Russian Leaders Laugh At Barack Obama

But then I imagine it'd be hard for any world leader to respect a Godless, far-Left, mom jeans-wearing POTUS who throws like a girl:

Russia’s deputy prime minister laughed off President Obama’s sanction against him today  asking “Comrade @BarackObama” if “some prankster” came up with the list.

The Obama administration hit 11 Russian and Ukrainian officials with sanctions today as punishment for Russia’s support of Crimea’s referendum. Among them: aides to President Vladimir Putin, a top government official, senior lawmakers, Crimean officials, the ousted president of Ukraine, and a Ukrainian politician and businessman allegedly tied to violence against protesters in Kiev.

It remains to be seen whether the sanctions will dissuade Russia from annexing Crimea, but one an early clue that they will not be effective came just hours later when President Putin signed a decree recognizing Crimea as an independent state, perhaps an early step towards annexation.

U.S. official have warned of additional sanctions for Russian action, hoping it will deter Russia from any further aggression towards Ukraine, but it didn’t appear to upset the often outspoke Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

Rogozin, a friend of actor Steven Seagal,  took to Twitter to tweak Obama, tweeting  he thinks “some prankster” came up with the sanctions list.

In a later tweet addressed to “Comrade @BarackObama,” he asked, “what should do those who have neither accounts nor property abroad? Or U didn’t think about it?”

Another Russian on the sanctions list, Vladislav Surkov, also seemed unconcerned.

Surkov,  a top Putin ideologue often called the Kremlin’s grey cardinal, reportedly told a Russian newspaper, “It’s a big honor for me. I don’t have accounts abroad. The only things that interest me in the U.S. are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work. I lose nothing.”

Here’s who gets hit with the sanctions:

U.S. officials said that, among the sanctioned individuals were the “key ideologists and architects” of Russia’s Ukraine policy, while adding that some of the Russian officials were included in the list for their role in curbing “human rights and liberties” in Russia.

The sanctions freeze any assets under American jurisdiction and prevent American banks from doing business with the named individual, essentially freezing them out of the international banking system. The sanctions also impose a ban on their travel to the United States. Separately, but in coordination with the White House, the European Union announced sanctions today on 21 individuals that it plans to name later. U.S. officials told reporters that the American and European lists “overlapped” in some area, but declined to say how.

While some of the sanctioned officials are bold faced names, the White House move is unlikely to affect Russia’s decision making with regard to Crimea’s bid to join the Russian Federation. Russia’s stock market actually improved on the news that so few officials were included on the list. U.S. officials warned that, if Russia does go ahead with annexation of Crimea, additional penalties will follow, with more, harsher measures to come if Russia attempts to enter eastern Ukraine.

RELATED:  Russian Policy and American Timidity

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Former Planned Parenthood Worker Marianne Anderson: “Money-Grubbing, Evil, Very Sad, Sad Place to Work”

Archindy.org:

Marianne Anderson recently drove with her mother past the Planned Parenthood facility at 86th Street and Georgetown Road in Indianapolis, the state’s largest provider of abortions.

“I told my mom, ‘To think that that building exists for no other reason than to kill unborn babies.’ I still get a knot in my stomach when I drive by there.”

The knot returns despite the fact that Anderson hasn’t worked at the Planned Parenthood facility since July of 2012. Prior to that, she worked for two-and-a-half years as a nurse at the abortion center.

The mother of two and grandmother of one has begun to talk about her experiences at the abortion facility.
Anderson, who now works as a nurse at Community North Hospital, shared her story at two recent events sponsored by the Great Lakes Gabriel Project, which offers help and support to women in crisis pregnancies. Many Catholics across central and southern Indiana are involved in this pro-life initiative.


The following are excerpts from a recent interview she had with The Criterion, during which Anderson revealed her experiences at the Planned Parenthood facility and the support she received from members of the Great Lakes Gabriel Project in her efforts to leave.
 
Q. When and why did you start working for Planned Parenthood?
A. “I started working for Planned Parenthood in 2010 to start up their conscious sedation program [which allowed clients to purchase mild to moderate sedatives to be given intravenously before an abortion]. Plus the job was very close to my house.”
 
Q. Did you know what they were about, what they did?
A. “I did. And I must admit I was kind of on the fence about abortion. I think a lot of it came from working at Wishard [Hospital], and seeing girls that had attempted abortion themselves and ended up with hysterectomies, or boyfriends beating them because they were pregnant. My thought was, ‘Well, you need a safe place [for an abortion]. People shouldn’t be doing it on their own. And people are going to be doing it anyway, so why not provide them a safe place to do it?’ ”
 
Q. When did you start having qualms or misgivings about working for Planned Parenthood?
A. “I started feeling uneasy working there when people came from [the] national [office] in New York City to teach us the conscious sedation process. It was disgusting. These two ladies had this chant they would do: ‘Abortion all the time!’ I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ That was about six to eight months after I started.

“Those women from New York acted like an abortion was a rite of passage. They were like, ‘How can you not offer abortion to women? It’s their body. They should be able to do whatever they want. How can you force them to have a baby? Abortion should be free to anybody, anytime.’ ”
 
Q. How many abortions are done at the Georgetown facility per day?
A. “In the upper 20s to low 30s, including medical abortion by pill. Abortions are done there every Tuesday and Friday, and then they alternate between Thursday and Saturday.”
 
Q. Were there ever any difficulties with the abortion procedures?
A. “Several times, there were difficulties with abortions while I worked there, where they had to call the hospital to come pick the woman up.

“One girl almost bled out. She was passing clots, her blood pressure was dropping.

“A lot of the cases we had were from excessive bleeding or reactions to the sedation.

“When we had to call 911 for an ambulance, we were told never to say the word ‘abortion’ because they don’t want that broadcast. They knew that the calls were recorded, and could be made public.”
 
Q. What was it like working there?
A. “It was a money-grubbing, evil, very sad, sad place to work.

“We would get yelled at if we didn’t answer the phone by the third ring. They would tell us we’d be fired [if we didn’t] because they needed the money.

“They would remind us in our weekly staff meeting that we need to tell everyone [who called to schedule an appointment] to avoid ‘those people’ [the sidewalk counselors] because we need the money. We were to tell them, ‘Don’t make eye contact with them, and don’t stop in the driveway. If you make eye contact with them or if you stop and roll down your window, they’re going to try their darnedest to talk you out of it.’

“You have to have so many [abortions] a month to stay open. In our meetings they’d tell us, ‘If abortions are down, you could get sent home early and not get as many hours.’

“They would allow girls to have ultrasounds that were obviously way too far along [the legal limit for having an abortion in Indiana is 13 weeks and six days]. They said, ‘If they want to be seen, you just put them through, no problem,’ just taking advantage to make money.

“I was always getting in trouble for talking too long to the girls, asking if they were sure they wanted to do this.

“It was absolutely miserable going in there.”
 
Q. What experiences stick with you?
A. “One young girl came in with her mom. She was about 16. Her mom had made the appointment. That’s not supposed to be how it works. It’s supposed to only be the patient who makes the appointment. I checked her in, and she thought she was there for a prenatal checkup. The mom was pushing it. She blindsided her own daughter.

“This guy brought in a Korean girl. I had no doubt in my mind this girl was a sex slave. This guy would not leave her side. They could barely communicate. He wanted to make all the arrangements.

“During the ultrasound, she told one of the nurses that there were lots of girls in the house, and that the man hits them. She never came back for the abortion. I always wondered what happened to her. One of my co-workers said, ‘You’re better off to just let it go.’

“These girls would start crying on the table, and Dr. [Michael] King [the abortion doctor for whom Anderson worked] would say, ‘Now you chose to be here. Sit still. I don’t have time for this.’

“One doctor, when he was in the POC [products of conception] room, would talk to the aborted baby while looking for all the parts. ‘Come on, little arm, I know you’re here! Now you stop hiding from me!’ It just made me sick to my stomach.

“The sound the suction machine made when it turned on still haunts me.”
 
Q. Did you ever interact with the sidewalk counselors?
A. “One day I was coming in, and I’d written out a note to one of the [sidewalk counselors] that said, ‘I’ve worked here for a little over two years. I’m actively looking for something else. Please pray for me. I don’t want to be here.’ All I could do was hand it to her. She tried to give me a pamphlet, but I told her no, I had to go because there are cameras that watch the drive.”

RELATED: Obama boosts budgets for Planned Parenthood, other assistants of health care enrollment

Barack Obama: California Central Valley Drought Due to Climate Change

Of course, it must be global warming:

While the East Coast and Midwest suffer through a cold and snow-heavy winter, the people of California are in the midst of a drought — and a particularly bad one, even for a state that has regular battles with droughts over the course of my lifetime. Most people don’t recall this, but those of us who grew up with gas rationing in the Golden State during the energy crises of the 1970s also grew up with water rationing, too — including odd/even days for watering lawns and gardens, and request-only glasses of water in restaurants.  Most of Southern California would naturally be a desert if it wasn’t for water management even in the best of years, and the Central Valley would never have become an agricultural powerhouse without it.

Yesterday, Barack Obama came to California’s Central Valley to declare that global warming is what has made the drought so difficult for farmers there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQzSycdHevU

Actually, the problem for Central Valley farmers is that their water got taken from them by a federal judge, who put a baitfish ahead of human beings. Central Valley’s water-management system was designed to deal with droughts that last as long as five years, but the reservoirs that held its lifeblood got emptied into the ocean to rescue the Delta smelt. It began five years ago, and as Investors Business Daily reports, the locals remember it better than Obama does:

The one thing that will mitigate droughts in California — a permanent feature of the state — is to restore the water flow from California’s water-heavy north to farmers in the central and south. That’s just what House Bill 3964, which passed by a 229-191 vote last week, does.
But Obama’s plan is not to get that worthy bill through the Senate (where Democrats are holding it up) but to shovel pork to environmental activists and their victims, insultingly offering out-of-work farmers a “summer meal plan” in his package.
“We are not interested in welfare; we want water,” Nunes told IBD this week. He and his fellow legislator Valadao are both farmers who represent the worst-hit regions of the Central Valley in Congress and can only look at the president’s approach with disbelief.

“He’s not addressing the situation,” Valadao told us.

“They want to blame the drought for the lack of water, but they wasted water for the past five years,” said Nunes.

The two explain that California’s system of aqueducts and storage tanks was designed long ago to take advantage of rain and mountain runoff from wet years and store it for use in dry years.

But it’s now inactive — by design. “California’s forefathers built a system (of aqueducts and storage facilities) designed to withstand five years of drought,” said Nunes.

“We have infrastructure dating from the 1960s for transporting water, but by the 1990s the policies had changed,” said Valadao.

Environmental special interests managed to dismantle the system by diverting water meant for farms to pet projects, such as saving delta smelt, a baitfish. That move forced the flushing of 3 million acre-feet of water originally slated for the Central Valley into the ocean over the past five years.

In fact, Obama threatened to veto a bill that would have resolved this situation almost exactly two years ago.  Instead, Obama insisted that the environmentalists needed to keep channeling water away from this rich agricultural resource and from the farmers who had worked it for generations, thanks to their own engineering genius at defeating droughts, to pour that water into the Pacific Ocean instead.

This isn’t global warming. It’s what happens when you stop irrigating land by purposefully taking water away. That buck stops at the podium Obama used to blame Gaia and carbon for his own sins of commission and omission.

RELATED:  Obama: I’ll veto bill that will provide water to California’s Central Valley

Barack Obama Denying Fewer Gun Purchasers Than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush

Breitbart.com:

Gun purchasers who go through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) are being denied at a much lower rate under President Obama than they were under Presidents Bush or Clinton. 

According to The Washington Times, under Bill Clinton during the years 1999 and 2000 ".83 percent of [gun purchase] applicants were denied." Under George W. Bush "the denial rate was about .67 percent."

Under Obama the denial rate fell to .46 percent, "and was even lower" during the first six months of 2013--the very time when Obama and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) were stressing the important role expanding background checks would play in reducing crime.

In fact, the low point for background check denials came under Obama in January 2013. The number of would-be buyers denied that month was .33 percent.

RELATED:  Ninth Circuit: The Second Amendment guarantees the right to carry a gun in public

Former NOLA Mayor Ray Nagin Found Guilty of Bribery, Fraud, Laundering in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Funny how these things work out:

So it turns out that Ray Nagin, the Democratic ex-mayor of New Orleans best known for his furious denunciations of the Bush administration in their response to Hurricane Katrina, wasn’t exactly acting with the city’s best interests at heart himself. The guy left office in 2010 with bottom-of-the-barrel approval ratings and insisted that he wouldn’t be running for political office again — and I think this just about seals the deal on that. The sentencing is still to come, but each of the 20 charges of which he was convicted carries a sentence of at least several years, and he could be looking at a nice long prison term. Via CNN:

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, whose desperate pleas for help during Hurricane Katrina drew national attention, walked silently out of a courthouse Wednesday after a jury convicted him of federal corruption charges.

Nagin was elected as a reformer in 2002. But after a two-week trial that began in late January, he was found guilty of 20 out of 21 counts of bribery, money laundering, fraud and filing false tax returns, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The sole acquittal was on one of the bribery counts. …

The charges detailed more than $200,000 in bribes to the mayor, and his family members allegedly received a vacation in Hawaii; first-class airfare to Jamaica; private jet travel and a limousine for New York City; and cellular phone service. In exchange, businesses that coughed up cash for Nagin and his family won more than $5 million in city contracts, according to the January 2013 indictment.

In a nutshell, he used the opportunity of the Katrina recovery effort to kick city contracts back to any vendors that offered to sweeten the deal, while simultaneously blustering about the incompetence and corruption of everybody else’s post-Katrina commitment. What a swell guy.

RELATED:  Many Louisiana Republicans blame President Obama for Hurricane Katrina response

Barack Obama Tells French President Hollande, 'As a President, I Can Do Whatever I Want'

Breitbart.com:

During a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s estate Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia on Monday, President Obama joked to French President Hollande that he can "do whatever I want."

Tangi Quemener, the White House Correspondent for Agence France Presse, sent a message to Peter Velz, a press assistant at The White House, telling of Barack Obama and French President Hollande’s tour of Monticello. 

According to Quemener, the two men strolled in front of the pool with Leslie Bowman, president of the Monticello Foundation. From the report:

Looking at a terrace she said that Jefferson loved to admire the landscape from there. POTUS said that he'd like to take a look and seemed delighted to "break the protocol.”  "That's the good thing as a President, I can do whatever I want" he quipped, walking to the terrace with his guest and Ms. Bowman.

Jefferson would be so proud of his successor.  

RELATED:  Lawless: Obamacare and the Imperial Government

Young People Still Getting Hosed by Unemployment in Obama's Economy, Losing Prime Earning Years

Townhall.com:

For two months in a row, and quite frankly for the past five years, the unemployment report from the Department of Labor has been nothing short of pathetic. Although the unemployment rate is falling, giving the false perception that less people are out of work, millions have stopped looking for work and have dropped out of the labor force. But there's one subsection of the unemployment picture that doesn't get discussed enough: the young unemployed can't find jobs and haven't been able to for years. 

The teenage unemployment rate sits at 21 percent, which is more than three times the national unemployment rate of 6.6 percent. CNSNews breaks down the numbers:

The teen unemployment rate went up in January to 20.7% -- from 20.2% in December-- and is now more than three times the national unemployment rate of 6.6%, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Then of course there's the millennial generation. According to Generation Opportunity, the unemployment rate for 19-31-year-olds is 15.8 percent.

The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.922 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs. 

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 15.8 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 11.3 percent (NSA).

In addition, a new report shows nearly one in four 26-year-olds are living at home with mom and dad.

A ten-year survey of millennials reveals that almost one in four (22.6%) 26-year-olds are still living with their parents. 

The U.S. Department of Education report confirmed that, if you are tired of living with Mom and Dad, then do your homework and stay in school.

According to the survey titled “Where Are They Now," education makes a difference: generally those with more schooling were less likely to be living at home. The study shed some light on how older millennials have been faring during the Great Recession. 

According to a Pew Research analysis of the 2012 data, lower levels of employment, an increase in college enrollment, and a decrease in young people getting married are major factors in the increase of millennials living at home.

By the time Barack Obama leaves office, millennials will have spent nearly a decade and prime working years, jobless. Considering 2/3 of lifetime wage growth occurs in a person's 20s, the young unemployment trend is alarming.

Dr. Meg Jay, author of a new book called The Defining Decade, says that a significant portion of your lifetime earning potential happens in your 20s, making it critical to get out there and get working. She estimates that as much as two-thirds of lifetime wage growth happens during just the first 10 years of a career. Once you hit your 40s, salaries will peak or plateau, making it hard or impossible to catch up if you only start getting serious about your career in your 30s.

RELATED: January jobs report: 113,000 jobs added, 6.6% unemployment rate

Robert Gibbs Admits Barack Obama Gave Up on Trying to Change Washington A Long Time Ago

DailyCaller.com:

Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was uncharacteristically candid during an appearance on MSNBC Tusday morning, claiming “the White House sort of stopped trying” to change the “dysfunction” in Washington, D.C.

Gibbs spoke on a “Morning Joe” panel about President Obama’s relative lack of measurable accomplishments as he goes into his State of the Union speech this evening. “Robert, I know you’re not in the White House anymore –” MSNBC host Willie Geist began. “Thank God!” Gibbs interjected, prompting some incredulous laughs from the panel. ”Well, there’s a moment of honestly,” Geist grinned.

“But you’re obviously — you know the president very well,” the host continued. “We know what this poll says about how the country’s feeling about him. How is he feeling about the country right now? I mean, this is a guy who came in five years ago saying, ‘Change comes from outside Washington. We’re gonna break the fever, we’re going to change the way Washington does business. We’re going to get things done.’ And he’s learned some pretty hard lessons in how Washington actually works and doesn’t work.”

“Well, I think the ability to change Washington is something that, long ago, the White House sort of stopped trying to do,” Gibbs began. “Whether or not that’s a good thing, we’ll look back on history. I do think that, you know, this is a story of Washington dysfunction . . . Everything in this speech is what the public wants to hear. The public just doesn’t simply think that this group of people assembled in this room is remotely capable of solving those problems.”

“2013 was a lost year for the president,” the former press secretary continued. “He was buffeted by crisis after crisis. I think the test of this speech will be, do the American people who do watch, do they feel like this president has a plan to get some of those things done? Or is this just another speech out of Washington?”

Gibbs is a long-time Obama loyalist, joining the president’s Illinois Senate campaign way back in 2004. He followed him through the Senate to the White House, where he served as press secretary and close personal adviser to President Obama until early 2011. Some of his recent commentary, however, suggests the communications professional may have soured on the president’s leadership — and certainly shows relief that his tenure as White House spin doctor is now over.

RELATED: Gibbs: If Dems Lose Senate, 2015 SOTU ‘Will Be an Exceedingly Minimal Affair’

Nancy Pelosi: "We Did Not Treat President Bush This Way"

Amazing how often this insane woman can lie straight to people's faces:

Democrats are looking to President Obama to really help kick the populist agenda they have been re-devising for the 2014 campaign season into high gear with his address this evening, and in previewing the SOTU on MSNBC this morning, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was really in her element, hitting all of the latest “obstructionist,” “income inequality opportunity gap,”  “executive action” talking points like so many carefully concocted whack-a-moles. That it always and necessarily takes two parties to tango is a piece of logic that never seems to enter into that kind of woe-is-us, nobody-else-has-ever-had-to-deal-with-a-divided-government brand of thinking:

The point is that, since that time, under President Obama’s administration, we have eight million jobs created… We have an opportunity gap that the president will be addressing, but let’s remember where we were and how far we have come from the Bush economic policies to where we are now. … The point is, what is happening here now, and let’s, since you’re trying to analyze it, is we have a large segment of the Republican party that is anti-government. We don’t want any more government than we need, but they’re anti-government, anti-science, and anti-Obama. They have a trifecta that is going. I say to the Republicans, take back your party. …To obstruct every initiative that the president has put forth on jobs and say, ‘Why don’t we have more jobs?’ Well, we do have more jobs, but no thanks to the Congress of the United States. … We did not treat President Bush this way. … This obstruction to President Obama is something quite stunning, and something quite different.

RELATED: Pelosi: Bush 'a total failure'

Rush Limbaugh: GOP Should Troll Obama by Taking Selfies at ‘State of the Coup’

Mediaite.com:

Rush Limbaugh is still annoyed that President Obama took a selfie at Nelson Mandela‘s memorial, and on Tuesday he said it would be hilarious if, during the “State of the Coup” address, Republicans just get back at Obama by taking selfies the whole time.

Limbaugh said in an ideal world, John Boehner would sit down behind Obama “in a white lab coat… as a doctor that has lost his practice” thanks to Obamacare, but said it wouldn’t happen because of the “prestige and tradition” of the State of the Union.

But Limbaugh thought of something else Republicans could do just to mess around during the speech.

I think what the male Republican ought to do is find an attractive woman, not his wife, and put his arm around her and start taking some selfies while Obama is delivering the State of the Coup address. Would that not be hilarious? Would that not be eye catching?

Limbaugh referred to Obama taking the selfie with Helle Thorning-Schmidt and the picture of Michelle Obama looking none too happy, though the man who took that photo said he she wasn’t really upset and told people to get a life if they’re seriously fixated on this.

RELATED:  WaPo poll: 52% support Obama using executive orders to bypass Congress on his legislative goals

Politiks As Usual: In The News 1/19/14

Hoboken Mayor: 'It's True' Christie Administration Withheld Sandy Funds

Philadelphia School Cheating Probe Widens; More Than 100 Educators Targeted

The Need Of The Hour: A Governor Who Will Defy Judiciary On Marriage

Obama on Pot: 'I Don't Think It Is More Dangerous Than Alcohol' 
 
The Perverted Science of Global Warming Gets Dirty(er) 

Target Hacking Mastermind Identified as 17-year-old Russian

What Recovery? Sears And J.C. Penney Are DYING

Dan Savage Wanted Sarah Palin to Choke on Her Christmas Pastry

Vapid ABC Thrills Over 'Revealing,' 'Elegant' Michelle Obama and Her Extended 'Vacay' 

Conservatives Adopt Progressive Priorities

Feminist Lena Dunham Defends Vogue Photoshopping Her Glamor Shots

Wendy Davis Stretches the Truth

Unions Won’t Support Bill to Keep Sex Predators Out of Classrooms

Will Lawrence O’Donnell Have to Answer for Anti-Christie Ad Like Fox & Friends Did for Anti-Obama Ad?

Mediaite.com:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell proudly announced on Wednesday night that he “wrote” a hard-hitting, campaign-style political advertisement attacking Chris Christie. The ad, which he broadcast on his program, The Last Word, uses the New Jersey governor’s own words against him — a common practice in campaign ads. “Don’t let Christie embarrass and humiliate America,” the ad’s narrator urges the audience.


What’s more, O’Donnell closed his program with instructions for his audience on how to produce similar anti-Christie ads on their own. He even provided them with some helpful clips which could facilitate the creation of those ads. 

Harmless, right? Not so much. 

In May of 2012, Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends found themselves in hot water when the program produced and aired their own campaign-style ad targeting President Barack Obama. The 4-minute commercial was roundly criticized by media observers and prompted Fox News Channel’s Executive Vice President of Programming, Bill Shine, to issue a statement insisting that the ad was “was created by an associate producer and was not authorized at the senior executive level of the network.”

The ad prompted commentary and news reports from outlets like CBS News, ABC News, The Hollywood Reporter, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, Salon, and Mediaite asking whether Fox had crossed a line when they aired what many legitimately considered a pro-Republican attack ad. 

Conservative media critics like HotAir’s Ed Morrissey and The Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik came out strongly against the move by Fox. Zurawik said the video package “resembled propaganda films from 1930s Europe more than it did responsible TV politics of today.”

Even the White House got involved. “White House spokesman Jay Carney had a stern conversation with Michael Clemente, a top executive at Fox News, about the video,” The Huffington Post reported.

“Carney said that ‘Fox and Friends’ had gone much too far.”

Following a firestorm of controversy, Fox announced that the associate producer responsible for the ad was leaving for CNN. 

Forgetting the lessons of that incident, O’Donnell fell into a similar trap. But without the tempo of a political campaign to inspire a backlash against the host’s decision to, by his own admission, write and air an anti-Christie ad, will this move result in any consequences for MSNBC and O’Donnell? 

RELATED:  Inevitable: MSNBC shows now producing their own anti-Christie ads

Supreme Court to Hear Case on Obama's Disputed NLRB Appointments

WashingtonExaminer.com:

The Supreme Court on Monday is set to hear a bitter dispute between Republicans and the White House over whether President Obama exceeded his authority when appointing members to the National Labor Relations Board during a congressional recess. 

The justices' decision could cast a legal cloud over hundreds of rulings by the board, which resolves complaints of unfair labor practices and conducts elections for labor union representation. 

The case, NLRB v. Noel Canning, centers around recess appointments Obama made to the labor board. In January 2012, Obama appointed three members to the board when the Senate was on break. Presidents can circumvent required Senate approval if the chamber is on recess, a move Obama deemed necessary because of repeated GOP blocks of his nominations to the panel. 

Republicans worried the Obama appointees had a pro-union bias. But the White House said the GOP block was done solely for political reasons. 

Then in February 2012 the NLRB ruled against Noel Canning (part of Noel Corp.), of Yakima, Wash., in a dispute with the Teamsters union. The company, aided by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, challenged the decision, arguing that the president's January appointments to the NLRB were invalid and thus the board didn't have the necessary quorum to resolve its dispute. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of Canning, saying Obama violated the law when he bypassed the Senate. The court said recess appointments are constitutional only if the vacancies and appointments occur in between official sessions of Congress. 

The NLRB appealed, and the Supreme Court took up the case. 

If the high court rules against the labor board, a minimum of 100 NRLB decisions -- and possibly more -- made by the recess-appointed members could be deemed invalid.

RELATED: Supreme Court justices call into question Obama's recess appointment power

Robert Gates: ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Fight Was Only Time Obama Showed ‘Passion’ For Military Issues

Of course it was, when you're nothing but a mascot for the white and Godless Left, the only time you get hype is when you succeed in doing their bidding:

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates sharply questions President Obama's "passion" for military matters in his forthcoming memoir, and claims that practically the only time he saw that in the president was during his push to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." 

The former Pentagon chief said in an interview aired Sunday that he was "disturbed" by Obama's "absence of passion" when it came to his military strategy. But in the book, "Duty," reviewed by Fox News, Gates hit Obama harder -- and in personal terms -- by contrasting his style with that of former President George W. Bush. 

"One quality I missed in Obama was passion, especially when it came to the two wars," Gates wrote. "In my presence, Bush -- very unlike his father -- was pretty unsentimental. But he was passionate about the war in Iraq; on occasion, at a Medal of Honor ceremony or the like, I would see his eyes well up. I worked for Obama longer than Bush, and I never saw his eyes well up." 

Gates went on to suggest that the president was far more emotional about repealing "don't ask, don't tell" -- the policy barring openly gay people from serving in the military -- and passing the health care bill. 

He wrote that "the only military matter, apart from leaks, about which I ever sensed deep passion on his part was 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' For him, changing the law seemed to be the inevitable next step in the civil rights movement. He presumably was also passionate about health care reform, but I wasn't present for those discussions."

RELATED: What Gates' book gets right, wrong about Obama, Biden, Afghanistan

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December Jobs Report: Only 74,000 Added, “Not in Workforce” Jumps 525,000

HotAir.com:

I think we can call this one unexpected. While the precursor reports suggested further weakening in the workforce participation rate, they also indicated a moderately decent number of jobs added. That’s not the case from the BLS, where the U-3 jobless rate dropped to 6.7% but only 74,000 jobs were added in December:

The unemployment rate declined from 7.0 percent to 6.7 percent in December, while total nonfarm payroll employment edged up (+74,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment rose in retail trade and wholesale trade but was down in information.

The number of unemployed persons declined by 490,000 to 10.4 million in December, and the unemployment rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 6.7 percent. Over the year, the number of unemployed persons and the unemployment rate were down by 1.9 million and 1.2 percentage points, respectively. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (6.3 percent) and whites (5.9 percent) declined in December. The rates for adult women (6.0 percent), teenagers (20.2 percent), blacks (11.9 percent), and Hispanics (8.3 percent) showed little change. The jobless rate for Asians was 4.1 percent (not seasonally adjusted), down by 2.5 percentage points over the year. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs decreased by 365,000 in December to 5.4 million. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 3.9 million, showed little change; these individuals accounted for 37.7 percent of the unemployed. The number of long-term unemployed has declined by 894,000 over the year. (See tables A-11 and A-12.)

The civilian labor force participation rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 62.8 percent in December, offsetting a change of the same magnitude in November. In December, the employment-population ratio was unchanged at 58.6 percent. The labor force participation rate declined by 0.8 percentage point over the year, while the employment-population ratio was unchanged. (See table A-1.)

The worst news comes in the workforce numbers. Those not in the workforce increased by 525,000 in December (91.808 million), after a one-time drop in the figure for November (91.283M from 91.756M in October).  That’s a big exodus of people from the workforce, dwarfing the meager number of jobs added in the economy. Part-time work remained essentially constant at 7.8 million, so the exodus points to an ugly, ugly trend.

Not surprisingly, that lead to a decline in the workforce participation rate, back down to 62.8%. That matches the 36-year low hit in October, which is one reason why the unhinged U-3 continues to drop.  The workforce number acts as the denominator for U-3, which means that the result will “improve” as the workforce declines. The U-6 metric, which considers more of those who are only marginally attached to the workforce, remains at 13.1%.

Reuters tries to pass this off on the weather:

U.S. employers hired the fewest workers in almost three years in December, but the setback was likely to be temporary amid signs that cold weather conditions might have had an impact.

Nonfarm payrolls rose only 74,000 last month, the smallest increase since January 2011, and the unemployment rate fell 0.3 percentage point to 6.7 percent, the Labor Department said on Friday. The unemployment rate was the lowest since October 2008 and in part reflected people leaving the labor force.

The step back in hiring is at odds with other employment indicators that have painted an upbeat picture of the jobs market. The data showed that 38,000 more jobs were added in November than previously reported.

Construction employment fell for the first time since May and leisure and hospitality payrolls rose marginally, suggesting that cold weather in some parts of the country had held back hiring. There were also declines in government employment.

Nonsense. This data is seasonally adjusted, and December wasn’t spectacularly cold. The polar vortex hit well after the new year (and may make a dent in January’s numbers).  This looks like an excuse for being blindsided by a bad report, because Reuters’ own economists predicted gains of 196,000 for December.

RELATED:  ABC’s Karl: What does the White House have to say for itself over a jobs report that is “barely treading water”?

Barack Obama's Afghan Leadership Blasted By His Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Newsmax.com:

President Barack Obama lacked belief in his administration's policy toward the war in Afghanistan and was skeptical it would even succeed, his former defense secretary, Robert Gates, writes in a memoir to be published next week.

Gates, who served as Pentagon chief from 2006 to 2011 under Obama and his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, is critical of Obama's leadership on several defense-related issues, especially Afghanistan, according to a review of "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War" in the Washington Post on Tuesday.

According to the Post, Gates wrote that he concluded by early 2010 that Obama, who had ordered his own troop "surge" in Afghanistan like Bush's in the Iraq war, "doesn't believe in his own strategy, and doesn't consider the war to be his. For him, it's all about getting out."

Gates adds that Obama was "skeptical if not outright convinced it (the administration strategy) would fail," according to the Post.

"I never doubted Obama's support for the troops, only his support for their mission," Gates writes.

After Obama was elected in 2008 to succeed Bush, Gates agreed to the new president's request that he remain as defense secretary, becoming the first Pentagon chief to serve presidents of different parties.

Gates describes Obama as "a man of personal integrity" and says later in his memoir that "Obama was right" in his decisions regarding Afghanistan.

But Obama was uncomfortable with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan he inherited from the Bush administration and distrustful of the military that was providing him options, Gates writes.

According to the Post's account of the book, the different worldviews of Obama and Gates "produced a rift, that at least for Gates, became personally wounding and impossible to repair."

RELATED: White House disputes Gates memoir claims

Rand Paul Responds to Barack Obama, Peter King Taking Shots at Him on Unemployment, NSA

Mediaite.com:

During his big speech on unemployment Tuesday, President Obama took a veiled shot at Rand Paul for arguing that extended unemployment benefits would not help fix unemployment. Paul responded on The Steve Malzberg Show Tuesday, firing back at Obama’s “big-hearted, small-brained policy statements.”

Paul charged that Democrats “don’t truly care about the unemployed” and all they have is emotional arguments because “their policies haven’t worked.” Malzberg added that the Democrats are “demagoguing this issue,” and found it odd they’re treating millions of unemployed people as a travesty but brushed aside the millions whose insurance plans were trashed as a result of new health care standards.

Paul also addressed Republican congressman Peter King accusing him of not caring if Americans die as the result of a terrorist attack because of his class-action lawsuit against the NSA. Paul said, “I think there’ll always be people who succumb to fear and are ready and willing to trade their liberty for security.” 

He also said that politicians like King simply “don’t seem to be concerned about your liberty.”

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