Mitt Romney - Chris Wallace - I Really Care About This Country

WALLACE: After our interview with both Romneys, we sat down alone with the governor. We talked about the campaign and how President Obama has dealt with the nation's problems since his re-election.

But we started with why anyone should listen to Mitt Romney.

WALLACE: Before we get to current events, what role do you see for yourself? What part do you want to play in the Republican Party? What role do you want to have in the national debate?

ROMNEY: Well, I recognize that I lost, so I'm not going to be the -- the leader of the Republican Party. Other people will take that -- that mantle.

But I want to have influence on getting our party into a position where we can be successful in solving the problems the country has.

WALLACE: You must know that there are a lot of people in the party who still blame you for losing the race they think that the Republicans could have won in 2012.

To a certain degree, when you hear about the rebranding, aren't people saying they want to distance the party from you?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, I recognize that as the guy who lost the election, I'm not in a position to tell everybody else how to win, all right? They're not going to listen and I don't have the credibility to do that anyway.

I look at what's happening right now, I wish I were there. It kills me not to be there, not to be in the White House doing what needs to be done.

The president is the leader of the nation. The president brings people together, does the deals, does the trades, knocks the heads together. The president leads.
And -- and I don't see that kind of -- of leadership happening right now --

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PJTV - Michael Barone on Why So Many Failed to Predict the Reelection of Obama

Many pollsters predicted a Romney win, but were proven wrong on Election Day 2012. Did pollsters fail to account for cellphone users, or did Romney fail at turning out the GOP vote? Did voter fraud play a role? Find out as Michael Barone analyzes the results of the 2012 election with Glenn Reynolds.

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Star Parker - What Went Wrong Last Tuesday

Disbelief is the word that defines the Republican state of mind in the wake of the 2012 re-election of President Barack Obama.

The obvious questions are: “How can Americans have re-elected a president who has presided over an economy where unemployment still hovers at 8 percent ?”

And, “How can Americans have re-elected a president who still doesn’t grasp that his big government policies are what have blocked our economic recovery?”

The Republican Party needs to take responsibility for this disaster.

Nothing in the outcome of this election is a surprise. The realities which produced these election results have been looming before us not for months, but for years.

Yet Republicans have made a point of ignoring it all. Now, “the chickens have come home to roost.”

What are these realities?

The profound changing demographics of the nation. And, the challenge of getting a nation that is already addicted to government off it.

I wrote last April regarding an analysis done by Ron Brownstein in National Journal: “Brownstein estimates that Barack Obama could be re-elected with as little as 39 percent of the white vote. He notes that in 2008, when Obama was elected with just 43 percent of the white vote, it was the first time ever that a presidential candidate was victorious with double digit losses of white voters.”

In a column I wrote a month ago, I noted: “What was once the exception to the rule in America – not being white, not being married, not have traditional views on family, sex, and abortion – is becoming the rule. And these constituencies are becoming sufficiently large to elect a president.”

A nation doesn’t change overnight. Yet, Republicans have been in chronic denial about what has been happening.

Ironically, the Republican political establishment, and particularly this year’s candidate Mitt Romney, presented themselves as the party of businessmen who know how economies work.

Well, businessmen pay attention to their markets. They make sure they understand their product and present it clearly and that they stay attuned to their customer base.

Republican Party operatives ignored both -clear definition of their product and savvy marketing to a diverse base of customers.

Instead, they chose wishful thinking. Simply hope that more and more white voters will turn out and vote Republican to make up for their shrinking part of the electorate.

When polls showed what was really happening, these same Republican operatives chose to deny them too, charging they were biased.

We can win our country back.

Low and middle-income blacks and Latinos are hurt disproportionately by a sluggish economy that can only be revived by less government spending and regulation, and low taxes. They just need someone to care to focus on their communities and explain these dynamics to them.

They need to get their kids out of public schools, a cause which only conservatives champion.

And they need to understand that they have everything to gain by getting out of the entitlement programs that the left tells them they need.

The last thing low-income earners need is to pay payroll taxes when they could save this money and build wealth. And the last thing they need is government bureaucrats running their health care.

When the only message blacks and Latinos get is from left wing politicians and media telling them they need government to take care of them, what can we expect but what we just saw in this election?

Business is also about knowing that there is no short cut around hard work.

Republicans must do more than showcase a few black and brown faces at their convention every four years and call this outreach.

Conservatives must get into black and Latino communities, talk to their clergy and community leaders, and explain how conservative policies of limited government and traditional values will save their communities and our nation.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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The Laura and Kirsten Show - Fox News Sunday

Laura Ingraham and Kirsten Powers on the Fox News Sunday Panel Plus... discussing the election, the Patraeus scandal, the Tea Party, and pretty much not agreeing on anything.

November 11, 2012

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No Sense Worrying About The Results of The 2012 Election

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Reinhold Niebuhr

Perhaps we all need some Spiritual Encouragement - I know I did and this helped.

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Conservatism Is Calling

This video portends the future, called "Conservatism Is Calling."

It wasn't made by any campaign, political group, or business. It was made privately and single-handedly by a young guy in Burbank, California with his own money. His name is Chris Corrado.

Thanks, Chris. You're the future.

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Doug Giles - Obama Calls Mitt Romney a BSer? Now That’s Funny!

You know what’s funny? In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Obama called Mitt Romney a “bullsh*tter” … that’s what’s funny.

Now, it’s not funny in a ha-ha sense but funny in a you-gotta-be-kidding-me sense of the word. Obama accusing Romney of bunkum? Talk about the putz calling the kettle black.

Obama’s entire life and rise to power have been nothing more than a Texas-sized stockyard of ripe and foul compost. This man makes Machiavelli look lame. Hussein trades so heavily in BS that the Oxford Dictionary has now included his last name as a synonym for bollocks. I also hear OJ take notes when Obama speaks.

In addition, I’ve learned from reliable sources that a Las Vegas-based energy company is at work now trying to convert Obama’s gaseous rhetoric, his scat-laced hollow promises and his abysmal jobs record into an alternative fuel source to light up the Strip.

So exactly what is this thing called “bullsh*t” of which Obama is a ninja? Well, you can call it BS, bull crap, or the nicer sounding Latin term “stercore tauri,” or simply bull, bull roar, bull-pucky, bovine scat, horse feathers, horse hockey, poppycock, cow dung, Chris Matthews, bollocks, gobbledygook, gibberish, humbug, fisk, nonsense, evening news, tall tale, pseudo-intellectualism, propaganda, fiction, lie, bunkum, spin, or truthiness.

Whatever you want to call it, BS can be defined as communications in which reality and truthfulness aren’t nearly as vital as the ability to manipulate the audience to get it to do whatever one wants done. And here’s where Obama rocks with the tofu-brained masses.

BS is essentially all skewed, spun, knowingly dubious, carefully framed, pretentious, misleading or vacuous statements. Now, “BS” does not necessarily have to be a complete fabrication; with only basic knowledge about a topic, BS is often used to make the audience believe that one knows far more about the topic by feigning total certainty or making probable predictions. It may also merely be “filler” or nonsense that, by virtue of its style or wording, gives the impression that it actually means something:

• In popular explanations of philosophy, the word “bullsh*t” is used to denote utterances and speech acts which do not add to the meaning of the set of sentences uttered, but which are added purely to persuade goobers of the validity or importance of other utterances.
• The accuracy of the information is irrelevant whilst “bullsh*tting.” Whether true or false, BS is the intention to distort the information or to otherwise achieve a desirable outcome, making BS a close cousin to rhetoric as Plato conceived it (paraphrased from Harry Frankfurt’s book, On Bullsh*t).

Do you need a few examples of how Obama has piled it high, wide and deep on Americans’ noggins? You do? Check out these smelly bullet points from our innovative BSer-In-Chief from a recent email I received …

Obama’s the first President to:

1. Apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.
2. Have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.
3. Go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends paid for by the taxpayer.
4. Preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.
5. Have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.
6. Keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.
7. Repeat the Holy Quran and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.
8. Violate the War Powers Act.
9. Be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
10. Defy a Federal Judge’s court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.
11. Require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.
12. Spend a trillion dollars on “shovel-ready” jobs when there was no such thing as “shovel-ready” jobs.
13. Abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.
14. Bypass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.
15. Order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S., including those with criminal convictions.
16. Demand a company hand over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.
17. Terminate America’s ability to put a man in space.
18. Arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.
19. Threaten insurance companies if they publicly speak out on the reasons for their rate increases.
20. Tell a major manufacturing company in which state it is allowed to locate a factory.
21. File lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).
22. Withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.
23. Fire an inspector general of AmeriCorps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.
24. Appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.
25. Golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office (100+ to date).
26. Hide his medical, educational and travel records.
27. Win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.
28. Go on multiple global “apology tours".
29. Take a 17-day vacation.

And Romney’s a bullsh*tter? Please. Go sell crazy somewhere else. Even Letterman called him on it this week.

A juicy whopper missing from that list is how Obama loves the woman voter and yet strangely voted “present” (read against) in ‘99 for a bill that would protect sexual assault victims from having the details of their cases revealed publicly.

And lastly—and most ghastly—regarding how Obama has lied what’s left of his backside off to we the people comes the Benghazi massacre, which keeps growing grosser, more malevolent and insidious with each passing day.

For Barack to say Romney is a bullsh*tter in light of Obama’s own weapons-grade bullsh*t is, well … bullsh*t.

Doug Giles

Doug Giles’ new book “If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going!" is now available. Ann Coulter says "Doug Giles is a substantive and funny tour de force for traditional values.” Doug’s talk show and video blog can be seen and heard at www.ClashRadio.com.

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Austin Hill - Entrepreneurs Weigh In: What Do We Need Over The Next Four Years?

“…What the hell is he doing asking for another four years?”

Governor Chris Christie (R-New Jersey) was speaking on behalf of Mitt Romney in Virginia last week. He was talking about, and to, Barack Obama. “…If you don’t think you can change Washington from inside the White House, let’s give you the plane ticket back to Chicago you’ve earned.” With President Obama and his challenger running so close – and with so many states in-play – fiery rhetoric from the campaign trail is to be expected.

Yet Governor Christie raises a legitimate question. Besides the obvious reasons – first term Presidents are eligible to run for a second term (and most of them to), and President Obama thinks he is better suited to be President than Mitt Romney –what, really, is another four years of Barack Obama supposed to be about?

Americans who are the least bit interested in anything remotely resembling economic recovery and prosperity – yes, even Democrat Americans – should take a look at the facts. The evidence is overwhelming that President Obama’s policies over the last three and a half years are stifling our economy now, and will likely send us in to a slowdown in 2013.

That’s not mere partisan political rhetoric. Last week Reuters business news reported that Americans will face a “tougher 2013,” economically speaking, and they identified two of President Obama’s policies as the direct reason for the added difficulty.

For one, payroll taxes are set to rise on January 1. President Obama agreed to a temporary payroll tax cut back in 2009, but he insists that it needs to be raised again, and has insisted that he’ll let this lower payroll tax rate expire at the end of this year. According to the analysis reported by Reuters, this will take an estimated $125 billion out of our private sector economy, and will likely mean less consumer spending, less profitability for businesses, and a lower GDP.

And then there’s Obamacare. The President himself isn’t even trying any longer to pretend that his “health reform” law isn’t a tax, and thoughtful analysts in the world of business news can’t pretend either. According to Reuters, the new taxes on healthcare providers, insurance companies, and employers that provide health insurance to their workers will cause healthcare costs to shoot up nearly 7% in 2013 alone. This, combined with already stagnant wages, and the estimated $125 billion taken out of private household budgets because of the President’s payroll tax increase, all add up to more economic hardship for middle and lower income Americans.

In the same week, CNN Money published a report entitled “Entrepreneurship Is Weaker Than Ever.” The report noted that across the country, local government regulations are damaging small businesses and new start-ups. But it also claimed that “uncertainty in the market” – fears of rising taxes, IRS agents penalizing individuals and businesses for alleged Obamacare violations, and the lack of investment capital – were creating huge disincentives for would-be business owners to jump in.

And then there was The Atlantic, and Yahoo! Finance, that both jointly published an in-depth article with a striking title: “What Kills Small Business? Let’s Ask Them.”

The article states that “69 percent of small business owners and managers say that complicated government regulations are ‘major impediments; to the creation of new jobs.” The article also provided this analysis:

“When over two-thirds of job creators tell us how to create jobs in an economy that desperately needs them, candidates and elected officials should not only listen, they should also tell us precisely where they stand on these ideas. How government regulates commerce -- and not just whether government regulates commerce -- should be a major issue in this election. It would tell us a lot about how the candidates, if elected, would make critical day-to-day decisions that shape law, regulation, and, ultimately, the economy.”

These are some powerful words. And they are not emanating from “conservative” media outlets – if The Atlantic has any ideological leanings, it’s generally regarded as “left of center.” And while Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer is well known for her unquestioning support of President Obama and the Democrat Party, even the business news division of her media content operation can’t ignore that the President that she has helped to bankroll is doing serious damage to the economy (that’s how bad things have become).

Back in January of 2011 (after the President’s self-described “shellacking” at the polls in November of 2010), President Obama spoke at a General Electric plant in Schenectady, NY and tried to convey that he really does support free market enterprise, stating that “we’re going back to Thomas Edison’s principles… We’re going to build stuff and invent stuff…” The sad irony was that the speech was made days before the Obama Administration officially outlawed one of Thomas Edison’s greatest inventions, the incandescent light bulb.

Now, as he campaigns for re-election, the President clings to his “Forward” and “We can’t go back” phrases, and reminds us that he killed Osama bin Laden. Yet the stifling of our economy from the Obama Administration’s legacy of threats and fees and fines and taxes and bans on businesses, is undeniable.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are crying-out to be saved from the Obama oppression. Do American voters care?

Austin Hill

Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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Bill Whittle - Afterburner - Running on Empty

From the dead bodies that resulted from the Fast & Furious and Benghazi operations, to the apologies to fanatics and dictators, Bill Whittle brings you a compendium of the Obama Administration's greatest failures. Will a Romney Administration perform any better? Find out on this Afterburner.

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Jeannie DeAngelis - Obama Sleeps While Americans Die

Originally posted at American Thinker

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Despite the poor economy, high unemployment, and the overall state of national malaise, Barack Obama has been hinging his prospects for reelection solely on the fact that the architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden, is dead. Rather than giving most of the credit to Seal Team Six, who actually risked their lives by entering the global terrorist’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, President Obama has spent months extolling his own steely determination.

Few would argue that after September 11th 2001, George W. Bush’s handling of the terrorist attack on American soil is what likely won him a second term. Be it Timothy McVeigh or al-Qaeda, American presidents staring down extremists on behalf of Americans usually gains them more supporters than critics.

Therefore, listening to Barack Obama talk about his positive impact on the war on terror, one would think that the 44th president finally found a winning formula to ensure a second term and a terror-free future for Americans around the world.

Yet, what Obama never mentions are the 30 Americans, 22 of whom were DEVGRU Seal Team Six elite Navy SEALS who, in the aftermath of bin Laden’s body being dumped in the North Arabian Sea, were shot down by insurgents while flying in Chinook helicopters in Afghanistan. In addition, what Barack Obama also never addresses is the astounding increase in military deaths by hostile Taliban forces since he took office in 2009.

Now, Barack Obama finds himself up to his nostrils in the muck and mire of controversy over a terrorist attack on September 11, 2012. On the anniversary of killing 3,000 innocent Americans 11 years prior, in a pre-planned, coordinated attack on the American consulate in Benghazi the terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia took credit for slaying US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, computer specialist Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

America is now learning that despite the Obama administration’s indignant reaction to a low-budget anti-Islam video which for two weeks was blamed for the loss of life in Benghazi, the White House was fully aware that what was happening was indeed a terrorist attack. In the same Situation Room where Beyonce and Jay-Z had visited months earlier, the White House watched in real time, via unmanned Predator drone, for five of the seven hours that the four Americans struggled to stay alive. In the end, President Obama chose to do nothing to stop it.

Worse yet, it is being alleged that while Christopher Stevens was being tortured, raped, and killed, the president, who had plans to go to Las Vegas for a fundraiser the next day, went to bed. Meanwhile, as the president slept, life-saving troops were but an hour away in Italy.

That brings us to the 2012 election. Despite his desperate attempts to convince Americans that he singlehandedly rid the planet of the world’s most notorious terrorist, unlike George W. Bush in 2004, it appears that the bin Laden slayer is still losing credibility with American voters.

One can’t help but think that if on September 11, 2012 Barack Obama had at least attempted to rescue those four Americans, his prospects for reelection would be quite different today. If the commander-in-chief had demanded that every effort be made to save the lives of Stevens, Smith, Woods, and Doherty, even if the effort failed he would have been viewed as a tough leader. The drama, the bravery, and the dedication of a US president vowing to “leave no man behind,” whatever the cost, would have eradicated any chance Mitt Romney might have had to replace Barack Obama behind the Resolute Desk come January.

Instead, on the anniversary of September 11th Barack Obama chose to turn his back on four Americans whose lives were lost at the hands of Ansar al-Sharia, and the question is why? Didn’t the President realize that by saving their lives, in the process he could have also secured a second term?

So yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, but as the American body count continues to climb, the question that remains is: What possible reason could Barack Obama offer America for sending SEAL Team Six into Pakistan to kill one terrorist, but then refuse to send help to Libya to rescue four Americans under siege by a band of murderous militants?

This time, Barack Obama’s foolhardy decision to put himself first cost four Americans their lives and should also cost him the election.

Jeannie DeAngelis

Jeannie DeAngelis writes almost exclusively for American Thinker and has been published on the conservative website Pajamas Media, as well as hosting a blog. See Jeannie's Blog

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Gerri Willis - Analyzing The Youth Vote - Michelle Fields - Michael Goodwin - Jason Mattera

Estimates are that more than half of recent college graduates are now among the unemployed or under-employed. Many have student loan payments due or past due, as total student loans top a trillion dollars. President Barack Obama has shown little concern for this disenchanted block of voters.

On June 15, 2012, adding insult to injury, the president issued an administrative fiat from the White House Rose Garden extending what amounts to work-permit amnesty for an estimated 1.4 million undocumented younger people brought to the United States before their 16th birthday “through no fault of their own.”

For U.S. citizens, however, there is no Obama job recovery plan. The president has only one plan at the moment: re-election. He has no advice for unemployed and under-employed college graduates burdened with student loan debt.

A New York Times story on July 2, 2012, quoted a Central Michigan University student as saying, “But there’s a lot of discouragement going around.” A recent Gallup national poll shows support for Obama in the 18- to 30-year age group dropping 20 percent.

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Kevin McCullough - Why President Optimal Isn't

Optimal is an odd word.

Those of us who use words for a living, like to play with their nuance, their sound, even play them in our heads long before we put them on paper or speak them.

At least most of us do.

Those who edit my written words have gotten hugely frustrated with me. My syntax, grammar, and even meaning have sometime--in their opinions--been left askew because I wanted to insist on using a certain word, or using it in a certain context, or order of words.

Yet through the writing of three best-selling books, more than a 1000 op-ed columns, and more broadcast show prep than I care to think about, I bet I have used the word optimal less than a dozen times. The reason being that it's just an odd word.

It's not a word that people use often. It's not as flashy as say the word fantastic. It's not as elite as the word excellent. In fact it's kind of a hard word to say, starting with that awkward "ah" sound. A sound that left by itself much mirrors a gag reflex.

Such a reflex was largely invoked on Thursday when within seconds of appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, first the transcript, and then the video itself began pouring out across the internet with President Obama stating that losing four public servants in Libya was not "optimal."

You see optimal is supposedly a declarative assertion of what is best. Yet just saying the word doesn't seem to lend one's thoughts to such an idea. In fact when I think of the word it always strikes me as better than average but not necessarily the very peak of perfection. It's a funny word. Kind of a shadow of what it's own meaning is supposed to imply. Like a bumper that's mostly chrome, except for the rust just on one end.

So using it to describe the brutal assault that killed a beloved ambassador, a retired Air Force officer, and two of our nation's very best--Navy Seals, seems to be a bit of an insult, even if none was intended.

I mean, I think I know what the President meant to say. I think he wanted to say that the taking of our personnel was "awful," "tragic," "a loss and a sting that their families will mourn through for the next year, and beyond that endure sadness on every holiday." Doesn't that sound a whole lot more like what a President should have said?

Maybe it's because law professors tend to be such... eh... law professors, that somewhere along the line the part of them that feels human emotion just completely unplugs from their brain. You know the type. They will sit and argue any issue from every possible perspective, all the while, not really telling you which one they think is right. Because making a moral judgement in court cases may not always be "optimal."

Then again perhaps the idea of current affairs being far from "optimal" is weighing on President Obama more than in the past. More people being out of work than when he took office sure isn't optimal. 500,000 more women being out of work than when he took office isn't optimal. 3,500,000 women now being homeless, some with their children is increasingly "less optimal."

What seems astoundingly crummy in President Obama's case though is that he brought a lot of the less-than-optimal to the table in terms of Libya.

Does anyone remember that he decided to invade that little country, but to do so by "leading from behind?" Any former generals or admirals want to weigh in on just how optimal it is for U.S. forces to be following the direction of other nation's military leaders?

Of course once we invaded not everyone was pleased so we had to send more special forces into Libya to protect the diplomats who were working hard to turn that hellish nightmare of a nation into a representative form of self governance. So how optimal was it for President Obama to draw down the military security, marines, and special ops forces we had on the ground, say in the last thirty days before Al Qaeda carried out the attack it had openly advertised it would make happen?

Optimal?

Was it very optimal to not even repair the outer wall of the security perimeter when Al Qaeda "practiced" carrying out their attack by blowing a chunk of it open with an IED? Was it optimal to not respond--at all?

Yes Mr. President the killing of four Americans was certainly "less than perfect." (If that's really how you want the tape to be played.) It's just that, well... from my own perspective... it just seems like you don't care anymore.

Yes you love the optimal trappings of being President. Air Force One is a hoot. More golf in four years than your predecessor had in eight--very, very, optimal--for you.

But the running the world thing? Making tough decisions that don't start and end with bowing to George Soros, or by expressing worship to the ACLU, the SEIU, or Planned Parenthood -- these are really tough things. And truly difficult for someone who's never really run things before.

Our nation's economy, our national security, the fiscal cliff, the state of the underemployed family, worker, and woman, the cuts you're attempting to make to our military, the lack of attention you give to anything on the border--except the guns you let flow to drug cartels, and the list goes on--none of these things are optimal.

In fact they're pretty bad.

So like the African American gentleman who questioned you in the second debate, (President Clinton said he thought the man was going to start crying) about why he should vote for you again this go around, many are wondering is the current state of America what you would consider to be optimal?

It is such a funny, uncomfortable, and usually forgettable word, but this week Mr. President you've given it a whole new level of meaning.

And to be candid Mr. President, we're not finding it very optimal.

Kevin McCullough

Kevin McCullough is the nationally syndicated host of "The Kevin McCullough Show" weekdays (7-9am EST) & "Baldwin/McCullough Radio" Saturdays (9-11pm EST) on 289 stations & Sirius/XM . His newest best-selling hardcover from Thomas Nelson Publishers, "No He Can't: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change" is in stores now.

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Jeannie DeAngelis - Obama’s Vanishing Lead with Women Voters

Originally posted at American Thinker

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The Democratic party likes to portray itself as seeing women as equal to men. Yet it’s the Democrats who think they can woo female voters by dangling free contraceptives in front of them like a carrot luring a donkey.

For months America has been hearing how it’s President Barack Obama who has the estrogen vote sewn up. Now, according to a recent USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, America comes to find out that Mitt Romney is currently leading Barry the Birth Control President in the top battleground states, and the women he thought were willing to sell the country down the river for an IUD are driving that lead.

In 2008, a large contribution to Barack Obama’s 13-point margin of victory came from women swept up in the euphoria of a wave of Oprah Winfrey flag-waving hysteria. In 2012 it appears that Winfrey and her tear-soaked eyelashes are sitting this one out, and so are all the women who followed her lead.

According to a recent article in USA TODAY entitled Swing States poll: Women push Romney into lead, Susan Page writes:

“As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney.”

Much to the chagrin of the mainstream media, feminist activist Sandra Fluke, and Obama shills like ingénue Scarlett Johansson and Eva ‘Border Security Expert’ Longoria, “the Republican nominee now ties the president among women who are likely voters, 48%-48% while he leads by 12 points among men.”

According to USA TODAY/Gallup Romney now leads among likely voters in the swing states Obama thought he had in the can a few weeks ago. If this keeps up, it looks like Barack Obama is going to have to give away free weed whackers to the fellas just to stay in the running.

These more recent polls are consistent with a national Pew Poll taken after the first presidential debate that showed Barack Obama’s 18-point lead among women had dissolved; leaving him tied 47%-47% with Romney among likely female voters. In addition, married women, who tend to vote Republican, are more enthusiastic this election cycle than unmarried women, who tend to vote Democratic.

Whatever the reason, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake admitted that since his strong performance in the first debate, “In every poll, we’ve seen a major surge among women in favorability for Romney.” According to Ms. Lake, “Women went into the debate actively disliking Romney… came out thinking he might understand their lives and might be able to get something done for them.” Presidential prospects for Mitt Romney have only continued to improve after the second and third debates.

Why? Because as a rule, the fairer sex is generally more discerning and Mitt Romney just doesn’t display the demeanor of guy who would leave a woman “dying on the floor” as Nancy Pelosi predicted he would if he’s elected – quite the contrary. On the other hand, without those Styrofoam Greek columns, during the first debate in Denver Barack Obama looked too weak and disinterested to aid a woman even if she was “dying on the floor.”

Romney pollster Neil Newhouse also maintains that “The first debate had a significant impact on these voters as they watched it and Governor Romney appeared nothing like the candidate that was essentially a caricature in the advertising by the Obama campaign. It’s these voters who began to realize that the picture being painted of him was not reality.” In the 2012 campaign season, misconceptions about the two candidates are being revealed, especially the hyped-up impression of Barack Obama, who’s turning out to be the world’s emptiest suit.

Suffice it to also say that working women are not impressed by a man who touts signing an equal pay bill while paying his own female staff roughly 18% less than his male staff. Moreover, despite the fact that our “abortion extremist” President is convinced that the way to a girl’s heart is promising free contraceptives and abortion on demand, the truth is that what impresses most women is a confident air of leadership that displays the character traits of strength, stability and security.

Hence, when compared to President Obama’s three debate performances, Mitt Romney’s poised but assertive, polite, take-charge steadiness makes him look like a knight in shining armor to female voters who are clearly paying attention.

In the end, as shocking as it may seem to Barack Obama, it’s the competence and ability to turn the economy around, create jobs, and reestablish national security that mean much more to American women than being outfitted by the White House for a lifetime of sex without consequence.

Jeannie DeAngelis

Jeannie DeAngelis writes almost exclusively for American Thinker and has been published on the conservative website Pajamas Media, as well as hosting a blog. See Jeannie's Blog

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American Crossroads Ads

Conservative SuperPAC American Crossroads will bombard battleground state airwaves over the final two weeks of the campaign, releasing a string of new ads aimed to sway undecided voters. The first spot stars iconic movie star and director Clint Eastwood, who's already made an indelible mark on the 2012 campaign:

American Crossroads: "At Stake"

American Crossroads: "Bow"

American Crossroads: "Survive"

Crossroads GPS: "Mitt and David"

Barack Obama - "You Didn't Build That"

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Trevor Loudon - An Urgent Message for America

This is my message to America. In it, I attempt to explain the global implications of the upcoming US elections.

This election is the most crucial in modern American history. It is not primarily about jobs and economics, it is about national security and, to be blunt, national survival. America, and indeed the entire Western World, faces destruction if communist sympathizer Barack Obama is returned to office.

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Mitt Romney - The Obama Plan

If Barack Obama is reelected, what will the next four years be like? From the debt rising even higher to Obamacare being here to stay, it's clear that we can't afford four more years.

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Angela McGlowan - Tara Dowdell - What Women Want

At the Hofstra University presidential debate, President Barack Obama showed passion for equal pay for females.

According to a report published by the Free Beacon in April, the 2011 annual report on White House staff revealed that the median annual salary for female Barack Obama's White House employees was 18 percent less than male employees — $60,000 compared to $71,000.

And in 2008, Scripps Howard syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock noted that as in Obama’s U.S. Senate office, women were paid less than men: While the average male staffer brought home $54,397, female staffers averaged $45,152.

Like everything else, Obama requires others to do things, but he exempts himself.

October 10, 2012

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PJTV Trifecta - MSM Shocker - Even CNN's Piers Morgan Supports Mitt Romney

CNN's Piers Morgan thinks that Mitt Romney might have what it takes to save America. Is the liberal mainstream media finally abandoning President Obama? Find out on this Trifecta.

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Matt Barber - The Most Important Election in History

Who says Republicans and Democrats can’t agree? Every four years, politicos and pundits, both left and right, come together in a harmonious hymn of hyperbole: “This is the most important election in history!” they sing.

I think hyperbole is responsible for all of the world’s problems. Still, this time nobody’s exaggerating. What happens on Nov. 6 really is of critical importance. America’s future really does hang in the balance.

We’re in uncharted territories. We’re lost. We stand dazed at cliff’s edge – legs wobbling – with big government winds at our back. Under President Obama, the reasons for this election’s unparalleled significance are piling up like pink slips in the private sector, like credit rating downgrades, like zeros on the national debt.

Yet, as I see it, there are nine black-robed reasons in particular that reign supreme.

And those reasons never get a pink slip.

In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote: “The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. … [T]he judiciary is, beyond comparison, the weakest of the three departments of power … [and] the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter.”

I know. Settle down.

Alas, Alexander Hamilton was obviously no better with a crystal ball than he was with a dueling pistol. For better or for worse (hint: for worse), today’s judiciary – through the constitutionally erosive drip-drop of judicial attrition and congressional submission – has, instead, become the most powerful branch of government.

Today, rather than the properly balanced, decentralized constitutional republic our founders envisaged, we live, to a large degree, under a very much centralized judiciocracy. (That is, when President Obama’s not circumventing the Constitution via executive fiat.)

William Howard Taft, who served as both our 27th president and our 10th Supreme Court chief justice, had unique insight into the dichotomy between the framers’ intent, and today’s reality. He summed it up well: “Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.”

Indeed, due to the creeping misalignment of separation of powers, the function of appointing Supreme Court justices is almost certainly the most significant thing any president can do. Though it defies the High Court’s original construct, these nine unelected, well-meaning, yet very human, individuals profoundly steer law, public policy and our larger culture in perpetuity.

So much for the balance of powers.

Therein lies the problem. Conservative columnist Andrew McCarthy noted in March that four of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices are in their late 70s and early 80s.

“We wish them all well,” he wrote, “but the brute fact is that whoever we elect as president in November is almost certainly going to choose at least one and maybe more new members of the Supreme Court – in addition to hundreds of other life-tenured federal judges, all of whom will be making momentous decisions about our lives for decades to come.

“If you don’t think it matters whether the guy making those calls is Mitt Romney or Barack Obama,” concluded McCarthy, “I think you’re smokin’ something funky.”

Speaking of “smokin’ something funky,” during Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, Joe Biden touched on the Supreme Court. He agreed with McCarthy: “The next president will get one or two Supreme Court nominees. … For Mr. Romney, who do you think he’s likely to appoint? Do you think he’s likely to appoint someone like Scalia … ? We picked two people. We pick people who are open-minded.”

And, of course, by “open-minded,” Biden means “not bound by those pesky constitutional limitations intended to avert government tyranny.” He means liberal “living constitutionalists.”

To be sure, the next president may well appoint one, two, three or even four new justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. As voters, this should be our most critical point of focus: ensuring an originalist, strict constructionist majority. If Mr. Obama is re-elected and appoints just one more Ruth Bader Ginsburg, forget it. America, as our founders envisioned her, is gone.

This is why, after the primary, I went from an outspoken Romney critic, to a cautiously optimistic Romney supporter. He has pledged: “I will appoint conservative, strict constructionists to the judiciary.”

Still not sold?

President Obama has already shown who he’ll appoint. In Justices Elena Kagan and Sonja Sotomayor – nice though they may be – he has stacked the Court with two radical counter-constitutionalists who share his belief that the Constitution “is not a static, but living document and must be read in the context of an ever changing world.”

Naturally, if the Constitution is “ever changing,” the Constitution is meaningless.

But it gets worse. Obama has also called this – the very founding document upon which our laws, public policy, indeed our very freedoms rest – an “imperfect document,” a “living document … that reflects some deep flaws in American culture.”

Yikes.

Moreover, during the 2008 campaign, Obama lamented that the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, failed to “break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.”

Let that sink in a moment. In his own words, this man – a man solemnly sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution – has betrayed utter disdain for it. He has, in essence, admitted that he views our most sacred founding document as a “constraint” against his thinly veiled efforts to “fundamentally transform” America into Greece.

Thank God our Founding Fathers predicted that men like Barack Obama would come and go. And thank God they had the wisdom to plan accordingly.

Patrick Henry once said, “[L]iberty ought to be the direct end of your government.” Today, we have it exactly backward. Four more years of Barack Obama, and government will be the direct end of your liberty.

Still thinking of sitting this one out?

Matt Barber

Matt Barber served as Policy Director for Cultural Issues with Concerned Women for America before joining Liberty University School of Law in 2008. In addition to his Juris Doctorate degree, Dean Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from Regent University and a Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management from Colorado Christian University.

Matt Barber is a published freelance writer, many newspapers and online publications run his columns, including the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Insight magazine, WorldNetDaily.com, TownHall.com and many others.

Matt Barber was a law enforcement officer for three years and a corporate fraud investigator for five years.

Matt Barber served twelve years in the Army National Guard, and was an undefeated professional boxer, retiring in 2004. Several times prior to turning pro, he was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion, competing in the 1992 Western Olympic Trials and winning a Gold Medal in the 1993 Police and Fire World Games.

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John Sununu Slams CNN's Candy Crowley and Obama Post Debate

After the debate, debate moderator Candy Crowley said Republican nominee Mitt Romney was “right in the main” but “picked the wrong word” on the Obama administration’s immediate response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

Crowley interrupted Romney during the debate, insisting that President Obama had in fact called the attack an “act of terror.”

ROMNEY: I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

OBAMA: Get the transcript.

CROWLEY: It — it — it — he did in fact, sir. So let me — let me call it an act of terror…

OBAMA: Can you say that a little louder, Candy?

CROWLEY: He — he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take — it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.

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