonishment as that same redneck (almost certainly a gun owner, given the region and his demographic profile) said, “I never cared much for Obama, but that speech he gave about those little kids—I give him an A for that. He’s gonna try and get more gun control,...

On New Year's Eve, Chris Matthews got off one last sneering shot against conservatives. In a special 2012 retrospective, the Hardball anchor connected fiscal conservatism to segregation. After guest Howard Fineman insisted that Mitt Romney's aversion to tax increases during the primary doomed him in the general election, Matthews snorted, "It's today's politics! It's like, they used to say, you have to be the most segregationist guy in the south." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] He continued, "You can never be an inch away from it because somebody would always go to your right on that issue." Go to...

HONG KONG (CNNMoney) Pioneering Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera has acquired Current TV, and will use the network's wider distribution avenues to launch a new U.S.-based channel. The takeover will provide Al Jazeera with access to millions of U.S. households, a lucrative market the Qatar-based broadcaster has long coveted. The deal also means the end of Current, the low-rated channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

A word of warning: It’s impossible to review Promised Land, the new movie written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski and directed by Gus Van Sant, without giving away its twist ending. Though the plot turn is fumbling in its execution, it is the slyest tactic in the movie’s clumsy crusade against fracking, the process of injecting high-pressure chemicals, water, and sand into the ground to access vast quantities of otherwise inaccessible natural gas.Here’s the premise: Steve Butler (Damon) is a corporate salesman who draws on his rural roots to persuade farmers to sell their land to a fracking...

Flyers claiming to be from a non-existent Tea Party in Medina, Ohio were placed in mailboxes on Monday urging Ohio voters to defeat "the n***er" in the White House to "help keep our country strong and white." The flyers, obtained by Breitbart News, were found in mailboxes along Rt. 252 in Medina County, Ohio. It is against federal law to place such flyers into mailboxes. Amy Brighton, Co-founder and Co-coordinator of Medina Tea Party Patriots, told Breitbart News that these "disgusting" flyers were a "desperate attempt to smear the millions of Americans involved in and supportive of the tea party...

Obama Is Prominent in ‘SEAL Team Six,’ Weinstein Film LOS ANGELES — Thanks to the magic of editing, President Obama will have a starring role in a television drama about one of his biggest accomplishments — the killing of Osama bin Laden — that will be shown just two nights before the presidential election. But promotional materials and a copy of the movie provided to The New York Times this week also show that the film has been recut, using news and documentary footage to strengthen Mr. Obama’s role and provide a window into decision-making in the White House.

I went to Hulu and watched the SNL skit of the Obama/Romney debate. They made Romney into the unlikable person, made him say the most outrageously false statements such as he killed Osama bin Laden (Romney lied-straight out of the DNC talking points), and even had Obama being excused for his performance because he was thinking about what gift to get to his wife on their anniversary (such a romantic fellow!) and SNL even made a centerpiece of Al Gore's buffoonish excuse that Obama was affected by the altitude. I just turned off SNL after I watched their skit on...

This breaking story comes straight from The Blaze. A clip from a recent Romney/Ryan rally has recently been played over and over at MSNBC highlighting what appears to be an embarrassing moment on the campaign trail for Governor Romney. Originally aired on Wednesday's "Morning Joe," the clip shows Paul Ryan introducing Romney as the MSNBC-added text appears on the screen proclaiming that the crowd is shouting "Ryan!" Romney gets the mic and asks the crowd to say "Romney/Ryan!" Joe Scarborough covers his face and grumbles out the words, "Sweet Jesus." Then the Blaze received a call from one of the...

The Romney campaign and other Republicans say polls showing President Obama with a significant lead over their candidate are inaccurate. They argue many mainstream polls skew in Obama’s favor because of sample sizes that base 2012 turnout projections on 2008, when Democrats — and Hispanics, blacks and young voters in particular — turned out in record numbers. “I don’t think [the polls] reflect the composition of what 2012 is going to look like,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said in an interview. Frustration that polls are skewed in favor of Obama has escalated among some on the right in recent weeks....

Abby Goodnough of the New York Times is reporting as the California state government is setting up its ObamaCare exchange, the exchange has hired a PR firm (with federal government money).

Zogby: Romney Running Worse Than McCain in ‘08 Thursday, 13 Sep 2012 06:05 PM President Barack Obama received a surprisingly strong bounce after the Democratic National Convention, and now leads GOP challenger Mitt Romney by nearly 6 points according to a new JZ Analytics poll. The national poll of likely voters shows Obama leading 47.7 percent to 42 percent, and indicates that Romney is not polling well enough among some conservative demographic groups: NASCAR fans, evangelicals, and the so-called “Walmart voters.” According to JZ Analytics pollster John Zogby, Romney is in a somewhat worse position than GOP nominee Sen. John...

The era of fact-checkers being trusted as honest brokers might be over, but that doesn't mean they won't do what the equally irrelevant mainstream media does: double down in their spewing of narrative-lies and propaganda to aid and abet the left. Case in point, Politifact. Politiact is the worst of the mainstream media's dishonest fact-checkers (no small feat). They're the ones who ruled as true the absolute lie that Obama increased federal spending at a lower rate than any other modern president. Because there is no bottom to how low Politifact will go, Politifact is now brazenly lying by awarding a...

It’s enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion. Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower...

Actress Ellen Barkin created a stir on Twitter today when she sent out a re-tweet of a message someone sent saying they hoped Hurricane Isaac would hit the Republican convention and “was every pro-life, anti-education, anti-woman, xenophobic, gay-bashing, racist SOB right into the ocean.” The reaction from conservatives was quick to her class-less Tweet. “I wonder if @EllenBarkin will feel badly at all when #Isaac doesn’t wash the GOPers out to sea but in fact wipes out New Orleans,” one person responded. Bryan Kemper, Director of Youth Outreach for Priests for Life, said: “This is why we call pro-abortion people...

The notion that liberals are smarter than conservatives is familiar to anyone who has spent time on a college campus. The College Democrats are said to be ugly, smug and intellectual; the College Republicans, pretty, belligerent and dumb. There's enough truth in both stereotypes that the vast majority of college students opt not to join either club. But are liberals actually smarter? A libertarian (and, as such, nonpartisan) researcher, Satoshi Kanazawa of the London School of Economics and Political Science, has just written a paper that is set to be published in March by the journal Social Psychology Quarterly. The...

Although the ad got a lot of playtime on MSNBC Friday, a recent so-called “Republican women for Obama” video advertisement has turned out to be a disingenuous campaign ploy. That ad, posted on the official Barack Obama campaign YouTube page on Friday, claimed to show a group of women that had previously voted Republican but later abandoned the party because they felt it went too far to the right, leaving them no alternative but to vote for President Barack Obama this November. The problem is, so far two of these women have been shown to be Democrats who had previously...

They're not saying... they're just saying. Links only, since it's Getty:http://www.daylife.com/photo/0c69evCer04wL?__site=daylife&q=Worldhttp://www.daylife.com/photo/08j4dFX7PQ949?__site=daylife&q=Worldhttp://www.daylife.com/photo/0gxK6TPc4a1eP?__site=daylife&q=World

DEBATE MODERATORS ANNOUNCED: PBS Jim Lehrer, first Pres debate, Oct 3 Denver... CNN Candy Crowley, town hall, Oct 16, Hempsted LI... CBS Bob Schieffer, third Pres debate, Oct. 22, Boca Raton... ABC Martha Radditz, VP debate, Oct 11, Danville VA... FLASHBACK: CROWLEY: Some Think Ryan Pick 'Some Sort of Ticket Death Wish'..

Chick-Fil-A came under criticism this month after a report by the organization Equality Matters revealed that the company donated around $2 million to antigay Christian organizations in 2010. “Guilty as charged,” the fast-food chain’s president Dan Cathy said over allegations that his company is antigay (“We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit.”). So. Here we are. Tumblr, listen up. We’re hoping to find a current or former employee of Chick-Fil-A who might want to spill the beans on life inside the alleged antigay company. If that’s you, or you know someone who might...

This is the story of a dinner party. It occurred in a suburban middle-class community — maybe slightly upscale middle class, but not much — just outside one of our big cities. Pretty typical place. The guests all knew each other. They were neighbors or friends or acquaintances who’d been to these parties many times. They were white, every one, mostly businessmen and their wives, and some engineers who work or once worked in the nearby defense industries. The postdinner conversation was the usual stuff — who’s moving in, who’s moving out. Anybody heard from Ralph since he moved to...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: A little statistic for you. Since the beginning of 2012 -- we're almost now to August, so we've got seven months in, pretty much seven months in. Since the start of 2012, the death count in Chicago is 274. In seven months, the death count in Chicago, 274. They have some of the strictest gun laws in the country, just as they do in Colorado. You know, all of us have certain traits that reflect upon our character, and when those characteristics, when those traits cluster in a manner that causes a person to function in a...

In the trailer, the character quits his job, and dons Obama themed gear to promote Obama’s candidacy, spreading the campaign’s message to his friends and family.

In advance of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech Wednesday to the NAACP, a liberal group headed by a former New York Times reporter and ex-Media Matter executive have produced a video “satire” that claims blacks don’t like Romney, who they dub so white he makes “Wonder Bread look like pumpernickel.” The YouTube from “The Message,” an online “media hub,” is described as a satirical video of Romney getting advice on what to say to the civil rights group. Or, as they said in a release, the video “lacerates Romney and his advisors as they prepare for his speech to...

(CNN) -- Last month's Supreme Court decision in the landmark Arizona immigration case was groundbreaking for what it omitted: the words "illegal immigrants" and "illegal aliens," except when quoting other sources. The court's nonjudgmental language established a humanistic approach to our current restructuring of immigration policy. When you label someone an "illegal alien" or "illegal immigrant" or just plain "illegal," you are effectively saying the individual, as opposed to the actions the person has taken, is unlawful. The terms imply the very existence of an unauthorized migrant in America is criminal. In this country, there is still a presumption of...

(On June 23) Cleveland celebrated Pride Weekend. This event is held each June in celebration of the Stonewall Riots of 1969 which is often revered as the beginning of the LGBTQ civil rights movement. Amongst the celebration and awareness-raising was an unfortunate event which speaks directly to why such events are still necessary and full equality has not yet arrived. The AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland was abandoned by their float driver the morning of the parade when he learned he was participating in the Cleveland Pride Parade, forcing the organization to scramble on the day of a large-scale public...

Remember the fun the MSM had with Republican VP Dan Quayle in a school room holding up a mis-spelled word, without mentioning that the class teacher was the one who'd written out the word incorrectly? Or how they made Republican President George H.W. Bush look stupid at a grocery store photo op making conversation with a checkout clerk about how the scanner worked? The repetitive media meme for Republicans is 'out of touch.' Well, this may be the best/worst one yet: Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC making fun of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a rally describing the purchase of...

The stunning expansion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Washington, D.C., area is profiled in a long, interesting and meticulously accurate CNN story that suggests "the nation's capital has become a Mormon stronghold, with Latter-day Saints playing a big and growing role in the Washington establishment."-SNIP-"It's hard to point to federal legislation or a White House initiative that bears distinctly Mormon fingerprints," Gilgoff writes, "while it's easy to do the same for other faiths." He cites as an example a recent White House "compromise" on contraception funding, which he says was "mostly a reaction to...

<p>White House press secretary Jay Carney tells the press corps that President Obama's attack on the Supreme Court was misunderstood because he was speaking in "shorthand" since he is a former professor of law.</p> <p>Henry: The president is a former constitutional law professor. One of his professors is Laurence Tribe. He now says, in his words, the president “obviously misspoke earlier this week”, quote “he didn’t say what he meant and having said that in order to avoid misleading anyone, he had to clarify it.” I thought yesterday you were saying repeatedly that he did not misspeak. What do you make of the president’s former law professor saying he did?</p>

WASHINGTON — How dare President Barack Obama brush back the Supreme Court like that? Has this former constitutional law instructor no respect for our venerable system of checks and balances? Nah. And why should he? This court, cosseted behind white marble pillars, out of reach of TV, accountable to no one once they give the last word, is well on its way to becoming one of the most divisive in modern U.S. history. It has squandered even the semi-illusion that it is the unbiased, honest guardian of the Constitution. It is run by hacks dressed up in black robes. All...

How very open-minded and reasonable it was of Bill Maher to deliver this little riff on the Santorums' decision to homeschool their children (h/t NewsBusters):CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Let’s not even get into his use of the term “madrassa,� which refers to an Islamic seminary that teaches mostly Islamic subjects. Suffice it to say anyone concerned about brainwashing should worry less about Rick Santorum’s children and more about subjugated women and children in the Middle East.Instead, let’s focus on the “comedian’s� own appalling lack of knowledge. What Bill Maher doesn’t know about homeschooling could fill a book he’d...

[...] These are just a few samples from the arsenal of degrading language Limbaugh deploys on women, people of color, lesbians and gays, immigrants, the disabled, the elderly, Muslims, Jews, veterans, environmentalists and so forth. Limbaugh doesn't just call people names. He promotes language that deliberately dehumanizes his targets. Like the sophisticated propagandist Josef Goebbels, he creates rhetorical frames -- and the bigger the lie the more effective -- inciting listeners to view people they disagree with as sub-humans. His longtime favorite term for women, "femi-nazi," doesn't even raise eyebrows anymore, an example of how rhetoric spreads when unchallenged by...

In 1980, Dwinna Barker was a divorced mother in Amarillo who had just lost one of her two young children to Reyes syndrome. She had also been laid off from a well-paid job. “After two months of unemployment, I was lucky to find work with Bell Helicopter in the Fort Worth area, which I badly needed. … I was desperate with all the unpaid medical bills and another small child and no help whatsoever,” she said. Her insurance had expired just days before her daughter was diagnosed with Reyes, a nearly always fatal disease that attacks the brains and livers...

In an appearance on ABC’s “The View” on Monday, Georgetown Law student and women’s contraception activist Sandra Fluke told viewers to check out Media Matters for examples of over-the-top conservative rhetoric. When asked by co-host Joy Behar if she had anything to say to her critics, Fluke, who made headlines last because of the attacks and subsequent apology she received from conservative talker Rush Limbaugh, encouraged viewers to check out Media Matters’ website. “Well, I would encourage everyone to go to Media Matters because they have an excellent story on their website that gives a list of the various commentators...

Here is what Democrats want us to think: Republican candidates are going to take away your contraceptive pills; they are going to go on some jihad against you in the bedroom, and the only salvation is reelecting Barack Obama. First of all, Obama cannot run on his record. The last thing that he wants you to think about is what he has done while in office. He does not want you to think about Obamacare, because it has continued to remain unpopular, even to today. Now, they will continue to try to sell Obamacare is becoming more popular, but...

LifeNews Note: Reprinted with permission from Ethika Politika, the blog of the Center for Morality in Public Life.Remember the Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke, who was forced to suffer through $3,000-worth of protected sex during her stint at law school? Turns out, thereÂ’s a bit more to the story.According to some sources, Fluke might just have been a well-placed fake. Not exactly the young-and-helpless female law student most took her for, FlukeÂ’s LinkedIn profile speaks for itself:With a six year hiatus between her undergraduate time and GT Law, Fluke is probably closer to 30. And sheÂ’s had plenty of involvement...

This is the html version of the file http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/statement-Congress-letterhead-2nd%20hearing.pdf. Page 1 Leader Pelosi, Members of Congress, good morning, and thank you for calling this hearing on women’s health and allowing me to testify on behalf of the women who will benefit from the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage regulation. Myname is Sandra Fluke, and I’m a third year student at Georgetown Law, a Jesuit school. I’m also a past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. I’d like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them...

Although the news of Andrew Breitbart’s death is still fairly fresh, the merry band of faceless marauders at the Daily Kos have decided it is time to use his death as an opportunity to make political hay. A post dated March 1 by “dragon82a,” titled “Let’s Help Andrew Breitbart go out In Style..Get Westboro Baptist Church to Protest Him” encourages readers to post on the Westboro Baptist Church’s Facebook page calling for the group to protest Andrew Breitbart’s funeral:

Obama: I’ll Buy A Chevy Volt After My Presidency Ends March 1, 2012 5:32 PM Ever since Barack Obama became president in 2008, he hasn’t been given much chance to drive a car, let alone own one. But when his presidency ends, Mr. Obama knows exactly what car he wants to buy as his post-presidential ride — a plug-in Chevrolet Volt. “Five years from now when I’m not president anymore, I’ll buy one and drive it myself,” Obama promised 1,600 auto workers at a United Auto Workers union event in Detroit on Tuesday. “Yes, that’s right,” he reiterated, accompanied by...