Obama's poll numbers fall to new low ... again

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19.

Today is the second straight day that Obama's Approval Index rating has fallen to a new low. Prior to the past two days, the Approval Index had never fallen below -15 during Obama's time in office (see trends).

The 23% who Strongly Approve matches the lowest level of enthusiasm yet recorded. Just 41% of Democrats Strongly Approve while 69% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 21% Strongly Approve and 49% Strongly Disapprove.

Among those who consider the economy to be the most important issue, just 26% Strongly Approve of the President's performance while 39% Strongly Disapprove.

Among those who consider fiscal policy issues the most important, just 1% Strongly Approve and 81% Strongly Disapprove.

The President's Approval Index rating is -2 among voters under 30 and -29 among senior citizens. From an income perspective, the President's ratings are weakest among those who earn $40,000 to $100,000 annually.

Check out our review of the week's key polls to see "What They Told Us."

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 46% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

(More Below)

Most Nevada voters oppose the health care plan working its way through Congress and that's one reason Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trailing a group of little known Republicans in his bid for re-election. Rasmussen Reports has released updated polls on the 2010 Senate races in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and California. Overall, the results confirm the conventional wisdom that the mid-term election season is off to a tough start for the Democrats. However, there is a long way to go until November.

Scott Rasmussen has recently had several columns published in the Wall Street Journal addressing how President Obama is losing independent voters ,health care reform, the President's approval ratings, and how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan. If you'd like Scott Rasmussen to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact Premiere Speakers Bureau. You can also learn about Scott's favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.

It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That's because some of the President's most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote. It is also important to check the details of question wording when comparing approval ratings from different firms.

(More Below)

Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology).

Pollster.com founder Mark Blumenthal noted that "independent analyses from the National Council on Public Polls, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the Pew Research Center, the Wall Street Journal and FiveThirtyEight.com have all shown that the horse-race numbers produced by automated telephone surveys did at least as well as those from conventional live-interviewer surveys in predicting election outcomes."

In the 2009 New Jersey Governor's race, automated polls tended to be more accurate than operator-assisted polling techniques. On reviewing the state polling results from 2009, Mickey Kaus offered this assessment, "If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious N.Y. Times, go with Rasmussen!" During Election 2008, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com said that the Rasmussen tracking poll "would probably be the one I'd want with me on a desert island."

A Fordham University professor rated the national pollsters on their record in Election 2008. We also have provided a summary of our results for your review. In 2008, Obama won 53%-46% and our final poll showed Obama winning 52% to 46%. While we were pleased with the final result, Rasmussen Reports was especially pleased with the stability of our results. On every single day for the last six weeks of the campaign, our daily tracking showed Obama with a stable and solid lead attracting more than 50% of the vote.

An analysis by Pollster.com partner Charles Franklin "found that despite identically sized three-day samples, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll is less variable than Gallup." During Election 2008, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll was the least volatile of all those tracking the race.

In 2004 George W. Bush received 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry earned 48.3%. Rasmussen Reports was the only firm to project both candidates' totals within half a percentage point by projecting that Bush would win 50.2% to 48.5%. (see our 2004 results).

Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling errorâ€"for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters--is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Premium Members.

Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology). Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. While partisan affiliation is generally quite stable over time, there are a fair number of people who waver between allegiance to a particular party or independent status. Over the past five years, the number of Democrats in the country has increased while the number of Republicans has decreased.

Our baseline targets are established based upon separate survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews) and targets are updated monthly. Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 37.1% Democrats, 32.4% Republicans, and 30.5% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats.

A review of last week's key polls is posted each Saturday morning. Other stats on Obama are updated daily on the Rasmussen Reports Obama By the Numbers page. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls.

 

Read more >>

Obama ripped for plan to bring back 'inquisitions'

'Witch hunt' expected under new U.S. 'hate crimes' law
Lawyer who handled Boissoin saga says Obama plans to bring back 'inquisitions'

The lawyer who handled the years-long battle by Pastor Stephen Boissoin over "hate speech" charges for a letter he wrote to the editor of a local newspaper that cited the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality is forecasting a nationwide "witch hunt" in the U.S. prompted by an expanded "hate crimes" law signed by President Obama.

Gerald Chipeur,  who supervises law offices across Canada, worked from his Calgary headquarters on the defense of Boissoin, who was accused by a university professor of instigating hate against homosexuals with his letter to the editor.

An appellate court in Canada recently reversed the decision by an administrative judge that Boissoin was to pay $5,000 and give a written apology to the professor.

Alberta had adopted a "hate speech" law with promises it would be reserved for actions that accompany "hate speech." Boissoin's letter to the Red Deer Advocate criticized those who "in any way support the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s."

"Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system… Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex … Come on people, wake up!" Boisson wrote.

University of Calgary professor Darren Lund filed the complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission . An administrative law judge later ordered the $5,000 payment and written apology from Boissoin along with instructions not to express his beliefs further.

Chipeur today told WND the damage to religious liberties from the case was immediate and dramatic and continues even though the decision has been overturned.

"I had church pastors, church school principals, board members coming to me for legal advice [when the case erupted]," he said. "They were saying, 'What should we do about our statement of faith, our bylaws, our policies. Should we just completely repeal them so that we won't have people offended?'"

Chipeur said his advice was for organizations to "tell the truth as you see it from the Bible" and the law firm's job was to defend that right.

"Even though I gave them that advice, many pulled punches," he said. "They reversed policies, they buried their statements of faith, ran for the hills. They tried to do everything they could."

Benjamin Bull, chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, agreed with the damage assessment.

"Homosexuals got exactly what they wanted. In the marketplace of ideas, one side has now been censored," he said. "This [situation] is exactly what homosexual activists have in mind."

That damage â€" the suppression of religious beliefs because of the intimidating effect of the lawsuit â€" continues today, Chipeur said.

"I can tell you there was significant damage from the decision. People continue to be afraid. People aren't going to feel safe overnight. That was the impact of the decision. Christians became afraid," he said.

"They're only human. They were frightened. They acted upon that fear, and started to reverse policies that had been in place forever," he said.

Chipeur described the core problem with the Boissoin case as a misunderstanding on the part of many who believe "hate crimes" laws will make "everyone love everybody."

Further, there are minorities who are not happy with the liberty to live their lives as they choose; they demand government endorsement and approval. Once given that, they then want to crack down on anybody who disagrees with them, he warned.

In practicality, he said, such "hate" laws â€" the ones in Canada and the U.S. are similar â€" are intended to address actions, not thoughts.

"This legislation does not address your ability to think it. It does not address your ability to speak it. It does affect your ability to act on this, to prevent someone from having a job, to get accommodations to buy things because of race, religion or sexuality," he said.

But Chipeur said he expects the same issues now to be raised in the U.S., because of the expanded "hate crimes" law signed by Obama.

"I would be shocked if you did not have 100 times more problems with this legislation than we are. Your system is set up to encourage lawyers to do this, and you have so many more people, there is more opportunity for people to take offense," he said.

"There are certain people in society who look to the government for everything, including to help them with their hurt feelings. The government was never made for that," he said.

Regardless, "there are those who want the government to bless their approach to life, whatever it is, because they have this view. They come to the point they want the government to say … you are right."

"We've learned from history that's a very bad idea. You get persecution, which is exactly what's happening here," he said.

Then those interests want the "power of the state to punish anyone who disagrees," he said. The result is, "doing exactly what we did 500 years ago. They will be going on a witch hunt, [repeating] the Spanish Inquisition."

"This is not theoretical. We've already seen it, hospitals, school boards, religious organizations pummeled with this. There are board meetings going on as we speak … talking about what they can do to avoid having complaints," he said.

The Boissoin appeals court ruling did not strike down the "hate speech" law, but it sets limits for its use. The Alberta ruling means "hate speech" laws cannot be used to silence religious expression or public debate simply because someone takes offense. Such a provision would, in fact, violate the Canadian Charter of Human Rights, the ADF said.

The accuser in such a case "must demonstrate that the speech contributed to actual harm," ADF said.

Obama signed the "Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act" in October after Democrats strategically attached it to a "must-pass" $680 billion defense appropriations bill.

The law cracks down on any acts that could be linked to criticism of homosexuality or even the "perception" of homosexuality. As Congress debated it, there were assurances it would not be used to crack down on speech. But with the law only weeks old, it has yet to be tested in court.

Days after Obama signed it, in response, pastors and other Christian leaders gathered to read from the Bible at a rally organized with the help of Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Coalition.

Former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt of PrayInJesusName.org read from Romans: "And they that commit such things are worthy of death."

"The government has to invade my thoughts to decide what my motive was in quoting the Bible," Klingenschmitt explained. "I can be prosecuted if the government thinks my motive was wrong."

The rally took place in front of the offices of Attorney General Eric Holder, who supported the bill although he explained it does not protect all people equally. He is charged with enforcing the law.

Obama boasted of the "hate crimes" bill when he signed it into law.

"After more than a decade, we've passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are," he said.

Some of the rally was captured by Christian Broadcasting Network on video:

"If this law is used to silence me or any of these preachers for speaking the truth, then we will be forced to conscientiously defy it," Rick Scarborough, president of Vision America, declared. "That is my calling as a Christian and my right as an American citizen."

Janet Porter of Faith2Action called it a "sad day for America."

"While a small minority of homosexual activists are celebrating, thousands of pastors, priests and rabbis are lamenting their loss of First Amendment freedoms. I for one refuse to bow before this unjust and unconstitutional law, and I intend to continue to preach the whole counsel of God as revealed in the Scriptures,'" she wrote.

"But this law doesn't just affect pastors; it will criminalize the beliefs of millions of ordinary people who may now be afraid to speak even their pro-marriage positions lest it spark a federal 'hate crime' investigation," Porter wrote.

Cass noted in the U.K., a senior citizen was accused of "hate crimes" for writing a letter objecting to a pro-homosexual festival:

"This is the way it gets implemented in all the other countries," Cass said. "Christians are singled out for prosecution, with threats, imprisonment and fines simply for refusing to stop doing what Christ commands: proclaiming the truth."

"[These cases] are a good precursor of where this goes," he warned.

The bill signed by Obama was opposed by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which called it a "menace" to civil liberties. The commission argued the law allows federal authorities to bring charges against individuals even if they've already been cleared in a state court.

Read more >>

'Welcome to Obamaville'

Sign at homeless camp

Residents of Colorado Springs, Colo., have a mystery on their hands: Who came up with the idea to erect a sign reading "Welcome to Obamaville" on the site of a homeless tent camp in the city?

The sign, which was visible from the Cimarron Street ramp to Interstate 25, clearly conveyed a political jab at rising unemployment under President Barack Obama, for it read in full, "Welcome to Obamaville – Colorado's fastest growing community."

Colorado television station KRDO first reported on the sign earlier this week, but without any identifying logos or clues to the sign's origin, the station launched a public appeal for information on the sign's author.

KRDO got its first clue when Spencer Swann of Colorado Canyon Signs confessed to constructing the sign, though he denied it was his idea and still refuses to divulge for whom he built it. He did, however, explain that there was more to the sign's intent than criticizing the sitting president:

"You mention his name, you get some attention – I think that was the whole idea behind it," Swann told KRDO. "I didn't dream it up, but I thought it was a good idea. I thought that it would help some of these guys down here."

Public reaction on the KRDO website has been mixed over the sign's message:

"Lay the blame where you will, I think it is a hoot and a great historical throwback to Hooverville," wrote a reader named daman in an online comment. "These are the worst times I've seen in my 40-plus years, and I am glad my kids get to see it early. Maybe they'll learn to grow and be compassionate, yet personally fiscal conservatives."

A poster named Nick, however, was critical: "That is pretty low to use a right-wing political agenda and attack the homeless during the worst recession in a generation and especially during the holidays."

Swann, however, says he's received nothing but support:

"I've had 100 calls today," Swann told the station, "and not a single one of them was negative."

Nonetheless, Swann has since replaced the "Obamaville" sign with another, which reads, "Please help. We need firewood, propane and canned food."

In response to some criticism that the money used to build the signs should have been used to help the homeless instead, Swann told KRDO that though the original "Obamaville" sign cost around $150, he didn't charge the unknown creator for either sign. Furthermore, he said, the instigator of the "Obamaville" sign is already involved with helping the homeless:

"He gives them money, he gives them food, he gives them support," said Swann.

As for his own motivations for building the sign, and doing so without charge, Swann told KRDO, "I thought it was just something to draw attention and help those folks."

Read more >>

Is It Warm in Here?

by Bill O'Reilly

At the opening of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, this week, they showed a video of children trapped by onrushing water. One little girl was left hanging on to a tree limb. Chicken Little had to be proud.

But I am not here to run down the global warming industry; I am here to explain it. My take is that only the deity knows for sure whether the planet is in danger from warming, but the cleaner the earth the better. I feel that position encourages positive environmental behavior without going into hysteria land.

However, you should know that Al Gore and others attached to the warming industry are making tens of millions of dollars by investing in companies trading in new technologies. There is big money in play here, as governments are paying billions to clean up dirty industries. T. Boone Pickens has invested big money in wind energy. While that's nice, I do believe the savvy Mr. Pickens wants a return on his investment.

The recent scandal involving British warming researchers burying facts that challenge climate change is disturbing. And now we have Dr. William Gray, one of America's best hurricane forecasters, saying the fix is in: "There has been an unrelenting quarter-century of one-sided indoctrination of the Western world by the media and various scientists and governments concerning a coming carbon dioxide-induced global warming disaster. … (This is) but the tip of a giant iceberg of a well-organized international climate warming conspiracy."

Wow.

But it does make sense. When huge companies like General Electric invest heavily in green industries, there is serious pressure to convince the world to abandon fossil fuels and use more natural products like sun and wind. The problem is that the technology is not there yet, and conversion costs are through the roof. Thus, the bitter debate.

The right is wrong to reject global warming outright, but is correct in being skeptical. This week, Sarah Palin wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post calling for a boycott of Copenhagen because, she believes, the whole thing is hooey. Gore quickly responded that physics proves that manmade global warming is a reality.

And the beat goes on.

All this disagreement does not help the polar bears or the little girl hanging on to the tree. Climate change is one of those issues that will never be settled beyond a reasonable doubt, no matter what Gore says. So the sane thing to do is for the world to develop cleaner energy options but not ruin economies in doing so.

The free marketplace is a great thing. If you develop a product that is better and cheaper than competing products, you will win. I'd love to heat my house with solar panels that are affordable and easy to use. So let's get that in motion.

A little girl in peril is counting on it.

Read more >>

A Warning on Warming

by Rich Tucker

If there’s one thing a non-scientist needs to understand, it’s this: science is never truly "settled." Any theory, no matter how widely accepted or how effectively it appears to be explain the natural world, must be open to amendment if verifiable new information is unearthed.

Recall that, for thousands of years humans thought the Earth was the center of the universe. That was the view Aristotle promoted hundreds of years before Christ, and it held sway until Copernicus finally disproved it in the 16th century.

More recently, consider the "germ theory," which holds that invisible bacteria and viruses are responsible for many human illnesses. We take this for granted today and wash our hands frequently, but doctors haven’t always been open to the idea.

In the 1840s a doctor in Austria named Ignaz Semmelweis showed that doctors were responsible for spreading puerperal fever, a disease that killed as many as one in four women shortly after childbirth. But his findings -- that doctors could save lives by washing their hands -- were ignored. For decades, many doctors continued to blame the fever on causes such as "bad air," and women continued to die needlessly.

Yes, some may say, but today’s scientists are dedicated to rigorous examination and reexamination of every possibility. Right? Apparently not, when it comes to climate studies.

For years now, we’ve been told that global warming is settled science. Humans are purportedly destroying our planet, and we need to take action to prevent that, no matter how much it costs. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a vast U.N. bureaucracy, shared the 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace with Al Gore for alerting the rest of this to this crucial threat.

But we’ve been hearing some unsettling news lately.

Somebody hacked into the Climatic Research Unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia and released thousands of e-mails from CRU scientists. That school is, supposedly, the Harvard of global climate change data. Its scientists have been compiling information from tree rings and ice cap drillings for years. These days, though, they mostly sound worried.

"Where the heck is global warming?" one scientist wonders in a leaked e-mail. "The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t."

That’s right. The planet hasn’t warmed in a decade. And none of the climate models that predict disaster in the future predicted the lack of warming in the present.

It’s worth wondering: If these models can’t take past data and correctly forecast the present, why would we expect them to be able to take questionable data and accurately predict the future? But that’s not what worries the CRU.

"The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998," Phil Jones wrote in a leaked e-mail from 2005. "Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn’t statistically significant."

Oh? How much would be "statistically significant"? It would be nice to go back a few decades and review temperature findings. Oh, but wait -- we can’t. "We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added data," the CRU Web site announces.

"Value-added," eh? Corrected to smooth out the rough spots, and so forth. So the science is only "settled" if you choose to accept the word of CRU scientists who cannot duplicate their own results.

"ARGH. Just went back to check on synthetic production. Apparently -- I have no memory of this at all -- we’re not doing observed rain days!" wrote the CRU’s Ian "Harry" Harris in an e-mail. "It’s all synthetic from 1990 onwards. So I’m going to need conditionals in the update program to handle that. And separate gridding before 1989. And what TF happens to station counts?"

Harris later writes about "the hopeless state of our databases," and admits "there is no uniform data integrity."

No matter. The science is "settled." Right?

For the next week, international bigwigs including President Obama will be in Copenhagen, chattering about global warming. But the rest of us now have evidence of something we’ve long suspected: such talk is just a lot of hot air. The science isn’t settled. Neither is the debate over "global warming."

Read more >>

Beware of Green Sheep Bearing Urgent Messages

by David R. Stokes

Long ago, the wisest of all men who ever trod earthly sod reminded us to beware of those peddling false information, noting that they often appear in "sheep’s clothing," but really they are nothing more than "ravenous wolves." These days we are bearing witness to the resurgence of ideas that have long since been discredited in former form, so the wool suit has been brought out for stealthy reasons. But a closer look reveals that those sheep have really big teeth.

Dust off your old Orwellian "newspeak" dictionary, where words are set free from actual meaning. There is a new code in town and it is worthy of being broken – a barely cryptic puzzle, but one that may, in fact, deceive many. Socialism is not only on the comeback trail via a full frontal political assault in our country (never mind that is has never actually worked anywhere), it is also on the march under a new banner – though to see this we must look through the looking glass. Not only has terminology been tweaked, the political color chart is being revised, as well - while too few actually notice.

Green is the new Red.

The actual practical application of so-called socialist dogma since the days when its seeds were hydrated in the bloodbath of the French Revolution has never come close to living up to its utopian promises. The goals of equality and liberty – noble concepts themselves – have never been achieved through coercive collectivism. Countries have certainly tried to level the playing field – or, if you prefer "spread the wealth around" – but it has always been done at the expense of personal freedom, not to mention the fact that wealth has tended to disappear in the process of that "spreading." Some of the wealth did, of course, survive - for a time at least - in the coffers of those who happened to be the ruling elite du jour.

In other words, although socialism has regularly been presented as the cultural and political pathway to fairness and prosperity for all, it has had a poor record in history. In fact, it has tended to actually make matters worse. But never mind that: let’s give the tired doctrine one more try. After all, we have smarter people in charge now and the fact that the math still doesn’t add up is irrelevant.

It’s the same with environmentalism. As the world watched what happened this past week in wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen, the mantra was about saving the planet. But lurking beneath and behind the machinations and rhetoric of this latest climate-change-kum-by-ya moment is the same old ideology, albeit with a leafy facelift. Saving the planet, we are regularly told by the smart people, requires more centralization of power and less individual liberty.

And if there is any doubt as to this agenda, we need only look back to a few days ago when Environmental Protection Agency Czarina, Lisa Jackson, told us all that the EPA regards carbon dioxide as a grave threat to mother earth and that the pollutant must therefore be controlled by government guardians. They’ll be the people wearing those special biohazard suits – yep, you guessed it, the ones made of wool.

It is emerging that there are plans, if the Congress doesn’t do the bidding of the new greed reds, to simply do a smack down on the economy with a method described as "command-and-control." This is a management style popularized in the now deceased HBO series, "The Sopranos," as in that memorable line, "I got your ‘command-and-control’ right here – badda bing, badda boom."

You say, "cap-and-trade," others say, "command-and-control," why don’t we call the whole thing off?

Please don’t miss the significance of what Jackson has said. Our entire economy is based just as much on carbon as it is the dollar. A "command-and-control" approach is another way of saying: "You think a take over of health care is a power grab? Wait until you see this!"

What does this have to do with socialism? Environmentalism relates to socialism in much the same way that Marxism relates to Leninism – and for the same reason. Neither is really about giving people a better life or saving the planet. The ultimate agenda – the wolf in sheep’s clothing – is political power and the micromanagement of individual lives through collectivism, with all the strings pulled by an emerging political aristocracy made up of the "really smart" people. And I use that word "aristocracy" deliberately, though with tongue-in-cheek, because the word comes from the Greek and literally means: "the rule of the best."

The problem is that this latest group of "the best and the brightest" has a clear and present problem with priorities. We are facing some very great crisis-level challenges in America, the top two being, 1. It’s the economy, stupid, and 2. The war against Islamism (or, reverse the order, if you like). But the body language of those "really smart" people is all about matters that, well, don’t actually matter to most Americans – at least not right now.

Seventeenth century British preacher, Thomas Fuller, a man who would have done well in the age of the sound bite, once said: "He that is everywhere is nowhere." This is the same idea Steven Covey and other management gurus talk about when they warn that the "urgent" can be the enemy of the "important." And Americans right now are living under a new tyranny – that of the neo-urgent. However, the present "urgent-priority" is being orchestrated by those who seem to simply want power centralized and personal liberties marginalized.

Oh, by the way, Thomas Fuller also famously said, "It is always darkest just before the day dawneth," which gives me some comfort. That is, until I recall one college professor of mine many years ago – a particularly and regularly befuddled man – who once botched this quote while giving us a pep talk before a major exam: "Now, uh, class, uh, always remember what Thomas Fuller said, ‘It is always darkest before the storm."

Read more >>

Al Gore and the Wizards of Climategate

by Tom Borelli

In trying to minimize the importance of "ClimateGate," Al Gore sounds like the Wizard of Oz, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

During a CNN interview, Gore downplayed the meaning of the emails at the center of the controversy by saying, "Well, they took a few phrases out of context. These are private e-mails, more than 10 years old, and they've tried to blow it up into something that it's really not."

Like Dorothy’s dog Toto, the posting of emails and documents on the internet from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has pulled back the green curtain on the secret world of leading climate scientists, exposing a disturbing pattern of apparent scientific misconduct.

Most concerning, the scientists involved played a key role in the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the body responsible for producing the reports on global warming politicians use to justify mammoth interferences in the free market such as the Kyoto Treaty and cap-and-trade legislation.

These disclosures are a serious blow to Gore and to global warming alarmists at the United Nations and elsewhere.

While it’s easy for Gore to dismiss the significance of "ClimateGate" and continue to skip down the yellow brick road, concerns of scientific fraud in global warming research is an inconvenient truth for the CEOs who have banked on cap-and-trade legislation as a business strategy.

Of the disparate corporate members of the United States Climate Action Partnership – the lobbying coalition of corporations and environmental special interest groups pushing for cap-and-trade – utility companies seem especially vulnerable to "ClimateGate" unravelling the scientific credibility of the IPCC’s man-made global warming claims.

"ClimateGate" poses a dilemma for Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers and Exelon CEO John Rowe, two of the most outspoken supporters of cap-and-trade, because their companies have specifically said they are relying on the IPCC’s conclusion as the scientific basis to call for government-imposed emissions limits.

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in October, Exelon’s Rowe said, "We believe that the climate change science is settled …The IPCC has declared that evidence for a discernable warming of the planet’s climate system is now "unequivocal" – and has warned that much larger changes are in store if we don’t begin reducing global emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and do it soon."

A Duke report on global warming states, "...our policy positions are driven by the IPCC peer-reviewed science and by our judgment that this science is not only credible, but that it is accepted by the vast majority of public policymakers who will shape U.S. climate legislation in the years to come."

Both Rogers and Rowe have taken a very high public profile in calling for cap-and-trade. In addition to testifying in Congress, these CEOs formed a partnership with the Environmental Defense Action Fund (EDAF) to promote cap-and-trade through TV and print advertising campaigns. The ads, paid for by EDAF, can be found at www.asmarcap.com.

Profit is the motivation. In an interview, Rowe said, "We don't flinch from the charge that, yes, some of our motivation and enthusiasm comes from the fact that we should make money on it if it happens."

To be sure, cap-and-trade could generate windfall profits for Exelon. Rowe reportedly has told investors that cap-and-trade could boost earnings by about $1.5 billion a year.

With billions at stake, it’s no wonder CEOs would skip over the finer points of global warming research and use conclusions that conveniently generate huge profits while making them appear to be concerned about the state of the planet.

Unlike Gore, however, Rogers and Rowe lead publicly-traded companies with a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders that compels them to act in the best interest of their investors. Such a responsibility includes a requirement that decisions must be based on the best available information that is reasonably discoverable.

Accordingly, Rogers and Rowe, along with other CEOs lobbying for cap-and-trade, should conduct an independent investigation of "ClimatgeGate" to determine its impact on the soundness of the IPCC’s conclusion.

These CEOs must exercise their fiduciary responsibility by carefully assessing whether they have been duped by a group of rogue climate change scientists. Thanks to "ClimateGate," the burden of proof is now on the CEOs to show their global warming policy is sound.

Until the cloud clears on the IPCC report, companies should immediately cease lobbying for nationwide laws to cap emission limits.

Companies actively seeking emissions limits are clearly at a crossroads. With shareholders’ money at stake, they can ignore the importance of "ClimateGate" or they can exercise prudence and seriously examine the issues raised by this controversy. The billions CEOs hope to make from cap-and-trade could easily disappear if the scientific underpinnings of the IPCC report vanish into thin air.

Read more >>

Kevin Jennings and "FistGate" Should Make Parents Furious

by Doug Giles

Man, am I about to sound like an uncool, homophobic, bigoted zealot who should be on a terror watch list (according to the paranormal progressives). Why is that, you ask? Well, I think Obama’s G-boy, Kevin Jennings, should not be the Safe Schools Czar for many egregious reasons. Here are just a few.

I believe anyone who thinks it’s okay to teach 14-year-old boys how they can jam their fist up another 14-year-old boy’s tailpipe, or provides "fisting" kits for the kiddos, or thinks it’s neat-o to urinate on one another during teen sex, or passes out literature to your young ones on how they can find old pedophiles to hook up with at "gay leather bars," or talks to your teen about the tricky pros and cons of spitting versus swallowing should not be the Safe Schools Czar.

Maybe Kevin Jennings could be the "Adam Lambert Eye Liner Czar" or Cher’s "Do You Believe in Life After Love Czar," but not the Safe Schools Czar. But then again, there I go being extreme. Shame on me for not being a hip parent who’s totally cool with adult flamers filling our fifth grade kids’ heads with filth. I am truly an ignorant, puritanical, buckle-shoed killjoy, ain’t I? By the way, what the heck is up with liberals? They have their hands in our pockets, their noses in our business, and now they want their arms up our backsides.

How crazy of me that I would have the audacity to go public with the notion that someone who headed up an organization (GLSEN) that proselytizes confused kids on how they can insert their knuckles up someone else’s anus should not be the determiner of what is "safe" at school, eh? Hello!

Hey, Kev… last time I checked, trying to make your mate a hand puppet didn’t fall within the city limits of SafetyTown. Sounds kinda dangerous to me. Oh and here’s an aside for the butt pirates: Our rectums are an exit, not an entrance.

In addition, Mr. Jennings, apart from the "arm in arse" thing, from what I remember during 9th grade health class many moons ago, it’s also not wise to place one’s reproductive organ in the end of another’s digestive system.

A fist up a rectum? Are you kidding me? You guys sound like you have way too much time on your hands. If you’re in need of an idea regarding what to do with your fist, here’s one: Why don’t take your fist and smack yourself in the face with it for poisoning America’s kids with your perverted crap?

For those not in the know, Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings, who was cherry picked by Obama, is not having a good week as whistleblowers are righteously shouting this guy down and trying to get him removed from calling the shots regarding what is nontoxic in your kids’ scholastic lives.

Why are watchdogs barking this dude down? Well, it’s not because he’s mildly gay but because he’s wildly militant in his homosexuality, and both he and his hombres at GLSEN have had no problemo whatsoever filling your kids’ heads and bodies with weirdness galore. For the unbelievable full list of what this man and his organization have advocated and continue to advocate, check out the fantastic work Jim Holt has done on "FistGate" at BigGovernment.com. Also, don’t miss Jennings/GLSEN’s "Little Black Book" for your sons! Hellish.

I’ve gotta warn you, mom and dad: What you’re about to read regarding "FistGate" is very sick and twisted. You’d better brace yourselves. I hope it thoroughly ticks you off that such baseness is being peddled to your babies. In addition, I hope you raise major hell with your elected reps about permanently removing Jennings from anything that has to do with your children and our schools.

Read more >>

What Are President Obama's Actual Objectives?

by Austin Hill

He campaigned against private sector economic mismanagement, and the "harsh realities" of global capitalism. He pledged during his campaign to end corruption in both the government, and the private sector.

After he took office, he claimed that he had "inherited" the worst economic situation in his country’s recent history. And then, the new President sought to consolidate his power. Once privately-owned enterprises became government-owned and operated entities, and were "restructured" so as to become, essentially, "workers’ cooperatives."

Not surprisingly, unemployment remained persistently high, even as the new was implementing his much-celebrated "reform" measures. And while private citizens had to struggle with the worsening economic conditions, government officials nonetheless continued to exert increasing levels of control over the nation’s wealth, and also continued to enrich themselves from that wealth, despite the suffering of "the governed."

Does this seem like a description of the first 11 months of the Obama Presidency? What I’ve described here thus far portrays the conduct of President Obama and members of his Administration fairly succinctly.

Yet, this is actually a description of the ascendency of Hugo Chavez, the once freely elected President and now rapidly-morphing-into-a-dictator of Venezuela. In fact, you could call this a "textbook case" - this is my paraphrase of a description of Chavez that appears in "International Business: Competing In The Global Marketplace," a text book currently used among M.B.A. students at many of America’s top graduate business schools.

And isn’t it interesting to note the parallels between Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama? The story of Chavez’ early days in office deviates from Obama’s story at the point where Chavez was able to arbitrarily change the make-up of Venezuela’s "supreme court," and thus re-write the nation’s constitution so as to legally enhance his own power and control (Obama has expressed disapproval of the U.S. Constitution, but has not yet attempted to re-write it).

But on economic policy matters – or perhaps we could say "on general economic tendencies" – Obama and Chavez have much in common. The President "consolidated his power" as he "inherited" the worst economic situation in his country’s recent history? That sounds like the rhetoric of Obama’s brief few weeks as "President-elect," his first six months in office, and the establishment of his many "czars." Once privately-owned enterprises became government-owned and operated entities, and were "restructured" so as to become, essentially, "workers’ cooperatives?" General Motors and Chrysler should come to mind on this one.

And just as it is in Venezuela, so also it is in the United States - our economy is still not growing. We may be seeing early signs of growth now (we’ll know in the coming months), and I’m not offering a forecast here. My point is simply that after 11 months of the Obama Administration’s corporate bailouts (a perverse process that President Bush began last year, and that President Obama has accelerated), a forced bankruptcy of one of America’s largest corporations, and the Administration’s continuous belittling and demeaning of corporate executives, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and even, at times, the medical profession, neither economic activity nor employment have grown, yet President Obama nonetheless has a lot more control over our economy, and over individual people. As Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) observed in the Wall Street Journal back in October, "President Obama has become the de facto CEO of large chunks of our economy, with the power to hire and fire executives, dictate salaries, declare what products should be made, and decide winners and losers in the marketplace…"

Along with additional control of economic resources, an augmented constitution, and a military that frequently turns itself against the citizenry, the "Chavez Administration" has also pursued an aggressive path of control over Venezuela’s media. This has meant implementing so-called "Media Contents" laws, that define what media content is appropriate and inappropriate for children. For example, allowing TV stations to show video of military troops shooting at citizens would be too violent for children’s eyes, so that kind of content is prohibited. And this year, alone, Chavez has closed down radio stations and seized TV stations that dared to broadcast content that expressed disagreement with him.

While violence has not yet erupted in the pursuit of "Obama’s America," our President’s Czar of "information and regulatory affairs," Cass Sunstein, has nonetheless proposed a so-called "notice and take down" law. Under this provision, those who operate websites - - The Washington Post, radio stations, private bloggers, and perhaps even you, yourself -we would all be required "take down falsehoods upon notice" from the U.S. government. And who would determine what is "true" and "false?" The Obama Administration, of course.

Thus far, "control" has been the predominant objective of the Obama presidency. It is difficult to argue that this pursuit has produced good things for the American people, yet the pursuit continues, just as it has in Venezuela and elsewhere around the world.

Will Americans allow this raw pursuit to continue?

Read more >>