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Valerie Jarrett is widely promoted as President Barack Obama’s “Ultimate Insider” according to the New York Times, and “barack’s rock”, according to Vogue Magazine. She currently serves as our President’s closest White House advisor, just as Karen Hughes assisted President George W. Bush. She was Deputy Chief of Staff for Mayor Richard Daley, during which time (1991) she hired Michelle Robinson, then engaged to Barack Obama, away from a private law firm. Valerie’s mother, Barbara Bowman, started the Erikson Institute (www.erikson.edu) in 1966, a liberal “progressive” educational organization based in Chicago, IL. Valerie’s father, Vernon Jarrett, began his journalism career...

Video On SiteThis is one freaking hospital. There are 5,764 hospitals in the United States. What is the total cost to the taxpayer? From CNS News: The cost of treating illegal aliens amounts to nearly $11 billion a year, according to calculations done by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a non-profit group that opposes illegal immigration. And that cost is not expected to go away if a health insurance reform bill becomes law.Who ends up footing the bill? In fact, state governments bear the heaviest burden for subsidizing the health care of illegal immigrants. Martin said he calculated...

Biden Makes Unannounced Trip to Iraq Washington Post - Scott Wilson - ‎2 hours ago‎ As he emerged from his C-17 aircraft into a hot dusk about 4:50 pm local time, the vice president was greeted by Gen. ...    US Vice President Visits Iraq, Meets with Leaders Voice of America - ‎3 hours ago‎ By VOA News US Vice President Joe Biden has arrived in Iraq for talks with top Iraqi leaders and to visit American troops. The White House says Biden will ...   Mortars hit Baghdad Green Zone during Biden visit Reuters - Ross Colvin, Michael Christie - ‎33 minutes ago‎...

There’s an old story about frogs in a pot. If you turn the heat up slowly enough you can cook them alive because by the time they notice that it’s too hot in the pot, the have lost their ability to jump out. Think of the American people as the frogs. And Washington DC as the kitchen. Over the years (many many years, like since at least the 1930’s, perhaps since the teens of last century), both political parties have been advocates of cooking the frogs. The Republicans have advocated a slow simmer, because if you cook the frogs too...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A key House committee chairman says proposals President Barack Obama set out in his health care speech are causing problems for Democrats trying to finalize health legislation in the House. Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel of New York says House Democrats would have to slash subsidies to the poor to get their bill to the $900 billion, 10-year price tag Obama specified. Rangel also noted that the president didn't mention the new income tax on the wealthy that House Democrats want to use to pay for their bill, favoring a different approach instead.

Jessica Simpson's beloved maltipoo Daisy was grabbed by a wild coyote that then vanished with the small dog, the singer wrote via Twitter Monday night. "My heart is broken because a coyote took my precious Daisy right in front of our eyes. HORROR!" she Tweeted. The message, which also offered a reward, asked that anyone with information about the caramel-colored pup e-mail this address, findingmissdaisy@gmail.com.

So what if his network is drawing a larger audience than its combined competition? So what if one of his newest shows has drawn unprecedented numbers for a start-up that airs at 5 p.m.? According to Newsweek's Howard Fineman, Fox News President Roger Ailes is tarnishing his own personal reputation. It could just be sour grapes for Fineman, who is affiliated with rival network MSNBC and was appearing on that network's "Countdown" with fill-in host David Shuster, but he attacked Fox host Glenn Beck and the 9/12 protestors he helped inspire. "Well, he can - he can pretend to cry...

NUEVO PROGRESO — The Winter Texans have gone home, and visitors who usually cross the border to frequent this city in the slow summer months aren’t coming here this year. Community leaders say tourism in this tiny border town has plummeted in recent months. Business, they claim, has declined by 60 percent this summer compared to the wintertime. The economic bogeyman isn’t global recession, though. It’s a June 1 change to U.S. travel rules requiring that all U.S. citizens have a passport or PASS Card in hand to return to the country through a land port of entry. People in...

First, I generally like Howard Kurtz. He's nowhere near my favorite pundits but more often than not, he's fairly thoughtful. He's certainly near the top of the so called MSM, of which he is a part of. That said, his latest piece is pure nonsense. Kurtz attempts to tackle the totally manufactured controversy that some are opposing the President because they are racist.

Democrats already have a problem with coal-producing states over their cap-and-trade bill, and Harry Reid will likely find the Senate Democrats from those states less than enthused about killing their local economies. Senators from agricultural states may want to take a close look, too. A new study shows that, while some farmers may gain in the short term through the sale of carbon credits, the cap-and-trade system will hurt a wide swath of the American agricultural sector: A new study making the rounds of Capitol Hill shows Iowa farms could potentially benefit from a cap-and-trade bill passed by the House...

Evangelicals believe in many things: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, church attendance, homeschooling, Fox News, abstinence, personal holiness, toupees, leisure suits, mission work, Dockers, golf, spanking, and dinner, early and often. But the natural starting point for identifying evangelicals by their beliefs is with their best-known doctrine: hell....IN A HANDBASKET Evangelicals believe certain people are going to hell -- you, for example, unless you already happen to be an evangelical. But behind the hellfire and brimstone talk are core beliefs that have deep meaning for evangelicals. Here are the three most important ones:CORE BELIEF #1 -- Every person has...

urn to tennis and we see this week a pathetic Serena Williams in a profanity-ridden rant, because she is being beaten badly on the court and apparently cannot handle the self-induced humiliation, and so goes ballistic over an apparently bad call. I am sure she would have preferred, as in the past, the racist- to the profanity-card, had not the targeted umpire herself been a person of color. Of course, John McEnroe, Ilie Natase and Jimmy Connors set the present low standards in tennis. Ms. Williams is only following in their ends-justify-the-means footsteps. In about a week, her father will...

Once upon a time, before I began an interview with Rep. Charles Rangel, I was warned by an aide not to bring up the 1970 race in which the upstart Rangel defeated the virtually legendary Adam Clayton Powell to gain his House seat. In the intervening years, Powell had gone from has-been to icon, with both a state office building and a boulevard named for him in Harlem, and it did Rangel no good in his district to be remembered as the man who brought down Powell -- a little bit of history that desperately needed airbrushing. This, we are...

downloaded audio clip of Glenn Beck from his radio share earlier today expressing his outrage over the growing ACORN scandal

The 40-year-old "comedian" Jack Black went on the "dark side" during the MTV Awards praying to the devil. Black, who was promoting a heavy metal video game called Brütal Legend, asked the "Dear Dark Lord Satan" to bless the rock star nominees with "continued success in the music industry." "I was mortified when Jack Black lead everyone in a prayer to satan. It was no joke," said Samantha Taylor of California. "The audience held hands and did it. I was a fan, but not anymore." Black made his grand entrace wearing extra muscles and a battle axe. "During the Awards,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States will probably need to deploy more troops to Afghanistan despite almost doubling the size of its force there this year, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday. The assessment by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the clearest signal yet that commanders will tell President Barack Obama in the coming weeks that they need extra forces to defeat Taliban insurgents. "A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces. And, without question, more time and more commitment to the protection of the Afghan people and to the development of...

Just days after posting this item about Brazil's most popular priest, I found this little nugget, which shows just what the Church is up against down there. Want to know what's luring a new generation of Brazilians away from the Church? Evangelical churches offering, among other things, fight nights and tattoo parlors. From the New York Times: The atmosphere was electric at Reborn in Christ Church on “Extreme Fight” night. Churchgoers dressed in jeans and sneakers, many with ball caps turned backward, lined a makeshift boxing ring to cheer on bare-chested jujitsu fighters. They screamed when a fan favorite, Fábio...

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Mexico announced recently that it will decriminalize the possession of "small amounts of drugs"—marijuana, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamines, heroin and opium—"for personal use." Individuals who are caught by law enforcement with quantities below established thresholds will no longer face criminal prosecution. A person apprehended three times with amounts below the minimum, though, will face mandatory treatment. For the government of President Felipe Calderón, which has spent the last three years locked in mortal combat with narcotrafficking cartels, this seems counterproductive. Is the government effectively surrendering to the realities of the market for mind-altering substances? Or could it be that the new...

Down at the Chinese outlet store in Albany known as Wal-Mart, Chinese tires have so successfully undercut U.S.-made tires that the Cooper Tire factory in that south Georgia town had to shut down. Twenty-one hundred Georgians lost their jobs. The tale of Cooper Tire and what it portends is told in last week's Washington Post by Peter Whoriskey. How could tires made on the other side of the world, then shipped to Albany, be sold for less than tires made in Albany?