Rick Santorum is leading in two of three states voting Tuesday, according to Public Policy Polling, putting him in position to reclaim the mantle as the leading conservative alternative to Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential nomination fight.

In his recent State of the Union Address, President Obama decried the "the corrosive influence of money in politics," but today his campaign announced it was fully embracing so-called "super PACs" as part of his reelection effort.

President Obama uses the force of government to tell Catholic Church entitites with what to compensate their employees -- and that compensation must include free birth control, which the Church opposes. Obama allies at the Center for American Progress charge Catholic dissenters with "politicizing" this issue.

 

Uncle Sam made a whopping $115 billion in improper overpayments last year and lawmakers think that is just a fraction of what the federal government could be losing every year.

About half of the improper payments were made in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, with others from departments like Defense and unemployment insurance, due to shoddy spending and audit controls.

Remarkably, though, it could have been worse. Through a program they call the Campaign to Cut Waste, the Obama administration slashed $20 billion in additional overpayments that were scheduled to be paid out.

The issue takes center stage in Congress Tuesday when a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee opens a probe into federal misspending. According to Rep. Todd Platts, chair of the subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and Financial Management, the problem boils down to bad management.

In his testimony for tomorrow’s hearing, Platts cites Office of Management and Budget reports that “high-error programs” include Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance and the Earned Income Tax Credit. He also said that the $115 billion cited by the administration “is only an estimate; the total amount of improper payments is unknown.”

In a memo provided to Washington Secrets, the committee suggested that one answer is legislation proposed by Sen. Tom Carper, Delaware Democrat, that establishes a “Do Not Pay” list that would require agencies to check databases, including death lists, before issuing federal checks.

“Billions of taxpayer dollars are misspent every year through improper payments. The administration and agency leaders have made significant efforts to reduce improper payments and their work is both important and commendable,” Platts, a Pennsylvania Republican, said in his testimony set for delivery tomorrow. “However, we need more solutions to better protect taxpayer money.”

Forty-three months in prison had one major impact on scandalous former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. After helping send 20 former friends and associates to jail, he’s going to stop being a rat.

Repeatedly whining about the prison conditions he faced at the minimum security facility in Western Maryland, Abramoff told a Public Citizen audience today that he would play no role in naming any more suspects in the congressional corruption scandal he headlined in 2006.

“Having gone through what I went through, watching my family being torn to shreds and my children suffer immensely, I can’t be the agent of doing that to someone else. I can’t be the agent of causing somebody to go to prison,” he said.

Now an unlikely champion of lobbying reform, he said “prison is horrible” and “there’s some fear, there’s violence there.” But he said that it was prison guards, not inmates, who pushed him to the edge. The reason: He claimed they had been told he was like Hannibal Lecter, the horror figure in Silence of the Lambs, who couldn't be trusted or even talked to.

“Even my worst enemy I wouldn’t send” to prison, he said.

President Obama's spokesman praised the Clint Eastwood Super Bowl ad for highlighting a significant fact about Obama's auto company bailout, but denied any White House involvement in the ad's development.

When NPR's Mara Liasson asked if the White House views the ad as "an in-kind contribution from Clint Eastwood," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney ignored her question, but emphasized his approval of Eastwood's message. "It does point out a simple fact, which is that the auto industry in this country was on its back, and potentially poised to liquidate three years ago," Carney argued, explaining that "two important principles" motivated Obama's intervention:

One, that he should do what he could to ensure that one million jobs would not be lost. And, two, that the American automobile industry should be able to thrive globally if the right conditions were created -- and that included the kind of reforms and restructuring that Chrysler and GM undertook in exchange for the assistance from the American taxpayer.

Carney also seemed to resist the idea that the ad aided Obama. "A company that has rebounded obviously wants to sell more cars, and that's what advertising is about," he said.

Mitt Romney:

Trending: Romney’s 'R-Money' Photoshopped photo

RNC official delegate count has Romney up 73-29

Mitt Romney rips Obama on birth control, attack on 'religious liberty'

Romney campaign tries to throw cold water on poll showing Obama beating Romney

Romney attacks Santorum

Mitt Romney takes stance against online poker

Trump: ‘I will accept’ credit for Romney’s Nevada caucus win

Newt Gingrich

Newt: Delegates awarded: 6%. . . Delegates remaining 94%

Will CPAC be Newt's last stand?

Newt Gingrich drops quest for Virginia ballot

Gingrich shunned lobbying, but hired lobbyists

Gingrich spokesman defends Wikipedia edits

Armey: Gingrich a lost cause for tea party base

Tom Coburn on Newt Gingrich: ‘I can’t support him’

Rick Santorum:

Philip Klein: Santorum's second chance

Santorum hopes to 'reset' Republican race in Minnesota

Rick Santorum takes another moon shot at Newt Gingrich

First Sweater Vests, Now Rick Santorum Sports Bolo Tie

Santorum expects to make Indiana primary ballot

Ron Paul:

New York Times profile: Ron Paul’s Flinty Worldview Was Forged in Early Family Life

Veterans, active duty to support Ron Paul with march on White House

Records show Ron Paul trips paid twice

Paul underwhelms in Nevada

 

 

Our weekly look at the loudest screech from the mainstream media features the Today Show’s Matt Lauer interviewing President Obama before the Super Bowl. He served up this gem: “Mitt Romney is the guy who’s running for your job. He may eventually become the nominee. He’s a guy who’s been incredibly successful in his life and career. He’s made a lot of money. It’s not a crime. It’s part of the American Dream. Do you think though that Mitt Romney can identify with the middle class and the underclass in this country.”

Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our pick this way: “While Lauer did proceed to remind Obama that last Friday ‘You raised $900,000 in a couple of hours’ from ‘25 wealthy individuals,’ journalists should not be cuing up elected officials to reiterate a caricature of their opponent. We await the time when Lauer prompts Romney to affirm an anti-Obama talking point.” Baker’s rating: Two out of five screams.

The Republican National Committee wants everyone to know that no matter what happens tomorrow in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri, none of it really matters. RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer emails:

Liberal FOX contributor Juan Williams said on a FOX News Sunday panel that because white Catholics are against President Obama in the polls anyway, Obamacare's birth control mandate is not going to have an effect on the 2012 elections.

"I don't anticipate that it is going to cause a tremendous shift among white Catholics. I think they're going to oppose President Obama, white voters overall oppose President Obama...So what you're looking at is would hispanics shift from their position? [Pro-Obama] ... But then again, from my perspective its not a 1st Amendment issue and it's not a matter of religious liberty."

Williams is making two assumptions that are probably bad: First, that white Catholics are a lost cause for Obama, and second that this policy only affects white Catholics. 

In 2008, 47 percent of white Catholics voted for Obama. He certainly could do worse than that, and many losing Democratic candidates for president have done worse. The 2012 election outcome in several key states -- including Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Michigan -- could hinge on the difference between a 47 percent performance among white Catholic voters and a 40 percent performance.

Then there are non-white Catholics, most of whom are Hispanic. In all other contexts, they are treated as an important bloc.They voted heavily for Obama in 2008 -- he won 67 percent of the Latino vote -- but his numbers among Hispanics have fallen significantly in subsequent surveys. Again, past Democratic candidates have done far worse here than Obama did in 2008, and they could always revert.

With minority Catholic voters included, Catholics (27 percent of the electorate) voted 54 percent for Obama in 2008. With over 70 percent of Catholic pastors reading statements at Mass, decrying the mandate as an infringement on religious freedom, the White House is right to take this political threat seriously.

The Health and Human Services mandate would require all Catholic universities, hospitals, and other services that serve or employ non-Catholics to include full coverage of contraception and sterilization procedures in their insurance plans for employees. Catholic leaders have been rallying the faithful to oppose the Obama administration on this point.

 

To hear the media rattle on, Tuesday’s contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri could be Mitt Romney’s final nails in Newt Gingrich’s coffin, delivering the front-runner successive wins and oodles of delegates.

But Republican officials are working overtime to downplay the non-binding caucuses which in fact will deliver absolutely no immediate delegates to any candidates. In Colorado and Minnesota, for example, the caucus results will be sent back to local parties that will divvy up the delegates in several weeks. And Missouri’s primary is just a beauty contest. The state will have an official caucus March 17.

Below is the memo from the Republican National Committee’s Sean Spicer to reporters on the issue.

Memo
To:    Political Reporters
From:  Sean Spicer, RNC Communications Directors

Subj:   Reporting on Delegates for Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri

For those of you covering the race for the  GOP presidential nomination and writing about the current delegate count, please keep in mind the no delegates will be awarded tomorrow.

Colorado is a non-binding precinct caucus.  Their 36 delegates will be chosen at district conventions held between March 31 – April 13, 2012, and at the state convention on April 14, 2012. .

Minnesota is a non-binding precinct caucus.  Their 40 delegates will be chosen at district conventions held between April 14 – 21, 2012, and at a state convention on May 5, 2012.  Delegates are not bound unless the state convention passes a resolution to bind the delegates.

Missouri will hold a primary tomorrow that is not recognized as being a part of any delegate allocation or selection process .   A precinct caucus will be held on 3/17/2012 to begin the process of choosing their 52 delegates which will be chosen at district conventions on April 21, 2012, and a state convention on June 2, 2012.  Candidates for delegate must state a presidential preference at the time of nomination and will be bound to support that candidate for one ballot at the national convention.

For at least the last three or four years, Gingrich's appearances at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) have been must-see affairs. He usually takes the stage to the tune of "Eye of the Tiger," then delivers a strong speech filled with red meat for conservatives in the audience who remember his glory days. In years past, Gingrich has embraced his role as a GOP patriarch, explaining conservative ideas and solutions to the problems of the modern era. This year, however, Gingrich takes the stage at a time when his sagging campaign for president needs a boost.  Conservative activists aren't happy with the idea of nominating Mitt Romney. What's more, Gingrich has multiple supporters in prominent CPAC time slots: Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Sarah Palin. The question, then, is who shows up this time? Will it be Newt, the conservative patriarch, who explains to the movement why Obama must be defeated, or will it be Alamo Newt, warning conservatives that he is their last chance to avoid nominating Mitt Romney?

President and First Lady Michelle Obama will host a "tribute" dinner at the White House for veterans of the war in Iraq  on February 29, the White House announced today.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that the dinner will be more egalitarian than "state-style" dinners.  "This dinner --- an expression of the nation's gratitude for the achievements and enormous sacrifices of the brave Americans who served in the Iraq War and of the families who supported them --- will include men and women in uniform from all ranks, services, states and backgrounds, representative of the many thousands of Americans who served in Iraq," the White House Press Office explained in a statement.

Carney said today that the White House was coordinating with the Department of Defense, but could not provide any more details on the event.

After his late surge to the top in Iowa, Rick Santorum had appeared to emerge as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. But Santorum decided to compete heavily in New Hampshire, where he did poorly, and suddenly Newt Gingrich was able to come back from the dead in South Carolina. After Nevada, however, we're entering a stage where Santorum has another opening.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney explained that the number of people dropping out of the work force, which artificially depresses the unemployment rate, can be regarded as an "economic positive."

"A large percentage of that is due to younger people getting more education, which in the end is an economic positive," Carney said. "This increase in the number of people leaving the work force has been a trend and a fact since 2000, because of an aging population, which is not to say this is wholly -- that's not to say that I would wholly disregard as an issue." Carney had been asked about the 19 million underemployed or unemployed Americans, and about people who had left the work force.

"I think some of those who, I suppose, don't wish us well politically have tried to make a point about this," he also said. "The facts are that in these most recent numbers, this is not an issue of people leaving the work force; the numbers are positive across the board."

It was an odd moment today on MSNBC's Morning Joe, when secular MSNBC news anchors defended religious liberties against an ordained reverend.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski disagreed with Obama's mandate that all employers fund 100% of the costs of employees' contraception and sterilization. There is no conscience exemption for religious believers, and the exemption for religious institutions is so narrow that Catholic universities and hospitals will not qualify.

Fellow MSNBC host Al Sharpton took the opposite side. "I think that if we're going to have a separation of Church and State, we're going to have separation of Church and State." Sharpton stated. He added that Obama's decision was "not calculated on politics," but "based on principles."

Sharpton argued that if Catholic organizations received government money, they should provide contraception service for their employees who don't agree with their theology.

"If I am a person that works in one of these institutions I have the right to say to government that I disagree with my employees and want to exercise that, otherwise, why are you putting government resources here, are you allowing government resources to be used based on the belief of the church?"

The mandate, however, is not based on whether or not an organization receives money from the Church.

"The Catholic religion believes certain things, they believe it to be fact," Brzezinski said. "So you're asking them not to be Catholic, if you impose certain regulations on them."

Scarborough warned that the Federal Government decisions was "staggering" warning people on the left that a conservative administration could easily impose a decision against providers of contraceptives.

President Obama hit Iran with another sanction yesterday, even as the likelihood of an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities seems to increase. 

"Yesterday, President Obama signed an Executive Order (E.O) that takes a number of actions in furtherance of the Administration's Iran sanctions program," the Treasury Department, which implements the financial sanctions, explained today. "Among other things, the E.O. freezes all property of the Central Bank of Iran and all other Iranian financial institutions, as well as all property of the Government of Iran, further tightening the already broad-based and stringent U.S. sanctions on Iran."

Here is the text of the Executive Order summarizing the sanctions:

 

The order blocks the property and interests in property of the following: 

The Government of Iran, including the Central Bank of Iran; 

Any Iranian financial institution, including the Central Bank of Iran; and 

Persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to the order. 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney denied today that the sanctions were designed, in part, to allay Israel's need to use the military option. "No, I think that it is reflective of the policy that we have taken for a long time now in reaction to the Iranian behavior," he said. "It's not related specifically to that issue [about Israel].

 

 

 

 

Gov. Bob McDonnell, R-Va., dispensed with the standard political coquetry long enough to explain why he would make a good running mate for Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.

"[Y]ou know, people are saying it's a swing state," McDonnell told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. "We balance the budget without raising taxes, $1 billion in surplus, lowest unemployment in the Southeast. You know, we're really pleased with [the] things we've been able to do in Virginia."

McDonnell bookended his case for the vice presidency with mroe conventional demurrals. "I'm not interviewing, I'm not waiting for that phone to ring," he maintained. "I want to help Mitt Romney because I believe our country is in trouble and we got crushing debt, deficits, and no plan for jobs or energy." After summarizing what he would bring to the ticket, McDonnell allowed that "that's up to the nominee."

Republicans are mounting an aggressive pre-election bid to cleanse dead and illegal voters from state lists in time for the fall election. “It is an utterly intolerable situation,” said Republican elections lawyer Christian Adams.

It’s a serious problem in many states. Take Michigan as an example. Secretary of State Ruth Johnson told a conference of national election officials last week that one problem she faces is that non-citizens eligible for driver’s licenses often also sign up to vote even though they are barred from participating in elections.

“We have thousands of non-residents now registered to vote,” she said. “I don’t know who are citizens and who are not.”

Some state officials say they don’t have the resources to investigate every name to build clean voting lists.

But that argument just brings shrugs from advocates. “It doesn’t matter how much it costs. It’s the law,” countered Adams, with the Election Law Center.

Later this week, he and Judicial Watch plan to announce a nationwide bid to sue the counties with the dirtiest lists. “I am convinced non-citizens are voting in elections,” said Adams.

It’s not a partisan issue. Will Crossley of the Democratic National Committee said “we agree actually and would join...in calling for cleaner lists.”

With the partial eviction of Occupiers over the weekend, McPherson Square is no longer full to the point that the local community cannot enjoy it. Instead, it is a mud-bowl that no one can really enjoy. Occupiers managed to undo most of a $400,000 park renovation that was completed last year with stimulus funding.