The term "bully pulpit" stems from President Theodore Roosevelt's reference to the White House as a "bully pulpit," meaning a terrific platform from which to persuasively advocate an agenda. Roosevelt often used the word "bully" as an adjective meaning superb/wonderful.
The Bully Pulpit features news, reasoned discourse, opinion and some humor.
(By Jonathon M. Seidl, The Blaze) - Back in May we brought you a compilation of the month’s best “fails” — you know, the best (or worst) human bloopers. You enjoyed it back then, according to the click numbers. And so when we saw a compilation of August’s best (or worst) bloopers, we just had to bring it to you. There’s everything from the classic guy-falls-on-a-log-and-hurts-himself video, to an odd German entry where two guys run over a friend and he cracks their windshield. Pure blooper gold. Enjoy:
WASHINGTON (By Jean-Louis Santini, AFP) — The possible first-ever evacuation of the International Space Station, if a Russian spacecraft is not launched in November, would risk the loss of the orbiting lab, a NASA official has warned.
"There is a greater risk of losing the ISS when it's unmanned than if it were manned," Michael Suffredini, the ISS program manager for the US space agency, said on a conference call with reporters.
"The risk increase is not insignificant," he added.
FORT WORTH, Texas (By Aman Batheja, McClatchy Newspapers) - Between events in Fort Worth and Dallas Tuesday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called in to conservative pundit Sean Hannity’s radio show, and the host brought up a controversial story published by the online publication Politico this week with the headline "Is Rick Perry Dumb?"
"What’s dumb is to oversee an economy that has lost that many millions of jobs ... to downgrade the credit of this country ... to put fiscal policies in place that were a disaster back in the ’30s and try them again in 2000s," Perry said.
Hannity quickly warned that the thought listeners will take away from the interview could be: "Perry calls Obama policies ’dumb.’"
SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. (WYFF4.com) — A woman at an area McDonald's thought she was getting an iPad at a bargain price, but instead she got a very expensive piece of wood.
Ashley McDowell, 22, said she was getting food at about 10 p.m. Monday when two men approached her in the parking lot. The men showed McDowell a new iPad, and told her that they had bought several of them in bulk at a good price and had them in FedEx boxes in the trunk of their car.
The men offered to sell McDowell one of the iPads for $300. She told them that she only had $180, and they agreed to sell her one for that amount.
The men gave McDowell a FedEx box. Once at home, she opened it and found a piece of wood painted black with an Apple logo on it.
McDowell said the men were in a white Chevy Impala with no rims and untinted windows. She said one of the men had a gold tooth.
Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 58-CRIME.
Al Sharpton’s Debut: GOP Candidates Like Pre-1960’s Racist Segregationists
(Breitbart.tv) - Using his now familiar bumbling, bewildering and bombastic delivery, Al Sharpton premiered his brand new show on MSNBC, "Politics Nation" with an attack on the GOP presidential candidates saying they want to bring the country back to pre-1960's segregationist times. He also promised that this was what his show was going to be about.
Considering Mr. Sharpton's entire career up to this point has been defined by making loud accusations of racism through a bullhorn, we should not be surprised that this will be the content of his NBC News program. Lean Forward, indeed.
Alan Colmes Falsely Claims Liberal Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) Was Spat Upon by Tea Party
(Breitbart.tv) - When it comes to lying about the Tea Party, liberals can't even keep their own stories straight. In trying to defend Rep. Andre Carson's outrageous statement that the Tea Party would like to see black people "hanging on a tree", Fox News analyst Alan Colmes claimed that Rep. John Lewis was spat on by Tea Party members.
For the record: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver claimed he had been spat on until a video showed that it was merely errant spital from a screaming protester. Furthermore, Rep. Carson is the one who claimed he and Rep. Lewis were called the "N-Word" by Tea Party members even though four different videos of the precise moment in question show no such thing.
Before sliming your political opponents Mr. Colmes, at least get your lies straight.
A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era.
Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC’s chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me…hanging on a tree.”
In an interview, Dick Cheney says 'It's important to have people at the helm who are prepared to be unpopular.'
(By DANIEL HENNINGER, Wall Street Journal) - No one should have expected that Dick Cheney's memoir would be anything but frank. Make that brutally frank. Such as this characterization of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's description to President George W. Bush of her proposed nuclear-weapons agreement with North Korea. It's on page 487:
"Looking for a way to explain this situation, Rice said, 'Mr. President, this is just the way diplomacy works sometimes. You don't always get a written agreement.' The statement was utterly misleading, totally divorced from what the secretary was doing, which was urging the president, in the absence of an agreement, to pretend to have one. . . . "
(By Alexis Levinson and Caroline May, The Daily Caller) - Texas Governor Rick Perry has been among the most vocal critics of President Obama’s health care reform initiative, and of Mitt Romney’s preceding health care program in Massachusetts. But in 1993, while serving as Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Perry praised the efforts of then-first lady Hillary Clinton to reform health care, a precursor to Obama’s health care reform efforts.
In a letter to Clinton, who is now U.S. Secretary of State, Perry wrote: “I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation’s health care system are most commendable.”
“I would like to request that the task force give particular consideration to the needs of the nation’s farmers, ranchers, and agriculture workers, and other members of rural communities,” Perry continued, noting his administration’s focus on economic development for rural Texans. “Rural populations have a high proportion of uninsured people, rising health care costs, and often experience lack of services.”
“Again, your efforts are worthy,” Perry concluded, ”and I hope you will remember this constituency as the task force progresses.”
THE BLAZE/NAKED EMPEROR NEWS: Nancy’s Crazy Class War Conspiracies: The Rich Won’t Pay Taxes Because They Want to Be Immortal, GOP Hates Kids & Keeps Wages Low to Force People to Pay Bank Fees
(By Jonathon M. Seidl, The Blaze) - If you were anywhere near the East Coast this past weekend, you know that local news broadcasted Hurricane Irene coverage non-stop from Friday night through Sunday evening. Because of that, many stations were scratching to pull together guests and fill air time. After all, you can only show a weather map so many times.
One such station was WRAL-TV in Raleigh, NC. WRAL has produced a number of quality stories that we’ve featured on this site, but there was one point during its hurricane coverage on Saturday that made many do a double take. What do I mean? Well, the station was pranked on live TV when they thought they were interviewing a hurricane expert who turned out to be a Howard Stern fan.
The station thought it was talking to Ernie Seneca from the states emergency management office (who does really exist). And for the most part, “Seneca” acted like it, giving people tips on how to stay safe during the storm. But then he made a comment that left the newscasters dumbfounded: “This storm was caused by a draft of wind from Howard Stern’s a***ole.”
Say what? The newscast went silent for what seems like an eternity before the anchors came back and pretended like nothing happened:
(CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, in an Aug. 29, 2010 interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, said he would propose a plan for jobs and economic growth when he returned from his summer vacation, the same claim he made after returning from his vacation this year.
(By Colby Hall, Mediaite) - 'Politico' published an article today that openly questioned whether or not Texas Governor Rick Perry was an intellectual light weight, or pointedly, is he dumb? Megyn Kelly followed up on this report today, asking conservative news analyst Michelle Malkin whether or not it was a fair critique of the GOP front runner. In response, Malkin damned Perry somewhat with a faint defense, predictably calling it a left-wing media smear, then following up by saying “compared to what?!”
(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) -Yesterday I wrote about the decision by the Marathon County Labor Council to ban Republicans from the Wausau, Wisconsin parade on Labor Day. The mayor of Wausau has responded with an ultimatum to the union board — reimburse the city for all costs or reinvite the Republicans. WSAW reports on Jim Tipple’s challenge to the union activists and the potential for an end to the Labor Day parade altogether:
(By Colby Hall, Mediaite) - It’s been awhile since we’ve used the acronym P.U.M.A to describe intra-political fighting so here is a quick refresher: it stands for Party Unity My Ass, and was a phrase coined during the Democratic primary of 2008, born from the rivalry between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It’s apropos today because of a question asked by World Net Daily’s White House Reporter Lester Kinsolving, who asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney if the President is concerned about a Hillary run in 2012.
The best part of the clip below, is not the good-natured response by Carney — nor Kinsolving’s peers — who seem to both laugh and appreciaite the ballsiness of the question. No the best part is the look on Kinsolving’s face after he asks the question. As Mediaite’s own White House reporter Tommy Christopher points out, “whenever Les gets a good question in, I’m always reminded of the guy in Oceans 11 who makes it all the way out of the casino with his armful of chips.”
(By Hillary Reinsberg, Mogulite) - Ironic, isn’t it? When Warren Buffett penned that op-ed demanding he be taxed more, we assumed that meant he had actually paid his taxes. Not quite the case. Buffett’s famed company, Berkshire Hathaway, owes taxes that are nearly a decade old.
Oh, and they’re not denying it. Berkshire is freely owning up to the fact that it owes taxes from as far back as 2002. Right now, it looks like there are outstanding taxes from 2002-2004 as well as from 2005-2009. They promise they’ll work it out with the IRS within the next year. Can’t Buffett just take a little out of his piggybank and pay up? For a man who so actively preaches honesty and integrity, we’re a little baffled as to why Berkshire won’t just fork over what it owes.
(By Jon Bershad, Mediaite) - One of the areas hit hardest by Irene this weekend was Manville, New Jersey, which faced horrible flooding from the nearby Raritan River. The National Guard was on hand bravely attempting to save stranded citizens and, a video that seems like something out of a Roger Moore-era James Bond only less flashy and much more frightening, we can see a couple of their trucks try to make it down a completely flooded road.
Rush Limbaugh: Obama Was Hoping Hurricane Irene Would Be a Disaster
RUSH LIMBAUGH – “I’ll guarantee you that Obama was hoping this was going to be a disaster an another excuse for his failing economy. If he’s out there blaming tsunamis, blaming earthquakes, and whatever other natural disasters there are. This one was made to order but it just didn’t measure up.”
(By Jack Cashill, The American Thinker) - On November 16, 1990, Barack Obama, then president of the Harvard Law Review, published a letter in the Harvard Law Record, an independent Harvard Law School newspaper, championing affirmative action.
Although a paragraph from this letter was excerpted in David Remnick's biography of Obama, 'The Bridge', I had not seen the letter in its entirety before this week. Not surprisingly, it confirms everything I know about Barack Obama, the writer and thinker.
Obama was prompted to write by an earlier letter from a Mr. Jim Chen that criticized Harvard Law Review's affirmative action policies. Specifically, Chen had argued that affirmative action stigmatized its presumed beneficiaries.
The response is classic Obama: patronizing, dishonest, syntactically muddled, and grammatically challenged. In the very first sentence Obama leads with his signature failing, one on full display in his earlier published work: his inability to make subject and predicate agree.
(By Hayley Peterson, The Washington Examiner) - President Obama required two heavy-duty teleprompters on Monday during a three-minute speech in which he nominated Alan Krueger to serve as chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers.
"I am very pleased to appoint Alan and I look forward to working with him," Obama said, staring at the large, flat-screen monitor to his right, then shifting his eyes to the teleprompter on his left. "I have nothing but confidence in Alan as he takes on this important role as one of the leaders of my economic team."
Krueger stood silently to the right of Obama as the president spoke. Krueger will replace Austan Goolsbee, who recently stepped down as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A professor at Princeton University, Krueger served two years in the U.S. Treasury Department under Obama. He also served as chief economic adviser for the Labor Department during the Clinton administration.
Obama did not give Krueger a chance to make any comments on Monday.
Major Garrett Lays into Al Gore and Global Warming Hysterics
(Breitbart.tv) - In a candid and revealing interview with Dennis Miller, National Journal's Major Garrett recalls the imperious, arrogant and condescending bearing of Al Gore as a Senator. Garrett believes that his recent statements comparing global warming skeptics to racists are a reflection of that same attitude.
(By Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.org) - At a ceremony to honor the opening of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in our nation's capital Friday, the late civil rights leader's daughter Bernice made an historical error that would evoke tremendous ridicule and derision if she were a conservative.
"Lincoln remembered for signing the Declaration of Independence":
BERNICE KING: But as I close, I close with the recognition that daddy is standing, Lincoln is seated. Lincoln remembered for signing the Declaration of Independence. Daddy being remembered as standing up for truth and standing up for justice and standing up for righteousness and standing up for peace and standing up for freedom. Daddy is now standing on the National Mall in our nation’s capital.
(By Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post) - On “Face the Nation” yesterday, former secretary of state Colin Powell accused former vice president Dick Cheney of taking “cheap shots” in his about-to-be released memoirs. However, in taking on Cheney’s account of the Valerie Plame matter, Powell is the one who misleads and distorts.
Powell had this to say in response to Cheney’s book, which lays blame on Powell’s deputy Richard Armitage as the real leaker who revealed Plame’s identity as a CIA employee, setting off the appointment of a special prosecutor and the eventual conviction of Scooter Libby. Powell says this:
Then he goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair, and tries to lay it all off on Mister Rich Armitage in the State Department and me. But the fact of the matter is when Mister Armitage realized that he was the source for Bob Novak’s column that caused all the difficulty and he called me immediately, two days after the President launched the investigation and what we did was we called the Justice Department. They sent it over the FBI. The FBI had all the information that Mister Armitage’s participation in this immediately. And we called Al Gonzalez, the President’s counsel, and told him that we had information. The FBI asked us not to share any of this with anyone else, as did Mister Gonzalez. And so, if the White House operatives had come forward as readily as Mister Armitage had done, then we wouldn’t have gone on for two more months with the FBI trying to find out what happened in the White House. There wouldn’t have been special counsel appointed by the Justice Department who spent two years trying to get to the bottom of it. And we wouldn’t have the mess that we subsequently had. And so if the White House and the operatives in the White House and Mister Cheney’s staff and elsewhere in the White House had been as forthcoming with the FBI as Mister Armitage was, this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached.
Let’s count the ways in which this is inaccurate or misleading. To begin with, Powell leaves out the critical fact: 'He and Armitage never told the president what Armitage had done'. Instead, they sat silent as the investigation played out and others, including Karl Rove and Libby, were ensnared in an investigation for a crime that, if committed at all, was one for which Armitage should rightly have been prosecuted. Powell on Sunday slyly said they informed the attorney general that they “had information.” But they most definitely did not tell him, the president or the country that the leaker was Armitage.
(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Greg Hengler captured this emotional moment from the National Geographic special last night that featured George Bush giving his recollection of 9/11 and the days immediately afterward. This clip gives the backstory to Bush’s famous declaration from Ground Zero that the people who destroyed the towers would soon hear from an enraged United States of America. Bush describes the scene as being something from Hell, and that he sensed a “palpable blood lust” to avenge the deaths of thousands of Americans:
(MYFOXNY.COM) - A local news reporter from Washington, D.C. ended up getting covered in what is probably the remnants of raw sewage as he delivered live hurricane reports from Ocean City, Md.
WTTG-TV reporter Tucker Barnes was providing live updates for stations around the country as a wall of what he described as sea foam poured over him.
Barnes was on the boardwalk as Hurricane Irene hit the coast of Maryland
He noted that he had immersed himself in organic material. That "organic material" was most likely the effects of raw sewage pouring into the water during the storm.
"It doesn't taste great," he said.
He said it had a sandy consistency and added, "I can tell you first-hand, it doesn't smell great."
The foam is often a toxic mix of pollution and cyanobacteria.
60 mph wind gust sprayed the toxic mix across the reporter and the boardwalk and coated buildings.
Bubbles and foam in the ocean can be caused by several other things, including oils from decomposing animals.
(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Via Instapundit, it looks like the unions will be sore losers for some time in Wisconsin. After losing on the public-employee union reforms, the Prosser-Kloppenburg race, and the overall recall effort, Marathon County’s Central Labor Council has decided that it doesn’t want any Republicans at its party on Labor Day. They told Sean Duffy, the Congressional Representative for the area, not to bother showing up for a spot in the parade:
Organizers of a Labor Day parade in Wausau say Republican lawmakers should not attend.
The Marathon County Central Labor Council says it does not want to invite elected officials who have “openly attacked workers’ rights” or did nothing when state workers lost most rights to collectively bargain.
(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - It’s like clockwork. As soon as a Republican primary season starts to heat up, the national media likes to uncase its three narratives about presidential contenders. They’re either weird (Romney), scary (Bachmann), or idiots. Guess who gets the idiot treatment this time?
Another Texas governor who drops his “g’s” and scorns elites is running for president and the whispers are the same: Lightweight, incurious, instinctual.
Strip away the euphemisms, and Rick Perry is confronting an unavoidable question: is he dumb – or just misunderestimated?
Doubts about Perry’s intellect have hounded him since he was first elected as a state legislator nearly three decades ago. In Austin, he’s been derided as a right-place, right-time pol who looks the part but isn’t so deep – “Gov. Goodhair.” Now, with the chatter picking back up among his enemies and taking flight in elite Republican circles, the rap threatens to follow him to the national stage.
“He’s like Bush only without the brains,” cracked one former Republican governor who knows Perry, repeating a joke that has made the rounds.
(By Jeff Poor, The Daily Caller) - Right after making their big splashes as new presidential candidates, many Republican hopefuls enjoyed something of a polling bump. But ultimately their numbers came back to earth. That phenomenon also seems to apply to Texas Gov. Rick Perry — at least so far. His stock rose after his announcement. Could Perry’s big numbers be here to stay?
On this weekend’s broadcast of “Inside Washington,” syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer argued that Perry hasn’t seen his numbers decline because his messaging is just right for success in 2012.
“Look, it could be a fluke — a Trump phenomenon — but I think it is deeper than that here,” Krauthammer said. “I think [New York Times columnist David] Brooks is right in his column. He says [Perry] has a simple message, which is: ‘Smaller government, I made it work, I created jobs.’”
Krauthammer continued: “It is sort of Paul Ryan without the numbers and the nuance. And it’s a message that if he keeps it simple, I think that could be a winning message, in the primary and even in the general election.”
(By Josh Feldman, Mediaite) - Al Gore pushed the rhetorical envelope yesterday when he compared skeptics of climate change to racists during the Civil Rights Movement. Gore was sitting down for an interview with Alex Bogusky of the Climate Reality Project, and suggested that young people today whose parents do not believe in climate change are asking the same questions now that race-conscious young people in the 60s asked their parents.
“There came a time when racist comments would come up in the course of the conversation and in years past they were just natural. Then there came a time when people would say, ‘Hey, man why do you talk that way, I mean that is wrong. I don’t go for that so don’t talk that way around me. I just don’t believe that.’ That happened in millions of conversations and slowly the conversation was won.”
(By Kerry Picket, The Washington Times) - A number of media outlets have already reported that an illegal immigrant from Kenya by the name of Onyango Obama, 67, was arrested last week on Wednesday after he nearly rammed his SUV into a police car in Framingham, Massachusetts.
He was later charged with DUI among other violations. I spoke to Framingham Public Information Officer Lieutenant Delaney who told me that when Onyango Obama was asked at booking if he wanted to make a telephone call to arrange for bail, the Kenyan immigrant replied: "I think I will call the White House."
It should be noted that the Times of London, highlighted an Onyango Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, when the British daily found President Barack Obama's “Aunt Zeituni” living in Boston illegally.
(By Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.org) - With Irene downgraded to a tropical storm, it is clear that this weather event has become another example of America's media hyping every potential crisis into a full-blown calamity before the fact.
Observing such was George Will on ABC's "This Week" Sunday who told his fellow panelists, "Whatever else you want to say about journalism, it shouldn’t subtract from the nation’s understanding and it certainly shouldn’t contribute to the manufacture of synthetic hysteria that is so much a part of modern life":
(By Glenn Davis, SportsGrid) - OK, so East Coast denizens are pretty much over the strong-by-east-coast-standards earthquake from earlier this week, and have moved on to other concerns – specifically, the hurricane heading toward the region this weekend. But we’re not quite ready to let go of that minor ground-rumbling just yet…mainly because it seems like every day, we see a real-time reaction to the quake that we can’t help but post here. We’ve shown you the extremes: Torrey Smith’s initial panic, Jim Furyk’s unshakable, almost eerie calm. And now, via MLB.com studios comes what we’d say is our favorite one of all.
(By Timothy Burke, SportsGrid) - The Huntington Beach, California Little League All-Stars are headed to the U.S. Championship in South Williamsport, but their pre-game junk-grabbing ritual — and, especially, its broadcast by ESPN — we could’ve done without.
In a week when ESPN’s own columnists are criticizing the exploitation of elite child athletes, now’s probably not the best time for ESPN to show a group of child athletes do a Michael Jackson spin move/crotch grab on TV. Actually, there is never a good time for that.
(By Tommy Christopher, Mediaite) - Former GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney got into a heated exchange with a voter at a New Hampshire town hall event Wednesday over his support for a balanced budget amendment, and by the mainstream media’s selective standards, lost his cool when she tried to engage him. In clips played on MSNBC’s 'The Daily Rundown' this morning, Romney certainly appeared angry by those standards, and the full exchange, while slightly less damning, demonstrated a marked contrast with how President Obama dealt with an aggressive questioner recently.
(The PJ Tatler) - The Texas governor and front-running GOP presidential candidate appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show [yesterday] and addressed many issues — the GOP establishment’s criticisms of him, how he would handle the economic and military rise of China, the Obama administration’s smears of Texas educational record, how Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan is a “huge problem for him,” and several other issues. Take a listen.
(By Scott Whitlock, NewsBusters.org) - According to 'Hardball' guest host Ron Reagan, former Vice President Dick Cheney is a "war criminal" for endorsing waterboarding. On Thursday, the son of the former President attacked, "But the fact of the matter is...[Cheney's] a war criminal. Torture is a crime and this is a guy who can't travel to Europe anymore for fear of being- ending up in the Hague."
Reagan was commenting on a new interview Cheney has given to NBC in which he reiterates support for waterboarding. The liberal anchor discussed the subject with Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune. Reagan reiterated, "...Any neutral reading of, say, the U.N. Convention Against Torture makes it pretty clear that if you support waterboarding and you enact that sort of a policy, you're guilty of a war crime."
Former Obama Econ Advisor Flounders Under Hannity’s Fire
(Breitbart.tv) - Sean Hannity and Obama former chief economic advisor Austan Goolsbee discuss the unemployment situation and America's national debt. Watch how Hannity doesn't let Goolsbee get away with changing the subject and constantly shifting the blame.
(By Shane Ryan, Grantland) - Ric Flair has been physically attacked by at least three of his four wives.
In a 2005 divorce case with Elizabeth Harrell — wife no. 2 — Flair's lawyers detailed their accusations. "On more than one occasion," they wrote, "Plaintiff (Beth) has assaulted the Defendant (Flair), striking him about the head and body in an effort to provoke him into a physical confrontation."
In 2009, Flair filed a criminal complaint against Tiffany Vandemark — wife no. 3 — whom he accused of "hitting him in the face with a phone charger."
And in 2010, Flair and his current wife, Jacqueline Beams, returned to their Charlotte, N.C., home after dinner at the Lodge Restaurant. There, for reasons never made explicit, Jacqueline punched him repeatedly in the face. She was arrested.
(By Buck Sexton, The Blaze) - This incredible time-lapse video shows a seven year period of the 9/11 Memorial‘s construction, from 2004-2011. The memorial will open to the public on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Watch seven years of work compressed into 1:27 here:
(Fox Nation) - On [last night's] edition of 'Hardball', fill-in-host Ron Reagan posed a question about the unelectabilty of the current crop of Republican candidates to Charlie Cook, a non recognized and non partisian political analyst for MSNBC. Cook notes that a "placebo" Republican nominee would stand an "excellent" chance at beating President Obama in the general election.
REAGAN:
Charlie, let me start with you. It seems to me, when I look at the Republican field, that none of them are actually electable.
COOK:
The thing is, I think a placebo would have an excellent chance of winning. I think this is the Republicans race to lose. You can't nominate a placebo, you have to nominate a real person and whether who they nominate can do as well as a placebo.
Revelations include resignation letter kept locked in a safe in case of heart attack or stroke
(By Scott Stump, TODAY.com) - When former Vice President Dick Cheney releases his memoir early next week, it may cause the second earthquake in Washington, D.C., this month.
“There are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington,’’ Cheney told NBC’s Jamie Gangel in an exclusive interview that will air on NBC’s “Dateline” at 10 p.m. ET Aug. 29.
In the book, titled “In My Time,’’ Cheney addresses a broad range of topics, including the attacks of Sept. 11; a secret resignation letter he kept in a safe in case he experienced catastrophic health issues, and his thoughts about former President George W. Bush and ex-Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. The 46th vice president discusses those topics and more in his candid, unapologetic interview with Gangel, and he’ll likely have more to say when he appears live on TODAY with Matt Lauer on Aug. 30, the day his book hits stores.
(FoxNews.com) - A California college student is conducting a social experiment where he’s trying to get his peers to sign a petition in favor of distributing grade point averages to show how the federal government distributes wealth.
Oliver Darcy, a recent college graduate, proposes that students with good grades contribute their GPA to their academically sluggish friends. He argues that this is how the federal government takes wealth from the country’s high wage earners and distributes it to the low income earners.
“They all earn their GPA,” said Darcy in an interview with "Fox and Friends." “So we asked them if they’d be interested in redistributing the GPA points that they earned to students who may be having trouble getting a high GPA.”
(Breitbart.tv) - Steve Jobs, the creative force behind the iPhone, iPad and other devices that turned Apple into one of the world's most powerful companies, resigned as CEO. The AP spoke with industry analysts about the future of the tech giant.
(Breitbart.tv) - Presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-TX) discussed the volatile times to come as the federal government does what it has to do with entitlement reform and government union reform.
(By Allahpundit, Hot Air) - A short promo from National Geographic TV to tease their one-hour special about his memories of the attack debuting this Sunday at 10 p.m. ET. As I understand it, there’s no narration and you never hear the questions being put to him by the interviewer. It’s just him, for the full hour, remembering. The last post has me thinking: If Perry ends up as the nominee, the fact that Bush has conducted himself graciously since leaving office will take some of the sting out of the inevitable “Perry is Bush on steroids” Democratic talking points, which is mighty ironic given the tensions between their two camps. It won’t shield Perry completely — most voters still blame Bush for the state of the economy, not Obama, which is why you’ll hear his name mentioned frequently next year — but between the commemorations of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the fact that Dubya’s never complained about the criticism, those attacks won’t have the bite that they otherwise might have.
(By Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.org) - The hypocrisy of Rachel Maddow knows no bounds.
On Tuesday's "Late Show," the MSNBCer scolded Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for meeting with Libya's Moammar Gaddafi in August 2009 while completely ignoring the fact that President Obama met him at the G8 summit the month before:
(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Yesterday, I wrote about the CBS News story showing that Barack Obama had added over $4 trillion to the national debt in less than three years, which puts the current President on track in one term (and probably less) to beat the record that took his predecessor 'two' terms to set. Some called this an unfair attack, noting that Congress authorizes spending, a point I addressed yesterday and which does Democrats no good at all. But guess who else blamed rising national debt on a President? Why, it’s Candidate (and then-Senator) Obama,. who not only blamed George Bush for adding more national debt than his previous 42 predecessors combined, but also questioned Bush’s patriotism for the same policies that Obama accelerated as President himself:
The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents – #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.
WASHINGTON (FoxNews.com) - The federal budget deficit will hit $1.28 trillion this year, congressional budgeters reported Wednesday, down slightly from the previous two years but enough to set off new warnings about a sluggish economy and major long-term debt.
The Congressional Budget Office predicts budget deficits will be around $3.5 trillion over the next decade, a reduction of $3.3 trillion that was in an earlier estimate attributable to the deficit reduction package passed by Congress earlier this month. But in its 10-year plan, never do deficits drop below $205 billion in a fiscal year.
By the end of 2021, debt held by the public will equal 61 percent of GDP, it added.
MOSCOW (FoxNews.com) – An unmanned Russian supply ship bound for the International Space Station failed to reach its planned orbit Wednesday, and pieces of it fell in Siberia amid a thunderous explosion, officials said.
A brief statement from Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, did not specify whether the Progress supply ship that was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan had been lost. But the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Alexander Borisov, head of a the Choisky region in Russia's Altai province, as saying pieces of the craft fell in his area some 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) northeast of the launch site.
(By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY) - Where's the beef? Not in Bill Clinton's diet.
The former president, known for his love of burgers, barbecue and junk food, has gone from a meat lover to a vegan, the strictest form of a vegetarian diet. He says he eats fruits, vegetables and beans, but no red meat, chicken or dairy.
Clinton, 65, who had quadruple bypass surgery in 2004 and then stent surgery in 2010, is following this eating plan to improve his heart health.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) - The owner of the landmark South Philadelphia cheesesteak stand who once told customers to order in English has died.
Family members confirm to Action News that 71-year-old Geno's Steaks owner Joey Vento has died of a massive heart attack on the way to the hospital.
His family said Vento had recently undergone successful surgery for colon/rectal cancer after being diagnosed last year and was continuing to come to work just about every day at 4:00 a.m.
This made the news of his death shocking to his family and his staff.
"We got word over the phone...you just feel it, everybody's heart just dropped," employee Joe Skats said.
More Than 45 Million Americans Collected Food Stamps In 2011
(Fox Nation) - According to the Department of Agriculture, 45.8 million people collected food stamps in May and that’s up 1.8 million people from April, up 20 percent from one year ago and 34 percent from two years ago. Dana Perino is troubled thinking about what it is like when a person has to go and ask for food stamps for the first time.
Liberal Dem. Rep: 'The Real Enemy Is the Tea Party'
"Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party -- the Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that's to make President Obama a one-term president," Rep. Frederica Wilson (R-FL) said at a Miami town hall with constituents.
(By Christopher Santarelli, The Blaze) - Petty Officer Jon T. Tumilson was laid to rest Friday in Rockford, Iowa, where an estimated 1,500 mourners came to pay respects for the fallen Navy SEAL, including his dog Hawkeye. In fact, Hakeye’s loyalty to his owner at the funeral was visible, creating a heart-wrenching image as he laid down by the casket of his owner during the entire service:
(By Tina Korbe, Hot Air) - The United States Geological Survey reports a 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit Mineral, Va., about a half hour ago, but the U.S. weather service has issued no tsunami threat. Earthquakes hit the East Coast on occasion, but a quake of this magnitude is unusual. The earthquake was felt up and down the coast, including in Washington D.C. and New York City.
Numerous bystanders and longtime residents evacuated from buildings in New York said they hadn’t felt shaking like this since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The same thought echoed in the corridors of the Pentagon, too.
With the August recess, D.C. has been relatively empty and quiet, but staffers in the U.S. Capitol and other buildings felt the quake and immediately exited their offices. All federal buildings in D.C. have been or are in the process of being evacuated. D.C. police officers, concerned about potential aftershocks, have warned residents and tourists to avoid the Metro. Some have even expressed concern the Washington monument might be tilting.
Lady Vols basketball coach has no plans to step down
(By Dan Fleser, Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group) - For such a strong figure, Pat Summitt was feeling almost helpless.
Months of erratic behavior had left Tennessee women’s basketball coach bewildered, scared and asking herself “What’s wrong with me?”
Summitt went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in May. She underwent a series of tests and received a stunning answer. The diagnosis was early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type.
(By Mark Finkelstein, NewsBusters.org) - It's enough to make you scream . . . On 'Morning Joe' today, Howard Dean rapped Mitt Romney for calling on the Libyan rebels to turn Gaddafi over to the US for trial. According to Dean, Romney's suggestion made "no sense" and exposed his lack of foreign policy experience.
There was just one little problem with Howie's hypothesis. Romney never called for the rebels to turn Gaddafi over to the US. As was clear from both Romney's words in the clip 'Morning Joe' aired of his Fox News interview with Neil Cavuto, and in the graphics at the bottom of the FNC screen, Romney wants the rebels to turn the Lockerbie bomber, Megrahi, over to the US for trial, not Gaddafi.
Maxine Waters Grills Obama Aide: 'Let Me Hear You Say Black'
MIAMI (By Peter Wallsten, The Washington Post) — A top aide to President Obama got a public grilling Monday night from black lawmakers and civil rights leaders, who vented frustration at a jobs forum here that the administration was not doing more to directly help distressed black communities.
Tensions rose when Don Graves, executive director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, told a lively crowd of hundreds in a black church sanctuary that Obama was “focused on every community across the country.”
When he added that “certain communities have been hit harder than other communities,” one lawmaker pressed him for specificity.
“Let me hear you say ‘black,’” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.).
As the crowd erupted in cheers, Graves responded quietly: “Black, African-American, Latino, these communities have been hard hit.”
(By Frances Martel, Mediaite) - 1990s celebrity Janeane Garofalo has somehow become once again an arch-villain of the American right, as she appeared on television recently to argue that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain had “Stockholm syndrome” and was “getting paid” to run as he was African American. Cain, as one can imagine, didn’t respond very positively to the attack– not because he cared about the claim, but, as he told Sean Hannity tonight, “whoever is supposed to pay me is behind on their payments.”
Liberal Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) Cites 'Racism' To Explain Black Unemployment
(MRC TV) - Dem congresswoman Frederica Wilson of Florida cites "racism" first among causes of high black unemployment. She also calls for a second stimulus, says now is not the time to criticize President Obama, takes a sideways swipe at Maxine Waters and asserts President Obama would be defeated for re-election if he tried to help the black community.
(By Allahpundit, Hot Air) -Not an absurd claim on its face — in theory, the more people hate “Washington” generally, the more all relevant players should suffer — but it’s astounding to think this is the same guy who swore up and down on the trail that he was going to transform the way D.C. does business. Three years ago his message was, “Elect me and strike a blow for hope.” Now his message is, “Reelect me because Congress is hopeless.” Now 'that’s' Change.
(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Everything you need to know about why Jon Huntsman hasn’t energized Republicans and conservatives can be found in the first five seconds of his new campaign ad … or rather, 'can’t' be found. Huntsman’s team clumsily edits a statement he made on ABC’s This Week with Jake Tapper on Sunday, in which Huntsman claims that “right now, we have people on the fringes. President Obama is too far to the left …” Clearly, Huntsman’s thought did not end there (via Jim Geraghty):
(By Allahpundit, Hot Air) - Via the Standard, isn’t this guy supposed to be pro-choice? He does understand that the one-child policy is an actual policy, not a matter of Chinese couples cheerily “choosing” to keep their families small for the good of the motherland, yes?
I ask because, per Timothy Carney, you never know when Biden’s saying something outrageous out of bad intent or simply because he’s a moron.
What we ended up doing is setting up a system whereby we did cut by $1.2 trillion upfront, the deficit over the next 10 years. And we set up a group of senators that have to come up with another $1.2 to $1.7 trillion in savings or automatically there will be cuts that go into effect in January to get those savings. So the savings will be accomplished. But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net. Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I’m not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.
So hopefully we can act in a way on a problem that’s much less severe than yours, and maybe we can learn together from how we can do that.
(CNSNews.com) - As remarks by Vice President Joe Biden expressing an understanding of China's one-child policy resonate in pro-life circles, a U.S. House bill seeks to deny entry into the United States of any Chinese official involved in rights abuses, including coercive population control measures.
(By Mark Knoller, CBS News) - The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama's watch.
The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.
It's the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.
The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama's four-year term.
(By Stanley Kurtz, The Corner) - I’ve been reading Rick Perry’s book, 'Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington'. You should read it too. A thoughtful argument for reviving federalism and taming our out-of-control welfare state, 'Fed Up!' also helps makes sense of Perry the man and the phenomenon. The book provides enough context to defuse what are sure to be a long line of bogus attacks on Perry, while also setting up a legitimate argument about the size and purpose of government. 'Fed Up!' is going to help build Perry a mass following. It’s certain to ignite a series of bitter anti-Perry attacks as well. More than your typical campaign book, 'Fed Up!' is going to play a role in the 2012 presidential election.
Too Texas — that’s the political knock on Perry. Will a gun-toting evangelical with a Texas drawl be able to reach suburban soccer-moms in the Midwest? Far from being naive on this point, Perry places it at the center of his philosophy. He rests much of his argument for federalism on America’s diverse local cultures. For a country forged from ethnically and religiously varied immigrant communities, federalism was the solution, Perry reminds us. With religious and cultural variety on the increase, Perry argues, federalism — not racial or ethnic bean-counting — remains the way.
So while Perry may want to be the president of us all, his real goal is to let Midwesterners and New Englanders develop, say, local K-12 curriculum standards or energy regulations with as little interference from Washington as possible. Since Californians want to legalize medical marijuana, says Perry, the Supreme Court ought not to have allowed Congress to override that state law — even though California’s policy was not to his personal liking. Perry, in other words, isn’t trying to remake the country in the image of Texas. His real argument is that federal efforts to press Texas into a single, national cultural and economic mold have deepened his respect for local differences — and for the Founders’ system of protecting those differences. If Perry can make that point to Midwestern soccer-moms, he can win.
Brakeless Driver Pulls a ‘Fred Flintstone’; Stops Truck with Feet
(Breitbart.tv) - Roseville Deputy Police Chief James Berlin talks about the brake-less driver who used his own feet to stop his car ala Fred Flintstone.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (The Blaze/AP) — A stunt pilot was killed in fiery crash during a Kansas City air show on Saturday after his plane appeared unable to get out of a downward spiral and plummeted nose-first into the ground, witnesses and authorities said.
Missouri Department of Aviation spokesman Joe McBride said the pilot couldn’t pull out of a maneuver and the biplane crashed at a downtown airfield. No spectators were injured, and McBride said it was the first fatal crash at the annual Kansas City Aviation Expo Air Show.
Event officials identified the pilot as Bryan Jensen. A website promoting a pilot by the same name who was scheduled to perform at the show said he had been flying aerobatics for 15 years, worked for a major airline and had more than 23,000 hours of flight time.
ASHEVILLE, NC (AP) — A North Carolina protest proves that a demonstration with bare-breasted women demanding the right to go topless will draw a crowd.
Dozens of women protested topless in downtown Asheville on Sunday. Police estimated the crowd that gathered to watch reached up to 2,000. Some people said they agreed with the protesters. Others said the protest was embarrassing and crude.
Asheville was one of about a dozen U.S. cities with demonstrations taking a stand for the right to go topless. North Carolina law allows women to be topless, but organizers said they want women to be free from social pressures regarding bared breasts.
Police Capt. Tim Splain said the event went off with no arrests or police intervention, although traffic was a problem.
(By Alex Alvarez, Mediaite) - Conservative commenter Ann Coulter stopped by 'Fox & Friends' on Sunday to discuss her latest book, 'Demonic: How the Liberal Mob in Endangering America' and to weigh in on the "mainstream media's" apparent obsession with GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann.
Coulter started things off by noting a recent article in 'The New Yorker' which traced Bachmann’s family back to the 1800s to determine whether they had, as she claimed, settled in Iowa way back when. Contrast this to the media’s coverage of Barack Obama during his first campaign for President. Coulter notes that it was mostly positive, and had nowhere near the same degree of obsessive vetting into his past or his claims.
She also made note of the ad recently taken out by a Ron Paul supporter in Texas, searching for women who may have had a sexual history with Texas governor Rick Perry. “Can we get the ad to find, you know, Obama’s cocaine dealer now that he’s two years into his presidency?”
DETROIT (FoxNews.com) – A stunt wing walker died Sunday after falling 200 feet at an air show in southeastern Michigan, officials said.
Technical Sgt. Dan Heaton, a spokesman at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, said wing walker Todd Green was trying to move from a plane to a helicopter when he fell at the base in Harrison Township, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.
(By Shelby Grad, LA TIMES) - Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) came out swinging against Republicans in Congress on Saturday as she addressed the unemployed during a forum in Inglewood.
The event occurred a day after new statistics were released showing that California's jobless rate last month went up to 12%, from 11.8%. California now has the second-highest rate of unemployment in the nation, trailing only Nevada at 12.9%, and its jobless rate is well above the U.S. average of 9.1%.
Waters vowed to push Congress to focus on creating more jobs. "I'm not afraid of anybody," said Waters. "This is a tough game. You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned, the 'tea party' can go straight to hell."
(By Noel Sheppard, NewsBusters.org) - As government spending supporters in the media press for a new, bolder stimulus plan to get the economy going, they love to refer to the Depression Era Hoover Dam as a shining moment in Keynesian economics.
When this surfaced on ABC's "This Week" Sunday, George Will marvelously noted, "You couldn't build the Hoover Dam today because they'd discover a snail darter in the Colorado River and would stop it."
(By Erick Erickson, RedState) - Rick Perry once tried to get out of a speeding ticket.
Rick Perry once owned stock in a chain of video stores competing against Blockbuster, some of which also rented adult movies.
Rick Perry once was a Democrat.
The attacks have come fast and furious against him. But most of the attacks take on a peculiar and very telling strain.
A reporter on television or in print will utter a sentence like this, “Privately many Republican consultants suggest Rick Perry may be too Texas or shoot from the hip too much and might turn off necessary independent voters and women.”
It sounds so serious. As Alex Castellanos said on CNN the other night on John King USA, some fear Rick Perry might have “Mad Cowboy Disease.”
Let me sum this all up for you into what Rick Perry’s biggest problem is.
Whether you are talking about Alex (Team Carole Strayhorn 2006) or Karl Rove (Team Kay Bailey Hutchison 2010) or a host of other national Republican consultants, Rick Perry and his Texas team have beaten a significant portion of them.
(By Timothy Burke, SportsGrid) - The Georgetown basketball team played an exhibition this morning in Beijing against Bayi Rockets, one that ended in a brawl and the Hoyas being taken off the court.
SportsGrid has acquired video of the incident from a Chinese source:
Liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Heckled at Town Hall; ‘Sell Out!’
(Breitbart.tv) - Liberal protesters heckled Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over her vote in favor of the debt-ceiling compromise bill that Pelosi agreed was a "Satan sandwich."
Liberal Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ): ‘We Got to Eliminate the Rich’
(Breitbart.tv) - Senior moment, or Freudian slip? Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) lets his class warfare rhetoric get the best of him at a press conference in Belmar, NJ.
Sen. Lautenberg's net worth is over $50 million... by the way.
(By Billy Hallowell, The Blaze) - At this point, predicting what actress, comedian, defunct Air America host and all-around political Tea Party theorist Janeane Garofalo will say isn’t the toughest task in the world.
We know, from her past attacks on conservatives, that she believes the Tea Party is racist and that she simply cannot stomach the GOP. But, on Wednesday night, Garofalo made some new accusations worth noting.
In an appearance on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” program, the ultra-left leaning Garofalo, once again, dubbed the Tea Party a “fundamentalist” racist movement. But, she also set her targets on Herman Cain, the African American businessman who is seeking the GOP nomination. According to Garofalo, Cain is either being paid by racists to run or he’s suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
(By Daniel Strauss and Justin Sink, The Hill) - Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) described himself as a "modern day Harriet Tubman" leading African-American voters away from the Democratic party's "plantation" in an interview Wednesday.
"So you have this 21st century plantation that has been out there where the Democratic party has forever taken the black community for granted and you have established certain black leaders who are nothing more than the overseers of the plantation and now the black people on that plantation are upset because they've been disregarded, disrespected and their concerns are not cared about," West said to guest host Laura Ingraham on Fox's The O'Reilly Factor.
"So I'm here as the modern day Harriet Tubman to kind of lead people on the underground railroad away from that plantation and to a sense of sensibility."
"Now they have this other governor, I can't remember his name. He realizes that talking about the Fed is good, too. But I'll tell you what, he makes me sound like a moderate. I have never once said Bernanke has committed treason. But I have suggested very strongly that the Federal Reserve system and all the members have been counterfeiters for a long time."
NBC News Lets Al Sharpton’s False Racism Implication Against Rick Perry Stand
(Breitbart.tv) - Al Sharpton did not retract, apologize or correct the statement he made [Tuesday] implying racist motivations to presidential candidate Rick Perry on his show [yesterday] evening. This despite the fact that Sharpton's own colleague at NBC News, Ed Schultz, apologized for deceptively relating the comment Perry made about a "black cloud hanging over America" to President Obama. Sharpton made the same charge and NBC News has allowed it to stand.
