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 If you are the Democrat party of New Jersey and it looks like you may lose the Governors office to a 500 pound fat guy (Jon Corzine's words, not mine), what do you do? After all, even the great One, Obama himself, could not seem to turn the tide that was ready to hit them from the Republican Party and it's candidate, Christie. Well, we have documented the story after story about intimidation tactics used by the left in this country, but what the Democrats did in this election has even left some liberals scratching their heads. Imagine you are...

Andrew Sullivan: The truth about civil marriage - why it is the essential criterion for gay equality - is that it alone explodes this core marginalization and invisibility of gay people. It alone can reach those gay kids who need to know they have a future as a dignified human being with a family. It alone tells society that gay people are equal in their loves and in their hearts and in their families - not just useful in a society with a need for talented or able individuals whose private lives remain perforce sequestered from view. This is why...

Ayers, William....Davis, Angela....Moore, Michael....Shabazz, Malik....Wright, Reverend Jeremiah....Kelly, R....

RNC Chair Michael Steele was in a feisty mood this morning, but the Democrats weren't his only target. How intentional was that message to the Palin wing of the GOP? My colleague, ABC News' David Chalian has more... As any party chairman should, RNC Chairman Michael Steele took the opportunity this morning to crow about GOP victories in New Jersey and Virginia. But he also seemed to deliver a bit of a rebuke to potential 2012 presidential aspirants in his party such as Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, and Rick Santorum, all of whom immersed themselves in the NY-23 special House...

We’ve had it with sexism, racism, religious prejudice – all now considered utterly unacceptable in the workplace. Will employees across UK Plc now have to start watching their tongues in case they are guilty of greenism? After yesterday’s legal landmark ruling, “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief” akin to religion. This judgment means a company must not discriminate against someone because of their deeply-held environmental convictions. So no more jokes about the office hippy at the sustainable water-cooler then. It has all come about because Tim Nicholson, 42, of...

The federal government wants to leverage interest and investment in vaccine development to get pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that could "inoculate" people against addiction to cocaine, nicotine, and other substances, Reuters reported Oct. 20th.....

CAIRO — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the U.S. stance toward Israeli settlement building to worried Arab allies on Wednesday, saying Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever." Still, she said an Israeli offer to restrain — but not halt — construction represents "positive movement forward" toward resuming Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Clinton met for an hour with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during a hastily arranged stopover in the Egyptian capital to soothe Arab concerns that Washington is backing off demands for an Israeli settlement halt. Egypt...

Video at site. Why is Ben Bernanke being so slow to start talking about raising rates, much less start raising them? Because he has a secret plan that he can't talk about. What's Ben's secret plan? Intentionally keep rates too low for too long, thus encouraging uncomfortably high inflation. Why would Ben want that when he keeps talking about the importance of managing inflation? Two reasons: Faster economic growth, which leads to more jobs, fewer angry constituents, and a Congress that's happier with Ben Bernanke Faster erosion of the real value of our debts. Consumers and the government are drowning...

Scozzafava's strenuous support of Owens during these critical hours was probably the most decisive factor in moving those undecideds. She recorded two robocalls, which were delivered throughout the district, and appeared with Owens at a local event. New York State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long raised questions over the manner in which the Obama White House secured Scozzafava's decisive support on Saturday. Publicly, Long has asked for an Federal Elections Commission investigation of possible legal violations involved in reported personal meetings between a White House staff member and Scozzafava on the Saturday afternoon preceding her endorsement of Owens the following...

In January 2009, as Obama unveiled his plans for economic recovery, he assured the Congress and the American people that, if we would just agree to set up a $787 billion slush fund for him to play with, he would fix our sick economy and that the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent. With a straight face, and with words that came straight from his teleprompter, he vowed that he would accomplish something that no man, and no government, has ever accomplished before: he would halt the downward spiral of the economy and stimulate economic growth, and he would...

http://money.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/49044.html CNN poll halfway down on right. 1. What should U.S. nuclear power policy be? It's a safe, clean alternative right now...77% More safety testing is needed...11% We shouldn't use it...11%

Here it comes, more artificial support for the housing market. You can't blame people for speculating on houses when they know the government will come in and try to save them. So here we are again, warping market expectations and sowing the seeds for the next housing bubble with an extension and expansion of the homebuyer tax credits. NYT: The Senate might pass its version as early as Wednesday, and aides to Congressional leaders say the House could accept it this week, sending the bill to President Obama to sign into law. After weeks of partisan delay in the Senate,...

MILAN -- An Italian court on Wednesday convicted 22 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force colonel of orchestrating the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he said he was later tortured.

Can they pick them, or not? Boy, those 11 county chairmen who picked Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava to run for Congress on the Republican ticket in New York’s 23rd Congressional District in the special election to succeed Rep. John McHugh have an eye for a winner. Seeking a candidate for a center-right district near the Canadian border, they picked someone well to the left of some centrist Democrats, with none of the flair or pizazz that makes parties willing to tolerate mavericks. She excited no one and repelled the conservatives, whom the chairmen accused of splitting the party. She was, they...

NEW YORK — Five immigrant men who were detained in roundups and eventually deported following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 have reached a $1.26 million settlement with the U.S. government. The men were part of a lawsuit against the government over the roundups that put them in federal detention and the abuse they say they suffered while they were there.

Spot gold ran to a record high above $1,090 per ounce on Wednesday, latching on to a weaker dollar with continued support from the IMF's sale of gold to India's central bank. The dollar index declined 0.34 percent as investors awaited a Fed statement later on Wednesday. Spot gold hit a record high of $1,092.60 an ounce and was bid at $1,091.05 an ounce, compared with $1,084.50 late in New York on Tuesday. U.S. COMEX gold futures also hit an historic $1,093.70 in electronic trade, and were later up $7.40 at $1,092.40. Buying on the back of the IMF's announcement...

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to "national security" concerns, has leaked. It's bad. It says: * That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability. * That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that...

On Sunday, CIT filed for bankruptcy, meaning that $2.3 billion in taxpayer money is probably lost. That means that each American threw about $8 down the CIT rat hole. Unfortunately, that could just be the start of losing big bucks on TARP "investments" in troubled financial companies. We took the top ten bailout recipients, from AIG to PNC, and divided the amount Uncle Sam threw at them by the number of Americans (308.84 million and counting). Then we used a highly scientific guess to determine your chances of getting it back. It ain't pretty. Here's How Much Each Bailout Cost...

The Federal Reserve will reaffirm its low interest rate policy later this afternoon, a person inside the Federal Reserve said. The central bankers are fearful that any change to the wording of its interest rate policy or economic outlook will cause a huge panic in the stock market, the person said. As a result, it is highly likely the wording about interest rate policy will not change at all. Of course, the debate is still continuing inside the Fed. Some inside the Fed have argued that the central bank should begin to signal an end to the zero-interest rate policy...

Despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s pronouncement yesterday that the health are “reform” bill may not come to a vote in the senate this year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still pushing and shoving her caucus to the brink, insisting on a vote as early as Friday night. One of the two big steps remaining before the vote -- the so-called “manager’s amendment of final changes -- was revealed last night. The “Amendment to H.R.3962 Offered by Mr. Dingell of Michigan,” otherwise known as the Manager’s Amendment, is out and up online. Democrat Rep. John Dingell, Chairman Emeritus of the...

Long lines at public flu clinics -- initially intended to primarily serve the uninsured -- are now commonplace nationwide as doses of the vaccine remain scarce. Many clinics report seeing large numbers of people who have insurance but have been unable to get H1N1 vaccines from private doctors, who say they have either already run out or have yet to get any. The line at the Glendale clinic, the first to be held in that city since Los Angeles County received doses late last month, was the longest yet, county Department of Public Health officials said. And the stakes were...

WASHINGTON – An ebullient Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele asserted Wednesday that GOP victories in governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia demonstrate "a transcendent party" on the move again. The White House said the elections were not a repudiation of President Barack Obama. "We're not crowing, we're just smiling," Steele said in a nationally broadcast interview. "I think it's a bellwether for the party ... You look at where we were nine months ago." Steele said he believes Chris Christie's victory in New Jersey and Robert McDonnell's win in Virginia show that the GOP has "really found its voice...

MILAN - An Italian judge says he has convicted 23 Americans of the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric from a Milan street in a CIA extraordinary rendition. Citing diplomatic immunity, Judge Oscar Magi told the Milan courtroom Wednesday that he was acquitting three other Americans. Twenty-two of the convicted Americans were immediately sentenced to five years in jail at the end of the nearly three-year trial. The other convicted American, Milan CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady, was given the stiffest sentence, eight years in prison. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here All of the Americans were...

MEXICO CITY — The leader of a Mexican farmworkers' organization and 14 other people were killed in a mass shooting in the northern Mexico state of Sonora... Sonora prosecutors' spokesman Jose Larrinaga said the victims include farm leader Margarito Montes, 10 other men, one woman and three minors. Most were believed to be Montes' relatives or employees. Larrinaga said the victims' bullet-ridden bodies were found on a roadside near a farm Friday. The killers apparently used assault rifles, the sort of weapon favored by Mexico's drug gangs.... Montes was the leader of the General Popular Union of Workers and Farmers,...

The primary trailer to Michael Moore's latest hideously unwatchable “documentary” Capitalism: A Love Story features a narration of a series of events surrounding the financial crisis beginning in late 2008 and the federal government's particular method for addressing it with Moore ultimately proclaiming that “By spending just a few million dollars to buy Congress Wall Street was given billions.” No arguing with that proposition. After just 22 seconds time Moore takes us to Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) of Ohio who laments the fact that “Everything was being handled by the Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs...they [influential Wall Street firms] had...

THE last hope of blocking a new European constitution was snuffed out last night - the final kick in the teeth after Labour's betrayal of Britain. The Czech Republic became the last EU nation to sign the Lisbon Treaty, which will now become law. Gordon Brown's Labour broke a promise to give 60million Britons a say on it. Now it's too late as we are dragged screaming into a vastly more powerful European Union yesterday. The last remaining opposition to the new EU constitution ended when Czech president Vaclav Klaus was forced to sign the Lisbon Treaty. His reluctant endorsement...

Pro-Life Advocates Excited by Defeat of Abortion Backers in Virginia, New Jersey Washington, DC -- Tuesday night provided a shot in the arm for the pro-life movement following the disheartening loss last year that resulted in the election of pro-abortion President Barack Obama. With victories in New Jersey and Virginia, pro-life candidates dispatched their pro-abortion opponents. http://www.LifeNews.com/state4542.html

The National Education Association, the organization most identified as the voice of established educators in the United States, is recommending that its members read -- and promote the reading of -- two books by Progressive radical Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals. The recommendation appears in the organizations website under, "Tools & Ideas>Association Representative Resources>Articles & Multimedia>Recommended Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer." The NEA has insisted over the course of its existence that it is a non-partisan organization that champions the education of America's children while advocating for the professional advancement of its educator membership. Their...

When two months ago we discussed the IMF's selling of one eighth of its gold reserves of which as most know by know half was recently acquired by India, we came to the conclusion that the IMF's proposed naive and subjective purpose for this disposition which was framed as "safeguarding against disruption in the gold market" would instead end up with "rioting in goldbugland." Based on gold price action over the past 3 days, we have been so far correct. And the concern for the IMF (and all Central Banks as well) is that India's example will be promptly followed...

A legally binding agreement on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is no longer a realistic goal for next month’s Copenhagen summit, the UN Secretary-General says. According to Ban Ki Moon such an agreement will not be signed next month and the most likely outcome is voluntary targets, which countries could announce but then ignore. He said that several key countries were not ready to sign up to binding targets and that the best the world could hope for from the summit would be “political commitments”. Mr Ban said he hoped that they would be legally binding within a year but would...

The United States could be energy independent if it possessed the collective political will to make it happen. After all, the country has the largest energy reserves on earth, according to a recently-released Congressional Research Service report.

WASHINGTON – The White House says that Republican wins in two governors' races were not referendums on the president. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday that voters went to the polls in Virginia and New Jersey to work through "very local issues that didn't involve the president." The presidential spokesman said voters were concerned about the economy. "I don't think the president needed an election or an exit poll to come to that conclusion," Gibbs said. By contrast, Gibbs acknowledged that the 2010 midterm congressional elections will be more about the Obama agenda.

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

The idea that the government of a major advanced country would default on its debt—that is, tell lenders that it won't repay them all they're owed—was, until recently, a preposterous proposition. Argentina or Russia might stiff their creditors, but surely not the likes of the United States, Japan, or Great Britain. Well, it's still a very, very long shot, but it's no longer entirely unimaginable.

It's understandable that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, having given up on his gubernatorial ambitions, might want to take time to lick wounds, lie low and, as my colleague C.W. Nevius suggests, do some reflecting. Unfortunately, there's important and immediate mayoral business to attend to. When Newsom's press secretary, Nathan Ballard, told The Chronicle that Newsom will be back "soon," one hoped he meant this morning. That's when Newsom was scheduled to speak to 6,000 land-use professionals, architects, planners, real estate developers and other urban experts from all over the world at the opening of the Urban Land Institute conference...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal police on Tuesday arrested 12 supporters of a single-payer health care system who entered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco offices and refused to leave until they talked to the congresswoman. Police arrested them for creating a disturbance on federal property nearly three hours after they entered Pelosi's offices. Pelosi was not in the office and did not talk to them by telephone.The protesters, who are in favor of a system administered by the federal government but delivered by private health care providers, entered the waiting room of Pelosi's offices about 11:45 a.m. and were arrested...

After three days of radio silence following his withdrawal from the governor's race, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unexpectedly jetted off Tuesday morning to Hawaii to join his wife and baby daughter, who already were vacationing there. The trip, which the mayor apparently booked on his own, caught his staffers off guard. Many did not know he was gone until the city attorney's office sent out a notice informing them that the mayor had left the state and naming Supervisor Carmen Chu acting mayor.Mayoral spokesman Nathan Ballard apparently was among those who did not get a heads-up about the trip....

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag warned Tuesday that large federal deficits will eventually imperil the U.S. economy because they will lead to higher interest rates and more borrowing from overseas. Orszag, in a speech in New York, said that deficits, expected to add $9 trillion to the current national debt of $12 trillion over the next decade, are "serious and ultimately unsustainable." Orszag said that deficit spending was necessary to help boost the economy when unemployment is hovering around 10 percent. But he said that red ink must be stopped as the economy recovers. During a recovery, private investment...

The government has agreed to pay $3 million to a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration who sued CIA officers for illegal eavesdropping. The proposed settlement followed a ruling by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in July that CIA officials committed fraud to protect a former covert agent against the eavesdropping allegations. The lawsuit was brought by former DEA agent Richard Horn, who says his home in Rangoon, Burma, was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993. He says Arthur Brown, the former CIA station chief in Burma, and Franklin Huddle Jr., the chief of mission at the U.S....

Return to the Article November 3, 2009Why Middle Class Tax Hikes Are ComingBy Josh Barro During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama famously pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 or families making less than $250,000. With this pledge, he offered over 95% of the electorate something for nothing: you'll get expanded government services, and somebody else will pay for it. The pitch worked, and he became the first winning presidential candidate in a generation whose platform explicitly contained tax hikes. Unfortunately for those who bought in, massive federal deficits will make it impossible for Obama to...

On the anniversary of his election, President Barack Obama will visit Madison on Wednesday to talk about the progress states are making on education reforms he's championed since taking office and the imminent competition that will have many of those states vying for extra federal stimulus funds for schools. Is there more to the president's visit than just a pat on the back for Wisconsin? Many suspect the latter for a number of reasons: • The governor's race. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has not announced whether he will run for governor, and some say Obama, who has intervened in local politics...

NOTE: HERE IS THE NEWS YOU'VE BEEN HEARING REGARDING THE 23RD DISTRICT IN NEW YORK -----Democrats win New York congressional race, but conservatives claim victory too Posted: November 4th, 2009 02:06 AM ET From CNN Political Producer Rebecca Sinderbrand (CNN) – The three-way race in New York's 23rd congressional district ended Tuesday night with a surprise Democratic win - the first for the party in the reliably-Republican district since the 19th century. Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman to claim victory in a race where an internal GOP fight drew national attention - and forced the party's...

It runs more pages than War and Peace, has nearly five times as many words as the Torah, and its tables of contents alone run far longer than this story. (The House health care bill) unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word. . And for (some members), that may not be enough. A “robust” (public option) can’t be found in the bill. Neither can the word “doctor” – save for a few references to degrees. No “cost curve” is...

To appreciate the extent to which the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama is a regulator reborn, consider this: EPA officials have begun to cut air pollution by invoking the Clean Water Act. Long quiescent under President George W. Bush, the agency is churning out initiatives and regulations at a pace that pleases its friends in the environmental movement and frightens many in the business community. In the past eight months, the EPA has proposed eight major new regulations for air pollutants that would strengthen the nation's clean air laws almost overnight. In contrast, in the first eight months of...

A Honduran legislative committee voted not to convene a special session of Congress to consider returning the country's ousted leader, in a move likely to dash chances of Manuel Zelaya's returning to power even temporarily under a deal brokered last week by the U.S. On Tuesday, a committee of 13 legislators voted to not convene the special session, opting instead to wait until Congress receives nonbinding legal opinions on the issue from Honduras's Supreme Court, attorney general's office and other institutions. It set no deadline for when the reports had to be received. The decision means a presidential election scheduled...

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution? The Framers created a limited government, thus ensuring that individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow.

In the three decades since the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the rhetoric of revolutionary Islam is little changed. Only now they are building nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them.

An Italian judge on Wednesday began deliberating the fate of 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect in 2003, the first trial in the world involving the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. After a nearly three years of hearings, Judge Oscar Magi heard final arguments before beginning deliberations. A verdict was expected Wednesday. The American suspects -- all but one identified by prosecutors as CIA agents -- are being tried in absentia and are considered fugitives. Their lawyers, who have had no contact with their clients, have entered innocent pleas on their behalf. The Americans are...

There's an old story about a Harvard professor who gets a call from the president (of the United States) and responds that his president is the president of Harvard. Being a professor at Harvard is like that. Academics in Cambridge are a big deal; Harvard is an amazing place; and if you're lucky enough to make it there, you generally never leave. Why would you? I left for the University of Southern California 20 years ago. It was not an obvious move at the time, unless you were a football coach. But I was pregnant with my daughter, and short...