Crosspost

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R.) announced today that she will be taking a bus tour that tellingly will begin with a visit to the U.S. Constitution at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and then head north through historical sites associated with the nation’s founding, heading in the general direction of … New Hampshire.

“Our nation is at a critical turning point,” Palin said in a posting on the website of her political action committee. “As we look to the future, we are propelled by America's past. It's imperative that we connect with our founders, our patriots, our challenges and victories to clearly see our way forward.”

The tour will begin Sunday in Washington, D.C. during the 24th “Rolling Thunder” gathering, an annual Memorial Day weekend event that brings thousands of motorcyclists, veterans and other patriots to the National Mall to draw attention to prisoners of war and those missing in action from U.S. military engagements.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the administration's new $500 million early learning initiative is designed to deal with children from birth onward to prevent such problems as 5-year olds who "can't sit still" in a kindergarten classroom.

“You really need to look at the range of issues, because if a 5-year-old can’t sit still, it is unlikely that they can do well in a kindergarten class, and it has to be the whole range of issues that go into healthy child development,” Sebelius said during a telephone news conference on Wednesday to announce the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge.

Lawmakers from both parties are calling for a fix to prevent tax cheating companies from getting federal contracts in light of a government investigation that found $24 billion in stimulus act funds went to companies owing $757 million in unpaid taxes.

“Average Americans are likely wondering why we gave such a huge amount of federal money to tax cheats when our national debt is more than $14 trillion,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said in a statement. “That $24 billion went to such people looks like we are rewarding people for potentially criminal behavior.”

The report by the Government Accountability Office on money from the $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act going to tax delinquent firms did not name any specific companies, but it gave general examples of firms with delinquent taxes receiving tax dollars.

For those of you who don’t know Joe McGinniss, he’s the “journalist” who– unaware of the difference between Dian Fossey and Bob Woodward —  made the ridiculously creepy decision to move in  next door to the Palin family in order to intimidate and gain attention for himself research his upcoming hit-job “The Rogue.” According to Politico, he’ll be one of many during this campaign season using the obscene tactic of weaponizing Palin’s very own children as political bludgeons against her.

As recently as last month, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was pushing for a clean debt ceiling measure. “You don’t have to have a lot of things attached to raising the debt ceiling. You can do that separately,” he told reporters at an April 14th press conference.

Now a House GOP plan to hold a vote on a clean extension of the debt ceiling is coming under fire by Reid. It will send "a terrible message to the international community," Reid said Tuesday.

In his commencement speech at Hamilton College on Sunday, former Vice President Al Gore told the graduates that global warming is “the most serious challenge our civilization has ever faced.” But as an undergraduate at Harvard University in the late 1960s, Gore--one of the most prominent spokesmen on climate change today--earned a “D” in Natural Sciences.

Gore’s transcript documents that during his sophomore year at Harvard he earned a "D" in Natural Sciences 6 (Man’s Place in Nature). Also, as a senior at Harvard, he earned a C-plus in Natural Sciences 118.

Although the annual federal budget deficit is expected to hit $1.65 trillion this year and the national debt is already at $14.34 trillion, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said today he disagrees with House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) assessment that America is broke.

“America is not broke,” Hoyer said at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C.. “America has extraordinary resources and we can use those resources, both intellectual and financial, to get us to a place where we are again a fiscally sound nation, a fiscally balanced nation, and future generations are not at risk.”

So with the news that Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 is underperforming and leaving theaters rather than expanding, it’s unclear whether producer John Aglialoro will be able to produce the planned sequels for the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s most famous and controversial work. Name recognition from one of the bestselling books of the past century, still a chart-topper due its appeal to libertarians and limited-government advocates, wasn’t a strong enough draw to earn back even half of its $20 million production budget so far, and this raises a lot of questions for those who rooted for the film. What does this mean for conservatives and fans of Rand?

Obviously, it means everything we’ve ever believed is absolutely wrong.

Sixty-one percent of American adults—including some who describe themselves as “pro-choice”—told Gallup in a survey conducted May 5-8 that abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.

The Gallup survey, published today, asked 1,018 American adults whether they considered themselves “pro-choice” or “pro-life” on abortion. It also asked: “Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?”

With 17 months to go until the 2012 presidential election, the party in power has signaled its intention to go negative early and often.

Even before former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty formally announced his intention to run for president on the Republican ticket, the Democratic National Committee responded with a video entitled, “Why.”

I’ve written several articles skewering HBO for producing political projects destined to air immediately prior to the 2012 election, where the vast majority of the cast and crew are passionate Barack Obama supporters, and where the content is aimed at the Democrat’s two favorite Republican villains: Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney. So, when I sat down to watch HBO’s Too Big to Fail, I prepared myself for the worst. What I didn’t expect was the big surprise awaiting me.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on HBO on May 23, 2011, features a star studded cast recounting the events that led to the financial crisis and bailouts by the U.S. government in 2008. It is a mini-series packed into a 98-minute made-for-television movie where several essential characters are quickly introduced and where finance and economics are casually discussed. It may help if one has a baseline of knowledge about the crisis before watching the movie. If one doesn’t know who Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner are or what Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and AIG are, it may prove slightly difficult to follow.

Although the Director, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile), was limited to telling a very long and complicated story in a very short amount of time, he was able to skillfully pull it off. Perhaps this is because the screenwriter, Peter Gould (Breaking Bad), deftly adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 prize winning New York Times Bestseller, Too Big to Fail.

President Barack Obama has made an unprecedented demand on Israel, Jewish leaders said Thursday, after the president called for Israel to redraw its borders to where they were in 1967 before the Six Day War. One rabbi said Obama was, in essence, asking for "ethnic cleansing" of thousands of Jewish families.

In his major policy speech Thursday on the protests sweeping the Middle East, President Obama did not refer once to Saudi Arabia, arguably the Arab world’s least democratic state.

He also made no reference to Lebanon, where political maneuvering by the Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah saw the U.S.-backed prime minister, Saad Hariri, ousted earlier this year and a Hezbollah-backed candidate named to replace him.

The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the organization of scientists that has attempted to monitor the global polar bear population since the 1960s, has issued a report indicating that there was no change in the overall global polar bear population in the most recent four-year period studied.

President Barack Obama has often lauded his administration as being the "most transparent" but the administration continues to hold a string of "listen only" media events where reporters are not allowed to ask questions.

On Wednesday, first lady Michelle Obama held a "listen only" media call on the “Joining Forces” national initiative to support military families. This latest conference call where reporters can not ask questions, is part of a string of media events with the first lady where reporters can only "listen in" or attend if invited by the White House press office.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has apprehended more suspected terrorists on the nation’s northern border than along its southern counterpart, CBP Commissioner Alan Bersin said Tuesday.

“In terms of the terrorist threat, it’s commonly accepted that the more significant threat” comes from the U.S.-Canada border, Bersin told a hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security.

Next year on Earth Day, the Obama administration plans to announce which U.S. schools have been selected as “Green Ribbon Schools,” a designation that will “honor” schools for “creating healthy and sustainable learning environments” and for “teaching environmental literacy.”

The Green Ribbon Schools program was announced in late April, but details on how schools will be picked or what the honor entails have not been released.

Iran this weekend hosts an international conference on combating terrorism and promoting peace, but organizers left no doubt that their vision of “peace” is not quite universal.

At an event in Tehran Wednesday to promote the “International Conference on Global Alliance against Terrorism for a Just Peace,” the organizers released 195 caged pigeons. The birds, they said, were intended to be a symbolic representation of the world’s countries, “except Israel.”

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) has made a video to go along with a letter to President Obama, in which Walsh expresses his concern over the president’s recent comments on immigration.

“For years President Obama has said he is serious about dealing with America’s immigration issues, however, yesterday [in a speech in El Paso, Texas] he reinforced the idea that he’s not taking the issue seriously by suggesting that the only way to make Republicans happy on the subject is to build ‘a moat’.

On April 21, 2010, Comedy Central aired episode “201” of South Park. The previous episode, “200,” which was a celebration of their 200th episode, sparked controversy from a radical fringe Muslim group who threatened violence on the show’s creators because of their use of the character Muhammed.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that his advice to young professionals would be that they take time away from their careers to work for the federal government.

Speaking to a gathering of mutual fund advisors in Washington, D.C., on  Wednesday, Geithner was asked what his advice would be to young professionals entering the work force.

Joan Rivers dropped the F-bomb on the red carpet at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, saying that President Barack Obama and other politicians should “stop campaigning” and "[t]ake care of the f****** country."

“No. I think President Obama should stop campaigning and take care of the country. I think it’s disgusting that everyone two years out is campaigning already. Take care of the f***ing country,” Rivers told CNSNews.com when asked if President Obama has lived up to her expectations (video below the break).

Lately, there have been duelling stories in the entertainment press about the future of ”Atlas Shrugged.” With disappointing box office returns, the producers have been asked if they will go ahead and complete the franchise and in one interview we’re being told there will be no trilogy and in another we’re being told that there will. To clear the air, I reached out via email and “Atlas” producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow were both good enough to respond with exclusive qu

Back in 2008 then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew where she wanted to place the blame for high gas prices. “The price of oil is at the doorstep -- 4 dollars plus per gallon for oil, is attributed to two oil men in the White House,” Pelosi said in a CNN interview on July 17th, 2008.

It’s hard to make a rich man sympathetic as he battles the forces of evil from the marbled halls of palatial mansions. But the screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged does it. At the apparent climax of the movie, there’s a stand up and cheer moment as the stars – Industrialist Henry Rearden (Grant Bowler) and Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) – literally speed in a train to victory over a foolish, conniving, and good-ideas-squelching government in Washington.

Actress Kate Walsh of ABC’s “Private Practice” told CNSNews.com that drilling offshore will not reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and Americans who support domestic drilling are “misinformed.”

Walsh was on Capitol Hill with the nonprofit organization Oceana speaking at an event held to mark the one year anniversary of the BP gulf oil spill.

Mohandas Gandhi was imprisoned in 1922, 1930, 1933 and 1942. He went on a hunger strike. But because of Gandhi’s stature around the world, British authorities were loath to allow him to die in their custody.

While we always worry when we find ourselves in agreement with Mediaite, we are happy to see the idea we promoted last week picking up some steam.

Tina Fey claims her mean-spirited Palin impersonation backfired on her “30 Rock” ratings. The low-rated show remains on the air, though. Because, you know, Hollywood is so money driven. Looks like Oprah’s now worried about the same.