Description: Charity: On the surface, the Komen Foundation's reversal of its Planned Parenthood grant cut-off shows the left's power to enforce conformity. What it really reveals is that Planned Parenthood doesn't need taxpayer support. When the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced it was planning to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood a short five years after it started, you'd have thought from the reaction that it had committed a capital crime. Liberals brutally denounced the charity. More than two dozen Democratic senators called on Komen to reconsider. One of them, California's Barbara Boxer, said the funding cutoff reminded her of "the McCarthy era." In short order, Komen more or less reversed itself, rather than see its hugely successful, 30-year effort to cut breast cancer deaths burned to the ground by a liberal lynch mob. But before Komen caved, an interesting thing happened: Donations to Planned Parenthood exploded. Within hours, in fact, 6,000 donated a total of $400,000. A family in Dallas pledged $250,000, and New York's Mayor Bloomberg promised to match that. In other words, Planned Parenthood more than made up for the $680,000 in grants that Komen was planning to withhold. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Jobs: Of course it's good news that 243,000 new jobs were created in January, shaving the unemployment rate to 8.3%. But thanks to massive policy errors by the White House, we're still way below where we should be. President Obama, speaking in Arlington, Va., immediately took credit for the bullish report, crowing that "altogether, we've added 3.7 million new jobs over the last 23 months." The president went on to say: "We can't go back to the policies that led to the recession. And we can't let Washington stand in the way of our recovery." "Our" recovery? And "We can't go back to the policies that led to the recession"? The cause of the recession was, in fact, housing policies put in place by President Clinton and aggressively supported by Democrats in Congress, including former Sen. Barack Obama. How soon we forget. These were the policies that led to the housing meltdown, the financial crisis and, ultimately, the deep recession we're still climbing out of. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Taxes: President Obama's campaign to soak rich investors is already getting complicated. His small-business breaks would benefit those he says are paying less than a fair share. The State of the Union speech is fast fading into history, but one of its themes ? raising taxes on the rich ? has legs in politics if not in policy. This is an election year, and the idea of making people like Warren Buffett (or Mitt Romney) pay a higher share of the income to the government polls well. One of Obama's allies in Congress, Rep. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has introduced a bill that would impose a minimum effective tax rate of 30% on people earning more than $1 million. The bill may not get very far in the current Congress, but that's not the point. The object is to win in November. The 30% bill is political rhetoric, not serious policy. Even Obama must know that his endorsement of a 30% minimum tax on the wealthy is just hot air. As a practical matter, the only way to garner that much from the Warren Buffett-Mitt Romney set is to end preferential treatment for capital gains and stock dividends, raising the top rates from 15% to 35%. Even then, a big giver to church and charity, such as Romney, would still be able to keep the federal share tax bite below 30%. But the Obama administration says, at least this time around, that it will leave the charitable deduction alone. So it would have to dig deeply into investment income if it is to come close to imposing a Buffett Rule that meets its own fairness test. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Nuclear Terror: The administration claims economic sanctions are working in preventing Iran from making a nuclear weapon. Why, then, is Tehran apparently assembling a missile that can reach the U.S.? To carry TNT? President Obama has described the waves of economic sanctions imposed on Islamofascist Iran as "the sort of pressure that will have a direct impact on the Iranian government." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last month claimed that "sanctions have been working," making it "much more difficult for Iran to pursue its nuclear ambitions." Foundation for Defense of Democracies President Cliff May concedes that sanctions have done some good, but are far from enough. In a column last week, he noted Iran's currency has lost half its value since December, inflation is officially over 20% and may really be twice that, and crude oil production is falling. Plus, "Iran's rulers have forfeited more than $60 billion in energy investment and $14 billion in annual oil sales," with hundreds of billions of dollars in potential natural gas sales prevented. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Nanny State: The food police who've targeted everything from salt to Happy Meals now set their sights on regulating sugar as a controlled substance to fight obesity. The fat we should fear most, though, is overweight government. The pursuit of happiness, one of those unalienable rights endowed to us by our Creator, is under assault once again by those who spend every waking moment worrying that somebody somewhere is actually enjoying his or her life without government supervision. In an article titled "The Toxic Truth About Sugar," published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (where else?) said worldwide consumption of sugar has tripled over the last 50 years and is now contributing to 35 million annual deaths, even if sugar-coated corn flakes aren't listed as the causes of death. Whether these unfortunate victims of what may be called "cereal killers" died happy is also not recorded. The researchers cite three major health risks ? alcohol, tobacco and sugar. "Two of these three ? tobacco and alcohol ? are regulated by governments to protect public health, leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked," the researchers write. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Scandal: In a shameful performance, the attorney general Thursday reprised his tap-dancing routine before a panel investigating the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation that got U.S. agents and Mexicans killed. 'It's Groundhog Day, and Brian Terry's family and taxpayers are still waiting for Fast and Furious answers from the Justice Department," Chairman Darrell Issa said before the hearings. "We will not wait until the next Groundhog Day to get answers for the American people." Rep. Issa, R-Calif., has threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with a contempt of Congress citation if he doesn't get answers to questions on Fast and Furious, such as who authorized it and what and when Holder knew. The story constantly changes. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Industrial Policy: In recent days we learned sales of the Volt and Leaf cratered, President Obama's failed green jobs program is under investigation, and another "clean energy" company's in trouble. Green is the new red. Each week, it seems, brings fresh evidence that the Obama administration's obsession with so-called clean energy is an increasingly costly failure. January car sales data out this week provided additional proof that consumers are turning their backs on electric cars, making President Obama's pledge to get a million of them on the road in three years look even more ridiculous. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Church And State: President Obama has taken a very powerful name in vain in defense of his class warfare economic policies. In fact, Obama encourages a sin Jesus Christ repeatedly admonished: envy. Attending the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama declared that raising tax rates on higher incomes "coincides with Jesus' teaching that 'for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.'" It is disgraceful enough for a president to use a religious event to push an economic agenda that has already insured his place in history as the food stamp president. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: War on Terror: The Taliban is poised to retake Afghanistan under the administration's cut-and-run policies. Instead of burying this dangerous enemy, it's repeating the mistakes that led up to 9/11. In fact, Washington is steadily retreating full circle back to the defensive posture it took toward Afghanistan in 1996. Then, the Clinton administration coddled the thuggish regime and let it seize power. In no time it hosted al-Qaida's leaders, who were able to open major terror camps around the country, where they eventually trained the 9/11 hijackers. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: 1st Amendment: Catholic bishops on Sunday issued a response to ObamaCare's mandates on providing contraception in violation of conscience and religious freedom. The message was simple: We will not comply. It was hardly a profile in courage when the Obama administration, hoping to kick the issue down the road past the November election, announced last Friday that Catholic hospitals and other religious institutions will have an extra year to comply with a new requirement that most health plans provide contraceptive benefits at no cost to their members. On Sunday, America's Catholic bishops in an open letter to their parishioners and their government said they would not comply. Champions of the separation of church and state have let the crickets chirp on this matter. Not silent are those such as Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. They let it be known they'll fight this assault on the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. "Unless this rule is overturned, Catholics will be compelled either to violate our consciences or to drop health care coverage for our employees ... ," Lennon wrote in his letter read by priests throughout the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland during weekend Masses. The Obama administration is "denying to Catholics our nation's first and most fundamental freedom ? that of religious liberty. We cannot ? we will not ? comply with this unjust law." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Rules: In a "Twilight Zone" moment, the president suggests Republicans oppose his financial overhaul because they detest simplicity. Nothing's more complex than Dodd-Frank. In a speech proposing his so-called Homeowners Bill of Rights, Obama held up a simplified mortgage form as an example of the great work his new bank watchdog agency is doing. "This, by the way, is what some of the folks in Congress are trying to roll back and prevent from happening," he said. "I guess they like complicated things that confuse consumers and allow them to be cheated. I prefer actions that are taken to make things simpler." Apparently he didn't read the 2,300-page bill he signed. It authorizes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to do things that only complicate the mortgage process, including: ? Requiring lenders to report reams of new data related to race. ? Conducting studies on the fairness of the FICO credit scoring system. ? Setting up an Office of Fair Lending to police banks and "target areas of greatest risk for discrimination." ? Overseeing the placement of a diversity czar in each federal financial agency, including the Fed and its 12 regional banks. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Intimidation: Union membership in the private sector has been in a long decline. Big Labor bosses are naturally desperate. What standards of decency will they violate next to reverse the slide? Representing the union bosses within the federal government is the National Labor Relations Board. Its chairman is Mark Pearce, who wants the board to propose several new rules, including one that would require union-targeted companies to provide organized labor with a list of employee names, home addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. The union chiefs, who take in more than $8 billion a year in dues and have almost $9 billion in assets, say this is simply a way to keep every eligible employee informed. To everyone else, it's clear that unions can ? and will ? use such a list to intimidate workers. At the very least, the unions could use the information to annoy, harass and propagandize employees that they believe aren't on board with the union agenda. Don't forget that a year ago, 15 Republican lawmakers found out how dangerous it can be to be on organized labor's bad side. Last winter, a union supporter used email to issue death threats to 15 Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin while that state was convulsing over Gov. Scott Walker's effort to bring sanity to government finances. E-mail is an easy, virtually anonymous way for cowards to terrorize anyone they have differences with. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Economy: The media's "improving economy" this election year exists only in Democrats' talking points. A new congressional report shows that joblessness is underestimated, while debt skyrockets. Thirty-six pages into the Congressional Budget Office's "Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2012 to 2022," released Tuesday, is the news that "the unemployment rate in the fourth quarter of 2011 would have been about 1 1/4 percentage points higher than the actual rate of 8.7%" once the "unusually large decline over so short a time" in labor force participation is factored out. This means that, contrary to the claims of a media rooting for Obama re-election, the real jobless rate is nearly 10% ? belying the notion of an Obama-led "recovery." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Oversight: Thanks to IBD, Congress is finally probing the administration's shakedown of banks over alleged "lending discrimination." At issue is backdoor funding of Acorn clones. Last week, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith fired off a three-page letter to Attorney General Eric Holder warning that his recent punishment of Bank of America's mortgage unit seemed political. In fact, he may have abused his power. As IBD first reported Jan. 4, 'BofA Must Pay Excess Settlement Funds To Acorn Clones," the $335 million lending-bias deal requires BofA to fork over a chunk of the payout to leftist groups not connected to the suit. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Housing Policy: The listless recovery has forced the president to go back to the drawing board on his mortgage program. His latest tonic is a massively risky stimulus financed on the backs of banks. In a major program expansion, President Obama in his State of the Union proposed authorizing FHA to provide all "responsible" homeowners the chance to refinance their mortgages at today's record-low interest rates. "I'm sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates," he said. "No more red tape. No more runaround from banks." Unlike his disappointing HARP program, launched in 2009, Obama's new-and-improved refinancing plan would not limit participation to borrowers whose loans are already backed by government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Homeowners with privately held mortgages would also qualify. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: Small- and medium-size businesses serving Louisiana's energy industry are shedding employees, dipping into personal savings or moving elsewhere to stay afloat. The administration's war on fossil fuels is taking its toll. The federal six-month moratorium on drilling that was issued in May 2010, after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, has been officially lifted, but it might as well still be in effect. The glacial permitting process put in place in the aftermath in the name of public safety is killing an industry pledged to wean us from the "energy of the past" will not mourn. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Climate: Global warming alarmists won't give up their campaign to spread fear and backward thinking until an ice bridge stretches from New York to Paris. Science, though, says they should. Al Gore, who invented global warming hysteria, has most recently been found planning a trip to Antarctica where he will surely find evidence that man is overheating the planet. This clearly insecure man who so desperately needs an audience that approves of his world-saving efforts says he will be taking with him "a large number of civic and business leaders, activists and concerned citizens from many countries." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Journalism: What's the difference between Republican and Democratic political operatives who end up on the wrong side of the law? In the "unbiased" press, only the Republicans' party ID and connections merit attention. In a blog post on Publius' Forum this week, Warner Todd Huston noted the glaring difference in how the media treated the recent arrests of Zachary Edwards and Tim Russell. Edwards, an Iowa Democrat, was charged last week with trying to commit identity theft against Matt Schultz, Iowa's Republican secretary of state, in order to pin unethical or illegal activity on him. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Scandal: For incompetence alone, Attorney General Eric Holder should resign in the wake of the illegal "Fast and Furious" gunrunning scandal. But fresh news that he knew of it and is covering it up warrants impeachment. In the latest Friday night document dump ? news released as to minimize its scandalous impact on the White House ? congressional investigators learned that Attorney General Holder knew all along that a gun his Justice Department intentionally let fall into the hands of Mexico's cartels was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010. Holder must have known right away because his Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson received an email from then-Arizona U.S. Attorney General Dennis Burke telling him just that: "The guns found in the desert near the murder(ed) BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about ? they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Obesity: Don't blame the on-campus sale of snacks for making kids fat. So says a study of 19,000 middle-schoolers. Shouldn't it be clear by now that good health starts at home? It's time to chill out about the Cheetos, if these or similar guilty pleasures are being sold at your kids school. It's not that they're nutritious. It's just that they're not the dangerous fat bombs that many dietary activists have made them out to be. And another thing: Don't expect school to teach your children how to eat. That's up to you, Mom and Dad. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Economy: The latest economic data make it clear that President Obama's policies aren't helping the country get stronger. Rather, they're smothering what should have been a solid recovery. Real GDP climbed a less-than-expected 2.8% in final quarter of 2011, and just 1.7% for the entire year, down from 3% in 2010. The trend of subpar growth under Obama continues. To get a better sense of how bad Obama's recovery is, consider this: Under Obama, real GDP has climbed a total of just 6% in the two-and-a-half years since the recession ended in June 2009. By comparison, real GDP had grown 16% by this point in the Reagan recovery, after the very deep and painful 1981-82 recession. Had Obama's recovery been as powerful as Reagan's, the economic pie would be $1.2 trillion bigger today. And had job growth under Obama kept pace with job growth during the Reagan recovery, there would be 10 million ? yes 10 million ? more people with jobs today. So what explains the difference between these two recoveries? Obama and his legion of liberal defenders claim the last recession was so deep that we're just now getting back on our feet. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Greed: Rich businessman Mitt Romney gave more than 16% of his income to charity last year. A few years back, Barack and Michelle Obama gave less than 1% of theirs. Aren't Republicans supposed to be the heartless ones? According to their tax returns, the Obamas gave to charitable causes just $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004. In 2005 and 2006, they boosted their giving a bit to 5%. How about Vice President Joe Biden? Surely he could top the Obamas and save some face for the party that purports to be all about helping the poor. But no. Biden and his wife gave an average of $369 a year to charity for the decade preceding his vice presidency, according to USA Today. That amounted to 0.3% of their income. They haven't been much more generous since Biden became veep. In 2010, they gave $5,350, or roughly 1.4%. Maybe the Clintons, the last Democrats to hold the White House before the Obamas, can save the party's reputation. From 2000 to 2006, their donations averaged 8.26% of income, from a low of 1.21% in 2002 to a high of 12.57% two years later, says the Tax Foundation. Better, but not exactly Romney territory. The former Massachusetts governor gave 13.73% of his income to charity in 2010 and an estimated 19.14% last year. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: President Obama has unveiled a new task force to "investigate" America's banks. But he's just pinning blame for bad economic choices on the victims of job-killing mandates, while throwing a bone to his political base. Nobody was happier than the leftists of MoveOn.org when the president announced at his State of the Union address that he'd ask Attorney General Eric Holder to form a special unit of federal prosecutors and state attorneys general to investigate "the abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages" that led to the economic crisis five years ago. "Did you watch the State of the Union tonight?" emailed MoveOn organizer Elena Perez within minutes of the president's speech. "President Obama did exactly what hundreds of thousands of us have been calling on him to do ? he announced a federal investigation into Wall Street. "This is truly a huge victory for the 99% movement," she gushed, in a reference to the MoveOn-spawned Occupy protest movement. "Hundreds of thousands of us signed petitions, made calls and held signs outside in the cold to make this issue something that President Obama couldn't ignore," she wrote. "Can you take a few minutes and thank President Obama for holding Wall Street accountable?" by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: In yet another "Solyndra," a car battery maker that got $118 million in stimulus funds has declared bankruptcy. Once again, when this administration picks corporate winners, the taxpayers become losers. A year ago, Vice President Joe Biden toured the Ener1 Inc. battery factory in Greenfield, Ind., and viewed a "THINK City" electric car that uses Ener1 batteries. Ener1's employees "will surely benefit from the three-part plan that Vice President Biden announced today," the White House promised. That plan includes rebates, research and development and the promotion of public charging stations, and seeks by 2015 to put on the road roughly 1 million "advanced technology vehicles" ? a cooler-sounding name for the electric geekmobiles no one wants to drive. The White House boasted that the facility Biden visited "would not exist if not for a $118.5 million grant from the Department of Energy ... part of a $2.4 billion Recovery Act investment in electric vehicles." The Obama administration a year ago said "the future looks bright" for Ener1 and promised that the firm would employ 1,400 workers by next year. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Taxes: President Obama should have done a little more due diligence before making Warren Buffett's secretary the poster child for raising taxes on the rich. Her story gets fishier by the minute. Ever since Buffett claimed his secretary paid taxes at a higher rate than he did, Obama has been trumpeting Debbie Bosanek as proof that the rich don't pay their fair share. He brought her up in his State of the Union speech, and even invited Bosanek to sit next to Michelle Obama. She has become a virtual posterwoman for Obama's push to boost taxes on the rich. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: After claiming "there's something I know" that could destroy Newt Gingrich, top Democrat Nancy Pelosi instantly admitted she has no private dirt on him. It's Pelosi and her party who are the sleaze specialists. Earlier this week during a CNN interview, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned that Newt Gingrich would never be elected president because "there's something I know" ? suggesting secrets never disclosed in the publicly available 1,280-page ethics investigation report on Gingrich from the 1990s. Gingrich challenged Pelosi to "spit it out," but Pelosi immediately backpedaled, claiming she was referring to facts already documented. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Keystone XL: Forget for a minute the sheer stupidity of stopping a pipeline that creates jobs at no cost to U.S. taxpayers. The harm done to Canada merits some attention as well. Depending on your point of view, Barack Obama's decision last week to block the Keystone XL pipeline is a triumph for radical greenies, a job killer, a potential boon to China or a cynical political ploy. Actually, it's all of these. One thing it's not is good for Canada. That fact deserves more play than it's getting. Canada doesn't deserve to be the victim, as it is now, of election-year American politics. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Journalism: As the president launches his re-election bid by striking a more centrist tone, the partisan press is helping him whitewash his radical past. Teamwork or not, it'll be hard to bleach. Exhibit A is CNN's Soledad O'Brien. Earlier this week, she hosted a segment that tried to de-link Obama from Chicago socialist Saul Alinsky. The late Alinsky is the father of community organizing and the author of the far-left bible "Rules for Radicals." O'Brien opened her piece by scolding GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich for warning Obama "will represent Saul Alinsky (and) European socialism" in a second term. "President Obama has never said that he was influenced by Alinsky," O'Brien insisted. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Credit Market: The president says he wants to revive the housing market. So why is he creating a special crimes unit to "crack down" on "abusive" lenders? The move will only scare off needed capital. The creation of the Orwellian-sounding Financial Crimes Unit, announced during Obama's State of the Union, opens a new front in his crusade to criminalize banks. He's already set up a first-of-its-kind Fair Lending Unit led by a special prosecutor to gun for allegedly racist banks. It's working closely with bank watchdog Richard Cordray at the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now Obama's directing Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a special unit of state attorneys general and federal prosecutors to coordinate the investigation of banks that sold "predatory" loans or packaged them into securities sold by Wall Street. "We will establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud," Obama said. "I am asking my attorney general to create a special unit of federal prosecutors and leading state attorneys general to expand our investigations into abusive lending and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing crisis," he said. Obama added, "We've all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them." Now, he suggested, it's lenders' turn to pay the price. Of course, it was Washington that ordered lenders to make those risky loans. Now they're being punished for doing too well what they were ordered to do before the crisis. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Hypocrisy: As the great investor's secretary sat with the first lady at the State of the Union, the president spoke of economic "fairness." Is it fair to make a supporter wealthier at the expense of the American people? During the 2008 campaign, candidate Barack Obama cited billionaire Warren Buffett as one of his economic muses. In the 2012 State of the Union address Tuesday night, the president returned to his advocacy of the "Buffett rule," a proposed minimum tax on millionaires and billionaires. To highlight his theme of "fairness," there in the first lady's box sat Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, whom the president has often cited as an example of the unfairness of our tax code and our economy as a whole. Obama claims she pays a lower tax rate than her boss. "Now, you can call this class warfare all you want," the president told Congress. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense." No, most Americans would call that demagoguery. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: GOP Response: President Obama's State of the Union was notable for what it left out, such as candid talk about out-of-control spending and the national debt. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels filled those gaps. In today's America as Obama depicts it, things are going pretty darn well, considering the mess he inherited. The troops are coming home, the private sector is cranking out jobs again, and there's really nothing wrong with the economy that can't be solved with more domestic manufacturing jobs and "fairness" ? that is, raising Mitt Romney's taxes. Throwing some bankers in prison would be nice, too. This, we suggest, is more or less what casual viewers took away from Tuesday's State of the Union speech. The same viewers may not even have stayed tuned for the Republican response. If so, they missed a speech that addressed their real concerns. Daniels, delivering the GOP's statement, got right to the point after the obligatory hat tip to the president's real achievements, such as the dispatching of Osama bin Laden. The nation is in bad shape, Daniels said, and he cited two reasons upfront: persistent unemployment and "an unprecedented explosion of spending, with borrowed money." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Taxes: If President Obama wants to create a fairer country, shouldn't he start by fairly portraying our tax code? Instead, he used his State of the Union speech to peddle a number of blatant tax falsehoods. In his speech, Obama repeatedly turned to the tax code to explain what's wrong with the country. It favors the rich, he said. It benefits companies that send jobs abroad. It subsidizes the dirty old oil industry. It's the cause of our deficit problem. And worst of all, plenty of people and businesses aren't paying their "fair share." None of it is true. But that hasn't stopped Obama from repeating them every chance he gets, hoping that no one will notice or that his critics will get tired of correcting the record. Since we don't fall into either category, here are the facts behind Obama's State of the Union tax deceptions. ? "We need to change our tax code so that people like me, and an awful lot of members of Congress, pay our fair share of taxes." The claim that the rich don't pay their fair share is simply untrue. The current tax code is extremely progressive, more progressive in fact than it was back in 1979, according to the Congressional Budget Office. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Regulation: Tuesday's GOP debate moderator was shocked by the front-runners' broadside against Dodd-Frank banking rules. He seemed to think they were hyping their damage. They weren't. The media elite are under the assumption that all government regulations are good. So when both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich took shots at Dodd-Frank, NBC News anchor Brian Williams was flabbergasted. He expressed skepticism that its new rules posed any problem. Gingrich straightened him out, arguing the media and the public don't know how "bad" the Democrats' law is. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Constitution: The First Amendment forbids "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. But a pontificating President Obama would do just that in forcing Catholics to provide contraception and sterilization. When it comes to the unnecessary and un-American controversy Obama has caused by having his Health and Human Services Department mandate Catholic contraception and sterilization coverage, the Constitution and Catholic teaching are in accord ? and united in opposing the president. The First Amendment explicitly protects the practice of religion. The Catholic Church has consistently taught that contraception and sterilization are to be avoided as grave evils. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Diplomacy: President Obama earlier this year hailed a new era of energy cooperation with Brazil, vowing to make America Brazil's best customer. Brazil's response? To sell its oil to China. So much for the "reset" in relations. Hailing Brazil as "a global leader" in a visit so important to him he refused to postpone it even though it happened on the same March day he was sending U.S. troops into harm's way in Libya, Obama put Brazil on a pedestal. "It's time for the United States to treat our engagement with Brazil on economic issues as seriously as we do with nations like China and India," he declared on arrival in Brasilia. "The United States doesn't simply recognize Brazil's rise; we support it enthusiastically." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: The president might think that he's killed the Keystone XL pipeline, at least for as long as he's in office. But he could be very wrong. President Obama was able to snuff out the project and with it a vast supply of needed crude because the executive office has traditionally handled permits on cross-border facilities, which the pipeline is considered since it would originate in Canada. But that doesn't mean that's the only way for the pipeline to be approved. Attorneys at the Congressional Research Service have determined that lawmakers can pass a bill requiring a permit for the pipeline ? which would have carried crude that will now instead be shipped by a rail line owned by Warren Buffett, one of Obama's supporters. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Homeland Security: To please Muslim-rights groups, more and more colleges are hiring Muslim chaplains, only to watch them radicalize students. Campuses need tougher background checks. Alarmingly, some chaplains have actively supported al-Qaida and called for violent jihad against "kaffirs," or infidels. And yet they still have access to students, and remain on the university payroll. Take Imam Abdullah Faaruuq, Muslim chaplain at Northeastern University in Boston. He has urged Muslims to pick up the "gun and sword" on behalf of recently imprisoned al-Qaida terrorists. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Blame Game: News reports about a December 2008 White House stimulus memo claim it proves the stimulus was too small. What it really does is expose how Obama has misled the country about his economic policies. The memo, written by Larry Summers ? President Obama's top economic adviser at the time ? shortly after the election, outlined the thinking of his economic team about the best size and make-up of a stimulus package. News reports about the memo, which came to light this week, have focused on Summers' warnings that the government could spend only so much money in any given year, suggesting that this is why the stimulus was too small to be truly effective. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election 2012: After a stunning South Carolina primary victory, the former speaker of the House rightly defines the battle ahead as one between the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers and the radicalism practiced by our president. Alinsky, the far-left father of modern community organizing, is not a name you'll see falling from the lips of the liberal media elites. Newt Gingrich said during a recent debate he was tired of their defending the failed administration of President Obama. They're more concerned about Gingrich's ex-wives than with the ideological roots of an administration led by a former community organizer steeped in Alinsky radicalism. Few paid much attention when candidate Barack Obama told a rally shortly before the 2008 election that he was five days away from fundamentally transforming America. That was Alinsky's goal, too, and Obama would become the disciple and instrument of Alinsky-inspired policies that would put a foreclosure sign in front of Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Big Oil: In the annals of stupid legislation, add a proposal from House liberals that would set up a "Reasonable Profits Board" to decide when oil companies have made too much money. We pay lawmakers for this? The "Gas Price Spike Act" is really just a warmed over windfall profits tax proposal. Sponsor Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, says it would "tax only excess profits" (at rates ranging from 50% to 100%) and use the money to subsidize politically correct cars and mass transit. But how do you define an "excess" or, for that matter, a "reasonable" profit? Ah, they've cleverly thought that through. As the bill clearly explains: "the term 'reasonable profit' means the amount determined by the Reasonable Profits Board to be a reasonable profit." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election '12: In a scandal reeking of electoral fraud, a Democrat-linked political hack was arrested Friday for identity theft in an apparent bid to defame and replace Iowa's GOP secretary of state. How far up does this go? Zachary Edwards, who served as President Obama's Iowa "New Media Director," and a campaign organizer in critical battleground states such as North Carolina and New Mexico during 2008's elections, apparently has quite a range of uses to the Democratic Party. One of those uses may include identity theft. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Leadership: If State of the Union speech leaks are any indication, the president wants his re-election campaign to be about fairness. But why should anyone believe him, since his own policies have made America much less fair? 'We can go in two directions," Obama told supporters in a State of the Union preview over the weekend. "One is towards less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few." But Obama has miserably failed even by his own definition of fairness. Under his administration, the only ones winning are the rich and well connected. Everyone else continues to suffer. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Congress: The last time the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009 ? 1,000 days ago. It's no mystery why: They don't want taxpayers to know about the trillions they're wasting. A published budget would be an election-year death warrant for Senate Democrats, because Republican Senate candidates would stuff its highlights into every mailbox they could. As Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., points out, going budget-less for so long has devastated our economy as Democrats have spent "$9.4 trillion and added $4.1 trillion to the national debt," plus over $1 trillion in deficits. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Mideast: Europe imposes a ban on Iran's oil imports while a multinational armada led by the U.S. steams for the Strait of Hormuz. Is the world finally getting serious about confronting the world's worst terrorist regime? Spurred by Iran's continued development of a nuclear weapon, the U.S. and its European allies seem intent on acting ? after years of dithering and looking the other way as Iran built its nuclear know-how. The European Union's announcement on Monday that members would freeze the assets of Iran's central bank in Europe while also banning all new oil contracts with the mullahs is particularly significant. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Leadership: A great debater. Politically polarizing. Prone to great error, but also prone to spectacular success. Steeped in history. Politically brilliant. Unorthodox. Audacious. All these qualities were once used to describe Winston Churchill. Today, you might use the same words to describe Newt Gingrich. Sound absurd? Not when you think about it. Churchill, like Gingrich, was a brilliant politician with a powerful sense of the occasion. Sometimes prickly, often witty, but never dull, his career had lots of ups and downs ? ranging from being blamed for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in World War I to being credited as the father of the British welfare state ? not exactly a compliment among conservatives, then or now. Indeed, by Churchill's own admission, "The Conservatives have never liked nor trusted me." The same thing can be said of Gingrich, who has had a tortured relationship with the GOP's conservative wing, to say the least. And yet, when his nation called on him to lead in 1940, Churchill was ready ? the right man for the right time. With America's government under President Obama moving rapidly to the extreme left, Gingrich too might be the right man for the right time. Churchill, like Gingrich, stayed around long enough to acquire wisdom and insight about world affairs and the economy. From 1931 on, Churchill wasn't fooled at all by Hitler. "The Nazi regime," he said in a speech reprinted in "The Unrelenting Struggle," "is indistinguishable from the worst features of Communism." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: In his very first TV ad of the 2012 campaign, the president is feeding the public false information about America's dependence on foreign fuels. His twisted statistics actually celebrate the Obama recession. The Obama re-election campaign is already shaping up as the most deceitful in American electoral history. "For the first time in 13 years our dependence on foreign oil is below 50%," the commercial declares, accompanied by goose-bumpy music. Major economic downturns, in fact, unfailingly produce declines in oil imports. And so do higher gas prices ? which went from an average of less than $2 a gallon at the time Obama took office to nearly $4 in the middle of last year and remain well above $3 today. How could gasoline demand not drop with so many people out of work, businesses dying and jittery investors sitting on a trillion dollars? Obama's ad dishonestly suggests he's been engineering an alternative energy economic renaissance in America. As hard-hatted workers are shown assembling solar panels, the ad says, "America's clean energy industry? 2.7 million jobs and expanding rapidly." It's saying Obama created ? or "saved" ? 2.7 million new clean energy jobs, right? Uh-uh. Turns out that the Brookings Institution report that the ad cites as its source on the 2.7 million was referring to already-existing green jobs. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: The Border: Eighteen months ago, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was excoriated for warning of spillover from Mexico's war reaching our soil. Well, beheadings are becoming common now. Yet that war is still ignored. Leading the charge in the summer of 2010, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank blasted Republican Gov. Brewer for claiming that Arizona's "law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded." Brewer did admit she was in error at the time, but that's not what really interested Milbank and his fellow media minions. In his column, Milbank cast Brewer's claim as misinformation intended to scare people into thinking violence from illegal immigration is worse than it actually is. "Border violence on the rise? Phoenix becoming the world's No. 2 kidnapping capital? Illegal immigrants responsible for most police killings? The majority of those crossing the border are drug mules? All wrong," Milbank wrote. He wasn't the only one to pile on ? CBS and the Guardian also jumped in. Just one problem, though. Brewer may have jumped the gun months ago, but cartel beheadings have become a reality in Arizona ? and are now jumping to other states. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Subprime Scandal: Obama adviser Franklin Raines is glaringly absent from an SEC lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives for defrauding investors. How convenient. Raines first plunged Fannie into the subprime abyss as its chairman and chief executive from 1999 to 2005 while cooking the mortgage giant's books to score fatter bonuses for himself and other Democrats on its board. In its complaint against Fannie, however, the Obama administration covers only the period from 2006 to 2008 and names Raines' successor and former protege, Daniel Mudd, as the main defendant. Raines is nowhere to be found in the SEC's 60-page court filing. Instead, Mudd and two of his top aides are accused of covering up the full extent of Fannie's subprime exposure. But that exposure and cover-up began under Raines, who rolled out Fannie's first subprime mortgage line, known as Expanded Approval. The program let Fannie's customers rubberstamp borrowers who would have been formerly classified as "Refer with Caution" by Fannie's automated underwriting system. Raines had Fannie buy billions of dollars worth of the risky mortgages, which were described in internal emails as "clearly subprime," to meet "affordable housing" quotas set by HUD. In May 2001, Mudd wrote a memo to his boss warning that EA loans "are the highest default risk loans we have ever done." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Big Labor: Indiana unions, opposed to becoming the first right-to-work state in the Rust Belt, may disrupt Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. Their unnecessary roughness will cost the Hoosiers needed jobs. On Friday, as the Indiana Senate was scheduled to take up legislation supported by Gov. Mitch Daniels to make Indiana the 23rd right-to-work state, Indiana unions considered copying the disruptive and coercive tactics of Occupy Wall Street to disrupt arguably America's premier sporting event, the Super Bowl, to be held in Indianapolis on Feb. 5. As in Wisconsin, where embattled GOP Gov. Scott Walker faces a recall election over his effort to fight excessive union feeding at the public trough, and in South Carolina, a right-to-work state that fought the National Labor Relation Board's efforts to stop Boeing from expanding there, unions in Indiana are fighting to stop what they see as an encroachment on their power. The Indiana Senate was waiting for the House to complete its work on the legislation but, in a tactic employed by Democratic state senators in Wisconsin, Democratic representatives in the Indiana House delayed action by simply not showing up. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election '12: As Mitt Romney's loss in Iowa to Rick Santorum shatters the "historic" mantra, Rick Perry withdraws to endorse the former House speaker. The fat lady has not yet sung. What a difference 24 hours can make in the political arena. One minute Romney looks to be sailing toward the GOP nomination with a third straight win in South Carolina's primary. Now it may only be one of three. We may never really know who won the Iowa caucuses, but we do know that Romney's "historic" wins in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary deserve an asterisk next to them. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Media: The dominant liberal media are going all out to destroy Newt Gingrich ? just as two polls show him overtaking Mitt Romney. It turns out, when a conservative Republican is the target, old news is big news. The latest polling gives Gingrich front-runner status in South Carolina just days before the state's crucial primary. An American Research Group survey conducted earlier this week finds Gingrich at 33%, one point above Romney, while the final Rasmussen Reports South Carolina telephone survey of likely GOP voters gives Gingrich 33%, with Romney at 31%. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Industrial Policy: The Obama administration promised a future with a clean, green economy. Instead, it's left us with failed government "investments" in projects driven by politics rather than prudence. While campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama swore he'd create millions of green jobs. "We'll invest $15 billion a year over the next decade in renewable energy, creating 5 million new green jobs that pay well, can't be outsourced and help end our dependence on foreign oil," he said that fall. Three years into the Obama presidency, the country has yet to see a wave of green-collar jobs. What it has seen is government pouring taxpayers' money into pet projects that wasted the cash. A particularly sore example is Solyndra, which not only went bankrupt after taking in more than $500 million in taxpayers' dollars, but also became the target of an FBI probe. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Media Bias: Journalists like to claim they speak truth to power. But when Barack Obama wields that power, they're all too willing to do his bidding, even if it means attacking one of their own. Just ask Jodi Kantor. Kantor's book, "The Obamas," is hardly some right-wing hit piece. She's a New York Times correspondent who spent years interviewing hundreds of Obama staffers and associates to compile a book focused on Michelle and Barack's relationship and the inner workings of the White House. But Kantor did manage to unearth some less than flattering tidbits, such as the Halloween extravaganza the Obamas threw themselves in 2009 ? when unemployment was 10% ? and then hushed up; or the strife between Michelle and former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel; or the fact that former press secretary Robert Gibbs "had a tense relationship" with the first lady. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline sums up his presidency. When it comes down to well-paying new jobs and cheaper energy vs. his political base, guess which wins. The 1,700-mile TransCanada Keystone crude oil pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf Coast is a no-brainer. Canada's oil sands are the largest source of crude oil outside the Middle East and the 700,000 barrels of black gold per day the pipeline would bring would mean hundreds of thousands of new jobs, lower gasoline prices, less U.S. dependence on Mideast oil and hundreds of millions of dollars in increased revenues for the states. All those high-salaried jobs are why both Democratic-supporting labor unions and Republican-supporting business interests are pro-Keystone. Yet, instead of supporting it in a spirit of bipartisanship, the "Great Uniter" had a State Department flunky announce his opposition on Wednesday. The administration's claim that the congressional Feb. 21 deadline makes "adequate review" impossible is disingenuous; the Keystone application was submitted three years ago and last year, the State Department held nine public meetings in the six states through which the pipeline would pass, as well as in Washington, D.C. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Climate Change: Teachers reportedly are getting push-back on middle and high school curricula that fuel the speculation that man is warming the planet. Their frustration is almost worthy of a celebration. Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times recounted teachers' experiences with global warming instruction. The Washington bureau noted that "scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools" and declared that "a flash point has emerged in American science education." Frank Niepold, identified as "climate education coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who meets with hundreds of teachers annually," described for the Times what he has seen in these exchanges. "Any time we have a meeting of 100 teachers, if you ask whether they're running into push-back on teaching climate change, 50 will raise their hands," Niepold said. "We ask questions about how sizable it is, and they tell us it is (sizable) and pretty persistent, from many places: your administration, parents, students, even your own family." Apparently, teachers expected to be free to indoctrinate their students. But they have run into dissent. And this is encouraging: If Niepold's observation is representative of the nation as a whole, then roughly half of Americans are apparently skeptical of the global warming claim. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election '12: The president has staked his re-election bid on the claim that GOP deregulation of Wall Street caused a crisis he can't fix. But even his own chief of staff isn't buying it. Jacob Lew, former budget director and Hillary Clinton loyalist, wasn't Obama's first choice to replace Bill Daley, who resigned abruptly as chief of staff. Daley was supposed to stay on through the election, managing the campaign from the White House. Now the president has someone in that key role who, unknown to many even inside the Beltway, rejects the central premise of his propaganda campaign against Republicans. Obama is loath to admit it, but Lew has denied that Wall Street deregulation caused the recession, a view that is completely off-message. Just last year, in little-noticed testimony, Lew rankled Senate Democrats when he refused to go along with their spin regarding the root causes of the crisis. The defection occurred during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Budget Committee. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Taxes: Mitt Romney's admission that his effective tax rate is around 15% prompted the usual class warfare rage from the left. But it also prompted news reports to repeat several myths about the country's income tax code. As CNN put it in the first paragraph of its story, Romney's 15% tax rate means "the multimillionaire pays a smaller percentage of taxes on his income than many middle-income Americans." This is a favorite canard of the left these days ? that the super-rich often pay taxes at lower rates than do struggling middle-class families. It was propelled by Warren Buffett, who claimed that his tax rate was lower than his secretary's, prompting President Obama to quickly propose a "Buffett rule" surtax on millionaires. But like many "facts" about the tax code, this one evaporates upon closer inspection. First, it's simply false that Romney's tax rate is lower than "many middle-income Americans." The middle 20% of income earners pay taxes at an average rate of just 2.3%. The next highest 20% pay at an average rate of only 6.1%. Even when you include payroll taxes, the effective rate for families in the middle of the income spectrum is less than 13%, according to data from the Tax Policy Center. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Free Speech: In the name of stopping online piracy of copyrighted material, some propose giving the federal government power to shut down websites without due process and control the greatest mode of free speech ever invented. Call them "sons of net neutrality," for while the Software Online Piracy Act (SOPA) working its way through the House of Representatives and its Senate companion, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), are shrouded in seemingly worthy goals, they would grant government power it should not have and arguably pose a threat to our First Amendment rights. Online piracy is a real problem, and the goal of protecting copyrighted material from unlawful copying and dissemination is something we support, just as we support free and unfettered access to the Internet. But, as in the case of net neutrality, the ends do not justify the means. Under net neutrality, a concept pushed by President Obama's Federal Communications Commission, the FCC proposed taking for itself the power to regulate how Internet providers manage their networks and how they serve their customers. The FCC would decide how and what information could flow through t by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: High-Speed Rail: Spending $100 billion on bullet trains that may or may not get some people out of their cars isn't transformative, just wasteful. So why is California's governor still on board? Back in April 2009, Barack Obama was still in his yes-we-can mode, and he had this to say about his vision for high-speed rail: "Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination. Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America." Coming on three years later, that rail system remains today what it was then: imaginary. And it seems likelier and likelier to stay that way. Despite the administration's commitment of $10 billion in federal stimulus money and tub-thumping for bullet trains, high-speed rail looks like an idea whose time has passed, or will never arrive. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election 2012: Whatever one thinks of GOP candidate Newt Gingrich, there's no doubt he scored big in the weekend's South Carolina debate. That kind of energy and command of facts is what it will take to win the presidency. After falling in the polls under a barrage of big-money attack ads from opponent Mitt Romney, and stumbling on a bad campaign ad of his own over Romney?s record at Bain Capital, Gingrich surprised many with his best debate performance yet. He soared in the Fox News/Wall Street Journal debate Saturday by getting back to basics: articulating the elements of the Reagan Revolution. No wonder he got the first standing ovation ever at a debate. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Media Bias: A presidential infomercial posing as a news magazine distorts the record to shamelessly shill for a failed administration. Why do we criticize the man who made the high-speed trains run on time? Political campaigns call it free media: when candidates can make their case and communicate their message through interviews and outlets that don't cost a dime. It helps when a mainstream media sycophant like Andrew Sullivan gets to write a puff piece in Newsweek with the subtle title of "Why Are The President's Critics So Dumb?" The Democratic National Committee couldn't have said it better. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Recovery: The media have busied themselves with touting the big economic rebound they see brewing in the U.S. We hope they're right. But if they are, why is the Federal Reserve getting ready to print even more money? The media argument goes like this: After years of struggling, the economy is finally churning out jobs. Last month alone there were 200,000 new ones, with unemployment falling to 8.5% ? its lowest since Obama entered office. This comes as a variety of U.S. economic sectors begin to show signs of life. And as they report this, the mainstream media can barely conceal their glee at the idea that Republican candidates might have to run against President Obama during an economic boom. Boom? Well, the Fed doesn't see it that way. Alarmed at the economy's slow pace, the ongoing slump in housing and the threat of European debt defaults, the central bank is preparing a third round of "quantitative easing" ? the monetary equivalent of a defibrillator paddle placed on the economy's chest. This is rather strange, given that the previous two attempts ? QE1 and QE2? did little to help the economy. Indeed, those efforts may have so distorted markets and interest rates that they held back the recovery. But say this for the Fed: It didn't sit on its hands. In those first two QE efforts, it bought $2 trillion of government-backed mortgage securities and federal bonds. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Business: After pushing through one of the largest expansions of government in history, the president now claims he wants to streamline it on behalf of struggling businesses. Pardon us if we're skeptical about his sincerity. On Friday, Obama pushed Congress to give him the authority to reorganize several government agencies, merging six that deal with trade and business development. The idea, he claims, is to cut duplication and red tape to make it "easier to do business in America." As a bonus, Obama says this will trim spending by $3 billion over a decade. Obama's sudden realization that the federal government is a bloated mess is welcome. There's no shortage of targets at which to aim. But his proposal should be seen for what it is: a crass political move designed to inoculate himself against charges that he's anti-business. After all, if these reforms are so important to companies, why did Obama wait three years to propose them, or wait a full year after promising such changes in his last State of the Union address, knowing Congress would never get it done in an election year? It's just as well, since once you scratch the surface, you realize Obama's reorg would almost certainly do more harm than good. Of particular concern is his plan to mash the lean and effective U.S. Trade Representative office together with the bloated and aimless Commerce Department. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Trade: While claiming to hate banks, Occupy protestors have a creepy penchant for disrupting sea traffic. Their new plan is to halt ships in Washington state. Now Coast Guard escorts are being called in. It's not enough. This is piracy. It's time elected leaders interested in a functioning economy got tough with the fringe lunatics of Occupy who insist on interfering with the livelihoods of others without any consequences to themselves. Coddled by President Obama, left-wing local governments, mainstream media and Big Labor, Occupy has taken this soft underbelly of establishment support as a license to act in increasingly lawless ways, hurting the very working people they purport to champion. They're now openly disrupting trade, vowing to stop shipping at the port of Longview, Wash. In normal civilizations this is known as piracy. Seems it wasn't enough to inflict crime, pestilence, noise, perversion, drugs use, property-rights violations, freeloading, pollution and even excrement across the country in months of protests last year. Longview, Wash., which bills itself as having the West Coast's most efficient grain terminal, now faces a shutdown. Occupy Longview "organizer" Paul Nipper has issued a nationwide call for protestors to gather at the gates of the port and block any efforts to load the ships. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: The day after the president announces he would reward businesses that bring jobs into the U.S., the Chamber of Commerce asks: What about the pipeline from Canada that would bring both jobs and energy? The irony was mind-boggling when President Obama addressed a group of business leaders at the White House last Wednesday on his plans to reward "insourcing." "There are workers ready to work right now," he told them. "In the next few weeks, I will put forward new tax proposals that reward companies that choose to bring jobs home and invest in America ? and eliminate tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas. Because there is opportunity to be had right here." Indeed, there are opportunities right now for companies to bring jobs to the U.S. and workers ready to fill them, as U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue reminded Obama the next day during his "State of American Business 2012" address. "We can put 20,000 Americans to work right away and up to 250,000 over the life of the project," Donohue said. "Labor unions and the business community alike are urging President Obama to act in the best interests of our national security and our workers, and approve the pipeline." It would be in the president's best political interests as well, helping lower energy prices and creating jobs in an economy struggling to do so. Even a number of unions, a major part of the Democratic base, are backing the project. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Aid: One year after Haiti's devastating 7.0 earthquake, calls are going out to the U.S. to give more. They come after Oxfam reported that after $12 billion in aid, Haiti is still a ruin. Clearly, this is a problem money can't solve. No one responded to news of the terrible earthquake that hit the capital of the hemisphere's poorest country quite as magnificently as America did. The U.S. military moved swiftly and dispensed millions in critical aid to a country whose port and presidential palace lay in ruins. President Obama assured Haitians: "You will not be abandoned," and named ex-Presidents Clinton and Bush to lead the U.S. effort. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Economy: Another year, another step down on the ladder for America ? on the Index of Economic Freedom, that is ? as the U.S. continues to lose ground to other countries. More than any other country, the U.S. can lay claim to being the home of economic freedom. Our giant economy was, to an extent greater than any other, built on free markets and free people, an inspiration to the world. It's a major reason we're the wealthiest nation on Earth. Sadly, in recent years our freedom has waned. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: The DNC's chairwoman, a champion of Occupy Wall Street, once again associates the tragedy in Tucson with an end to civil discourse caused by the grass-roots Tea Party movement. Has she no shame? There she goes again. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla, head of the Democratic National Committee and the "Debbie Downer" of American politics, has repeated the canard that somehow the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., a year ago at a Tucson event is somehow linked to hatred spawned by the Tea Party. "We need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago, where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords ? who is doing really well, by the way ? (was shot)," Wasserman Schultz said at an event hosted by the New England Council and New Hampshire Institute of Politics. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Overregulation: Carmakers are showing who's really behind the wheel of the industry at this year's Detroit auto show. And, no, it's not car buyers. It's federal regulators. At the industry's premier trade show, carmakers rolled out one hybrid and plug-in model after another to indicate where the industry is headed. But this display of electric love isn't because consumers want such cars. In fact, they've made it pretty clear they don't. Some recent evidence: ? Sales of gas-electric hybrids comprised a tiny 2.2% of the market in 2011 ? and that's down 2.4% from the year before. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Environmentalism: As the light bulb phaseout goes into effect, you may be surprised to know the law also requires their already-costly replacements to be phased out too. That's right, new light bulb efficiency standards set by Washington also mandate light bulbs become 70% more efficient than classic bulbs by 2020. The only bulbs that meet that higher standard are light-emitting diodes, or LEDs. And they are even more expensive than compact fluorescent lamps. CFLs will replace incandescent bulbs to meet the first level of efficiency that's been widely reported in the media. By 2014, household bulbs using between 40 and 100 watts will need to consume at least 28% less energy under a stupid law passed by Congress in 2007. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Anti-Americanism: The worst president of the 20th century is now fomenting terrorism in the 21st century by helping Egyptian Islamists. For decades, Jimmy Carter has been legitimizing mass-murderers in the name of peace. 'From Malaise to Massacre" might be the most honest title for a Jimmy Carter biography. The president whose infamous 1979 televised "malaise speech" blamed his own failures on Americans' "growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives" has spent much of his life aiding some of America's most murderous enemies. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: The Economy: Where do jobs come from? That facts-of-life question is central to the coming presidential contest. And if you get what Bain Capital does, you know the answer. We've heard more times than we can count that the 2012 election will be about jobs and the economy. That's true enough. It's also shaping up as something deeper ? a referendum on free enterprise. The question is stark and simple: Does America want to place its economic future in the hands of the market or government? Mitt Romney's progress toward a commanding lead in the Republican nomination process has done a great deal to clarify the question and make the voters' choice clear. Not only does he argue the case for free-market capitalism, but he also embodies it in his career. Depending on your analysis, his 15 years in charge of the private-equity firm Bain Capital are a badge of honor or a target on his back ? or both. In any event, they put him on one side of the economic debate. On the other side is the government-knows-best ideology of the Obama administration. This is the mindset behind the 2009 stimulus bill, high-speed rail and Solyndra, among other dubious commitments of taxpayers' money. It's the old New Deal notion, turbocharged under Barack Obama: Politically driven investment is needed to move America forward. The government supposedly has to step in to save key companies (e.g., General Motors) or spark the industries of the future, like solar power, when private capital won't take the risks. Three years into a painfully slow recovery, Obama's record as a would-be capitalist is bad enough to threaten his re-election. That should be good for a real capitalist like Romney, who can (and must) make the case that he knows how the economy produces growth and jobs. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Conflict: As Iran's despot clowned with Latin dictators, someone was playing hardball back home, taking out another nuclear scientist. At the same time, the U.S. Navy won Iranian hearts and minds with two sea rescues. A war is on. We would've loved to see the look on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's face when, fresh from cracking nuclear bomb jokes with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, he was informed that another nuclear scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a chemist who ran the Natanz nuclear enrichment center in central Iran, had met his end the same way as three other bomb-making Iranian nuclear scientists ? with a motorcycle team slapping a magnetic bomb onto his car and speeding off as it blew up. Ahmadinejad had just sought to convince the world that Iran was no threat ? just another buffoon-state like Chavez's Venezuela, and thus its nuclear ambitions posed no threat. His mocking statements with the Marxist Chavez ? that they had a nuclear bomb buried under Venezuela's Miraflores presidential palace ? were meant to build support for the idea that there is no Iranian threat. But reality intruded as someone ? possibly Israeli intelligence forces ? dispensed with Roshan in a dead-serious move rooted in the self-defense of a nation under existential threat. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Primaries: Among other things, Mitt Romney's big victory in New Hampshire has served to crush a lot of myths about his campaign ? especially the idea he can't attract bedrock Republican voters. He can. Sure, Mitt won handily in New Hampshire, with almost 40% of the vote ? with Ron Paul, at No. 2, nearly 17 percentage points behind him. Even so, a much repeated meme among the mainstream media was that Mitt Romney couldn't attract enough enthusiastic support from GOP conservatives ? the party's base ? to beat Obama in 2012. Following Mitt's win, some media pundits asserted it really wasn't much of a win at all ? that turnout was low, and that the enthusiasm for his candidacy is water-thin among rank and file Republicans, independents and the Tea Party. Both of these are false. As Townhall columnist Guy Benson noted, contrary to repeated assertions to the contrary, "voters turned out in record numbers yesterday, setting a new GOP primary turnout record in the Granite State by eclipsing 2008's tally by several thousand votes." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: We remember when Barack Obama came to New Hampshire four years ago. He promised to bring people together. He promised to change the broken system in Washington. He promised to improve our nation. Those were the days of lofty promises made by a hopeful candidate. Today, we are faced with the disappointing record of a failed president. The last three years have held a lot of change, but they haven't offered much hope. The middle class has been crushed. Nearly 24 million of our fellow Americans are still out of work, struggling to find work or have just stopped looking. The median income has dropped 10% in four years. Soldiers returning from the front lines are waiting in unemployment lines. Our debt is too high and our opportunities too few. And this president wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, "It could be worse." It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse? Of course not. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Media: The White House is now taking hits for trying to downplay a lavish Halloween party the Obamas threw themselves amid an economic crisis. But what about the reporters who dutifully complied with the cover-up? In her new book, "The Obamas," New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor relays a story about how the White House communications staff wanted to keep the 2009 party under wraps. No wonder. Had the fact that they were holding an extravagant "Alice in Wonderland"-theme party ? decorated with the help of director Tim Burton and featuring Johnny Depp in his Mad Hatter costume ? at a time of 10% joblessness, it would have caused an outrage. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Leadership: Even before George Washington is said to have taken a knee in prayer at Valley Forge, men and women of faith and courage endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights have guided this nation to greatness. Some 45 million people watched Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow complete that 80-yard touchdown pass play to Demaryius Thomas on the first play from scrimmage in overtime to lead his team over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday's wild card playoff game. They also saw him take a knee and give thanks to the God he believes in, an act that's been dubbed "Tebow-ing." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: In a telltale Friday-night document dump, the White House released records showing the latest lucky recipients of Obama-Care cost waivers. By the wildest of coincidences, 87% of them belong to Big Labor unions. Interesting, since Big Labor pulled out all the stops to get the president's signature on health care reform passed in March 2010. But as the waivers came, it's clear they never had any expectation of paying for it. From the very start they carved out special exemptions for themselves, showing all the earmarks of political favors in exchange for campaign contributions. The actual skyrocketing costs, reduced choices and lousy service were shoved on the rest of us. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Homegrown Terror: The FBI has arrested yet another American Muslim for plotting to kill fellow citizens in the name of Islam. Why is the U.S. Muslim community so uniquely susceptible to violence? According to a federal affidavit, Sami Osmakac, a 25-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, planned to use car bombs to blow up Tampa nightclubs, bridges and even a police station. He was arrested over the weekend. Osmakac said he wanted to instill "more terror" in the hearts of "kaffirs," or infidels, as "payback" for wrongs done to Muslims. His chilling plan, the FBI says, was to detonate a bomb at a popular Irish pub "where it gets real crowded," and then hit another target several hours later. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: The Americas: With U.S. attention focused elsewhere, Venezuela's dictator is at it again ? breaking contracts, pushing drugs, plotting cyberattacks and cavorting with Iran's tyrant. This is what appeasement brings. Well before President Obama gave President Hugo Chavez a handshake at a 2009 summit, wiser heads at the State Department warned him against a "reset." Obama ignored them. The rube-like naivete has now come to bite Obama as the craziness in Caracas spirals wildly in just the last few days. The Rumsfeld Maxim that "weakness is provocative" seems to be operative here, setting the stage for the astonishing string of lawless acts that now demand hard sanctions. Among them: by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: After enduring a holiday season with gasoline prices at all-time highs, Americans are now dealing with record high prices to begin a new year. Does the president plan to do anything? When Barack Obama took office three years ago, gasoline was less than $2 a gallon. The national city average for a gallon of regular was $1.79. On Monday, that same regular gasoline cost $3.37, the highest mark ever to start a new year and nearly a full quarter higher than the start of 2011. Consumers probably saw this coming while Christmas shopping. Gasoline hit $3.21 gallon, a record for the season and an increase of 23 cents over the Christmas 2010 price ? the previous record, according to the Heritage Foundation, until it was broken in 2011. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Appeasement: From ObamaCare to recess appointments, honoring the Constitution has not been an administration hallmark. But when it comes to betraying secrets to mollify the Russians, it becomes a document the president hides behind. It was bad enough that the 2012 defense authorization bill signed by President Obama set America on a downward spiral of military mediocrity. He also issued a signing statement, something he once opposed, saying that language in the bill aimed at protecting top-secret technical data on the U.S. Standard Missile-3 ? linchpin of our missile defense ? might impinge on his constitutional foreign-policy authority. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Mideast: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insists Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood seeks "democratic reforms" and sees no reason not to engage its newly formed party. Has she read its platform? Banned under President Hosni Mubarak, the radical Brotherhood has emerged as a major winner from the rioting that exiled the U.S. ally. Now the Obama administration is breaking with policy and formally reaching out to the group. It claims the Brotherhood, now operating as the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), has renounced violence and terror. It accepts assurances from its leaders that they'll build a modern democracy respecting human rights, free trade and Israel's right to exist. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election 2012: Some Republicans are trashing presidential front-runner Mitt Romney because he has practiced in the private sector what they preach. In fact, it wouldn't be so bad if Washington got the Bain treatment. It was only a matter of time before Michael Moore would do a number on Mitt Romney and his private equity firm, Bain Capital. Lost jobs, shuttered factories, whole communities laid waste ? it sounds like a remake of "Roger & Me," Moore's anti-corporate classic of the 1980s. But wait. That's not Moore putting out this stuff. It's Newt Gingrich. It's Rick Perry. It's Jon Huntsman. All are taking shots at Mitt Romney for being a practicing capitalist. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Employment: The White House spins the new job numbers as evidence the economy is coming back from the Bush recession. Truth is, the economy continues to struggle against the weight of Obama's misguided policies. Friday's numbers showed employment climbing 200,000 and the jobless rate dropping for the second month in a row, to 8.5%. Fully 30 months into the recovery, any good jobs news is welcome. But this latest report isn't much to cheer about. After all, Obama once promised unemployment would be around 6% once his stimulus plan kicked in. And the current rate is still much higher than the post-World War II average of 5.8%. Still, Obama's top economic adviser, Alan Krueger, says the report "provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal," and that "it is critical that we continue the economic policies that are helping us to dig our way out of the deep hole." As long as the economy shows signs of life, this is sure to be Obama's signature campaign theme. To wit: Republican laissez-faire policies led to a recession that was so deep it took a very long time to recover. But my policies are working. Stay the course. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Immigration: An illegal alien just completed 12 surgeries and a record 374-day stay in a Fresno hospital. For him, it was "free" health care. But for taxpayers, the hospital and patients who ultimately pay, it's another big bill. Marco Antonio Fuentes had high praise the staff at Community Regional Medical Center who heroically saved his life after he came down with necrotic pancreatitis, a condition that destroyed his intestines. A medical team there rebuilt his gastrointestinal tract, monitored his progress and provided the best of care to him for more than a year. And the cost? Somewhere in the millions, by all estimates. As an illegal immigrant, he didn't have to pay a thing. The taxpayers, the charity unit and the other patients will have to foot that bill. Fuentes didn't have a word of thanks for them. Fuentes knew enough to recognize that health care is "free" to all illegals in the U.S. and, like millions of other illegals, already considers it an entitlement. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: The States: As California enters a second decade of decline, its old-new Gov. Jerry Brown has a plan for its revival: A 7% rise in government spending, with a tax hike to match. This is innovative thinking? To call Brown's latest plan foolish does a disservice to fools. At least fools make you laugh. After reading Gov. Moonbeam's latest budget, taxpayers might want to cry. Under his proposal, Brown would raise taxes on those earning more than $250,000 to 10.3% from 9.3%, while boosting sales taxes to 7.75% from 7.25%. That's a $7 billion tax hike mostly on businesses and consumers in a state already hemorrhaging jobs and businesses, and with an unemployment rate over 12%. In short, insanity. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: National Security: Portrayed as just a shuffling of priorities, the president's defense cuts reduce our two-war strategy to maybe one war and cross your fingers. Champagne corks are popping from Beijing to Tehran. Imagine a scenario in the not-too-distant future when an Iranian Shahab missile mated with an unexpectedly ready nuclear warhead is test-fired and detonates somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The next day Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz as China announces a blockade of Taiwan. The administration's defense cuts, or shifts in priorities as President Obama would have us believe, leaves us woefully unprepared for the unexpected in which our enemies, current and potential, are not disarming or cutting their military budgets. Certainly not China, which has been increasing its military spending by double-digit percentages for the last decade. "We will be strengthening our presence in the Asia-Pacific," Obama said, "and budget reductions will not come at the expense of that critical region." If creating a counterweight to an expansionist China is our goal, why aren't we selling superior F-22 Raptors to Japan ? not to mention building more for ourselves ? and selling F-16s to Taiwan? by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Lending: Bank of America repeatedly caved in to race bullies and still got sued for racism. Now it's paying them off with another $335 million. Have banks finally learned? Sadly, no. Judging from the scores of banks settling trumped-up race-bias claims, BofA and the rest of the banking industry will continue to roll over for the same race demagogues who helped create the mortgage crisis and are now sowing seeds of another. So far only one bank has stood up to Attorney General Eric Holder and his army of diversity cops: Cardinal Bank of Virginia. After Holder recently threatened to sue Cardinal for not opening enough branches in black areas, its CEO vowed to fight the charges in court. "We would never settle," Bernard Clineburg said, adding that his bank has a strong track record in minority communities and just last year got high marks from anti-redlining regulators. Cardinal has just $2 billion in assets, while BofA has trillions. Yet instead of using its heft to fight Holder's prosecutorial abuse, the nation's largest bank settled ? even as it denied charges its mortgage unit, Countrywide, intentionally discriminated against blacks and Hispanics by "targeting" them for home loans they couldn't afford. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Constitution: President Obama's nonrecess "recess appointments" can't be excused as over-the-top electioneering. This president has crossed over from socialistic extremism into lawlessness and, perhaps, impeachability. The U.S. Constitution established a strong presidency ? so strong that even one of the most esteemed founding fathers, Patrick Henry, worried it would be kinglike. But this week saw a president exceed even those broad constitutional powers because doing so fits his election-year narrative of a "do-nothing Congress" so well. Now we have the makings of a banana republic, where the rule of clearly written constitutional law is compromised by a ruler's subjective whim. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Wealth: A World Bank economist is trying to shame the U.S. for being home to one half of the world's richest people, the so-called 1%. In reality, it's the world that should be red-faced for not creating wealth as America does. Bank chief economist Branko Milanovic has come out with a book called "The Haves and the Have Nots," whose purpose seems to be to argue there's something wrong about America having an outsized concentration of the world's wealth. Implied in the argument is that America's wealth comes at someone else's expense, and the solution is to have a bureaucracy redistribute it more to his liking. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election '12: The White House responded to the Republican Iowa results by claiming that no matter who won, the extremists were the victors. Does the administration really want to run for re-election on that theme? While the media were busy trying to tell the public that Mitt Romney's win Tuesday was actually a loss, the administration teed up another narrative for the press to carry. President Obama's campaign manager, Jim Messina, with no regard to reality claimed that the "extremist Tea Party agenda won a clear victory." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Defense: The administration announces a leaner version of our military involving the cutting of tens of thousands of ground troops as a leading defense contractor closes a major plant due to budget cuts. In an unusual appearance at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Obama laid out his plans for a "leaner" military based on the need "to renew our economic strength here at home, which is the foundation of our strength in the world." In other words, failed domestic policies require us to cut our military in a dangerous world. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Bankruptcy: News that Eastman Kodak may file for bankruptcy brought a flood of nostalgia for the venerable company. But Kodak's demise underscores the unique strength of our free-market economy ? its constant renewal. Sixty-two years after Kodak was founded, economist Joseph Schumpeter popularized the term "creative destruction" to describe a key function of free market economies. "New consumers, goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets, the new forms of industrial organization" were, he said, constantly creating new industries and new companies, while destroying old ones. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election 2012: Because they believe he'll be the Republican nominee, the dominant media are trying to taint Mitt Romney's victory in Iowa. In fact, Romney just won a state he was never supposed to win. No matter how plainly you say something, count on the media to spin it into something else. Case in point: The very first thing Business Insider politics editor Michael Brendan Dougherty said during a Yahoo News webcast after the narrow Romney triumph in Iowa was: "It means that Mitt Romney is in great shape" ? yet somehow the Yahoo News headline for the interview ended up blaring: "The Big Takeaway From Iowa: 75% Of Republicans Don't Want Mitt Romney." Coverage by the Associated Press was headlined "Iowa Win Helps Romney, But Lacks Luster" and began: "Mitt Romney's whisker-thin Iowa caucus victory was underwhelming in scope and anti-climactic in its finality." The New York Times coverage of Romney's win, meanwhile, asserted that "Despite running a largely mistake-free campaign, Mr. Romney has yet to prove that he can break through the ceiling of support of about 25 % in many polls that has defined his candidacy in a fractured field." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Health Care: The number of prescription drug shortages shot up to a record 267 in 2011, nearly four times the level of just seven years ago, a new report says. It's a shortage made in Washington. The number of drug shortages rose by 56 in 2011 from 211 in 2010, according to a study by the University of Utah Drug Information Service. As recently as 2004, just 58 drugs were in short supply. "The inability to get crucial medicines has disrupted chemotherapy, surgery and care for patients with infections and pain," the Associated Press reports. What happened? As is often the case, government price and output controls are largely to blame for shortages, which have killed at least 15 people since 2010. Take Medicare. It limits the prices it pays for drugs. But in Medicare's Plan B, reimbursements to drugmakers often don't cover the cost of a drug ? or shrink profits to such low levels it's no longer worth making it. Of course, hospitals still need those drugs. A recent survey found more than half of hospitals routinely buy scarce drugs on the black market ? often at exorbitant cost, but without improving the quality of care. Just as bad, the Food and Drug Administration imposes strict controls on pharmaceutical companies' output. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy Policy: There was a reason Congress let ethanol subsidies expire. Legislation mandating using corn as fuel will keep prices high. They will also increase poverty worldwide. Anyone remember the "tortilla riots?" The Renewable Fuel Standards Program (RFS) was originally passed as part of the Energy Security Act of 2005. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 expanded the renewable fuel standard for gasoline and the RFS mandates that at least 37% of the 2011-12 corn crop be converted to ethanol and blended with the gasoline that powers our cars. "Producing ethanol for use in motor fuels increases the demand for corn, which ultimately raises the prices that consumers pay for a wide variety of foods at the grocery store, ranging from corn-syrup sweeteners in soft drinks to meat, dairy and poultry products," says the Congressional Budget Office. The RFS program ensures this mandate and ethanol production continues with costs being passed on to consumers at the checkout line and gas pump. The mandate to burn food in our cars places our corn supply at risk to supply disruptions caused by drought and bad weather. Coming off the third-largest corn harvest in U.S. history in 2010, the carryover (unsold corn still in elevators), constituted only a two-week supply, the lowest level since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Leadership: A spokesman says the president "can't wait for Congress to act" and promised that he's "going to take action." This is the president who was "ready to rule" in 2008. Is he an elected chief executive or an emperor? In November 2008, shortly after Barack Obama was elected president, Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of his transition team, appeared on "Meet the Press." She told host Tom Brokaw that "Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one." Shouldn't someone who had reached the political heights that Jarrett had reached know that kings rule but presidents are elected to serve and are accountable to Congress, the courts and the voters? One would think that she and the rest of the administration are aware of a president's legal limitations, but simply aren't interested in respecting them. A little more than three years after Jarrett declared Obama's majesty, his spokesman Jay Carney warned on the day of the Iowa caucuses that "if Republicans choose the path of obstruction rather than cooperation, then the president is not going to sit here . .. he's going to take the actions that he can take using his executive authority." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election 2012: The Obama presidency may epitomize incompetence, but his campaign will be the slickest, most vicious ever. With so much at stake for America, Republicans better be ready for war. Gathering in their schools, church halls and neighbors' homes to discuss who should be the Republican standard bearer this year, Iowans had no shortage of timely topics, from jobs to nuclear terror. But this year there's really only one issue: defeating President Obama. And Republicans shouldn't kid themselves that it's going to be easy. It may seem absurd to imagine Barack Obama could be depicted as a champion of tax cuts, a friend of small business and the scourge of global terrorists. But by this summer, the billion-dollar Obama war chest will saturate the airwaves with such highly polished messages. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: States: California's in trouble. Businesses are leaving along with intellectual and investment capital and skilled workers. But rather than face up to serious problems, legislators pass silly laws. One would think that given the serious nature of the state's problems, the legislature would focus on solutions at the exclusion of all else. Instead, lawmakers ? what would we ever do without them? ? found the time in 2011 to trespass even deeper into Californians' personal lives. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Industrial Policy: President Obama's electric car vision is off to a hot start. First the heavily subsidized Chevy Volt started catching fire. Then government-backed Fisker Automotive had to recall all its cars due to a fire hazard. Late last month, Fisker, the electric car startup that is busy spending its $529 million in Department of Energy loans, announced a recall of its entire fleet of luxury Karmas because of a faulty battery that posed a fire risk. The battery maker at fault ? A123 Systems ? is another Obama grantee, having gotten $380 million in taxpayer support to make advanced car batteries. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Bias: A giant TV network has effectively admitted to blackmailing Florida's GOP Sen. Marco Rubio over his immigration stance. It's Exhibit A of the kind of sludge being hurled at Latino leaders who won't toe the open-borders line. Bigfoot Spanish-language television network Univision unwittingly revealed it's got a mafia-style hit-equivalent out there waiting for any conservative leader of Hispanic descent who won't tout their open-borders line on immigration. So much for reporting the news. Univision's top honchos behind this are all about politics ? and are running their news organization like a cult mafia leader wielding power based on groupthink and fear. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Success: Away from the low growth and high regulation of an America under Washington's thumb, our northern neighbor is economically strong. As 2011 ends, Canada has announced yet another tax cut ? and will soar even more. The Obama administration and its economic czars have flailed about for years, baffled about how to get the U.S. economy growing. In reality, the president need look no further than our neighbor, Canada, whose solid growth is the product of tax cuts, fiscal discipline, free trade, and energy development. That's made Canada a roaring puma nation, while its supposedly more powerful southern neighbor stands on the outside looking in. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Journalism: Bloomberg News has published a piece designed to shame GOP White House hopefuls for fingering government housing policy in the crisis. But it's Bloomberg that needs schooling. Its lengthy article scoffs at top Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich for laying much of the blame on federal regulations. It argues their view "has been rejected" by the Washington punditry, as well as the Democrat-appointed "commission that investigated the meltdown." While true, the prevailing wisdom is dead wrong. And the business wire not only parroted this false Democrat narrative, but conveniently omitted key facts. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy Independence: As our enemy Iran threatens to close a vital waterway for the shipping of oil, plans for a secure, job-creating supply from our ally Canada gather dust on the president's desk. The blustering threat from the quite mad Iranian mullahs and their supremely mad leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be just a bluff, but then again it might not. It may just be an attempt to intimidate and poke the eye of an American president perceived as weak and whose failure to support and exploit the "Iranian Spring" of 2009 may come back to bite us. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Corruption: The Obama administration promised a green energy future. What it delivered, though, is a present filled with rancid politics, aching failure and tawdry scandal. At the top of the list is the Solyndra collapse. President Obama himself visited the California solar panel maker, lauding it for "leading the way toward a brighter, more prosperous future." His administration poured $535 million in taxpayer dollars into the business, and wanted to add another $469 million even after it was known the company was going to fail. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Totalitarianism: The world witnessed a grotesque spectacle Tuesday as millions of North Koreans mourned the death of the world's most odious dictator. It's a classic demonstration of the dehumanization of communism. In the free world, tears would never be shed for a monster like Kim Jong Il, the megalomaniac who ruled North Korea with an iron fist for 17 years, leaving a legacy of man-made famine, a network of Gulag prison camps for free thinkers, and bone-grinding poverty for workers unlike any other place on earth. But in a reminder of what totalitarianism does to human minds, thousands of North Koreans ? mostly soldiers ? loudly wailed at the death of the tyrant known as ?dear leader.? It?s a reminder this nation remains an enemy state of highly damaged individuals who have no understanding of freedom, a worrisome thing in a nation of nuclear weapons and evil intentions. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Suffrage: Fresh from using his race as a defense in the Fast and Furious scandal, the attorney general blocks South Carolina's voter photo ID law as discriminatory. Tell that to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Palmetto State can't seem to catch a break from this administration. First, the right-to-work state gets harassed by the National Labor Relations Board over Boeing's expansion into a new plant. Now the Justice Department has blocked a voter ID law passed in May and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Medicare: Once again, Congress puts off a tough decision on physician fees and shows the failure of top-down cost control. Obama-Care charts a similar path. When will Washington wise up? Amid the recent political game-playing over the payroll tax, the doctors' lobby was quietly at work on its annual task of persuading Congress not to cut Medicare payments. As usual, the effort paid off. As it has every year since 2003, Congress agreed to the so-called doc fix, suspending a scheduled Medicare fee cut of 27.4%. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Debt: Wasn't it just last summer Republicans and Democrats nearly came to blows over raising the debt ceiling? Well, guess what ? President Obama is back, asking for another $1.2 trillion. Are we being gamed here? After last summer's imbroglio, the debt limit was raised to $15.194 trillion. At the time, in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling, the GOP sought token spending cuts. But on the now widely discredited notion that government spending boosts the economy the Democrats wanted to spend and borrow even more. Now, with the economy struggling and 2012 looming, we're "just" $100 billion away from hitting the debt ceiling again, and President Obama wants the OK for another $1.2 trillion in debt, lifting the total to $16.394 trillion. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Political Correctness: First the Pentagon hosts the 9/11 imam. Then the Marines open a mosque at Quantico. Now the Army's letting JROTC cadets wear the hijab. What next? In a letter to a Muslim group sent on Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's behalf, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Larry Stubblefield said the Army will now let Muslims in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps wear the Islamic headscarf during training and parade formations. "Based on your concerns, the Army has reviewed its JROTC uniform policy and will develop appropriate procedures to provide cadets the opportunity to request the wear of religious head dress, such as the turban and hijab," Stubblefield wrote. "The Army prides itself in being a diverse organization, comprised of individuals from many faiths and religions. We appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Middle East: With Islamists winning 70% in a second round of parliamentary voting, Egypt is speeding toward a theocratic, anti-American dictatorship. The "Arab Spring" is turning into a long winter of despotism. Serious long-term trouble is brewing in the Mideast. The continued rise of the Muslim Brotherhood's ridiculously named "Freedom and Justice Party," as well as the Al-Nour Party of the radical Salafi movement, places in jeopardy the assassinated Anwar Sadat's three-decades-old peace settlement between historic adversaries Egypt and Israel. Add a soon-to-be-nuclear Iran and a Syrian terror regime that refuses to be toppled by street demonstrators and the skies above these ancient lands look dark indeed. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Islamofascism: Scores of Christians attending Catholic mass in Nigerian churches were slaughtered in their pews by massive bomb blasts on Christmas Day. While decried as "un-Islamic," a frightening number of Muslims believe the bombings are justified. The year that began with a New Year's attack on an Egyptian Coptic Christian Church that killed 21 worshippers is ending with attacks on two Nigerian churches that killed 35 and injured at least 57. While such attacks are officially condemned, they are part of a campaign of violence and suicide bombings for which 34% of Nigerian respondents in a Pew Global Attitudes Project poll last year expressed support. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Religious Freedom: As our nation celebrates Christmas, Christians in the nations we shed blood and treasure for to establish democracy face extinction. For Christians in Iraq and Afghanistan, it may be the last Christmas ever. Christianity faces the threat of actual extinction in Iraq and Afghanistan as a consequence of systematic, sustained and sometimes violent persecution, according to the chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. According to USCIRF head Leonard Leo in an interview with CNSNews.com, the Iraqi government has not taken adequate steps to protect Christians or prosecute those who attack them. The precipitate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and the return of sectarian violence may leave Iraqi Christians in the cross hairs of Iraqi extremists. "I'm very, very concerned about what will happen after our presence is completely gone," Leo said, "and I don't know how we continue to put pressure on the Iraqi government and on the security forces and others in Iraq to protect the Christians in the absence of any presence." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Inviting Espionage: The administration is considering reviving a '90s-era nuclear scientist exchange program with China. Does no one in the White House remember how much damage the previous arrangement caused? Of the many regrettable initiatives dreamed up by the Clinton administration, few were as perverse as the nuclear scientist exchange program. The arrangement turned out to be a gift to the Chinese, who were able to steal U.S. nuclear secrets virtually in plain sight. Either unable or unwilling to learn from the past, the Obama administration wants to bring the program back. The Washington Times reports that "Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman is working on a major Obama administration initiative that would renew scientist exchanges between U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and Chinese nuclear facilities." The 1990s version of the exchanges yielded unprecedented espionage. How bad was it? An internal lab document obtained and reported by IBD in 1999 indicated that "during the Clinton administration, the number of Chinese nationals working" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico had "catapulted 411%." We're not saying every Chinese worker at the lab was a spy. But Congress found at least 13 suspected spies gained lab access without proper CIA or FBI vetting. Why open U.S. labs to scientists from a nation that had already been stealing our nuclear secrets for decades? Given the history, it's hard to understand why the Obama White House would return to such an obviously flawed plan. The reasons must be excessively complex, so nuanced that the average person couldn't possibly understand them. As with much of life, the simplest explanation is usually the right one. In this case the simplest explanation is as follows: The Democrats have long been given over to Jimmy Carter-style diplomacy that naively assumes enemies or belligerent regimes can be neutralized or co-opted if they're treated as if they were friends. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Press Freedom: What's the oldest trick in the dictator's handbook? Why, to seize the newsprint. Fresh from a big electoral win, Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez has pulled that hoary stunt, topping even Hugo Chavez. By a vote of 41-26, Argentina's Senate passed a law to nationalize all newsprint, of course in "the national interest." In Argentina, a nation that still avidly reads newspapers and magazines, that's a lot of power. It effectively hands the government a monopoly on newsprint ? since only one newsprint plant, Papel Prensa, remains. By coincidence, it's owned by La Nacion and Clarin, two media groups Fernandez has pursued for years. The Newsprint Bill represents "progress toward a free press," the government oozed. It "will improve the quality of information and the plurality of opinions in Argentina," added Vice President Amadou Boudou. Baloney. It's a blow to free speech that opens the door not just to self-censorship, which is already rampant in Argentina, but to ever-more fascistic state manipulation of the country's communities, businesses and industries, and violations of personal and property rights. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: Browbeaten by the polls and a pro-Obama press, the House of Representatives Thursday caved in to the White House on the payroll tax "cut." Result: cash for pizza now ? and smaller Social Security checks later. Dubbed "a compromise" in Congress, GOP House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced an agreement to extend the year's payroll tax cut by another two months and continue hashing out an extension for another year. "Sen. Reid and I have reached an agreement that will ensure taxes do not increase for working families on Jan. 1 while ensuring that a complex new reporting burden is not unintentionally imposed on small business job creators," Boehner said, adding that "a new bill will be approved by the House that reflects the bipartisan agreement in the Senate along with new language that allows job creators to process and withhold payroll taxation under the same accounting structure that is currently in place." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: War On Terror: The 14 coordinated bombings that ravaged Baghdad on Thursday, killing dozens, only begins Iraq's post-U.S. nightmare. America's job was never finished. We, along with many others, have been warning for years of the consequences of a premature withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. After President George W. Bush's 2007 surge strategy succeeded so resoundingly, you would think there would be no way Democrats in Washington could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Regulation: The EPA thinks it's worth spending billions of dollars each year to reduce already minuscule amounts of mercury in the outside air. So why is it trying to shove mercury-laced fluorescent bulbs into everyone's homes? When the EPA announced its new air pollution rules this week ? designed to reduce power plant emissions of mercury and other to gases ? Administrator Lisa Jackson blogged that: "Mercury is a neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to children, and emissions of mercury and other air toxics have been linked to damage to developing nervous systems, respiratory illnesses and other diseases." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Green Policy: A think tank crunches the subsidy and bailout dollars and puts the true cost of Government Motors' electric car at a cool quarter-million. And the few sold have been largely bought by the 1%. At a time when Democrats are blaming the GOP for blocking a payroll tax cut deal that will add $40 in the average paycheck, they have no problem taking that worker's tax dollars to make and subsidize what we once called an electric Edsel bought by a precious few with an average income of $170,000. "Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it ? a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy Policy: Canada's prime minister restates that if there's no Keystone XL pipeline in the works, not to worry. Our northern ally will still be our friend as it sends its tar sands oil to Asian markets. 'I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a Monday interview with Canada's CTV National News. It was the latest warning from our impatient northern neighbor that has used its energy resources to advance job creation and growth and is amazed at the reluctance of the United States to do so or even to take advantage of an offer to import oil from an ally rather than less-than-friendly regimes abroad. Harper's comments were released a day after the White House sent signals it might balk at completing the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to bring Canada's tar sands oil to American refineries if the administration is forced to make a decision in 60 days. The administration says 60 days is not enough time to study the new route agreed to by TransCanada, the Canadian firm seeking to export even more energy to an energy-hungry America. Yet the State Department has been studying the matter for three years, and the proposed new route shouldn't require kicking the oil can into 2013. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Journalism: Now the mainsteam media aren't even trying to conceal it. Witness the leading lights of the Beltway press who went to the White House Monday to get their political talking points. What are these people, anyway? The relationship between Barack Obama and his media continues to burn with the same ardor as it has from the opening days of the 2008 campaign. The latest example is private sessions the White House has held with certain favorites not for the purpose of imparting news but for advising how to spin it. "An all-star list of progressive and liberal media folks came to the White House (Monday) to chat with President Obama over coffee in the Roosevelt Room," reported ABC's Jake Tapper ? who wasn't invited. "The group chatted with the president about economic messaging, his agenda for 2012, the various campaign arguments against different GOP candidates, the desire among some Democrats for him to highlight his foreign policy accomplishments, fighting corporate influence, and the 'crappiness' of the Senate filibuster." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Rules: When Republicans suspended the 100-watt-light-bulb ban, they said they were trying to protect consumer choice. But they also managed to show how regulations help big business at the expense of the little guy. The light-bulb ban was part of an energy bill pushed by Democrats in 2007 that set efficiency standards that traditional incandescent bulbs could never meet. The first to go was supposed to be the 100 watt bulb in 2012, followed by 75 watt bulbs the next year and the ubiquitous 60-watt bulb in 2014. The argument is that forcing consumers to buy more efficient ? and far more expensive ? bulbs will greatly reduce energy consumption, and in turn, air pollution and global warming. Earlier this month, Republicans suspended the law until October by denying funds for its implementation as part of a massive spending bill. For Democrats, this move was another sign of how out of touch the GOP is. But look who else is complaining. As Politico reported, "big companies like General Electric, Philips and Osram Sylvania (are) fuming." Allegedly these companies are mad because they invested lots of money getting ready for the new rules. Fact is, they were pushing for the ban all along. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Banks: The world's wealthiest countries are experiencing a financial crisis the likes of which haven't been seen in 80 years. So why does the Federal Reserve seem intent on ratcheting up the pain on U.S. banks? With little fanfare from the general media, the Fed on Tuesday quietly announced it will force American banks to put aside more capital to cover their assets. "The recent financial crisis showed that some financial companies had grown so large, leveraged and interconnected that their failure could pose a threat to overall financial stability," the Fed said in its statement. Sounds wise ? prudent, even. And in the best of times this would be a good idea. But this isn't the best of times. The economies of both Europe and the U.S. are fragile as eggshells, with growth in both areas shrinking or well below potential. In Europe, unemployment has shot up to dangerous levels, while the level of hidden unemployment in the U.S., according to our IBD/TIPP Poll, is above 19% ? 30 million Americans. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: National Security: Kim Jong Il's death exposed ? once again ? the alarming deficiencies of the spider web of U.S. intelligence agencies. We should know from 9/11 that what we don't know can kill us. 'What use are they?" Richard Nixon once asked regarding the Central Intelligence Agency, as recounted in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim Weiner's history of the CIA, "Legacy of Ashes." "They've got 40,000 people over there reading newspapers." Similarly, that hawk of hawks, onetime Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, liked to remind right-wing admirers of the CIA it was really "the military arm of the State Department," whose feckless diplomats routinely appease U.S. enemies. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: Lost in Beltway wrangling over a payroll tax cut, an ugly reality lurks: Our politicians are plotting yet another raid on the Social Security "trust fund," which is already near insolvency. When will this madness stop? President Obama and his congressional Democrats know well how bad their spendthrift reputation is among voters as election day approaches. With Obama at sub-50% approval numbers and Gallup reporting Congress clocking in at a record-low 11%, they expect a bloodbath at the polls in November ? and maybe another slashed debt rating, too. What then could be better for Democrats than to be able to claim that deep down, they're tax cutters, too? Just like Republicans ? whose corporate tax cuts in 1982 led to an unparalleled decade of economic growth. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election '12: Mitt Romney wants the country to know that next fall's presidential race will be a contest between starkly contrasting visions of America. He has done voters a favor by drawing a bright line for them. In an op-ed for USA Today, the former Massachusetts governor says: "The question we will decide is this: Will the United States be an Entitlement Society or an Opportunity Society?" Whether Romney is the Republican nominee or not, he is right. That is the question that voters will have to answer on Nov. 6, 2012. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Justice: The attorney general says he and the president get criticized because they're African-American. He once said we need an honest discussion about race. OK, let's talk about him hiding behind his. Times have changed since the evening of April 7, 1775, when Samuel Johnson said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel . In the supposed post-racial era ushered in with the election of President Obama and the appointment of Attorney General Eric Holder, racism has replaced it as the ultimate defense against charges of incompetence and misguided policies. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Jobs: President Obama tells anyone who'll listen that from dawn until dusk he's focused on job creation. Apparently, no one in his administration listens, since day after day they keep making job-killing decisions. In fact, when it comes to jobs, Obama's policies are so bad that even his union pals are starting to notice. The latest to take notice is the Communications Workers of America union. It reported last month that AT&T's $39 billion bid for T-mobile would have brought 5,000 quality jobs back from overseas and created "as many as 96,000 additional quality jobs in the build-out of high-speed wireless broadband." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Euro Crisis: The EU may impose new debt ceilings. There's just one problem: Every member save three is in violation. So it'll be like enforcing brakes on a runaway train ? too little too late. Under the latest deal to solve Europe's mushrooming debt crisis, member states have to submit their budgets to Brussels to certify that any deficit does not breach a ceiling of 0.5% of GDP. While that sounds good, only Estonia, Finland and Luxembourg can meet the new rule. That means there would have to be some unspecified transition, or grace period, for most of the EU. Brussels is looking to Germany, the economically strongest member, to set the terms. But even Germany violated existing limits, which were far easier to meet. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Leadership: Europe's outpouring of grief over the death of Vaclav Havel, hero of Czechoslovakia's great Velvet Revolution, says much about its longing for more like him. His honesty and courage liberated Europe. Some 75,000 Czechs bearing roses and candles lined up in Wenceslas Square beginning Sunday, as they once did in 1989, to pay tribute to one of the greatest freedom fighters of the 20th century. Havel died Sunday at age 75 after liberating his country, leading his nation as president from 1989-2003, and voicing his moral authority to scourge lingering tyrants in Cuba, Burma and China. Havel, a playwright whose health had been weakened by years spent in communist dungeons, was an unlikely and yet perfect leader for leading Eastern Europe's liberation from communism. He unshackled Europe with the only weapon in his arsenal ? words, which he animated and empowered by expressing them truthfully. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Taxation: Democrats are furious at a GOP revolt against their agreement to extend a middle-class payroll tax cut ? for two whole months. Call it a "parking meter" tax cut. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush coasted to re-election as president in no small measure because both cut taxes across the board. Since then, Democrats have tried to adapt that successful formula to their class warfare ideology. But even strings-attached tax cuts are so painful for these enablers of big government that what they propose always ends up, at the end of the day, not being a real tax cut at all. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: North Korea: Dear Leader is dead, preceded by millions sacrificed to his family's murderous reign. As he takes his place in hell, he is a reminder evil must be resisted, not appeased. When President George W. Bush included North Korea in his "Axis of Evil" along with Iraq and Iran, he was greeted with snickers from those to whom evil is a foreign and unnecessarily provocative concept. Yet evil exists and will continue to be a threat even if its poster child, Kim Jong Il, is dead. We once called him the Prince of Darkness, and the land he ruled was dark, both physically and literally. It is Rwanda with nukes. It was as if Sudan was enriching uranium while committing its genocide in Darfur. North Korea developed nukes and the missiles to carry them while its depraved leader drank imported cognac and his people literally ate the bark off trees. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Financial Crisis: The SEC is suing top officers at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for not disclosing their true exposure to subprime loans. Maybe now the left's tired canard that Fannie and Freddie were blameless can be laid to rest. The left's preferred narrative of the financial meltdown goes something like this: Greedy banks, encouraged by reckless Bush-era deregulation and lusting after ever-higher profits regardless of the risk, caused the financial crisis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored mortgage companies, were mere victims. Well, the left has it exactly backward: It is a well-documented fact that government regulators twisted the arms of private banks to make subprime and other risky loans to people who couldn't pay them back. And it imposed "goals" on Fannie and Freddie ? with an implicit guarantee of taxpayer backing ? to buy huge blocks of those loans and, ultimately, to resell them to gullible investors as mortgage-backed securities. When the market fell apart, the banks were left with rotten loan portfolios, and Fannie and Freddie stuck the taxpayers with billions of dollars in losses. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Prohibition: A federal agency is calling for a nationwide ban on all cellphone use while driving. Once again, Washington busybodies are exaggerating a problem because it happens to be a behavior they don't approve of. Last Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all cellphone use by drivers, including texting, be outlawed. The ban would include hands-free calls. The NTSB's campaign comes a little more than a year after Obama administration Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he didn't "want people talking on phones" while driving. LaHood even admitted that he was ready to back such a ban with federal legislation. There are a few problems here. First, regulating cellphone use is not a federal responsibility, even on federal roads. This is not an issue that Washington has the authority to address. Second, there's no compelling reason for it. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that 3,092 traffic deaths last year involved distracted drivers. But using a cell phone is only one of many driver distractions. Eating and drinking while behind the wheel are two others, and they are far more dangerous than yapping on a phone. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: White House: President Obama complains a lot about "partisan gridlock" and "obstruction" in Congress. But even Democrats say he won't get down in the trenches to bridge differences. Pouting over the collapse of his second spending stimulus (aka "the jobs bill"), Obama said, "It would be nice if we could get a little bit of help from Capitol Hill." He complained to a Colorado news station that he needs lawmakers to act "if we're going to do big things." But His Highness has only himself to blame. Obama doesn't put in the effort past presidents have put in to get things done. He simply refuses to get his hands dirty, preferring to give lectures and leave the heavy lifting to others. This is not an observation on the right. His aloofness is frustrating members of his own party and even staff. "Another former Obama staffer confided to me that it was clear to him that the president didn't mind giving speeches, but really avoided personal contact with members of Congress and folks outside the Beltway," noted Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Calif., in a Hill column this week. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Equity: The administration that refused to enforce voting rights law in the New Black Panther case is going after America's best-known sheriff for what it calls discriminatory policing practices involving Hispanics. Coming soon after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Arizona's immigration and border enforcement law, the Justice Department's release of a scathing report Thursday accusing Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio of violating federal law and the Constitution in his department's handling of Hispanics smacks of retaliation. With a thoroughness not seen in Justice's handling of the "Fast and Furious" federal gun-running debacle that resulted in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry a year ago, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, head of the department's Civil Rights Division, listed Arpaio's alleged excesses and said a three-year civil investigation found that the sheriff and his deputies engaged in unconstitutional conduct and violations of federal law that jeopardized his "commitment to fair and effective" law enforcement. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Bias: So Time has decided its Thing of the Year is the Protester, a phony, media-fed phenomenon if there ever was one. Why didn't the magazine just hold a mirror up to itself? Going all drooly in its 6,884-word confection of illogic for the "Occupy Wall Street" story it liked most in 2012, Time decided to convolute that story with the so-called "Arab Spring" uprisings and, while it was at it, the futile protests in bankrupt Europe. But it's all rubbish. Occupy Wall Street ? the unkempt campout of the same old rent-a-radicals calling for redistribution of wealth ? was largely a media-generated phenomenon whose significance ends there. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Mideast: Our premature departure from Iraq tells the world that the U.S., as in Vietnam, can't finish big jobs. But far worse, it opens the door to a nuclear-armed, pan-Islamist empire led by Iran. Why, as Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported Thursday, did Iraqi leaders opt out of the official end-of-war ceremony in Baghdad? Well over 4,000 U.S. servicemen and women gave their lives to free Iraq from Saddam Hussein, and some 32,000 were wounded over nearly a decade of war. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Education: Does anyone poor-mouth their pay more than public school teachers? A new study finds that to the contrary, teachers make 50% more than comparable private workers. So what do taxpayers get for this premium? The short answer is poor schools, falling test scores, high dropout-rates, foolish policies, a free ride for the academic bottom dwellers and a growing home-school movement fleeing the system. In sum, a Big-Labor dominated system that serves itself ? not the public. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Entitlements: Pity the poor Democrats. Here they were counting on scaring seniors about GOP plans to "destroy" Medicare when Rep. Paul Ryan teams up with a prominent Senate Democrat to offer a compromise reform. From the White House on down, Democrats were wringing their hands this week about the bi-partisan Medicare reform plan offered up by Ryan and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Their plan would shift Medicare from an open-ended health benefit to one in which the government provides a set amount of money for insurance. Seniors could choose from a variety of private, approved plans, as well as the traditional government-run Medicare. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Military Spending: The head of the House Armed Services Committee says already enacted and looming defense cuts could cost the economy a million and a half jobs. It could cost the nation much more than that. As we've written, the upcoming mandated cuts in defense spending, on top of already enacted cuts,are real cuts, not cuts in the rate of growth. They are deep cuts in the budget baseline that will impair military readiness and our ability to meet our commitments and respond to crises around the world. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Fiscal Policy: President Obama tried to get Republicans to oppose a payroll tax extension, but Senate Democrats are the ones now fighting it. When liberals propose tax cuts, it's almost never on the level. When a beleaguered President Obama appeared before Congress in September to propose yet another massive stimulus spending program, including a payroll tax-cut extension paired with a "millionaire surtax," it was viewed as a shrewd political move Republicans were sure to oppose. So, why are his Senate Democrats now determined to kill payroll tax-cut legislation? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been falling all over himself this week to get the House-passed payroll tax-cut extension onto the Senate floor, where the Democratic majority there was ready and waiting to vote it down. Thanks to Senate rules, Republican senators were able to save the measure, but Reid is threatening to hold a spending bill hostage and shut down much of the federal government. Why is the payroll tax cut passed Tuesday by the House in Reid's words "dead on arrival"? Maybe because it features a provision that would produce lots of real jobs ? not through discredited Keynesian spending methods but by letting the private sector get going on utilizing North America's unutilized oil resources. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: War On Terror: The jig may finally be up for Pakistan. Our "ally" has been caught in another double cross. And for the first time, there's a real chance Congress could cut off its aid. New U.S. intelligence reveals that most of the material used to make improvised explosive devices used against our troops in Afghanistan originates from two fertilizer factories inside Pakistan. The Pakistani plants ? owned by one of the country's largest companies, Pakarab ? have been making more than 300,000 metric tons of ammonium nitrate a year since 2004. The chemical has been traced to more than 80% of the homemade bombs used in Afghanistan to kill American and other coalition soldiers. This summer alone, U.S. troops detected or were hit by 5,088 IEDs ? the most for any three months since the Afghan war began in 2001. Those bombs killed 63 troops and wounded more than 1,200. The chemical has been trucked to bomb factories inside Pakistan under the protection of Pakistani military intelligence, which the Pentagon says is running a "proxy war" against the U.S. Or it's been smuggled across the Afghan border on trucks, motorcycles, bikes, even donkey carts with the help of Pakistani guards. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Ethics In Government: Attorney General Eric Holder insists "nobody at the Justice Department has lied" about the gun-running scandal Fast and Furious. That in itself is a lie, as his deputy's emails prove. Documents obtained by congressional investigators show Lanny Breuer, Justice's criminal division chief, misled the public ? under oath ? about what he knew about the disastrous and ultimately deadly program. And what he did to cover it up. ? Lie No. 1: Breuer knew as far back as April 2010 that ATF officials had let assault weapons "walk" ? which meant ending surveillance on guns suspected en route to Mexican warlords, and turning a blind eye to criminals illegally buying weapons for trafficking on the border. Guns found at the scene of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry were traced to Fast and Furious. That April, Breuer and an aide conspired with ATF leaders to cover up "the bad stuff that would come out." When Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, got wind of the scandal, he demanded answers. Breuer consulted in the drafting of a Feb. 4 letter to Grassley falsely denying that ATF had ever walked guns. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: State Spending: A wave of tax-hike initiatives is making its way to the November 2012 ballot in California. But another proposal ? to control government growth ? could end up trumping them all. Once the cradle of the tax revolt, California has long since devolved into a progressive policy lab and a public-worker's paradise. But you never know what may happen next. The California electorate doesn't always follow the party line. Tax increases especially can be a tough sell, and the sheer number of similar tax-increase proposals headed for next year's general election ballot could backfire by confusing voters. So far, there are three look-alike tax initiatives ? including one pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown ? aimed mainly at funding schools. Progressive commentator Harold Meyerson, writing in the Los Angeles Times, calls this a recipe for "mutually assured destruction." Unlike Meyerson, we wouldn't want to discourage the governor or anyone else from making a pitch to the public. In fact, the more the tax-hike theme dominates the ballot, the better. That would just make another, much different initiative look all the more refreshing. This is the Government Spending Limit Act of 2012. With backing from the well-funded California Taxpayers Association, it has a clear path to the ballot. Once there, it offers Californians a true alternative to all those other propositions that just ask for more money. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Culture: When surfing 500 TV channels and nothing's on, do your politics determine which program may be worth some prime-time time-wasting? Say, "Swamp Loggers"? Entertainment Weekly thinks so. Rather, Experian-Simmons, the more scientific-sounding consumer researchers retained by EW, reports your political alter ego may be holding, perhaps even monopolizing, your remote. Moreover, if you're Republican you favor the former (usually found on a high channel, not to be prejudicial) over the latter (which aims lower), favored by Democrats. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Ecofanaticism: SolyndraGate was no isolated case of corrupt government misspending. The U.S. Navy was just forced to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels from an Obama-connected firm at an outrageous $16 per gallon. The massive Obama stimulus was supposed to generate millions of jobs, but the $535 million loan guarantee it gave to solar panel maker Solyndra on the eve of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy illustrated the fundamental incompetence of Obama's neo-Keynesian economic ideology. Now we find the Navy partnering with the Agriculture Department to purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of alternative biofuel in place of standard JP-5 fuel for Navy aircraft ? the biggest federal purchase of biofuel ever. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Border Justice: As the administration proposes unmanned border entry and halving our National Guard force on the border, the Supreme Court agrees to tackle Arizona's tough immigration law in an election year. Arizona wasn't around when the original 13 states formed the federal government knowing there were certain things it could do best, such as the constitutional mandate to provide for the common defense and protect our borders. National and border security involves not only deterring foreign armies armed with tanks, but also protecting our borders from an invasion involving ladders and pickup trucks. That, Arizona argued when it passed SB1070, the feds have woefully failed to do. So Arizona cloned federal law and said we'll do it ourselves. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Politics: The percentage of Americans who fear big government is close to an all-time high. It's no coincidence that in recent history this alarm has tended to peak toward the end of Democratic terms in the White House. According to a new Gallup poll, "Americans' concerns about the threat of big government continue to dwarf those about big business and big labor, and by an even larger margin now than in March 2009." Through telephone surveys conducted Nov. 28 through Dec. 1, Gallup found that 64% of Americans say big government will be the biggest threat to the country, while only 26% believe the same thing about big business. The mark, coming less than three years into President Obama's term, is the highest since 1999 and 2000, when 65% named big government the greatest threat. Is it a mere coincidence that the historical high came at the end of a Democrat's eight years in the White House? by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Election 2012: In the latest GOP debate, Newt Gingrich caused a scandal by defending his remark that the Palestinians were an "invented people." The real scandal is it took this long for an American politician to tell the truth. Saturday's debate showed why Newt Gingrich has catapulted to the top of the polls. Flawed though he is ? and as all humans are ? he has a depth of historical knowledge and intellectual fearlessness that people find appealing. Case in point: an exchange between Gingrich and ABC's George Stephanopoulos and the other candidates that will go down as one of the most one-sided ? and devastating ? in recent presidential debate history. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Economy: No longer content to blame President Bush for the country's economic ills, President Obama now accuses his Democratic predecessor of being a co-conspirator. Will he stop at nothing to escape responsibility? In his "60 Minutes" interview this weekend, Obama claimed the economy is suffering "structural problems that have been building up for two decades." Let's see, in the past 20 years we've had three previous presidents, one of whom was two-term Democrat Bill Clinton. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Global Warming: So an accord has been reached at the Durban climate conference after all. Or did envoys merely agree to make a real deal later, letting them continue with their corrupt enterprise? The headlines say the representatives at the United Nations climate conference in South Africa reached an agreement. But the real story is that the meeting only produced an agreement to start more talks on a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol by 2015 with emissions limits that won't be in effect until 2020. Despite the uncertainty of such a proposition, one official, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa's foreign minister, nevertheless had the nerve to claim "We have saved planet Earth for the future of our children and our great-grandchildren." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Energy: After admitting there's no documented evidence of groundwater contamination due to a technique used to extract oil and gas from shale, the EPA tries to manufacture a crisis in Wyoming. At a House Oversight Committee hearing in May, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson confirmed that, despite fears that hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as "fracking," would lead to contamination of ground water, there was no independently documented instances that it had occurred. Jackson told the committee: "I'm not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Economic Illiteracy: Is the discredited "Occupy" protest horde shifting to economic terrorism? Its attempt to shut down West Coast ports Monday ? in the name of "good jobs" ? is a nasty shot at America's workers. Claiming its aim is to "end corporate profits" Occupy's leadership, consulting no one, has declared war on the U.S. economy by trying to disrupt major ports in Portland, Ore., and Oakland, Long Beach and San Diego, Calif. Before the cops kicked them out and arrested a few, they managed to put a grimy paw around the neck of a the U.S. economy, aiming to strangle it all. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Red Tape: Seeing it's vulnerable on the issue of job-killing regulation, the White House is pushing back with media spin and misleading studies. Unfortunately, some conservatives have taken the bait. Columnist David Brooks, for one, claims "it's not clear that regulations are a major contributor to the current period of slow growth," adding "Obama has not increased regulatory costs more than Reagan and the Bushes." Never mind that Obama in just his first two years racked up $40 billion in new costs, almost matching the prior eight-year total. Guzzling more Kool-Aid, Brooks maintained the Obama White House "does rigorous cost-benefit analyses to review proposed regulations and minimize their economic harm." His proof? Obama's regulatory czar Cass Sunstein "is incredibly wonky" and no ideologue. Uh huh. This is the same Sunstein who wrote a book proposing a "Second Bill of Rights," including guaranteed homeownership and health care for all. Yeah, he'll work real hard to rein in ObamaCare. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Climate: Nearly 200 countries sent representatives to the climate change talks in Durban, South Africa. But it was merely posturing. Few were willing to sign on to an agreement that will wreck their economies. Talks were wrapping up Friday with no deal in place. The representatives simply could not agree on a climate pact even after what the Times of India called "grueling endless negotiations." There will be no Durban Mandate that would put binding restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions. The developed nations typically make a lot of noise about cutting greenhouse gas emissions ahead of these United Nations climate conferences. It's part of the script. Even national leaders who harbor some doubt join the chorus. They'd rather play the game than be labeled as backward, anti-science deniers by the media, left-wing politicians and special interests. President Bush refused to go along in 2001 and was summarily smeared by the London Guardian, which said he had performed a "Taliban-like act" in his "decision to trash the Kyoto global warming treaty." by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Jobs: The president says that extending unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut will create more jobs than an oil pipeline from Canada. There are at least 20,000 members of the 99% who would disagree. You can see why the economy is in trouble. Vice President Joe Biden, the stimulus sheriff, says he turned first to MF Global's Jon Corzine for economic advice and President Obama thinks 20,000 people getting extended unemployment benefits does more for the economy than 20,000 people getting paychecks to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. In the president's view, extending the payroll tax cuts is more important than adding more people to the payrolls, unless they are making electric cars that catch fire or work for solar-panel makers that go bankrupt. Any attempt to link the pipeline to a payroll tax cut extension will be vetoed, Obama said Wednesday as he stood next to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. President Obama has dropped any pretense that delaying the pipeline that would bring Canadian tar-sands oil to American refineries is really related to environmental safety concerns. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com

Description: Europe: The first exercise of an EU veto vindicates Margaret Thatcher's prophetic warning: Europe must not "suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the center of a European conglomerate." Britain's Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron earned much praise from Thatcherite House of Commons members when he, after an all-night session in Brussels, announced that his government would veto the ramming through of a new European Union treaty addressing Europe's expanding financial crisis. The "treaty reform" demanded by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his fellow continental leaders amounts to more bailouts and taxes. This devil's pact proposes a $666 billion European Stability Mechanism to add new handouts to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, then hope there's enough booty left if Italy or Spain goes under. Good luck getting countries that have managed their economies responsibly to help finance such an international dole program ? one that clearly won't permanently solve Europe's extended financial crisis. by OutloudOpinion.com For more Podcasts visit www.outloudopinion.com