Where in the world was Hillary Clinton last night?

Our friend Donal Blaney noticed she was missing from the State of the Union address here.

Secretaries of state have always attended State of the Union speeches. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were there during Bush's. Could Donal be right?

Just what this administration needs: a minority czar

The latest czar just might be the most hilarious.

"To stem the criticism [of Obama from minority groups], NBA legend Magic Johnson plans to meet with Obama in Washington, D.C., this week to suggest the president appoint a high-profile liaison between the White House and the black and Latino communities — a minority czar, of sorts. "The next 12 months will really be the test for him," Johnson tells NEWSWEEK. "I think we in the community will really have to begin to see the changes needed to get us back on track in 2010." Among the issues Johnson wants Obama to address: the growing number of unemployed black men; the continued practice of big banks refusing to lend money to minority businesses; and the rise in HIV and AIDS in the black and Latino communities. [But he won't address the black abortion rate, which is three times higher than the white abortion rate.] Johnson plans to nominate himself for the job: "And if he wants someone else, that's fine, too. But the sooner the better."

Obama already has a diversity czar at the FCC, but that just isn't enough. Barack Obama, America's first black president who worked on the streets of Chicago, apparently needs a czar to tell him what's going on in black and Latino communities. This will be his 35th czar.

Cap and trade back from the dead

A nice little surprise from last night's State of the Union address.

"But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America."

So Obama still hasn't given up on the cap and trade bill that would take a sledgehammer to the economy.

The top lies in Barack Obama's State of the Union. And the winners are...

Of course the entire speech was a deceptive charade but here are the worst of the whoppers.

LIE: "But we know that our schools don’t just need more resources. They need more reform. ... We’ll invest in innovative programs that are already helping schools meet high standards and close achievement gaps. And we will expand our commitment to charter schools."

FACTS: Obama doesn't give a damn about education beyond what the teachers unions want. One of his first acts as president was to destroy the Washington, DC school voucher program. Hundreds of students given the opportunity to succeed on a voucher were thrown back into DC's failing public school system.

LIE: "Because of the steps we took [meaning the stimulus], there are about two million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed."

FACTS: Last month, the administration reported that government stimulus had created 650,000 jobs. That number apparently jumped by 1,350,000 in the month of January alone. The truth is no one has any idea how many jobs, if any, have been created by Obama's alleged stimulus. The stimulus' error-filled website, Recovery.org, showed jobs created in congressional districts that didn't exist. At one point it claimed that the purchase of a single lawn mower had created 50 jobs.

LIE: "With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections."

FACTS: This lie caused Justice Sam Alito to shake his head in disbelief. The Supreme Court ruling involved whether or not corporations could advertise on TV promoting or attacking a candidate. It had nothing to do with the early 20th-century law, which stopped corporations from donating directly to candidates. That floodgate is still shut, and Obama knows it.

LIE: "That's why -- for the first time in history -- my administration posts our White House visitors online. And that's why we've excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions."

FACTS: It's true that Obama signed an executive limiting -- not banning -- the role of lobbyists in his administration. But he keeps waiving it over and over again for people he likes. Lobbyists or former lobbyists in the Obama administration include Eric Holder, Tom Vilsack, Patrick Gaspard, William Lynn, William Corr, David Hayes, Mark Patterson, Ron Klain, Mona Sutphen, Melody Barnes, Cecilia Munoz, and Michael Strautmanis.

LIE: At the beginning of the last decade, the year 2000, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door.

FACTS: There he goes with the Bush bashing again. That $3 trillion didn't just appear out of nowhere because of "the recession." It was caused by Obama's reckless bills like the spending omnibus and the stimulus. (The stimulus alone cost close to $1 trillion.) When will Obama man up and accept responsibility? This is his recession and his deficit.

LIE: "To close that credibility gap we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve."

FACTS: That credibility gap is owned by Obama, who meets in closed-door meetings with union bosses, invites health care lobbyists into the White House, makes back room deals with senators so they'll support ObamaCare, and refuses to allow C-SPAN cameras into the final health care negotiations.

LIE: "Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America's businesses. But government can create the conditions necessary for businesses to expand and hire more workers."

FACTS: If that were true then businesses would have responded well to the omnibus spending bill, or the stimulus bill, or credit card reforms, or something Obama has done. But Barack Obama's government can't help businesses. It can only get in the way.

Things you won't hear during Obama's State of the Union tonight

Leave it to the Irish.

Paddy Power, an Irish on-line betting service, is offering odds on the length of Obama's speech, the color of his tie, and which political cliche he will utter first.

The favored cliche, at odds of 4-to-1, is "heath care reform." The longshot, 500-to-1, is "always bet on black." (Oddly, the phrase "I won't seek re-election" is a mere 250-to-1.)

In the same spirit as the good people at Paddy Power, here are some of the biggest longshots for tonight's address.

"I admit that my attempt at health care reform was a complete debacle and I take full responsibility."

"I believe the people at ACORN acted stupidly."

"Corruption and radicalism in our government cannot be tolerated. I'll be immediately firing Rahm Emanuel, Valerie Jarrett, John Holdren, Cass Sunstein, Hillary Clinton, Ray LaHood, Lisa Jackson, Carol Browner, Kevin Jennings, Adolfo Carrion Jr., Ron Bloom, Patrick Gaspard, Ezekiel Emanuel, Mark Lloyd, Melanne Verveer, Farah Pandith, and Todd Stern."

"I believe special interest money and influence in Washington is a problem. And let me make it clear: That includes unions. Unions are part of the problem."

"This is in no way President Bush's fault."

"I have read and studied the Founding Fathers closely. I understand that our government is always to be a limited one. I know that our country was conceived in Lockean liberalism, which guarantees every man and woman personal liberty. I trust the American people enough to let them make their own decisions and not to intrude on them with government."

"So how about that special election up in Massachusetts last week, huh?"

"Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith. Thank you very much. God bless you, and God bless America."

The last line is from Ronald Reagan's 1984 State of the Union address. Don't hold your breath waiting for that one.

Obama sneaks through another environmental scheme -- designed to hurt businesses

First the "hockey stick". Then Climategate. Now Lisa Jackson, head the Environmental Protection Agency, is harpooning American industry with more shady "science."

Yesterday the EPA announced that it will implement tough new standards on nitrogen dioxide.To most of us, nitrogen dioxide is just another component of the earth's atmosphere. But to Obama's EPA it's a toxic gas wreaking havoc on the planet. Up until now, the EPA just prohibited long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide. Now they'll regulate any exposure to this natural substance, even though there's no evidence that short-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide is harmful.

To do this, the EPA will be sending government goons to major roadways and urban areas to make sure nitrogen dioxide levels are low enough. That's Obama's Administration -- always on the lookout for one more way to take American industry to the woodshed.

Must see: Obama's latest scandalous propaganda

Our friend Donal Blaney has the scoop on the latest attempt to brainwash our children in all things Barack Obama.

TARP was profitable yet Obama's still blaming Bush for "inherited mess"

Barack Obama and his Dem friends have been whining for a year about the economic mess they inherited from the Bush Administration. Note: it's not like they unexpectedly inherited a hog farm from a distant relative -- they went after this job knowing full well what problems it entailed. And remember, the Democratic Congress voted for TARP. And everyone knew it was a global meltdown.

So let's look at the facts.

Consider the money that Bush & Pelosi & Reid and everyone who voted for TARP lent to U.S. banks back in 2008. The current liberal whine is that Bush sold out America by giving them free money. Total BS. When Bush loaned the $350 billion, it was with the stipulation that the executives of major banks couldn't receive bonuses until the money was paid back. And ta-da, over the next year the big banks including Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and many others, paid back their TARP money with interest, creating a $4 billion profit for the government that Obama could blow on pointless spending programs.

As usual, Obama did his best to make the situation worse. True to his tax-and-spend ways, he immediately blew the remaining $350 billion in the TARP fund on a financial industry "stimulus" and a further $757 billion recovery binge. Results to-date: unemployment has surged to over 10%, the economy still lags and non-interventionist countries are already out of recession.

Welcome to Barack Obama's latest retread: Yet another sinister, liberal, ACORN-defending old crony.

The man who took an unheard of senator and catapulted him into the Oval Office has himself been summonsed to the White House. After Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts last week, the powerful and dangerous David Plouffe, who managed Obama's presidential campaign from soup to nuts (at the exclusion of traditional Democrat groups) was just called to Washington to help Obama and the Dems prepare for the upcoming midterm elections.

Plouffe cut his teeth campaigning for Democrats, including New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli who dropped out of his next campaign because he was found to have accepted illegal gifts, making him too corrupt even for the Senate.

Plouffe will come to Washington not just with dirty hands, but also with a powerful weapon: a list of 13 million email addresses of the grassroots followers of Obama's 2008 campaign. Ominously, after Obama moved into the White House, Plouffe kept the list. It will no doubt return to Washington with him -- and doubtless will be called into action as Plouffe mails out his syrupy exhortations to come to the aid of the party. Obama may be unpopular right now thanks to his radical policies, but a granular database of 13 million people will be a galvanizing tool for even the most lacklustre campaign. And Plouffe has pulled it off before. The Obama campaign started in one room and succeeded because Plouffe never, ever took his eye off the prize.

Who the hell is Plouffe?

Plouffe is a lot like White House Political Director Patrick Gaspard. He's very shy and avoids press interviews whenever possible, despite the fact that he'll be joining the self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in American history". He doesn't brag or flaunt his intelligence. But he's powerful, ruthless and should never be underestimated. "Elections are nothing about doing well," he said. "You win or lose, and I love to win, and it feels absolutely terrible when you lose." Barack Obama has said of Plouffe, "There is nobody I trust more."

Since he bailed on college in the final semester, Plouffe has been entangled in the same mess of radical community organizing groups as the other cronies, crooks and creeps in the Obama White House. The political consulting firm where he works, AKPD Message and Media (founded by David Axelrod), has worked with the Working Families Party, ACORN's political front in New York City. Plouffe even defended ACORN directly, calling the outrage over the group's voter fraud crimes a "smokescreen." AKPD has also advised left-wing unions like the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. And to add insult to injury, their clients include those bloodsucking liberal fans at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Is Obama going to start blackmailing banks again?

The lesson Democrats learned from Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts special election was not that Obama's health care plan is a failure. Somehow, it's that Barack Obama isn't doing enough taking on the banks. With his ears ever attuned to left-wing radicals, Obama is now shadowboxing American banking institutions, pledging to stop the excesses of big banks, many of which lined his pockets during the campaign.

So is Obama going to start blackmailing banks again? A few months back, Pierre Sutton, president of Inner City Broadcasting Corp which owns minority radio shows, was suddenly granted a loan by Goldman Sachs. This was done even though Inner City was in financial ruin. It was all courtesy of Obama, who knew Mr. Sutton, and his treasury secretary and former Goldman Sachs man Timothy Geithner.

This cronyism was similar to another incident when Obama was a senator. In 2008 a company called Republic Windows & Doors shuttered a plant and laid off workers after Bank of America refused a loan to the failing company. The workers went on strike and then-Governor Rod Blagojevich stepped in, threatening to cut off all Illinois government business with Bank of America unless the loan was made. BoA quickly conceded. Barack Obama supported this blackmail, saying, "They're absolutely right. These workers, if they have earned these benefits and their pay, then these companies need to follow through on those commitments."

For banks that are so powerful and dangerous, Obama sure seems like he's able to control them pretty easily. Keep an eye out for this sort of Chicago politics coming up.

More hypocrisy at the Justice Department

So the Black Panthers are free as a bird but small towns in Texas are on notice?

Barack Obama's Justice Department announced today that it will send observers to monitor a special municipal election in Hondo, Texas. Municipal elections are done entirely at the town level, but Eric Holder wants to send G-Men to stand guard. Why? He's worried that voters who want to vote in Spanish won't be able to do so.

Hondo does have a substantial Mexican population. But after Holder sat on his hands for a year and refused to prosecute the Black Panthers who violently bullied voters in Philadelphia, he now thinks it's necessary to mobilize the Justice Department to protect Hispanic voters in a small town of 8,000 people in Texas? It's further evidence of the radicalism and hypocrisy that have completely permeated Barack Obama's Justice Department.

The new codeword: Environmental Justice

Barack Obama and his radical leftists have come up with an almost endless list of weird Orwellian terms. These include: community reinvestment, community organizing, localism, and affirmative action. They all mean basically the same ugly thing: redistributing wealth from upper-class whites to lower-class African-Americans by mandate from the government.

Now there's a new codeword to watch out for: Environmental Justice. A favorite of the Environmental Protection Agency and its administrator Lisa Jackson, environmental justice has historically meant stopping pesticides that cause massive harm to the environment, for example. But in Barack Obama's world, the term takes on a whole new meaning: sticking it to the corporations while prioritizing African-Americans and Hispanics over whites.

Here's how EPA Administrator Jackson put it in a recent memo: "We are building strong working relationships with tribes, communities of color, economically distressed cities and towns, young people and others, but this is just a start. We must include environmental justice principles in all of our decisions." She goes on to talk about how the EPA must protect "vulnerable subpopulations".

The EPA's job is to protect the American environment. But in Barack Obama's world, it becomes just another instrument to lift up liberal minority interest groups at the expense of everyone else.

Eric Holder's illegal immigration hypocrisy

Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, gave a speech at the National Sheriffs' Association 2010 Winter Conference today. In the midst of his speech, Holder made an outrageously hypocritical statement.

"Some of you work along our southwest border. You know, as surely as I do, that we simply cannot afford to ignore the problem of illegal immigration. Several of you have reached out to us and to our colleagues across the Administration. You’ve warned that tension is building."

There's one sheriff in the southwest who has been extremely effective: Joe Arpaio. Fed up with illegal immigration in Maricopa County, Arpaio began jailing illegal immigrants in tent cities surrounding by barbed wire. He also forced them to wear chains and bright pink jumpsuits. His techniques worked well. But Arpaio has been under attack since the Obama administration since literally day one: last year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano actually stripped him of his authority. Holder cannot be serious about battling illegal immigration in the southwest as long as he keeps going after Joe Arpaio.

Pay czar ready to start reclaiming money

Barack Obama's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, is one of the most powerful men in America. The president has given him the authority to regulate executive pay and, if necessary, even "claw back" money that's already been earned. Now, Feinberg is saying that he is ready to start exercising that second power. "I have said publicly I am reluctant to exercise that authority, except in the most egregious cases, whatever that means," Feinberg said. False humility aside, he acknowledged he could start clawing back executive pay within 45 days.

Elsewhere Feinberg said that his jurisdiction is restricted and just a "blip" on the radar. The truth is that Feinberg is one of the most powerful men in America and Barack Obama's most dangerous czar. No American has ever been given the authority to force someone to give up money they already earned to the government.

Religious freedom not a priority for Obama

Barack Obama has appointed an ambassador-at-large for women's issues, Melanne Verveer. He has appointed a special representative to Muslim communities, Farah Pandith. But he hasn't found time to pick an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

The State Department has confirmed that the ambassadorship still remains open. The international religious freedom office was established at State back in 1998 and consistently filled by presidents until now. It's not an option either. The International Religious Freedom Act that created the office requires by law that the position be filled and that a report on religious liberty be submitted every year.

With countless czars clogging up his administration, Obama apparently can't be bothered to fill one post he desperately needs to.

Surprise! Obama's newest ambassador a Chicago fundraiser

Except for Great Britain, America has no greater friends than the former Soviet republics of central and eastern Europe. But leave it to Barack Obama to insult one of them with another laughingstock of an ambassador.

Theodore Sedgwick has been nominated to be the United States ambassador to Slovakia. It's a position he paid dearly for. He raised $28,000 for 2008 Democratic candidates, $200,000 for Obama's campaign, and $10,000 for Obama's inauguration. Sedgwick is also an avid hunter and made waves trying to present Obama as friendly to sportsmen -- the people who cling to guns.

Sedgwick lives in Virginia, but originally hails from Chicago and his connections with Obama go way back. In other words, he's just another crony.

The top 25 most sinister things Barack Obama has done as president

It’s fun to laugh at Barack Obama’s blunders on his one-year anniversary, but remember that the president is a radical Chicago pol. He’s inexperienced of course, but he’s also gotten away with some pretty egregious things during his first year. Here are 25 of the worst, in no particular order.

1)   Obama’s communications director, Anita Dunn, says that Fox News isn’t a real news network. Days later, Fox is denied an interview with Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg, even though Feinberg is made available to the other networks. The White House ultimately retreats from this sinister and anti-American activity.

2)   Obama appoints John Holdren to be his Science Czar. Holdren is a eugenicist who believes overpopulation will destroy the planet and who has written that forced abortions or sterilizations could be justified under the Constitution.

3)   Obama appoints Kevin Jennings to be his Safe Schools Czar. Jennings once headed up GLSEN, a radical gay group that promoted pornographic sex books for children. When asked by a young student what to do about a sexual encounter with an older man in a bus station, Jennings dismissively said, “I hope you used a condom.”

4)  Under the influence of Obama’s Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd, and following widespread attacks on the "The Fairness Doctrine", the FCC embraces “localism” and starts thinking of ways to take down large radio companies (most of which employ conservative personalities) and redistribute their money to smaller, minority-owned stations.

5)   Obama appoints Ron Bloom to be his Car Czar, a union hack who once called the free market “nonsense.”

6)   Obama tries to jam the Employee Free Choice Act through Congress, a union grab bag that would shift power to Big Labor and eliminate the secret ballot for workers voting on whether or not to unionize.

7)  Obama gives the United Auto Workers labor union massive ownership stakes in General Motors and Chrysler after both businesses accepted government bailouts. Using the government to hand companies over to their workers? Classic Obama Marxism.

8)   Obama’s Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office use Enron-style accounting tricks to disguise the negative consequences of their radical policies. Most recently, the OMB announced it would be counting jobs “funded” rather than actually “created” by its stimulus bill.

9) Obama’s Pay Czar, Kenneth Feinberg, is given truly tyrannical power. He can determine the salaries of corporate CEOs and mid-level employees, and “claw back” money already paid.

10) Obama nominates Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor has previously stated that empathy is a crucial factor in judging, and that her Hispanic upbringing somehow made her more qualified to sit on the highest court in the land.

11) Obama’s Justice Department sues the state of New Jersey because they administer an exam to aspiring police sergeants which more whites pass than minorities. The lawsuit is purely racial and resembles the Ricci case in Connecticut that got Sotomayor in so much trouble.

12) Hillary Clinton gives a speech celebrating the creation of the UN Population Fund, a group dedicated to providing women with “reproductive services” and that has been convincingly accused of working with China to enforce its one-child policy.

13) After Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona criticized Obama’s stimulus, the White House phones up Arizona’s governor and threatened to withhold stimulus funds to that state if Kyl kept up his criticisms.

14) Obama makes another sick deal with Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska. In exchange for Nelson abandoning his concerns about abortion in the health care bill, Obama offers to have the federal government pay all of Nebraska’s Medicare costs…at the expense of taxpayer money from the other 49 states.

15) Obama is caught at the center of a scheme to sell his former Senate seat in Illinois. Most of the blame appropriately falls on Governor Rod Blagojevich, but some of the president’s chief advisers are implicated on tape as well, including Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett. Neither is fired nor disciplined in any way.

16)  Obama pays off the AARP. With A. Barry Rand, a longtime Obama crony, helming the AARP, Obama bought off the organization by giving them an astonishing $18 million in stimulus money. In return, the AARP strongly supported the health care bill, even though it included massive Medicare cuts, which the group had criticized in the past.

17) Obama brings in Van Jones as his Green Jobs Czar. Jones was entrusted to coordinate the president’s strategy on so-called green jobs, despite his former membership in a group called STORM that advocated the overthrow of the government, and despite a long history of radical and inappropriate comments. Jones later resigns after it’s revealed he signed a petition questioning whether the government destroyed the World Trade Center on 9/11.

18) Obama brings in Jeff Jones. This Jones is a former Weather Underground terrorist (along with Bill Ayers) who later established a group called the Apollo Alliance. The Apollo Alliance wrote the cap and trade bill that Obama later tried to ram through Congress.

19) Obama appoints Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, (Rahm’s brother), to be one of his budget advisors. Emanuel has previously written at length about the need to ration health care.

20) Obama appoints Patrick Gaspard to be his political director. Gaspard is all tied up in the network of corrupt community organizations that produced Obama himself, including the SEIU, ACORN, and the Working Families Party. He has observed that his greatest achievement is "raising two children of color in the U.S."  Instead of, say, the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was born?

21) Obama’s National Endowment of the Arts, under the leadership of Rocco Landesman, tries to coax artists into creating pieces that lionize Obama. In other words, taxpayer money is used to fund artistic propaganda.

22) Obama appoints Robert Bauer to be his White House counsel. Bauer is an ardent ACORN defender and wrote a memo to the Justice Department during the 2008 election asking them to investigate whether the McCain campaign broke the law by criticizing ACORN.

23) Obama gives a speech at the University of Cairo in which he constantly praises the Muslim world and attempts to whitewash its problems with terrorism. The speech is appeasing and useless, since a Muslim bomber would attempt to blow up a Detroit flight less than a year later.

24) Obama attempts to pass a health care bill that, among other egregious provisions, requires every American citizen to purchase health insurance. This tyranny is unprecedented in America’s history, as a requirement for citizenship has never before been in place.

25) Obama joins Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in failing to accept the election results in Honduras, where a peaceful coup overthrew brutal Marxist Manuel Zelaya, who had refused to leave after being voted out of office. Zelaya is now hiding out in the Brazilian Embassy.

Happy anniversary! The top 25 Obama blunders of the year

Today marks the first anniversary of Barack Obama’s inauguration. In that short period of time, Obama has racked up a series of blunders and radical liberal power plays unlike any other president in American history. Here, in no particular order, are the top 25.

1)    Obama loses Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts ending 47 years of unbroken Democrat rule. The president’s most recent blunder is truly unprecedented. That liberal New England voters would elect a Republican to the Senate shows how spectacularly Obama’s liberal agenda has failed.

2)    Obama bows to the Saudi king, violating diplomatic protocol. His handlers later claimed he’d dropped something on the ground.

3)    Obama bows to the Japanese emperor, again violating diplomatic protocol. No one tries the butterfingers excuse this time.

4)    Obama insults the entire Cambridge Police Department by saying Sergeant Jim Crowley “acted stupidly” when he arrested Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, even after admitting he didn’t know the full details of the situation. The details included the fact that the officer was a “diversity” expert.

5)    Obama waits three months before deploying more troops to Afghanistan, even though his general in the region hinted he might resign and the Taliban used the time to solidify their control.

6)    Obama personally goes to Copenhagen in an attempt to secure the Olympics for his home city of Chicago, only to have Chicago ruled out after only the first round of votes.

7)    Obama visits New Jersey several times to stump for Democratic governor Jon Corzine. Corzine immediately loses to challenger Chris Christie by 3.5%.

8)    Obama’s website tracking the spending of federal stimulus money, Recovery.gov, reports money being spent in zip codes and congressional districts that don’t exist.

9)    Obama promises that unemployment won’t exceed 8% if his stimulus bill is passed. The bill was passed and the unemployment rate surged to over 10%.

10) In his speech sucking up to the Muslim world in Cairo, Obama claims that Muslims invented both the magnetic compass and printing. In fact, the Chinese pioneered both.

11) Obama singlehandedly destroys the idea of health care reform for the Democratic Party by trying to force its passage with secret meetings and backroom deals that ultimately backfired spectacularly.

12) Obama singlehandedly destroys the idea of climate change legislation for the Democratic Party by trying to force its passage with secret meetings and backroom deals that ultimately backfired.

13) Obama’s administration fails systematically at every level to prevent the attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day, from the Department of State which ignores the terrorist’s father’s warning at the Nigerian embassy, to the Department of Homeland Security which fails to connect the dots that the bombing was about to occur, to the Transportation Security Administration which somehow allows a man on a plane without noticing that he is loaded up with bomb-making materials.

14) Obama waits three days to address the attempted Christmas bombing because he’s on vacation in Hawaii. This opens the door for his secretary of homeland security Janet Napolitano to go on TV and say that “the system worked.”

15) Obama so repulses Virginians with his policies that they sweep their state government with a Republican governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general on Election Day.

16) Obama quadruples the debt, putting America’s fiscal standing in such peril that Congress has to raise the federal debt ceiling and economists warn that the United States could lose its AAA credit rating.

17) Obama joins Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez in failing to accept the election results in Honduras, where a peaceful coup overthrew brutal Marxist Manuel Zelaya, who had refused to leave after being voted out of office. The rest of the civilized world cheered the news.

18) Obama pledges to close the Guantanamo Bay prison during his first year in office. As of today, that has yet to happen.

19) Obama fails again in Copenhagen, this time in an attempt to hammer out a climate treaty to compel nations to reduce emissions. He returns home empty-handed and stung by criticism from other world leaders.

20) Obama allows Bill Ayers to visit the White House, even though he repeatedly said during the campaign that he barely knew Ayers and was disgusted by him.

21) Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, is forced to drop out after it’s revealed that Daschle failed to pay taxes on a limousine service that he used.

22) Obama’s nominee for TSA administrator, Errol Southers, is forced to drop out after it’s revealed that he once said climate change is more dangerous than global Islamic terrorism.

23) Obama’s nominee for Office of Legal Counsel, Dawn Johnsen, is denied a vote by the Senate after it’s revealed that she once compared pregnancy to slavery.

24) Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Republican Judd Gregg, drops out after he comes to realize just how radical the president’s economic agenda will be.

25) During his address to the nation about health care, Obama lies so many times that a congressman finally stands up and yells, “You lie!”

Ed Rendell works his connections at the State Department

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, one of Hillary Clinton's closest friends and supporters, and US Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., have managed to pull off a mission impossible.  They flew back 53 Haitian orphans to a hospital in Pittsburgh.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with Rendell wanting to help out. But how did Rendell get priority to go? Could it be because he's so close with Barack Obama's secretary of state Hillary Clinton?

Even CNN's Anderson Cooper is raising questions: How could a "Democratic governor" accomplish the evacuation of healthy children to the U.S. when so many injured and dying people were suffering in Port-Au-Prince?

A loss for Martha Coakley is a loss for Barack Obama

Barack Obama's Democratic Party is going into full swing, ready to spin today's likely Republican victory in Massachusetts. All the blame will be heaped upon Martha Coakley, the uninspiring Democrat Senate contender there, in order to deflect responsibility from Barack Obama. But here's the truth: A loss for Martha Coakley in Massachusetts is a loss for Barack Obama and his entire agenda.

-- Obama campaigned for Coakley. After polls showed Scott Brown likely winning the election, Obama started stumping hard for Coakley. First he recorded an online video encouraging supporters to "put on your walking shoes" and campaign for Coakley. Then he headed up to Boston yesterday to give a speech urging her election. The two of them are joined at the hip.

-- The race has become nationalized. The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee are working on behalf of Coakley. Volunteers at the DNC in Washington, DC are making phone calls up to Massachusetts. Obama pal and DNC strategist Michael Meehan is in Massachusetts campaigning for Coakley (and assaulting reporters in his spare time). The national press is abuzz over the race.

-- Obama thugs from across America are in Massachusetts trying desperately to get Coakley elected. Union members are being paid to stand outside with Coakley signs. The SEIU alone is spending $700,000 on ads demeaning Brown. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is worried about ACORN, with a quarter of voters saying they believe the group could steal the election for Coakley.

-- Scott Brown is specifically campaigning against Obama. Brown has made his promise to be the 41st vote holding up Obama's health care bill the centerpiece of his campaign. He has condemned excessive spending and repeatedly said that Washington needs a change.

This election isn't an anomaly. It's a referendum on Obama's radical policies.

Chicago politics even extends to the OMB

Under Barack Obama, brass-knuckled Chicago politics has pervaded the entire United States government. Now today comes word that the president's kneecapping tactics are in play even at the Office of Management and Budget, a relatively nonpartisan agency responsible for crafting the U.S. budget.

According to Office of Personnel Management Inspector General Patrick McFarland, on January 4, an official from the OPM was on the phone with a high-ranking OMB official. The OPM has the right to bring complaints and concerns about the budget to Congress. The official from the OMB warned the official from the OPM that, if he went to Congress about the 2011 budget, the OMB would "make life miserable" for the OPM. A House committee is now investigating the matter.

One can only imagine what sort of nefariousness in the president's 2011 budget has the OMB so worried.

Is there any department or agency that is safe from the president's Chicago brand of politics?

Obama thug attacks conservative reporter

Last night, John McCormack, a reporter for the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, attempted to ask Massachusetts Democrat Senate contender Martha Coakley a question as she left a Capitol Hill fundraiser. McCormack was immediately shoved to the ground by a man walking with Coakley. The man then continued to block McCormack's access.

It has now been established that the assailant was Michael Meehan, a prominent Democratic strategist who has been helping the Coakley campaign. Meehan is also an employee of Barack Obama. Obama appointed Meehan to serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees federal news operations like Voice of America. Meehan is a hotshot in Democratic circles and he and Obama reportedly go back a long way.

In fact, the Massachusetts election has been swarmed by thugs. Yesterday the Coakley campaign was caught deploying union members to hold up campaign signs. The workers were reportedly paid $50 to do so, even though at least one said in an interview that he was voting for Scott Brown.

Of course, if Coakley loses, Barack Obama's health care bill won't pass the Senate. Obama's trying to buy another Senate seat with his crooked campaign strategists and union thugs.

Why are they called czars?

Todd Stern is the climate czar. John Holdren is the science czar. Ron Bloom and Ed Montgomery are both car czars. The term "czar" is familiar to almost everyone thanks to Barack Obama. Most of these people have actual titles, and yet they're called czars.

Czars are Obama appointees, most of whom have not faced Senate confirmation. It is the Senate's constitutional responsibility to advise and consent on the president's nominees. But as has been previously reported on Obama Watch News, these nominees have often faced stiff resistance in the Senate because of their radicalism. For example, Obama's nominee to head up the TSA, Errol Southers, is stuck in limbo because he has previously said that climate change is a greater threat to the United States than terrorism, among other radical statements. Obama's nominee for the OLC, Dawn Johnsen, still faces resistance because she has equated pregnancy to bondage.

The solution? Give policymaking power to staff who haven't been confirmed by the Senate. Like the czars of old, these bureaucrats wield great power. Barack Obama's pay czar Kenneth Feinberg has the authority to determine the salaries of American executives -- and even "claw back" money that's already been paid. And like the czars of old, these bureaucrats are completely unaccountable.

Obama's radical OLC nominee will clear the Senate

A serious and very unfortunate victory for Barack Obama was announced today. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) indicated that after meeting with Dawn Johnsen, Obama's radical nominee to head up the Office of Legal Council, he will support her confirmation. With Republican senator Richard Lugar also in Johnsen's camp, this should clear her path through the Senate entirely.

The left-wing blogosphere is thrilled with this development, and they should be. Dawn Johnsen is a bona fide left-wing radical. She is vehemently pro-abortion and has argued that forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term is the equivalent of slavery. The Office of Legal Counsel is a crucial branch that essentially determines the law for the entire executive branch. With Specter giving in, that power will shortly be in Johnsen's hands.

Notes:

1. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) assists the Attorney General of the United States in his function as legal adviser to the President and all the executive branch agencies. The OLC drafts legal opinions of the Attorney General and also provides its own written opinions and oral advice in response to requests from the Counsel to the President, the agencies of the executive branch, and offices within the Department of Justice. Such requests typically deal with legal issues of particular complexity and importance or about which two or more agencies are in disagreement. The Office is also responsible for providing legal advice to the executive branch on all constitutional questions and reviewing pending legislation for constitutionality. The decisions of the Office are binding on all executive agencies.

2. Dawn Johnsen worked for the American Civil Liberties Union as a staff counsel fellow on a one-year fellowship from 1987 until 1988, and then worked for the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League (currently NARAL Pro-Choice America) from 1988 until 1993. From 1993 to 1998, Johnsen worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Clinton Administration. She was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General from 1993 until 1996, and served as Acting Assistant Attorney General heading the OLC from 1997 until 1998.

Obama nominees to become even more unaccountable

A new study by the Partnership for Public Service is out which analyzes why Obama still has a large number of vacancies in his government. Of course the real reason for the empty slots are that many of his nominees are left-wing radicals and have been stalled by the Senate. Buried deep in the New York Times article on the PPS study is this alarming solution:

"The report recommends major fixes before the next election, such as reducing the number of political appointees that need Senate confirmation."

Obama is reportedly frustrated about his nominees being held up, so he's likely to take this advice. The Senate has the constitutional responsibility to "advise and consent" on a president's nominees. It's a check on the executive branch in case the president tries to, say, fill his offices with radicals. Given how many unconfirmed czars are already infesting the executive branch, how long will it be until Obama just dispenses with advise and consent completely?

Yet another Obama official on the unions' payroll

Obama's pay czar Kenneth Feinberg is one of the most powerful men in America right now, having the exclusive power of determining executive pay. He is even able to draw back money that has already been paid. Now he is headed to the American Federation of Teachers union to allegedly help them improve public education by identifying the bad teachers. A shrewd move by the second largest teacher's union who recognize that Feinberg is revered as a "mediator". He teaches this at his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst -- and its eponymous Feinberg Institute -- which claims to deal with "life, value and compensation studies", and asks such questions as "How much is a human life worth?"

Feinberg was once administrative assistant and chief of staff to the late Senator Ted Kennedy, and is a founding partner in anothe eponymous organization, the Feinberg Group. It has arbitrated cases ranging from Agent Orange liability and asbestos injuries to the administration of the fund for victims of the Virginia Tech shooting. Feinberg is a director of a George Soros-funded legal group, Human Rights First.

Obama Administration to ramp up its lying about stimulus jobs

The results of Barack Obama's $787 billion pork-filled stimulus package have already been wildly exaggerated, including claims of jobs created in congressional districts that don't even exist. Now the Office of Management and Budget has announced that it's about to get even more deceptive. OMB released a memo claiming they'll no longer report jobs "created" or "saved" by the stimulus, as they did before, but instead jobs funded.

In other words, if the stimulus spent money with the intention of creating a job, even if that job was never created in the first place, the Obama Administration will claim credit for it.

When asked to explain this transparently corrupt decision, an OMB spokesman said, "No one understood what created or saved meant. So we are using a more easy to understand definition." The White House actually believes that Americans, 10% of whom are unemployed, wouldn't understand what it meant to create a job. It's just another example of why you can't believe anything said by anyone in Barack Obama's government.

Don't say we didn't warn you: FCC Commissioner warns of censorship at the FCC

Robert McDowell is one of two Republican commissioners at Barack Obama's Federal Communications Commission. Today, McDowell wrote an op-ed for the Daily Caller warning that the FCC would probably move to promote greater localism in the coming year. "In that arena [of broadcast regulation], we often aren’t talking about the future, or even the present–instead, we keep talking about the past. And so, as the FCC undertakes a new review of its broadcast ownership rules this year, I expect to hear renewed calls for reimposing various 'localism' rules on TV and radio stations."

Localism is a radical codeword for taking power from broadcasting companies and giving it to smaller, minority-owned TV and radio stations. It's a scheme to censor conservative radio personalities like Rush Limbaugh without passing messy legislation like the Fairness Doctrine. It is also a wealth distribution scheme designed to tax private broadcasters and pass the money to NPR. Mark Lloyd, Barack Obama's diversity czar at the FCC, is a huge fan of localism and has even praised Hugo Chavez for shutting down commercial broadcasting stations in Venezuela.

Doesn't the buck stop with Hillary?

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab "The Underpants Bomber" had a U.S. visa that had been granted in June 2008 and was valid through June 2010. The visa was issued in London.
The U.S. State Department is responsible for visas.
Dr. Umaru Abdul Mutallab went to the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and gave them the heads-up that his son was a terror risk.
U.S. Embassies are operated and controlled by the U.S. State Department.
Hillary Clinton is in charge at State. Isn't that where the buck should stop?

Barack Obama's Sotomayor Justice

Remember the New Haven firefighters? They studied hard and passed an exam qualifying them to be firefighters in the city of New Haven, Connecticut. But their results were thrown out after New Haven determined that the test was invalid because not enough African-Americans had scored highly. The firemen sued the city and Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, ruled against them.

This toxic racism has spread from Sotomayor's office to Barack Obama's Justice Department. Today, Justice announced that it is suing the state of New Jersey. Why? New Jersey requires candidates seeking to become police sergeants to take an exam, and not enough African-Americans and Hispanics are passing.

According to the press release, Justice wasn't going to allow any employment practices that resulted in something called "disparate impact." Disparate impact, also known as adverse impact, is a legal theory loved by liberals that forbids any employment practice "that does not appear to be discriminatory on its face; rather it is one that is discriminatory in its application or effect." It's affirmative action gone wild -- if enough minorities can't pass the test, then the test itself is illegal, even if the intent was never to discriminate.

This travesty of a lawsuit is the result of Thomas Perez, the head of the Justice Department Civil Rights Division. Perez has pledged to increase hate crime prosecutions, among other racially discriminatory practices. He has promised to use his position to make sure any alleged victims of discrimination "are made whole." Thanks to disparate impact, Obama's Justice Department will practice Sotomayor Justice -- judging by skin color rather than the law.

Obama won't give up on radical pro-abortion nominee

Barack Obama has thrown many embattled political nominees under the bus, but not when there's a radical pro-abortion lawyer at stake. Today, Obama renominated his pick for the Office of Legal Council, Dawn Johnsen -- despite the fact that Johnsen is a legal zealot with frightening views on the issue of abortion.

Johnsen is one of the legal minds behind the Freedom of Choice Act, a proposed bill that would swing a wrecking ball at all state and local abortion restrictions in the nation, making abortion on demand the law of the land. In a 1989 abortion court case, Johnsen argued, "Statutes that curtail abortion choice are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state’s asserted interest." She later compared pregnancy to the government "conscripting" a woman's body. In other words, being pro-life is the same as being pro-slavery. When questioned by Sen. Arlen Specter about these nutty statements, she lied to Congress, denying having ever made them.

Unsurprisingly, Johnsen cut her legal teeth at the National Abortion Rights Action League, and earlier at the ACLU.

There are plenty of radical judges and lawyers out there, but Johnsen has been nominated to head up the Office of Legal Counsel, the most important government agency no one's ever heard of. The OLC acts as a mini-Supreme Court for the executive branch. If the president wants to do something constitutionally questionable, he must first receive OLC approval.

Which makes Johnsen the perfect legal rubber stamper for Barack Obama's radical agenda.

Hillary Clinton to honor a group accused of aiding forced abortions in China

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama's secretary of state, is scheduled to deliver a speech on Friday commemorating the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development. The ICPD was a meeting of world leaders and UN delegates to discuss an array of creepy issues, including population control and family planning. The conference created the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), a motley collection of intellectuals determined to blanket the world with birth control and help women with "reproductive health".

The UNFPA has repeatedly stated that "reproductive health" doesn't mean abortion. But Stephen Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, led a fact-finding mission to China several years back and discovered that the UNFPA was working hand-in-glove with Chinese population authorities -- who are responsible for enforcing China's one-child policy and carrying out forced abortions and sterilizations. A delegation led by Rep. Chris Smith (D-N.J.) found the same thing.

The relationship between the China and the UNFPA is so strong that the Chinese State Family Planning Commission (How's that for Orwellian?) awarded former UNFPA director Dr. Nafis Sadik with their Population Prize Award back in 2002. Sadik gracious accepted.

This is the organization whose 15th anniversary Hillary Clinton will be lauding. Of course, given Barack Obama's radical pro-choice record, it's no surprise at all.

Obama gives science czar power to classify information

While most of America was preparing for the New Year's celebrations, Barack Obama was unveiling a new executive order that retooled how the government classifies information. Thanks to Obama, the "Director [of the] Office of Science and Technology Policy" will now have the power to classify documents. That's John Holdren, the science czar, climate change alarmist (he is the president's senior advisor on climate change), and eugenics fan.

Not only can Holdren issue classification orders, he can assign them the status of "Top Secret". This is usually reserved for information which, if published, could do grave harm to America's national security. "Top Secret" is the highest level of classification in the United States government. It's a power usually reserved for the president, his chief of staff, and high-level cabinet secretaries. But in an unprecedented move, Obama handed this potent authority to his science czar.

Other czars, including Homeland Security Czar John Brennan and Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, also have classification powers. But this makes sense, seeing as both regularly deal with security and crime policy. In contrast, Vice President Joe Biden doesn't have the ability to classify information. The Secretaries of Commerce, Agriculture, and Transportation can only classify at the "Secret" level, one step below the "Top Secret" category. Now Holdren is more powerful than all of them.

So what exactly is the Obama Administration preparing to hide? Could it be more sketchy data on the climate? Is this a cover-up to protect the draconian, business-killing aims of the Green religion's zealots?

Only in Barack Obama's world does a science czar deserve the unfettered ability to hide information from the public. We need to know why.