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From Fox News

A pagan priestess runs into the president of the atheists in a phone booth in New York.

No, it’s not a joke — it’s the start of a controversial report from National Public Radio — and your tax dollars may have paid for it.

New York City officials this fall launched an art project called “Public Prayer Booth,” which features a modified phone booth rigged up with a flip-down kneeler. Passers-by, if they’re in the mood, can bend to their (padded) knee and say a prayer — a private moment in a very public atmosphere.

To cover the story, NPR sent reporter Margot Adler, a Wiccan priestess and author of two books on paganism. Lo and behold, she happened upon the president of the New York City Atheists, Ken Bronstein, an outspoken opponent of public religious displays.

“I just happened to be walking by at this exact moment,” Bronstein told Adler. Then he denounced the display of what he called a “supernatural situation” on city property. Bronstein said that it was inappropriate for the public sphere and had to go.

“You know, if they want to put it on private property, that’s where it should go — but not in public space,” said Bronstein.

Critics are calling the radio report a biased assault on religion — one that’s being supported in part with public funds.

“There are serious efforts under way right now to erase religious expression from the public square,” said Father Jonathan Morris, a Catholic priest and FOX News contributor. “I don’t understand why these groups would be so fascinated with taking this [religious expression] away.”

NPR vehemently denied that its coverage was opposed to prayer or organized religion.

“There’s no bias in this story and to imply that there is because of a reporter’s religious beliefs is absurd,” said Anna Christopher, an NPR spokeswoman. “[Adler] spoke with several different people with several different viewpoints on the booth.”

Adler said traffic was sparse by the booth and she had trouble finding someone who took it seriously enough to pray there, but she interviewed a woman named Francesca Richardson who lives on disability payments and stopped to say a prayer. Adler compared her to Avery Williams, 7, who said grace for her ailing pets.

“Well, my gerbil died so we prayed for him, and my dog had a very bad leg so we prayed for that too,” said Williams.

Asked whether their reporter was taking snipes at the faithful on the government dime, NPR was adamant that she wasn’t and explained that only a minuscule amount of its funding comes from the government.

“Less than two percent [of NPR's budget] comes from competitive grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts,” Christopher said.

“There’s no disrespect for religion at all. Our reporters are able to separate their private practices … and their standards as journalists, and in no way does [Adler's] religious affiliation affect that.”

Religious groups were enthused about the project, saying it provided an opportunity to discuss religion in the public sphere.

“Any respectful artistic expression that gets us thinking about spiritual realities, respectful artistic expression is good,” said Morris.

The public flare-up is just what Dylan Mortimer — the 29-year-old artist who created the installation — was hoping to stir up with his work. Religion is “just one of those topics you don’t bring up at the dinner table,” he said. “My hope and my dream would be that there will be a respectful way to engage in dialogue.”

On that front, Mortimer’s work has been a smashing success.

“Some people love them, some people use them sincerely in prayer, some people use them jokingly. Some people laugh at it, some people are offended, some people have put graffiti on them,” Mortimer told FOXNews.com. “All of those reactions are totally valid.”

Mortimer’s installment, which is set to come down later this month, is sponsored by New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation as part of its 40-year-old Art in the Parks series. Asked about the controversy over the artwork, the city said it stood by Mortimer’s piece.

“[Mortimer] is working independently and his work raises questions about religion in the public realm, but he does not take a position on it,” said Christina DeLuca, a spokeswoman for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. “As he says, the goal is to spark dialogue, and we hope New Yorkers receive the work in this spirit.”

By JEN DIMASCIO at Politico.com:

Soon after taking office, President Barack Obama and his defense team will decide the fate of the next-generation Air Force fighter, the F-22 Raptor. 

And the new administration will have to do it under considerable pressure from Congress. 

It’s an issue that’s sure to rise to the top as Obama transition aides deal with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who may be asked to stay on, and other key Pentagon officials. 

The Bush administration is keeping the program on life support at least until the charging of the guard on Jan. 20, with $50 million toward the purchase of new jets while pointing out the increasing costs of the program. 

But powerful members of Congress are incensed by the decision because they provided $140 million to keep defense giant Lockheed Martin’s F-22 production lines humming. 

“I fear your decision to withhold the $90 million may already be impacting suppliers and driving up long-term costs,” said New Jersey Rep. Jim Saxton, the ranking Republican on House Armed Services Air 
and Land Forces Subcommittee. 

And on Thursday, senior appropriators Sens. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Reps. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) wrote Gates, urging him to reconsider the Pentagon’s decision. 

This is the final year of a three-year contract to buy the planes. But the fight is over what happens next. The Air Force has plans to buy 183 planes, and current Air Force leaders say that more are needed. 
And lawmakers, particularly from Georgia where the planes are assembled, have said they’d like to see a new multi-year contract. 

But senior Pentagon officials are only supporting four new F-22s in a supplemental budget request the new administration will also consider after taking office. 

John Young, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, told reporters Thursday that debate about the plane hasn’t been fully informed, noting it isn’t meeting all the Pentagon’s requirements and was performing at a rate he called “troubling.” 

“The airplane is proving very expensive to operate,” Young said, adding that it’s complicated to maintain. 
Also, many of the current planes may need upgrades that could cost $8 billion more. 

So why keep the program alive? 

Gates thought it was “fair and reasonable for the next administration to be able to review this issue,” Young said. “So, he directed that we create a reasonable bridge to allow them to make that decision.” 
The Obama administration now will have to make a decision about future of the Raptor. “And I think it’s fair and reasonable.”

CNN broadcasts video showing world leaders “ignoring” President Bush. In a 30 second story Rick Sanchez refers to the President as a “bully” and “the most unpopular kid in high school.. You know the one with the cooties.” What they don’t show us is the fact that President Bush met every single leader beforehand and there was no need to greet them again. CNN is despicable in its blatant disregard for the truth. This is what journalism has come to… “Cooties” and “Youtube Video Reports”.

By KEN THOMAS
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Senate Democrats suggested Wednesday that a bill to rescue Detroit’s Big Three automakers was stalled and called on the Bush administration to take steps to help save the industry if congressional efforts falter.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada sought to lower expectations of reaching a deal on the $25 billion proposal before Congress quits for the year.

While he told the Senate he still hoped lawmakers could agree to an auto deal in the “next day or two” of the current lame-duck session, he added: “If we can’t do it here legislatively, I would hope that the secretary of Treasury would listen loud and clear because they could take this into their own hands and do what I think is appropriate from their perspective.”

Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was even more downbeat, calling the possibility of reaching agreement “remote.”

“I don’t see how in the next few days this is going to move forward,” Dodd said. Still, he added, “That does not mean that there are not opportunities.” He suggested that the Federal Reserve could possibly step up to the job.

The difficulties of striking a deal on the package before a new president and a new Congress with expanded Democratic majorities take office appeared to be too great to overcome. The deadlock persisted even as the heads of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler returned for a second day to plead for relief and as their congressional backers urged colleagues not to punish them for past mistakes.

General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner told the House Financial Services Committee that collapse of the U.S. auto industry could lead to a loss of 3 million jobs within the first year and ripple throughout communities around the nation.

In sometimes contentious testimony, Wagoner was pressed on when GM would run out of money if the loans weren’t extended.

He said he couldn’t say precisely, but that the company now was burning through “$5 billion each month.”

Still, with the $25 billion emergency package, “We think we have a good shot to make it through this,” Wagoner said. He said he anticipated that, if the package is approved, GM would qualify for about $10 billion to $12 billion of the money.

President George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to use the Treasury Department’s $700 billion financial bailout program to finance the loans. And White House press secretary Dana Perino has said Congress should draw the funds from an Energy Department program established by law last year to encourage production of fuel-efficient cars.

Read the rest of this AP piece here.

The environmental groups are already beginning to put the reigns on an Obama Presidency. He gave us a sneak peak of his radical agenda to “bankrupt” the coal industry last January, but for “Friends of the Earth” that could never be enough.

By ERIKA LOVLEY at Politico.com

Breaking with other environmental groups, Friends of the Earth criticized the climate agenda unveiled by Barack Obama Tuesday, calling it “welcomed” but not aggressive enough. 

The majority of environmental groups, though, offered rousting praise for the president-elect’s plan, even though it offered an emission reduction goal significantly lower than what the groups demanded in a recent letter to his transition leaders. 

So far, Friends of the Earth is the only one of the nearly 30 signatories to the letter that’s taking on Obama. 

His plan calls for emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. The greens’ letter wanted emissions a minimum cut of 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. 

“Obama is demonstrating leadership on global warming from the get-go,” said Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder. “But the enormity of the task at hand requires him to be even more aggressive.” 

The World Wildlife Fund, which dispatched one of the praise-only statements, said there’ll be plenty of time to hammer out specific emission targets. 

“For years we haven’t had any climate change leadership at a federal level, and today marks a substantial shift,” said the fund’s spokesman, Joe Pouliot. “That alone is a huge improvement. Let’s embrace that.”

In 2006, SurveyUSA interviewed 600 people from all 50 states asking who they would vote for if the 2008 Presidential Election was between John McCain and Barack Obama.  McCain won 510 to 28 electoral votes.

The only states Obama carried were his home states of Illinois and Hawaii, along with the District of Columbia.

How things have changed in two years.  Leave a comment saying what you think caused these changes since 2006.

Alan Keyes, an opponent of Obama in Illinois’ 2004 U.S. Senate Race, filed a lawsuit in California asking the state to withold their electoral votes until evidence is shown proving Obama’s citizenship.  Though a little out there, a candidate does need to be a natural-born citizen.  California had 55 electoral votes.  Obama won with 365 electoral votes.  Minus California he would still win with 310 votes.  In order to lose, another 40 votes would have to be taken away.  The next nearest state to that number is Texas with 34 votes.  To say it’s a longshot would be an understatement.  Though, if Obama is not a citizen then he technically can not be president.  I wouldn’t count on it though.

Read full story here.

The video was prepared by John Ziegler, who also commissioned a poll to see what the average voter learned during the 2008 campaign. The result:

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet…..

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)

POSTED BY ED MORRISSEY AT HotAir.com:

Barack Obama has selected Gregory Craig as White House counsel, a move that will recall some controversial legal cases over the last few years. Craig has plenty of experience in politics as well as the courtroom, having served as Bill Clinton’s legal counsel during the impeachment hearings. Craig flipped from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama early in the primaries, and Obama has repaid his support — but Craig’s caseload will raise a few eyebrows:

Gregory B. Craig, a well-known Washington lawyer who quarterbacked President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense, has been chosen White House counsel by President-elect Barack Obama, according to Democratic officials.

Craig is intimately familiar with the president-elect’s record because he played the role of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in debate preparations.

The officials said Obama has settled on Craig but were not sure when the appointment would be announced.

The choice gives the president-elect both experience and loyalty. During the primaries, Craig was an early Clinton alumni defector to Obama. Columnist Robert D. Novak reported back in the winter of 2007 that Craig had told him he “was impressed with Obama when he first met him at the home of investment banker Vernon Jordan, an intimate friend and supporter of the Clintons.”

Craig was an Obama foreign policy adviser during the campaign. At the start of the Clinton administration, he had been the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning, the head of State’s in-house think tank. He also was senior adviser on defense, foreign policy and national security to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

Besides defending Clinton through the impeachment process, an effort that Craig lost, who else had the benefit of Craig’s counsel?

Elian Gonzalez’s father - Craig represented the father who demanded the return of his son after his estranged wife died trying to take Elian to freedom. Most people saw this as a thinly-veiled publicity stunt from Fidel Castro, attempting to embarrass the US. The dispute got resolved when Janet Reno ordered an armed assault on the house where Elian’s family in the US provided him a home.
John Hinckley, Jr - Craig presented and won the insanity defense that allows Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin to spend weekends with his family now.
Kofi Annan - The former Secretary-General of the UN hired Craig to defend his interests in the Volcker Commission probe of the Oil-for-Food scandal, which put billions of dollars into Saddam Hussein’s pockets while providing cash for Annan’s son, his deputies, and some allege Annan himself.
Pedro Gonzalez Pinzon - A Panamanian legislator wanted for murdering an American soldier in 1992. The Dallas Morning News demanded that Obama force Craig to drop the case during the campaign, but no report of whether he did is easily available.
I doubt that any President has selected the defender of a presidential assassin as White House Counsel before now. Does anyone want to guess how long that takes to become a Trivial Pursuit question?

Given Craig’s dubious client list, especially Gonzalez Pinzon as an apparent active client, this selection is a disgrace. The last person we need in the White House is an attorney who represented assassins, Castro and his goons, corrupt UN executives, and a suspected killer of an American soldier. Those are the people the White House should focus on stopping, not embracing.

LOOKS LIKE AMERICA IS FAIRLY REPUBLICAN OUTSIDE OF THE CITIES.

Daily News article on how Obama staffers are being rewarded with expensive toys like laptops, Blackberries, and extra cash with the leftover campaign funds.  Geez, why not help Peggy Joseph pay her mortgage and fill her gas tank with that money.  Why not help the struggling economy?  Why not……..

OBAMA STAFFERS REAP CHANGE

16% of McCain voters would have voted for Clinton.  85% of Obama voters said they would have voted for Clinton. 13% of Obama voters would not have.

Article:  Clinton Would Have Won By More

From Politico.com:

CHICAGO — It was a standard applause line on the campaign trail: Barack Obama condemned the “perpetual campaign” that has consumed Washington, contending that the slash-and-burn politics practiced by the Bush White House had gotten in the way of governing.

But President-elect Obama has been virtually silent on bipartisan calls in recent months to eliminate the White House office that has been described as the nerve center of the sprawling political operations headed up by Bush adviser Karl Rove. And the fate of that office will be just one of the questions Obama will have to answer in explaining how his mammoth and skilled campaign operation can be transformed into an administration that traffics in a different kind of politics at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

John McCain pledged in September to abolish the White House Office of Political Affairs as president. House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) followed up with a report last month recommending its elimination. And Craig Holman, a lobbyist with the government watchdog group Public Citizen, said Wednesday that it “must be dismantled.”

“I would be startled if he kept it and I would be very critical of an Obama administration that kept a political office,” Holman said. “I could not imagine this office being structured in a way that would be in the public’s interest.”

Transition aides declined to comment Wednesday on Obama’s plans for the office.

But the president-elect has given no indication that he will eliminate the political shop, which has detractors and defenders in both parties. When McCain told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he would move the political operations into the Republican National Committee, saying “we’ve gotta have a White House that is without politics,” the Obama campaign declined to agree with McCain’s suggestion.

Obama’s decision on the political office is an early test of how sharply the president-elect plans to turn away from the practices of his predecessor. The Republican National Committee has spent the last week counting the ways in which it sees Obama sending mixed messages on his commitment to end the so-called permanent campaign in Washington.

Posted by: Erick Erickson at RedState.com

Minnesota has become this year’s Florida, but it is only at the Senate level. Let me lay out the facts for you.

When all the votes were counted on election day, Norm Coleman had won by about 800 votes.

After canvassing all the votes, the number dropped pretty significantly to a 200 vote lead. The canvass will be certified by the 18th and, under Minnesota law, a recount will begin on the 19th.

Here’s why we should be worried.

Between election day and yesterday, most of the votes in the canvass went for Franken. While we can expect some vote shifting, as a former elections lawyer myself who has been involved in several recounts, it is very, very unusual for virtually all of the votes to shift to the other side. In fact, I’d say it is statistically improbable for there to be a 600 votes shift to the other side.

Then we have these two interesting stories:

1. 32 absentee ballots were found over the weekend with a Democratic Party operative. We don’t really know from where other than the operative’s car. The judge involved let the votes be counted.

2. In Mountain Iron, MN, the local Democrat machine discovered 100 ballots that needed to be counted. All 100 of the ballots went for Obama. And all 100 of the ballots went for Franken. Let’s leave out the round number, which in and of itself should raise suspicions. No part of Minnesota, including the Iron region north of Duluth up to Canada (that part of the state heavily influenced by machine politics on the left) saw straight party voting between Franken and Obama. Sure there were some. But for a group of Democrats to pull out 100 ballots and have 100% go Obama and Franken defies the odds.

In Minneapolis, David Littlehawk, Franken’s attorney, wanted disqualified ballots counted. The Minneapolis Board of Elections, which includes the very liberal, partisan Mayor of Minneapolis, refused. That, though, seems to be the exception to the rule.

“All the irregularities are benefiting Franken against statistical probability. ”

 

A source I spoke to said all these irregularities “are not easily explained.”

Now here is the kicker: it’s pretty clear the Democrats are stealing the election. If they can get the vote closer, then Franken can allege voter fraud and take it to court if, after the recount, he hasn’t stolen enough votes. Once in the court system, it’d be Harry Reid and the United States Senate determining who should go to Washington.

From  Politico

In 1992, Bill Clinton famously promised to appoint a Cabinet that “looks like America.” He followed through, tapping women and minorities for high-ranking positions and overseeing an administration more diverse than any that had come before it. President Bush continued this tradition, appointing two African-Americans to his national security/foreign policy team.

But now all this progress seems to pale in comparison to the history made Nov. 4, with this “first” being less groundbreaking than plate-shifting. To borrow the oft-used sports analogy, after years of seeing Jackie Robinsons take the field in different professions, the American people finally put one in the owner’s box.

But now that we have a black Branch Rickey in Barack Obama, what does that mean for the rest of the team? Put in political terms, does our first African-American president, elected with a rainbow coalition, have more of an imperative to appoint an administration that includes minorities in high-ranking positions?

Not really, is the answer supplied by a group of prominent African-Americans. Having a team of varied faces is preferable and in keeping with Obama’s pledge to represent all Americans — but these veteran black politicians and public officials say the president-elect should tap into the best talent available without taking a head-counting approach, in which slots are determined by demographics and symbolism trumps substance.

To some degree, Obama’s election is so historic that he is post-racial when it comes to choosing those who will work most closely with him.

“He will assemble a Cabinet that I think reflects a modern-day array of talent,” said Rep. Artur Davis, the Alabama Democrat who endorsed Obama early in the primary. “I don’t think he has any special obligation to play the quota game to have so many blacks and so many whites.”