RadioActive with Steve Mitton: March 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Santorum slips in Pennsylvania, survey finds

Rick Santorum appeared to be the Republican presidential candidate to beat in Pennsylvania a month ago.

With the state primary four weeks away, Santorum now finds himself nearly tied with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney among the state's Republicans, and support is eroding rapidly, according to a Franklin & Marshall College poll out today.

"The real Rick Santorum has emerged," said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall College Poll.

"Santorum ran a disciplined campaign for eight months, but a month ago he began veering off message into all these cultural and social issues," Madonna said, referring to flare-ups over women in combat and contraceptives. "That may help with his core voters, but they're already with him. This is supposed to be about expanding your base."

Here's the real truth on homework

Research reveals primary school homework offers no real benefit - and only limited results in junior high school.

Only senior students in Years 11 and 12 benefit from after-school work, associate professor Richard Walker said.

"What the research shows is that, in countries where they spend more time on homework, the achievement results are lower," Dr Walker, from Sydney University's Education Faculty, said.

Spanking EPA

Arch Coal received clearance from the Army Corps of Engineers in 2007 to begin construction of the largest coal mine in West Virginia. This represented a quarter-billion-dollar investment that would create 250 jobs directly and create or save thousands more by providing cheap energy to homes, industry and other businesses.

The Obama administration came in and revoked the permit — the first time the EPA in its 40-year history ever revoked such a permit for a coal mine after it was issued. In other words, the federal government reneged on a promise. That is not the first time in history, of course. Ask American Indians about that.

Arch sued the EPA and the case went before a liberal judge appointed by President Obama — Judge Amy Berman Jackson — and to my surprise not only did she uphold the law, not only did she rebuke the agency, but she lampooned its complete assumption of a power not granted it by the duly elected Congress that is authorized in the Constitution.

The section in dispute is Section 404.

Pity the Poor Working Chump

Fifty years' worth of war on poverty has produced little benefit, save for a few valuable lessons. For instance, we've learned about the valiant struggle the disadvantaged wage against capitalist oppression. The homeless, the hungry, and the downtrodden are victims of free-market greed. But there's one participant in Washington's war on poverty who's routinely ignored, one whose plight the pointy-headed elites never champion: the working chump.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, working chumps are identified not by their intellectual prowess but by their productivity. Their status ranges from the professional to the tradesman, the rich to the poor. Such people are driven to meet their own needs and become agitated when others shun that responsibility. While such productive people represent a declining socioeconomic class, they are indispensable. The entitlement wagon is overloaded with passengers who favor the free ride. Did someone not pull that wagon, it would stall. No one would get what they need, much less what they want. Working chumps are the mules who pull the wagon.

Leftists promote entitlement programs as necessary to meeting essential human needs, and there's an element of truth in their position, for there are essential human needs. However, leftists omit a key fact. There exists no right to receive life's essentials at another person's expense.

The Real Obama Truth Squad

The campaign to reelect President Obama has on their web page a Truth Team with a folder that has "Keeping His Word" as the common theme. Governor Romney has taken a lot of heat from the Etch-a-Sketch quip. So the President has drawn from the Slick Willy Teflon man playbook his own Etch-a-Sketch re-setting history. Let's remind President Obama and Joe Biden of their "promises" from their 2008 campaign web page. I printed them for posterity since I knew this day would come. Let's address President Obama's Blueprint for Change - Fiscal.

1. Barack Obama will restore fiscal discipline to Washington. Under President Bush the federal debt increased (over 8 years) from $5.7 trillion to $ 8.8 trillion, an increase of more than 50 percent. It is $15.6 trillion now or 77 percent more than when President Obama started. What is more interesting is to compare the rate of National Debt piling up. Assuming an equal monthly distribution, under President Bush the rate was $30 billion a month. Under President Obama, it's been $190 billion a month. That is not only a six-fold increase, but it means every citizen of the United States is racking up just under $600 of debt a month under President Obama.

Ireland sets May 31 date for EU treaty referendum

Bailed-out Ireland will stage a referendum on the European fiscal treaty May 31 with the government poised to persuade debt-burdened voters to back the measure, the country's foreign minister announced Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore told lawmakers the government was confident of winning majority public support for the pact, which proposes tighter spending and deficit rules for the 17-nation eurozone. Rejection would block Ireland's access to future European bailout funds once its current credit line runs out next year.

"The government will put in place a comprehensive information campaign to ensure that voters are informed about the contents of the treaty, and ... a full debate about the decision that we as a country have to take," Gilmore told lawmakers following a Cabinet meeting to agree on a date for the vote.

Affluence and Fortune

In his “Economic Scene” column in the New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, “The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate.”

Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, “transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent,” not the less fortunate.

But for Mr. Porter, as for the Left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely “less affluent,” they are “less fortunate.”

Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the “affluent” and the “less fortunate” or between the “more fortunate” and the “less fortunate?”

Pollster Luntz says Romney's Veep should come from key state

Veteran pollster and Fox News analyst Frank Luntz said if Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee, he should select one of four possible running mates from electoral vote-rich states that Barack Obama carried in ’08.

Luntz, who was the banquet speaker at the annual Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, spoke to HUMAN EVENTS before he addressed the overflow crowd of 800-plus here at the Radisson Hotel. Asked who he thought Romney’s vice presidential choice would be if he emerges triumphant in the nomination process, Luntz told us “none of us can say what he will do, of course, but remember Romney’s a numbers guy and it would only be natural for him to turn to someone from a large state with many electoral votes and that can be turned around from Obama.”

The pollster specifically cited four candidates who met this criterion: Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida (29 electoral votes) and Rob Portman of Ohio (18 electoral votes), Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (10) and Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia (13). The states of all four of Luntz’s prospects went for Obama over John McCain in ’08.

Lather, Rinse, and Repeat

The killer of French schoolchildren and soldiers turns out to be a man called Mohammed Merah. The story can now proceed according to time-honored tradition:

Stage One: The strange compulsion to assure us that the killer is a “right wing conservative extremist,” in the words of NRO commenter ExpatAsia, echoed by Chrisman and Galt’s Bain. Up north, this view was shared by Canada’s most prominent establishment Jew and the Liberal Party attack poodle Warren Kinsella (whom NR readers may recall from my free-speech cover story, which mentioned the groveling apology he was forced to make to “the Chinese community” after an unfortunately sinophobic cat joke). The insistence that the killer was emblematic of an epidemic of right-wing hate sweeping the planet is, regrettably, no longer operative. Instead, the killer isn’t representative of anything at all.

Mark Steyn: Gradual insolvency about to speed up

I was in Australia earlier this month, and there, as elsewhere on my recent travels, the consensus among the politicians I met (at least in private) was that Washington lacked the will for meaningful course correction, and that, therefore, the trick was to ensure that, when the behemoth goes over the cliff, you're not dragged down with it. It is faintly surreal to be sitting in paneled offices lined by formal portraits listening to eminent persons who assume the collapse of the dominant global power is a fait accompli. "I don't feel America is quite a First World country anymore," a robustly pro-American Aussie told me, with a sigh of regret.

Well, what does some rinky-dink 'roo-infested didgeridoo mill on the other side of the planet know about anything? Fair enough. But Australia was the only major Western nation not to go into recession after 2008. And in the past decade the U.S. dollar has fallen by half against the Oz buck: That's to say, in 2002, one greenback bought you a buck-ninety Down Under; now it buys you 95 cents. More of that a bit later

The Incredible Pliability of Fact and Statistics

This week's report is about energy and the crazy things the President, Democrats, media, college students, and professors believe about energy and why their inability to acknowledge reality and understand economics and statistical evidence places us in such great danger.

Do you believe that Presidents can affect the price of gasoline?

Well, sometimes the media thinks that he can and sometimes they think that, even though he can keep the waters from rising and the climate from changing, he can't. I'm talking, of course, about the disparate treatment the media gave George Bush when gasoline prices spiked to $3.51 per gallon -- even though he and Vice President Cheney tried desperately to override Democrat obstruction and increase production by opening ANWR, permitting drilling on the continental shelf, allowing the extraction of oil from tar sands on federal land and slashing red tape on new refinery and pipeline construction. Back then they blamed Bush.

Obamacare’s seven tax hikes on the middle class

Today marks the second anniversary of the signing of the jobs-killing Obamacare law. That law contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small employers. At least seven of these tax increases fall directly on families making less than $250,000 per year. This is a direct violation of candidate Obama’s “firm pledge” against “any form of tax increase” on these families.

Candidate Obama actually got quite specific about this many times. To pick but one episode, he said on September 12, 2008 that: “I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

Pretty strong language. This was backed up by vice presidential candidate Biden in his debate where he said, “No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama’s plan will see one single penny of their tax raised.”

Is this finally proof we're NOT causing global warming? The whole of the Earth heated up in medieval times without human CO2 emissions, says new study

Current theories of the causes and impact of global warming have been thrown into question by a new study which shows that during medieval times the whole of the planet heated up.

It then cooled down naturally and there was even a 'mini ice age'.

A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that contrary to the ‘consensus’, the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn’t just confined to Europe.

In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica – which means that the Earth has already experience global warming without the aid of human CO2 emissions.

Cold facts: Antarctica actually warmed up during medieval times, contrary to what climate scientists believe

President's Budget Projects 72% Drop in Off-shore Drilling Lease Revenue

With gasoline prices at historic highs, and threatening to go even higher, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who recently revealed he does not even own an automobile, was reported as saying back in September of 2008 (prior to the Obama Administration and his appointment as Secretary of the Department of Energy), that American gasoline prices should be gradually raised over a fifteen year period to encourage energy efficiency. He was quoted in a Wall Street Journal interview back then as stating “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”

If the fact that a man with this ideology serves in the Obama Administration as our Secretary of Energy fails to convince you, perhaps the following recently revealed information from a press release from National Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) will confirm the direction that President Obama intends to take us if he wins re-election in November.

London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has vowed to make the capital city a ‘beacon of Islam’.

In a speech last Friday at the North London Central Mosque, also known as the Finsbury Park Mosque, the Labour candidate said that he was determined to “educate the mass of Londoners” about Islam.

“I want to spend the next four years making sure that every non-muslim in London knows and understands [its] words and message. That will help to cement our city as a beacon that demonstrates the meaning of the words of the Prophet”, he said.

Running for mayor for the fourth time, Mr Livingstone spoke to assembled muslims at the controversial mosqueand described Mohammed’s words in his last sermon as “an agenda for all humanity.”

Here's a must-read post by Aussie blogger Jo Nova – and it's not on her usual topic climate change. The title says it all: The Ground Zero of Global Corruption: it starts with The Currency.

It’s like this. The governments and their central banks make as much free money from thin-air through fractional reserve banking and other methods as they can get away with — it benefits those who “spend that new money first”. They spend it at current prices, and pay it back later, after inflation has decreased its value. The people who pay the difference are those who saved and held money while its purchasing power fell. Speculators grow rich, while retirees and savers get poorer.

Mormons believe that their church is the "only true and living church" because of the divine authority restored through Joseph Smith

Mormons are not Christians in the traditional sense. They hold queer beliefs that would shock many people. Some of these beliefs are downright racist and have some black leaders in Charlotte, N.C. very worried what could happen if Romney manages to get elected as President of the United States. Mormon literature says "dark skinned people" are from "the seed of Cain." "According to this doctrine, it is forbidden to have “interracial marriages” with black people and those that do, will be “cursed” …

Their doctrine said the Negro race is cursed as we come from “the seed of Cain."

Yet Romney has said he is proud of his Mormon faith. "I am very proud of my faith and the faith of my fathers," Romney said. "Well, it's true and I love my faith. And I will… distance myself in any way from my faith."

WE SHOULD QUESTION CANDIDATES RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Stimulus Dollars Disproportionately Went to States Represented by Dems

According to a new report on President Obama’s stimulus package and its effect on the economy, the amount of stimulus money that went to each state was correlated with the number of Democrats in each state’s congressional delegation.

The data is revealed in a new book by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and John R. Lott Jr., a prominent conservative academic.

The book, titled Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future, contains this chart showing the correlation:

The Socialist Apprentice

The fundamental question that a people must ask is whether they want to be independent of their government, or dependent on it? Is government to be a tool that we use when we need it and put away when we don’t, or a master that oversees our affairs and uses us as its tools.

The question is not a new one, though it continues to be asked over and over again, as each generation comes into its own, and examines what it is they want of government. Most people want there to be limitations on government, but at the same time they want government to carry out certain functions for them.

The tipping point between tool and master kicks in when government gains the ability to expand its own parameters independently of the people. It’s that moment when Mickey Mouse realizes the brooms aren’t going to stop, and Dr. Frankenstein realizes the monster isn’t going to sit down and have tea with him after all. It’s that moment when the thing you’ve created takes on a life of its own.

Obama Doesn't Care About Debt

As you may have heard, Senate Democrats haven't bothered to present a budget in more than 1,000 days and counting -- which, unlike many pundits, I don't find particularly upsetting, considering we've been free of a new Democratic budget for 1,000-plus days and counting.

This week, though, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., offered up the House's budget outline, which -- whether misguided, genius, flawed or whatever you might think of it -- is a pretty earnest reflection of the concerns of about half the country. The primitive half. So the White House -- where rational, enlightened grown-ups are represented -- responded like so:

"The House budget once again fails the test of balance, fairness, and shared responsibility. It would shower the wealthiest few Americans with an average tax cut of at least $150,000, while preserving taxpayer giveaways to oil companies and breaks for Wall Street hedge fund managers." It's a waste of time to point out how little of the above statement is true, because no matter what the topic is or how critical the consequences are, the White House is going to claim Daddy Warbucks isn't pulling his weight. It polls well.

Oh, and oil companies and hedge fund managers. The axis of evil.

Court Sides With Property Owners Over EPA

The Supreme Court has sided with an Idaho couple in a property rights case, ruling they can go to court to challenge an Environmental Protection Agency order that blocked construction of their new home and threatened fines of more than $30,000 a day.

Wednesday's decision is a victory for Mike and Chantell Sackett, whose property near a scenic lake has sat undisturbed since the EPA ordered a halt in work in 2007. The agency said part of the property was a wetlands that could not disturbed without a permit.

In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court rejected EPA's argument that allowing property owners quick access to courts to contest orders like the one issued to the Sacketts would compromise the agency's ability to deal with water pollution.

"Compliance orders will remain an effective means of securing prompt voluntary compliance in those many cases where there is no substantial basis to question their validity," Scalia said.

Pond scum stinks. And so do the Obama administration’s enormous, taxpayer-funded “investments” in politically connected biofuel companies. While the president embarks on a green rehabilitation tour this week to quell growing public outrage about big green boondoggles, the White House continues to cultivate a cozy algae racket.

Obama’s promotion of algae as a fuel source at a campaign speech in Miami last month caught the nation’s attention. But algae companies have been banking on administration support from Day One. In December 2008, when the White House announced the nomination of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the CEO of Florida-based biofuels startup Algenol, Paul Woods, exulted to Time magazine: “You see this smile on my face? It’s not going away. Everyone is really excited by this.”

Democrats' Policies Aren't In Young Voters' Interest

Future: Mitt Romney said Monday that he fails to "see how a young American can vote" for a Democrat. He may have something there. Coming generations will be doomed by the progressive policies of today.

Outside of their desire to intern capitalism and replace it with a euro-style welfare statism, Democrats are not a forward-looking group.

Although they fancy themselves as "progressives," their ideas are truly regressive. The future? For the Democrats, it's all about the next election:

US Secret Service Says No Anti-Obama Rallies Allowed!

Over the weekend I received an email from my local TEA Party Director that Barack Hussein Obama would fly into Carlsbad, NM airport on Wednesday 21 March, in order to “make an appearance at the South Eastern NM oilfields.” However, apparently after hearing that an immediate anti-Obama rally had been planned, Obama and his entourage changed the landing location to Roswell, NM… a city 77 miles from Carlsbad.

Note: Interesting as, despite the fear and trepidation Obama is trying valiantly to instill into the American people, his own panic seems to be showing.

When the US Secret Service discovered that the enterprising group of our Southeast New Mexico Patriots had, also, switched their plans and would drive to Roswell to engage in peaceful and Constitutionally allowed dissent against the Obama policies of the destruction of the United States of America, the SS began to put their respective feet down. First, the SS made a strong request that the anti-Obama rally not occur…at all. When the TEA Party members advised them that they still planned to do so, it was announced that the main road (Earl Cummings Loop) into and out of the Roswell airport would be closed.

The President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, has generated so much fear that the most common theme of posted comments and private communications is that he will refuse to relinquish power if defeated in November or that, under some pretext, he will declare a state of martial law.

Many, myself included, did not like the Patriot Act that was enacted following 9/11 but there is little evidence that this law has been abused to deprive Americans of their fundamental rights and freedom, though surely some suspected of being terrorists were detained.

An Executive Order posted on the White House website on Friday, March 16, 2012, has generated a wave of fear. It is officially about “National Defense Resources Preparedness” and its stated policy addresses “national defense resource policies and programs under the Defense Production Act of 1950.”

The National Debt has now increased more during President Obama's three years and two months in office than it did during 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency.

The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

The latest posting from the Bureau of Public Debt at the Treasury Department shows the National Debt now stands at $15.566 trillion. It was $10.626 trillion on President Bush's last day in office, which coincided with President Obama's first day.

The National Debt also now exceeds 100% of the nation's Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services.

Crony Capitalism and Algae Energy

Why on earth did President Obama offer algae as a solution to America's energy problems? I suspect that if he could, he would press the rewind button and erase the comment, as it has exposed him to widespread ridicule from heavyweights like Charles Krauthammer. But the question remains: why bring it up at all?

An answer may lie in his addiction to crony capitalism. Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon reports:

Solazyme, a San Francisco-based firm that specializes in the plant matter, has received more than $25 million in federal grants and contracts as part of Obama administration's controversial stimulus package, and is poised to receive millions more as part of the president's recent efforts to promote green biofuels such as algae.

The firm employs a former member of the Obama-Biden transition team who, according to one online bio, "played a key role in developing the energy provisions in the economic stimulus bill."

The Executive Order Controversy

On Friday, 3/16/2012, President Obama issued an executive order called "National Defense Resources Preparedness" (NDRP), posting it on the White House's official website.

Almost immediately, the blogosphere exploded with the news. Citizens began calling their TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers, demanding coverage. At the time of this writing, the furor has yet to abate.

The NDRP traces its origin to the Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950, which attempted to establish a framework for placing the nation on a "war footing" as quickly and in as efficient a manner as possible should events warrant. In an age of highly industrialized warfare, the basic building blocks of military success are composed of mundane elements such as supply chains, resource availability, parts, access to raw materials, and skilled labor.

Over the years, the DPA has seen many revisions, and the executive orders issued to implement those revisions presupposed an imminent threat of war. In 1994, then-President Clinton issued Executive Order 12919, which expanded the provisions of the DPA rather dramatically, declaring its applicability to peacetime.

The need for the DPA is legitimate. A great deal of our energy infrastructure, utilities, and financial system are in fact entirely private enterprises, not public/government entities. Getting the government running again in the event of a catastrophic attack is one thing, but not providing the same reconstitution effort for the privately owned elements of the nation's infrastructure would still leave us without electric power generation, food distribution, etc.

In the event of cataclysmic war or a natural disaster of similar scope, we could not afford to wait on the private sector to recover at an ordinary pace with purely private funds. Under such circumstances, the need would be urgent and the resources few.

More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them.

Earlier this month, Petraeus mused about the emergence of an “Internet of Things” — that is, wired devices — at a summit for In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm. “‘Transformational’ is an overused word, but I do believe it properly applies to these technologies,” Petraeus enthused, “particularly to their effect on clandestine tradecraft.”

All those new online devices are a treasure trove of data if you’re a “person of interest” to the spy community. Once upon a time, spies had to place a bug in your chandelier to hear your conversation. With the rise of the “smart home,” you’d be sending tagged, geolocated data that a spy agency can intercept in real time when you use the lighting app on your phone to adjust your living room’s ambiance.

Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (50 U.S.C. App. 2061 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:

PART I - PURPOSE, POLICY, AND IMPLEMENTATION

Section 101. Purpose. This order delegates authorities and addresses national defense resource policies and programs under the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (the "Act").

Sec. 102. Policy. The United States must have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency. The domestic industrial and technological base is the foundation for national defense preparedness. The authorities provided in the Act shall be used to strengthen this base and to ensure it is capable of responding to the national defense needs of the United States.

Sec. 103. General Functions. Executive departments and agencies (agencies) responsible for plans and programs relating to national defense (as defined in section 801(j) of this order), or for resources and services needed to support such plans and programs, shall:

The President’s Enumerated Powers, Rulemaking by Executive Agencies, & Executive Orders

On election night, November 2, 2010, Rep. John Boehner said in his victory speech:

...While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it is the president who sets the agenda for our government. ... [emphasis added]

Next morning, Ezra Klein commented in the Cult of the President lives on:

I’d like Boehner to show us where in the Constitution it says that the president sets the agenda for the government.

Sales of Fossil Fuels Produced from Federal and Indian Lands, FY 2003 through FY 2011

This paper was prepared in response to recent requests that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) provide updated summary information regarding fossil fuel production on Federal and Indian lands¹ in the United States. It provides EIA's current best estimates of fossil fuels sales from production on Federal and Indian lands for fiscal year ² (FY) 2003 through FY 2011.

Although EIA has regularly published summary information on this topic in its Annual Energy Review, it should be noted that the data regarding fossil fuel sales (for purposes of assessing royalty payments from production on Federal and Indian lands) are collected by various programs within the Department of the Interior (DOI), and not by EIA. The sales volumes reported in this paper, as those in EIA's earlier summaries, rely exclusively on information provided by the DOI. However, this report includes some categories of production that were not included in our earlier summaries, such as volumes on which no royalties were paid due to lease provisions and those that were transferred to add to the Nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve under Royalty-in-Kind programs. It also reports all sales in the fiscal year in which they were made, unlike previous summaries which reported some sales in the year that royalties were collected. The sales reported in this paper provide a better proxy for marketed production volumes than do those reported in previous summaries.

Internet pornography could conceivably become a thing of the past if Rick Santorum is elected president.

The unapologetic social conservative, currently in second place behind Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination, has promised to crack down on the distribution of pornography if elected.

Santorum says in a statement posted to his website, “The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws.”

How The Race Stacks Up From Here

Romney is on track to win the nomination when the primaries and caucuses are over on June 6th.

Currently, Romney has 498 of the 1,144 he needs to be nominated. He now has 53% of the selected delegates, a clip he has been maintaining since the start of the process. Santorum has 25%, Gingrich 15%, and Paul 7%.

CURRENT DELEGATE COUNT
Romney	498	53%
Santorum	239	25%
Gingrich	139	15%
Paul	69	7%

Romney is very likely to win the following winner-take-all primaries:

The Vetting: Obama Teaches Constitutional Law -- Part I

Let’s take a trip via the wayback machine to the hallowed classrooms of the University of Chicago Law School. The year is 1996, and a young lecturer named Barack Obama is teaching constitutional law to a group of students. His first final exam question is about whether homosexuals can be barred from receiving state health care coverage for their infertility treatments.

The question deals with a hypothetical lesbian couple that wants to have a baby. Their state prevents health providers from providing infertility treatments for unwed couples; the couple’s state-provided healthcare therefore refuses them coverage for such procedures

CBO Report: Spending Is Driving Debt to “Unsupportable” Level

The most significant numbers in today’s updated estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) are not the official “baseline” figures. More important are CBO’s “alternative” projections, which make clear once again that too much spending—not too little tax revenue—is the biggest threat to the country’s fiscal and economic health. Among other things, the alternative figures show that:

Federal spending will consume record levels of resources as a share of the economy, reaching nearly one-quarter of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022.

Without tax increases, tax revenue would still reach its historical average, but uncontrolled spending would outpace revenue. This would push federal debt to levels that the CBO calls “unsupportable.”

The record of President Obama's first three years in office is in, and nothing that happens now can go back and change that. What that record shows is that President Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. The American people are much poorer now because of that, and will remain poorer, falling farther and farther behind, until we change course and restore traditional American prosperity.

The recession started in December, 2007. Go to the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research to see the complete history of America's recessions. What that history shows is that before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of 10 months, with the longest previously lasting 16 months.

Dude, Where's My Recovery?

When he was running for the Oval Office four years ago amid $4-a-gallon gasoline prices, then-Sen. Barack Obama dismissed the idea of expanded oil production as a way to relieve the pain at the pump.

"Even if you opened up every square inch of our land and our coasts to drilling," he said. "America still has only 3% of the world's oil reserves." Which meant, he said, that the U.S. couldn't affect global oil prices.

President Obama's Department of Justice -- led by Attorney General Eric Holder -- has found a new way to make the Americans with Disabilities Act pay off for Democratic trial lawyer campaign donors.

Since the ADA first became law in 1990, the DOJ has been issuing "guidelines" that businesses must follow to comply with a multitude of the nation's civil rights laws.

For example, if a restaurant bathroom has a light switch that is 52 inches above the floor, then that business is in compliance. But if the light switch is 53 inches above the floor, the restaurant owner is a civil rights violator subject to fines from the government and liable for civil damages from any disabled individual who ever used the bathroom.

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Obama’s Claim That Energy Production Is at All-Time High Selective on Facts, Experts Say

On Saturday, President Barack Obama claimed that under his administration, oil production in America was “at an eight-year high,” that the number of operating oil rigs had quadrupled, and that millions of acres had been opened for drilling, which were assertions that did not present all the facts, said energy experts.

While Obama’s comments were technically accurate, he was leaving out vital information that gives a fuller picture of the situation, according to the Institute for Energy Research (IER). “Of course, he’s right — to a point,” the DC-based energy group told CNSNews.com in an e-mail.

“In classic fashion, he’s using a technicality to skirt the facts and keep the myth of energy scarcity alive,” the IER email said. “The reality is that the U.S. has enough recoverable oil for the next 200 years, despite only having 2 percent of the world’s current proven oil reserves.” (Emphasis added.)

Your tome is up... Encyclopedia Britannica ends its print edition after 244 years as it fully embraces digital age

As the march of the iPad and Kindle continues unabated, the oldest manufacturer of encyclopedias has become one of the first major book publishing casualties of the digital age by cutting out its entire print operation.

The Encyclopedia Britannica, which has been in continuous print since it was first published in Edinburgh in 1768, said today that it will continue with digital versions currently available online.

The final set of the 32-volume printed edition remains available for sale on the company's website for £890 ($1,400).

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What a run: Encyclopedia Britannica is the longest-running manufacturer of printed encyclopedias, with its first edition printed in Scotland in 1768

Congressman & Obama Ally Accepts Social Justice Award From Communist Party Affiliate

“Rudy Lazano and I worked closely together to try and build a relationship between Latino and African American activists and union types. We called ourselves progressives.”

Congressman Danny K Davis, Feb. 26, 2012.

A longtime ally of President Barack Obama, Congressman Danny K. Davis [D-IL] was in Chicago recently accepting the Social Justice Award from People’s World, a Communist-based website.

The editorial mission is partisan to the working class, people of color, women, young people, seniors, LGBT community, to international solidarity; to popularize the ideas of Marxism and Bill of Rights socialism. The websites enjoy a special relationship with the Communist Party USA, founded in 1919, and publish its news and views. [Emphasis added]

We Are All Libertarians Now

Less than two months after Barack Obama's inauguration, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story written by its editor, Jon Meacham, with the title "We Are All Socialists Now." The giddy faux-journalists in the predominately leftist media were still intoxicated from their November 2008 victory parties, achieved after easily winning the White House and Democrat control of nearly 60% of the Senate and House Representatives.

In the three years and two months that have now defined the Obama presidency, the United States of America is not the same country with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Constitution. ObamaCare, the government takeover of major corporations (Chrysler and General Motors), executive power run amok with 42 unaccountable czars and over three-fourths not confirmed by the Senate, the horrific Dodd-Frank bill that takes over the financial sector, and the Federal Reserve-Gone-Wild and its secret unaccountable shenanigans now threatening to collapse the entire system are but a few examples of the extreme partisanship now ruling our country against its laws and against the will of the majority of people. Nearly all the legislation was passed on strict party lines. The dramatic abuse of lawless power which inspired Tea Parties and a Republican landslide to take back the House in the midterm 2010 elections has been neutered to a whimper as the Obama administration has usurped power and made Congress nearly meaningless. What we are witnessing is a rare bit of sincerity from the neo-Marxist, proto-dictator actually doing what he said five days before the 2008 election when he told us he was going to "fundamentally transform" the United States of America. This is one campaign promise we did not want to see happen, even if half of us didn't know it at the time.

The Wall Street Journal assessed Obama's worldview and disdain for free markets:

According to Natural News, a California man named James Stewart is alleging torture at the hands of Los Angeles County law enforcement officers after his arrest for selling raw milk.

This from a federal government which holds that pizza is a vegetable.

NaturalNews can now report that 65-year-old senior citizen James Stewart, a raw milk farmer with no criminal history, was nearly tortured to death in the LA County jail this past week. He survived a “week of torturous Hell” at the hands of LA County jail keepers who subjected him to starvation, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, loss of blood circulation to extremities, verbal intimidation, involuntary medical testing and even subjected him to over 30 hours of raw biological sewage filth containing dangerous pathogens.

This is from a county that has targeted and terrorized James Stewart for the supposed crime of selling fresh milk containing “dangerous pathogens.” That’s right – the only “crime” James has ever committed is being the milk man and distributing milk that is openly and honestly kept fresh and raw instead of pasteurized.

Liberal intolerance, by the numbers

At last we have statistical evidence that liberals are less tolerant of views that disagree with theirs than are conservatives. Andrew Malcolm of Investor's Business Daily points us to the data, found in a Pew Center for the Internet and American Life Project study.

The new research found that instead of engaging in civil discourse or debate, fully 16% of liberals admitted to blocking, unfriending or overtly hiding someone on a social networking site because that person expressed views they disagreed with. That's double the percentage of conservatives and more than twice the percentage of political moderates who behaved like that.

The proportion jumps even higher when someone on a social site disagrees with a liberal's post.

Kissinger vows to China: Jeb Bush Will Be Next President

A shocking report prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Prime Minister Putin on the just completed meeting between China’s Vice Premier Li Keqiang and former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger states that the Chinese were told that former Florida Governor John Ellis “Jeb” Bush, brother to the former US President and son of another, will be elected as the next American leader despite his currently not even being on the ballot.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping met with Jeb Bush [photo top left] yesterday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing where both pledged to advance cooperation between their two countries and, this report says, agreed that once Bush had taken office a ‘new era’ would begin in US-China relations.

According to this report, Kissinger told Keqiang that the Republican Party election process to select their nominee to run against President Obama was“completely manipulated” to ensure that their 2012 Convention would be “deadlocked” thus allowing for Jeb Bush to be nominated as a “consensus candidate” and thus his parties leader.

At the same time that conservative critics deride Mitt Romney as a synthetic creature of an arrogant, out-of-touch establishment, leading voices of that same establishment (the prestige press, powerful pundits, cable and network news) have developed an obvious and undeniable hostility toward the former Massachusetts governor.

Guggenheim: Only Negative About Obama Is "Too Many Accomplishments"

When asked what the "negatives" are in his campaign documentary about President Obama's first term in office, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim says that "there were too many accomplishments." He goes on to say that he is "quite in awe of him as a leader."

Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It

A growing body of psychology research shows that incompetence deprives people of the ability to recognize their own incompetence. To put it bluntly, dumb people are too dumb to know it. Similarly, unfunny people don't have a good enough sense of humor to tell.

This disconnect may be responsible for many of society's problems.

With more than a decade's worth of research, David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, has demonstrated that humans find it "intrinsically difficult to get a sense of what we don't know." Whether an individual lacks competence in logical reasoning, emotional intelligence, humor or even chess abilities, the person still tends to rate his or her skills in that area as being above average.

A Guide to the Liberal Mind

As a great fan of Jeff Foxworthy, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to use his hilarious you-might-be-a-redneck comedy routine in an attempt to characterize the liberal mindset (tweaking Jeff's formula a bit to convert it from the suppositional to the unconditional). So, with apologies to the wonderful country comedian, here are some of the notable features of the liberal's mental landscape:

If you believe that freedom of expression is sacrosanct but would like nothing better than to deny it to anyone who doesn't share your views, you are a liberal.
If you believe that the 1^st Amendment separates church from state, but not state from church, you are a liberal.
If you believe that the 2^nd Amendment was the founding fathers' big mistake and that the 10^th Amendment shouldn't be taken seriously, you are a liberal.
If you believe that endlessly discussing a problem amounts to actually solving it, you are a liberal.
If you believe that the results of progressive programs are irrelevant and that only good intentions count, you are a liberal.
If you believe that Mark Foley, who wrote salacious e-mails to a young but legally adult congressional page, was an evil libertine, while Gerry Studds, who had sex with an underage congressional page, was a knight in shining armor, you are a liberal intellectual.
If you believe that Obama is an intellectual giant whose IQ is off the charts even though you have no idea what his IQ actually is, you are a liberal.

Memo to the kvetchers: Get a life --- especially when dealing with actions by strangers after death

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In a column many years ago, I described how I once attempted to chart a family tree. Most of my father's family had been killed in Auschwitz, and my efforts to trace their genealogy left me, I wrote, with a family tree that "has stumps where branches ought to be'' and "gets narrower, not wider, as it grows.''

A woman phoned me the morning that column appeared. She said she was a Mormon, and wanted to add the names of my father's massacred relatives — the column had mentioned about 18 of them by name — to the Mormon Church's vast genealogical archives. I told her that I certainly had no objection. Indeed, I was grateful for any gesture that might help preserve some remembrance of these family members whose lives had been so cruelly cut short.

Stake President of the United States

A few years back, a hive of hornets decided to make its nest on top of a second-story swamp cooler outside my cousin’s Boston-area home. My cousin made an ill-fated attempt to remove the hornets, which resulted in a two-story fall and a broken arm.

“This looks like a job for your home teacher,” said my cousin’s home teacher.

The home teacher brought over his own ladder and clothed himself in homemade beekeeping gear. He then made his way to the hornet’s nest and gathered the whole thing up in a garbage bag, avoiding any stings or the more severe injuries that had beset my cousin. He did this with no public fanfare, no accolades, and no thought of collecting payment for his efforts.

It’s Coming: Union, Leftist Leaders Announce ‘99% Spring?’… and Traning in ‘Places of Worship’

Since Occupy Wall Street seemingly went into hibernation (we note seemingly because the movement keeps popping up despite what some national outlets are reporting), The Blaze has brought you plenty of analysis theorizing that the spring could be an even bigger time for the movement. Now, it looks like those theories have been confirmed: the unions and other leftists have announced a “99% spring.”

“We are at a crossroads as a country,” a letter on the site dedicated to the new movement says. “We have a choice to make. Greater wealth for a few or opportunity for many. Tax breaks for the richest or a fair shot for the rest of us. A government that can be bought by the highest bidder, or a democracy that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

It continues: “The choice is in our hands. This spring, we will act on that choice and rise up in the tradition of our forefathers and foremothers. We will not be complicit with the suffering in our families for another year. We will prepare ourselves for sustained non-violent direct action.”

‘Burn the White House’ – Iran answers Obama apology

The Muslim world should not accept an apology issued by U.S. President Barack Obama over the burning of Korans in an American base in Afghanistan, a top Iranian military commander said on Saturday, adding that nothing short of “burning the White House can relieve the wound of us.” …

Responding to Obama’s apology on Saturday, the commander of Iran’s Basij force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqd claimed that the holy book was burned by U.S. forces over the heavy slap it has been given by Islam,” urging Muslims worldwide to reject the American apology.

Buy a Gun & Keep Your Powder Dry: Economists Warn of Looming Economic 9/11

Left to Right: Harry Dent, Robert Prechte, & Gerald Celente

Despite recent reports that the U.S. economy is “recovering” and that there are signs of economic growth, some analysts are less than thrilled with what they see in the near future. In fact, they’re downright scared.

Harry Dent, author of “The Great Crash Ahead,” believes that the global debt bubble is going to burst and when it does, there will be a massive market crash. It should be noted that this is a revision of his earlier prediction that a crash would hit in 2012. He says he modified his forecast because the global central banks have been pumping the markets with so much money, stocks have been given a temporary boost. But he warns that as soon as the short-lived boost comes to an end, the crash will be hard.

“This will be a repeat of 2008-09, only bigger, when it finally hits,” Dent told USA Today.

Watch a discussion of this topic from Monday night’s broadcast of “Real News From The Blaze” by clicking here.

Gerald Celente, a market analyst at the Trends Research Institute, believes Americans should brace themselves for what he calls an “economic 9/11.” He blames policymakers for their inability to solve the world’s financial and economic woes, according to the USA Today report.

Cavuto: Gas prices aren't rising, the dollar is falling

Enough.

This whole, blame the evil oil companies for this gas spiral.

Enough.

People who know better sounding like they have brains made out of butter.

I've heard the prattling on, now time for some basic facts to sink in.

Gas prices aren't rising.

The dollar is falling.

Let me explain that.

Oil is priced in dollars.

Dollars are getting cheaper.

Global warming causes snow and volcanoes

Everything proves global warming to the true believers.

If it floods, that proves global warming.

If it doesn’t rain, that proves global warming.

If it is warm, that proves global warming.

If it is cold, that proves global warming.

And if everything proves it — nothing does really.

Now we have this nonsense from the Telegraph:

Climate change means autumn levels of sea ice have dropped by almost 30 percent since 1979 – but this is likely to trigger more frequent cold snaps such as those that brought blizzards to the UK earlier this month. And Arctic sea ice could be to blame. Dr Jiping Liu and colleagues studied the extensive retreat of the ice in the summer and its slow recovery focusing on the impacts of this phenomenon on weather in the Northern Hemisphere. Information about snow cover, sea level pressure, surface air temperature and humidity was used to generate model simulations for the years 1979-2010. The researchers say dramatic loss of ice may alter atmospheric circulation patterns and weaken the westerly winds that blow across the North Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Europe.

CURL: Can you really afford four more years?

In January 2009, when President Obama was sworn in, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $1.68.

Today, it's more than double that: The price has reached $5 in parts of California and $6 just outside Florida's Disney World. In fact, prices have set a record, being so high so early in the year. By Memorial Day, America's first big travel weekend of the year, gas nationwide will average $4 and above, industry analysts predict.

Candidate Obama made political hay of the issue throughout 2008, boldly asserting that he - and he alone - was most able to bring prices down. He repeatedly said there was "no silver bullet" and "no quick fix," but on the campaign trail in Indianapolis, he told Americans, "You shouldn't have to accept any more excuses as to why it can't be done."

More than three years into office, that's all Mr. Obama offers - excuses. He blames oil companies for making a profit; blames "speculators" for pushing up the price of oil; blames Congress for not doing away with oil-industry tax breaks; blames world producers for limiting outflow to drive up prices.

Here Comes Obama's 3 AM Phone Call

In the next 60 days Obama's presidential career will finally meet that concrete wall of reality. He will either fail or survive. Trouble is, he might take many innocent people with him if he fails.

So far, the most hyped-up and unqualified president in US history has shown no capacity at all to act, in the face of a do-or-die challenge. This is the ultimate test of character, the one that John F. Kennedy met well enough in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. This is the test that Jimmy Carter failed so miserably that Ronald Reagan beat him handily in the following election. This is the same test of reality that every single Democratic Administration has tried to avoid; it's the reason why Bill Clinton refused to do anything about Osama Bin Laden when he had four separate chances to take him out.

This time, abject apologies to ranting Pakistani mobs will not make a smidgen of difference. Even Axelrod's disinformation campaigns can't save Obama now, because that 3 am phone call is almost sure to come by April Fool's Day of 2012, when the real fool will stand revealed to the world.

On or about April 1 of 2012, that 3 AM phone call will reach the White House. We know what it will be -- which is itself a sign of stunning incompetence in this White House. None of this information should ever be public. Ever.