The Sean Hannity Show - Patriotism

The Degradation of Dr. Ben Carson

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:52:33 -0800

Last week I highlighted the increased attacks being leveled against Dr. Ben Carson by those on the Left. Liberals are generally intolerant of conservatives as it is, but being an African American conservative seems to outrage them all the more.

Unfortunately the attacks against Dr. Ben Carson took a saddening turn at the end of last week when he became targeted by his own students at John Hopkins University. Dr. Carson was scheduled to give the commencement address at the John Hopkins School of Medicine diploma ceremony. After I asked Dr. Carson about his position on gay marriage on Hannity last week, in the context of the Supreme Court hearings on Prop 8 and DOMA, his liberal students were apparently offended by his answer. The offending remarks were as follows: “Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.” Since making that remark, John Hopkins students began circulating a petition to have Dr. Carson removed as their commencement speaker. Dr. Carson has said that he would withdraw from speaking at the ceremony. He has also since apologized for the remarks and clarified the point he was trying to make. He told the Baltimore Sun, “... perhaps the examples were not the best choice of words, and I certainly apologize if I offended anyone. But the point that I was making was that no group of individuals, whoever they are, whatever their belief systems, gets to change traditional definitions." Johns Hopkins University is standing by Dr. Carson.

Dr. Carson is an admirable and gracious person, and I have a great deal of respect for his professionalism and his opinions. He is an expert in one of the most complicated and delicate fields in medicine, something to be commended and admired. He is an eloquent communicator and his life story is an inspiring example of the American dream. The fact that liberals, even among his own students, are willing to castigate him because of his differing political beliefs is saddening, to say the least. The country needs more Ben Carsons and it needs more people who are willing to be open-minded to all beliefs, including conservative principles. The Left doesn't get to decide what is acceptable and what isn't in our discourse.

Defeat Should Serve Only To Strengthen Our Resolve

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 13:53:24 -0800

Special guest host Rose Tennent took the Hannity airwaves today, who filled in for Sean who's taking a few well deserved days off during the Thanksgiving holiday. Tennent started the show with a special message to Sean's fans and loyal conservatives across the country who were disappointed with the outcome from the recent presidential election.

“Many people have come up to me and have expressed their disappointment about the election. I think that you should be very proud of the work that all of you have done,” Tennent explained. “Defeat should serve only to strengthen our resolve. We still have a battle to fight and there is still so much for us to do. We posses some of the greatest weapons possible in this battle – our solidarity, our resolve and love of liberty.

We must be strong and courageous because there is work ahead of us,” Tennent advised. Rose read a quote from Winston Churchill that summed up her monologue nicely. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,” said Churchill.

Sean and Gov. Christie

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:59:00 -0800

Colin Powell Interview 5/22/12

Wed, 23 May 2012 08:06:35 -0800

LNYHBT - Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled!

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:23:01 -0800

Sean's giving away 500 "Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled" t-shirts to his faithful listeners!

LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED! Sean's been saying this phrase for years on television and radio, but naturally it must progress with the times. Don't worry social media friends, it's now twitter friendly! Sean's twitter followers have started the #LNYHBT Army. They're a loyal conglomerate of Hannity fans. The army works hard spreading conservatism through twitter and making sure to get as much information out to the public as possible. The #LNYHBT Army continues to grow daily. And now 500 lucky soldiers will receive this t-shirt. To join the army follow Sean on twitter (@SeanHannity) and learn how you can get a shirt to show your pride!

Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart is dead at 43

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:58:43 -0800

*Today Sean will air his last radio interview with Andrew Breitbart from 2/9/12 today at 5:30pm ET*

Widely read conservative Internet publisher Andrew Breitbart, whose flare for battle with politicians and the mainstream media earned him a reputation as one of the nation's most influential commentators, died Thursday.

The websites he founded ran a statement Thursday morning announcing that Breitbart, 43, died "unexpectedly from natural causes" in Los Angeles shortly after midnight. His attorney and editor-in-chief of those sites confirmed his death to Fox News.

"We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior," the statement said. "Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love."

Breitbart was a prolific commentator who founded several websites devoted to covering politics, entertainment and everything in-between. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Drudge Report before breaking off to start his own outlets -- including Big Government, Big Hollywood and Breitbart.tv.

The statement on his sites quoted the concluding passage from his book, Righteous Indignation.

"I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and -- famously -- I enjoy making enemies. Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I've lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I've gained hundreds, thousands -- who knows? -- of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night," Breitbart wrote.

Andrew Breitbart

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 08:53:53 -0800

Worldwide Music Video Premiere - Jack Blades!

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:53:37 -0800

Hannity’s got the worldwide premiere of the video for Jack Blades’ new single, “Back In The Game”. The song is the first track from Blades’ forthcoming album ROCK N’ ROLL RIDE. The video imparts a strong patriotic message of the debt of gratitude owed to the military of this nation. Blades, a longtime fan of talk show host Sean Hannity, recently appeared on the “Hannity” television show and an instant bond was established melding the political world with the rock music world. Jack Blades commented, “Sean’s a great guy but he needs work on his onstage rock moves...I’m just the guy to teach him!”

Click HERE to pre-order the physical album on Amazon or here to pre-order the digital album on iTunes.

ROCK N’ ROLL RIDE is due out on March 27th in North America via Frontiers Records and features contributions from Blades’ Night Ranger bandmates Brad Gillis, Kelly Keagy, Joel Hoekstra and Eric Levy, as well as a special guest appearance by Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander. For more information, please visit www.jackblades.net.

Jack Blades is a frontman, lead singer, bassist, songwriter, and producer as well as a founding member of the highly-successful arena rock band, Night Ranger and supergroup Damn Yankees (along with Ted Nugent and Tommy Shaw from Styx) and the highly-regarded Shaw/Blades. Throughout his remarkable career Blades has sold over 25 million albums, performed in front of millions of fans worldwide and collaborated with some of rock's most legendary artists. With a career spanning three decades, Blades has recorded with, penned songs and produced albums for some of the music industry's biggest names including Aerosmith, Cher, Ringo Star, Alice Cooper, Roger Daltrey, Journey, Ozzy Osbourne, Styx, Ted Nugent, Motley Crue and Vince Neil. His music has been featured in movies such as Armageddon, Boogie Nights, Tommy Boy, television shows such as “South Park” and “American Dad,” the hit Broadway musical (and soon-to-be released major motion picture) Rock of Ages and the wildly successful videogame series "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero". With Blades’ songwriting, driving guitars, stage antics and on the strength of Night Ranger's songs “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” “Rock in America,” “Sister Christian,” “When You Close Your Eyes,” and “Sentimental Street”, along with the Damn Yankees hits "High Enough" and "Coming of Age", Blades' legacy continues to inspire generations while still being written.

Jack Blades album cover

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:51:34 -0800

Jack Blades

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:50:05 -0800

Pizza 4 Patriots!

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:05:28 -0800

Master Sergeant Mark Evans helped form a non-profit organization to provide pizzas to our men and women in uniform. Dubbed "Operation Not Forgotten" Pizzas4Patriots together with UNO's plan to dish out 10,000 pizzas to U.S. service men and women in Afghanistan on America's largest pizza eating day of the year - Super Bowl Sunday.

"With the passing of time, some Americans have shifted their attention from the conflicts thousands of miles away, but our troops are still there and we never, ever want to forget them," said Frank Guidara, CEO of UNO's and veteran. "UNO can show its appreciation by sending them a taste from home, namely a deep-dish pizza. And we know it means a great deal to the troops - especially those that are in forward positions without the comforts of home available to them." To see how you can help, please visit Pizzas4patriots.com.

Pizza for Patriots

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:02:31 -0800

Newt 2012

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:54:09 -0800

Rick Perry in Iowa

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 04:41:26 -0800

Gingrich Advocates Social Security Overhaul

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:22:42 -0800

By Andrew Fone / Foxnews.com

GOFFSTOWN, New Hampshire -- Since 1935 a percentage of every dollar Americans earn has gone towards Social Security, a program designed to care for the nation's elderly that provides them with financial support beyond retirement.

But the nation's Social Security system is slowly crumbling, besieged by an aging population and experts predict funding will be exhausted by 2035, leading to insolvency. As politicians debate ways to reform the program, younger workers question why they're paying into something for which it increasingly looks like they'll never benefit.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich believes the answer is simple. Allow younger workers to establish optional retirement accounts in place of social security.

"I just want to say to every young person in America, why would you want to have an account where for the next 50 or 60 years some politician is going to tell you whether or not you're going to get your own money back?"

Speaking before a full-house at The New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, N.H., Gingrich unveiled a plan that would allow Americans to invest the money they currently contribute to social security in a 401(k) style system that he said will profit far beyond the current program.

"You can put them in very conservative bonds only, you can put them in much more aggressive and have stock only, some mix of stocks and bonds, it will be your choice."

To avoid a disastrous fluctuation in the market wiping out accounts, under the plan those who opt into the system would be guaranteed the minimum Social Security payment. The current system requires employers to match employee contributions, and while individuals would be free to choose where their money goes, companies would still be required to pay their half to the federal government.

Gingrich said studies show given the opportunity 96 percent of Americans would opt in, adding the plan will build a firm foundation for the economy because in essence everyone will have a vested interest.

"We're allowing you to save money which gets invested so you end up owning part of America, so you're now part of what would become a universal ownership system. And because it builds up interest over time the collective value for Americans becomes enormous."

Just how enormous? According to Gingrich this kind of program could ultimately increase the size of the U.S. economy by as much as $20 trillion, and as evidence he pointed to the success of similar programs elsewhere in the world.

"In Chile they have a personal Social Security account and in 31 years they have never had to have the government pay anybody because the account has generated so much money."

Speaking after the event, Gingrich advisor Peter Ferrara, a longtime proponent of privatizing Social Security told reporters implementing this kind of system could reduce federal expenditures by 50 percent over the next three decades.

The plan will undoubtedly further the debate about a program millions of Americans depend on. Zvi Bodie, a professor at Boston University's School of Management and a widely recognized expert on Social Security reform said selling any change is difficult.

"The American public has expressed its preference to keep the basic system working the way it does now. People make contributions during their working years and draw inflation-protected lifetime income benefits during retirement. With some adjustments to the formulas for contributions and benefits, the system can work well for as long as American voters want it to. It can even invest some or all of the contributions in the domestic or global capital markets. I do not think it makes sense to replace it with more of the 401(k) type systems used for voluntary retirement savings. I believe the current mix is about right. Of course, it is obvious why the asset management industry would like to replace it with more 401(k). Lobbies, lobbies everywhere. Who will protect the public interest?"

Today's announcement comes at a time the former speaker of the House is seeking to differentiate himself from a GOP field that has focused on flat tax proposals and IRS reform in an effort to capture the attention of voters. With the New Hampshire primary quickly approaching and his campaign gaining momentum Gingrich is surging in the polls. A USA Today/Gallup Poll released Monday shows him topping national polls with 22 percent, in a statistical dead heat with fellow Republican Mitt Romney.

Newt Gingrich

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:08:06 -0800

EXCLUSIVE: ACORN Playing Behind Scenes Role in 'Occupy' Movement

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:30:08 -0800

By Jana Winter I FoxNews.com

The former New York office for ACORN, the disbanded community activist group, is playing a key role in the self-proclaimed “leaderless” Occupy Wall Street movement, organizing “guerrilla” protest events and hiring door-to-door canvassers to collect money under the banner of various causes while spending it on protest-related activities, sources tell FoxNews.com.

The former director of New York ACORN, Jon Kest, and his top aides are now busy working at protest events for New York Communities for Change (NYCC). That organization was created in late 2009 when some ACORN offices disbanded and reorganized under new names after undercover video exposes prompted Congress to cut off federal funds.

NYCC’s connection to ACORN isn’t a tenuous one: It works from the former ACORN offices in Brooklyn, uses old ACORN office stationery, employs much of the old ACORN staff and, according to several sources, engages in some of the old organization’s controversial techniques to raise money, interest and awareness for the protests.

Sources said NYCC has hired about 100 former ACORN-affiliated staff members from other cities – paying some of them $100 a day - to attend and support Occupy Wall Street. Dozens of New York homeless people recruited from shelters are also being paid to support the protests, at the rate of $10 an hour, the sources said.

At least some of those hired are being used as door-to-door canvassers to collect money that’s used to support the protests.

Sources said cash donations collected by NYCC on behalf of some unions and various causes are being pooled and spent on Occupy Wall Street. The money is used to buy supplies, pay staff and cover travel expenses for the ex-ACORN members brought to New York for the protests.

In one such case, sources said, NYCC staff members collected cash donations for what they were told was a United Federation of Teachers fundraising drive, but the money was diverted to the protests.

Sources who participated in the teachers union campaign said NYCC supervisors gave them the addresses of union members and told them to go knock on their doors and ask for contributions—and did not mention that the money would go toward Occupy Wall Street expenses. One source said the campaign raked in about $5,000.

Current staff members at NYCC told FoxNews.com the union fundraising drive was called off abruptly last week, and they were told NYCC should not have been raising money for the union at all.

Sources said staff members also collected door-to-door for NYCC’s PCB campaign — which aims to test schools for deadly toxins —but then pooled that money together with cash raised for the teachers union and other campaigns to fund Occupy Wall Street.

“We go to Freeport, Central Islip, Park Slope, everywhere, and we say we’re collecting money for PCBs testing in schools. But the money isn’t going to the campaign," one source said.

"It’s going to Occupy Wall Street, and we’re not using that money to get schools tested for deadly chemicals or to make their kids safer. It’s just going to the protests, and that’s just so terrible.”

A spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers told FoxNews.com, "The UFT is not involved in any NYCC fundraising on the PCB issue.”

Multiple sources said NYCC is also using cash donations through canvassing efforts in New York’s Harlem and Washington Heights neighborhoods for union-backed campaigns to fund the Wall Street protests.

“All the money collected from canvasses is pooled together back at the office, and everything we’ve been working on for the last year is going to the protests, against big banks and to pay people’s salaries—and those people on salary are, of course, being paid to go to the protests every day,” one NYCC staff member told FoxNews.com.

Those who contribute don't know the money is going to fund the protests, the source said.

“They give contributions because we say if they do we can fix things - whatever specific problem they’re having in their area, housing, schools, whatever ... then we spend the contributions paying staff to be at the protests all day, every day. That’s where these contributions - the community’s money – is going,” the source said.

“They’re doing the same stuff now that got ACORN in trouble to begin with. And yes, we’re still ACORN, there is a still a national ACORN.”

Another source, who said she was hired from a homeless shelter, said she was first sent to the protests before being deployed to Central Islip, Long Island, to canvass for a campaign against home foreclosures.

“I went to the protests every day for two weeks and made $10 an hour. They made me carry NYCC signs and big orange banners that say NYCC in white letters. About 50 others were hired around my time to go to the protests. We went to protests in and around Zuccotti Park, then to the big Times Square protest,” she said.

“But now they have me canvassing on Long Island for money, so I get the money and then the money is being used for Occupy Wall Street—to pay for all of it, for supplies, food, transportation, salaries, for everything ... all that money is going to pay for the protests downtown and that’s just messed up. It’s just wrong.”

Neither Kest, NYCC executive director, nor his communications director returned repeated email and telephone requests for comment, nor did his communications director. A Fox News producer who visited the Brooklyn office on Tuesday was told, "The best people to speak to who are involved with Occupy Wall Street aren't available."

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Harrison Schultz, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman, said he knew nothing about NYCC’s involvement in the Occupy movement.

“Haven’t seen them, couldn’t tell you,” he said.

He said he couldn’t comment on the Occupy the Boardroom website’s relationship to the movement and to NYCC.

“It’s a horizontal organization, a leaderless organization, it’s difficult to explain it,” Schultz said, “difficult to explain it to people who haven’t worked in this, who haven’t been part of it.”

Kest publicly threw his organization’s support behind the movement in a Sept. 30 opinion piece on HuffingtonPost.com. But top ex-ACORN staff members and current NYCC officials have been planning events like the Occupy Wall Street protests since February, a source within the group told FoxNews.com.

That’s when planning began for May 12 protests against Chase bank foreclosures, which were followed by the formation of the Beyond May 12 campaign, targeting Wall Street and big banks. That campaign was rolled out by a coalition of community groups and unions and led by the revamped former ACORN group.

“What people don’t understand is that ACORN is behind this — and that this, what’s happening now, is all part of the May 12 and Beyond May 12 plans to go after the banks, Chase in particular,” a source said.

Sources said NYCC was a key player behind a series of recent Occupy Wall Street events, including the Oct. 11 Millionaires March, which brought protests and union and community groups on walking tours of Upper East Side homes of wealthy New Yorkers; and the launch of the “Occupy the Boardroom” website, registered to Kest, which encouraged protesters to contact high-profile bankers, among others.

Thieves preying on fellow protesters

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:36:26 -0800

NYPost.com By LARRY CELONA, LAURA ITALIANO REBECCA HARSHBARGER, FRANK ROSARIO and JAMIE SCHRAM

It’s a den of thieves!

Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.

“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.

“I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”

Crafty cat burglars sneaked into the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park overnight and swiped as much as $2,500 in donated greenbacks from right under the noses of volunteers who’d fallen asleep after a long day whipping up meals for the hundreds of hungry protesters, the volunteers said.

“The worst thing is there’s people sleeping in the kitchen when they come, and they don’t even know about it! There are some really smart and sneaky thieves here,” Terrie said.

“I had umbrellas stolen, a fold-up bed I brought because my back is bad -- they took that, too!”

Security volunteer Harry Wyman, 22, of Brooklyn was furious about the thievery -- and vowed to get tough with the predatory perps.

“I’m not getting paid, but I’m not gonna stand for it. Why people got to come here and do stupid stuff? All it does is make people not wanna come here anymore,” Wyman fumed.

At one point yesterday, Wyman and other volunteers briefly scuffled with a man who was standing near a park entrance with a pail calling out: “Donations! Donations!” -- and pocketing the cash people tossed in the bucket.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was at Zuccotti late last night as he and about 50 protesters formed a human chain in front of a medical tent after police officers came over to ask about the tent, cops and protesters said.

“Jesse dropped in like a ninja,” said Stephanie Perricone, 21. “He came out of nowhere and helped us all out.”

The officers were asking about the size of the tent when the crowd of demonstrators -- including Jackson -- stood en masse in front of it.

The cops said didn’t ask for it to be taken down and the issue was quickly resolved.

White House bully problem

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:45:39 -0800

by Michelle Malkin

Spin, baby, spin. Throughout his frenetic jobs tour across the West this week, President Obama tried to seize the narrative. Republicans, he told champagne-sipping, tea party-trashing Hollywood moguls and tech titans, are intolerant bigots, know-nothings and thugs. They’ve made his hair “grayer” and left him “all dinged up.”

But who’s battering whom? Since Day One, Obama has been the Chicago bully in victim’s clothing. The mask is wearing thin.

On Tuesday, Detroit News reporter Daniel Howes reported that White House officials leaned on Ford Motor Company to yank a popular TV and Internet ad critical of competitors who took federal bailout money. According to Howes, “Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House” questioned the firm’s CEO Alan Mulally (who had earlier supported the bailout despite his company’s refusal to participate). Howes concluded: “You’re not allowed, in Obama’s America, to disparage the Auto bailout, or — indirectly — Obama. Especially during the election cycle.”

Both Ford and the White House officially deny any political pressure received or applied. But White House press flack Dan Pfeiffer refused to answer when I asked him whether anyone at the White House had ever contacted anyone at Ford to complain about the bailout ad. Ford’s social media director told me he personally “had no knowledge” of any contacts. While he disputed the gist of Howes’ report, the Ford official would not call for a correction or retraction.

Chris McDaniel, the real-life Ford customer who starred in the offending ad, told BigGovernment.com editor Larry O’Connor that he was exasperated when he heard about the Ford fiasco: “Now we have the federal government butting their nose into this TV ad. Another example of them getting involved in things they have no business getting involved in. Where is the free speech of American citizens?”

He better watch out for the Obama campaign’s official snitch brigade at AttackWatch.com. After a curious hiatus, the online speech monitors are up and running again. Coincidentally enough, the site (run by several George Soros-trained operatives) targeted conservative auto bailout critics just two weeks ago.

A left-wing Washington Post writer immediately scoffed at concerns about the administration’s heavy hand because the Ford fiasco “is being denied by the parties on both sides.” Must be nice to mainline White House talking points for a living. For the rest of us, reality intrudes.

This is the administration that threatened health insurers for candidly tying Obamacare mandates to rising premiums.

This is the administration that pummeled companies such as Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and AT&T for speaking out about the cost implications and financial burdens of Obamacare — and then cheered from the sidelines while Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman attempted to haul the firms up for a congressional witch-hunt inquisition.

This is the administration that has seized Gibson Guitars’ instruments and has threatened whistleblowers who exposed bloody corruption and incompetence behind the Operation Fast and Furious gun-walking racket.

And lest they need a reminder, this is an administration that has clamped down on mainstream media reporters, too.

The Pleasanton (CA) Weekly was bullied by the White House press shop over a benign article that irked the administration because it made Michelle Obama look snooty.

The San Francisco Chronicle was punished by the White House because a print pool reporter used a cellphone to record video of protesters at an Obama Bay Area fundraiser.

A WFAA-TV Texas reporter was dressed down by the president for having the audacity to interrupt.

The Boston Herald was spanked by the White House for running a front-page op-ed by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The White House denied any pressure in all those cases, too.

Before his campaign finance-grubbing swing ended, Obama met the pop singer Lady Gaga. She lobbied him to combat bullying across America. It was a little like Red Riding Hood lobbying the Big Bad Wolf to promote vegetarianism.

Fmr OMB Directer under Obama against Democracy?

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:06:52 -0800

The 37th director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President Obama came out today with an article suggesting what America may need is less Democracy, not more. Read his column here:

Too Much of a Good Thing

Why we need less democracy.

By Peter Orszag I The New Republic

In an 1814 letter to John Taylor, John Adams wrote that “there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” That may read today like an overstatement, but it is certainly true that our democracy finds itself facing a deep challenge:

During my recent stint in the Obama administration as director of the Office of Management and Budget, it was clear to me that the country’s political polarization was growing worse—harming Washington’s ability to do the basic, necessary work of governing. If you need confirmation of this, look no further than the recent debt-limit debacle, which clearly showed that we are becoming two nations governed by a single Congress—and that paralyzing gridlock is the result.

So what to do? To solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.

Obama on Hurricane Irene

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:22:28 -0800

Big Expectations for Debate: One Stage, Eight Different Challenges

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 13:22:04 -0800

By Chris Stirewalt | FoxNews.com

AMES, Iowa – The preseason is over for the Republican presidential field. When the top eight declared candidates take the stage at the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University at 9 p.m. Eastern tonight, they will be playing for keeps.

With voters anxious about the future of the nation, President Obama already out on the campaign trail(including a Michigan factory stop and another big-buck New York fundraiser today) trying to reverse his lengthy slide in the polls and markets continuing to whipsaw on dire economic news, Republican voters are ready to get serious.

Republicans here in Iowa and around the country are optimistic about their party’s chances in 2012, but they’re also ready to get on with the fight. After months of eyeing the prospects, voters are ready to start making their choices. It’s one thing to indulge a spring fling with a long-shot candidate, but quite another to hold onto that crush into the fall.

Tonight’s debate, sponsored by FOX News, The Washington Examiner and the Iowa Republican Party, comes at a time of great opportunity and potential peril for the GOP.

If they find a nominee who can unite their party and defeat Obama in 15 months, Republicans will have completed a remarkable political rehabilitation that began with the Tax Day Tea Parties of 2009. If Obama is re-elected and delivers on his promises of enforcing his federal health care law, new financial regulations and global warming rules, it’s back to the wilderness for American conservatives.

But beyond the big stakes for the party and the nation tonight are seven men and one woman who come to the stage with their own baggage, opportunities and needs for this debate.

Here’s a look at the expectations for the field:

Bachmann: The Bar Has Been Raised

“One thing I will guarantee you, President Bachmann will be canceling barbecues if we see the market go down and if we see the jobs report going down.”

-- Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann campaigning in Newton, Iowa last week after President Obama held a birthday barbecue at the White House

Here’s a sentence Power Play didn’t ever expect to be writing: The most message-disciplined candidate in the Republican field, by far, is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

After a successful launch and exceeding expectations in her debut debate performance, this debate is a make or break moment for her. She’s got the most on the line of anyone on the stage.

Bachmann’s early fame as a freshman and sophomore member of Congress came from a tendency to fly far afield in her remarks. Whether opining on the root causes of homosexuality, saying that the Founding Fathers abolished slavery or calling Barack Obama “un-American,” it was her over-the-top talk show rhetoric that made her the House Republican that liberals loved to hate. That hatred, in turn, established her credentials with conservatives who rushed to her defense.

But aside from one early stumble about New England geography (that’s Concord, Mass., congresswoman), Bachmann has avoided the kinds of distractions that have previously plagued her. When Newsweek called her “The Queen of Rage” last week it seemed not just unfair, but kind of silly. She’s been all poise and polish on the trail.

But with Texas Gov. Rick Perry ready to join the race and Sarah Palin cruising down to the Iowa State Fair in her motor coach, conservative voters are keenly aware that they have other options.

Palin’s surprise presence in Iowa this week may help Bachmann with some voters who see her as a surrogate for their beloved rogue. But Perry is only a threat. With executive experience, unquestioned social conservative bona fides and fewer concerns about general election viability, Perry is appealing to the Republican right. In the latest FOX News poll, Perry finished second to Mitt Romney and nearly doubled Bachmann’s 7 percent score (Palin carded an 8 percent).

Bachmann has put voters at ease with her scripted lines and avoidance of unnecessary controversies. She’s refused to hazard opinions on the causes of gayness, the science of evolution and other topics that used to get her off track and has been relentlessly hammering on the big issues for the country today: the economy and the national debt.

But talking points can only get you so far. Bachmann needs to show that she’s fast on her feet and can really face down Romney in her command of the issues. A stumble or hackneyed phrasing could burst the Bachmann bubble. But if she exceeds the now higher expectations, she could be in the race for the long haul.

Romney: Above the Fray No More

"I want to use my financial resources and my time this time to actually get delegates. Not just straw polls that are nice, but don't get you delegates. So I'm not going to participate in straw polls anywhere in the country.. I've been there, had that experience, learned from it, and we're gonna try and get the nomination this time."

-- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on “Hannity” explaining why he is skipping the Iowa GOP’s straw poll

Mitt Romney has run a nearly flawless campaign to this point. He has abstained from the intra-party sniping of his fellow candidates and focused, as the president would say, like a laser on the incumbent and the economic crisis.

It’s worked wonders as Romney has quietly racked up key support, donations and united the moderate wing of the GOP. His argument is that with his business experience and mellower conservatism he is the perfect man to beat President Obama.

Romney is also trying to avoid the mistakes of his 2008 run when his campaign was engaged in a months-long sniper war with every other Republican operation. John McCain was able to fend off Romney in part because of the resentment toward the Massachusetts millionaire from also-ran campaigns. Anybody but Romney became a rallying cry for anxious McCainiacs.

So Romney has taken a much more benevolent tone, which has been effective when dealing with a field where his steady lead was unchallenged by anyone. But that can’t last forever. Benevolence looks like weakness if you let enough attacks go by.

With Bachmann surging again and Perry set to swagger into the race, Romney looks less like a shoo-in and can’t fall back on Yankee forbearance and shoulder shrugs to answer his opponents’ fusillades. And with the clock running out on several candidates in the field, he will be taking lots of incoming fire tonight. With conservatives pining for an anti-Romney champion, there will be no end to the attacks.

Pawlenty: By the Skin of His Teeth

“What we need in this late hour at a time when our country is sinking, when our country is drowning, is strong leaders who are going to roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders back and their head down and drive this thing to conclusion.”

-- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty campaigning in Iowa

Power Play was tempted to say Tim Pawlenty had the most riding on the debate tonight, but that’s not really fair since everything he does now is a make-or-break moment for him.

His two-year-old presidential campaign is now perpetually dangling over the abyss. He’s got the right policies, the best people and a sound strategy to win the GOP nomination, but he has continued to slide into the back of the pack.

Another bad debate, a loss to Michele Bachmann in Saturday’s straw poll, the loss of a key staffer, a bad fundraising report: any of it could doom his chances.

It is often said that Pawlenty is too vanilla… too nice… too Minnesotan to capture the GOP electorate’s affection. The bigger problem, though, is that he has positioned himself as a more conservative alternative to Mitt Romney who is not quite so over the top as the rest of the field.

Pawlenty is running as a Ford Taurus, a more sensible alternative to Romney’s Jaguar or Bachman’s Humvee. But that has confused voters who are looking for bright-line distinctions about their candidates and sharp contrasts.

Tonight, it’s not just important, as everyone already knows, for Pawlenty to show his combative side with Romney. Pawlenty must also define his brand better and show conservatives that he’s really one of them.

And there’s reason to think he might. You know the lyric: “Freedom’s just another word…”

Paul: Straw Man

“We may do quite well on Saturday. I have no idea, exactly. I don't make predictions. But it's significant. It's significant for me personally. It's significant for our campaign. It's significant for the cause of liberty.”

-- Texas Rep. Ron Paul on the stump in Mason City, Iowa setting the stakes for the Ames Straw Poll

Ron Paul’s needs in tonight’s debate are immediate: He needs a performance that will help him win Saturday’s straw poll.

A win in the straw poll would help reinforce the message that Paul is still the emotional and ideological favorite of the Republican activist community. Conversely, a poor showing in the straw poll, say third or worse, will suggest that the door is closing on 75-year-old Paul’s candidacy.

If Iowa activists are starting to forsake their first love in the name of electability, Paul will start to fade quickly and, so will his platform to share his libertarian message.

Paul has been one of the driving forces in changing the direction of the GOP. The ideas for which he was roundly mocked and berated by his 2008 contenders – a more humble foreign policy, ending the Federal Reserve and even the gold standard – are now very much mainstream Republican ideas.

To keep up that push toward libertarianism, Paul needs to give Iowa activists a reason to give him another boost on Saturday. Expect Paul to pull no punches when it comes to his fellow candidates or his ideas.

Santorum: Veep-ability

“Ron Paul certainly is more of a libertarian, and you have folks like Pawlenty and Romney, who are, I think, more moderate. So I'd say, I'm sort of in the middle of the crowd, if you will.”

-- Former Sen. Rick Santorum striking a moderate posture “On the Record w/Greta Van Susteren”

Rick Santorum hasn’t risen or fallen much in his long campaign, making instead steady progress by persuading orthodox Catholics and other religious conservatives that he is fighting for their views.

But that’s not taking him anywhere near the nomination. What Santorum could become would be the right kind of running mate for a Republican nominee who struggles with the religious right (see Romney, whom Santorum warmly endorsed in 2008).

Santorum’s task tonight is to show that he is fierce about his beliefs but not so dogmatic that he couldn’t withstand a general election. He may also look for ways to ingratiate himself to Romney by directing his barbs at others in the field -- maybe highlighting Bachmann’s short political resume or pushing Pawlenty on social issues.

But don’t look for him to join in the attack on Romney.

Huntsman: Who Are You, Why Are You Here?

"On these issues and more, the president has sadly failed us.”

-- Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman during a campaign stop in Florida offering his starkest criticism yet for his former boss

Jon Huntsman has a lot of problems as a candidate: low numbers, no identifiable base, constant drama in his campaign team and an unusual two-state strategy (Florida and New Hampshire).

But his biggest problem may be that Republicans don’t know why he’s running or what it is that motivates him. He has been a boutique candidate that appeals to East Coast media types and Republicans who loathe the Tea Party populism that has swept their party, but that’s not going anywhere.

If there is to be any future for a Huntsman campaign, he has to explain to regular Republicans why he wants this job and who he is. The viral approach of dirt bike videos and snarky Tweets may win approving nods from Politico, but it’s not going to shuck much corn in Ames.

Gingrich: Run-on Candidate

“You look at the whole mess over the debt ceiling and you think to yourself, ‘It should be possible for Americans to come together and find a way to do some things.’”

-- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a combatant in two government shutdowns, “On the Record w/Greta Van Susteren”

In debt, down in the polls, without a substantial organization: that’s not how anyone wants to go into a debate.

But, Newt Gingrich has one last chance tonight to get back into the Republican’s conversation and redeem a damaged reputation. Gingrich is a great debater who loves to riff on policy and shred other ideas.

If he can show that he still has lots of ideas and an acid tongue, Gingrich may get what he wants most of all: a chance to be an intellectual force in the GOP.

If he is undisciplined or repetitive as he also has a tendency to be, he will lose out on his chance to be the ideas guy for the GOP. How Gingrich’s run ends matters a great deal for his future relevancy in the conservative movement.

Cain: Liberatingly Low Stakes

"Contrary to what some of the opponents say, it is not regressive on the poor; it actually empowers the poor. They would pay no tax on used goods. They would have no payroll tax coming out of their check ... and they would receive, along with everyone else, a monthly prebate on sales tax for basic necessities."

-- Herman Cain to the Spencer (Iowa) Daily Reporter defending his idea for a national sales tax

Herman Cain will get a lot of tough policy questions tonight, but Power Play isn’t expecting a lot of nitty-gritty policy answers.

Republican voters love Cain’s speaking style, killer one-liners and disdain for professional politicians, but they aren’t looking to him now to tackle the big policy problems.

His ideas are complicated and often fairly radical – national sales tax, eliminating capital gains taxes – stemming from his time as a Federal Reserve board member and businessman.

But that’s not the Cain to watch for tonight. His other professional life, that of talk show host, will be his way this evening. With dimming prospects for nomination and some cruel reductions coming in the weeks ahead, Cain will try to leave ‘em laughing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And Now, A Word From Charles

“We were talking here about how detached and disengaged he appears and how disturbing it is particularly to Obama's allies in the press. But the irony is that even if he were undetached and concerned and involved, the markets have shown that he is the anti-E.F. Hutton. When he speaks, no one listens. The markets take no notice whatsoever of what he does. And the reason is he has no ideas. He's out of bullets. He's out of arrows. He doesn't have a clue.”

-- Charles Krauthammer on “Special Report w/Bret Baier”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/11/big-expectations-for-debate-one-stage-eight-different-challenges/#ixzz1UkllC0Sa

Barack Obama's 2012 plan: 'Kill Romney'

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:21:25 -0800

POLITICO I By Alexander Burns

Smith and Martin peer ahead at the general election:

Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s re-election campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee.

The dramatic and unabashedly negative turn is the product of political reality. Obama remains personally popular, but pluralities in recent polling disapprove of his handling of his job and Americans fear the country is on the wrong track. His aides are increasingly resigned to running for re-election in a glum nation. And so the candidate who ran on “hope” in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his likeliest opponent.

In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obama’s high command has even studied President Bush’s 2004 takedown of Sen. John F. Kerry, a senior campaign adviser told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a challenger.

“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.

The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s re-elect will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird” ...

The second aspect of the campaign to define Romney is his record as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm which was responsible for both creating and eliminating jobs. Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession – a sort of political Gordon Gekko.

US military Chinook helicopter

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:13:49 -0800

Probe Continues at Site of Military Helicopter Crash

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 09:11:12 -0800

KABUL, Afghanistan – International military forces worked on Monday to recover every last piece of a Chinook helicopter that crashed over the weekend, killing 30 American troops, seven Afghan soldiers and an Afghan interpreter, NATO said.

German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, told reporters that troops had secured the crash site in a rugged area of eastern Wardak province and nobody was being allowed in or out of the area while the investigation was ongoing.

Jacobson said the coalition still had not yet determined the exact cause of the crash, but some officials have said the heavy and lumbering transport helicopter was apparently shot down. Officials said the helicopter was hit as it was flying in and approaching the area.

"We are still investigating this incident so we have no picture of what was the cause for the incident. That is what the investigation is basically all about," Jacobson said.

The helicopter was ferrying a group of U.S. Navy SEALs to reinforce a group of U.S. Army Rangers who were under fire. It remains unclear if the Rangers and SEALs were taking part in a night raid to capture or kill an insurgent leader.

SOURCE: FoxNews.com

American Tipping Point

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 11:49:28 -0800

The Nation's Pulse

By Jeffrey Lord

Hush puppies and the Tea Party.

The Republican run House of Representatives passed a debt limit plan last night 269-161. With Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords returning from death's door to cast a yes vote. Good for her.

You always think of these things together, right?

No? Well, you should.

Hush puppies, for those coming in late, were once the casual shoe of choice in the late 1950s. By the 1990s they were pretty much vanished, disappeared to the fashion twilight zone along with tri-corner hats and powdered white wigs for men. They sold somewhere in the neighborhood of a pathetic 30,000 pairs a year, usually out of small family-run shoe stores in the small towns of off-the-beaten path America. The company that made them -- Wolverine -- was on the verge of giving up with the once iconic shoe from the Eisenhower-era that was, in 1950s beatnik lingo, "nowheresville" by the time of Bill and Hillary.

And then something peculiar happened. Something very much like what has been happening in the House of Representatives the last several days.

Out of the blue, hush puppies were becoming hip in the hippest clubs and bars of Clinton-era Manhattan. Impatient customers began scouting those small town shoe stores and scooping up the remaining supply. A prominent fashion designer was seen clad in them, another called Wolverine wanting to feature them in his spring collection. So did another. One L.A. fashionista mounted a 25-foot inflatable basset hound (the basset hound the Hush Puppy symbol) on the roof of his store, bought and gutted the building next door and turned it into a hush puppy boutique. One movie star of the day walked in personally to pick up a couple pairs of puppies. By 1995, sales had skyrocketed from the lonely 30,000 sales a year to almost half-a-million. The shoes were winning prizes as "best accessory" from fashion big wigs. And on and on it went.

If you've read author Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling classic of a few years back called The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, you will recognize this hush puppy story as Gladwell's. Along with other seemingly odd topics like Paul Revere's ride or the sudden drop in the crime rate of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Gladwell posited the idea that:

…the best way to understand the emergence of fashion trends, the ebb and flow of crime waves, or, for that matter, the transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth, or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.

When three characteristics combine -- "contagiousness, the fact that little causes can have big effects… (and) that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment" -- a "tipping point" occurs.

Hush puppy sales take off. Crime falls through the floor. A book sails on to best seller list. Or, as Gladwell also notes, a Boston silversmith's determination to spread the news of an impending British attack "mobilizes an entire region to arms" and an entire revolution is launched. And so on.

To which, this morning, it must be said after that 269-161 vote in the House last night: America has reached a new Tipping Point.

An epidemic of conservatism is sweeping America. And thanks to the Tea Party, yesterday disgracefully accused of terrorism by Vice President Biden (he the vice president in an administration terrified of calling real terrorists terrorists -- seriously!), the country will never be the same again.

Let's start with Gladwell's point of contagiousness, or, as he says in illustrating the point, the importance of understanding that epidemics are an "example of geometric progression."

Remembering that some 40 years separated the popularity peaks of the hush puppy, it should be noted that 78 years have separated the serious and seemingly permanent rise of Big Government from today. From Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to the presidency of Barack Obama is a long time. And Big Government -- the idea that, in the vernacular, "tax and spend" can just sail on endlessly -- seemed like an impregnable fortress of an idea.

But like the hush puppy epidemic, along the way Gladwell's "little causes" began to multiply.

Some seemed insignificant in the day, others of moderate or even large consequence. Here's a partial list:

• 1938: Ohio Senator Robert Taft gains political celebrity as a devout opponent of FDR's New Deal, winning his first Senate race in the anti-New Deal election year of 1938. The same year Democrats lose a record 72 seats in the U.S. House and 6 in the U.S. Senate. Taft loses three bids for the GOP presidential nomination -- in 1940, 1948 and, most spectacularly, to the moderate Republican General Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. But the idea germinates of the GOP as the natural home of political conservative opposition to Big Government.

• 1947: Regnery Publishing, a publisher of conservative books, is created in by Henry Regnery, the father of Alfred Regnery, now the publisher of The American Spectator.

• 1951: William F. Buckley Jr. becomes an unlikely bestselling author at the age of 25 with his first book, God and Man at Yale, published by Regnery. The book is highly controversial, the first serious allegation that a major American educational institution has abandoned its cultural founding principles for a far-left leaning liberal secularism.

• 1955: Buckley creates National Review magazine, the publication designed to promote the cause of conservatism in a culture where Big Government and its left-leaning accoutrements have become the cultural norm. Famously, Buckley declares his intention of "standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'"

• 1961: Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, having delivered a speech at the 1960 Republican National Convention demanding "let's grow up conservatives," authors a bestselling book called The Conscience of a Conservative.

• 1964: Goldwater defeats liberal GOP Establishment choices, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, for the GOP presidential nomination. Losing in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson, Goldwater's nomination victory continues the Taft transformation of the GOP from a party of "dime store New Deal" moderates to conservatives.

• 1966: Actor Ronald Reagan, whose nationally televised speech for Goldwater electrified the budding conservative movement, is elected Governor of California.

• 1967: R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. founds The Alternative, a conservative magazine that evolves into The American Spectator. The magazine features conservative intellectual and political thought, spotlighting writers such as Tom Wolfe, Thomas Sowell and George F. Will among many. Also appearing in its pages: Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point.

• 1976: Former Governor Reagan challenges incumbent GOP President Gerald R. Ford for the Republican presidential nomination, specifically challenging as a conservative champion. Reagan loses in a tight battle.

• 1978: New York Congressman Jack Kemp gets the Republican National Committee to endorse classical economics -- "supply-side" or "growth" economics -- as the official position of the national party.

• 1980: Reagan wins the presidency in a landslide and the 8-year "Reagan Revolution" begins.

• 1988: Rush Limbaugh begins his nationally syndicated talk radio show, quickly establishing himself as the premiere talk radio conservative in the land.

• 1990: President George H.W. Bush breaks his "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge and raises taxes. Conservatives abandon him and he loses re-election, winning only 37% of the vote.

• 1994: The GOP sweeps the congressional elections in a conservative tide, making it the House majority party for the first time since 1954. Newt Gingrich becomes Speaker of the House.

• 1995: Bill Kristol creates the Weekly Standard magazine, a magazine of "neoconservative" political and intellectual thought.

• 1996: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Roger Ailes launch Fox News. It becomes the most-watched cable news channel in America, dwarfing rivals CNN and MSNBC.

• 2001: Sean Hannity's radio show begins national syndication. He is already the co-host of Fox TV's popular Hannity and Colmes. Hannity becomes the number two talk radio star in America behind his friend Rush Limbaugh.

• 2002: Mark Levin, a former Reagan aide and head of the Landmark Legal Foundation, begins his first radio show, now syndicated nationally.

• 2009: The "Tea Party" movement begins, formed by activists concerned over the size of U.S. indebtedness and the national deficit.

• 2009: Levin writes Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. The book sells over 1.2 million copies and becomes the informal bible of "Tea Party" activists, literally waved in the streets at mass rallies and saluted by Tea Party favorite Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

• 2009: Talk radio's Glenn Beck begins a television show on Fox that for a period becomes the hottest show in the five o'clock time-slot. The show lasts only two years, but in its heyday brings considerable attention to Beck and his particular brand of conservatism.

• 2009: Conservative activist film maker James O'Keefe's undercover videos of ACORN result in the congressional defunding of the controversial group after video shows members of the group aiding in prostitution and tax evasion schemes.

That's a fairly considerable if partial list of what Gladwell calls "little causes" -- some admittedly larger or smaller than others.

Yet the point remains: when you add everything on this list together, when you add the fact that one event has frequently spread its contagiousness or been pushed by, in Gladwell's vocabulary, "connectors" -- "people with a particular and rare set of social gifts" who have the ability to "spread" an idea like an epidemic, a Tipping Point is in the works. Henry Regnery, for example, published and made a star of Buckley, who befriended Reagan who inspired Limbaugh, who was befriended by Buckley and placed on the cover of National Review, with Limbaugh in turn aiding Hannity and Levin and Levin's book inspiring the Tea Party etc., etc.

What is evident in this explosive fight over the debt ceiling is what Gladwell calls the force of "geometric progression." The collective weight of it all from the election of Taft to Limbaugh, Hannity and Levin's latest radio shows and the appearance of the Tea Party marking an American "Tipping Point."

This is not the first time a "Tipping Point" has occurred in American history. The lead up to the tipping point that was the American Revolution was replete with incidents and powerful personalities stretching over a century and a half from the initial landing of the Pilgrims (literally sailing across the Atlantic to get out from under British control) to the first "Tea Party" in Boston to the rhetoric of Patrick Henry and the ride of Paul Revere. All these and more finally culminated in the "shot heard 'round the world" when Americans confronted the British militarily at Lexington and Concord. The world was never the same again, the once presumed eternal certainty of British colonial rule on its way to being shattered for good.

There are other "tipping points" -- one culminating in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, another in the American civil rights movement, with more historical turning points beyond that. Each in their own way propelled by events large and small, championed by personalities famous and unknown.

But make no mistake.

Thanks to the Tea Party movement, Conservatism is on the verge of a major victory that dwarfs the technical and actual realities of whatever the details of the resulting deficit deal passed last night. Yes, there is a long, long way to go. But the idea that America doesn't, in fact, have to be governed for eternity as a debtor nation with a mammoth, out-of-control, ever-expanding government is winning the day. It is tipping the balance with increasing decisiveness against an idea that has become so much a part of conventional wisdom that even some conservatives, startlingly including, inexplicably, the Wall Street Journal, have displayed the wobblies at the thought of confronting the Leviathan. The WSJ's attacks yesterday against Jim DeMint, Michele Bachmann and Sean Hannity, saying "sooner or later the GOP had to give up the hostage" -- follows another editorial in which the paper railed against Tea Party members as "hobbits." The paper, sounding like cranky British Tories in 1775 Boston rather than the bold, forward-looking paper that championed the much-derided ideas of Ronald Reagan, wildly bought into the liberal notion that the Tea Party from Hobbitville is somehow holding the government hostage, instead of the other way around. In fact Big Government liberalism has spent decades holding and trying to hold the average American hostage to all manner of outrageous tax rates, taxes and regulations on everything from capital gains to sex (in Harry Reid's Nevada) to soda, SUVs and poker.

Let me see if I understand this without drink, drugs or rock and roll: the Wall Street Journal is saying that because Senator DeMint, Congresswoman Bachmann and Sean Hannity are not caving to President Obama -- they are insufficiently conservative?

My oh my oh my oh my.

The view from here in Hobbitville is that our WSJ friends and other conservatives who seem inexplicably to have wanted to fold out of what Rush Limbaugh bluntly labeled "fear" are betraying nothing as much as an odd editorial-version of a Big Government, tax-and-spend Stockholm syndrome. The psychological shift where the hostage identifies with the hostage-taker. Oh please don't hurt me and I'll compromise!!!!!!!!!

The Tea Party not only would have none of this, the Tea Party's role in all of this marks the definitive and latest American "Tipping Point" -- a point when the balance is discernibly shifting and the world changes. And as that long list of conservatives and the events associated with them indicates, there are a lot of people over eight decades who deserve some thanks.

America -- and the eternally Big Government, tax and spend ideas of the American Left -- will never be seen the same way again. Which is precisely why the Left is writhing and foaming as this goes to Internet print.

The Tea Party is the new Hush Puppy. They are, to use a Gladwell example, Paul Revere. The message has been delivered with maximum impact. The revolution is here.

A new American Tipping Point has arrived.

Congressional Leaders to Pitch Debt-Reduction Compromise to Caucuses

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 08:36:09 -0800

FOXNEWS.COM

Democratic and Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress will meet with their caucuses Monday for a hard sell of a compromise debt-reduction package that gives President Obama up to a $2.4 trillion hike in the debt limit as long as lawmakers can find an equal or greater amount in spending cuts.

But even if they can’t come up with solutions, the cuts will be found for them. If a committee set up by the proposal fails to have their recommendations for additional cuts approved by the end of this year, a “trigger” in the plan will automatically enact across-the-board cuts.

Major world and U.S. markets rallied Monday morning on optimism that a debt-ceiling deal will be approved by the Aug. 2 deadline. Party leaders are corralling their troops to take a head count of the votes needed to pass the legislation that President Obama said Sunday night will “lift the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy” and prevent the nation from potentially defaulting on its financial obligations.

Hard-right Tea Party-backed Republicans, hard-left progressives and Congressional Black Caucus members have already whipped up a frenzy over the deal. But cooler heads are urging cooperation as financial markets abroad rallied over the news.

According to the president, the deal means an immediate cut of $1 trillion in government spending over a 10-year period accompanied by a $900 billion increase in the debt ceiling. That will be followed by the creation of the committee to come up with additional cuts worth at least $1.5 trillion. The debt ceiling will be raised by $1.5 trillion if the committee recommendations are approved by the end of the year.

Each of the GOP and Democratic leaders in the chamber will nominate lawmakers to the 12-member committee to report back in the fall. Tax hikes are not part of the package and a pledge for a Balanced Budget Amendment vote is.

Obama said everything will be on the table and both parties will find some of the cuts objectionable.

"Despite what some Republicans have argued, I believe that we have to ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to pay their fair share by giving up tax breaks and special deductions. Despite what some in my own party have argued, I believe that we need to make some modest adjustments to programs like Medicare to ensure that they're still around for future generations. That's why the second part of this agreement is so important," Obama said from the White House briefing room

The Senate adjourned Sunday night without a vote on a deal, but Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said that the parties are going to have to give ground and compromise so the country doesn't default.

"I am relieved to say that leaders from both parties have come together for the sake of our economy to reach a historic, bipartisan compromise that ends this dangerous standoff. The compromise we have agreed to is remarkable not only because of what it does, but because of what it prevents: a first-ever default on the full faith and credit of the United States," Reid said

Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will both present the agreement to their caucuses on Monday morning. House Democrats also set a morning meeting to discuss the details.

McConnell, R-Ky., said that the framework calls for a "review that will insure significant cuts in Washington spending."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said after the president's speech that she'll see what kind of support her caucus can provide.

Several objections are expected, including from Republican defense hawks who don't want the military gutted and from the Congressional Black Caucus, which called the deal a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich."

House Speaker John Boehner told his Republican caucus on a Sunday night conference call that the deal isn't done yet. But Boehner said it does not violate GOP principles. "We got 98 percent of what we wanted," he said adding that the framework cuts more spending than it raises the debt limit. It also caps future spending to limits in the growth of government.

"It would also guarantee the American people the vote they have been denied in both chambers on a balanced budget amendment, while creating, I think, some new incentives for past opponents of a BBA to support it," Boehner said.

The 12-member committee, composed of six Republicans and six Democrats, three from each party and each chamber, will report the legislation by Nov. 23. The vote, to take place by Dec. 23, would be an up-or-down vote with no amendments allowed.

The trigger would be enacted for across-the-board cuts if the joint committee doesn't reach at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. If that happens, Obama would be allowed to request a $1.2 trillion debt increase and Congress would have to disapprove it subject to a presidential veto.

According to a Power Point presentation presented by Boehner to the caucus, roughly half of the proposal’s automatic cuts would come from defense and half from Medicare.

While the trigger is supposed to hurt as incentive to get Congress to act, other programs like Social Security, Medicaid, veterans benefits and military pay would be off-limits.

House Republicans spent nearly an hour on the conference call with Boehner. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee said that the plan starts from a better baseline than the proposal presented by Boehner last week.

But one House GOP lawmaker who told Fox News he intends to vote against the plan emerged from the call saying he doubted it was 98 percent in the GOP's favor.

"The minority leader's on board," said the lawmaker who requested anonymity in order to speak freely. "Really? Nancy's cool with only 2 percent? She's that stupid?"

The lawmaker added that Obama's health care law was protected while "the military got screwed," saying the across-the-board trigger between defense and Medicare left Medicaid off the table. The theory was advanced that the health care law will be achieved by pushing greater numbers of recipients of government health care benefits onto Medicaid.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a fierce critic of the entire process, did not outright oppose the legislation but also expressed his disappointment in the chain of events that led to the 11th-hour deal. He said he had wanted seven days to review the bill.

"Republicans offered budgets and bills with trillions more in spending cuts than contained in the current legislation. They lowered their proposal substantially so Democrats would end their blockade. That took courage. But the one fact every American must know is that the level of cuts in this proposal are only a first step. Far more work and much greater reductions in spending are required to balance the budget," said Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., also faulted the 11th hour negotiating but said, "We have settled on a reasonable compromise that all sides should immediately support and which I intend to vote for."

With Aug. 2 put forth as the drop-dead date for a deal or a potential default of the nation's loans by the Treasury Department, the Senate could begin voting on the legislation early Monday. The House has already approved rules that allow same-day voting on the measure.

Under Obama, Millennials move into the GOP column

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:33:50 -0800

By: Michael Barone | Senior Political Analyst I Washingtonexaminer.com

Most presidents affect the standing of their political parties. Ronald Reagan advanced his party's standing among young voters. So did Bill Clinton.

In his first term, George W. Bush helped Republicans equal Democrats in party identification in the 2004 exit poll -- the first time that happened since polling began.

But in his second term Bush proved toxic to the Republican label. The Pew Research Center showed Democrats with a 51 to 39 percent party identification edge over Republicans in its 2008 polls.

Now Pew Research has come out has come out with figures for 2011. They're not good news for Barack Obama and the Democrats.

The Democratic party identification edge has been reduced to 47 to 43 percent. That's a 4-point drop for Democrats and a 4-point rise for Republicans since 2008.

The Pew analysts note, as if they were analyzing a growth stock, that the Republicans' numbers haven't improved since 2010. But the 2010 numbers yielded a 52 to 45 percent Republican lead in the popular vote for the House.

If -- and it's always a big if -- Republicans can maintain that standing in party identification, they should be in fine shape in November 2012, even with increased presidential year turnout.

It's interesting to see which groups have moved most in party identification.

As the Pew analysts note, there has been little change among blacks, who are overwhelmingly Democratic. Hispanics come in at 64 to 22 percent Democratic, somewhat better for the president's party than last year, when they voted 60 to 38 percent Democratic in House elections.

But there has been big movement among whites. In 2008 they were 51 to 40 percent Republican. In the first half of 2011 they were 56 to 35 percent Republican -- more Republican than Southern whites were three years ago.

The most noteworthy movement among whites has been among voters under 30, the so-called Millennial generation. Millennials voted 66 to 32 percent for Barack Obama in 2008 and identified as Democrats rather than Republicans by a 60 to 32 percent margin.

But white Millennials have been moving away from the Democrats. The Democratic edge in party identification among white Millennials dropped from 7 points in 2008 to 3 points in 2009 to a 1-point Republican edge in 2010 and an 11-point Republican lead in 2011.

There have been shifts of similar magnitude among whites who are low-income, who have no more than a high school education, and who live in the Midwest.

It's not hard to come up with plausible reasons for these changes. Obama campaigned as the champion of "hope and change" in 2008 and assured crowds of young people that "We are the change we are seeking."

But the change they have seen is anything but hopeful. Youth unemployment rates have been at historic highs. Young people have seen their college degrees produce little in the way of job offers.

They are choosing more often to keep living with their parents. From the Obama Democrats they have gotten only a promise that "children" up to age 26 can stay on Mommy and Daddy's health insurance plans.

In the wake of the 2008 election, I argued that there was a tension between the way Millennials lived their lives -- creating their own iPod playlists, designing their own Facebook pages -- and the one-size-fits-all, industrial-era welfare-state policies of the Obama Democrats.

Instead of allowing Millennials space in which they can choose their own futures, the Obama Democrats' policies have produced a low-growth economy in which their alternatives are limited and they are forced to make do with what they can scrounge.

There is little evidence that the Millennials believe their plight can be relieved and opportunities opened up by slapping higher taxes on Bill Gates and Steve Jobs or by restricting deductions for corporate jets, as Barack Obama urged in his Monday night speech calling for tax increases (although Senate Democrats gave up on them) in debt-ceiling legislation.

The intended purpose of legislation like the stimulus package and Obamacare was to improve the situations of those least able to take care of themselves -- the young, the less educated, the low-skilled. But it is just such groups that, the Pew Research Center numbers show, have been moving away from the president's party. An instructive achievement, no?

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/07/under-obama-millennials-move-gop-column#ixzz1TXjU0NIX

Reid Moves Forward With Debt-Reduction Plan as Boehner Sweetens Deal for GOP

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:49:26 -0800

FoxNews.com

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he plans to move ahead with a debt-limit bill to rival a House Republican proposal that got new life Friday, as President Obama said it's time to move forward with debt-reduction legislation that can be supported by both political parties.

With the U.S. moving perilously closer to default on its loans to cover years of deficit spending, the majority leader announced his plan to cut $2.5 trillion from the deficit over a decade. At the same time, House Speaker John Boehner announced he would include a balanced budget amendment in his proposal, which appeared to earn him the support he needed from recalcitrant Republicans.

Reid said he has invited his counterpart, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, to negotiate with him after House Republican leaders were unable to secure votes to pass the debt-reduction bill regrouped.

"I know the Senate compromise bill Democrats have offered is not perfect in Republican' eyes. Nor is it perfect for Democrats," Reid said. "But together, we must make it work for all of us. It is the only option."

McConnell, however, chastised Senate Democrats for sitting on their hands while the House GOP did all the heavy lifting.

"The contrast couldn't be starker. Rather than working the last few days towards a solution to this crisis the way the Republican majority in the House has, the Democratic majority here in the Senate has been wasting precious time rounding up 'no' votes to keep this crisis alive," McConnell said on the Senate floor.

"Rather than being responsible and doing their duty and come up with a bill that can actually pass, they have been busy signing people up for the "Not Good Enough Caucus" and ginning up opposition to everything else," he added.

Obama said Reid has introduced cuts that can be supported by Republicans and Democrats, adding that he needs a plan he can sign by Tuesday, the deadline imposed by the administration as the drop-dead date for avoiding default.

"We are almost out of time. We need to reach a compromise by Tuesday so the country can afford to pay its bills on time, as it always have. ... Keep in mind if we don't do that, if we don't come to an agreement, we could lose our credit rating, " Obama said in the latest of several addresses to the nation, including a prime-time address at the beginning of the week.

"It's clear now that any solution to avoid default must have the support of both parties," he added, noting that if the nation's credit rating were downgraded it would be because "we didn't have a triple-A political system to match our triple-A credit rating."

Boehner, R-Ohio, suffered a stinging setback Thursday when, for a second consecutive day, he had to postpone a vote on his proposal to extend the nation's borrowing authority for six months while cutting federal spending by nearly $1 trillion.

Boehner's new provision for a balanced budget amendment would appear to have been the sweetener needed to win over as many as two-dozen holdout Republicans who want greater cuts in federal spending before agreeing to hike the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.

Prior to Boehner's announcement, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said he was a "no" on Boehner bill until something is added that is "trans-election cycle, trans-systemic, and transformative." That would include something like a balanced budget amendment. he said, noting if that promise were included, then he "would embrace it."

While such a move could motivate Republicans, it would not get any traction in the Senate, which wants a longer-term agreement that would raise the limit to pay for deficit spending through 2012.

On the opposite side of the Capitol, Reid passed on warnings by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that the prospects of default are growing.

The international community is very worried, Reid said Geithner told him, adding that the ability to get loans will become more difficult. Credit ratings agencies have also warned that unless Congress gets on a serious path to debt reduction, it could reduce the country's stellar AAA rating.

A vote on a Reid proposal could take place in the Senate on Sunday.

Debt Ceiling Debate Moves From White House to Congress, Prospects Uncertain

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 12:12:11 -0800

FoxNews.com

The debate over the debt ceiling moves Monday from the backrooms of the White House to the halls of Congress, as the House and Senate take up dueling measures to grapple with the problem.

Though the White House says the president still wants a "big" deficit-reduction deal linked to a debt-ceiling increase, a solid week of bipartisan talks yielded nothing close to a compromise -- leaving members of Congress instead moving on to a couple of risky proposals.

House Republicans will act first, pushing their "cut, cap and balance" plan at a committee hearing late Monday afternoon. That plan would cut spending immediately and cap future spending as a percentage of GDP, while requiring Congress to pass a balanced-budget amendment as a condition for raising the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion.

Democrats, though, roundly oppose that proposal and insisted Sunday that it will die in the Senate.

As an alternative, Senate Republican and Democratic leaders are polishing a fallback plan that would allow President Obama to win an incremental and immediate debt-ceiling increase, while effectively requiring a two-thirds majority vote in Congress to stop him. It could be accompanied by more moderate spending cuts and the creation of a new commission to target future deficit reduction.

Congressional leaders describe it as a last-ditch effort to steer the country away from default, though one looking increasingly more viable as efforts to craft a bipartisan compromise run into partisan disagreement.

However, congressional conservatives are voicing their displeasure with the fallback and some say they will try to torpedo it should it come to fruition on the floor. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said Sunday that his colleagues will oppose it.

"It's abdicating our responsibility," Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., told Fox News, without saying how he might vote on the measure if it's the only option. Grimm is among the House Republicans pushing the cut, cap and balance plan as the way to rein in the debt and deficit.

"We cannot just continue to spend money we don't have," Grimm said Monday. He said that if the country manages to avoid default by raising the debt ceiling, the U.S. still faces that prospect down the road if it doesn't cut spending since a future credit downgrade could make it impossible for Washington to pay all its bills.

Top rating agencies already have warned that the U.S. could face a downgrade if it doesn't raise the debt ceiling and reduce the deficit. Moody's, one of those agencies, reportedly suggested in a report Monday that the country just eliminate its debt ceiling to avoid the recurring uncertainty.

White House budget director Jack Lew said in interviews Sunday that it's not too late to strike a significant deal between the parties.

"There's still time to get something big done," Lew said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

On still another track, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., plans to pitch a proposal Monday that he claims can yield $9 trillion in savings over the next decade. But, speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation," he said, "I wouldn't expect it to pass."

Court Orders Immediate Halt to Gay Military Ban

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:48:15 -0800

Associated Press

A federal appeals court ordered the U.S. government on Wednesday to immediately cease enforcing the longstanding ban on openly gay members of the military.

In a brief two-page order, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the "don't ask, don't tell" policy must be lifted now that the Obama administration has concluded it's unconstitutional to treat gay Americans differently under the law.

The ruling was the latest legal development in the effort by gay rights supporters to end the policy. It came in response to a motion brought by Log Cabin Republicans, a group for gay GOP members, which last year persuaded a lower court judge to declare the ban unconstitutional.

After the government appealed U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips' decision, the 9th Circuit agreed to keep the policy in place until it could consider the matter. The appeals court reversed itself with Wednesday's order by lifting its hold on Phillips' decision.

"The circumstances and balance of hardships have changed, and (the government) can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay," the panel said.

The appeals court noted that Congress repealed the policy in December and that the Pentagon is preparing to certify that it is ready to welcome gay military personnel. It was not immediately clear what effect the court's ruling would have on the timeline for eliminating the ban.

Dan Woods, the lawyer representing Log Cabin Republicans, said that unless the administration appeals the order to the U.S. Supreme Court, "don't ask, don't tell is over."

He cautioned gay servicemembers against rushing to declare their sexual orientations until the government declares that it intends to abide by the ruling.

The Pentagon has been moving carefully to implement the repeal of the 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops. Under the law passed and signed by the president in December, final implementation would go into effect 60 days after the president and his senior defense advisers certify that lifting the ban won't hurt troops' ability to fight.

Brooklyn Firefighter memorial

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:06:20 -0800

Atheists Blast Street Sign Remembering 9/11 Firefighters As "Seven In Heaven"

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 15:00:47 -0800

By John Del Signore I gothamist.com

Atheists are complaining about a new street sign in Red Hook that commemorates firefighters who died on 9/11. On Saturday, a group of Red Hook firefighters, community members, and local politicians, gathered near the Engine 202 and Ladder 101 firehouse to rename part of Richards Street "Seven in Heaven Way." "They are heroes and should be rewarded in a place like heaven,” Tom Miskel of Community Board 6 tells the Brooklyn Paper. Atheists, of course, are making a big stink.

"It’s improper for the city to endorse the view that heaven exists," said David Silverman of American Atheists tells the Brooklyn Paper. "It links Christianity and heroism." A valid point, but how many heroes has atheism produced? Christians have Joan of Arc, big George the dragon slayer, Kirk Cameron. Atheists have Mao Zedong and Bill Maher—not exactly hero material, so you get why they're a little jealous.

City Councilmember Sara González shepherded the street sign change through the city council, and we asked her spokesman Mike Schweinsburg if it's appropriate to use city resources for a sign with religious overtones. "The seven heroes have long been known as the 'Seven in Heaven,' " Schweinsburg tells us. "That's something that we didn't have any hand in, it is the way the community and their families chose to remember them. So if that is their desire then we are happy to continue to remember them in the way that their family and fellow firefighters prefer to call them.

"Is it appropriate? There are any number of streets named after religious figures, like Sister Mary Franciscus Way [in Sunset Park]? Should we not honor these people because the community chooses to call them the Seven in Heaven? Yes, it is absolutely appropriate to spend city funds to honor heroes, however they're known." And you know, "Seven In Existential Annihilation Way" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Alaska Releases 24,000 Pages of Emails From Palin

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:42:18 -0800

Published June 10, 2011 | Associated Press

JUNEAU, Alaska -- Alaska officials on Friday released thousands of pages of Sarah Palin's emails from her first 21 months as governor, giving a fresh glimpse at the time when she rose to national prominence and became the GOP vice presidential nominee.

Reporters and photographers crowded into a small office to pick up the six boxes of emails -- 24,199 pages and weighing 100 pounds. Some carried boxes down the stairs and others, wheeling them on dollies, scrambled to be the first ones to reach elevators.

Within minutes of the release, Palin tweeted a link to the webpage for "The Undefeated," a documentary about her rise and time as governor.

Tim Crawford, the treasurer of her political action committee, Sarah PAC, said in a statement that everyone should read the emails. "The thousands upon thousands of emails released today show a very engaged Governor Sarah Palin being the CEO of her state," he said.

"The emails detail a Governor hard at work," he said.

Palin resigned partway through her first term, in July 2009. Requests also have been made for Palin's final 10 months in office. State officials haven't begun reviewing those records. Sharon Leighow, the spokeswoman for Gov. Sean Parnell, said she doubted the release of those emails would come soon.

The emails released Friday were first requested during the 2008 White House race by citizens and news organizations, including The Associated Press, as they vetted a nominee whose political experience included less than one term as governor and a term as mayor of the small town of Wasilla.

The nearly three-year delay has been attributed largely to the sheer volume of the release and the flood of requests.

Alaska is releasing the thousands of emails in paper form only in Alaska's capital city, accessible by only air or water. Reporters from several news organizations arrived in Juneau and made various plans to disseminate the emails to the public.

Palin told Fox News Sunday that she was unfazed by the release of emails, saying there are no more rocks that could be turned over about her life or time as governor. But she also said "a lot of those emails obviously weren't meant for public consumption" and that she expected people might seek to take some of the messages "out of context."

There may not be any surprises to Palin in the emails, however.

Once the state reviewed the records, it gave Palin's attorneys an opportunity to see if they had any privacy concerns with what was being released. No emails were withheld or redacted as a result of that, said Linda Perez, Parnell's administrative director in charge of coordinating the release.

The voluminous nature of the release, the isolation of Juneau and the limited bandwidth in the city of 30,000 people has forced media outlets to come up with creative ways to transmit the information.

The Washington Post is looking for "100 organized and diligent readers" to work with reporters to "analyze, contextualize, and research the e-mails." The New York Times is employing a similar system.

Mother Jones, ProPublica and msnbc.com are working with Crivella West Inc., to create a searchable database of the emails.

The Associated Press also plans to scan the paper copies to make searchable files available to its members and clients. The state said it was not practical to provide electronic versions of the emails.

It's not clear yet whether the pages being released will contain any major revelations. They will cover the period from the time she took office in December 2006 to her ascension to vice presidential nominee in September 2008.

Prior records requests have shed light on the Palin administration's efforts to advance a natural gas pipeline project and the role played by Palin's husband in state business.

The email release adds another dimension to the vetting of Palin that began in 2008 and comes as she has become a prominent national political figure, attracting large crowds during a recent bus tour across the Northeast.

The emails were sent and received by Palin's personal and state email accounts, and the ones being released were deemed state business related.

She and top aides were known to communicate using private email accounts. Perez said Palin gave the state a CD with emails from her Yahoo account, and other employees were asked to review their private accounts for emails related to state business and to send those to their state accounts.

Another 2,275 pages are being withheld for reasons including attorney-client, work product or executive privilege; an additional 140 pages were deemed to be "non-records," or unrelated to state business.

Some emails may have been previously reviewed in other, earlier public records requests, such as in the Troopergate investigation, in which Palin was accused of putting pressure on public safety officials to fire her brother-in-law, an Alaska State Trooper who was going through a bitter divorce from Palin's sister.

Clive Thomas, a long-time Palin observer who's writing a book on Alaska politics, said he's not sure what the emails will contain -- or whether their contents will affect people's perceptions of Palin.

"I guess most people, I think, who don't like Sarah Palin are hoping there's something in there that will deliver the final sort of blow to her (politically)," he said. As for Palin's supporters, he said he doesn't think their opinion of her will be changed regardless of what comes out.

Memorial Day

Mon, 30 May 2011 09:08:30 -0800

Monday May 30 2011

Mon, 30 May 2011 09:07:11 -0800

Two top GOP contenders say 'no' to 2012 White House run

Mon, 16 May 2011 11:42:22 -0800

After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the Presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.

I want to personally thank the millions of Americans who have joined the various Trump grassroots movements and written me letters and e-mails encouraging me to run. My gratitude for your faith and trust in me could never be expressed properly in words. So, I make you this promise: that I will continue to voice my opinions loudly and help to shape our politician's thoughts. My ability to bring important economic and foreign policy issues to the forefront of the national dialogue is perhaps my greatest asset and one of the most valuable services i can provide to this country. I will continue to push our President and the country's policy makers to address the dire challenges arising from our unsustainable debt structure and increasing lack of global competitiveness.

Issues, including getting tough on China and other countries that are methodically and systematically taking advantage of the United States, were seldom mentioned before I brought them to the forefront of the country's conversation. They are now being debated vigorously. I will also continue ot push for job creation, an initiative that should be this country's top priority and something that I know a lot about. I will not shy away from expressing the opinions that so many of you share yet don't have a medium through which to articulate.

I love forward to supporting the candidate who is the most qualified to help us tackle our country's mos timportant issues and am hopeful that, when this person emerges, he or she will have the courage to take on the challenges of the Office and be the agent of change that this country so desperately needs.

Thank you and God Bless America!

Former Governor Mike Huckabee announced his decision on his weekend TV show ‘Huckabee’ on the Fox News Channel Saturday, May 14:

When possible candidates were discussed in the media and despite polls that showed me in the lead, my name would often go unmentioned while a candidate barely registering single digits was touted as a "front-runner." I found comfort that the nomination would not be made by commentators, columnists, or consultants, but by the rank and file voters in the Republican primary, and their support is strong and has been growing.

Concerns that I had about raising the necessary funds to be competitive or being able to win in states outside the South were answered when signs of strong financial support materialized and when polls showed me winning in states like Pennsylvania, Maine, and even New Jersey. That kind of shattered the notion that I was only a regional candidate or only supported by social conservatives.

I had not done much toward a race because my life was filled with work that I truly love here at Fox News, doing radio commentaries on my daily Huckabee Report on 600 radio stations, traveling the country for speaking engagements, and helping good conservative, pro-life candidates who were running for office. Other people probably thought about it more than I did.

I don't have an issue with my family being supportive. My wife actually encouraged me to do it, despite knowing full well it would subject her and the rest of the family to brutal and savage personal attacks. My adult children have also made it clear they would be with me no matter what.

When people asked me what it would take for me to run, I would tell them the same thing---pray for me to have clarity in the decision. I don't expect everyone to understand this, but I'm a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. That relationship is far more important to me than any political office. For me, the decision is ultimately not a political one, a financial one, or even a practical one ---it's a spiritual one.

Michael Moore lives on Mars

Tue, 10 May 2011 10:48:28 -0800

In an exclusive interview with The Wrap notorious “Fahrenheit 9/11” director Michael Moore claims that America’s number one most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, wasn’t killed…“he was straight up executed.”

Executed? Well that’s a very interesting, yet grammatically incorrect, claim Mr. Moore given the definition of the word executed:

ex·e·cu·tion (noun) 2: a putting to death especially as a legal penalty 3: the process of enforcing a legal judgment (as against a debtor); also : a judicial writ directing such enforcement 4: the act or mode or result of performance

(Odd none of these definitions accurately reflect what happened to Osama bin Laden)

As such we must conclude, after further examination of the definition of the word ‘execute,’ that the Academy Award-winning filmmaker’s quandary with the word killed in describing the actions taken against Osama bin Laden is unfounded.

In an effort to allow Michael Moore further opportunity to bring us all away from reality and into The Twilight Zone CNN’s Piers Morgan invited Moore to be a guest on his program last week.

A portion of the interview can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkOSgSsNXwM

In the segment Moore states that he doesn’t “believe in celebrating a person’s death” because he is an Irish Catholic. Neither does Moore find it necessary to reveal the photos of Osama bin Laden’s body. Instead this ‘inquisitive’ and ‘hard-hitting’ director is willing to take the President at his word! Given Moore’s past work (which often questions government authority) Piers Morgan rightly stepped in and challenged Moore on his blind faith in the President.

Moore’s response to the prodding was nonsensical and outrageous. He opines that President Obama has done nothing to warrant any questioning of his candor unlike former President Bush who lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Earth to Mars--I mean Michael-- allow me to contrast the actions of now President Obama with the promises of then Candidate Obama:

Candidate Obama promised that Guantanamo would be closed by January 1, 2010; but as we all know it is still open.
Candidate Obama promised that his administration would be transparent, yet there has been an unprecedented level of secrecy. I mean I don’t see C-Span cameras behind the closed doors, do you?
Obama assured us that if the stimulus bill passed unemployment would go no higher then 8%
Candidate Obama promised go “line by line” to reduce wasteful spending.
"As president, Barack Obama would revisit the PATRIOT Act”… umm yea it’s still in place.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to "create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings." However, no such centralized database exists.

(Source: www.politifact.com)

In the end it appears Mr. Moore is hot and bothered because Navy Seals went into Osama bin Laden’s compound with the intent to ‘execute’ (I mean obviously they should have knocked first).

“Maybe I’m just an old-school American who believes in our judicial system,” the Academy Award winning filmmaker said as he accused those who don’t agree his sentiments of being un-American.

Apparently in Michael’s ulterior universe not agreeing with him about a terrorists right to a trial is the same as "saying that you hate being an American. You hate what we stand for and you hate what our constitution stands for.” He ends his diatribe by reminding us all that “we're better than them”.

Yes Michael Moore America is better than “them”, also known as terrorists, as if any proof really needed to be provided to confirm that statement. However, if there was any question about just how much better we are than “them” [al-Qaeda] we clearly demonstrated our civility, and respect of life and religion when we gave this false prophet a burial that was in keeping with Islamic tradition; the washing of the body, the wrapping of his remains in white cloth and the forty-five minute service given in Arabic on the boat. Earth to Michael, enjoy Mars.

Confusion Growing About Details Surrounding Bin Laden's Death

Thu, 05 May 2011 08:04:16 -0800

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," May 4, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Aside from the debate over the proof of the death photos, confusion is growing about the details of the raid that resulted in bin Laden's death. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney pretty much summed up the administration's position yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I apologize, even I'm getting confused.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Well, Jay, we share your frustration. In particular, administration officials have said repeatedly that a fire fight took place at bin Laden's Pakistani compound. And Jay Carney himself echoed that story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARNEY: They were engaged in a fire fight...

CARNEY: Following the fire fight, the noncombatants were moved to a safe location...

CARNEY: And in the aftermath of this fire fight...

CARNEY: And there was a fire fight...

CARNEY: Again, it was a highly volatile fire fight...

CARNEY: But there was a fire fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: All right. But today, Carney seemed a little confused when reporters raised questions about the consistency of their narrative.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Jay, you talked yesterday a lot about fire fight. Who was it that was shooting back at the U.S. commandos?

CARNEY: We have, as you know, since the moment this operation became public, been as helpful as we can be to provide as much information as we can. And, in terms of the operational details, we have gotten to the point where we cannot cross lines because of the necessity for -- to preserving the methods and operational techniques and capabilities of the kinds of forces that were used in this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Can you decipher that? Looks like somebody learned a thing or two from Robert Gibbs.

So, if no fire fight took place what exactly are the circumstances surrounding bin Laden's death? And joining me with analysis, the host of War Stories right here on this network, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

Colonel, welcome back, sir.

OLIVER NORTH, HOST, "WAR STORIES": Good to be with you, Sean.

HANNITY: It's a good day. I see that smile on your face.

Look, I don't know how much -- I don't care. We got bin Laden. That to me is important.

NORTH: You got it.

HANNITY: But they did say that he was hiding behind a woman. They did say he was reaching for weapons. They did say they were being fired upon. All these things now have shifted and changed that I'm having a hard time understanding it. Your thoughts.

NORTH: Well, I think there is a lot of filters between the guys who actually carried this out and the folks that have to stand up and talk about it. The bottom line of the entire operation is, and it's a good one, that we no longer have to face any kind of a threat from bin Laden and retribution has been effective. Justice has been served.

Now, under the exact width circumstances, I have been on a lot of these kinds of missions, Sean, and there is a lot happening and a lot of different people see things very differently.

HANNITY: All right. I want to go to the issue the White House has made this decision not to release this photo. They don't want to spike the football in the end zone but, yet, the president will take a victory lap at Ground Zero tomorrow. And, by the way, I support his decision. And we should tell the world. We need to show the world.

Like, we are looking at these photos that Reuters had tonight. Now, they are gruesome. We warn children not to watch them. A lot of blood. It's gory. I know he was shot in the head. But the rationale is what bothers me the most, Colonel, and the rationale seems to be that by releasing this photo, we will incite people that already hate us. And we put a bullet in the guy's brain. I think they already hate us.

NORTH: Well, there is no doubt that they hate us. And there is no doubt that we have got people like United States Army soldier, Bowe Bergdahl who is currently being held by the Taliban. I would not want to be the reason why they used to show us the video of his head being removed. And they are certainly capable of doing that kind of thing.

Second of all, if I were one of those U.S. Navy SEALs on that operation, I would not want to have evidence that they would use against me in some kind of international criminal court. And you and I both know that that's a kind of thing that happens in this crazy world we live in.

So, not releasing the photos of bin Laden, quite frankly, I think to satisfy the -- and interest of a lot of different people, when we know he is dead, and there is no need to go any further about it, I don't think you need the photos.

HANNITY: Well, I actually think the world does need the photos. And by the way, I have full confidence. I have every belief, 100 percent sure that they got him. I think it would send a message to every two bit dictator around the world.

You know, one of the things that frustrate me though is they already -- the enemy already hated us. And it seems like this hypersensitivity as it relates to the photo, America can handle the photos we showed. Even if he is shot in the face, and it's gruesome, we handled Uday and Qusay, and Saddam Hussein's hanging.

But when you look at the burial on a warship where they say he is not a Muslim but he gets, you know, Islamic custom, buried within 24 hours, dumped at sea after his body is washed. He is put in a shroud, 45 minute funeral translated into Arabic, seems overboard to me.

NORTH: Well, but, again, you are dealing with an administration that is very, very politically correct. And so I'm glad that there is not a body in some memorial, you know, garden some place where people can go and rally around it and use that to instill, perhaps, more terrorism for decades to come. I'm glad the body is gone. I don't think, quite frankly, we needed to have it, you know, parked in some, as I say, memorial garden somewhere.

Second of all, we know that this is a very politically correct administration. We know that he is going to take the victory lap up at ground zero tomorrow. We should have expected he would capitalize on this.

Meet The 'Seal Team 6', The Bad-Asses Who Killed Osama Bin Laden

Wed, 04 May 2011 11:09:13 -0800

Robert W. Johnson / businessinsider.com

The military team that killed Osama Bin Laden is an elite special forces group unofficially called Seal Team 6.

Officially, the team's name is classified and not available to the public, technically there is no team 6. A Tier-One counter-terrorism force similar to the Army's elusive Delta group, Team 6's mission rarely make it to paper much less the newspaper.

It shows how important the publicity about Bin Laden's killing is to the U.S. that this morning, Team 6 is front-page news.

The members of Team 6 are all "black" operatives. They exist outside military protocol, engage in operations that are at the highest level of classification and often outside the boundaries of international law. To maintain plausible deniability in case they are caught, records of black operations are rarely, if ever, kept.

The development of SEAL Team 6 was in direct response to the 1980 attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran. The mission was a terrific failure that fell apart at many points and illustrated the need for a dedicated counter-terrorist team capable of operating with the utmost secrecy.

The Team was labeled 6 at the time to confuse Soviet intelligence about the number of SEAL teams in operation at the time. There were only two others.

Team 6 poached the top operatives from other SEAL units and trained them even more intensely from there. Even among proven SEAL's the attrition rate for Team 6 is reported to be nearly half.

There are no names available for current Team 6 members, but the CIA does recruit heavily from their numbers for their Special Operations Group, so it makes sense that they were chosen to work with the CIA on this mission.

Team 6 is normally devoted to missions with maritime authority: ship rescues, oil rigs, naval bases or land bases accessible by water. There are no waterways near Bin Laden's compound.

When a former Navy SEAL was called for a comment about this article all he could say was: "You know I'd love to help you man, but I can't say a word about Team 6. There is no Team 6."

Navy SEALs

Wed, 04 May 2011 10:12:05 -0800

America celebrates the death of "the butcher"

Tue, 03 May 2011 12:54:58 -0800

Senator Lindsey Graham

Tue, 03 May 2011 11:40:28 -0800

Remembering what happened almost 10 years ago...

Mon, 02 May 2011 17:08:57 -0800

Over the weekend some friends, Eric and I were invited to a sunset cruise around Manhattan. I have lived in NYC for 7 yrs and still love admiring the magnificent skyline.

Just Friday night as we passed Ground Zero where the towers once stood I stopped and looked for a moment thinking of those we know who were directly and indirectly affected that day. Then we admired Lady Liberty in the twilight of New York’s harbor.

I was happily surprised at the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death before heading to bed last night. I’m honored to be from a long line of military veterans in my family. I’m proud of my Navy Seal uncle who is still active duty. Before bed last night Eric and I said a prayer for the Seal team who had a hand in bringing down one of the most evil men of our time. Our nation’s military is incredible, brave and fantastic at what they do.

Please take a moment today and remember what happened almost 10 years ago in NYC, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. Stop and thank a soldier. Send a friend or family member in the military a note of encouragement. But most importantly, send them your prayers.

Photo Credit - Eric Krauss (http://erickrauss.com/sunset-cruise/)

Inside the Capture of Osama Bin Laden

Mon, 02 May 2011 11:46:35 -0800

Helicopters descended out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history. It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen.

The location was a fortified compound in an affluent Pakistani town two hours outside Islamabad. The target was Usama bin Laden.

Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an Al Qaeda courier. The CIA had been hunting that courier for years, ever since detainees told interrogators that the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be living with the Al Qaeda leader.

Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?

The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, they concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.

President Barack Obama described the operation in broad strokes Sunday night. Details were provided in interviews with counterterrorism and intelligence authorities, senior administration officials and other U.S. officials. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.

By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to "pursue an aggressive course of action," a senior administration official said. Over the next two and a half months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.

Normally, the U.S. shares its counterterrorism intelligence widely with trusted allies in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. And the U.S. normally does not carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without collaboration with Pakistani intelligence. But this mission was too important and too secretive.

On April 29, Obama approved an operation to kill bin Laden. It was a mission that required surgical accuracy, even more precision than could be delivered by the government's sophisticated Predator drones. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six and put them under the command of CIA Director Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the compound from afar.

Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and his conference room was transformed into a command center.

Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky. But the Al Qaeda courier, his brother and one of bin Laden's sons were killed. No Americans were injured. Senior administration officials will only say that bin Laden "resisted." And then the man behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil died from an American bullet to his head.

It was mid-afternoon in Virginia when Panetta and his team received word that bin Laden was dead. Cheers and applause broke out across the conference room.

Fox News Poll: Romney, Huckabee Top GOP 2012 Contenders for President

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 09:46:16 -0800

FoxNews.com

With the Republican field for the 2012 presidential nomination still in flux, the two major candidates who ran for president in 2008 -- Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee -- receive the most backing among GOP voters nationally.

Romney garners the support of 19 percent of Republicans and Huckabee 17 percent, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. The next group of candidates is bunched together: Sarah Palin at nine percent, Donald Trump at eight percent, and Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul receive seven percent a piece.

Earlier this month, Huckabee was at 15 percent among Republican voters, Romney 14 percent, Palin 12 percent, Trump 11 percent and Gingrich 7 percent (April 3-5).

Among voters who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, Huckabee (19 percent) and Romney (17 percent) are still the top two choices, followed by Palin (10 percent) and Trump (10 percent). No other contenders receive double-digit support.

Click here for full poll results.

Overall, voters have mixed feelings about Trump’s entrance on the political stage. Setting aside whether they would support Trump in an election, 47 percent like his straight talk and the message he sends to the world, while the same amount -- 47 percent -- don’t like his style. Among Republicans, 66 percent like Trump’s straight talk; that increases to 80 percent among Tea Partiers.

By a wide 24 percentage-point margin, more voters have a negative than a positive view of Trump (33 percent favorable and 57 percent unfavorable). Republicans, however, are more likely to have a favorable (46 percent) than an unfavorable (41percent) opinion of Trump. Some 53 percent of voters have a favorable view of Barack Obama, and 44 percent unfavorable.

Would voters be proud to have the outspoken businessman and reality television star in the White House? In a word, no. While 33 percent would be at least somewhat proud if Trump were their president, most -- 62 percent -- would not. By comparison, the results are almost the exact opposite for Obama: 65 percent are proud to have him as their president and 33 percent aren’t.

Nearly half of voters would feel proud to have a President Huckabee (47 percent proud, 38 percent not) or a President Romney (46 percent proud, 39 percent not).

After raising questions about Obama’s birth certificate and hiring investigators to look into it, Trump is taking credit for Obama releasing a copy of his “long-form” birth certificate Wednesday. The poll asked voters, setting aside how they felt about where Obama was born, has the president been trying to hide something about his upbringing and his past? Some 33 percent say yes, Obama is trying to hide something, while a 61 percent majority says no, he isn’t.

The poll was taken Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, so some interviews were conducted before and some were after the president released his birth certificate.

The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 911 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from April 25 to April 27. For the total sample, it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Mike Huckabee is the host of “Huckabee” on Fox News Channel, and Sarah Palin is a Fox News contributor.

Obama's Controversial Pastor...No, not Wright or Pfleger!

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:21:24 -0800

Where did the President spend his Easter? Before the star studded event on the White House lawn he attended the Shiloh Baptist Church. The Church’s Pastor, Dr. Wallace Charles Smith has a reputation of preaching about race. FoxNews.com uncovered a speech last year at Eastern University during which he made some very shocking statements including a comparison of Rush Limbaugh to the KKK: Watch video.

Is the President running out of his pastor problem 9 lives? The media seems to have helped him narrowly escape the relations with Reverend Wright and Father Pfleger, but President Obama, you are making it increasingly difficult for the media to defend you and ignore what’s being said in the pews you sit in.

Listen to Sean discuss and debate the issue with Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor Bob Beckel, and Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell here.

2012 Candidate Series: Gov Gary Johnson

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:09:43 -0800

Gary Johnson for President
In Sean’s continuing effort to inform listeners of the 2012 Presidential field, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson was invited on the program to discuss his candidacy. “You’re more of a libertarian than a Conservative,” quizzed Hannity, “On issues involving the legalization of marijuana you’d be more on the libertarian side.” Johnson tried to defend himself by saying, “We have the highest incarceration rates of any country in the world and this is the country of liberty, freedom and personal responsibility?” Hannity shot back, “I don’t want people to get the impression that this is something you’re running and in your defense you cut over 1200 jobs in New Mexico as Governor without firing anyone and you really did do a good job.”

Sean takes on a radical caller

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:38:32 -0800

A Muslim caller from Texas named Sahleem was listening to Sean’s discussion with Larry Elders on his interview with unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and felt compelled to call Sean’s show. “Why are Bush and Rumsfeld so unrepentant? They killed thousands of people…they are war criminals” he begins off the bat.

Sean, immediately recognizing his world view, asks if he believes there is such a thing as Islamic Terrorism. The caller responds, essentially, that anything perceived as terrorism is nothing more than a response to the crusade. That crusade being a Christian crusade that started in 1948 when Israel was created: “everything that happened since was a response to that” insists Sahleem.

“Israel shouldn’t have been given a place? Israel in its current form shouldn’t exist in your view?” Sean asks. Sahleem has an answer: “Israel shouldn’t exist in the Middle-East. Israel should go to up-state New York.” Sahleem even suggests Sean and his friends buy property in up-state New York and simply move Israel there.

But this caller’s hatred is evil to the core. He also doesn’t believe Bin Laden exists at this point, that Bush and his Hollywood crowd put together a phony video showing Bin Laden is behind the 9/11 attacks. He believes that the four black boxes from the airplanes that perished on 9/11 have been hidden, but if they were to be “found” they would show Bush was behind the attacks.

Finally Sean asks “Do you believe 9/11 was evil…that people slaughtered was evil?”

“Slaughtered? Slaughtered by whom? It was evil but done not by the Muslims but by the Bush administration.”

Evil does exist and we must continue to stand behind those who are not only willing to accept that fact, but who are willing to fight it.

Rep. Keith Ellison on his misleading testimony

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:21:46 -0800

Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) is one of two Muslim Americans currently serving in Congress. You may remember him as the representative who broke down crying while telling a moving story during his testimony at a hearing on Islamic radicalism about a young Pakistani-born American named Mohammad Salman Hamdani. Hamdani was a police cadet, paramedic and among the first responders who died on 9/11. Ellison in his testimony said of Hamdani “After the tragedy some people tried to smear his character solely because of his Islamic faith. Some people spread false rumors and speculated that he was in league with the attackers only because he was Muslim. It was only when his remains were identified that these lies were fully exposed.”

It was truly a sad story of fear and smear tactics based on one’s religion. Except for that the story was false. Not only was there little evidence of the rumors Ellison referred to, but as Politico reported:

“six weeks after the September 11 attacks-before Hamdani’s remains were identified, which Ellison implies to be the turning point of public perception-Congress signed the PATRIOT Act into law with this line included: ‘Many Arab Americans and Muslim Americans have acted heroically during the attacks on the United States, including Mohammed Salman Hamdani, a 23-year-old New Yorker of Pakistani descent, who is believed to have gone to the World Trade Center to offer rescue assistance and is now missing.”

So where did the smear actually occur? It appears as though the real culprit was Mr. Ellison who was trying to lead the American people to believe that they were guilty of racism. Well Mr. Ellison, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. It was America who appropriately deemed this brave young man a hero and gave him the honor of being mentioned in the PATRIOT Act.

Sean doesn’t hold back as he gives Rep Ellison a chance to explain himself, and further presses him on the issue of Islamic radicalism.

Romney: Obama playing "chicken" with the US economy

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:14:11 -0800

Former Massachusetts Governor and potential Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has formed an exploratory committee but has not yet announced his candidacy. Most polls show him as one of the clear front-runners of the GOP potentials.

Romney immediately gives his intentions by stating “this president is playing chicken with the US economy. I’m looking at this race because I have a 25 year career in the private sector I know how jobs come and how they go and I want to create for jobs for the American people and get our economy back on track.”

When asked what he thought of the budget deal struck at the last minute to not shut down the government, he said “step by step we’ll have as much spending reduction and budget reduction as possible.” But for now Obama “needs to stop putting out ‘pseudo cures.”

Sean brings up Obamacare and the healthcare plan Romney helped to pass in Massachusetts. “I think this is going to be a big campaign issue. People always bring up the issue of the healthcare plan you passed in Massachusetts…the president has even gone as far as to say I modeled this after Mitt Romney. If you get the nomination and Obama says you’re the architect of Obamacare how do you answer that?”

A confident Romney replies “I’d love to have the opportunity because I’d turn to him and say ‘OK Mr. President then why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you pick up the phone and say Mitt you carried out an experiment in Massachusetts and some of it worked well and some of it didn’t …’ Because I’d a told him Obamacare would be trillions of dollars of new spending in a government that can afford it right now, that it’s gonna make a mess of the U.S. healthcare system, that it’s bad policy, that it’s unconstitutional and the American people in the final analysis are going to reject it.”

Sean then turns to foreign policy. Romney says the “Lack of foreign policy by this president has an enormous cost…right now with the Middle East in turmoil, Egypt, Libya, Syria...for this president not to know which way to hit is frightening and dangerous… It’s almost as if he does not have a compass.”

Lastly Romney gives us insight into the most important lesson he learned for his last presidential run and what he plans on doing differently if he runs again in 2012.

Boston Tea Party of 2011

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:22:54 -0800

Since the election of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) all eyes have been on Massachusetts. An historically Democratic state and home to the most liberal politicians of the Kennedy family.

Sean interviews Jeff Katz of Boston’s WXKS Morning show to get the latest directly from the belly of the Boston Tea Party Friday April 15th. “We have Massachusetts Republicans which a lot of other places would be called Democrats,” but they “put their money where their mouth was” Katz says of the ‘Tea Party’ patrons who came out in droves.

Sean asked what was their reaction to the budget deal made in DC just one week before to which Katz replied “It’s like a boyfriend or a girlfriend who left for something better,” and notes the concern that Republicans fear they will get blamed for everything which stunts their motivation to go after what the people who voted them in office want.

Sean mentions the stunning election victories for the Republicans and Tea Party candidates in 2011 and admits “if anyone gets the credit it’s the people you’re with today.” Katz responds “they’re regular folks, no a part of the establishment, many have never been involved in politics. They work really hard and like to do the right thing. They are passionate because they understand this debate is about their kids and their grandkids.”

Congress freshmen on their first 100 days

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:11:56 -0800

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," April 12, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: It has been almost 100 days since the 112th Congress reconvened with a new GOP-controlled House. And here to help us examine what has been accomplished, what still needs to get done, are the lawmakers themselves.

And joining us live tonight from Washington, D.C. with the focus group of freshmen Republican congressmen and women is the author of the best seller "Win," the president of the Word Doctors, the one and only Dr. Luntz. How are you sir?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER: Sean, actually, I'm not the worst dressed person here for the first time of my life

HANNITY: Wow, ouch!

LUNTZ: These 19 people here have been here for 98 days to be exact. And we had most of you here 98 days ago to ask you, could you really change the culture of Washington? So, here's the question, by a show of hands, how many believe that you have already changed the culture of Washington? Changed it.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Changing.

LUNTZ: Changing. Tell me how?

REP. CORY GARDNER, R-COLO.: We moved it from a conversation about to whether or not to cut spending to how much we can and how much we should cut. We are going to cut more.

REP. SANDY ADAMS, R-FLA.: I think we've made it more transparent. We are giving people an opportunity to really know the truth.

LUNTZ: And you are their freshmen class president?

REP. AUSTIN SCOTT, R-GA.: Yes, sir.

LUNTZ: How would you characterize what your class has done to change the culture of Washington?

SCOTT: I'd say, it's 87 independent leaders with the focus on the next generation not the next election.

LUNTZ: You are one of the people who voted against the CR?

REP. TREY GOWDY, R-S.C.: Yes, sir.

LUNTZ: Has the culture of Washington changed, in your mind?

GOWDY: I think it has. And I did vote against the CR because I'm blessed to represent a people who are prepared to reshape and resize government at a little quicker pace. But I can tell you this. I have respect for my colleagues in the freshmen class who cast a different vote. And I don't question their commitment to cutting one iota.

LUNTZ: You also voted against the CR?

REP. SCOTT RIGELL , R-VA.: Yes. I didn't quite buy into the logic of taking it down to $61 billion from 100. So, as I saw it, we were at 39 percent of really where we need to be. And I know as an entrepreneur that reducing deficit, reducing the deficit is in itself, and act of job creation. And the sense of urgency, this Congress this year addressing the deficit.

LUNTZ: So, I want to ask you, how specifically has the culture changed? Because there are millions of people quite literally watching tonight that aren't quite sure. How have you actually changed it?

REP. MICHAEL GRIMM, R-N.Y.: Well, the fact that we are no longer speaking about how much we are spending and what we are cutting. What I think you are hearing, several on the same page. But we have different tactics. And I respect my colleagues that have different tactics. But at the end of the day, our goals are exactly the same. And that's to dramatically reduce spending and get our fiscal house in order.

REP. MIKE POMPEO, R-KAN.: Yes. I think another big change has been that we don't spend much time talking about how we got here, whether it was Democrats or Republicans that dug this hole. We spent a lot of time thinking about, what are the facts? How do we get out of this what is the path forward? I think that's a big shift.

LUNTZ: Sean, you wouldn't have seen it, but we filmed just before we were here, a segment that is going to air this weekend. We had 14, 15 average Americans going back and forth with these 19 freshmen. And it would have made you feel really good, the interaction that they had, the comments that they were making. This is real frustration with Washington among the American people but it feels like they get it.

HANNITY: Let me give credit where credit is due. I believe they have changed the debate. I am encouraged by that. I do sense from everybody that is speaking there that there is a sense of urgency. I just want to ask this, because I think I speak for a lot of people. When we have a $3.6 trillion budget this year, $1.65 trillion deficit and we can't get $61 billion cut, the prorated rate from $100 billion and it comes out to $28 billion, I know I speak for a lot of people in saying, we are disappointed. And I want to get their reaction.

LUNTZ: Go ahead.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER, R-ILL.: You know, what? That's a great question. Ask Harry Reid. We would have cut even more than $61 billion if we could. But we've got to deal with a Democratic controlled Senate, we'll dealing with democrat president. Ask Harry Reid why it is extreme to cut just a small percentage of the government.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And it comes down to tactics, I mean, there are some in this freshmen class, that have said, you know, we are not going to cut this until it gets to the $100 billion mark. And there are others like myself, say, I will cut as much as I can every chance we get until we get to the debt ceiling. Because it's all about the debt ceiling.

REP. ANNA MARIE BUERKLE, R-N.Y.: And, you know, the truth of the matter is, we are disappointed too. We started out, we wanted $100 billion, that was the goal. But we've got to be realistic. And we are only one half of one-third of this government.

GARDNER: But this week we start moving from billions of dollars to trillions of dollars. That's where we start this week, real cuts of trillions and dollars.

LUNTZ: So, I've got to ask you with a show of hands. Sean, raising legitimate points, have you been successful in cutting wasteful Washington spending, yes or no?

(TALKING OVER EACH OTHER)

REP. JAMIE HERRERA BEUTLER, R-WAS.: Here's the thing, we've cut more than any Congress, four times more than any Congress since World War II and we've been here for four months. It is a step. If we were saying we are stopping here by all means, be disappointed. But this is one step, and we are going to keep walking. Baby, I voted for that cut, I'm proud of it. It was the right step. And we're going to keep putting one foot in front of the other until we get this fiscal house in order.

LUNTZ: Sean, they talked about the $38-and-a-half billion dollar cut. And it was the most. And in the conversations that we were having before we went on the air, to them, it is a step-by-step approach.

HANNITY: Well, can I just respond? I didn't know who that was the last speaker. But what she said is encouraging to me. What others have been saying there is encouraging to me. Because I just feel like if we are really spitting in the ocean with $61 billion. I think $6.2 trillion which Paul Ryan proposes is great. For example, how do we get the next level of cuts in? Are they willing to vote against raising the debt ceiling for example?

LUNTZ: OK. Let's do it.

BEUTLER: I think, I am no closer today -- and I'm Jamie Herrera Beutler, Washington State. I'm no closer today to voting to increase the debt ceiling than I was what, 90, 100 days ago. Because I haven't seen anything that would cause me to do that. We are here to make a change, and that's what we're going to do.

ADAMS: Neither am I. No closer today than I was when we first got here. We haven't seen the reforms that we need to even begin the discussion on raising the debt ceiling.

LUNTZ: Last one.

Bachmann: "This was a lost opportunity"

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:22:29 -0800

In an interview with Congresswoman Michele Bachmann yesterday Sean said “If I was in the congress I would not have supported this deal. Twenty-eight people agree with me and you’re one of them.” In a battle over the deficit and where to make budget cuts, the Congress made an agreement just shy of midnight Friday night, at which point there would have been a government shutdown.

Many on the right, including Michele Bachmann and Sean think the GOP did not get a large enough cut in the deficit including ending funding for programs like Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.

Bachmann was disappointed because “voters wanted to dramatically cut funding and defund Obamacare.” Although many GOP demands were not met, Bachmann does say “we’re in a very powerful position. Obama doesn’t give us a dime unless we give it to him” but laments that, “if we wailed on it harder we could have gotten a lot further.”

Sean asks Bachmann point blank “what happened?” Part of Bachmann’s explanation is that Congress “didn’t make it clear what they were fighting for.” In essence they “didn’t’ blow [the issues] up and make it a big issue to get backing” from public opinion. They kept focusing on cuts but not the finite details as to where the cuts should be made.

“We didn’t let people know what we were fighting for. I was fighting to defund Planned Parenthood and defund Obamacare.”

Rep. Jim Moran loses his cool

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:43:23 -0800

Tensions were high at an emergency town hall meeting held Rep Jim Moran (D-VA) last Thursday, April 7th to address concerns regarding a potential government shutdown. Frustrated constituents shouted from the audience, asking the congressman to work longer hours and through the upcoming two week holiday break. A large number of federal workers live in Moran's Northern Virginia district.

He mentioned that this was the sixth continuing resolution and attempt to finalize funding to keep the government from shutting down, but said he "saw no reason why [lawmakers] would not keep the government running at the same level of spending for just a few days."

One of the audience members was Wayne Tunick, a 27 year disabled veteran who had a question for his representative that affects hundreds of thousands of military personnel fighting for our country: “Why are you here and not in congress trying to figure out how to stop this from happening?”

Tunick was referring to a memo released by the Department of Defense which stated that in the case of a government shutdown, the Pentagon would continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan, but “All military personnel will continue in a normal duty status” but that “military personnel will serve without pay until such time as Congress makes appropriated funds available to compensate them for this period of service.”

Though the rhetoric of the guidance issued by the DOD was airy and fluffy, its meaning was not: our brave men and women will continue to fight, but without getting paid.

While members of Congress often believe they are serving some sort of selfless service by holding a town hall and allowing constituents access to them, Mr. Tunick’s question is the most important question that could have been asked to a representative while they are less than 24 hours away from the government shutting down; “what are you doing here?”

While lawmakers did come to an agreement shortly before midnight Friday night, the American peoples’ anger has not ceased. Is Mr. Tunick’s question, followed by Rep Moran’s disrespectful reply indicative of what’s to come?

Don’t miss Sean interview Veteran Wayne Tunick on tonight’s ‘Hannity’ on the Fox News Channel 9pm/ET.

American Soldiers in Afghanistan

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:39:52 -0800

Hannity vs Sharpton Debate (4/7/11)

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:22:16 -0800

Sessions, Jeff

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:13:33 -0800

Jeff Sessions was born in Selma, Alabama on December 24, 1946, and grew up in Hybart (pronounced Hib-ert), the son of a country store owner. Growing up in the country, Sessions was instilled with the core values – honesty, hard work, belief in God and parental respect – that define him today. In 1964 he Jeff Sessions became an Eagle Scout and has received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. After attending school in nearby Camden, Sessions worked his way through Huntingdon College in Montgomery, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969. He received a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Alabama in 1973. Sessions served in the United States Army Reserve from 1973 to1986 ultimately attaining the rank of Captain. He still considers that period to be one of the most rewarding chapters of his life.

Sessions’ interest in the law led to a distinguished legal career, first as a practicing attorney in Russellville, Alabama, and then in Mobile, which he now calls home. Following a two-year stint as Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama (1975-1977), Sessions was nominated by President Reagan in 1981 and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the United States Attorney for Alabama’s Southern District, a position he held for 12 years. Sessions was elected Alabama Attorney General in 1995, serving as the state’s chief legal officer until 1997, when he entered the United States Senate.

As a United States Senator, Sessions has focused his energies on maintaining a strong military, upholding the rule of law, limiting the role of government, and providing tax relief to stimulate economic growth and empower Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money.

Dubbed a “budget hawk” by the Alabama press, Sen. Sessions was selected to serve as the Ranking Member on the Senate Budget Committee to restrain the growth of federal spending and make permanent tax cuts that benefit American families. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions is a leading advocate of confirming federal judges who follow the law and do not legislate from the bench. He serves as chairman of the Judiciary Administrative Oversight and the Courts Subcommittee.

Speaker Boehner and Rep Pence

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:22:16 -0800

Pawlenty: "My record is unparalleled"

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 12:01:13 -0800

Former Minnesota Governor, Tim Pawlenty, who served as the State’s 39th Governor from 2003-2011 now has his sights set on the White House and is putting up a good fight for the 2012 Presidential Race.

Sean notes that recent Quinnipiac polls show Obama is at his lowest approval ratings and that Republicans have a good chance of taking over the White House in next year’s election. Governor Pawlenty feels he is the one candidate who can appeal to the whole field of voters while others primarily appeal to one group. Seans asks how he can unify the Conservative movement and what distinguishes him from the rest.

“I grew up in a blue collar meatpacking town, my dad was a truck driver, my mom died when I was young,” and that the American Dream is “not just a concept or a throw away line, it was my life.”

The Governor says he has three important characteristics that put him above the rest to serve the highest political office: his life story, his record and the fortitude to do it.

Listen as he tells Sean his thoughts on Obamacare, Social Security, abortion, gay marriage and what is his biggest political regret.

Obama's Hamlet Complex

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:24:27 -0800

To Be or Not To Be? To Do or Not To Do? That is the internal struggle Obama deals with daily. Our Commander-in-Chief is sounding a lot like Hamlet! Sean brings to light that Obama wants “the United States to be a nation among nations, and not a leader of nations.”

His recent actions of not getting involved with Libya when chaos initially erupted and leaving the future of Libya and our American soldiers’ security in the hands of allies is yet another example of one very confused, weak, or at the very least, uncertain President. He has said our military will not push Qaddafi out, but that we’d still push him out some other way. Exactly what way is that Mr. President?

But Sean warns us that there is an inexorable danger in Obama’s actions. He does not believe in American exceptionalism and “doesn’t feel we should lead the world because we’re too morally imperfect.” Who then, if not the U.S., will Obama entrust to lead the world?

Last Veteran of WWI Buried

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 10:55:41 -0800

A Newt Gingrich Presidency

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:09:03 -0800

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," March 4, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was the talk of the political world this week as rumors swirled that a major announcement was imminent. And on Thursday, in Atlanta, Georgia, Speaker Gingrich revealed that he's one step closer to challenging "The Anointed One" in the year 2012 and it is forming a presidential exploratory website. Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We will look at this very seriously. And we will very methodically layout the framework of what we'll do next. And we think that the key is, to have citizens who understand this is going to take a lot of us for a long time, working together. There will be many more chances to have conversations. I simply want to give you that. And I think you will have more than enough to write about in the near future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Now the former speaker was a bit cryptic about his future in politics yesterday. But tonight, we've got the man himself right here in our studio to help set the record straight. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Mr. Speaker.

GINGRICH: Good to be here.

HANNITY: Mr. President?

GINGRICH: Well, that's up to God and the American people. But Callista and I were grateful yesterday because we had Governor Deal, and we had the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House, all three with us. And all three supportive of what we are doing. And I think, at this point we have an exploratory website NewtExplore2012.com. And we're getting a lot of responses on it. And my expectation is by the end of this exploratory process, they will have an announcement and we'll be in the race. And I think it is very daunting, but it's also very exciting.

HANNITY: All right. So, there are reasons why you took this step rather than an exploratory committee. Can you talk a little bit about that?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, technically under the Federal Election Commission, it doesn't matter. It's exploratory process whether you have a committee or not. We are still in the process of wrapping up several things in our businesses. And for example, I'm -- this is the first time in I think 10 years I've been here as a guest and not as an analyst.

HANNITY: I think that is true.

GINGRICH: Because Fox News said, got it, you're not here anymore.

HANNITY: Right.

GINGRICH: The American Enterprise Institute very similarly, I've been a senior scholar there, and as of yesterday I'm not senior scholar there. So, there are things like that we are working through. We also wanted to have an ability to listen to the whole country. That's why we are using a website approach. Because we want people anywhere who want to be part of this to let us know and to be engaged with it. And I think that there's a real hunger for an articulate expression of American exceptionalism of how free enterprise creates jobs, of what we need to do to balance the budget once again as we did when I was speaker, to get power out of Washington and back home to the states and the people thereof and implement the 10th Amendment. And so, and frankly to protect us in foreign policy and the national security. So, I think the potential for a positive, solutions-oriented alternative to Obama, is very, very real. And that's where we're going to start outlining on Monday when I'm in Iowa.

HANNITY: Right. In Iowa, then New Hampshire and South Carolina?

GINGRICH: Absolutely.

HANNITY: But this is an important question, you started your political career back in 1958, that's when you began.

GINGRICH: That's right.

HANNITY: OK. You worked your way all the way up to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. And as I was reading the articles as the news was coming out this week, you know, you've been out of power in Washington, what, 17 years now.

GINGRICH: Well, 12 years since I left the speakership.

HANNITY: But 17 years when you became a speaker. That's my math.

GINGRICH: That's right.

HANNITY: What's the difference, because a lot of people saying, all right, well, does Newt still bring some -- you know, we are going to go back 12, 14, 15, 16 years and every article raises well, can Newt overcome the past in terms of the fact that you were, quote, "deemed" by the media a controversial speaker. What do you...

GINGRICH: Well, I think, first of all, if you think it is controversial to balance the federal budget for four straight years and pay off $400 billion, to have the first tax cut in 16 years and what Arthur Laffer called the largest capital gains tax cut in American history, to see unemployment go down from 5.4 percent to four percent while I was speaker. To strengthen defense, to have the largest entitlement reform in history, welfare reform -- two out of three people went to work or went to school. If those things are controversial, then it was controversial.

But I think the biggest advantage of the 12 years that I had at the American Enterprise Institute, at the Center for Health Transformation, developing ideas, making movies with Callista, writing books, I had time to think about, and frankly thanks to the Bush administration allowing me to be a volunteer adviser in defense, in intelligence, at the State Department, in health care, I had a chance to see the executive branch from the inside.

And I think I have a much deeper and more fundamental understanding today of the changes we need to be successful. You know, I'm in the Reagan tradition, I think our best years are ahead of us, not behind us. I think we have a chance to break out and have an extraordinary 20 or 30-year run, leave China and the others way behind, and be the most dynamic, you know, most prosperous and safest country in the world. That requires the kind of changes -- I don't know coming out of the speakership that I would have had anything like the depth of understanding I have now about how big the changes have to be, and how you could actually get it done.

HANNITY: Yes. What I'm hearing is, if you win the primary, what you're setting up is really compare and contrast. Two very distinct, different visions. Barack Obama wants to transform America. And you are in many ways saying you want to transform America.

GINGRICH: Well, I think President Obama wants to change America into a different country. I want to renew the American dream that all of us are endowed by our creator with certain alienable rights, that we have the right to pursue happiness. He wants to redistribute wealth. I want to make sure everybody has a chance to create wealth. You know, if somebody hasn't created it, you can't redistribute it.

I saw him today talking about how no school is going to fail. The sad fact is, his administration backs things like the New York City union, which wants to fire the 5,000 most newest, most aggressive, most energetic, most dedicated teachers on behalf of mediocrity. And I think that we ought to be clear about this. If you want people not to fail, then you better have a standard of measuring success. You better have a standard of encouraging people to do their best. And the president unfortunately actually backs bureaucracies that guarantee we are not going to succeed.

HANNITY: What do you think, for example, when you have a $14 trillion debt -- by the time the next president gets in the office, it will probably be somewhere around $18 trillion -- how do you -- with the numbers so big and so massive, how do you get to a balanced budget and then start paying down that debt?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, when I became speaker, people thought you couldn't balance the budget at all. It was common wisdom among all of our elites.

HANNITY: What was the deficit then? What was the debt then?

GINGRICH: Debt, a couple of hundred billion dollars. The deficit was probably a third of what it is now. But here's my point. It is just a question of scale. We actually got to a balanced budget in three years. Now, there were a couple of things you would do immediately. First is, you'd pass very dramatic tax cuts to create economic growth, because if you go from nine percent unemployment down to four and five percent of the American people go back to work, they come off Medicaid, they come off food stamps, they come off unemployment, they start paying taxes because they have a job. That's step number one to a balanced budget.

Second, quit spending. I mean, this new budget the president sent in is a joke. He ought to call Governor Cuomo and Governor Brown, who are Democrats, and ask their advice because both of them are trying to get to a balanced budget because they have to. And his budget is a disaster. See, just stop spending.

Senator Manchin, who as the Democratic conservative governor of West Virginia, with a $4 billion dollar state budget, had $1 billion rainy day fund. He said, the first thing he did when he became governor is he stopped hiring. He said, there's about a 10 percent turnover in a year, and if you just stop hiring, within two years, you have a dramatically smaller government. So, you can -- my message is simple. I have done it with the help of a lot of people, John Kasich among others. We can do it again. A balanced budget is possible. And that should be one of our goals.

HANNITY: All right. We're going to take a break. More with the former Speaker of the House coming up right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." We continue now, joining me in studio, former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. I just -- one little point on this. So, you have this website, NewtExplore2012

Debate on the existence of race in the White House

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:57:08 -0800

A new article in Us News “Obama Says Race a Key Component in Tea Party Protests” with detailed behind the scenes conversations gives us new insight into just how much race may be playing a part in this administration. Sean brings up the article which states that at a dinner party a guest suggested when tea party wanted to “take back their country that their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety in having a black president.” Supposedly Obama did not dispute the idea. He agreed there is a subterranean agenda in the anti Obama movement, a racially bias one and sadly conceded there is little he could do about it. (Full Article below)

Furthermore, during a House appropriations subcommittee about the voting intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, Attorney General Eric Holder throws race into the ring with the statement “people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people” (Full Article Below). So did the Justice Department go easy on the New Black Panther Party because they are African American?

In a heated and thought provoking debate Rev Jesse Lee Peterson and Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia University professor give their take on why race seems to be a recurring theme. Hill says it’s not explosive to say race is a factor in the elections the last two years or in the tea party movement. Reverend Peterson takes another position and Sean reminds us that the Tea Party policed their own organizations and demanded any racist signs etc be removed and taken down.

"Obama Says Race a Key Component in Tea Party Protests"

In a new book, President Obama talks candidly about race and the presidency

By Kenneth T. Walsh Posted: March 2, 2011

African-Americans have been an integral part of the White House since it was built in part by slaves. In Family of Freedom: Presidents and African Americans in the White House, veteran U.S. News White House reporter Kenneth T. Walsh traces this sometimes fraught history from its roots all the way to the Barack Obama presidency.

As he began his second year in office, Obama's presidency was not going well. His legislation to overhaul the healthcare system was still bogged down in Congress. The unemployment rate, which polls showed was the top concern of most Americans, remained stubbornly high at about 10 percent, and much worse in many African-American communities. Obama's job-approval ratings had dropped markedly from the astronomical levels of his first few months to below 50 percent.

Adding to his woes, in January 2010 the race issue erupted again in an unusual and unexpected way. Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader and an Obama ally, was embarrassed because of some racially insensitive comments he had made to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, the authors of a new book, Game Change, about the Obama campaign. It turned out that Reid had predicted in 2008 that Obama could succeed as an African-American presidential candidate partly because he was "light-skinned" and because he didn't speak with a "Negro dialect."

READ FULL ARTICLE: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/03/02/obama-says-race-a-key-component-in-tea-party-protests_print.html

Eric Holder: Black Panther case focus demeans 'my people'

Politico.com / Josh Gerstein / March 01, 2011

Attorney General Eric Holder finally got fed up Tuesday with claims that the Justice Department went easy in a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party because they are African American.

Holder's frustration over the criticism became evident during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing as Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) accused the Justice Department of failing to cooperate with a Civil Rights Commission investigation into the handling of the 2008 incident in which Black Panthers in intimidating outfits and wielding a club stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia.

The Attorney General seemed to take personal offense at a comment Culberson read in which former Democratic activist Bartle Bull called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career.

"Think about that," Holder said. "When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia—which was inappropriate, certainly that…to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people," said Holder, who is black.

Holder noted that his late sister-in-law, Vivian Malone Jones, helped integrate the University of Alabama.

"To compare that kind of courage, that kind of action, and to say that the Black Panther incident wrong thought it might be somehow is greater in magnitude or is of greater concern to us, historically, I think just flies in the face of history and the facts.," Holder said with evident exasperation.

In a series of questions and comments earlier in the hearing, Culberson insisted that race had infected the decision-making process. "There’s clearly evidence, overwhelming evidence, that your Department of Justice refuses to protect the rights of anybody other than African Americans to vote," the Texas Republican said. "There's a pattern of a double standard here."

“I would disagree very vehemently with the notion that there’s overwhelming evidence that that is in fact true,” Holder replied. “This Department of Justice does not enforce the law in a race-conscious way.”

Rep. Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Philadelphia, said the Black Panthers "should not have been there." But he said the GOP was making too much out of a fleeting incident involving a couple of people.

"The most unethical thing a person can do is make allegations based on absolutely nothing," Fattah said. "The only issue of race is singling out this particular decision...That this rises to national significance is bogus on its face."

Obama's Energy Dependence!

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:36:05 -0800

Sean played a clip of a congressional hearing where Dan Burton (R-IN), grills Hilary Clinton on the concept of energy independence, saying we are continuing and increasingly dependent on foreign energy, impeding the United States’ ability to become energy independent.

In true Hilary fashion, she doesn’t back down…”There is a lot that can be done right now that will make us energy efficient and I think some of the short term decisions that are being made by the Congress undermine our march for energy independence.” Really Hilary, placing blame on Congress? The Congress that has been in office for just barely two full months?

Sean notes that it is Obama who has banned drilling everywhere he can. He promised he’d build new nuclear energy plants…nope…instead he’s allocated billions to phony green energy products which are useless and have accomplished nothing.

The political instability in the Middle East is just the latest scary realization come to life that if we do not gain energy independence their turmoil will blow up in our face and gas prices will spike.

Since Obama has been inaugurated and joined forces with the left’s environmental extremists the price of oil has now tripled. That dependence is the single greatest national security issue we have.

Sean tramples on the assumption the “Obama mania media” has put forth that the uprisings are to blame for gas prices rising saying “it shouldn’t matter! The single biggest cause for oil prices is refusal of this president and recent congress to develop our own energy sources. Period.”

Troopers sent to absent senators' homes

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:02:30 -0800

www.jsonline.com/blogs

By Steve Schultze of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 24, 2011

State troopers were dispatched early this morning to the homes of all 14 Democratic state senators, who fled the Capitol a week ago to stall debate on a bill to restrict public worker bargaining rights.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said he took the move because he'd had reports some of the senators were going home nights and driving in the morning to Chicago. The Democrats have said they left Wisconsin to avoid being compelled to return to the Capitol and face a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill.

"Troopers aren't going to arrest anybody," Fitzgerald said. He hopes the Democrats if confronted by a trooper and a Senate page will comply with Senate tradition and rules and return to the Capitol.

As of 9 a.m., though, Andrew Welhouse, a spokesman for Fitzgerald, said that so far no Democratic senators have been found.

It would only take one of the 14 Democrats to give majority Republicans a quorum so the budget bill can be voted on.

Fitzgerald said he would not immediately bring up the budget bill for debate as soon as one of the absent Democrats can be brought back to the Capitol

He said the Democrats' tactic of leaving town was "absolutely trashing the decorum of the Senate."

Huckabee: A 2012 Presidential Candidate?

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 23:24:16 -0800

Former Arkansas Governor and 2008 Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee has released his ninth book, A Simple Government: Twelve Things We Really Need from Washington (and a Trillion That We Don’t). Does the Governor’s book allude to twelve reasons why he may run for President? Sean makes sure to press him.

Since the 2008 Presidential Elections, Governor Mike Huckabee teamed up with Fox News Channel for a hit TV show. There is great speculation that the former Governor will once again run for the Presidency, which looks particularly promising according to a Public Policy Polling survey.

BOOK: Pick up a copy of "A Simple Government" by clicking right here.

The survey has Huckabee with a clear lead of 24 percent ahead of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachussetts, who are tied at 14 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich comes in third with 11 percent, followed by Tim Pawlenty, the ex-governor of Minnesota, with 8 percent.

Each of the twelve things we need from Washington are their own chapter in the book-

The Most Important Form of Government Is a Father, Mother, and Children: We Need a Return to Family Values

The Further you drift from Shore, the More Likely You Are to be Lost at Sea: We Need to Return to local Government

You Can’t Spend What You Don’t Have; You Can’t Borrow What You Can’t Pay Back: We Need to Control Spending and Debt

If you Drain the Lake, All the Fish Will Die: We Need a Simple and Fair Taxation System

Once Humpty Dumpty Falls, It’s Hard to Put Him Back Together: We Need a Responsible Approach to Health and Health Care

If You Don’t Hear the School Bell Ring, Class Never Starts: We Need an Education System That Values All Students

Leave Your Campsite in Better Shape Than You Found It: We Need to Take Responsibility for the Environment

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors. We Need Immigration Reform That Works

Bullies in the Playground Understand Only One Thing: We Need a Strong Approach to Terrorism

When the Bullets Are Real, There Aren’t Any Toy Soldiers: We Need an Effective Military Policy and Strategy

With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends? We Need to Strengthen America’s Position on the World Stage

Hope Is More Than Just the Name of My Hometown: We Need to Have Fiath in the Future, No Matter How Big Our Present Problems Are.

A Miracle In Massachusetts

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:58:10 -0800

The election of the Republican Junior Senator from Massachusetts shocked the nation and is credited with starting the tea party title-wave. The GOP Senator was elected in a 2010 special election to serve the remainder of arguably the most Liberal Senator Ted Kennedy’s term when he died after a long struggle with a brain tumor.

Considered an epic upset in the most Liberal state, Brown defeated Democratic candidate and Massachusetts Attorney General, Martha Coakley, 53% to 46% . The upset was particularly embarrassing to the White House after Obama had personally traveled to Boston to try to ‘save’ the once favored Coakley. The loss was also devastating to the Liberals in support of healthcare overhaul, who feared another vote for the GOP would halt passage in the Senate.

Brown’s win was just the first of a GOP landslide when gubernatorial, senate and congressional candidates swept their Democratic opponents in the 2010 November elections. Since taking office, however, Senator Brown has been accused of flip-flopping, and caucusing with the Democrats instead of Republicans on important issues such as Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

In his new book “Against All Odds,” Senator Brown gives the reader an in-depth behind the scenes of the man who shook Massachusetts to the core, from his shameful and hidden childhood to his rise to the United States Senate. And Sean presses him on the issues the people want to know the most such as his thoughts on Obama, the direction of the country, healthcare and his future aspirations.

Listen to Sean’s Radio Interview {HERE}

Watch Senator Brown on ‘Hannity’ {HERE}

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity," February 21, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN HANNITY, HOST: Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown burst on to the political scene back in 2010 when he was unexpectedly elected to fill the seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy. And now in a brand-new book, he details his life struggles and how they have helped shape him into the person that he is today.

And joining me now is the man himself. His book, "Against All Odds: My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks, and Second Chances" is now in stores.

Senator, how are you? Welcome back to the program, I appreciate you being here.

SEN. SCOTT BROWN, R-MASS.: Great, Sean. Good to be on again. Thank you.

HANNITY: I read this book. I got to tell you, you grew up poor, broken family. I mean, really broken family. You talked about, "I remember the days when the largest thing we had in our refrigerator were milk and blocks of yellow government-issued cheese."

BROWN: Yes. Good old days.

HANNITY: Not exactly, right? Pretty tough.

BROWN: It was tough. But, you know, throughout all that, the one thing that my mom did instill on us is hard work. She usually had two or three jobs. And she was just battling to, not only battling, literally sometimes with her husbands, but also, you know, battling to keep a roof over our heads. And that really was conveyed to me.

HANNITY: And you even stole food, because you were hungry.

BROWN: Yes.

HANNITY: And you got busted when you were 14-years-old.

BROWN: Yes. I stole food. I was playing basketball and running around and was growing leaps and bounds at that point at a young age. I think at 12, I was 5'11, I would just grow, grow, grow like a sprout. And, yes, I was always hungry.

HANNITY: Well, I will get to that in a second, how basketball and a coach and a social studies teacher really saved your life. You, and this got a lot of news -- you revealed in the book that you were sexually abused by a 13-year-old kid when were you seven.

BROWN: Right.

HANNITY: And when you were 14 and went away to a Christian camp, of all places.

BROWN: I was 10 actually.

HANNITY: You were 10 at that point, OK. And in the first case, you took a rock and hit the kid in the head.

BROWN: Yes.

HANNITY: How -- first of all, when you're writing this book and you're going through all of this, you know, it had to be tough to remember it all. I'm sure you tried to forget it. And why did you think it was important to put in the book?

BROWN: You don't forget at all. You don't forget. So no, it wasn't hard to recall.

HANNITY: I didn't mean it that way.

BROWN: What was difficult was obviously was bringing it public and talking about it. My family, my mom didn't know, my dad -- my wife had a sense that something was going on, just little things I did with the girls. "Hey girls, stranger danger, you know, you go to a camp and if anyone is touching you a little weird, just be aware, make sure you tell mom or dad. We won't be mad, you know, don't be embarrassed." Little things like that. So, after she read the book, she is like, oh, OK, I get it. It's allowed us to really talk things through, the same with my mom and dad. And my daughter Ayla just read it, she said, dad, I get it now, I understand why you are so protective.

HANNITY: One of your daughters, by the way, was on "American Idol," she has done very well for herself.

BROWN: Right.

HANNITY: What -- as all of this was going on in your life you had some people when you finally got to 8th grade that really, because you had, how many men came into your life through your mother -- a lot?

BROWN: My mom and dad were married four times each. My mom is happily divorced. My dad is happily married. And yes, I had some good coaches and teachers who just took me under their wing and said, "Here, here is a basketball, here, you have a lot of potential, here." And they directed me, and quite frankly, but not for that, I probably wouldn't be -- definitely wouldn't be here talking to you. That's for sure.

HANNITY: But every relationship that your mom had when she brought men into the house seemed to become an abusive one.

BROWN: Yes. Two out of four were. My dad -- obviously my dad -- they were just too young. And after that, it was pretty intense.

HANNITY: And you say, you focused all your energy in basketball. You were angry all the time and that was your outlet.

BROWN: Yes.

HANNITY: Sports.

BROWN: Yes, sports. You know, like I said, but not for that, it channeled me. I mean, I remember the coach saying, "Hey, Brown! Why don't you guys play like Brown?"

HANNITY: Because you were playing with intensity.

BROWN: "Brown, whatever you have, you keep it up. Why can't you guys be like Brown?" I'm like, what are you talking about? If they only knew.

HANNITY: Yes. Well, let's move on to politics a little bit here.

BROWN: Sure.

HANNITY: There are some members of the Tea Party that have gotten angry with you. And they've even used the term Benedict Brown. You mentioned the Tea Party, as far as I caught in the book that I was reading through most of it, is I think one time. And I think the Tea Party Movement feels, hey, wait a minute, we helped elect you. You know, why not give more praise to them.

BROWN: First of all, I do, I give great praise to not only the Tea Party but every other political party and individual group that helped me. It wasn't just one group. To think that is not really accurate.

HANNITY: You consider yourself a Tea Party member?

BROWN: No, I'm a Republican from Massachusetts. I'm not a Tea Party member. But, what is a Tea Party member, somebody is concerned about the fiscal and financial future of our country? That's me. They're concerned about the over taxation and over spending in our national security, that's me. So, I agree with what they stand for.

HANNITY: I'll give you the examples where people are mad at you, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," financial reform, START Treaty, and the jobs and highways bill.

BROWN: Well, the jobs and highways -- let's start with the jobs and highways bill. A $15 billion bill that could that, if it went through, and remember, we only had 41, I moved for cloture immediately because there was $100 billion of amendments. So, I look at it as I saved $100 billion. And it hit the parameters, did it increase taxes, increase the deficit, good for Massachusetts, good for the country, and create jobs. And it hit all those five parameters.

HANNITY: Right.

BROWN: "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I'm in the military, I'm still serving. I'm a lieutenant colonel. There are gays in the military, and when they come home injured or dead, I don't ask if they are gay or straight.

HANNITY: What about the military personnel or leaders that say this is not good for morale?

BROWN: All the leaders said -- and I spoke with every one of them, and I spoke over a thousand people. They said our concern is about the implementation during wartime, and I agree with that, and so do they.

And they are very cognizant of trying to do it during that period. So that issue obviously stands on its own merits. With regard to the finreg, as you know, that bill was about as big as this building and because I got involved we made it about as big as this table. When Congress gets done with this, it is going to be this big. And that was very important.

HANNITY: Here are the headlines. You've seen them. "Brown helps Democrats break GOP filibuster." "Scott Brown under pressure from left, votes for regulatory bill," I'm giving you the media. "HDH in Boston," "Scott Brown defends voting with Democrats." In that sense, "Harry Reid woos Scott Brown on jobs bill."

BROWN: You know, there is no wooing. Bottom line is --

HANNITY: He didn't woo you? He didn't court you? He didn't call you? He didn't meet with you?

BROWN: He asked me to look at the bill, which I would have done anyway. But if you look at each and every bill in an independent manner, I'm not sure what the mystery was. As I said, I went down there to be an independent voter and thinker.

I'm not going to be in lockstep with any particular party. I'm going to look at what is best for hitting those five parameters. And bottom line is we are in deep trouble right now, and we need people who are going to work to move our country forward and attack the very things that are holding us back.

I'm looking forward to tackling the debt and the deficit when we get back into session. As I said, when I went down there, $11.95 trillion, up to 14 -- over 14 trillion and rising. Absolutely no effort to reel in our spending and our debt and get our economy moving again. We spent very little time talking about jobs, and I'm going to continue to work to do that.

HANNITY: When we come back, I'll get your thoughts on President Obama and much more we will have with Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HANNITY: As we continue now with Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. His brand-new book, "Against All Odds" is in stores right now.

I consider myself a Reagan conservative. What that means, you know, a constitutionally principled limited government, more freedom, strong national defense conservative. You say you are a Scott Brown Republican.

BROWN: A Reagan Republican.

HANNITY: Are you a Reagan Republican?

BROWN: I absolutely feel very strongly about Ronald Reagan. I'm actually giving the keynote speech out at the Reagan library in a couple of nights per Mrs. Reagan's request. I have a lot of love and respect for President Reagan and what he did for our country.

HANNITY: Yes, all right, let me ask you. What do you think of President Obama?

BROWN: As I said it before, he's got a lot of challenges. You know, he's got a good heart and he has a couple of kids like I do. But in terms of tackling the very real fiscal issues that we're facing right now, I think he could do a lot better.

HANNITY: Did he -- did he punt, did he wimp out? Did he, you know, show a lack of leadership with, for example, his budget? Because it was only about a month ago he was talking about if we really want to deal with the budget, we have to deal with entitlement reform. He presents the budget and he doesn't deal with any of that.

BROWN: As you saw in the State of the Union, there was hopeful conversation about tackling a lot of things. So everyone was expecting them -- him to actually lead on those issues. I'm hopeful that through the numbers we now have in the House and the message we send with that budget, and then dealing with the opportunities facing with the CR and also some of the debt ceiling issues -- not only can we tackle those, but there will be some leadership when it deals with entitlements.

HANNITY: You say he faces big challenges, nobody disagrees with that. But this president by the end of this fiscal year will have accumulated nearly $5 trillion in new Obama debt. The stimulus has failed. The deficit has never been larger. If we project out, the deficit is even going to be higher.

BROWN: Listen, I don't support the budget in its present form.

HANNITY: No, I got it. But can you say that he failed? His economic policies--

BROWN: It is a work in progress. Certainly, we can all do better. I mean, we need leadership not only from the House, but from the president and the Senate. We need to come together.

HANNITY: Did he show leadership on that bill?

BROWN: On the budget? Listen, he could have done better. I think everybody knows that. You know, everybody is saying that he could have done better.

HANNITY: You seem -- I don't know. I'm trying to understand your reluctance --

BROWN: You're trying to have me hammer somebody, and where I can work with the president, I'm going to do it. It is not certainly productive for me as a senator to go out hammering anybody, whether they're Democrat or Republican.

HANNITY: How about just honest, truthful criticism?

BROWN: I've said right from the beginning that I'm disappointed in the budget and he should have shown leadership when it comes to working with entitlement reform and focusing on jobs and the economy.

I've been beating that drum for the last year. When they are talking about everything but the economy, I'm talking about jobs and moving our country forward.

HANNITY: Go back to when he said if we don't pass the stimulus, we face a catastrophe.

BROWN: I would have voted against that.

HANNITY: OK, fair enough.

BROWN: He hasn't create one new net job, that's been a failure, yes.

HANNITY: All right, health care passes, a brand new entitlement.

BROWN: They rammed it down our throats.

HANNITY: CBO says it going to lose 800,000 jobs, and the president, again, nearly $5 trillion in new debt. I think his economic plan has been a failure. And I'm just -- you say he has a tough job.

BROWN: It speaks for itself. I mean, we are in deep trouble. We have to work together collectively. It is not going to be one man. His leadership is critically important to send a message throughout the world that we are ready for business, that we are going to get our fiscal house in order.

I'm hopeful that he will do that. I know what I'm going to do. I'm talking about jobs. I've offered many alternatives to the spending that we are doing, paying for things with money in the system versus using the credit card.

Listen, I'm beating that drum and every other senator I know is beating that drum. We need some leadership from the majority party and the president to do the very same thing.

HANNITY: Are you happy the way he handled Egypt? Are you happy the way he's handling his foreign policy? Did you think he's given enough support to the dissident voices for example in Iran?

BROWN: Listen, I think that I'm very hopeful about what's happening over there, but I'm very concerned about obviously the way the protesters are being treated. I think everybody worldwide got caught off guard with what happened in Egypt.

I would have liked them to be on the same message, secretary of state, president, vice president, et cetera -- they weren't. With regard to Libya, and obviously what is happening in Iran, I'm hopeful they will continue to allow -- give the tools and resources to these people who want to seek freedom to in fact do so and be there behind them.

But we also need to make sure when we actually have a change that there's no void. We have groups like the Muslim Brotherhood come in. We need an orderly transition. Sometimes the United States needs to just step back and let these countries feel their way out and get some young rising stars in those countries to step forth and say, "You know what? I'll take it. I'll run with that mantle and let them go out and have a free and fair election."

HANNITY: Last question, as it relates to Wisconsin and the protesting, and the governor, Governor Walker's position about collective bargaining. Do you think the governor is right?

BROWN: I think the governor was elected to do a job and he's going to send his budget to the legislature so they can do their job. I encourage the senators to come back into the state and start tackling these very real issues realistically --

HANNITY: Do you agree with the governor? Do you think the governor is right?

BROWN: I agree that everything is on the table right now in this tough fiscal times.

HANNITY: Yes, but he's saying get rid of collective bargaining.

BROWN: I think he's the governor, and whatever he and the people of Wisconsin want, we should support.

HANNITY: You are ducking that question.

BROWN: Hey, listen. It's true. I'm not from Wisconsin. If I was there--

HANNITY: I got it, but -- it's a big union state in Massachusetts, right?

BROWN: It's a big union state and certainly there's a place for unions, but also there's a place to also come together to solve the real problems of each and every state. While everyone is tightening their belts, so do unions and other groups need to tighten their belts and contribute to the --

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: Senator, I'm glad under tremendous difficulties growing up, in that sense it is an inspiring story that people can overcome a very hard past. Thanks for being with us.

BROWN: It's great to see you, too.

HANNITY: All right, thanks.

The battle to define Obama's SOTU

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:20:09 -0800

By: Glenn Thrush and Manu Raju

POLITICO.COM

President Barack Obama will toe a fine fiscal line in his State of the Union address Tuesday, proposing new infrastructure and education spending to spur job growth – along with enough spending cuts and tax reform measures to blunt criticism that he’s ignoring the deficit.

Congressional Republicans aren’t waiting to see the details, arguing that any “investments” at a time of record-breaking deficits are simply code language for a second economic stimulus package, which they have cast as a fiscal disaster that worsened the $14 trillion national debt.

The GOP effort to define Obama’s speech before he gives it started on the Sunday talk shows and accelerated Monday as word leaked of Obama’s plan to propose significant new investments in clean energy; bridges, roads and railways; and education, perhaps in the form of a re-branded school construction and renovation initiative.

The White House sees the speech, which comes less than a month after the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), as a chance to unify the country and expand bipartisanship. But the need to attack a stubborn 9.4 percent unemployment rate has unmasked a fundamental partisan clash over job creation and deficit reduction that will linger long after Obama’s words fade.

The president will embrace both spending and cutting, a double-vision approach previewed in a White House email to surrogates on Monday that described the need to invest “only in what makes America stronger and cutting what doesn’t.”

Don’t hold your breath for specifics – Obama aides say this will be a speech not a spreadsheet, intended to set priorities, not lay out the ultimate levels of funding, cutting or taxation.

That stance tracks closely with public opinion. For all the Republican claims that their 2010 midterm victories amounted to a mandate to slash spending, recent polling suggest many Americans support deficit reduction in principle – but want their favorite programs kept intact.

The West Wing on Monday was keeping a tight lid on any details of Obama’s speech, but administration sources say the president is expected to offset his spending proposals with a series of deficit reduction measures, including some already-hinted-at discretionary spending cuts, coupled with a possible simplification of the tax code to eliminate some loopholes.

One White House ally who has been in close touch with Obama’s staff in recent days, predicted that the president would not call for specific action on entitlement spending – and won’t immediately produce a specific plan for containing Social Security costs, as many liberals had feared.

“This feels much more palatable than a few weeks ago,” the Democrat said.

Obama plans to wrap a disparate agenda with a single rhetorical bow – “competitiveness” – but any kind of spending faces a firestorm of opposition on the Hill, especially from the new Republican majority in the House.

White House talking points distributed to Democrat surrogates early Monday begin: “The most important contest we face today is not between Democrats and Republicans. It’s America’s contest with competitors across the globe for the jobs and industries of our time.”
The bullet points make no explicit reference to spending – by design – but they clearly hit a three pronged-approach on education, technological innovation and improvements that improve U.S. competitiveness, an implicit reference to the trade imbalance with China.
“[T]here’s still more work to be done for the millions of people that are either out of work or struggling to offset their shrinking paychecks with rising costs. And there’s more work to do to ensure that America and its workers can compete and win in the 21st century,” according to an email of the talking points, forwarded to POLITICO by a Hill staffer.
“The President will lay out a plan to win the future by out-innovating, out-educating and out-building the rest of the world… giving equal weight to the need to take responsibility for deficits” by investing “only in what makes America stronger and cutting what doesn’t, and reforming our government so that it’s leaner and smarter for the 21st century.”
Obama and his staff planned to reduce some details on Tuesday before the speech, but key metrics – how many jobs will be created and the total price tag – were still being worked out internally on Monday.
One senior administration official told POLITICO that Obama won’t let the GOP win the public relations war as they did with the 2009 stimulus package – and that the White House plans to dispatch nearly every cabinet member to sell the spending proposals as a run-up to the release of the actual budget next month.
One possible clue of his spending priorities: Energy Secretary Stephen Chu will host an online town hall on Wednesday, to discuss Obama’s “clean energy and innovation agenda” as a follow-up to the State of the Union.
Another clue – more a guide than a specific roadmap: Obama’s Labor Day 2010 speech in Milwaukee, in which he laid out an ambitious, and yet unfunded $50 billion plan to rebuild 150,000 miles of road, 4,000 miles of railroad and 150 miles of new runway.

“The president likes to make grand speeches but the follow-through is not usually in keeping with the message,” said one senior GOP aide. “Is he going to say we need to do something about spending and debt and then actually join us or just talk about it? The word ‘investment’ will also sound a lot like ‘stimulus’ to most American and we all saw how that policy failed to create jobs and turned the public sour on the administration.”
That echoed remarks Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday. “The American public as one pundit put it, has issued a massive restraining order,” the Kentucky Republican said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“This is not a time to be looking at pumping up government spending in very many areas,” he added.
At his briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to respond to McConnell’s remarks, but stressed instead that Obama will talk Tuesday night about a whole host of economic issues, “including getting our fiscal house in order” and “talking about what we have to do to make progress on our spending.”
“We’re not going to have a debate in Washington about whether we need to make some changes and whether we need to control our spending,” Gibbs said. “We’re going to have hopefully a bipartisan discussion and work together on how we go about doing that.”
He said deficit reduction will be a major topic of discussion in 2011, but would not address when Obama will respond to recommendations from his deficit reduction commission.
In the Republican response to Obama’s speech, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin will speak from the Budget Committee offices in an attempt to symbolize the GOP’s pledge to cut spending, according to GOP sources.
Ryan will discuss reining in Congress’ “spending binge” and will criticize Democrats for not passing a budget last year and tout GOP efforts to cut spending, aides said. Moreover, Ryan will discuss “cutting up the credit cards” and say the GOP is moving to cut spending.
“We’re going on offense on spending,” said one senior GOP aide, speaking to POLITICO. “If you look at the things the administration wants to increase spending on: it’s energy, infrastructure and education – that’s the stimulus package. … As you know, ‘investment’ is Latin for more Washington spending.”
Carol E. Lee and Darren Goode contributed to this report.

Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:20:10 -0800

CBSNews.com

STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities."

The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.

Details about the "trusted identity" project are unusually scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential if I don't want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this," he said.

Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have exited ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department.

In March 2009, Rod Beckstrom, director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA "effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology insertions," and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

Allen West Joins Black Caucus

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:46:35 -0800

Posted by DaveWade on Jan 6th, 2011

Dailypolitical.com

Representative Allen West becomes the first Republican member of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus in fourteen years. The last Republican member of the black lawmakers’ group is Representative Gary A. Franks of Connecticut, who left office in 1997.

Representative Allen West is a former Army lieutenant and represents Florida’s southeast coast. He stated that there were 42 blacks that ran on the Republican ticket this year and fourteen went through the general election. Only two of them were elected to join the House of Representatives. Representative Timothy E. Scott of South Carolina was also elected into office last November but he refused to join the group.

Democrat Representative Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri was sworn in as the black caucus chairman. During his inaugural speech, he said that the caucus is still relevant in this day and age. In the 112th Congress, the group has 43 members.

Both Representatives West and Scott were virtual unknowns two years ago but they rose in the Republican ranks. Their campaigns were all about the denouncement of everything the Democrats supported or accomplished, with no other than former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin endorsing them. They got little support from the black voters but managed to win a Congressional seat. People are expecting Representative West’s relationship with the other members of the Black Caucus to be shaky.

Speaker John Boehner

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:44:39 -0800

Speaker Boehner

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:39:52 -0800

The House has elected Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as the 61st Speaker of the House.

Boehner is the first Speaker from Ohio since Nick Longworth in the 1920s, for whom the Longworth House Office Building is named.

The vote was 241 to 173.

Nineteen Democrats defected from their party and voted for other candidates or voted present.

Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC), who challenged Pelosi for Minority Leader, received 11 votes.

Also receiving votes were Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) Jim Cooper (D-TN), Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) and John Lewis (GA).

Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-GA) voted present.

This was the largest number of defections for any formal candidate for Speaker since January, 1997. That year, nine Republicans voted against House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). Four voted for another member and five members voted present.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) was absent and did not vote.

DeFazio office did not immediately respond to questions why he was not present.

Tea Party Republicans Vow to Attack Deficit

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:17:13 -0800

Tea Party Republicans Vow to Attack Deficit Spending 'Once and for All' in Next Session

Published January 02, 2011

FoxNews.com

Republicans elected to Congress with the help of Tea Party support pledged Sunday to devote themselves to balancing the budget over all else when they start their new jobs on Wednesday.

In the lead-up to the next session, Tea Party freshmen and activists have expressed disappointment at the legislation passed by Congress in the waning days of the post-election lame-duck session. The bipartisan package to extend the Bush-era tax cuts was seen by some conservatives as a flawed deal that failed to bury the estate tax and make permanent the income tax rates of the past decade. At the same time, critics assailed the package for containing billions in new deficit spending.

Tea Party candidates said Sunday they hope to change the culture of spending in Washington as they prepare to get sworn in this week. They said Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, earmarks and other items will all be on the table for serious reform. They warned their more experienced colleagues to hold back on the deficit spending once they come into office.

"It's time to once and for all ... stop perpetually spending money we don't have and sending the bill to unborn generations of Americans," Sen.-elect Mike Lee of Utah told "Fox News Sunday."

Lee said the $858 billion package passed by Congress at the end of 2010 demonstrated the need for a balanced-budget amendment, which he said he will propose.

"It certainly is disturbing that we have to add an additional trillion dollars to our debt in order to preserve tax cuts without which our economy couldn't survive right now," he said. "Congress has long abused the authority to incur debt in the name of the United States. And we need to restrict that."

Allen West, an incoming GOP congressman from Florida, said the problems facing Washington are big, but not "insurmountable."

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," he said more needs to be done to set the stage for private sector job growth and scale back government intervention. West suggested the latest vote to extend long-term unemployment benefits for another 13 months was just "creating more victims and making people dependent on the government."

He said the federal government needs spending caps and needs to address the long-term imbalance in the nation's entitlement programs -- a common refrain in Washington.

It remains to be seen whether Tea Partiers can muster the kind of bipartisan majority needed to address that imbalance. But Sen.-elect Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania echoed the point on entitlement reform in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Nobody is talking about making it go away. We're talking about changing the structure," he said in reference to Social Security.

Toomey was one of the Tea Party movement's early stars, effectively forcing incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter out of the Republican Party during the GOP primary race. After Toomey cruised to victory in the primary and Rep. Joe Sestak beat Specter on the Democratic side, Toomey defeated Sestak by a narrow margin in November.

Toomey and Lee will join several other Tea Party-backed senators, including Kentucky's Rand Paul and Florida's Marco Rubio, when they take the oath this week. That's along with dozens of new GOP House members.

Republican leaders can probably count on most incoming Tea Partiers to back early priorities like voting to repeal the health care law -- though that effort will almost certainly be stymied by a presidential veto in the off-chance that it clears both chambers. But on some other tricky subjects, they could be a bit of a wild card.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who is not a freshman but still commanded Tea Party enthusiasm over the past two years, said Sunday that she does not support raising the debt ceiling.

She said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that she's gathering signatures on a petition to urge Congress to vote against raising the $14.3 trillion cap.

The White House warned Sunday that failing to raise the ceiling could drag the country into default and trigger an economic crisis worse than that of 2008. Acknowledging the dilemma, other Tea Party-backed lawmakers, like West, said they could vote for a debt ceiling increase provided certain conditions are met.

West said he would not write a "blank check," and that if Congress wants to raise the cap, they need to talk about "budgetary controls" and spending caps.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/02/tea-party-republicans-vow-attack-deficit-spending-session/#ixzz19yuJ1zxZ

Sen. Lindsey Graham

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:13:27 -0800

Graham, Lindsey

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:11:32 -0800

Lindsey O. Graham was elected to serve as United States Senator on November 5, 2002.

A native South Carolinian, Graham grew up in Central, graduated from D.W. Daniel High School, and earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Carolina in Columbia.

Graham logged six-and-a-half years of service on active duty as an Air Force lawyer.

From 1984-1988, he was assigned overseas and served at Rhein Mein Air Force Base in Germany. Upon leaving the active duty Air Force in 1989, Graham joined the South Carolina Air National Guard where he served until his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994.

During the first Gulf War, Graham was called to active duty and served state-side at McEntire Air National Guard Base as Staff Judge Advocate where he prepared members for deployment to the Gulf region. His duties included briefing pilots on the law of armed conflict, preparing legal documents for deploying troops, and providing legal services for family members of the South Carolina Air National Guard. He received a commendation medal for his service at McEntire.

Since 1995, Graham has continued to serve his country in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and is one of only two U.S. Senators currently serving in the Guard or Reserves. He is a colonel and is assigned as a Senior Instructor at the Air Force JAG School.

In 1988, Graham went into private law practice and in 1992 was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives.

In 1994, he became the first Republican to represent South Carolina's Third Congressional District in Washington since 1877.

Graham is known as a leader who never abandons his independence or strays from the conservative reform agenda. He has fought to balance the federal budget, provide tax relief to all taxpayers, keep our military adequately funded and prepared, return control of education back to parents and teachers, and ensure the government keeps its promises to America's greatest generation.

Graham lives in Seneca and is a member of Corinth Baptist Church.

He serves on six committees in the U.S. Senate: Aging, Armed Services, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Judiciary, Budget, and Veterans Affairs.

George W. Bush

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:04:23 -0800

Bush, George W.

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:01:53 -0800

George W. Bush was the 43rd president of the United States (2001-2009), born July 6, 1946, in New Haven Connecticut. George was the oldest of six children of George Bush who served as the 41st president of the United States (1989-1993) and Barbara Bush. George W. Bush received a bachelor's degree in history from Yale University in 1968 and received his M.B.A. from Harvard in 1975. In 1977 he married Laura Welch, a teacher and librarian, in Midland, Texas. Bush was a businessman and served as governor of Texas from 1995-2000.

Miller, Joe

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:29:56 -0800

Miller is the Republican Nominee for the United States Senate in Alaska, running against Democrat Scott McAdams and GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski who announced her write-in campaign.

After graduating from law school, Miller accepted a position at a prestigious law firm in Anchorage. Just three years later, at the age of 30, he was appointed as a State Magistrate (the youngest then serving in Alaska) as well as a Superior Court Master for the Fourth Judicial District. Further honors followed four years later when Miller was appointed an Acting State District Court Judge and, shortly thereafter, U.S. Magistrate Judge in Fairbanks. Again, he had the distinction of being the youngest then serving in that federal position, not only in the state, but also in the entire nation. He was also the only judge in the United States, at that time, serving at both the federal and state levels simultaneously.

In 2004, Miller stepped down from the bench to run for State Representative. He overwhelmingly won the contested Republican primary and nearly pulled off an upset in the general election receiving over 48% of the vote against the Democratic incumbent in a traditionally Democratic district: the closest re-election campaign the officeholder has ever faced. Joe returned to the successful full time practice of law at his own firm. He has represented clients (including local government as both a part-time employee and on contract) in a wide variety of cases, a number of which have gone all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court.

Prior to becoming an attorney and a judge, Miller served as an officer in the United States Army. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his leadership in combat during the First Gulf War. He received his commission from West Point, where he graduated with honors. Joe is also a graduate of Yale Law School and holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of Alaska.

PM Tony Blair Interview 9/13

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:23:31 -0800

Elisha and Romeo get their picture taken with Tony Blair

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:20:54 -0800

Sean and Tony Blair share a laugh in studio after his interview

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:17:23 -0800

Sean Hannity and Great Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:15:08 -0800

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair joins Sean in his radio studio

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:12:24 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - Las Vegas

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 22:16:32 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - Dallas

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:24:57 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - Tulsa

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:28:26 -0800

Sean and the Colonel take stage at a Freedom Alliance Reception before the show

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:17:57 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - Orlando 8/14

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:45:54 -0800

Charlie lets Sean play his fiddle!

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:08:11 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - Atlanta 8/13

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:06:46 -0800

Charlie gives Sean a hand

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:03:11 -0800

ATL's Gwinnett Arena filled with fans

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:02:05 -0800

Charlie Daniels

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 23:00:25 -0800

Charlie Daniels band

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:59:10 -0800

Bennett addresses the crowd

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:58:12 -0800

Bill Bennett who served with Presidents Reagan and Bush makes an appearance in ATL

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:57:15 -0800

Charlie Daniels-a huge crowd pleaser

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:53:43 -0800

Sean plays some drums during 'Devil went down to Georgia'

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 22:51:52 -0800

Newt gives a wave

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:12:07 -0800

Newt Gingrich speaks to New Jersey!

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:08:44 -0800

Brandon and his mother wait with families of fallen heroes before they are announced to go on stage

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:26:45 -0800

Brandon meets the Colonel!

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:25:29 -0800

Brandon meets Ricky Medlocke of Lynyrd Skynyrd backstage

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:24:10 -0800

Sean and video contest winner Brandon Hess chat before he introduces him on stage

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:21:04 -0800

Soldier was so moved by Brandon's video he personally thanked him back stage

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:19:50 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - Cincinnati

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:40:07 -0800

Throwing footballs to the crowd

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:54:15 -0800

Sean introduces Michael W. Smith

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:52:58 -0800

Freedom Concerts 2010 - New Jersey Six Flags

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:49:11 -0800

HUGE crowd

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:40:05 -0800

Sold out crowd enjoys the show

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:38:39 -0800

Guess who!?

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:37:07 -0800

Crowd at night!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:36:16 -0800

Michael W. Smith sings his heart out

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:35:15 -0800

Charlie Daniels plays his fiddle!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:34:04 -0800

Sean speaks for 1210AM in Philadelphia

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:27:45 -0800

Sean smiles with a fan during a meet and greet

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:25:17 -0800

Sean speaks to hundreds of people in Philly

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:24:09 -0800

Sean speaks at Constitution Hall in Philly

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:23:12 -0800

Joe Vento joins Sean to speak to the crowd

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:21:03 -0800

Joe Vento of Geno's cheesesteaks shakes hands with fans

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:19:55 -0800

Sean speaks in Philly for 1210AM

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:18:33 -0800

Crowds enjoy the show

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:54:51 -0800

Thousands of people show up for the 2010 Freedom Concert kick-off!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:53:32 -0800

New Jersey fans wave their flags high

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:52:11 -0800

Thousands of fans show up to New Jersey!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:50:42 -0800

Huge crowd thanks our troops!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:49:16 -0800

American Fighter shows his support for the troops!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:38:59 -0800

Soldier thanks Brandon for his video backstage

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:37:27 -0800

Buses lined up backstage

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:36:32 -0800

Charlie Daniels on the big screen!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:33:29 -0800

Sea of fans at Cincinnati concert

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:25:50 -0800

Sean and video contest winner Brandon Hess wait for him to be announced backstage

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:08:53 -0800

Soldiers watch the show from backstage

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:06:44 -0800

Freedom Store!

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:05:42 -0800

Audience waves flags during concert

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:04:24 -0800

Newt and Callista Gingrich join Sean on radio

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:23:57 -0800

Fans watch Sean do radio live!

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:22:56 -0800

Fans wait in line to meet Sean

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:21:48 -0800

Fans show their patriotism

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:20:50 -0800

Sean speaks with his fans after doing radio

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 20:17:22 -0800

President Obama

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:31:51 -0800

Country singer John Rich meets families of our fallen heros

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:31:57 -0800

McCain, John

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 11:19:23 -0800

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election.

Monday December 07 2009

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:36:13 -0800