The renewed focus on President Barack Obama’s controversial pastor is reviving the issue that neither presidential campaign wants to discuss directly: race.

But the differing reactions Thursday from Obama aides and Romney officials to revelations about a planned ad campaign linking Obama to Rev. Jeremiah Wright shows that Obama has more to gain than Romney if race enters the 2012 campaign.

Romney’s campaign, irritated at what they saw as a distraction from their economic assault on the president, quickly put out a statement from their campaign manager in response to The New York Times report. The campaign accused the Obama team of “running a campaign of character assassination” while distancing Romney from a GOP consultant’s proposal for a wealthy super PAC to launch the $10 million ad blitz.

Romney himself followed suit hours later, saying “I repudiate” the attack.

But if Boston saw a news cycle lost, Chicago found an opportunity to link Romney to the more hard-edged elements of conservatism. Read more:

A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.

Ameritrade chairman and founder Joe Ricketts -------------->
[2005 file photo, abcnews.go.com]

Timed to upend the Democratic National Convention in September, the plan would “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do,” the strategists wrote.

The plan, which is awaiting approval, calls for running commercials linking Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.

“The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way,” says the proposal, which was overseen by Fred Davis and commissioned by Joe Ricketts, the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade. Read more;

Following President Barack Obama's public announcement backing gay marriage last week, Newsweek magazine has featured him on its front cover with the headline, "The First Gay President."

With Obama's face pictured looking skyward and a rainbow-colored halo above his head, the controversial cover leads to a story written by gay writer Andrew Sullivan -- a self-described political conservative -- who analyzes the president's backing of gay marriage.

Obama said Wednesday he supported gay marriage, reversing his position on a controversial social issue just six months before the November election and adopting a stance fraught with uncertain political implications.

The president said that after years of lengthy discussions with friends and family, including his wife and two young daughters, he now "personally" believes gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. Read more:

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

Voters "like" Barack Obama more than they "like" Mitt Romney - and that might be all it takes to decide the outcome of the election.

A new USA Today/Gallup Poll shows 60% of registered voters say that President Obama is likable. That's nearly double the 31% who feel that way about Romney.

Even among crucial independent voters, the president holds a double-digit edge.

So despite the fact polls show Romney and President Obama in a dead heat both nationally and in key battleground states - Mitt Romney is facing a huge likability gap here.

And it could cost him.

Consider this: In each of the last five presidential elections, the candidate the voters "liked" the most won.

When you put all the other issues aside, a lot of people vote for the guy who does a better job connecting with them on a personal level.

In 2004, polls famously showed undecided voters would rather have a beer with George W. Bush than John Kerry; and swing voters found Bush to be more of a "real person" than Kerry.

As for Romney, pollsters say this likability deficit presents a challenge for his campaign as it tries to shape his image.

They can either work on making voters see Romney as more likable or they can give up on likability and try to emphasize other areas where Romney is stronger than President Obama.

For now it doesn't look like Romney is hurting too badly on this issue since he's neck-and-neck with the president.

But he might be doing even better if he hadn't tied his dog to the roof of his car.

So, how much does it matter if you like a candidate for president?

[Visit The Cafferty File]

Mitt Romney has just clinched the Republican nomination, and according to GOP strategist Karl Rove, he has a lot of catching up to do. In fact, according to Rove, if the election were held today, Obama could destroy Romney by as many as 100 electoral votes:

Rove’s map shows that for Romney, even in the event that he wins all of the as-yet undecided 82 electoral votes, he would still have to flip a state that leans toward Obama in order to win – the most likely prospects being Pennsylvania, Ohio or Michigan.

Fortunately for Romney, he has at least one home court advantages in all of those states – all of them have Republican Governors. Unfortunately for Romney, Obama also has a home court advantages in those states. Read more;

The American public has significant disdain for political advertising, especially those citizens living in battleground states where television and radio airwaves are flooded with campaign ads in the months leading to Election Day.  This election season, in addition to advertising sponsored by candidates, political parties, and issue groups, the American public is likely to witness a new form of political ads: corporate political advertising.  While corporations view their right to sponsor political ads as a victory for the First Amendment, political observers caution that such ads could drown out citizen voices in our political process.

In a controversial 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year removed a century-old ban against direct corporate spending on political campaigns.  The Courtoverturned the long-standing ban through its ruling in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission(FEC).  Citizens United v. FEC stems from the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign in which Citizens United wanted to air Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute, feature-length documentary film critical of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY).  The FEC disallowed Citizens United from airing the film on the grounds that it violated existing campaign finance laws by expressly advocating for Clinton’s defeat. 

Under prior campaign finance laws established in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court distinguished between “express advocacy” and “issue advocacy.” Read more;

Rep. Barney Frank, the first openly gay serving member of Congress and a powerful Democrat whose name is attached to the sweeping Wall Street reform bill, will announce today he doesn’t plan to seek reelection.

Frank became the first openly gay member of Congress six years after he first took office, coming out in 1987 and breaking an important barrier in American politics.

He survived scandal to become one of the most powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill during 30 years in office. The Massachusetts congressman chaired the House Financial Services Committee when Democrats were in the majority from early 2007 until early 2011, becoming the main House Democrat overseeing the financial industry during one of the most turbulent economic eras of U.S. history. Read more;

This week Jon Stewart said if presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a color, he’d be “beige.” 

But that may change — and not likely to the color green.

According to CBS News, the former Massachusetts governor’s recent reputation for changing positions continues with a move farther to the right on the issue of climate change and human impact.   

As recently as June, Romney acknowledged a human impact on climate change, and even advocated for reducing emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases. But by August, candidate Romney was saying that he didn’t know whether or how much humans were contributing to global warming. And at fundraiser in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Thursday, Romney reportedly put forth a still different view. Read more;

Rick Perry loves to talk about all the jobs he's created in Texas... but that's only part of the story... and a bit misleading at that.

The other part of the Perry story is that nearly 1 in 5 Texans in the state where he is the governor are living below the poverty line; and that the poverty rate is growing faster in Texas than the national average.

CNN Money reports that Texas ranks 6th in terms of people living in poverty.

Both demographic and economic factors play into this high poverty rate - more than half the state are minorities and many Texans have little education. Especially in southern Texas, many families live in shanty housing with no electricity or indoor plumbing. In 2011.

Also, the poor in Texas don't get much help. The state has one of the lowest rates of spending on its citizens per capita; and it has the highest share of those without health insurance. Read more:

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

Just what President Obama needs, another fire threatening to burn out of control.

The Democrats' loss in New York's special congressional election this week could signal serious trouble for Obama and the Jewish vote in 2012.

District 9, made up of parts of Brooklyn and Queens, is one of the most Jewish in the nation. And many believe that if the Democrats lost there, Obama could be in jeopardy in key states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It's nearly impossible to win a presidential election without those states.

The problem is, a lot of American Jews feel neglected by this president and think he has been too tough on Israel.

In the New York race, former Mayor Ed Koch – a Jewish Democrat – endorsed the Republican. Koch cited Israel as the main reason why. He says he likes the president and helped get him elected, "but Obama threw Israel under the bus."

And it's not just Obama's policy toward Israel. A recent poll shows that other issues that trouble many voters – like the economy, Social Security and Medicare – are more important than Israel among Jewish voters.

Republicans smell blood in the water here and will no doubt make Israel a wedge issue in 2012.

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic candidate to not get an overwhelming majority of the Jewish vote. All Obama needs is another comparison to Carter.

Obama's approval rating is about 60% among Jews nationally. In 2008, exit polls showed nearly 80% of Jews voted for him.

This makes Jews just one more group to start deserting Obama. He's also lost support among other key voting blocs like blacks, women and independents.

Here’s my question to you: How can President Obama save the Jewish vote?

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

The Republican presidential debates are turning into lively affairs. Maybe too lively.

For the third time in as many debates, crowd members have either booed or cheered at what some say are inappropriate moments.

Most recently, former Sen. Rick Santorum was asked about the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

When an openly gay service member asked what the candidates' intentions were for gays in the military, members of the crowd booed loudly.

After the fact, Santorum said he condemned those who booed the gay soldier. He said he didn't hear the boos in the debate hall.

In another debate, Rick Perry was asked about the death penalty and the more than 200 executions that have happened under his watch as Texas governor. The crowd cheered that question.

Another GOP debate crowd got worked up when Ron Paul was asked a hypothetical question about a 30-year-old uninsured man. The crowd cheered when Paul was asked if that man should be allowed to die.

President Barack Obama has criticized the reaction of some of these audience members at the GOP debates; and Vice President Joe Biden calls the booing of the gay soldier “reprehensible.”

Politico asks in an online conversation if the GOP debate crowds are bloodthirsty.

Critics say these debates promote extremism within the Republican Party, and show “the mean season is upon us.”

They fault the candidates themselves for not stamping out the behavior when it happens. They should. Also, some suggest the booing or cheering could turn off moderate and swing voters in the general election. It should.

Here’s my question to you: Are Republican debate crowds bloodthirsty? 

See Caffertys' Blog;

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has shut the door on a 2012 presidential run, saying "now is not my time."

Christie says he won't abandon the commitment he made to his state as governor – you know, unlike a certain half-term dropout governor of Alaska.

Christie put it this way: "New Jersey, whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me."

This also means that whether Republican voters like it or not, they are stuck with the current crop of Republican candidates.

Unless, that is, Sarah Palin decides she'll get in. But it's getting a little late for that. Plus, more than two-thirds of Republicans say they don't want Palin to run for president.

So with Christie out, it looks like Republicans will nominate either Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, who's sinking fast in the polls.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows Romney leading the pack at 25%.

Perry is now tied for second place with businessman Herman Cain at 16%.

For Perry, that's a whopping 13 percentage-point drop in this poll.

The Texas governor's stock has been falling after a shaky debate performance and questions about where he stands on Social Security and immigration.

Cain, on the other hand, has been surging in national polls after his surprise win in the Florida straw poll – and a flurry of media attention.

Ron Paul is the only other candidate receiving double-digit support in this survey, at 11%.

With primary season sneaking up on us, it's time for Republicans to pick their poison. Go to Caffertys' Blog

Since Republicans won control of many statehouses last November, more than a dozen states have passed laws requiring voters to show photo identification at polls, cutting back early voting periods or imposing new restrictions on voter registration drives.

With a presidential campaign swinging into high gear, the question being asked is how much of an impact all of these new laws will have on the 2012 race.

State officials, political parties and voting experts have all said that the impact could be sizable. Now, a new study to be released Monday by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has tried to tally just how many voters stand to be affected.

The center, which has studied the new laws and opposed some of them in court and other venues, analyzed 19 laws that passed and 2 executive orders that were issued in 14 states this year, and concluded that they “could make it significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.” Read more;

Businessman Herman Cain on Sunday called it "insulting" that the family of Rick Perry owned a hunting camp with a racially charged name well into the 1980s and possibly even later.

According to a Washington Post article that appeared Sunday, the hunting camp owned by the Texas governor was branded with the name "N-----head." The word -- reportedly on a rock at the entrance of the 1,070-acre parcel -- has been painted over and the camp renamed.

Perry has said it was changed in 1983 or 1984, but others suggest it may not have been covered until later -- with one person estimating for the Post that it was as late as 2008. Read more: 

Let’s say Chris Christie decides to run for for president — then what?

It’s a question that has occurred to Christie and his circle of intimates — and they’ve begun sketching a plan in case the governor goes forward with a run.

They understand that all the enthusiasm and pleading in some Republican quarters for a Christie candidacy obscures the fact that the New Jersey governor would immediately have to scale the side of a steep and unforgiving political mountain.

With the initial primary and caucus states poised to move up their contests to January, an October announcement means that Christie would immediately confront two questions of some urgency: where would he compete and how would he get on the ballot in an array of states coming in rapid succession.

Those decisions have to be made and action needs to be taken while also handling myriad other demands — all of it on the fly.

While Christie’s camp is staying mum, the governor is aware, according to top Republicans and donors, that the hour is growing late. He has to decide what to do within the week — see the issues he’d have to address.

The one African-American running for the GOP presidential nomination said Wednesday the black community was 'brainwashed' for traditionally siding with liberal politicians.

"African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view," Godfather's Pizza executive Herman Cain said on CNN's "The Situation Room" in an interview airing Wednesday between 5-7 p.m. ET. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple."

(Oh Really? I'll bet that's going to over big with the Black voters.)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, in addition to his date with The Donald, held multiple fundraisers in the Big Apple on Monday. 

One was with wealthy Jewish donors who convened at an upscale midtown law firm, Weil, Gotshal and Manges. Like all of his Romney's Monday events, it was invitation only. No press. No pictures.

Two undecided voters who attended the fundraiser said that there were "several hundred people" in the audience and that Romney spoke at length about Israel, and his unwavering support for it. However, he didn't mention his chief rival for the Republican nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, at all, instead focusing his fire on President Obama.

Barack Obama scaled dizzying electoral heights in Colorado in 2008, pulling off a stunning nine-point win over John McCain in this once reliably red state.

But three years later, he’s struggling to regain altitude.

What is particularly worrisome for the Obama campaign is that Colorado in many ways is the most friendly of the high-stakes, fast-changing swing states — that also include Virginia, North Carolina and Wisconsin — that he’s banking on for 2012.

Colorado Governor, Democrat John Hickenlooper, said, “The president probably can win Colorado, but he’s got a lot of work to do”. In a telephone interview he told POLITICO, he thinks Obama will have an easier time if the GOP nominee is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, arguing that Perry’s hard-edged conservatism is less appealing to moderate Colorado swing voters than Mitt Romney’s softer edge.

But either way, he predicts a dogfight. And other Democrats say that fight will be even tougher if Republicans make a play for Latinos by nominating Florida Senator Marco Rubio for vice president. Read more: 

More shocking than Cain's victory (and Perry's defeat) in the Florida Straw Poll, was the utter collapse of Rep. Michele Bachmann. 

Somehow, in a state chock full of tea party groups, Bachmann finished dead last, with 1.5 percent of the vote. Once a frontrunner in early GOP presidential polls, Bachmann has sunk so far, so fast that even moderate Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, whose campaign imploded months ago, placed higher than her. It's all unraveling for Michele. 

Bachmann advisor and veteran GOP strategist Ed Rollins, said Bachmann's chances of claiming the nomination are slim. Rollins said Bachmann lacks the "resources or ability at this point in time" to challenge for the nomination after Iowa. Her last-place finish in Florida raises questions about whether even winning Iowa is realistic for Bachmann, especially given Rick Perry's support among the social conservatives who dominate the GOP in the Hawkeye State.

A decade after 9/11, American politics continues to be polarised by some rather unexpected figures. The latest Republican fire-thrower is a Christian conservative from Bandra, finds Shougat Dasgupta -->

IT IS easy to make a convincing case that Dinesh D’Souza, the prominent conservative commentator and Christian apologist, is a loon. Many already have. His recent book, The Roots of Obama’s Rage, is brandished by the prosecution as more, perhaps even clinching, evidence. The book’s case was made in miniature in an article in Forbes, remarkable for its half-baked thesis that Obama is a ’50s-60s style anti-imperialist. Like any student clutching his dog-eared Fanon or Said reader, Obama, D’Souza contends, believes his country to be the oppressor and is acting to subvert its power.

Except, and this is the nub, Obama is not motivated simply by ideology but by the spirit of his Kenyan father who, in absentia, infected his son with a Third World Weltanschauung unbalanced by hatred and rage for the white and wealthy. D’Souza’s evidence? Read More;

Remember how Glenn Beck promised that at last summer’s rally in Washington, D.C., he would reveal “God’s plan….well, not really a plan”? 

Well, this is what Perry said to that audience, “He who knows the number of drops in the ocean, He counts the sands in the desert, He knows you by name?? He doesn’t require perfect people to execute His perfect plan. As spiritual beings, we are meant to live in relationship with our creator and with one another. And the happiest moments of every experience are when I am in communion with God and in community with others.” 

Using Moses and King David as examples, Perry said, “God uses broken people to reach a broken world. The mistakes of yesterday say nothing about the possibilities of tomorrow.”

“His perfect plan”? So, just like Glenn Beck, Rick Perry believes that he knows God’s plan and was chosen to implement it? Do we know which denominations of the Protestant faith fail to teach that pride is one of the seven deadly sins?

Perry’s speech was a combination of “aw shucks” memories of a Lincolnesque Texas prairie childhood, acknowledgment that he was an inadequate student and a testimony of his rebirth in Jesus. And he did describe his “born again” period as “wrestling with God.” Read more;

Perry get's credit for addressing one of the third rails of American politics, but that doesn't mean he has to invite electrocution. The problem with his hot rhetoric is that it can turn off many voters before they even get a chance to listen to his reform proposals, assuming he eventually offers some.

He's even technically right that Social Security is a species of Ponzi scheme (if not a criminal enterprise) in the sense that young people today are putting more into the system than they can possibly get out in retirement.

Even a pyramid system such as this could be solvent if it took advantage of compound interest. But the overriding problem is that not a dime of the payroll contributions the government collects over a lifetime is saved and invested for a worker's retirement. Social Security's pay-as-you-go financing model means that 12.4% of all wages are transferred to current beneficiaries, the surplus dollars are spent by Congress on other things, and Social Security gets an IOU from the Treasury.

As for Mr. Romney, he seems to be taking Social Security assaults a notch or two beyond even the Democratic playbook. At the debate he implied Mr. Perry was "committed to abolishing Social Security," and he has since made this a major campaign theme.

His press shop followed up with a memo claiming Mr. Perry "Believes Social Security Should Not Exist," and Mr. Romney told a talk radio show that "If we nominate someone who the Democrats can correctly characterize as being opposed to Social Security, we would be obliterated as a party."

We'd give Mr. Romney more credit for his professed political prudence if he were at least proposing some Social Security reforms of his own. But ......

The Texas Tribune has a story on how important federal stimulus money has been to Rick Perry as he balanced the last two budgets. 

The Lone Star State has spent $17.4 billion in federal stimulus money through the second quarter of this year. Ross Ramsey's story notes that "the governor famously refused $556 million in federal stimulus funds for the state's unemployment insurance program...but Texas happily accepted the rest...

In the second quarter of this year alone, federal stimulus money in the state budget helped create or retain 40,411 Texas jobs, according to the Legislative Budget Board, which keeps a quarterly accounting of the money and how it's spent.... As it turned out, instead of getting Texas through a short rough patch, the stimulus money merely bought the state some time, which ran out when lawmakers turned to the 2012-2013 budget earlier this year." Read more;

"You don't accuse the chairman of the Federal Reserve of being a traitor to his country. Of being guilty of treason,"....

...... Karl Rove, who has clashed with Perry before, told Fox News (via TPM). "And, suggesting that we treat him pretty ugly in Texas — You know, that is not, again a presidential statement."

Rove continued: "If Rick Perry were to be elected president he'd be saddled with Ben Bernanke who has a term. He's an independent chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, appointed by president and confirmed by Congress and serves for a term and the president couldn't even ask him to resign. So, this is — I hope this is not the first of sort of over the top statements." Read more;

President Barack Obama placed the blame for Washington's current political paralysis squarely at the feet of his Republican opponents Tuesday, telling CNN that the GOP's "ideological rigidity" is standing in the way of compromises necessary for stronger economic growth.

In a wide-ranging interview with Wolf Blitzer, the president said the inability of GOP leaders in Congress to support a recent $4 trillion deficit reduction deal focused more heavily on spending cuts than revenue increases is evidence of a party placing political considerations before national interests.

Americans want to see "Democrats and Republicans putting country before party," he said. "The fact that Speaker (John) Boehner and folks in his caucus couldn't say yes to that (deficit deal) tells me that they're more interested in the politics ... than they are in solving the problem." Read more;

DECORAH, Iowa — US President Barack Obama went head-to-head with a prominent conservative Tea Party activist, in a microcosm of a political clash that will play out in the 2012 election.

Ryan Rhodes, a leader of the group in Iowa, took on Obama during an open-air town hall meeting, which marked a moment of new intensity in the president's campaign for a second term.

  Nice people those Tea Partiers -------->

Rhodes shouted out that Obamas' call for more civility in politics had little chance of coming to pass after "your vice president is calling people like me, a Tea Party member, a 'terrorist.'"

The clash came as Obama was wrapping up a town hall style meeting in a barn draped with an American flag,in a rural corner of Iowa.

Obama said, "In fairness, since I have been called a socialist who wasn't born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms because I passed a health care bill, I am all for lowering the rhetoric."

Obama and Rhodes later engaged in an animated conversation as he greeted supporters on a rope line after the event, and the activist later told reporters that he believed that Obama was indeed a socialist.

(It's gonna be interesting)

Among the 11 declared candidates, polls are beginning to suggest that the Minnesota congresswoman is the one with the best chance of upsetting front-runner Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination, and that has put a target on her back for those with longer-shot hopes.

Candidate Tim Pawlenty has led the attacks on Bachmann. He likened her lack of executive experience to that of Barack Obama at the 2008 election. His campaign slogans include “Results not Rhetoric,” a thinly veiled attack on his fellow Minnesotan, and he constantly suggests that she would have no chance of beating Obama if she were to win the Republican nomination.

He's got that right!

btw, compare the current file photo of Ms. Bachmann (right) to the slightly airbrushed Newsmax photo used in the article.

Recent reports that the therapy clinic co-owned by Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann offers “ex-gay” therapy are raising questions about the extent to which federal dollars are subsidizing the widely discredited practice.

John Becker, a gay activist with Truth Wins Out, an LGBT group dedicated to fighting “ex-gay” conversion therapy, posted a report last week detailing his experience seeking reparative therapy with Bachmann & Associates, a Minnesota-based clinic operated by Bachmann’s spouse, Marcus Bachmann.

Feigning a desire to change his sexual orientation, Becker caught on tape sessions with counselor Timothy Wiertzema, who told him he could change from being gay to straight. Major psychological and other medical organizations have refuted the idea that people can change their sexual orientation.

The Real Clear Politics average still has Romney on top in Iowa, if only barely, but a new poll by The Iowa Republican has Bachmann in the lead for the first time, 25 to 21 over Romney, with Pawlenty and Cain well back at 9.

To some of us, this isn't at all surprising. I have long thought that Bachmann has impressive political skills (whatever her right-wing craziness) and could do well in this race, particularly in the absence of another viable candidate on the right.

Do the Republicans have a viable candidate?

Rick Perry is watching 2 Things: Bachmann's excitement And Romney's money.

With a Republican primary electorate not entirely satisfied with its field of candidates, this man is eyeing a run for the Presidency. 

The Texas state legislature special session is over (without a win on the anti-TSA bill), and Texas Gov. Rick Perry will now enter the intensive phase of his deliberations over whether to run for president. As he does so, he will be closely watching two things: Michele Bachmann's grassroots excitement and Mitt Romney's money.

Both Janice Hahn, the Democratic candidate for Congress in California’s 36^th district and her opponent, Republican Craig Huey, have condemned a Web ad (see video below) created by an outside conservative group that some have labeled sexist and offensive.

But such viral videos, as the label suggests, take on a life of their own and are hard to kill. The ad, which features a street-gang motif, superimposes Hahn’s face on a stripper dancing on a pole, and suggests that the Los Angeles councilwoman coddled gang members.
[James Oliphant / LA Times]

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann came into Monday night’s presidential debate in the Queen City as an unknown commodity. She left it as the most talked-about candidate in the 2012 GOP field.

Bachmann stole headlines at the start by announcing that she had filed to run for president — skipping the exploratory phase entirely — and then proceeding to command the stage in the first hour of the CNN-sponsored debate with quotable answers on every question asked of her. 

The crowd assembled at Saint Anselm College broke into spontaneous applause after several of Bachmann’s answers

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

For Republicans to keep conservatives happy, social issues - like abortion, gay marriage, "don't ask, don't tell" - manage to work their way into every political conversation. And that may prove to be a problem for Republicans once we head into the general election campaign.

According to a CNN Opinion Research Corp. poll, nearly three-quarters of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters say they want a real contender who can defeat Obama in 2012, even if that nominee doesn't agree with them on every issue. More importantly, that's up 7 percentage points from January.

With the president's approval ratings near all-time lows, our national debt sky-high and climbing, and unemployment above 9%, it would certainly seem it's the Republicans’ race to lose.

Jacks Question;

Will Republicans have to lighten up on social issues in order to succeed in 2012?

Today the media seems to be focused on Anthony Weiners' weiner. I know, he's a Democrat and he's not running for president .... but that's what everybody is talking about, because it's a scandal, and we never want to pass up on a good scandal! And then there is Sarah Palins' emails from when she was governor of Alaska ....... like that's important! Actually the emails are revealing that she was a more engaged governor than most people thought and will likely help her more than hurt her, but because there's no juicy scandal there, the media will quickly loose interest and move on to ...... Newt Gingrich, .... because his staff quit. (Surrendered is a better term .... there is no way he's going to get the nomination)

Maybe we'll find out something tonight when the GOP holds it's first debate and although Sarah Palin will not be there, Michele Bachmann will be. Actually, between the two of them, Bachmann is the more articulate, she is always absolutely clear about her lack of knowledge regarding American history, where Sarah hem's and haw's as she re-writes history. I mean even I know Paul Revere was Americas' first silversmith!

So what do you think the candidates should be discussing? The debt ceiling? Oh, now that's exciting! Who cares if they have to put a new ceiling in the accounts payable department of the Treasury Department? They need someplace to store all those bills, don't they? And then there's the deficit, another exciting issue that requires math to understand. So what if we have a deficit, we're Americans, we always spend more than we make. It's a tradition! So what's to discuss?

JOBS! They can discuss jobs! Even though 91% of Americans that want jobs, have jobs .... the politicians insist it's an important issue. Because, everyone knows the reason the economy is bad is because we need more jobs, and the way to get more jobs is to fix the economy, so as soon as we create more jobs the economy will be fixed! (Hey, we're talking about politics here, we're supposed to go in circles aren't we?) 

So take the poll and tell us what you think is important, after all it's your opinion that's important here!

While serious competitors for the Republican presidential nomination have dropped out of the running. Romney has flexed his financial muscle with a $10 million-plus one-day fundraising haul. 

Most of all, his narrow, economy-focused message appears to be resonating amid growing alarm about the unemployment rate – which rose above 9 percent the day after Romney declared his campaign.

Add it all together and Romney has had his best political month in nearly four years. He increasingly looks like the 2012 election’s marathon man, a steady and durable candidate who enters Monday’s New Hampshire presidential debate with a better shot than ever at becoming his party’s nominee.

We're not sure what's more laughable -- the fact that the South Florida Tea Party can't keep up on its bills for a Donald Trump rally they held in Boca Raton, or the fact that they held a rally for The Donald to begin with.

The city has sent invoices for the $6,145 the Tea Party owes for barricades set up and police security, but they haven't been paid since the April rally.

   The Donald "I hope they don't expect me to pay it" -->

Even better, the Tea Party would stick Boca Raton with the bill if they don't pay it -- so those real "fiscal conservatives" would be causinggovernment spending. .......... Whoops!

I'd like to ask you to do something strange, maybe even a little shocking: take Michele Bachmann seriously. 

If you're like most people, chances are you know Bachmann only as that crazy Tea Party congresswoman who delivered her own response to the State of the Union, in which she looked into the wrong camera for seven minutes. 

But she IS running for president, and she's not kidding around.

Don't get me wrong -- Bachmann is neither a serious legislator nor a serious thinker. Her ideas are radical nearly to the point of being nuts, and the thought of her in the Oval Office is, well, unsettling. 

As a representative of the extreme right, she'd have almost no chance of beating Barack Obama in a general election. But the other candidates in the race could well find her to be more formidable than they expect.

For the first time, voters feel the agenda of congressional Republicans is nearly as extreme as that of Democrats in Congress.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 39% of Likely U.S. Voters say it is more accurate to describe the agenda of Republican members of Congress as mainstream. Slightly more voters (43%), however, believe it’s more accurate to label the GOP agenda as extreme. Eighteen percent (18%) are undecided.

Not surprisingly, strong majorities of Democratic and Republican voters describe their own party’s agenda as mainstream. A plurality of voters not affiliated with either major political party views the agendas of both parties in Congress as extreme.

Rudy Giuliani said in an interview today that if Sarah Palin decides to become a presidential candidate, she should not "fall into the trap that I fell into" during the 2008 campaign, ......

..... thinking that national popularity automatically means victories in early primary and caucus states.

The Republican former New York City mayor agreed that, like him, but "for different reasons," Palin has high national name recognition.

I would say to her, don't fall into the trap that I fell into (in 2007 and 2008) in thinking it's about how nationally popular you are.

Giuliani said that while he won't decide until later summer whether to run for President because he wants to see "how the field develops," if he does, "I'd never run the campaign like the one I ran three years ago. That was a big mistake."

Of course The Donald would invite The Sarah up to his New York penthouse. She is, after all, taking her Clampett bus expedition to American shrines, and that's what Donald Trump considers himself.
Sarah Palin and Trump also share two interests: presidential politics and sham reality shows.

(Actually, that's just one.)

They both also have a remarkable ability to turn reporters into shills who chase after them to snap up whatever crumbs they toss.
Palin can even keep a straight face when she tells her Fox News BFF Greta Van Susteren that her bus jaunt isn't "a publicity seeking tour." All the while she's getting disproportionate publicity from the very news people she disparages.
"I don't owe anything to the mainstream media," she gloats.

Thursday Palins' "One Nation," traveling road show stopped in Boston, where the former Alaska governor, her parents, her husband, and little Piper visited Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, and Bunker Hill. Palin posted photos of that leg of her trip on the SarahPAC blog.

One moment that you won't find posted on the blog is Palin's response to reporters when they asked her who Paul Revere was. she stammered while saying this;

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms, uh, by ringing those bells, and um, makin' sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed."

Needless to say, the lamestream media are having a field day with that gaffe.

After months of relatively robust job growth, President Barack Obama and his team must now reckon with the reality that the economy probably won't be on firm ground during the 2012 campaign — and that he must temper some of the Morning-in-America optimism he'd hoped to run on.

The president has been unable to curb the nation's nine percent unemployment rate, so he will be forced to put the best possible face on a sputtering recovery.

Democratic strategists say that means adopting an ungainly three-pronged political approach: Talking up economic gains since the darkest days of 2008 and 2009, highlighting a modest job-creation agenda blocked by Republicans and making the case that things would be far worse if the GOP were in charge.

,

[By Steven Bertioni - Forbes]
Donald Trump just took possession of his big, used Boeing 757 plane. He wants everyone to know about it. His camp sent Forbes this article (yes, I see the paradox of me now writing about it. Does it mean Trump wins?)

     Trump Force One at La Guardia ---------->
     [Photo by Matt Molnar/NYCAviation] 

Naturally, the article very bluntly raises the question of 'will he rejoin the Presidential race he never joined?' America loves reading and debating that question. Plus, Trump can't let Sarah Palin and her bus tour hog the entire election-speculation spotlight.

As Matt Molnar points out; The Boeing 757 is a very presidential plane ...." See article for Molners full comment.

On day three of Sarah Palin's unconventional bus tour came the most surprising moment by far.

The former Alaska governor and her daughter Piper dined with media mogul Donald Trump and his wife Melania at a pizza place in Times Square. Palin met Trump at his apartment in Trump Tower, near Rockefeller Center; they rode from there in his limo to the restaurant, part of a New York City chain.

Sarah Palin mesmerized by The Donald as he tells everyone how it is -------> 

Both Palin and Trump, who made a show of considering a presidential bid in the past few months, have contracts with Fox News. The two could be seen eating through the windows, against which surprised passerby pressed.

This being New York City, not the most pro-Republican part of the country, there were loud chants of "Obama!" as the pair exited the restaurant.

Republican Michele Bachmann is making plans for a presidential campaign announcement next month in Waterloo, Iowa, the city where the Minnesota congresswoman was born.

Bachmann trickled out the details in a conference call with reporters Thursday night, but said she could still reverse course and sit out the 2012 White House campaign.

When describing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's tour through Washington D.C. on the back of a motorcycle -- in theory a grand kickoff to her national bus tour of significant historical sites, in actuality a media circus surrounding a creeping crawl through our nation's capital -- perhaps the New York Times said it best: "A short ride with lots of rumbling."

WHERE'S SARAH?  ------>

Palin only took a slow, meandering tour through D.C. on Sunday, but she got more public attention than any speaking engagement could possibly bring. And it all comes back to Palin's greatest strength: her ability to whip the media -- the same "lamestream media" she claims to despise so much .......

The Republican Party flirts should stop complaining about how tough it is to run for president and get in the game

Increasingly, we are told, White House aspirants are horrified by the grueling pace, the relentless attacks, the withering scrutiny, the notion of dragging their families into a slimy swamp that will taint them forever. My response: stop the whining.

First, the presidency is a pretty cool job. You get a nice mansion with backyard, a bowling alley, a chef, your own helicopter, and an impressive pile of nuclear weapons. No one forced these folks to stir up presidential speculation. The agonizing is getting old.

Second,.....

The New Hampshire Republican Party found out Sarah Palin would be coming to town by hearing about it in the news.

Where would she be stopping? They didn't know. Palin's staff wouldn't even return their calls, leaving them to ask reporters for more answers.

And they're not alone: With hours to go before Palin's bus tour is supposed to begin, it's still unclear what she'll be doing when she gets to the first stop. It's even more of a mystery what her second stop will be.

Or when.

Or why.

In Iowa's conservative circles, Michele Bachmann's name seemed to be on everyone's lips last week.

With a GOP presidential field that has left voters wanting more, the provocative "tea party" favorite arrived Friday seemingly well positioned to snap up supporters of 2008 Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee after he declined to run for 2012. Her visit here to attend several GOP fundraisers and private meetings with activists generated a flurry of speculation that the Minnesota congresswoman would enter the race earlier than expected.

Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks at a GOP fundraiser in Ohio on May 20. (JD Pooley, AP) ----->

But Bachmann's visit also showed how her ambitions have been complicated by another charismatic firebrand from the right: Sarah Palin.

Michele Bachmann's goal for today? Raise $240,000 in 24 hours

Though the Minnesota Republican says she won't officially announce whether she is running for president until June, it has not stopped the Tea Party favorite from an aggressive grassroots fundraising effort.

"Please make a contribution and join my 24-hour money bomb to raise $240,000 in 24 hours and make Barack Obama a one-term president," Bachmann writes on her website. (And the nit-wits will send it to her)

"....according to a report in New York Magazine that is out today, (Ailes is not at all thrilled with one Republican: former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The report claims that the Fox News president thinks very lowly of her, thinking she's both an idiot and stupid.

It must be pointed out, though, that this report has to be taken with a grain of salt like the questionable source from which it comes. The source for this, New York Magazine, is a known liberal publication that features stories on apparent matters of interest in local New York City circles, which are overwhelmingly Democrat.

Roger Ailes ----->

When ABC News first reported in January that Bachmann was seriously considering a White House bid, the news was generally treated as either a compelling media sideshow or a savvy fundraising head fake on Bachmann's part. After all, the idea that a third-term congresswoman with a light legislative record and a penchant for controversial statements could become a serious White House contender seemed unlikely at best.

Almost five months after would-be contenders like Mike Huckabee, Haley Barbour and John Thune decided to take a pass -- the notion of a serious Bachmann campaign doesn't seem so implausible anymore, especially in Iowa.

On Tuesday, (May 17th) the Teapot Party announced our biggest endorsement yet – former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson for the Republican presidential nomination.

But not so fast. I sent the press release and coverage links to Nelson. His response took me by surprise: "My position is it too early for me to endorse anyone. And I think every one should vote their own conscience."

".........I think I will wait and see where he stands on other things. My bad. Sorry. I still think he is a good guy but so Is Dennis (Kucinich) and if he decided to run I would personally vote for him. If it came down to either him or Gary I'm already committed to Dennis."

Tim Pawlenty will formally announce his candidacy for president on Monday in Iowa, an aide told POLITICO.
The former Minnesota governor has scheduled a town hall in Des Moines at 11:30 a.m. His wife Mary will introduce him.

After the announcement, Pawlenty will travel to Florida, Washington, New Hampshire and New York.

Choosing Iowa for his official announcement is just the latest in a flurry of activity there by Pawlenty, reflecting a high-stakes contest in which he needs to quickly establish himself as a viable contender for the GOP nomination.

The Questions: Will Pawlenty win the nomination?
If he does, can he beat Obama?

It's a sign of the GOP's straits that the party is depending on the bland, wonkish Daniels for an adrenaline boost.

Top Republicans are increasingly convinced that President Barack Obama will be easily reelected if stronger GOP contenders do not emerge, and some are virtually begging Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to add some excitement to the slow-starting nomination race.

But interviews this week with longtime party activists and strategists made clear that many in the Republican establishment are unnerved by a field led by Mitt Romney, who could have trouble confronting Obama on health reform; Tim Pawlenty, who has yet to ignite excitement; Jon Huntsman, who may be too moderate to get the nomination; and Newt Gingrich, weighed down by personal baggage and a sense that he is a polarizing figure from the 1990s.

In other words ..... they're desperate.

Salon's Alex Pareene, in response to Rep. Michele Bachmann's latest fundraising appeal to her supporters, declares bewilderingly, "I am just looking for some sort of silver lining to the continued, demoralizing political prominence of a person who is very obviously deranged."
Of course, taking into consideration the congresswoman's wildly misinformed statements and crass invective against "big government," there's no mistaking her political profile for the silhouette of a figure tilting against windmills.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R) Minnesota 6th District ----->

Stoking more speculation about whether she intends to run for the White House, Sarah Palin is sending out 400,000 direct mail fundraising solicitations for 2012, including to voters in earlier primary states.

First reported by The Washington Post, the solicitations are titled "2012 Can't Come Fast Enough," but make no specific mention of her plans.

"Taking back control of the House last year was only the first step," Palin says in the mailer from SarahPac, sent out nationwide. "Now you and I must fix our eyes on 2012. Our goal is to take back the White House and the Senate."

Palin headed into 2011 with more than $1.3 million in her political action committee. (A mere 997 million short of what Obama plans to raise.)

Newt Gingrich, a fiscal conservative? Not when it comes to Tiffany's.

In 2005 and 2006, the former House speaker turned presidential candidate carried as much as $500,000 in debt to the premier jewelry company, according to financial disclosures filed with the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

When asked by POLITICO whether Gingrich has settled this debt, and why he owed between a quarter-million and a half-million dollars to a jeweler, Rick Tyler, Gingrich's spokesman, declined to comment.

Billionaire Donald Trump will not be getting any support, moneywise or otherwise, from Billionaire David Koch if The Donald should decide to run for President.

Koch said, "Donald's political positions over the last 10 years have been highly variable and unusual. He's a wonderful guy, but I don't think he should run for office."

Noting Trump's love of press, Koch said the Celebrity Apprentice host is "getting more publicity than he ever dreamed about right now." But, he added, "at some point I think he's going to drop out of the race when he realizes that he's really not qualified to be President."

The glow of national pride seemed to rise above partisan politics, as support for the president rose significantly among both Republicans and independents. In all, 57 percent said they now approved of the president's job performance, up from 46 percent last month.

Though there has been talk in some quarters that the United States military can now leave Afghanistan, the poll showed that public sentiment on the issue seems more complicated.

Nearly half said the nation should decrease troop levels in Afghanistan. But more than six in 10 also said the United States had not completed its mission in Afghanistan.

None of the potential candidates in the Republican presidential field breaks the 20% mark, according to a poll released Wednesday on the eve of the first official debate among some contenders.

"It's difficult to get a handle on the 2012 Republican race," Peter Brown, assistant director of the Hamden, Conn.-based polling institute, said in a statement. "Many contenders are not well-known, and many who are known are not liked."

In interviews with registered voters of various political stripes, 58% said they would never consider voting for Donald Trump or Sarah Palin in a general election. Also, 42% of those surveyed saying they would never consider voting for Newt Gingrich, of Georgia.

Despite last year's midterm shellacking of the Democrats and record low approval ratings for President Obama, there is a big potential problem for Republicans heading into the 2012 presidential election......... Other Republicans."

According to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, just 32% of Americans have a favorable view of the Tea Party, while 46% have a favorable view of the Democratic party and 44% have a favorable view of Republicans.

A Commentary by Susan Estrich

[Wednesday, April 20, 2011] I must admit that it took me at least a minute to figure out the Drudge Report headline: "Paw In."
Had there been some gruesome animal attack somewhere, alligators eating little girls' arms in Florida, a train accident in Eastern Europe or something else I could worry about as my children travel to places that are literally beyond my world?

I looked at the picture quickly, and I didn't have a clue. Matt Drudge being tasteful about a grisly animal attack by picturing the zookeeper instead of the animal? Not likely.

A Look at the World's New Corporate Tax Havens

(CBS News) Our government is in knots over ways to lower the federal budget deficit. Well, what if we told you we found a pot of money - over $60 billion a year - that could be used to help out?

When President Obama threatened to clamp down on tax dodging, many companies decided to leave the Caribbean. But instead of coming back home, they went to safer havens like Switzerland.

If Obama talks too tough, he's picking a fight, if he doesn't talk tough enough, he's a wuss.

He's in the worlds all time greatest "no win job"!

What the hell ..... the GOP is going to criticize every speech he makes no matter what he says ..... so he had nothing to lose by telling it like it is when he made his televised speech to the nation about the budget battle.

It was beautiful thing, the way he started with Saint Reagan, depicting how the economy was on a roll from the Reagan era to 2000, (when George W. Bush took office) and we had a surplus. Then, without mentioning any other names or events besides the 2 wars, he brought us to the mess we were when he took office in 2008, saying "That is how we got to where we are today!"

The Republicans bristle whenever someone refers to the Bush 2 area, (can you blame them?) But it is what it is, they think that saying "it's time to stop blaming Bush", it will somehow make it all better and justify their attempts to shift the blame to Obama for the nightmare we are now dealing with.

The Republican leadership has convinced their base that Obama has gone berserk with spending, is hell bent on destroying the Nation, driving us into socialism, ..... bankrupt Socialism at that. They display charts showing how this administration has spent more money than God or any other President in history. What they like to omit however, is the fact that little of the cost of the Bush wars were paid for during the Bush era, but were passed on for the next administration to deal with.

The "spending" that Obama is doing is being used to stimulate the economy by investing in infrastructure, innovation for Green Energy and retrofitting existing facilities to be more energy efficient. But it makes no difference what this administration does, the Right Wing is going to find a way to criticize it. And they don't care if that criticism is factual or not ..... they say anything they want, knowing it will be amplified by the media and bounced around the Right Wing echo chamber until their followers believe it to be true.

Like Senator Kyl saying Planned Parenthood spends 90% of it money and efforts funding abortion, which is what his base already believes to be true, and that comment they heard, however, Planned Parenthood actually only spends 3% of its funding on abortion. When the media pointed out that Kyl was incorrect with his comment, Kyls' office issued a statement that the Senators comment was"Not meant to be a factual statement". (watch the video) But that comment the Right Wing has chosen NOT to hear.

It's about time Obama has started with the "tough talk", it's the only way he will be able to get his message heard in that Right Wing echo chamber. Eventually a few of the more astute Right Wingers will realize they have been listening to the the wrong message and come around to the reality of how we actually got into the situation we are in.

President Barack Obama extended a fiscal olive branch to Republicans on Wednesday. Then he beat them up with it.

Obama's long-anticipated speech on the deficit at George Washington University was one of the oddest rhetorical hybrids of his presidency – a serious stab at reforming entitlements cloaked in a 2012 campaign speech that was one of the most overtly partisan broadsides he's ever delivered from a podium with a presidential seal.

The centerpiece was a battle cry to his base, a call for $1 trillion in new taxes on the rich – on top of billions saved by allowing Bush-era tax cuts to lapse — in lieu of the deep cuts to Medicare and Medicaid proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and now identified with the GOP

WASHINGTON -- Details of last week's hard-won agreement to avoid a government shutdown and cut federal spending by $38 billion were released Tuesday morning.

They reveal that the budget cuts, while historic, were significantly eased by pruning money left over from previous years, using accounting sleight of hand and going after programs President Barack Obama had targeted anyway.

Such moves permitted Obama to save favorite programs - Pell grants for poor college students, health research and "Race to the Top" aid for public schools, among others - from Republican knives.

Republicans have hit President Barack Obama for being out of touch, disengaged and unwilling to lead on the budget negotiations — and Democrats aren't wild about his taste for last-minute heroics either.

Administration officials say that's flat wrong and that Obama's team has been quietly working with lawmakers for weeks. The president's late entry into direct talks was a calculated strategy, they say, to avoid overexposing Democrats' sole marquee star and to gain maximum leverage after House Republicans and Senate Democrats fell short of an agreement.

But it's a strategy that chafes against his negotiating partners on both sides of the aisle — and there's no guarantee it will work this time. There are many outstanding issues, from defense dollars to abortion, and the unpredictability of Speaker John Boehner's tea party caucus may defy an Obama-style perils-of-Pauline rescue to prevent a shutdown by midnight..

It's not like Republicans need a reminder of the tensions within their own ranks on government spending cuts.

But if they forget what's at stake, all GOP lawmakers need to do Thursday is walk outside the Capitol, where perhaps hundreds of tea party protesters will be urging congressional leaders to hold their ground on major spending cuts.

And inside the Capitol, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will quietly try to figure out how to negotiate without looking like he's making backroom deals with Democrats and President Barack Obama. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), tacking right, is seemingly unaware of some of the intricacies of the negotiations between the administration and Senate leadership.

Top House Republicans and Democrats are raising millions of dollars for redistricting fights, opening the floodgates for what could be a $30 million campaign funded in part by unregulated, unreported soft money.

They're doing so with permission from the Federal Election Commission and a waiver from the House Ethics Committee, but campaign watchdog groups worry that it could lead to abuses and a lack of transparency for millions in big money donations.

It was supposed to be one of the clearest messages of the 2010 elections: Voters were finally fed up with government spending.

It felt like the usual rules had changed, and that Americans were worried enough about the size of government to support a new era of belt-tightening. They wanted leaders to make the tough choices – and would stick by the ones who did.

Now, a new wave of polling has challenged that consensus, raising serious questions about whether voters really are yearning for a grown-up conversation about the cost of government — or would simply rather keep punting the problem down the road, just like in the past.

Watch these videos of Rep. Bachmann in action on "Meet the Press". She claims there is 105 Billion dollars hidden in the the Health Care bill.

(She also at one time said Obamas trip to the Middle East was going to cost over 200 million dollars a day)

She is absolutely unwilling or unable to answer any direct questions during the interview.

[FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty]

There's a pretty good chance now that the federal government will not shut down at midnight on Friday 3/4/11

The House approved a new spending measure (March 1st) that could keep the government running for two weeks past Friday's deadline. Democrats and Republicans agreed to $4 billion in spending cuts - mostly to earmarks and other programs, many of which President Obama proposed in his own budget. The measure now moves on to the Senate.

You can bet those cuts are the easy ones - not any of the heavy-handed cuts House Republicans passed in a bill a few weeks ago that included ending funding to Planned Parenthood and making cuts to education programs and the EPA. And there still isn't total agreement on the $4 billion measure.

The President and some Democrats were hoping for a four to five week extension cutting as much as $8 billion.

AlterNet / By George Lakoff

The Wisconsin protests are about a lot more than budgets and unions -- and the Dems need to get out on front or reap the whirlwind.

The Wisconsin protests are about much more than budgets and unions. As I observed in What the Right-wing Assault on Women, Unions, the Environment, Health Care and PBS Is All About, the conservative story about budget deficits is a ruse to turn the country conservative in every area. Karl Rove and Shep Smith have made it clear on Fox: If the Wisconsin plan to kill the public employees' unions succeeds, then there will be little union money in the future to support democratic candidates. Conservatives will be effectively unopposed in raising campaign funding in most elections, including the presidential elections. This will mean a thoroughly conservative America in every issue area.

(Bloomberg) -- Obama administration officials are rejecting the idea of making major changes to Social Security as part of a debate over reining in the national debt, a stance that's drawing protests from deficit-cutting advocates.

White House Budget Director Jack Lew and Jason Furman, deputy director of President Barack Obama's National Economic Council, both stressed this week that Social Security isn't facing an immediate funding crisis and should be viewed separately from moves to reduce the federal budget deficit.

Washington (CNN) - The high-stakes political maneuvering over government spending cuts continued Thursday as Senate Democrats for the first time said they are readying specific budget cuts they hope will satisfy House Republicans. Unless the two sides reach an agreement, the government will run out of money and shut down at the end of next week.
However, an aide for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quickly indicated the proposed cuts don't go deep enough to end the stalemate.

Democrats say they would save billions by speeding up proposed cuts in President Obama's budget for 2012 and by getting rid of money for earmarks in the spending bill currently funding the government, according to a Senate Democratic aide who would not speak on the record about the negotiations.

President Obama has the most polarized approval ratings for a second-year president since Dwight Eisenhower

A new Gallup Poll shows 81% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans approved of the job Mr. Obama was doing as president during his second year.

This 68-point gap is up from a 65-point gap during Mr. Obama's first year as president. That was also a record.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are the only other presidents who had gaps of at least 50 points between party approvals by their second year in office.

President Obama has chosen to fight fire with gasoline.

The Presidents' budget proposal hinges on major cuts that ensure that Republicans get to control the conversation on spending.

On Monday (Feb.14, 2011), Obama poured gas on the Republican flame by proposing a 2012 federal budget that cuts the federal deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years. About $400 billion of this will come from a five-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending -- including all sorts of programs for poor and working-class Americans, such as heating assistance to low-income people and community-service block grants. Most of the rest from additional spending cuts, such as grants to states for water treatment plants and other environmental projects and higher interest charges on federal loans to graduate students.

Republicans want America to believe the economy is still lousy because government is too big, and the way to revive the economy is to cut federal spending.

Republican Speaker John Boehner even refused to rule out a government shut-down if Republicans don't get the spending cuts they want.

Every Conservative member of Newsvine needs to watch this video.

On last night's The Ed Show on MSNBC, filmmaker Robert Greenwald (the founder of Brave New Films and the director of Outfoxed) joined host Ed Schultz in a discussion of how Fox News' disinformation and falsehoods damage U.S. political discourse and alter Americans' perceptions of reality.

For those who thought the Tea Party was a passing fad, it might be time to reconsider:

For starters, it seems like the Tea Partiers may be among the only people in Washington who are serious about reining in government spending.

While Democrats and Republicans talk... and talk... and talk about cutting spending and reducing our skyrocketing deficits and $14 trillion national debt, some in the Tea Party have real solutions.

Newly elected Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky is proposing cutting $500 billion from federal spending in just one year. To be sure, he has some drastic suggestions - including cutting $42 billion from the food stamp program and $16 billion from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

After months of back-and-forth over whether he might run for president, Donald Trump is now telling friends he will definitely throw his hat in the ring in 2012.

The billionaire real estate mogul has said he will announce his candidacy as a Republican when the current season of his hit NBC show "The Apprentice" ends in the spring, Newsmax reported Thursday.

Earlier this week, Trump told Forbes he was encouraged by surveys that found his business acumen would be seen as a positive by voters.

"Polls have come out and have been very strong," Trump said. "A recent poll came out where Trump and [Bill] Gates are the only two that beat [President Barack] Obama. Gates isn't running obviously, but they put names on it, and we're the only ones who beat Obama."

Justice Antonin Scalia, is courting controversy by accepting Representative Michele Bachmann's invitation to speak to the House's Tea Party Caucus about the constitution, specifically on the topic of "Separation of Powers."

Addressing concerns that, by accepting, Scalia is essentially suggesting that "an alliance between the conservative members of the court and the conservative members of Congress," as one law professor phrased it to The Los Angeles Times, Bachmann's people pointed out that the event, while organized by the Tea Party Caucus, is nonpartisan and open to Democrats and Republicans alike.

With top Democratic leaders like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remaining neutral on the deal — and other Democrats, like Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, decrying it — the president convened a news conference to passionately defend the package, which would extend the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels for two years while keeping benefits flowing to the long-term unemployed. He sounded especially defiant as he lashed out at Democrats and critics on the left who are accusing him of abandoning his principles.

"Take a tally, look at what I promised during the campaign," Mr. Obama said, displaying a rare flash of emotion as he wound up the question-and-answer session. "There's not a single thing that I have said that I would do that I have not done or tried to do. And if I haven't gotten it done yet, I'm still trying."

The specialists of the authoritative, Washington-based IFPRI said they fed 15 scenarios of population and income growth into supercomputer models of climate and found that "climate change worsens future human well-being, especially among the world's poorest people."

The study, issued here at the annual U.N. climate conference, said prices will be driven up by a combination of factors: a slowdown in productivity in some places caused by warming and shifting rain patterns, and an increase in demand because of population and income growth.

Change apparently already is under way. Returning from northern India, agricultural scientist Andrew Jarvis said wheat farmers there were finding warming was maturing their crops too quickly.

House Republicans plan to eliminate a global warming committee created by Democrats despite an attempt by the panel's top Republican to preserve it.

A spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who created the panel three years ago to highlight climate change issues, called the decision "very disappointing."

The panel's chairman, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., was an architect of so-called cap-and-trade legislation to limit carbon emissions.

Republicans denounced it as a job-killing energy tax and used it as a cudgel against Democratic candidates in elections that cost them control of the House.

"I call on my fellow Republicans to open their minds to rethinking what has largely become our party's line: denying that climate change and global warming are occurring and that they are largely due to human activities."

Why do so many Republican senators and representatives think they are right and the world's top scientific academies and scientists are wrong? I would like to be able to chalk it up to lack of information or misinformation.

I can understand arguments over proposed policy approaches to climate change. I served in Congress for 24 years. I know these are legitimate areas for debate. What I find incomprehensible is the dogged determination by some to discredit distinguished scientists and their findings.
[BY: Sherwood Boehlert]
Former Republican U.S. Congressman from New York

A candid Congressman... it's an endangered species in Washington. Unless they're retiring and have nothing to lose by being honest.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed Congressman Brian Baird, a six-term Democrat from Washington State who's retiring at the end of this term.

We're talking about a loyal Democrat here. Baird voted for all of the Democrats' legislative priorities - including the stimulus bill, health care reform and cap and trade. Although he does admit that all three have serious flaws.

Baird says he was very excited when his party won control of Congress in 2006, but saw troublesome signs early on. For example,.........

Does the real estate magnate Donald Trump have his eye on the White House?

A mysterious poll had callers asked people in New Hampshire about several potential Republican candidates and matchups. It included about 30 questions about Donald Trump.

Voters were reportedly asked if they had heard that Trump had donated to Democrats in the past and if they thought his appearances on TV would help or hurt in a political race. Time and Trump claim they don't know who paid for the poll.

Trump told CNN that he know nothing about the poll but, he said he "likes the people of New Hampshire because "they're strong and intelligent people" and "they know what's happening in the U.S. is wrong."

He sounds kinda like a politician, doesn't he?

(Trump insists he's not considering a run, but he said "somebody has to do something or this country is not going to be a very great country for long.")

Our federal government has some serious image problems with the American people.

A USA Today/Gallup poll finds the most common descriptions of the term "federal government" include: "too big," "confused" and "corrupt."

And there are lots of other choice words the public has for our leaders, including: bloated, wasteful, broken, mess, complicated, terrible, dysfunctional, disappointing, pathetic, out of control and crooked. And those are just the ones they can say on television.

President Obama's hopes of ratifying a new arms control treaty with Russia this year appeared to unravel on Tuesday as a Senate Republican leader moved to block a vote in what could be a devastating blow to the president's most tangible foreign policy achievement.

And so it begins!

A House panel on Tuesday found Representative Charles B. Rangel guilty of 11 counts of ethical violations, ruling that his failure to pay taxes, improper solicitation of fund-raising donations and failure to accurately report his personal income had brought dishonor on the House.

In a somber tone, Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the panel, announced its findings just before noon. Ms. Lofgren described the contentious process as "difficult and time consuming" and said the committee hoped to decide on a punishment within days.

Rangel is all but certain to brush aside calls for his resignation. Just this month he won re-election to a 21st term.

To be a great leader, President Obama should not seek re-election in 2012

Washington Post pollisters Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen write that Mr. Obama needs to decide how he wants to govern for the next two years. And, they believe the only way he can attempt to fix the serious problems facing this country is by putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones.

If the president showed more bipartisanship, the Republicans would be forced to meet him half way. Plus, Mr. Obama wouldn't be constantly worried about pleasing the Democrats' base - people like senior citizens and unions - in order to convince them to vote for him in two years.

Could make it a whole lot easier to accomplish something meaningful on the tough issues - like the deficit.

Come January, President Obama's health care law will be on the chopping block.

The incoming Speaker of the House, John Boehner, says voters have given the GOP a mandate to cut government and roll back what he calls the health care "monstrosity."

Boehner says the American people are concerned about the government takeover of health care. He says Republicans want to repeal it and replace it with "common-sense reforms" that will bring down health care costs.

For his part, Mr. Obama says it would be a "misreading" of the election results to think Americans want to spend the next two years trying to "re-litigate" health care reform and other major pieces of legislation.

With the November midterms past, scores of Democratic congressmen are preparing themselves to join the other 14.8 million unemployed Americans.

This shift poses new challenges, but it also presents new opportunities. Just as striking as what Democrats accomplished in this productive, albeit controversial, legislative session is what they did not accomplish.

In particular I am referring to climate change.

If ever there was a time for a sweeping legislative package that tackles carbon emissions to come out of Washington, this was it. With the most liberal U.S. government in decades, we still did not do it.

Now, maybe you think that climate change is a hoax and that we dodged a bullet by dropping the bill, or maybe you think that climate change will kill us all and that the do-nothings in Congress screwed up again.

Whatever your views, though, climate change legislation is dead in the water for the foreseeable future.

"We'll both be in a witness protection program when this is all over," Simpson said in introducing the draft.

President Obama's bipartisan federal debt commission, led by former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles -- a White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and now head of the North Carolina state university system -- have begun considering a draft proposal that aims to cut about $4 trillion in projected deficits over the next decade.

While her party was being tarred and feathered at the polls Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was 9,000 miles away on the other side of the world.

How convenient.

She attended a women's empowerment conference in Papua, New Guinea this week. Clinton knows a thing or two about empowerment.

Meanwhile, back in the states, her husband, the former president, was campaigning like a madman. He made more than 100 appearances around the country on behalf of Democrats leading into the midterm election.

Some people just don't know when to call it quits - and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is looking like one of them.

Despite her party being crushed in last week's midterm elections - despite her party losing control of the House of Representatives - Pelosi wants to stay on as the Democrats' minority leader in the House.

The Republicans couldn't be happier. They're positively giddy at the prospect of Democrats keeping Pelosi as their leader in the House. It's generally agreed that Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid drove the Democrats off the cliff.