Solyndra, Inc. was supposed to have showcased the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s stimulus and green jobs initiatives, but instead it has become the center of congressional attention for waste, fraud and abuse of such programs. (more)
CPAC speakers led by former Speaker Newt Gingrich sought to blow holes in the recent liberal narrative comparing Barack Obama to Ronald Reagan Thursday. (more)
A column written by Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Intelligence Project, has found its way into an unlikely place — “People’s World,” the official online newspaper of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). (more)
1.) Obama’s jobs team gets green-washed — “President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,” reports Bloomberg News. “Immelt has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama ‘are committed’ to making the U.S. ‘the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.’” According to Bloomberg, “Immelt is among a group of executives — Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney; Motorola Solutions Inc. CEO Greg Brown, and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote — who have voiced support for Obama policies. The four serve on several of the president’s outside advisory boards”–and all four have made a killing on green jobs subsidies (more)
1.) Washington’s Funniest Celebrity tries new routine on ‘This Week’ — White House economic advisor and stand-up comic Austan Goolsbee told some really bad jokes yesterday on “This Week,” alleges David Frum. “I don’t see why anybody’s talking about playing chicken with the…with the debt ceiling.” Goolsbee said yesterday. Also: “If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s…essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history” and that it would “be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” While the aforementioned superlative is debatable, the rest of Goolsbee’s claim is not. As David Frum points out, Goolsbee is jousting with windmills: Two weeks after the election, Rep. John Boehner said, “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.” More likely, writes Frum, is that Obama is playing chicken not with debt, but with Americans’ confidence. That’s not funny at all. (more)
Outgoing Florida Republican Sen. George LeMieux plans to make his Senate colleagues put their money where their mouth is on deficit and debt reduction by forcing them to vote on it before the end of the year. (more)
Yesterday, thousands gathered on the National Mall for the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.” The crowds spent the day being entertained by a variety of performers while sporting plenty of signs. Here is a selection, courtesy of photographer John Rossomando. (more)
Republicans will have President Barack Obama’s czars and his use of regulatory powers to circumvent congressional inaction on issues such as cap and trade in GOP crosshairs if the party takes control in January. (more)
Palin nomination brought out the little community organizers in scores of lefty journos — Charlie Crist is a momma’s boy — University attempts ‘thought reform’ on Christian student — Howard Dean and Newt Gingrich: A match made in the bowels of National Lampoon? — DOJ witness can’t testify in NBPP case — Cop Update: Many Federal police still do not understand the Bill of Rights (more)
American naval supremacy has ensured our nation’s strength both militarily and economically for the past century, but a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report on the Obama administration’s budget proposal suggests that could be coming to an end. (more)
Whenever terrorists motivated by their Islamic faith strike, such as happened recently in Times Square, the left goes into denial mode. They become trapped in their materialist clichés that these attacks have roots in poverty or racism, ala neo-Marxist social theory. This keeps them from confronting reality. (more)
The priestly sex abuse scandals have established a need for the Catholic Church to thoroughly reform itself from within in order to stop the bleeding and regain the confidence of millions of Catholics worldwide whose faith has been shaken by it. The reforms must be real, concrete and pastoral rather than ones that come across as superficial and insincere. (more)
Since the Tea Party movement arose last year, pundits have tried defining it as a Republican movement or as a fringe movement, but the shear number of Americans who identify with it shows otherwise. And its size has the potential to reshape the political landscape for years to come. (more)
Few things have been more disgusting than the countless priestly sex abuse cases that have been publicized around the globe in recent weeks or the Catholic Church’s mishandling of these crimes. (more)
Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak’s revelation the Obama administration tried buying him off in his bid to unseat Sen. Arlen Specter underscores the ongoing ethics problems on the Democratic side of the aisle, not to mention the ethics problem that plagues Washington in general. (more)
The Democrats’ looming plan to use reconciliation to force their unpopular version of health care reform through the Senate stands as a testament to Harry Reid’s failed leadership and his unwillingness to work in a bipartisan fashion. (more)
Republicans and conservatives in particular have been riding high as polls have shown independents moving away from the Democrats and toward them. This has especially been true since Sen. Scott Brown’s win last month in Massachusetts, in a seat once thought unwinnable for a Republican. (more)
Efforts by Democrats to point the finger back at Republican opponents for the explosion of the national debt and deficit in recent years ignores their own dismal track record during the last two years of the Bush administration. (more)
It has been over a year since Barack Obama became president, yet he continues in campaign mode blaming his predecessor for the state of the economy and the deficit in a decidedly unpresidential fashion. (more)
The human calamity that has followed in the wake of the 7.0-magnitude Haitian earthquake that hit on Jan. 12 has filled TV screens around the world for several weeks now and has triggered an outpouring of money and support from around the world. (more)
