Rick Santorum Would Allow U.S. To Default Over Health Care Reform

Former Pennsylvania senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum says he’d make health care reform the deal breaker on raising the debt ceiling, and told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday he’d let the country go into default rather than allow the Affordable Care Act to stand (via Think Progress).

SANTORUM: [The health care law] is a program that if the president wants to defend, he should stand up and say the 2012 election is about Obamacare. We’ll put this on hold, and make it a referendum on Obamacare.

WALLACE: Well ok that’s 2012, but you’re saying you’d …

Christine O’Donnell Amends Fundraising Report, Blames Software For $230,000 Error

Failed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell amended finance reports to show what seems to be previously undisclosed expenditures for travel expenses and $230,000 less in monies than was previously disclosed.

In an April 15 memorandum to the Federal Election Commission, O’Donnell campaign committee lawyer Cleta Mitchell said the committee had retained FEC compliance experts who reviewed the Delaware Republican’s campaign finance paperwork for the 2009-2010 election cycle.

According to Mitchell, the compliance experts discovered several “inadvertent” errors resulting from campaign software used in 2009 and early 2010.

Interestingly, O’Donnell’s attorney first blamed not having the proper software to get the …

Pope’s Easter Message: “May Diplomacy And Dialogue Replace Arms” In Libya

Pope Benedict XVI used his Easter greeting to urge peace by way of dialogue in North Africa and the Middle East.

“In the current conflict in Libya, may diplomacy and dialogue replace arms, and may those who suffer as a result of the conflict be given access to humanitarian aid,” he said.

Referring to northern Africa and the Middle East, the pope prayed for the realization of a society where “every political choice is inspired by respect for the human person.”

Speaking after mass in St. Peter’s Square, the pope hoped that “the light of peace and of human dignity …

David Frum And The Vanishing Center-Right

by Stuart Shapiro

David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter and ongoing conservative, wrote an important piece this week on the alienation between conservatives and the welfare state.

Speaking only personally, I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans – and not only Americans – were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty.

In part a voice …

Marines Do Britney’s “Hold It Against Me” Proud

The U.S. Marines of 266 Rein and HMLA 169 have continued the tradition of putting out pop videos. (via Mediaite)

After releasing breathtaking renditions of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” and Ke$ha’s “Blah Blah Blah,” the latest single to come out of Afghanistan is Britney Spears’s “Hold It Against Me”: an impressively elaborate affair.

This time it’s not the Army, but the 266 Rein Marines who put together the video– replete with all sorts of military vehicles, charming hip thrusts atop sand dunes, breathtaking locales and a couple of phallic symbols to stay true to the original artist…

That artist, Britney …

Spokesman for God?

by Gabe Berman
Gabe is the author of Live Like a Fruit Fly

As Seen in the Bookstore…

“God be with you as you stand!” is the last line of Kevin McCollough’s new book – No He Can’t: How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change.

Oh, Mr. McCollough is a man of God. Who would have thunk a cocky conservative hate-spewer could actually be a Christian? But as a Christian, I’m sure he practices love and forgiveness as his BFF Jesus said to. Let’s look up some of his quotes on the Internet, shall we?

“Likewise, a …

Illegal Immigrants Pay More Taxes Than Many Top U.S. Corporations

PoliticsUSA notes the disparity between what major American corporations pay in taxes, and the burden on the backs of undocumented workers.

Apparently you can be a citizen, as the Supreme Court recently ruled corporations are, yet pay no taxes. The Tea Party cries about “class warfare” and “redistribution of wealth” but both of those are more than acceptable as long as they’re not aimed at the wealthy or at corporations. It is on our backs – average American citizens – that the weight must fall.

At the same time, we’re being told that immigrants are (warning: National Socialist comparison here) …

Protestors Victorious In Yemen; President Saleh Agrees To Step Down

Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has agreed to step down after a 32-year reign.

A day earlier, protesters staged the largest of two months of demonstrations, filling a five-lane boulevard across the capital with a sea of hundreds of thousands of people. A deadly crackdown by government forces and Saleh supporters has killed more than 130 people and prompted key allies to abandon the president and join the protesters.

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes powerful Saudi Arabia, has been seeking to broker an end to the crisis in the fragile and impoverished nation on the southern edge of …

Koran-Burning Pastor Vows To Defy Judge’s Order And Protest At Dearborn Islamic Center

Florida Pastor Terry Jones is continuing his hate-filled protests against Islam, and says we will demonstrate outside a Dearborn Islamic center next week in spite of a judge’s order not to do so. Jones was remanded to jail because of a refusal to pay a $1 bond for a likely breach of the peace that hadn’t taken place.

“The arrests, the whole proceedings, were a definite violation of our Constitutional rights,” Jones said. “As a matter of fact, we were arrested and had not even committed a crime. It is a complete violation of our First Amendment right of …

Franklin Graham: Trump Might Be Right For President

Franklin Graham, the much more publicly political son of Reverend Billy Graham, tells Christiane Amanpour on This Week that Donald Trump just might be the right candidate for president.

“Donald Trump, when I first saw that he was getting in, I thought, well, this has got to be a joke,” said Graham. “But the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, you know, maybe this guy’s right.”

“So, he might be your candidate of choice?” Amanpour asked.

“Sure, yes,” Graham responded.

…

Is The Endangered Species Act Endangered By A Bunch Of Dodos?

by Stuart Shapiro

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was passed at the height of the environmental movement in the early 1970s.  In the budget deal just passed, Congress for the first time removed a species from the list.  This was widely cited as a threat to the act but it is not nearly as big a problem as the ones cataloged here:

In its 2012 budget request, the service estimated that in 2011 it will be able to make final listing decisions on only 4 percent of warranted petitions within one year as required by law, down from 12 …