U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers has a lead over challenger Clay Aiken in the race to hold on to her seat in House District2, according to a recent poll.

The flash poll of 400 registered voters conducted by the conservative-leaning Civitas Institute over the weekend shows Ellmers leading with 47 percent to 39 percent, with a five-point margin of error.

“It’s a comfortable lead,” said Patrick Sebastian, a senior adviser with the Ellmers campaign. He said the 54 percent disapproval rating of President Obama bodes well for Ellmers with undecided voters.

“Renee is not taking this race for granted and is working around the clock to earn the chance to represent the 2nd District in Washington,” he said.

Tucker Middleton, communications director for the Aiken campaign, said the poll shows Ellmers is in trouble.

“When a conservative group like Civitas has you up by eight points,” she said, the margin is likely lower.

“She’s under 50 percent, which never bodes well for an incumbent,” Middleton said. “There’s room for it to narrow.”

The poll is a rare public look into voter sentiment regarding the 2nd District race, which encompasses about 480,000 registered voters including many in Cumberland County.

Despite Ellmers’ lead among those surveyed, the poll showed the candidates with the same favorability rating – at 25 percent. But more voters judged them unfavorably, with Ellmers at 28 percent and Aiken at 35 percent.

Jim Tynen, communications director for the Civitas Institute, said the Ellmers-Aiken contest “is the most high-profile congressional race in the state right now” and fits well into a series of legislative flash polls the institute will be releasing this fall.

North Carolina pollsters and political analysts told The Fayetteville Observer last week that many polling organizations have steered clear of polling on the race because they don’t expect it to be terribly close.

These organizations have for the most part devoted resources to the neck-and-neck U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan and Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis. Civitas’ flash poll also showed 2nd District voters at a tie in their support of these two candidates, at 44 percent each.

“Every poll is just a snapshot of voter sentiment,” Tynen said.

He noted that sentiment can change and that other polls may show different snapshots.

“We think for practical reasons, this is about the best kind of look you’re going to get right now.”

By Paige Rentz

Wake up, America!

While everyone is up in arms about Ebola, and we must remain vigilant and fight it with all we have, there is another virus that has already taken hold of Americans in every state: liberalism.

Truth, transparency, freedom and liberty.  The flag, “Under God” patriotism have all been tossed out the window.

They are  being replaced by “everybody gets a trophy,” “share the wealth,” “government knows what’s best for your business,” your family and even what should go on in your bedroom.

What the hell is happening?

Be careful, America. Liberalism is a dangerous virus. Here are four signs you might have caught the liberalism virus:

1. If you think it’s OK to call ISIS “the J.V. team” — until Americans are seen being beheaded on video..

2. If you think it’s OK that President Obama promised Ebola wouldn’t arrive here on an airplane from a country where the virus has been virulent. And then it did.

3. If you think it’s OK that representatives from the Obama White House continue to tell you that our economy is great. Milk prices are at a record high. Gasoline prices have almost doubled. Yet American’s wages, household worth and the percentage of Americans working, those numbers are all still in the Dumpster.

But wait, there’s more…

4. You might have liberalism if you think it’s OK to  pay members of our armed services just 94 cents an hour as combat pay… if…  they fight ISIS in Iraq or Syria.. Let me repeat: Just 94 cents an hour to fight ISIS.

Meanwhile, our country’s government spends hundreds of billions of dollars on things like:
– Obamaphones — that is, the $2 billion program to give low income households free cell phones.

– Windmills to nowhere and the administration’s $100 billion green energy push.

Yet, we send our sons and daughters into combat and we bump their pay up to a measly  94 cents per hour!

So, my fellow Americans, the next time you’re at Starbucks and you buy that Venti Skim Latte, just think, a Marine couldn’t even buy that coffee with the combat pay she earned fighting ISIS for eight hours (do the math: 94 cents x 8 hours = $7.52. After taxes where does that leave you?).

What the hell is happening?

Wake up,  America. Liberalism is a virus, too.

Try not to catch it. And if you do, for goodness sake, don’t spread it!!

Eric Bolling currently serves as co-host of Fox News Channel’s “The Five” (weekdays 5-6PM/ET). He also serves as the host of “Cashin’ In” (Saturdays 11:30AM-12PM/ET), an analysis program on FNC’s weekend business block, “The Cost of Freedom.” Bolling joined the network in 2008. Click here for more information on Eric Bolling. 

A health care worker at a Dallas hospital tested positive for Ebola in a preliminary test, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a statement early Sunday.

The health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, who has not been identified, provided care for Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, who died last week.

If the preliminary diagnosis is confirmed, it would be the first known case of the disease being contracted or transmitted in the U.S.

A statement posted on the Texas Department of State Health Service’s website said “confirmatory testing will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.”

“The health care worker is a heroic person who provided care to Mr. Duncan,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said at a press conference Sunday morning. “We expected it was possible that a second person could contract the virus. Contingency plans were put into place.”

Jenkins said he wanted to stress Ebola cannot be contracted unless one comes into contact with the bodily fluids of an Ebola victim.

“You cannot contract it by walking by people on the streets,” he said. “There is nothing about this case that changes that basic premise of science.”

Dr. Daniel Varga, of the Texas Health Resource, said the worker was in full protective gear when they provided care to Duncan during his second visit to the hospital.

Varga said the family of the worker has “requested total privacy.”

Varga said the health care worker reported a fever Friday night as part of a self-monitoring regimen required by the CDC.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the Dallas Fire Department’s rescue hazmat team has decontaminated any open areas of the health care worker’s apartment complex.

“Police are standing by to make sure no one enters that apartment complex,” he said.

Rawlings said officials have knocked on every door within a block of the apartment and have spoken with every person that came to the door. Reverse 911 calls have been made to residents within four blocks of the apartment complex and printed materials have been left at each door, he said.

A team has decontaminated and secured the vehicle the health care worker drove to the hospital. Rawlings said hazmat units will go into the worker’s apartment and clean up the interior Sunday.

“We had this plan in place last week, so when we got this phone call, which we thought we might get, we put an action team in place,” Rawlings said.

“We knew a second case could be a reality, and we’ve been preparing for this possibility,” said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. “We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread.”

Health officials have interviewed the patient and are identifying any contacts or potential exposures. They said people who had contact with the health care worker after symptoms emerged will be monitored based on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus.

Ebola spreads through close contact with a symptomatic person’s bodily fluids, such as blood, sweat, vomit, feces, urine, saliva or semen. Those fluids must have an entry point, like a cut or scrape, or someone touching the nose, mouth or eyes with contaminated hands, or being splashed. The World Health Organization says blood, feces and vomit are the most infectious fluids, while the virus is found in saliva mostly once patients are severely ill. The whole live virus has never been culled from sweat, WHO says.

Duncan, the first person diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., died Wednesday in Dallas. Duncan, 42, grew up next to a leper colony in Liberia and fled years of war before later returning to his country to find it ravaged by the disease that ultimately took his life.

Duncan arrived in Dallas in late September, realizing a long-held ambition to join relatives. He came to attend the high-school graduation of his son, who was born in a refugee camp in Ivory Coast and was brought to the U.S. as a toddler when the boy’s mother successfully applied for resettlement.

The trip was the culmination of decades of effort, friends and family members said. But when Duncan arrived in Dallas, though he showed no symptoms, he had already been exposed to Ebola. His neighbors in Liberia believe Duncan become infected when he helped a pregnant neighbor who later died from it. It was unclear if he knew about her diagnosis before traveling.

Duncan had arrived at a friend’s Dallas apartment on Sept. 20 — less than a week after helping his sick neighbor. For the nine days before he was taken to a hospital in an ambulance, Duncan shared the apartment with several people.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON –  Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Wednesday allowed same-sex marriage to begin in Nevada, clarifying that an earlier order temporarily blocking gay unions applies only to Idaho.

Kennedy said in a brief order that he was lifting the hold he imposed five hours earlier Wednesday on same-sex weddings in Nevada. He said his order would continue to block gay marriage in Idaho, where state officials have asked for the delay. Nevada officials did not make a similar request.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco declared gay marriage legal in Idaho and Nevada on Tuesday. A day earlier, the Supreme Court let similar rulings from three other appeals courts become final and effectively raised to 30 the number of states where same-sex couples can marry, or soon will be able to do so.

In response to the 9th Circuit decision, Idaho officials filed an emergency request with the court about 90 minutes before they said that state and county officials would otherwise have been required to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Kennedy’s initial order was issued around 9:50 a.m. EDT, 10 minutes before the deadline cited by Idaho officials. The order initially included Nevada, where officials had been planning to start issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples later Wednesday.

The delay in Idaho could last just a few days. Kennedy’s order requested a response from the plaintiffs involved in Idaho’s gay marriage lawsuit by the end of day Thursday.

The full court almost certainly would weigh in to extend the delay much beyond the weekend. That has been the justices’ practice in other cases in which a single justice initially blocked a ruling from taking effect.

Having just allowed other appellate rulings to take effect without a full review by the Supreme Court, it would be surprising if the justices were to put the 9th circuit ruling on hold for any length of time.

The high court’s action Monday suggested that only an appellate ruling upholding a gay marriage ban would prompt the court to step in.

Philanthropy.com has just released the relative charitable giving of all 50 states (and DC) based on a percentage of adjusted gross income.

The 17 most charitable states in order: UT, MS, AL, TN, GA, SC, ID, OK, AR, NC, KS, TX, SD, KY, LA, NE & IN.

The 24 least charitable states in order starting with the stingiest: NH, ME, VT, NJ, RI, MA, CT, ND, WI, HI, PA, CA, MN, AK, DE, NV, IL, WV, WA, OH, CO, VA, OR & NY.

What have libs (backed by the media) told you your entire life? That they’re the ones who are giving and compassionate while conservatives are cold-hearted, selfish and care only about money. So let’s see: The 17 most charitable states ALL voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. While on the other end 21 OUT OF THE 24 least charitable states voted for Barack Obama. (below)

Libs always insist that they are more caring and generous yet as this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt … ONLY WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY!

By Paula Priesse

Former congressman, Lt. Col. Allen West proclaimed on Wednesday that there is only one true explanation that Obama is “purposely enabling the Islamist cause.”

West, a favorite among many in the pro-freedom, pro-Constitution Tea Party movement, listed six instances where the Obama regime has been “working counter to the security of the United States of America”:

1. The unilateral release of five senior Taliban back to the enemy while the enemy is still fighting us.

2. Providing weapons of support to the Muslim Brotherhood-led Egyptian government — F-16s and M1A1 Abrams tanks — but not to the Egyptian government after the Islamist group has been removed.

3. Negotiations with Qatar and Turkey, two Islamist-supporting countries.

4. Negotiations with Hamas, a terrorist group.

5. Returning sanction money, to the tune of billions of dollars, back to the theocratic regime led by Iran’s ayatollahs and allowing them to march on towards nuclear capability.

6. Obama’s evident support of Islamists in Libya.

Along with the above, West cited the recent report that Obama has lifted longtime restrictions against Libyans attending flight schools and receiving nuclear science training in the U.S, only two years after the terrorism that took place in Benghazi, Libya.

There is only one logical reason for the Democrat president to make these anti-American decisions, West concluded Wednesday on his website, that there is no other reason why Obama would prop-up America’s enemies:

Sorry, but I can only explain this one way: Barack Hussein Obama is an Islamist in his foreign policy perspectives and supports their cause. You can go back and listen to his 2009 speech in Cairo, where Muslim Brotherhood associates were seated front and center.

All the circumstantial and anecdotal evidence points to that conclusion. The pivot away from the Middle East seems to be nothing more than an opportunity to enable Islamists and their goals. Anyone supporting this Libyan ban being lifted is indeed an enemy of this state.

In June, the former congressman from Florida called for Obama’s impeachment, following Obama’s negotiation with terrorists, releasing military deserter Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for the U.S. release of five notorious Muslim terrorists from GITMO.

Barack Obama’s longtime pastor for over two decades, Jeremiah Wright, told author Ed Klein two years ago that “Barack Obama was steeped in Islam” and that he “knew very little about Christianity.”

“When I asked the Reverend Wright about this whole question of Islam and Christianity. He said, well, you know, Barack Obama was steeped in Islam. He knew a lot about Islam from his childhood. But he knew very little about Christianity. And I made it easy for him to feel not guilty about learning about Christianity without turning his back on his Islamic friends.”

By Matthew Burke

President Obama acknowledged Sunday that U.S. intelligence officials “underestimated” the threat posed by the Islamic State and overestimated the Iraqi army’s capacity to defeat the militant group.

The president said in an wide-ranging interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” that the Islamic State militants went “underground” after being squashed in Iraq and regrouped amid the Syrian civil war.

“During the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos,” Obama said.

The president said his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has acknowledged that the U.S. “underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.” He also said it was “absolutely true” that the U.S. overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi army.

Obama also acknowledged that the U.S. is dealing with a conundrum in Syria, as the U.S.-led military campaign against the Islamic State is helping Syrian President Bashar Assad, who the U.N. has accused of war crimes.

“I recognize the contradiction in a contradictory land and a contradictory circumstance,” Obama said.”We are not going to stabilize Syria under the rule of Assad.”

However, Obama called the threat from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and other terror groups a more “immediate concern that has to be dealt with.”

“On the other hand, in terms of immediate threats to the United States, ISIL, Khorasan Group — those folks could kill Americans,” he said.

In terms of Iraq, Obama said the U.S. left the country after the war with “a democracy that was intact, a military that was well-equipped and the ability then (for Iraqis) to chart their own course.”

However, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki “squandered” that opportunity over roughly five years because he was “much more interested in consolidating his Shia base and very suspicious of the Sunnis and the Kurds, who make up the other two thirds of the country,” the president said.

Obama said military force is necessary to shrink the Islamic State’s capacity, cut off financing and eliminate the flow of foreign fighters. He said political solutions are also needed that accommodate both Sunnis and Shiites, adding that conflicts between the two sects are the biggest cause of conflict throughout the world.

However, Obama made clear he has no interest in a major U.S. ground presence beyond the 1,600 American advisers and special operations troops he already has ordered to Iraq. When asked if the current conflict was not really a war, Obama said there are clear distinctions between this campaign and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We are assisting Iraq in a very real battle that’s taking place on their soil, with their troops,” the president said. “This is not America against ISIL. This is America leading the international community to assist a country with whom we have a security partnership.”

Obama also discussed the midterm elections, U.S. relations with Russia and reviewed his six years as president.

Obama described his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as “blunt,” saying Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is threatening progress made since the Cold War.

“I’ve always had a business-like relationship with (Putin)– and it’s blunt and it’s firm,” Obama said. “And what I’ve said from the outset is that Russian aggression, violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a smaller or weaker country, violates international norms and is contrary to all the progress that’s been made in creating a peaceful and prosperous Europe after World War II and then after the Cold War period.”

Obama also said he believes Democrats can maintain control of the Senate in November.

“I can put my record against any leader around the world in terms of digging ourselves out of a terrible, un– almost unprecedented financial crisis,” Obama said. “Ronald Reagan used to ask– the question, ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’ In this case, are you better off than you were in six? And the answer is, the country is definitely better off than we were when I came into office…”

FoxNew.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will announce today that he plans to resign his post in the Obama Administration.

Holder, a controversial player on the stage of Obama’s Administration since 2009, has weathered numerous White House scandals, and provided cover for an Administration that has selectively enforced federal law to benefit the Democratic party and its liberal agenda. Holder has been a central figure in the Administration’s attempts to encourage illegal immigration, voter fraud, and IRS and DOJ targeting of conservatives, and those it deems obstructive to its political agenda.

Holder says he will remain in his position until a successor can be found.

PUBLIUS

Previously unpublished correspondence between Hillary Clinton and the late left-wing organizer Saul Alinsky reveals new details about her relationship with the controversial Chicago activist and shed light on her early ideological development.

Clinton met with Alinsky several times in 1968 while writing a Wellesley college thesis about his theory of community organizing.

Clinton’s relationship with Alinsky, and her support for his philosophy, continued for several years after she entered Yale law school in 1969, two letters obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The letters obtained by the Free Beacon are part of the archives for the Industrial Areas Foundation, a training center for community organizers founded by Alinsky, which are housed at the University of Texas at Austin.

The letters also suggest that Alinsky, who died in 1972, had a deeper influence on Clinton’s early political views than previously known.

A 23-year-old Hillary Clinton was living in Berkeley, California, in the summer of 1971. She was interning at the left-wing law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, known for its radical politics and a client roster that included Black Panthers and other militants.

On July 8, 1971, Clinton reached out to Alinsky, then 62, in a letter sent via airmail, paid for with stamps featuring Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and marked “Personal.”

“Dear Saul,” she began. “When is that new book [Rules for Radicals] coming out–or has it come and I somehow missed the fulfillment of Revelation?”

“I have just had my one-thousandth conversation about Reveille [for Radicals] and need some new material to throw at people,” she added, a reference to Alinsky’s 1946 book on his theories of community organizing.

Clinton devoted just one paragraph in her memoir Living History to Alinsky, writing that she rejected a job offer from him in 1969 in favor of going to law school. She wrote that she wanted to follow a more conventional path.

However, in the 1971 letter, Clinton assured Alinsky that she had “survived law school, slightly bruised, with my belief in and zest for organizing intact.”

“The more I’ve seen of places like Yale Law School and the people who haunt them, the more convinced I am that we have the serious business and joy of much work ahead–if the commitment to a free and open society is ever going to mean more than eloquence and frustration,” wrote Clinton.

According to the letter, Clinton and Alinsky had kept in touch since she entered Yale. The 62-year-old radical had reached out to give her advice on campus activism.

“If I never thanked you for the encouraging words of last spring in the midst of the Yale-Cambodia madness, I do so now,” wrote Clinton, who had moderated a campus election to join an anti-war student strike.

She added that she missed their regular conversations, and asked if Alinsky would be able to meet her the next time he was in California.

“I am living in Berkeley and working in Oakland for the summer and would love to see you,” Clinton wrote. “Let me know if there is any chance of our getting together.”

Clinton’s letter reached Alinsky’s office while he was on an extended trip to Southeast Asia, where he was helping train community organizers in the Philippines.

But a response letter from Alinsky’s secretary suggests that the radical organizer had a deep fondness for Clinton as well.

“Since I know [Alinsky’s] feelings about you I took the liberty of opening your letter because I didn’t want something urgent to wait for two weeks,” Alinsky’s long-time secretary, Georgia Harper, wrote to Clinton in a July 13, 1971 letter. “And I’m glad I did.”

Harper told Clinton that Alinksy’s book Rules for Radicals had been released. She enclosed several reviews of the book.

“Mr. Alinsky will be in San Francisco, staying at the Hilton Inn at the airport on Monday and Tuesday, July 26 and 27,” Harper added. “I know he would like to have you call him so that if there is a chance in his schedule maybe you can get together.”

It is unclear whether the meeting occurred.

A self-proclaimed radical, Alinsky advocated guerilla tactics and civil disobedience to correct what he saw as an institutionalized power gap in poor communities. His philosophy divided the world into “haves”–middle class and wealthy people –and “have nots”–the poor. He took an ends-justify-the-means approach to power and wealth redistribution, and developed the theoretical basis of “community organizing.”

“The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power,” wrote Alinsky in his 1971 book. “Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

Clinton’s connection to Alinsky has been the subject of speculation for decades. It became controversial when Wellsley College, by request of the Clinton White House, sealed her 1968 thesis from the public for years. Conservative lawyer Barbara Olson said Clinton had asked for the thesis to be sealed because it showed “the extent to which she internalized and assimilated the beliefs and methods of Saul Alinsky.” Clinton opponent turned Clinton defender David Brock referred to her as “Alinsky’s daughter” in 1996’s The Seduction of Hillary Rodham.

The paper was opened to the public in 2001. While the thesis is largely sympathetic to Alinsky, it is also critical of some of his tactics.

Clinton described the organizer as “a man of exceptional charm,” but also objected to some of the conflicts he provoked as “unrealistic,” noting that his model could be difficult for others to replicate.

“Many of the Alinsky-inspired poverty warriors could not (discounting political reasons) move beyond the cathartic first step of organizing groups ‘to oppose, complain, demonstrate, and boycott’ to developing and running a program,” she wrote.

The letters obtained by the Free Beacon suggest that Clinton experimented more with radical politics during her law school years than she has publicly acknowledged.

In Living History, she describes her views during that time as far more pragmatic than leftwing.

She “agreed with some of Alinsky’s ideas,” Clinton wrote in her first memoir, but the two had a “fundamental disagreement” over his anti-establishment tactics.

She described how this disagreement led to her parting ways with Alinsky in the summer before law school in 1969.

“He offered me the chance to work with him when I graduated from college, and he was disappointed that I decided instead to go to law school,” she wrote.

“Alinsky said I would be wasting my time, but my decision was an expression of my belief that the system could be changed from within.”

A request for comment from the Clinton team was not returned.

Originally posted at the Washington Free Beacon.

The letters between Clinton and Alinsky can be read here:

The Hillary Letters

Barack Hussein Obama is indeed president of the U.S. due only to the principle of Affirmative Action.

Obama is a man who possessed no qualification to be the president of the United States of America, or the leader of the free world. His only qualifications listed on his public resume were 1) Foreign Exchange Student?, 2) Law School “Professor”, 3) Community Organizer, 4) State Senator, and 5) freshman U.S. Senator. Each of these “qualifications” is the direct result of special treatment afforded “an articulate young black” man with political ambitions and connections to unsavory anti-American, leftist, underworld characters.

What do we mean by Foreign Exchange Student? In fact, Obama was unknown to his fellow Columbia classmates, and no one recalls seeing him in any classes he says he took at the university. A 2008 Wall Street Journal article cited a survey of 400 people who were Columbia students from 1981 to 1983 and found no one who remembered him. The only people who knew him as a child have said that he presented himself as a foreign exchange student.

On his book publicity bio (right –>) he says of himself: “. . . was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.” Our point here is not to suggest that Obama was actually born in Kenya, because the “birthers” have yet to prove their pet theory, it is to prove that Obama himself garnered special attention and favors as he was growing up through false claims like being “born in Kenya.”

Regarding Mr. Obama’s tenure as a Law School Professor, the man was never a professor, but merely collected a paycheck for having an office at the University of Chicago Law School. He lectured infrequently, in any capacity, and was rarely seen by anyone at the school.

Community Organizer is one of those catch-all terms, meaning that Obama was active in leftist political causes. By his own admissions in his multiple autobiographies, from his early youth Obama was influenced by friends of his parents and grandparents who were blatant communists and socialists. He was a drug user and dealer, and frequently attended anti-American rallies and strategy sessions throughout his formative years.

Obama was elected an Illinois State Senator in 1996, suddenly unopposed in the election, and took office in 1997, where he remained until 2004 when he ran for the U.S. Senate seat. As a state senator he was often a no-show, and learned to vote “present” instead of yea or nay, to avoid creating a track record.

As a U.S. Senator Obama voted as a straight leftist, but 143 days into his term launched his bid for the presidency, and stopped voting on most issues thereafter.

Obama’s resume is the lightest of any U.S. president, and lighter than most U.S. Senators, or even most House members. What qualified him to be the president of the United States? He was “given” opportunities by those who thought that it was time for a black American to get a chance in the White House, just as he was given opportunities for education at expensive universities based on a false narrative.

Contrast Obama with a true American patriot and qualified African American presidential candidate like Dr. Ben Carson, as one of several examples, who worked hard and overcame obstacles on his own, without affirmative action policies to give him an automatic pass to the front of every line, and you see two completely different men. Dr. Carson is a man of character, and has worked tirelessly to help others and to pioneer neurosurgery techniques, especially for children. That course leads to an understanding of economics, human nature and international relations that a drug dealing, anti-American dolt like Barack Hussein Obama will never fathom.

PUBLIUS

“Sometimes, you have to admit you’re wrong,” The Billings Gazette  said about its 2008 endorsement of Barack Obama. “And, we were wrong. We said that things couldn’t get much worse after the sub par presidency of George W. Bush,” the paper wrote in an apologetic editorial on Friday.

The Montana and Wyoming newspaper says that after endorsing the Democrat president in 2008, it now “has us yearning for the good ol’ days when we were at least winning battles in Iraq.”

The paper begins by stating that Obama has earned “every bit” of his “abysmal” approval ratings, referring to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal polls that “show that Americans are giving Obama lower marks than in 2006 when Iraq was going poorly for Bush and a tepid response to Hurricane Katrina sunk Bush’s ratings.”

“Obama’s hope and change have left liberals and conservatives alike hoping for real change, not just more lofty rhetoric.”

The lengthy op-ed goes on to provide a detailed laundry list of Obama regime failures that have led to its change of heart, including its NSA spying, its attacks against American energy, the “civil war” in Iraq, the Bergdahl exchange that released five top terrorists, and the VA scandal. Mysteriously, the piece fails to mention the IRS scandal, in which Americans were targeted for their political beliefs, and the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, in which four Americans were left to die while the Obama and Clinton machines lied repeatedly about what caused the attacks.

Contrary to its promise to be the most transparent administration in history, the paper claims that the opposite has turned out to be true, stating the regime “has actually cracked down on journalists, spied on citizens and retaliated against those who leak information to the press.” The Obama administration has earned a reputation must worse than the “disgraced” president, Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face likely impeachment.

“In fact, the Obama administration has become so opaque and difficult that it has earned the reputation of being far worse than Nixon, the disgraced president whose terrible clampdown of information led to federal law being changed for more transparency.”

After blasting Obamacare as being synonymous with the word “boondoggle,” The Gazette says that when combined with the multiple other massive self-imposed problems, its “a disturbing trend of incompetence and failure.”

By TPNN Staff

The White House and Pentagon acknowledged Friday that the U.S. “is at war” with the Islamic State — contradicting Secretary of State John Kerry and others who a day earlier refused to use that term, prompting criticism from lawmakers that the administration was downplaying the conflict.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest and Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby used almost identical language when pressed by reporters Friday whether or not the expanded military operation against the terrorist group is in fact a war.

“In the same way that the United States is at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates … the United States is at war with ISIL,” Earnest said.

Kirby said “this is not the Iraq War” from a decade ago, “but make no mistake — we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war and continue to be at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates.”

The comments are a sharp turnaround from how Kerry described the military operation on Thursday. In interviews with CNN and CBS News, Kerry described it as a “very significant” and “major counterterrorism operation.” He told CBS News that “war is the wrong terminology.”

His spokeswoman, Marie Harf, also said she would not “refer to our efforts” as part of the “war on terrorism.”

Kerry’s comments, though, stirred confusion on Capitol Hill, coming a day after President Obama announced plans to expand airstrikes in Iraq and authorize them in Syria, while dispatching hundreds more U.S. military personnel.

Obama called for a coalition of nations to ultimately “destroy” the growing terror network. Meanwhile, the CIA confirmed that its latest estimates show the Islamic State has as many as 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria. That’s close to the estimated size of the Taliban force in 2001.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other lawmakers suggested Kerry’s comments did not square with Obama’s stated goal of defeating the vast terror network.

“It’s hard to find a response to that,” McCain told Fox News on Thursday night, when asked about Kerry’s comments. “Then what was the president talking about [Wednesday] night?”

Kerry wasn’t the only one having a hard time describing the mission on Thursday. National Security Adviser Susan Rice likewise told CNN on Thursday she wasn’t sure whether it should be called a war or a “sustained counterterrorism campaign.”

Senior State Department officials stressed to Fox News on Friday that Kerry’s comments were consistent with what other senior U.S. officials were saying at the time, and made clear that the secretary remains on the same page as the rest of the administration.

“This was a deliberate, administration-wide adjustment in language,” a senior State Department official told Fox News, “which Secretary Kerry would have also used today had he been asked.”

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said earlier Friday that the semantics over what to call the operation “weakens the mission.”

“Words matter,” McCaul said. He claimed the administration was being careful with its language because the terror group defies Obama’s “campaign narrative” about ending the war on terrorism and putting Al Qaeda on the run.

“ISIL clearly hasn’t gotten the memo that I think John Kerry did,” McCaul said.

But in the Pentagon and White House briefings Friday afternoon, it appeared the administration was backing off the earlier characterization.

Earnest clarified that the operation is not a case of the United States acting alone against the Islamic State, since the Islamic State, he said, is waging a war against the international community.

But he repeated that the U.S. is “at war” with ISIS as it is at war with Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Fox News’ James Rosen contributed to this report. 

A prophetic warning from then-President George W. Bush before he left office about what would happen if the U.S. withdrew troops from Iraq too soon is getting new attention in light of the Islamic State’s gains, as each of his predictions appears to be coming true.

Bush, as discussed on “The Kelly File,” made the remarks in the White House briefing room on July 12, 2007, as he argued against those who sought an immediate troop withdrawal.

“To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States,” Bush cautioned.

He then ticked off a string of predictions about what would happen if the U.S. left too early.

“It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to Al Qaeda.

“It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale.

“It would mean we allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan.

“It would mean we’d be increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.”

Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen says all these predictions have come true.

“Every single thing that President Bush said there in that statement is happening today,” he told Fox News.

To Bush’s first warning, the Islamic State terror group is effectively the successor to Al Qaeda in Iraq – and they’ve overrun several major cities in Iraq’s north while claiming broad swaths of territory in Syria. Further, the group has been behind mass killings of Iraqi civilians as well as the recent execution by beheading of two American journalists.

The Obama administration has warned that the group’s violence threatens to approach genocide levels.

Though President Obama says combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, American troops are nevertheless returning in some capacity. The president on Wednesday announced an expanded airstrike campaign against the group in Iraq and Syria, and is sending hundreds more U.S. military personnel into Iraq.

Some lawmakers and analysts say this could have been avoided if the Obama administration had left a residual force in Iraq, or at least had responded sooner to ISIS’ gains in northern Iraq over the past year.

Bush, before he left office, signed an agreement setting the stage for U.S. troops to withdraw by December 2011.

Obama, though, was urged by military advisers to keep thousands of service members after that deadline to help the shaky Iraqi government. But when Washington and Baghdad were unable to reach a renewed agreement governing the presence of U.S. forces in the country, the Obama administration withdrew virtually all troops at the end of 2011.

“We needed to leave a stabilizing force behind, and we didn’t.  And of course, we know the rest is history,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told Fox News.

1. If you can get arrested for hunting or fishing without a license, but not for being in the country illegally, you live in a country run by idiots.

2. If you have to get your parents’ permission to go on a field trip or take an aspirin in school, but not to get an abortion, you live in a country run by idiots.

3. If you have to show identification to board an airplane, cash a check, buy liquor or check out a library book, but not to vote on who runs the government, you live in a country run by idiots.

4. If the government wants to ban stable, law-abiding citizens from owning gun magazines with more than ten rounds, but gives 20 F-16 fighter jets to the crazy leaders in Egypt, you live in a country run by idiots.

5. If, in the largest city, you can buy two 16-ounce sodas, but not a 24-ounce soda because 24-ounces of a sugary drink might make you fat, you live in a country run by idiots.

6. If an 80-year-old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a woman in a hijab is only subject to having her neck and head searched, you live in a country run by idiots.

7. If your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more, you live in a country run by idiots.

8. If a seven year old boy can be thrown out of grade school for saying his teacher’s “cute,” but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable, you live in a country run by idiots.

9. If hard work and success are met with higher taxes and more government intrusion, while not working is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid, subsidized housing and free cell phones, you live in a country run by idiots.

10. If the government’s plan for getting people back to work is to incentivize NOT working, with 99 weeks of unemployment checks and no requirement to prove they applied but can’t find work, you live in a country run by idiots.

11. If being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you more “safe” according to the government, you live in a country run by idiots.

Junius P. Long is said to be the original author of this “Food For Thought” essay that runs through a simply yet startling list of situations that prove there are some leadership issues in this country.

Warnings of a massive economic collapse, government stockpiling of weaponry, and the idea that Americans could be broadly classified as terrorists and then detained indefinitely or killed often fell upon deaf ears.

Today, as more information ‘leaks’ into the mainstream, it is no longer just conspiracy theory. We now have some of the most influential journalists and commentators in the country alerting Americans to the possibility that everything the government has been preparing for the last several years may soon be realized.

I’m going to tell you what I think is going on.

I don’t think domestic insurrection. Law enforcement and national security agencies, they play out multiple scenarios. They simulate multiple scenarios.

I’ll tell you what I think they’re simulating.

The collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that’s what happens when an economy collapses.

I’m not talking about a recession. I’m talking about a collapse, when people are desperate, when they can’t get food or clothing, when they have no way of going from place to place, when they can’t protect themselves.

There aren’t enough police officers on the face of the earth to adequately handle a situation like that.

I suspect, that just in case our fiscal situation collapses, our monetary situation collapses, and following it the civil society collapses – that is the rule of law – that they want to be prepared.

The Pentagon and military have been war-gaming large-scale economic collapse and civil unrest for nearly four years. Those within our government who understand the ramifications a massive breakdown in our systems of commerce, transportation and justice are preparing by stockpiling weapons and ammo, tens of millions of food rations, and even emergency shelters. They are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on continuity of government programs and exercises, preparing for what they know is coming.

 

Greta Van Susteren was on “Hannity” to reveal how she was pressured by the White House to get Fox News to back down on Benghazi coverage.

In the wake of the Benghazi attacks, Van Susteren said that she got a call from someone high up in the administration. The official asked Van Susteren to tell Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin to stop reporting on an alleged “stand down” order because it was false.

Benghazi Bombshell: Security Team Told to ‘Stand Down’ By CIA Officer

This weekend in a Fox News Reporting special, security contractors gave their firsthand accounts of the Benghazi attacks. They say they were given a “stand down” order during the night of the fatal attacks.

The “On The Record” host said she asked for proof that the report was wrong, but the official did not provide any. She said that Fox News was then excluded from a State Department briefing on Benghazi, though the State Department said it was a mistake.

‘My Gut Is Yes’: Benghazi Security Contractor Says Stevens & Smith Would Be Alive If Team Wasn’t Delayed

Watch more above.